By Edwin Cooney
Okay! Let’s start from the very beginning.
Once upon a time there lived at the very eastern tip of present day Massachusetts, a colony of Anglican Church separatists whom we today call Pilgrims. They arrived in the New World on December 21st in the “year of our Lord” 1620. As every third grader knows, the Pilgrims suffered terribly during their first winter in the colony they called Plymouth.
By March 1621, their number had dwindled from 102 to 56. One of those lost was the wife of Governor William Bradford who, even before their little ship called the Mayflower landed, had drawn up the agreement they all promised to live under which we know as the Mayflower Compact.
Out of the forest that first spring came what seemed to be a gift from God. His name was Squanto and he was a member of the local Wampanoag Indian tribe. Miraculously, Squanto happened to speak English. (Note: Some believe he was an Indian named Tisquantum who had been captured by an English slave ship in 1615 while others think Squanto was an Indian named Tasquantum who had visited England as far back as 1605.) Even more miraculously, Squanto was eager to provide day in and day out assistance to the new arrivals. Still more wonderful, as well as practical, Squanto moved into Governor Bradford’s home where he remained -- providing invaluable advice and considerable labor -- for over a year until his death from a fever sometime in 1622.
Soon after moving in, Squanto introduced the new colonists to his local chief who was called Samoset. Samoset henceforth introduced Governor Bradford’s constituents to his Grand Chief Massasoit . (Actually, Massasoit, the name by which the Chief is most famous, is his title. His name was Wasamegin). Thus, throughout 1621 the new colonists were provided not only with plenty of assistance when it came to planting crops and hunting local fish, foul and game, but also with protection against possible attack by other potentially hostile Indian tribes.
By October 1621, the Pilgrims realized their first harvest and were ready to celebrate. Thus 92 Wampanoag Indians—which most certainly included Squanto and perhaps even Samoset and Massasoit—were invited to dinner.
It was quite a dinner! It lasted for three days. On the menu were lobster, clams, other fish, watercress, boiled pumpkin—there was no flour or butter so pumpkin pie, if it existed then, even in Europe, was out—corn, dried fruit, fresh plumbs venison and turkey.
Note—There is considerable debate as to whether or not wild turkey was actually served. Some sources say not and assert that turkey was another name for almost any wild foul. Thus it is likely that pheasant, goose and perhaps even duck were actually on the menu rather than turkey.
Though supposedly a good time was had by all at that very first Thanksgiving, there was no Thanksgiving celebration or harvest feast in 1622. However, in 1623, when a long drought was ended the day that followed a period of intensive prayer by the devout Pilgrims, Governor Bradford once again called for a Thanksgiving feast. Once again, a large delegation of Wampanoags was invited. That was the last Thanksgiving held by the colonists until June 1676.
By that time, the Plymouth colony of the separatists or “Pilgrims” had been absorbed by a more establishment-oriented religious group known as Puritans. The Puritans were more mainstream Anglican than had been the separatist Pilgrims. They had established, beginning in 1629, a much more secular state and one which had much greater favor with the establishment in Britain. (It should be noted that the Puritans under the great General Oliver Cromwell deposed Charles the First and ruled England during the 1650s). Thus, the Thanksgiving celebration in 1676 was a celebration of something much more traditional in Britain back then, a celebration of victory in war.
With the passing of William Bradford and the absorption of the original Pilgrim-separatists by the Puritans of Boston and points west in Massachusetts colony, more and more outbreaks of hostility occurred with regional Indian tribes. The most powerful of the Indian Chiefs was Metacom, the son of Massasoit, the great savior of the Pilgrims of 1620-21. By the 1670s, all of the potentially hostile New England tribes except the Wampanoags had been subdued and now it was time for the Puritans of Boston to complete Indian subjugation. Metacom, known by then as King Philip because of his European dress and manners, was hard to conquer — but ultimately the Puritans prevailed.
Thus the third Thanksgiving in colonial history was an expression to the Almighty of a distinctly different type of gratitude. The great Wampanoag chief was indeed present although this time only physically rather than spiritually. His physical attendance was as something of a decoration. His presence was his head atop a pole in downtown Boston.
A hundred and one years later, in October 1777, all thirteen colonies celebrated Thanksgiving together for the first time. As was the case in 1676, gratitude was expressed to the Almighty for victory in war as much as for any consumable bounty. Specifically, the colonists were celebrating their stunning victory over the British army at Saratoga.
In October 1789, President Washington proclaimed another Thanksgiving in celebration of the new nation, but it wasn’t particularly popular. Many Americans simply refused to be much excited about celebrating the triumph of New England colonists over hardship—since they felt that they’d had plenty of their own hardships. Thomas Jefferson is said to have actually scoffed at the idea of a day of national Thanksgiving. During the War of 1812, President James Madison reluctantly proclaimed a day of national Thanksgiving.
When all is said and done, the real founder of our traditional celebration of Thanksgiving is a Victorian New England widow named Sarah Josepha Hale. Mrs. Hale was born Sarah Josepha Buell on October 24th,1788 in Newport, New Hampshire, the daughter of Captain Gordon and Martha Whittlesay Buell. She was educated by her mother and her brother Horatio, who taught her much of what he’d learned at Dartmouth. Sarah married David Hale, a lawyer, in 1813. Following David Hale’s death in 1822, his Mason Lodge put up the funds for Sarah to start a magazine which she ultimately called the “American Ladies’ Magazine”. It consisted of her own poetry and editorials pushing her pet causes, especially educational and economic independence for women.
During the late 1830s when America was suffering from a severe depression, Sarah Hale’s “American Ladies’ Magazine” was purchased by Louis Antoine Godey who installed Sarah Hale as its Editor-in-Chief, a position she held for most of the rest of her life.
Ever since the mid-1820s, Sarah Hale had been petitioning American presidents on behalf of one of her favorite causes, an annual National Day of Thanksgiving. She finally succeeded in persuading President Abraham Lincoln to make such a proclamation in November 1863. Every president since has issued a Proclamation of Thanksgiving.
During the late 1930s, FDR sought to make the second to last Thursday of November Thanksgiving Day in order to maximize the time for shopping between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This effort met with considerable resistance and so FDR moved Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of every November.
Congress finally made it all official in 1941. Since then the fourth Thursday in November has been our national day of gratitude to “nature’s God” for, among other blessings, the generous bounty of our national resources.
As you can readily see, if you accept the observations of this account, our celebration and the reasons for offering thanks have been inconsistent in their practice as well as in the purpose of our expressed gratitude.
The question then is: for what should we be most thankful?
I would suggest that in addition to our lives, our safety and our health, we ought to be most grateful for whatever wisdom we can muster as we progress along the road of civilization.
Life can be very fragile. However, in its very fragility we often discover its value. All of us have experienced too many instances when life has suddenly and irrevocably ceased to exist. Thus we’ve been separated from people whose knowledge, love and guidance we sorely need. Their absence brings in its wake a void of loneliness, pain, and even despair.
It seems to me that Sarah Josepha Hale, given her numerous socio/religious causes such as abolitionism and increased opportunities and responsibilities for women, came closest to the greatest human need required throughout the life of any truly great society
Therefore, I think we ought to be most thankful for wisdom. Because it appears in so many unpredictable moods and guises, wisdom isn’t easy to identify. It isn’t always easy to experience it once it’s offered. However, once it’s received and applied, wisdom, as God’s greatest blessing, is the fruit that surely nurtures this and all Thanksgivings to come!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, November 19, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
CONTROLLING HUMAN HATRED—OUR JOB, NOT THE GOVERNMENT’S
By Edwin Cooney
Really, I’m not much of a hater. Argumentative I can be indeed, but only occasionally am I ever really angry when I argue or -- if you prefer -- debate with someone.
I’m occasionally angered when provoked during a debate, however hate isn’t the result of either my frustration or my anger. If I hate anything at all (aside from asparagus, coconut baked into candy, cake, pie, and pudding (cookies excepted), maple flavoring in any food and thorns on any plant of any sort), the object of my hatred is usually attitudinal or ideological, but never personal.
I think it’s fair to observe that most people link the emotions of anger and hatred pretty closely together. However, President Richard Nixon once taught us that anger and hatred aren’t necessarily connected. The scene was the East Room of the White House. The situation was a rare 9:00 p.m. Friday night press conference in October 1973. The issues at hand had to do with the President’s involvement or non-involvement in various aspects of the Watergate scandal. The President was obviously (to say the very least) frustrated with the persistent press and media. Most everyone was already sure that President Nixon hated the press due to his perception that he was a lifelong victim of press and media contempt. However, that night he set us straight. When CBS reporter Robert Pierpoint asked about his anger toward the press, the President asserted that “…one can only be angry with those he respects.” Although President Nixon didn’t openly declare his hatred for the press that night, he made it abundantly clear how he really felt.
Okay Mr. President, so I now understand that I don’t even have to be angry with someone in order to hate them—WHAT A RELIEF! I’m also assured that people, very often, do indeed hate other people they’ve never met and will never meet.
The reason for that, I’m told, is because they’ve been taught to hate. I’m also assured that the most effective antidote of such hatred is “anti-hate crime legislation”.
Okay then, I hate “hate crimes,” too. However, I’m more than a little dubious as to the value of their designation in assisting law enforcement. As a matter of fact, my dubiousness as to the value of hate crime legislation is one of the few issues that I have in common with many of my Conservative friends.
My old dictionary defines hate as: “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from anger, fear, or a sense of injury…extreme dislike or antipathy.”
As for the question of whether fear rather than anger is the real basis of human hatred, that’s a most compelling topic for another time. As they used to say in the broadcast industry: “stay tuned”.
Since around 1990, the federal government and well over half of our states have passed “hate crime” laws. These laws make it an “add on” crime if you assault or murder anyone whom you hate because they’re black, white, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or disabled — anyone who can be designated as belonging to a special category of people. Thus, most people think that a crime is even more heinous if it’s the result of racial, ethnic, or religious bias or prejudice.
Of course, I’m willing—like the best American politicians—to go on record as a despiser of racial prejudice, ethnic bias, sexual orientation, phobia or religious bigotry. What puzzles me, however, are some of the factors having to do with the establishment of “hate crimes”.
Call me naive or insensitive if you must, but I was raised to believe that committing a “crime” was hateful in itself—or, at the very least, blatantly selfish. Of course, one can’t be charged with a “hate crime” unless one is first guilty of an already established crime such as assault or murder. Not only are assaults and murder hateful enough in themselves, there is no universal agreement among the states as to which hatefully committed crimes ought to be specifically categorized as “hate crimes.”
Author Debbie Wright makes this point most emphatically in her December 2002 article on hate crimes in the International Encyclopedia of Justice Studies (see http://www.iejs.com/Law/Criminal_Law/Hate_Crimes.htm).
“On the night of February 19, 1999, in Sylacauga, Alabama, Steve Mullins asked his friend Charles Butler to help him kill an acquaintance named Billy Jack Gaither. Butler agreed and watched Mullins beat Gaither with an ax handle and burn his body on top of a pile of tires. Shortly after the crime, they turned themselves in to the police and admitted to the killing. Both men were convicted of capital murder and received life in prison without the possibility of parole. Although Mullins, a neo-Nazi skinhead, killed Gaither “cause he was a faggot,” the murder did not make the FBI hate crimes report.
Alabama’s hate crimes law does not apply to crimes motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation.”
As Ms. Wright points out, “hate crimes” only reflect the values of the community which adopts them. Hence, just as no upstanding citizen in Alabama today would openly encourage anyone to commit murder, neither would anyone suggest that Mullins and Butler were given permission to murder Gaither by the absence of sexual orientation as a “hate crime” in Alabama. If there is an up side to the above story, it’s that Butler and Mullins had enough conscience to turn themselves in for their dastardly deed.
The fact that the adoption of hate crime legislation reflects state or regional mores raises a concern not addressed by Ms. Wright in the above article. If one type of attitude can be legislated, what about other types? If hate crime legislation is a positive element in our historical as well as present day struggle against crime, may we very soon look toward to the adoption of anti-love crime legislation?
With the likely exception of hate, what human emotion has been a greater motivator of crime than love – love which was misplaced, reckless or improper? Consider the following:
How many “love” relationships have ended in murder?
How many children live in poverty or subsist on welfare due to ill-considered “love relationships” that we call marriage?
How many children have been unwisely but lovingly denied access to cancer treatments that might have saved their lives due to deeply caring and religiously principled parents? How many abortions were performed in the last year because babies were conceived under the guise of urgent passion rather than as a true blue act of love within a “love relationship?”
Finally, since every politician seeks to provide relief to the taxpayer at all levels of government, does anyone not realize how much mismanaged love costs the sacred tax payer each year? If hate can be governed by law, why shouldn’t we expect that soon badly abused motives and practices of love won’t be codified by state governors or even by the signature of the President of the United States? There are already suggestions for proposals that only couples properly evaluated and licensed should be allowed to procreate.
The adoption and monitoring of hate crimes is, of course, a well-intentioned extension of the 1960s civil rights movement which is in many respects is hard to oppose. However -- and this is one aspect of the civil rights movement that is often misunderstood by both Conservatives and Liberals -- necessary and effective civil rights legislation didn’t seek to regulate attitudes . Effective civil rights legislation sought to regulate behavior. As Dr. King once observed: “The law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that’s pretty important.”
Effective civil rights legislation governs human activities as do many essential laws that govern everything from traffic management to the punishment of treason and capital murder. Reckless drivers, those who would commit treason, murderers – they may all be hateful people, but they must especially be managed because they’re dangerous to the peace and safety of us all. Does anyone believe that enough prison cells can or should exist to hold all of the people of the world with hate in their heart?
Standing in the East Room of the White House -- the same room from which he’d asserted that anger was an emotion applicable only to those one respects -- President Nixon, on the day his resignation from the presidency became effective, made one of the most powerful anti-hate observations I’ve ever heard:
“…always remember,” asserted the clearly saddened and humiliated Richard M. Nixon, “others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then, you destroy yourself.”
As for me, the non-hater, I take President Nixon’s leadership on the separation between hate and anger very seriously. I used to hate asparagus, coconut baked into candy, cake, pie and pudding (cookies excepted), maple flavoring in any food as well as thorns on plants of any sort. However, because these are respectable and desirable entities, I no longer hate them. I am simply mad at ‘em!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Really, I’m not much of a hater. Argumentative I can be indeed, but only occasionally am I ever really angry when I argue or -- if you prefer -- debate with someone.
I’m occasionally angered when provoked during a debate, however hate isn’t the result of either my frustration or my anger. If I hate anything at all (aside from asparagus, coconut baked into candy, cake, pie, and pudding (cookies excepted), maple flavoring in any food and thorns on any plant of any sort), the object of my hatred is usually attitudinal or ideological, but never personal.
I think it’s fair to observe that most people link the emotions of anger and hatred pretty closely together. However, President Richard Nixon once taught us that anger and hatred aren’t necessarily connected. The scene was the East Room of the White House. The situation was a rare 9:00 p.m. Friday night press conference in October 1973. The issues at hand had to do with the President’s involvement or non-involvement in various aspects of the Watergate scandal. The President was obviously (to say the very least) frustrated with the persistent press and media. Most everyone was already sure that President Nixon hated the press due to his perception that he was a lifelong victim of press and media contempt. However, that night he set us straight. When CBS reporter Robert Pierpoint asked about his anger toward the press, the President asserted that “…one can only be angry with those he respects.” Although President Nixon didn’t openly declare his hatred for the press that night, he made it abundantly clear how he really felt.
Okay Mr. President, so I now understand that I don’t even have to be angry with someone in order to hate them—WHAT A RELIEF! I’m also assured that people, very often, do indeed hate other people they’ve never met and will never meet.
The reason for that, I’m told, is because they’ve been taught to hate. I’m also assured that the most effective antidote of such hatred is “anti-hate crime legislation”.
Okay then, I hate “hate crimes,” too. However, I’m more than a little dubious as to the value of their designation in assisting law enforcement. As a matter of fact, my dubiousness as to the value of hate crime legislation is one of the few issues that I have in common with many of my Conservative friends.
My old dictionary defines hate as: “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from anger, fear, or a sense of injury…extreme dislike or antipathy.”
As for the question of whether fear rather than anger is the real basis of human hatred, that’s a most compelling topic for another time. As they used to say in the broadcast industry: “stay tuned”.
Since around 1990, the federal government and well over half of our states have passed “hate crime” laws. These laws make it an “add on” crime if you assault or murder anyone whom you hate because they’re black, white, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or disabled — anyone who can be designated as belonging to a special category of people. Thus, most people think that a crime is even more heinous if it’s the result of racial, ethnic, or religious bias or prejudice.
Of course, I’m willing—like the best American politicians—to go on record as a despiser of racial prejudice, ethnic bias, sexual orientation, phobia or religious bigotry. What puzzles me, however, are some of the factors having to do with the establishment of “hate crimes”.
Call me naive or insensitive if you must, but I was raised to believe that committing a “crime” was hateful in itself—or, at the very least, blatantly selfish. Of course, one can’t be charged with a “hate crime” unless one is first guilty of an already established crime such as assault or murder. Not only are assaults and murder hateful enough in themselves, there is no universal agreement among the states as to which hatefully committed crimes ought to be specifically categorized as “hate crimes.”
Author Debbie Wright makes this point most emphatically in her December 2002 article on hate crimes in the International Encyclopedia of Justice Studies (see http://www.iejs.com/Law/Criminal_Law/Hate_Crimes.htm).
“On the night of February 19, 1999, in Sylacauga, Alabama, Steve Mullins asked his friend Charles Butler to help him kill an acquaintance named Billy Jack Gaither. Butler agreed and watched Mullins beat Gaither with an ax handle and burn his body on top of a pile of tires. Shortly after the crime, they turned themselves in to the police and admitted to the killing. Both men were convicted of capital murder and received life in prison without the possibility of parole. Although Mullins, a neo-Nazi skinhead, killed Gaither “cause he was a faggot,” the murder did not make the FBI hate crimes report.
Alabama’s hate crimes law does not apply to crimes motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation.”
As Ms. Wright points out, “hate crimes” only reflect the values of the community which adopts them. Hence, just as no upstanding citizen in Alabama today would openly encourage anyone to commit murder, neither would anyone suggest that Mullins and Butler were given permission to murder Gaither by the absence of sexual orientation as a “hate crime” in Alabama. If there is an up side to the above story, it’s that Butler and Mullins had enough conscience to turn themselves in for their dastardly deed.
The fact that the adoption of hate crime legislation reflects state or regional mores raises a concern not addressed by Ms. Wright in the above article. If one type of attitude can be legislated, what about other types? If hate crime legislation is a positive element in our historical as well as present day struggle against crime, may we very soon look toward to the adoption of anti-love crime legislation?
With the likely exception of hate, what human emotion has been a greater motivator of crime than love – love which was misplaced, reckless or improper? Consider the following:
How many “love” relationships have ended in murder?
How many children live in poverty or subsist on welfare due to ill-considered “love relationships” that we call marriage?
How many children have been unwisely but lovingly denied access to cancer treatments that might have saved their lives due to deeply caring and religiously principled parents? How many abortions were performed in the last year because babies were conceived under the guise of urgent passion rather than as a true blue act of love within a “love relationship?”
Finally, since every politician seeks to provide relief to the taxpayer at all levels of government, does anyone not realize how much mismanaged love costs the sacred tax payer each year? If hate can be governed by law, why shouldn’t we expect that soon badly abused motives and practices of love won’t be codified by state governors or even by the signature of the President of the United States? There are already suggestions for proposals that only couples properly evaluated and licensed should be allowed to procreate.
The adoption and monitoring of hate crimes is, of course, a well-intentioned extension of the 1960s civil rights movement which is in many respects is hard to oppose. However -- and this is one aspect of the civil rights movement that is often misunderstood by both Conservatives and Liberals -- necessary and effective civil rights legislation didn’t seek to regulate attitudes . Effective civil rights legislation sought to regulate behavior. As Dr. King once observed: “The law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that’s pretty important.”
Effective civil rights legislation governs human activities as do many essential laws that govern everything from traffic management to the punishment of treason and capital murder. Reckless drivers, those who would commit treason, murderers – they may all be hateful people, but they must especially be managed because they’re dangerous to the peace and safety of us all. Does anyone believe that enough prison cells can or should exist to hold all of the people of the world with hate in their heart?
Standing in the East Room of the White House -- the same room from which he’d asserted that anger was an emotion applicable only to those one respects -- President Nixon, on the day his resignation from the presidency became effective, made one of the most powerful anti-hate observations I’ve ever heard:
“…always remember,” asserted the clearly saddened and humiliated Richard M. Nixon, “others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then, you destroy yourself.”
As for me, the non-hater, I take President Nixon’s leadership on the separation between hate and anger very seriously. I used to hate asparagus, coconut baked into candy, cake, pie and pudding (cookies excepted), maple flavoring in any food as well as thorns on plants of any sort. However, because these are respectable and desirable entities, I no longer hate them. I am simply mad at ‘em!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, November 5, 2007
FALL BACK, SPRING FORWARD—WHAT AN EXERCISE!
By Edwin Cooney
I don’t know about you, but I make a promise to myself every year when we’re given the instruction to fall back at the beginning of Standard Time. That promise is, of course, to take advantage of that extra hour of sleep so that I might be sufficiently energized to celebrate the coming holidays.
When I’m in this frame of mind, I picture myself snuggling down under the covers, conscience clear of all worries, thinking—for an instant--that I might just hibernate through the entire winter as do the woodchucks and the bears and other sensible denizens of the forest. As for what I do each spring when we receive the instruction to spring forward, stand by and I’ll let you know.
Of course springing forward or Daylight Saving Time is what’s at issue here, for as you may be able to tell from the tone of my writing so far, I don’t have a lot of emotional baggage wrapped up in either Daylight Saving or Standard Time. Therefore, I was quite surprised to learn what a controversial matter the development and enactment of Daylight Saving Time (or, if you prefer, DST) really has been historically.
What didn’t surprise me, however, as I did the research for this column, was the name of the gentleman who first advocated a form of Daylight Saving time to the people of Paris in 1784. His name was Benjamin Franklin and he was serving in his final months as America’s first Minister to the government of Louis XVI. Apparently, there was an energy or fuel shortage, or perhaps a money shortage, at the time. Hence, Ben Franklin suggested that the good citizens of Paris might fare better if the government woke them everyday at sunrise by firing cannons and ringing church bells. He suggested that if people got up early enough they’d save money on candles as well as on the cost of heating their dwellings late into the evening. It should be noted, however, that Ben Franklin didn’t specifically suggest the resetting of clocks -- but then, old Ben was already famous for his “early to bed and early to rise, healthy, wealthy and wise” lifestyle prescription.
Ninety-nine years passed between Ben Franklin’s 1784 commentary and the American and Canadian railroads adoption of what they called a standard time schedule for the convenience of the railroads, their freight customers and passengers alike. This was achieved by dividing the North American continent into four time zones; Eastern; Central; Mountain; and Pacific. However, it should be noted that time zones had nothing to do with Daylight Saving or Standard Time. What these two concepts—-time zones and time manipulation--do have in common are powerful voting constituencies.
Across the pond in England, an ambitious and dedicated builder (whom today we’d call a land developer) by the alliterative name of William Willett tried to advance the idea of Daylight Saving time during the summer season. The story has it that Willett got the idea one sunny summer morning in 1905 while riding through Petts Wood in Kent—today known as “The Garden Suburb of London.” During his ride, he noticed that the blinds were still drawn on so many homes even as “Old Sol” was shining so magnificently. People, he thought, ought to be up early—-perhaps playing golf (a game William Willett himself immensely enjoyed) or even better—-building homes.
Being an energetic as well as an enterprising gentleman, William Willett had a lot of political and socially prominent supporters. Among them were former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, a young member of Parliament David Lloyd George, and still another young M.P. by the name of Winston Churchill. Additionally, William Willett’s Royal Sovereign King Edward VII liked the idea of utilizing Daylight Saving Time by setting his clocks ahead in the summer season at his Sandringham estate.
However, there were powerful forces in opposition to Willett’s scheme. They included Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, William Christie, head of Britain’s Department of Astronomy, who held the imposing title of “Astronomer Royal,” George Darwin (son of Charles Darwin) who was an astronomer and mathematician, and Sir Napier Shaw, head of Britain’s Meteorological Office. As a result, not until 1916, a year after William Willett’s death, would Britain adopt Daylight Saving Time as a World War I measure to increase wartime industrial production.
Meanwhile, back in the States, it was our participation in World War I. that compelled us to adopt the Standard Time Act of March 1918. Thus, ironically, out of the “Standard Time” Act came Daylight Saving Time. Daylight Saving Time was utilized for seven months in 1918 and 1919 under the supervision of the Interstate Commerce Commission. It was successfully repealed in 1919 largely due to its unpopularity in farm states. In addition to their common initials and alliterative names, William Willett and President Woodrow Wilson shared a love for the game of golf. Some have speculated it was golf that caused President Wilson twice to veto the repeal of Daylight Saving Time in 1919. As unlikely as that is, it should be noted that President Wilson’s first veto was sustained.
The repeal of the 1918 Standard Time act meant that the states could adopt Daylight Saving Time at their own discretion and so it remained until—you guessed it—World War II. From February 9th, 1942 until September 30th 1945, Daylight Saving was in effect throughout the entire country the year round.
Not until passage of the 1966 Uniform Time Act did the federal government take unto itself the prerogative of standardizing Daylight Saving and Standard time nationally each spring and fall during peace time. However, the 1966 act—which moved supervision of Daylight and Standard time from the Department of Commerce to the newly created Department of Transportation--did allow states to pass legislation exempting themselves from instituting Daylight Saving Time. It merely stipulated that all states choosing to utilize Daylight Saving Time in the spring and summer and Standard Time in the late fall and winter should make those shifts simultaneously at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in April and the last Sunday in October.
On January 4th, 1974, President Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Daylight Saving Energy Conservation Act of 1973. That act required that clocks be set ahead beginning January 6th, 1974 to preserve energy due to the energy shortage created by the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. That act was amended by Congress in October 1974 to allow Standard Time to be instituted from October 27th,1974 to February 23rd, 1975. One of the factors in reinstituting Standard Time during winter months was the potential danger to school children while waiting for the school bus on dark DST cold winter mornings. Once the seventies energy crisis was considered over, Daylight Saving and Standard times resumed their proscribed annual visitations.
In 1986, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed an extension to the Uniform Time Act that shifted the beginning of Daylight Saving time from the last Sunday in April to the first Sunday in April while leaving the beginning of Standard Time as the last Sunday in October.
Finally, in 2005, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act that stipulated that, beginning in 2007, Daylight Saving Time would begin the second Sunday in March and Standard Time would begin the first Sunday in November. It also stipulated that the old first Sunday in April and the last Sunday in October schedule could be resumed if it were determined that sufficient energy saving could not be realized under the new schedule. (It should also be noted that Arizona and Hawaii still do not utilize Daylight Saving Time and are not required to under the 2005 Energy Policy Act.)
There in a nutshell is the general history of Daylight Saving Time. As I asserted earlier, I have little at stake in its implementation or abandonment. However, were I a farmer, I’d object to DST because I wouldn’t be able to begin harvesting my crops until the dew was off the fields. DST would hinder rather than help my operation. I would also oppose Daylight Saving Time if I were a theater owner or an advertiser on prime time television because extra daylight traditionally keeps people away from their local movie theaters and television sets. If I were a farm worker or parks management worker suffering from Retinitis Pigmentosa, I might find the extra exposure to sunlight (as favorably prescribed by its advocates) personally offensive—because sun would be injurious to my eyesight. Finally, if I were sufficiently conservative, I wouldn’t want the “Feds”, my state governor, the mayor, or even the local Farm Bureau telling me what to do.
On the other hand, Daylight Saving is said to be advantageous for the sports person, the retailers who sell sporting and other equipment, restaurateurs, land developers and so many more. There are studies showing that DST prevents vehicle and pedestrian accidents, cuts down on crime, and -- of course -- saves energy. Conservationists, environmentalists and “do gooders” from all points on the political spectrum all have something to say about the folly or wisdom of Daylight Saving Time.
Well, whatever works, I’m for it. Just don’t argue about it on the first Saturday night in November because I’ll be trying to get some extra rest—unless of course I’m out somewhere entertaining myself.
Oh yah… what do I do when it comes time to “spring forward?” Very simple—the force of springing forward drives me to my knees and I start praying that the first Saturday of next November will come really fast.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
I don’t know about you, but I make a promise to myself every year when we’re given the instruction to fall back at the beginning of Standard Time. That promise is, of course, to take advantage of that extra hour of sleep so that I might be sufficiently energized to celebrate the coming holidays.
When I’m in this frame of mind, I picture myself snuggling down under the covers, conscience clear of all worries, thinking—for an instant--that I might just hibernate through the entire winter as do the woodchucks and the bears and other sensible denizens of the forest. As for what I do each spring when we receive the instruction to spring forward, stand by and I’ll let you know.
Of course springing forward or Daylight Saving Time is what’s at issue here, for as you may be able to tell from the tone of my writing so far, I don’t have a lot of emotional baggage wrapped up in either Daylight Saving or Standard Time. Therefore, I was quite surprised to learn what a controversial matter the development and enactment of Daylight Saving Time (or, if you prefer, DST) really has been historically.
What didn’t surprise me, however, as I did the research for this column, was the name of the gentleman who first advocated a form of Daylight Saving time to the people of Paris in 1784. His name was Benjamin Franklin and he was serving in his final months as America’s first Minister to the government of Louis XVI. Apparently, there was an energy or fuel shortage, or perhaps a money shortage, at the time. Hence, Ben Franklin suggested that the good citizens of Paris might fare better if the government woke them everyday at sunrise by firing cannons and ringing church bells. He suggested that if people got up early enough they’d save money on candles as well as on the cost of heating their dwellings late into the evening. It should be noted, however, that Ben Franklin didn’t specifically suggest the resetting of clocks -- but then, old Ben was already famous for his “early to bed and early to rise, healthy, wealthy and wise” lifestyle prescription.
Ninety-nine years passed between Ben Franklin’s 1784 commentary and the American and Canadian railroads adoption of what they called a standard time schedule for the convenience of the railroads, their freight customers and passengers alike. This was achieved by dividing the North American continent into four time zones; Eastern; Central; Mountain; and Pacific. However, it should be noted that time zones had nothing to do with Daylight Saving or Standard Time. What these two concepts—-time zones and time manipulation--do have in common are powerful voting constituencies.
Across the pond in England, an ambitious and dedicated builder (whom today we’d call a land developer) by the alliterative name of William Willett tried to advance the idea of Daylight Saving time during the summer season. The story has it that Willett got the idea one sunny summer morning in 1905 while riding through Petts Wood in Kent—today known as “The Garden Suburb of London.” During his ride, he noticed that the blinds were still drawn on so many homes even as “Old Sol” was shining so magnificently. People, he thought, ought to be up early—-perhaps playing golf (a game William Willett himself immensely enjoyed) or even better—-building homes.
Being an energetic as well as an enterprising gentleman, William Willett had a lot of political and socially prominent supporters. Among them were former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, a young member of Parliament David Lloyd George, and still another young M.P. by the name of Winston Churchill. Additionally, William Willett’s Royal Sovereign King Edward VII liked the idea of utilizing Daylight Saving Time by setting his clocks ahead in the summer season at his Sandringham estate.
However, there were powerful forces in opposition to Willett’s scheme. They included Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, William Christie, head of Britain’s Department of Astronomy, who held the imposing title of “Astronomer Royal,” George Darwin (son of Charles Darwin) who was an astronomer and mathematician, and Sir Napier Shaw, head of Britain’s Meteorological Office. As a result, not until 1916, a year after William Willett’s death, would Britain adopt Daylight Saving Time as a World War I measure to increase wartime industrial production.
Meanwhile, back in the States, it was our participation in World War I. that compelled us to adopt the Standard Time Act of March 1918. Thus, ironically, out of the “Standard Time” Act came Daylight Saving Time. Daylight Saving Time was utilized for seven months in 1918 and 1919 under the supervision of the Interstate Commerce Commission. It was successfully repealed in 1919 largely due to its unpopularity in farm states. In addition to their common initials and alliterative names, William Willett and President Woodrow Wilson shared a love for the game of golf. Some have speculated it was golf that caused President Wilson twice to veto the repeal of Daylight Saving Time in 1919. As unlikely as that is, it should be noted that President Wilson’s first veto was sustained.
The repeal of the 1918 Standard Time act meant that the states could adopt Daylight Saving Time at their own discretion and so it remained until—you guessed it—World War II. From February 9th, 1942 until September 30th 1945, Daylight Saving was in effect throughout the entire country the year round.
Not until passage of the 1966 Uniform Time Act did the federal government take unto itself the prerogative of standardizing Daylight Saving and Standard time nationally each spring and fall during peace time. However, the 1966 act—which moved supervision of Daylight and Standard time from the Department of Commerce to the newly created Department of Transportation--did allow states to pass legislation exempting themselves from instituting Daylight Saving Time. It merely stipulated that all states choosing to utilize Daylight Saving Time in the spring and summer and Standard Time in the late fall and winter should make those shifts simultaneously at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in April and the last Sunday in October.
On January 4th, 1974, President Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Daylight Saving Energy Conservation Act of 1973. That act required that clocks be set ahead beginning January 6th, 1974 to preserve energy due to the energy shortage created by the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. That act was amended by Congress in October 1974 to allow Standard Time to be instituted from October 27th,1974 to February 23rd, 1975. One of the factors in reinstituting Standard Time during winter months was the potential danger to school children while waiting for the school bus on dark DST cold winter mornings. Once the seventies energy crisis was considered over, Daylight Saving and Standard times resumed their proscribed annual visitations.
In 1986, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed an extension to the Uniform Time Act that shifted the beginning of Daylight Saving time from the last Sunday in April to the first Sunday in April while leaving the beginning of Standard Time as the last Sunday in October.
Finally, in 2005, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act that stipulated that, beginning in 2007, Daylight Saving Time would begin the second Sunday in March and Standard Time would begin the first Sunday in November. It also stipulated that the old first Sunday in April and the last Sunday in October schedule could be resumed if it were determined that sufficient energy saving could not be realized under the new schedule. (It should also be noted that Arizona and Hawaii still do not utilize Daylight Saving Time and are not required to under the 2005 Energy Policy Act.)
There in a nutshell is the general history of Daylight Saving Time. As I asserted earlier, I have little at stake in its implementation or abandonment. However, were I a farmer, I’d object to DST because I wouldn’t be able to begin harvesting my crops until the dew was off the fields. DST would hinder rather than help my operation. I would also oppose Daylight Saving Time if I were a theater owner or an advertiser on prime time television because extra daylight traditionally keeps people away from their local movie theaters and television sets. If I were a farm worker or parks management worker suffering from Retinitis Pigmentosa, I might find the extra exposure to sunlight (as favorably prescribed by its advocates) personally offensive—because sun would be injurious to my eyesight. Finally, if I were sufficiently conservative, I wouldn’t want the “Feds”, my state governor, the mayor, or even the local Farm Bureau telling me what to do.
On the other hand, Daylight Saving is said to be advantageous for the sports person, the retailers who sell sporting and other equipment, restaurateurs, land developers and so many more. There are studies showing that DST prevents vehicle and pedestrian accidents, cuts down on crime, and -- of course -- saves energy. Conservationists, environmentalists and “do gooders” from all points on the political spectrum all have something to say about the folly or wisdom of Daylight Saving Time.
Well, whatever works, I’m for it. Just don’t argue about it on the first Saturday night in November because I’ll be trying to get some extra rest—unless of course I’m out somewhere entertaining myself.
Oh yah… what do I do when it comes time to “spring forward?” Very simple—the force of springing forward drives me to my knees and I start praying that the first Saturday of next November will come really fast.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, October 29, 2007
BASEBALL—THE GAME THAT CAME FROM YOU AND ME
By Edwin Cooney
It may be all over by the time you read this since it started last Wednesday night at Fenway Park in Boston. It, of course, is the one hundred and third World Series—which only Americans think has anything whatsoever to do with the rest of the world. (Note: The first modern World Series occurred in 1903, but since there was no World Series in 1904 and 1994, we’re enjoying only our one hundred and third fall classic.)
When the series has ended, a bunch of dreams in Denver, Colorado or a ton of self- satisfaction in Boston will have been realized…or put on hold.
My introduction to baseball was through an uncle, a lifelong Yankee fan. However, my realization that baseball as a game of people rather than merely of players was confirmed for me in, if I say so myself, a rather unique way.
One weekend afternoon in the spring of 1958, I was listening to a Yankee broadcast of a game with the Cleveland Indians. Pitcher Early Wynn, a big no-nonsense 300 game winner, was pitching for the Indians. Although the exact details of what Early Wynn was up to have been lost to my memory, I do remember that Yankee announcer and former Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto mentioned that Early Wynn had typed an article for some publication just using the index fingers of each hand.
Suddenly, Early Wynn went from merely being a major league pitcher to being a real person to me. I was taking typing at the time and knew that “hunting and pecking” as we called it was an inefficient way to use the typewriter. At that instant, I realized that I, a twelve year-old, knew how to do something better than the great Early Wynn. “Maybe,” I thought to myself, “I could actually teach Early Wynn how to type if he would let me.”
Later that year, I also learned that the great Ted Williams hated to wear neckties and that broadcaster and former major league pitcher Dizzy Dean hated school as much as I then thought I did. “Shucks,” Dizzy Dean said, “Where do people get off criticizing my grammar? I only went up to the second grade and if I’d gone up to the third, I’d have passed my old man.”
“Gee,” I thought to myself back then, “baseball is loaded with real guys. I wonder what they’re like off the field.”
Many pleasant hours since 1958 have been spent by me savoring the humanness of baseball players on, near and off the baseball diamond. So, I thought I’d share with you -- in celebration of the World Series -- some of the more poignant activities and interactions I have heard, read, and been told about over the years.
As I was listening to broadcaster John Miller and his sidekick, former major league second baseman and now Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, commenting on the fact that the Colorado Rockies’ starter, lefthander Jeff Francis, was the first Canadian citizen to open a World Series, I thought back to the first World Series in which the Boston Red Sox played the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Red Sox were called the Boston Pilgrims back then.
In the first modern World Series, the newly created American League champion Pilgrims defeated the Pirates five games to three in the best of nine series. Aside from the spectacle of seeing the Pilgrims’ star pitcher Cy Young (his real name was Denton Young) hawking tickets when he wasn‘t pitching, a more obscure name made its momentary prominence. As time went on, Babe Ruth made the home run famous, but very few people today could tell you who hit the first ever home run in the World Series.
His name was Jimmy Sebring, a young left-handed hitting outfielder for the Pirates whose career and life were way too short. Born in Liberty, Pennsylvania on March 22nd, 1882, Sebring joined the Pirates in 1902 and led both the “Bostons” (as the great announcer Ernie Harwell often called the Red Sox) and the Pirates in hits with eleven throughout that 1903 series. In the middle of August 1905, Jimmy Sebring suddenly left the Cincinnati Reds--to whom he’d been traded from the Pirates--to play for Williamsport of the Tri-State league. He won a league-wide championship for Williamsport one year. By the time he returned to the majors in 1909, however, he had lost much of his former ability. Thus, it is likely that 1909 would have been his final season, except that we’ll never know for sure. Jimmy Sebring died on December 22nd, 1909 at the age of twenty-seven in the Pennsylvania town he’d championed. Oh, you may well ask, why did Jimmy Sebring leave “the bigs” right in the middle of his career? His wife was too ill to be left alone for long periods of time and so Jimmy went home to be closer to her. Jimmy Sebring was indeed “quality folks” as they say.
I don’t know that a human life has ever begun on a baseball diamond, major league or otherwise, but it has been terminated on one. Kentucky born Ray Chapman was a fine young shortstop for the Indians. In the summer of 1920, he was leading them to a championship. It was on Monday afternoon of August 16th, when Ray Chapman stepped into the right-handed batter’s box at the Polo Grounds in New York to face the Yankee’s submarine right-hander Carl Mays. (Note: a submarine pitcher is one who throws underhanded like a softball pitcher.) Crowding as close to the plate for what he considered to be to his advantage as usual, Ray Chapman took one of Mays’ pitches on the left temple. The ball bounced back to Mays and he flipped it to first baseman Wally Pip (who would take a day off five years later because of a headache and lose his job to young Lou Gehrig.) Pip started to toss the ball around the infield until he heard umpire Tom Connolly call for a doctor. The Yankees’ physician applied ice to the injury and Chapman was able to rise. With the help of two teammates, he headed for the Indians’ centerfield clubhouse, but near second base he collapsed. One story has it that he awakened enough in the Indians clubhouse to urge that Carl Mays not be blamed for the incident. Ray Chapman died about twelve hours later at St. Lawrence hospital in New York. Perhaps inspired by the loss of their popular shortstop, the Indians went on to defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers (then being called the Robins after their beloved manager Wilbert Robinson) four straight in the 1920 World Series, winning the A.L. pennant. You might ask, was Carl Mays blamed for the incident? Of course he was -- by lots of people.
Most players and fans who are struck with baseballs survive with little notoriety. One exception was Mrs. Alice Roth who was sitting behind third base at Philadelphia’s Connie Mack Stadium on the afternoon of Saturday, August 17th, 1957. The Phillies were facing the visiting New York Giants. Left-handed spray hitting Richie Ashburn, the Phillies popular centerfielder, came to the plate. (Note: a spray hitter is one who naturally and regularly hits to all parts of the field.) When Richie connected (probably with a low and outside pitch, the baseball shot into the stands where Alice Roth, the wife of a Philadelphia newspaper executive, was sitting with her two grandsons. The ball struck her in the face breaking her nose. Time was called while an anxious Ashburn joined other players and officials by Mrs. Roth’s box seat to wait for medical assistance. Once it arrived and the personable Ashburn had expressed his sincere sorrow, the game continued. Settling back into the batter’s box, Ashburn reacted naturally to still another outside pitch. In the stands behind third base, Mrs. Roth had just been assisted onto a stretcher. She probably heard the crack of Richie Ashburn’s bat once again. Whether or not she heard the next crack of the bat, she certainly felt the baseball bounce off the side of her head. Fortunately, Richie Ashburn’s second calling card was a glancing blow. Over the next few days, the mortified Ashburn visited the hospital bringing flowers, candy and his heartfelt best wishes. There were season tickets to see the Phillies and a visit for the two boys to the Phillies’ clubhouse. Generous as these gifts were, they weren’t quite enough for the Roth grandchildren. The Phillies were a lousy team and not worth too many outings, but the boys reminded their grandmother that the Philadelphia football Eagles were very promising indeed. If Grandma attended an Eagles’ workout, she might be accidentally tackled—and those season tickets would be terribly exciting.
Of course, every baseball hero invariably spawns a baseball “bum”. Consider the position of Harry Bright on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 2nd, 1963 when he came to bat in the ninth inning of his first World Series game ever. True, the Yankees had been in the World Series many, many times, but Harry Bright hadn’t. Harry had spent most of his seventeen years in pro baseball in the minors or with the Pirates, Washington Senators and Cincinnati Reds. Now, he was actually in the World Series with the mighty Yankees. However, something was very wrong. The Dodgers’ brilliant young left-hander Sanford (Sandy) Koufax had just tied a record by striking out fourteen Yankees. If the handsome and articulate Koufax struck Harry Bright out, he’d break Carl Erskine’s fall classic record of fourteen strikeouts in a game. Erskine was an old teammate of his. The shadows at Yankee Stadium are especially treacherous during the fall. It was difficult to see pitches from pitchers of only average talent let alone those of young Koufax. Even worse for Harry Bright, practically all of the 65,000 fans in that historic stadium (including many loyal Yankee fans) were yelling for him to strike out to enable Sandy to get the record. So what could he do? Yogi Berra, one of Harry Bright’s own teammates, had once observed that “it gets late out there early.”
One of the more traditionally devastating things that can happen to anyone who works outside of baseball is to be fired from a job. For baseball managers, however, it’s the expected thing. However, those baseball men who are in charge of these things do try to show some tact when they decide to invite a manager to leave his employment. It was June 1958 when Cleveland Indians’ general manager Frank “Trader” Lane – who was so named for his many notorious player deals -- contemplated how he should tell manager Bobby Bragan that he was through as Cleveland’s skipper. The tribe, after all, was twelve games behind the league-leading Yankees. Finally, Bobby appeared and Frank had to say something. “Bobby,” said Lane, “I don’t know how we’re going to get along without you, but beginning tomorrow we’re going to try.”
Baseball’s front office isn’t the only breeding ground for bizarre incidents. They happen on the field, too. One of my favorite stories is about a native of Passaic, New Jersey by the name of Frankie Zak. Frankie played in the majors for the Pittsburgh Pirates for parts of 1944-45 and ‘46. In 1945, Pirates manager Frankie Frisch, a Hall of Fame second baseman, could only take Frankie for a total of fifteen games. What happened to Frankie or what Frankie did to himself on Tuesday, April 17th, opening day of the 1945 season, might explain both men’s frustration. Zak was on first base and Jim Russell, one of the Pirates’ few sluggers at that time, was up. As Cincinnati Red’s pitcher Bucky Walters, also now a Hall of Famer, took his wind-up, Frankie looked down at his shoes and discovered a most unfortunate thing. One shoe was untied. Not wishing to be tripped up while running the base paths, Frankie made the responsible decision. He called time. However, the home plate umpire didn’t see the first base umpire’s time called signal and therefore when Walters went into his wind-up, he was allowed to make the pitch. Jim Russell took a mighty cut at the ball and in no time it sailed over the right field fence for a home run. However, upon reaching first base on his home run trot, Russell to his chagrin was told to go back to the plate because the runner had been granted time to tie his shoe. So, unhappily, Russell went back to the plate and took another hack at another pitch. This time however he got only a single.
Russell later said that he couldn’t stay mad at poor Frankie for very long because he kept apologizing to him all afternoon. Even worse, the Pirates lost that game seven to six and Frankie was the unfortunate goat.
The next afternoon, as Frankie Zak sat, still dejected, in front of his locker, manager Frisch came out of his office and handed him a present. Surprised that his skipper would buy him a present after the events of the day before, Zak excitedly opened the box. It was—you guessed it—a pair of buckle shoes.
“I don’t want to see you calling time out to tie your “blank” shoes again,” Frisch reportedly said to Frankie Zak as he returned to his office.
Late last week, the New York Yankees dismissed twelve year manager Joe Torre by offering him a lot of money in a way he simply couldn’t accept. They offered him five million for the season of 2008 and a million dollars for success if the Yankees won the divisional championship series, a million dollars more if the Yankees went on to win the pennant and a final million if the Bronx Bombers won their first World Series since they beat the Mets in the five games of the 2000 World Series. While most of us might be tempted to take the five million dollars and run, it must be pointed out that most of us wouldn’t be offered anything close to that amount of money. Certainly, Joe Torre has demonstrated to everyone except the Yankee brass that he doesn’t need incentives to win in the post season. However, it has since occurred to me that one of the Yankees most beloved men once actually did something with even less class.
It was August 1956 and the Yankees were fighting for a pennant. They had gotten the chance to obtain Enos Slaughter, an old Cardinal hero, and a still solid left-handed hitter to help them win it. Phil Rizzuto had been a Yankee since 1941 and had won the league’s Most Valuable Player award in 1950. Even more, his play and his personality were a constant inspiration to Yankee players. Admittedly, it wasn’t going to be easy for either general manager George Weiss or manager Casey Stengel to tell Phil that he was being cut to make room for Enos Slaughter. So, they called him in for a “consultation,” inviting him to name the player who should be cut if his team was going to have the best chance to win the American League pennant. When Phil, who was hitting .236 in only 31 games, didn’t name himself as one to be cut, Weiss and Stengel finally had to tell him the real reason they’d called him in for “consultation.”
The Yankees may not have surpassed their Saturday, August 25th, 1956 treatment of Phil Rizzuto last week, but they certainly came close.
Of course, in baseball as in life, there are almost countless incidents of nobility and generosity that very often are not noticed. Back in the late 1960s, California Angels shortstop Jim Fregosi made it his personal business to look after teammate Minnie Rojas and his family after the Cuban born right-hander, who spoke little English, was paralyzed in an automobile accident. Before that incident, all of baseball had also taken care of the great Dodger catcher Roy Campanella who had been similarly crippled.
Baseball, a child of America’s combined desire for entertainment and genius for enterprise, is naturally as well as invariably linked to the people’s most traditional and fondest dreams. If the “BoSox” win the World Series, Bostonians’ three year sense of satisfaction with this generation of Red Sox will be confirmed. Should the Rockies miraculously prevail, a lot of Coloradans’ fondest dreams will surely come true.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
It may be all over by the time you read this since it started last Wednesday night at Fenway Park in Boston. It, of course, is the one hundred and third World Series—which only Americans think has anything whatsoever to do with the rest of the world. (Note: The first modern World Series occurred in 1903, but since there was no World Series in 1904 and 1994, we’re enjoying only our one hundred and third fall classic.)
When the series has ended, a bunch of dreams in Denver, Colorado or a ton of self- satisfaction in Boston will have been realized…or put on hold.
My introduction to baseball was through an uncle, a lifelong Yankee fan. However, my realization that baseball as a game of people rather than merely of players was confirmed for me in, if I say so myself, a rather unique way.
One weekend afternoon in the spring of 1958, I was listening to a Yankee broadcast of a game with the Cleveland Indians. Pitcher Early Wynn, a big no-nonsense 300 game winner, was pitching for the Indians. Although the exact details of what Early Wynn was up to have been lost to my memory, I do remember that Yankee announcer and former Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto mentioned that Early Wynn had typed an article for some publication just using the index fingers of each hand.
Suddenly, Early Wynn went from merely being a major league pitcher to being a real person to me. I was taking typing at the time and knew that “hunting and pecking” as we called it was an inefficient way to use the typewriter. At that instant, I realized that I, a twelve year-old, knew how to do something better than the great Early Wynn. “Maybe,” I thought to myself, “I could actually teach Early Wynn how to type if he would let me.”
Later that year, I also learned that the great Ted Williams hated to wear neckties and that broadcaster and former major league pitcher Dizzy Dean hated school as much as I then thought I did. “Shucks,” Dizzy Dean said, “Where do people get off criticizing my grammar? I only went up to the second grade and if I’d gone up to the third, I’d have passed my old man.”
“Gee,” I thought to myself back then, “baseball is loaded with real guys. I wonder what they’re like off the field.”
Many pleasant hours since 1958 have been spent by me savoring the humanness of baseball players on, near and off the baseball diamond. So, I thought I’d share with you -- in celebration of the World Series -- some of the more poignant activities and interactions I have heard, read, and been told about over the years.
As I was listening to broadcaster John Miller and his sidekick, former major league second baseman and now Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, commenting on the fact that the Colorado Rockies’ starter, lefthander Jeff Francis, was the first Canadian citizen to open a World Series, I thought back to the first World Series in which the Boston Red Sox played the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Red Sox were called the Boston Pilgrims back then.
In the first modern World Series, the newly created American League champion Pilgrims defeated the Pirates five games to three in the best of nine series. Aside from the spectacle of seeing the Pilgrims’ star pitcher Cy Young (his real name was Denton Young) hawking tickets when he wasn‘t pitching, a more obscure name made its momentary prominence. As time went on, Babe Ruth made the home run famous, but very few people today could tell you who hit the first ever home run in the World Series.
His name was Jimmy Sebring, a young left-handed hitting outfielder for the Pirates whose career and life were way too short. Born in Liberty, Pennsylvania on March 22nd, 1882, Sebring joined the Pirates in 1902 and led both the “Bostons” (as the great announcer Ernie Harwell often called the Red Sox) and the Pirates in hits with eleven throughout that 1903 series. In the middle of August 1905, Jimmy Sebring suddenly left the Cincinnati Reds--to whom he’d been traded from the Pirates--to play for Williamsport of the Tri-State league. He won a league-wide championship for Williamsport one year. By the time he returned to the majors in 1909, however, he had lost much of his former ability. Thus, it is likely that 1909 would have been his final season, except that we’ll never know for sure. Jimmy Sebring died on December 22nd, 1909 at the age of twenty-seven in the Pennsylvania town he’d championed. Oh, you may well ask, why did Jimmy Sebring leave “the bigs” right in the middle of his career? His wife was too ill to be left alone for long periods of time and so Jimmy went home to be closer to her. Jimmy Sebring was indeed “quality folks” as they say.
I don’t know that a human life has ever begun on a baseball diamond, major league or otherwise, but it has been terminated on one. Kentucky born Ray Chapman was a fine young shortstop for the Indians. In the summer of 1920, he was leading them to a championship. It was on Monday afternoon of August 16th, when Ray Chapman stepped into the right-handed batter’s box at the Polo Grounds in New York to face the Yankee’s submarine right-hander Carl Mays. (Note: a submarine pitcher is one who throws underhanded like a softball pitcher.) Crowding as close to the plate for what he considered to be to his advantage as usual, Ray Chapman took one of Mays’ pitches on the left temple. The ball bounced back to Mays and he flipped it to first baseman Wally Pip (who would take a day off five years later because of a headache and lose his job to young Lou Gehrig.) Pip started to toss the ball around the infield until he heard umpire Tom Connolly call for a doctor. The Yankees’ physician applied ice to the injury and Chapman was able to rise. With the help of two teammates, he headed for the Indians’ centerfield clubhouse, but near second base he collapsed. One story has it that he awakened enough in the Indians clubhouse to urge that Carl Mays not be blamed for the incident. Ray Chapman died about twelve hours later at St. Lawrence hospital in New York. Perhaps inspired by the loss of their popular shortstop, the Indians went on to defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers (then being called the Robins after their beloved manager Wilbert Robinson) four straight in the 1920 World Series, winning the A.L. pennant. You might ask, was Carl Mays blamed for the incident? Of course he was -- by lots of people.
Most players and fans who are struck with baseballs survive with little notoriety. One exception was Mrs. Alice Roth who was sitting behind third base at Philadelphia’s Connie Mack Stadium on the afternoon of Saturday, August 17th, 1957. The Phillies were facing the visiting New York Giants. Left-handed spray hitting Richie Ashburn, the Phillies popular centerfielder, came to the plate. (Note: a spray hitter is one who naturally and regularly hits to all parts of the field.) When Richie connected (probably with a low and outside pitch, the baseball shot into the stands where Alice Roth, the wife of a Philadelphia newspaper executive, was sitting with her two grandsons. The ball struck her in the face breaking her nose. Time was called while an anxious Ashburn joined other players and officials by Mrs. Roth’s box seat to wait for medical assistance. Once it arrived and the personable Ashburn had expressed his sincere sorrow, the game continued. Settling back into the batter’s box, Ashburn reacted naturally to still another outside pitch. In the stands behind third base, Mrs. Roth had just been assisted onto a stretcher. She probably heard the crack of Richie Ashburn’s bat once again. Whether or not she heard the next crack of the bat, she certainly felt the baseball bounce off the side of her head. Fortunately, Richie Ashburn’s second calling card was a glancing blow. Over the next few days, the mortified Ashburn visited the hospital bringing flowers, candy and his heartfelt best wishes. There were season tickets to see the Phillies and a visit for the two boys to the Phillies’ clubhouse. Generous as these gifts were, they weren’t quite enough for the Roth grandchildren. The Phillies were a lousy team and not worth too many outings, but the boys reminded their grandmother that the Philadelphia football Eagles were very promising indeed. If Grandma attended an Eagles’ workout, she might be accidentally tackled—and those season tickets would be terribly exciting.
Of course, every baseball hero invariably spawns a baseball “bum”. Consider the position of Harry Bright on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 2nd, 1963 when he came to bat in the ninth inning of his first World Series game ever. True, the Yankees had been in the World Series many, many times, but Harry Bright hadn’t. Harry had spent most of his seventeen years in pro baseball in the minors or with the Pirates, Washington Senators and Cincinnati Reds. Now, he was actually in the World Series with the mighty Yankees. However, something was very wrong. The Dodgers’ brilliant young left-hander Sanford (Sandy) Koufax had just tied a record by striking out fourteen Yankees. If the handsome and articulate Koufax struck Harry Bright out, he’d break Carl Erskine’s fall classic record of fourteen strikeouts in a game. Erskine was an old teammate of his. The shadows at Yankee Stadium are especially treacherous during the fall. It was difficult to see pitches from pitchers of only average talent let alone those of young Koufax. Even worse for Harry Bright, practically all of the 65,000 fans in that historic stadium (including many loyal Yankee fans) were yelling for him to strike out to enable Sandy to get the record. So what could he do? Yogi Berra, one of Harry Bright’s own teammates, had once observed that “it gets late out there early.”
One of the more traditionally devastating things that can happen to anyone who works outside of baseball is to be fired from a job. For baseball managers, however, it’s the expected thing. However, those baseball men who are in charge of these things do try to show some tact when they decide to invite a manager to leave his employment. It was June 1958 when Cleveland Indians’ general manager Frank “Trader” Lane – who was so named for his many notorious player deals -- contemplated how he should tell manager Bobby Bragan that he was through as Cleveland’s skipper. The tribe, after all, was twelve games behind the league-leading Yankees. Finally, Bobby appeared and Frank had to say something. “Bobby,” said Lane, “I don’t know how we’re going to get along without you, but beginning tomorrow we’re going to try.”
Baseball’s front office isn’t the only breeding ground for bizarre incidents. They happen on the field, too. One of my favorite stories is about a native of Passaic, New Jersey by the name of Frankie Zak. Frankie played in the majors for the Pittsburgh Pirates for parts of 1944-45 and ‘46. In 1945, Pirates manager Frankie Frisch, a Hall of Fame second baseman, could only take Frankie for a total of fifteen games. What happened to Frankie or what Frankie did to himself on Tuesday, April 17th, opening day of the 1945 season, might explain both men’s frustration. Zak was on first base and Jim Russell, one of the Pirates’ few sluggers at that time, was up. As Cincinnati Red’s pitcher Bucky Walters, also now a Hall of Famer, took his wind-up, Frankie looked down at his shoes and discovered a most unfortunate thing. One shoe was untied. Not wishing to be tripped up while running the base paths, Frankie made the responsible decision. He called time. However, the home plate umpire didn’t see the first base umpire’s time called signal and therefore when Walters went into his wind-up, he was allowed to make the pitch. Jim Russell took a mighty cut at the ball and in no time it sailed over the right field fence for a home run. However, upon reaching first base on his home run trot, Russell to his chagrin was told to go back to the plate because the runner had been granted time to tie his shoe. So, unhappily, Russell went back to the plate and took another hack at another pitch. This time however he got only a single.
Russell later said that he couldn’t stay mad at poor Frankie for very long because he kept apologizing to him all afternoon. Even worse, the Pirates lost that game seven to six and Frankie was the unfortunate goat.
The next afternoon, as Frankie Zak sat, still dejected, in front of his locker, manager Frisch came out of his office and handed him a present. Surprised that his skipper would buy him a present after the events of the day before, Zak excitedly opened the box. It was—you guessed it—a pair of buckle shoes.
“I don’t want to see you calling time out to tie your “blank” shoes again,” Frisch reportedly said to Frankie Zak as he returned to his office.
Late last week, the New York Yankees dismissed twelve year manager Joe Torre by offering him a lot of money in a way he simply couldn’t accept. They offered him five million for the season of 2008 and a million dollars for success if the Yankees won the divisional championship series, a million dollars more if the Yankees went on to win the pennant and a final million if the Bronx Bombers won their first World Series since they beat the Mets in the five games of the 2000 World Series. While most of us might be tempted to take the five million dollars and run, it must be pointed out that most of us wouldn’t be offered anything close to that amount of money. Certainly, Joe Torre has demonstrated to everyone except the Yankee brass that he doesn’t need incentives to win in the post season. However, it has since occurred to me that one of the Yankees most beloved men once actually did something with even less class.
It was August 1956 and the Yankees were fighting for a pennant. They had gotten the chance to obtain Enos Slaughter, an old Cardinal hero, and a still solid left-handed hitter to help them win it. Phil Rizzuto had been a Yankee since 1941 and had won the league’s Most Valuable Player award in 1950. Even more, his play and his personality were a constant inspiration to Yankee players. Admittedly, it wasn’t going to be easy for either general manager George Weiss or manager Casey Stengel to tell Phil that he was being cut to make room for Enos Slaughter. So, they called him in for a “consultation,” inviting him to name the player who should be cut if his team was going to have the best chance to win the American League pennant. When Phil, who was hitting .236 in only 31 games, didn’t name himself as one to be cut, Weiss and Stengel finally had to tell him the real reason they’d called him in for “consultation.”
The Yankees may not have surpassed their Saturday, August 25th, 1956 treatment of Phil Rizzuto last week, but they certainly came close.
Of course, in baseball as in life, there are almost countless incidents of nobility and generosity that very often are not noticed. Back in the late 1960s, California Angels shortstop Jim Fregosi made it his personal business to look after teammate Minnie Rojas and his family after the Cuban born right-hander, who spoke little English, was paralyzed in an automobile accident. Before that incident, all of baseball had also taken care of the great Dodger catcher Roy Campanella who had been similarly crippled.
Baseball, a child of America’s combined desire for entertainment and genius for enterprise, is naturally as well as invariably linked to the people’s most traditional and fondest dreams. If the “BoSox” win the World Series, Bostonians’ three year sense of satisfaction with this generation of Red Sox will be confirmed. Should the Rockies miraculously prevail, a lot of Coloradans’ fondest dreams will surely come true.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, October 22, 2007
POWERFUL IMPRESSIONS Plus POWERFUL ASSUMPTIONS Can Equal DANGEROUS VOTES
By Edwin Cooney
I begin this week’s commentary with something of a confession: I’ve always been drawn to people and events that strike me as being stark and/or dramatic.
When I was growing up, the mostly silent man with the big gun was an impressive as well as reassuring concept. He definitely outranked the teacher or the minister within my youthful and impressionable mind. The gun-toting policeman, I was assured by my teachers, was my friend. A grandfatherly General of the Army named Dwight D. Eisenhower was my president and thus my leader who safeguarded my liberty and my personal peace. At the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was a “no nonsense” law and order man with the formidable name of J. Edgar Hoover whose lifelong mission was to protect me against domestic gangsterism, conspiracy, and insurrection. Finally, there was still another patriot whose service -- and that of his family -- went back to the time of the Civil War. He was a combination of patriotism, military and administrative brilliance, determination, eloquence, and principle all rolled into one splendid human being. His name was Douglas MacArthur.
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas on Monday, January 26th, 1880 to Major General Arthur MacArthur and Mary Pinkney Hardy MacArthur, young Doug MacArthur graduated first in his class from the Military Academy at West Point at the age of twenty-three. Between 1905 and 1907, he was an aide-de-camp to President Theodore Roosevelt. Throughout his life, he was an achiever becoming Superintendent of West Point, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and ultimately Commander of Allied Forces throughout the Pacific Theatre during World War II.
When I first heard his name, he had just been dismissed by President Harry Truman for insubordination after publicly disagreeing with administration policies and strategies during the Korean War. Five-year-old minds seldom comprehend words like “insubordination”. Thus to my young and impressionable rather than exceptional mind, General MacArthur was a hero, largely because most of the adults who influenced me thought he was a patriot whose sound advice was being recklessly ignored by—of all people—President Truman. I was even quite sure that General MacArthur was the actual composer of the song his prominence in 1951 raised to a renewed popularity: “Old Soldiers Never Die.” (Yes, indeed, there is quite a distinction between impression and knowledge.)
What it took me many years to understand was the magnitude of the conflict between General MacArthur and President Truman. General MacArthur’s mission was to win the Korean War as quickly and efficiently as possible. Thus, he advocated the bombing of the bridges over the Yalu River connecting North Korea with her much larger Chinese Communist ally. To the general, that made military sense and military sense was his profession.
President Truman, as Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, as well as chief statesman and protector of the Western Alliance -- and perhaps of humanity itself -- had a broader global responsibility. His job was to weigh the effect in one area of world conflict against the likely responses to military actions by a powerful and insecure totalitarian opponent.
There was another and almost equally important issue at stake: most Americans realized—when their minds were free from fright and worry—that our “Founding Fathers” had placed the office of the President above the authority of the military. In this way, the President’s responsibility and accountability could both include and consider issues above and beyond military matters. Hence, if a military man, especially one as personally compelling, silver-tongued, brilliant, resourceful, determined and patriotic as Douglas MacArthur, was allowed to prevail over the civilian authority, our republican form of government might well be in serious danger.
Fifty-five and a half years have passed since the dramatic dismissal of General MacArthur by President Truman which angered a patriotic and fearful America. We are once again involved in another difficult and undeclared war through which we’re being led by an increasingly unpopular president. However, there is a parallel with the situation back in 1951 and 1952. That parallel, as I see it, has almost as much to do with you and me as it has to do with the actions of President Bush.
America was almost beyond outraged in April 1951 when Harry Truman—the man from Independence, Missouri, who looked and talked like you and me — fired the brilliant, dedicated, accomplished, erudite and impressive West Point-educated MacArthur. That outrage was based on a set of assumptions. The bottom line of those assumptions was that military victory over the Chinese and North Koreans would sufficiently frighten the Russians into meekly acquiescing to our determination and military might. What most Americans didn’t take into account and didn’t begin to recognize until weeks of testimony had passed by other highly respected military and diplomatic officials (such as Generals George C. Marshall and Omar Bradley, Secretary of State Dean Acheson and others), was the predominance of the global picture of events versus the view from the local field of conflict.
Through the testimony of these experienced and well-respected men, many Americans slowly came to realize the prevailing world situation that warned against the very strategy then being advocated by the experienced, dedicated and articulate—but often vain—General Douglas MacArthur.
Hence the assumptions having to do with our understanding of today’s world situation come easily:
(1.) Many Americans assume that our leadership is getting its advice from the best informed and respected professionals. They expect that these people have objectively assessed the urgency and wisdom of the need for our involvement in Iraq. If such is the case, who are these well-respected and well-informed professionals? Can we identify them? If they exist, are we even capable of identifying them through the predominant haze of either conservative or liberal spectacles?
(2.) What do we assume about the resources and the stumbling blocks faced by our enemies? Do we really believe they’re capable of establishing a World Caliphate of Radical Islam? Is it likely that they’ll ever be capable of administrating such an empire should they somehow succeed militarily?
(3.) If Iran actually succeeds in developing a nuclear device, could she use it given the very short distance she lies from Israel without suffering severe fallout damage from her own nuclear explosion? Do Iranian leaders really think they would be allowed to survive after having visited a nuclear attack on Israel? (Even Adolf Hitler expected his people to live to enjoy a victory!)
(4) Americans are a justifiably proud people. Can we understand and recognize the pride other people have in their own countries and cultures even when their governments don’t consult 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue before determining their own foreign policy? Or did we save the world from Communism in order to run it ourselves?
(5) Since most of us seem to understand that even highly principled individuals often lie to themselves—even when they don’t lie to others—do we assume that good nations don’t occasionally lie to themselves about their own needs just as good people often do?
(6) Does the torture of the radical justify a program of American torture? In other words does the end justify the means?
(7) Since we are a “democracy” or, if you prefer, since we’re a “republic,” where do our responsibilities—as individuals--begin and end? Might we be the equivalent of the good German people of World War II if we fail to ask sufficiently probing questions of our national leadership?
(8.) Are we under the assumption that our historic goodness to other nations and causes over the last century entitles us to slip up a bit and allow our frustration with a less than cooperative or grateful world to be expressed by pointedly ignoring world opinion?
(9) Must one culture prevail around the world in order for there to be peace? Is peace an absence of war or is peace a state of mind? (I can’t take credit for originating that concept.)
(10.) Finally, aren’t both proponents and opponents of our administration’s present policy guilty of assumptions about one another’s attitude toward America? Must America be perfect in order to merit our love? Those on the right insist that America is lovable and should be protected because she’s free and offers the beacon of liberty to others, while at the same time openly admitting that they’re taking the offensive in a domestic “culture war”. Simultaneously, those on the left too often deplore the very idea that America even possesses a system of national defense. They insist that because America’s performance hasn’t always lived up to America’s promises her system has as many flaws as any other form of government.
My trusty thirty-year-old dictionary defines assumption as supposing that a fact or notion or postulate is true. All of us assume from time to time since most of us aren’t privy to all of the information and aspects of national policy decision-making. It’s not only essential for us to assume, it’s even noble since we elect and thus put trust in our national leadership. However, assumption can also be dangerously misleading. Sadly, my view is that such is the case with regard to our Iraqi venture.
When I was young, that which was stark or dramatic made the greatest impression on me. However, when I was young I could afford powerful assumptions. Today I bear the responsibility of a voter and both my impressions and assumptions about issues require a greater degree of objectivity that is not always comfortable.
Today, since I’m not a soldier, my most powerful weapon in America’s defense is my vote. Hence, if impressions and assumptions are the primary building blocks of our votes, our votes become injurious rather than defensive of our liberties.
In order to be effective in battle a bullet must be accurately aimed. Hence on the domestic battlefield where ballots replace bullets, powerful impressions and powerful assumptions must always be steadied by sometimes painful objectivity.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
I begin this week’s commentary with something of a confession: I’ve always been drawn to people and events that strike me as being stark and/or dramatic.
When I was growing up, the mostly silent man with the big gun was an impressive as well as reassuring concept. He definitely outranked the teacher or the minister within my youthful and impressionable mind. The gun-toting policeman, I was assured by my teachers, was my friend. A grandfatherly General of the Army named Dwight D. Eisenhower was my president and thus my leader who safeguarded my liberty and my personal peace. At the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was a “no nonsense” law and order man with the formidable name of J. Edgar Hoover whose lifelong mission was to protect me against domestic gangsterism, conspiracy, and insurrection. Finally, there was still another patriot whose service -- and that of his family -- went back to the time of the Civil War. He was a combination of patriotism, military and administrative brilliance, determination, eloquence, and principle all rolled into one splendid human being. His name was Douglas MacArthur.
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas on Monday, January 26th, 1880 to Major General Arthur MacArthur and Mary Pinkney Hardy MacArthur, young Doug MacArthur graduated first in his class from the Military Academy at West Point at the age of twenty-three. Between 1905 and 1907, he was an aide-de-camp to President Theodore Roosevelt. Throughout his life, he was an achiever becoming Superintendent of West Point, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and ultimately Commander of Allied Forces throughout the Pacific Theatre during World War II.
When I first heard his name, he had just been dismissed by President Harry Truman for insubordination after publicly disagreeing with administration policies and strategies during the Korean War. Five-year-old minds seldom comprehend words like “insubordination”. Thus to my young and impressionable rather than exceptional mind, General MacArthur was a hero, largely because most of the adults who influenced me thought he was a patriot whose sound advice was being recklessly ignored by—of all people—President Truman. I was even quite sure that General MacArthur was the actual composer of the song his prominence in 1951 raised to a renewed popularity: “Old Soldiers Never Die.” (Yes, indeed, there is quite a distinction between impression and knowledge.)
What it took me many years to understand was the magnitude of the conflict between General MacArthur and President Truman. General MacArthur’s mission was to win the Korean War as quickly and efficiently as possible. Thus, he advocated the bombing of the bridges over the Yalu River connecting North Korea with her much larger Chinese Communist ally. To the general, that made military sense and military sense was his profession.
President Truman, as Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, as well as chief statesman and protector of the Western Alliance -- and perhaps of humanity itself -- had a broader global responsibility. His job was to weigh the effect in one area of world conflict against the likely responses to military actions by a powerful and insecure totalitarian opponent.
There was another and almost equally important issue at stake: most Americans realized—when their minds were free from fright and worry—that our “Founding Fathers” had placed the office of the President above the authority of the military. In this way, the President’s responsibility and accountability could both include and consider issues above and beyond military matters. Hence, if a military man, especially one as personally compelling, silver-tongued, brilliant, resourceful, determined and patriotic as Douglas MacArthur, was allowed to prevail over the civilian authority, our republican form of government might well be in serious danger.
Fifty-five and a half years have passed since the dramatic dismissal of General MacArthur by President Truman which angered a patriotic and fearful America. We are once again involved in another difficult and undeclared war through which we’re being led by an increasingly unpopular president. However, there is a parallel with the situation back in 1951 and 1952. That parallel, as I see it, has almost as much to do with you and me as it has to do with the actions of President Bush.
America was almost beyond outraged in April 1951 when Harry Truman—the man from Independence, Missouri, who looked and talked like you and me — fired the brilliant, dedicated, accomplished, erudite and impressive West Point-educated MacArthur. That outrage was based on a set of assumptions. The bottom line of those assumptions was that military victory over the Chinese and North Koreans would sufficiently frighten the Russians into meekly acquiescing to our determination and military might. What most Americans didn’t take into account and didn’t begin to recognize until weeks of testimony had passed by other highly respected military and diplomatic officials (such as Generals George C. Marshall and Omar Bradley, Secretary of State Dean Acheson and others), was the predominance of the global picture of events versus the view from the local field of conflict.
Through the testimony of these experienced and well-respected men, many Americans slowly came to realize the prevailing world situation that warned against the very strategy then being advocated by the experienced, dedicated and articulate—but often vain—General Douglas MacArthur.
Hence the assumptions having to do with our understanding of today’s world situation come easily:
(1.) Many Americans assume that our leadership is getting its advice from the best informed and respected professionals. They expect that these people have objectively assessed the urgency and wisdom of the need for our involvement in Iraq. If such is the case, who are these well-respected and well-informed professionals? Can we identify them? If they exist, are we even capable of identifying them through the predominant haze of either conservative or liberal spectacles?
(2.) What do we assume about the resources and the stumbling blocks faced by our enemies? Do we really believe they’re capable of establishing a World Caliphate of Radical Islam? Is it likely that they’ll ever be capable of administrating such an empire should they somehow succeed militarily?
(3.) If Iran actually succeeds in developing a nuclear device, could she use it given the very short distance she lies from Israel without suffering severe fallout damage from her own nuclear explosion? Do Iranian leaders really think they would be allowed to survive after having visited a nuclear attack on Israel? (Even Adolf Hitler expected his people to live to enjoy a victory!)
(4) Americans are a justifiably proud people. Can we understand and recognize the pride other people have in their own countries and cultures even when their governments don’t consult 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue before determining their own foreign policy? Or did we save the world from Communism in order to run it ourselves?
(5) Since most of us seem to understand that even highly principled individuals often lie to themselves—even when they don’t lie to others—do we assume that good nations don’t occasionally lie to themselves about their own needs just as good people often do?
(6) Does the torture of the radical justify a program of American torture? In other words does the end justify the means?
(7) Since we are a “democracy” or, if you prefer, since we’re a “republic,” where do our responsibilities—as individuals--begin and end? Might we be the equivalent of the good German people of World War II if we fail to ask sufficiently probing questions of our national leadership?
(8.) Are we under the assumption that our historic goodness to other nations and causes over the last century entitles us to slip up a bit and allow our frustration with a less than cooperative or grateful world to be expressed by pointedly ignoring world opinion?
(9) Must one culture prevail around the world in order for there to be peace? Is peace an absence of war or is peace a state of mind? (I can’t take credit for originating that concept.)
(10.) Finally, aren’t both proponents and opponents of our administration’s present policy guilty of assumptions about one another’s attitude toward America? Must America be perfect in order to merit our love? Those on the right insist that America is lovable and should be protected because she’s free and offers the beacon of liberty to others, while at the same time openly admitting that they’re taking the offensive in a domestic “culture war”. Simultaneously, those on the left too often deplore the very idea that America even possesses a system of national defense. They insist that because America’s performance hasn’t always lived up to America’s promises her system has as many flaws as any other form of government.
My trusty thirty-year-old dictionary defines assumption as supposing that a fact or notion or postulate is true. All of us assume from time to time since most of us aren’t privy to all of the information and aspects of national policy decision-making. It’s not only essential for us to assume, it’s even noble since we elect and thus put trust in our national leadership. However, assumption can also be dangerously misleading. Sadly, my view is that such is the case with regard to our Iraqi venture.
When I was young, that which was stark or dramatic made the greatest impression on me. However, when I was young I could afford powerful assumptions. Today I bear the responsibility of a voter and both my impressions and assumptions about issues require a greater degree of objectivity that is not always comfortable.
Today, since I’m not a soldier, my most powerful weapon in America’s defense is my vote. Hence, if impressions and assumptions are the primary building blocks of our votes, our votes become injurious rather than defensive of our liberties.
In order to be effective in battle a bullet must be accurately aimed. Hence on the domestic battlefield where ballots replace bullets, powerful impressions and powerful assumptions must always be steadied by sometimes painful objectivity.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, October 15, 2007
DISCOVERING THE GREAT DISCOVERER
By Edwin Cooney
October 12th, 2007 (Originally posted October 12th, 2005)
CHRISTOPHER WHO?
It’s all a part of our modern befuddlement! First it was “Spiro who?” Then it was “Jimmy who?” However, for the last five hundred years or so, for many Americans it has been “Christopher Columbus who?”
COLUMBUS DAY—JUST ANOTHER DAY?
I don’t know about you, but for me, Columbus Day, when I was growing up, was just another day!
Halloween was much more fun!
On Thanksgiving Day, one ate turkey with all the trimmings.
On Christmas Day, there was baby Jesus and neat presents (except for the clothes, of course).
Valentine’s Day meant cards and candy and maybe a kiss from a sweet little classmate.
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were bigger men than your daddy, which was why we celebrated their birthdays. Both George and Abe, after all, were born in log cabins which they helped their fathers build.
I mean, they were real folks!
Easter was about resurrection, rabbits, and candy.
Memorial Day and Fourth of July were about soldiers and firecrackers, marshmallows and watermelons.
Labor Day was the last fun picnic day before school.
As for Columbus Day, there were parades, but you very seldom got the day off from school—and besides, who was Christopher Columbus anyway?
In the fall of 1792, about the time President Washington was reluctantly seeking re-election, the New York City Society of St. Tammany celebrated the 300th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America.
Not until 1866 and 1869 did the Italian-American communities of New York and San Francisco, respectively, celebrate the man whose name is spelled and pronounced Cristoforo Colombo in Italian and Cristóbal Colón in Spanish.
In 1892, it was just good politics for President Benjamin Harrison to issue a proclamation honoring the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s first great discovery. (Not that it helped much: Harrison lost his bid for a second term to Grover Cleveland, the man he’d beaten four years before.)
In 1905, the state of Colorado began celebrating Columbus Day as a holiday. By 1920, October 12th was annually celebrated just about everywhere as Columbus Day.
In 1937, FDR made October 12th a federal holiday.
Always seeking to do things bigger and better, in 1968, LBJ made Columbus Day the second Monday in October so that federal workers might use that extra day as part of a long weekend vacation.
WHO WAS CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS?
Sometime between August 26th and October 31st 1451, Christopher Columbus was born the eldest son of Domenico and Susanna Fontanarossa Columbus. He would eventually have three younger brothers, Bartolomeo, to whom he was closest, Giovanni Pellegrino, Giacomo, and a sister Bianchinetta. Most historians believe he was born and raised in Genoa, Italy where his father was a woolen merchant. Christopher and brother Bartolomeo were interested in sailing and fascinated by cartography, the study of maps and charts. It was this fascination that eventually took both Columbus brothers to Portugal which, in the late 1470s, was the world leader in oceanic exploration. While there, he met and married Doña Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, the daughter of a wealthy merchant seaman who had sailed with Prince Henry the Navigator. As part of his marriage dowry, Columbus received his late father-in-law’s oceanic maps and ocean current charts. It should be noted that the Columbus brothers had little formal education and had taught themselves Italian, Latin, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese.
The couple was married in 1479 and had their only son Diego in January 1480. By 1485, Felipa was dead. Later that year, rather than merely sticking the five-year-old in a convent, Columbus took Diego to Spain. There, Columbus met Beatriz Enriquez, an orphan who was a weaver, and became her lifelong mate. Although the couple never married, Columbus taught young Diego to think of Beatriz as his mother. In 1488, Christopher and Beatriz had a son Ferdinand. Ferdinand and Diego both became pages to Prince Juan of Spain, son of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was Isabella who would partially finance his four voyages (in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502) to the New World.
Although Columbus could be vain, ambitious, and cruel, it is still reasonable to believe that he was usually responsive to the needs and vulnerabilities of those around him. By the time he left Palos, Spain on August 3, 1492 for what he believed would be East Asia, he was typical of the young upwardly-mobile professional of his time.
WHAT DID HE DO?
Although Leif Ericsson and Thorfinn Karlesefni, two Viking explorers, preceded Columbus to the New World by nearly half a millennium, it was timing that made what Christopher Columbus did matter. Columbus’s first voyage began the continuum of exploration that resulted in our comfortable occupancy of 2005 America.
During his first voyage, it is generally acknowledged there was no mistreatment of the native population. He agreed with Queen Isabella that Christian love rather than coercion was the best way to treat the Arawak natives who greeted him on Watling Island, one of the Bahamian Islands, that October 12th 1492. Columbus renamed Watling Island San Salvador. Cuba and Hispaniola were his final two ports of call during his first voyage. Native artifacts, some gold, and even some Indians were the souvenirs which Columbus brought back as gifts for Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. The queen fell in love with the natives and dressed them in clothes made of the softest velvet!
On his second journey to the New World, Columbus discovered that the thirty-nine men he had left behind at the settlement called Navidad had been killed by the natives for assaulting their women. It may well have been this episode that brought out the harsh side of Christopher Columbus for it was during this second voyage that he became tough on both his own men and the native populations he visited.
Near the close of his third voyage, which began in 1498, the king and queen sent a governor to Hispaniola who was authorized to arrest Columbus and return him to Spain in chains. There were reports of native enslavement as well as physical abuse against both the Spaniards and natives. There is documentation that Columbus ordered some of the enslaved natives to mine for gold under the threat of having their hands chopped off if they were unsuccessful. Finally, there is documentation of sexual enslavement of the native population.
By the time he returned to Spain in November 1504 from his fourth and final voyage, Christopher Columbus had fallen from royal favor. He was no longer Admiral of the Oceans and Seas or Governor of the lands he had visited. This was in part due to complaints about him as an administrator, but there were other factors.
First of all, he was no longer unique. Other explorers had visited the New World on behalf of Spain, Portugal, and England. Maps of the northern and eastern parts of South America had by then revealed that Columbus had not reached the riches of eastern Asia as he had claimed. One of those explorers was an Italian mapmaker named Amerigos Vespucci. It was he and not Christopher Columbus for whom the two American continents would be named.
CELEBRATING CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS!
In evaluating whether or not Columbus’s clear mistreatment of Native Americans or indigenous people should bring about his removal as one of our national heroes, three things should be considered. These are:
(1.) Was his treatment of Native Americans unusual for his time?
(2.) Was his treatment of Native Americans a part of a pattern of treatment followed by others at his specific recommendation?
(3.) Was his accomplishment enough of an historical turning point to make him uniquely significant?
For me, the answer to the first question is, that as horrible and reprehensible as his mistreatment of Native Americans was and as difficult as it is for our modern consciences to stomach, it is instructive to take the following into account: Great empires such as those of Alexander the Great, Genghis Kahn, the Ottoman Turks, as well as Spain, France, and England advanced via their militaries rather than by their physical and social scientists; Also, one should consider how Spain, France, and England treated their own people; Columbus’s last voyage was over by 1505 and Britain’s Henry the Eighth hadn’t even begun his thirty-eight year Reign of Terror in England yet; The Catholic Church and the governments of France and Spain hadn’t even begun to draw, quarter, hang, behead or burn any of their political opponents and religious heretics in Columbus’s lifetime; Therefore, why single out Columbus for special condemnation?
The answer to question two is a slam dunk. Columbus as much as anyone else you want to name is singularly accountable for his own actions and absolutely no one else’. He didn’t direct or command the actions of either Cortes or Pizarro. Of course Columbus’s cruelties are a part of the record of his life, but so are the practices of the religious, political and social mores of the 15th and 16th centuries which most certainly had their effect on his behavior. The days in which Columbus lived were a combination of religion tinged by superstition along with social and political institutions that demanded the absolute submission of the poor and those who were different. This explanation does not excuse Columbus; it includes him in a time that is much beyond our comprehension.
Finally, it was Christopher Columbus who, with his brother Bartolomeo and his two friends Martin and Vicente Pinzo, were ready to command the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina respectively, before anyone else was ready to sail for any other country. Thus began a continuum, not of immorality but of discovery. That is what we celebrate.
By all accounts Christopher Columbus was an excellent father, a considerate and faithful lover, a marvelous brother, and a loyal friend. On top of all that, he was one hell of an explorer.
No way, however, would he ever get my vote for governor!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
October 12th, 2007 (Originally posted October 12th, 2005)
CHRISTOPHER WHO?
It’s all a part of our modern befuddlement! First it was “Spiro who?” Then it was “Jimmy who?” However, for the last five hundred years or so, for many Americans it has been “Christopher Columbus who?”
COLUMBUS DAY—JUST ANOTHER DAY?
I don’t know about you, but for me, Columbus Day, when I was growing up, was just another day!
Halloween was much more fun!
On Thanksgiving Day, one ate turkey with all the trimmings.
On Christmas Day, there was baby Jesus and neat presents (except for the clothes, of course).
Valentine’s Day meant cards and candy and maybe a kiss from a sweet little classmate.
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were bigger men than your daddy, which was why we celebrated their birthdays. Both George and Abe, after all, were born in log cabins which they helped their fathers build.
I mean, they were real folks!
Easter was about resurrection, rabbits, and candy.
Memorial Day and Fourth of July were about soldiers and firecrackers, marshmallows and watermelons.
Labor Day was the last fun picnic day before school.
As for Columbus Day, there were parades, but you very seldom got the day off from school—and besides, who was Christopher Columbus anyway?
In the fall of 1792, about the time President Washington was reluctantly seeking re-election, the New York City Society of St. Tammany celebrated the 300th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America.
Not until 1866 and 1869 did the Italian-American communities of New York and San Francisco, respectively, celebrate the man whose name is spelled and pronounced Cristoforo Colombo in Italian and Cristóbal Colón in Spanish.
In 1892, it was just good politics for President Benjamin Harrison to issue a proclamation honoring the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s first great discovery. (Not that it helped much: Harrison lost his bid for a second term to Grover Cleveland, the man he’d beaten four years before.)
In 1905, the state of Colorado began celebrating Columbus Day as a holiday. By 1920, October 12th was annually celebrated just about everywhere as Columbus Day.
In 1937, FDR made October 12th a federal holiday.
Always seeking to do things bigger and better, in 1968, LBJ made Columbus Day the second Monday in October so that federal workers might use that extra day as part of a long weekend vacation.
WHO WAS CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS?
Sometime between August 26th and October 31st 1451, Christopher Columbus was born the eldest son of Domenico and Susanna Fontanarossa Columbus. He would eventually have three younger brothers, Bartolomeo, to whom he was closest, Giovanni Pellegrino, Giacomo, and a sister Bianchinetta. Most historians believe he was born and raised in Genoa, Italy where his father was a woolen merchant. Christopher and brother Bartolomeo were interested in sailing and fascinated by cartography, the study of maps and charts. It was this fascination that eventually took both Columbus brothers to Portugal which, in the late 1470s, was the world leader in oceanic exploration. While there, he met and married Doña Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, the daughter of a wealthy merchant seaman who had sailed with Prince Henry the Navigator. As part of his marriage dowry, Columbus received his late father-in-law’s oceanic maps and ocean current charts. It should be noted that the Columbus brothers had little formal education and had taught themselves Italian, Latin, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese.
The couple was married in 1479 and had their only son Diego in January 1480. By 1485, Felipa was dead. Later that year, rather than merely sticking the five-year-old in a convent, Columbus took Diego to Spain. There, Columbus met Beatriz Enriquez, an orphan who was a weaver, and became her lifelong mate. Although the couple never married, Columbus taught young Diego to think of Beatriz as his mother. In 1488, Christopher and Beatriz had a son Ferdinand. Ferdinand and Diego both became pages to Prince Juan of Spain, son of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was Isabella who would partially finance his four voyages (in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502) to the New World.
Although Columbus could be vain, ambitious, and cruel, it is still reasonable to believe that he was usually responsive to the needs and vulnerabilities of those around him. By the time he left Palos, Spain on August 3, 1492 for what he believed would be East Asia, he was typical of the young upwardly-mobile professional of his time.
WHAT DID HE DO?
Although Leif Ericsson and Thorfinn Karlesefni, two Viking explorers, preceded Columbus to the New World by nearly half a millennium, it was timing that made what Christopher Columbus did matter. Columbus’s first voyage began the continuum of exploration that resulted in our comfortable occupancy of 2005 America.
During his first voyage, it is generally acknowledged there was no mistreatment of the native population. He agreed with Queen Isabella that Christian love rather than coercion was the best way to treat the Arawak natives who greeted him on Watling Island, one of the Bahamian Islands, that October 12th 1492. Columbus renamed Watling Island San Salvador. Cuba and Hispaniola were his final two ports of call during his first voyage. Native artifacts, some gold, and even some Indians were the souvenirs which Columbus brought back as gifts for Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. The queen fell in love with the natives and dressed them in clothes made of the softest velvet!
On his second journey to the New World, Columbus discovered that the thirty-nine men he had left behind at the settlement called Navidad had been killed by the natives for assaulting their women. It may well have been this episode that brought out the harsh side of Christopher Columbus for it was during this second voyage that he became tough on both his own men and the native populations he visited.
Near the close of his third voyage, which began in 1498, the king and queen sent a governor to Hispaniola who was authorized to arrest Columbus and return him to Spain in chains. There were reports of native enslavement as well as physical abuse against both the Spaniards and natives. There is documentation that Columbus ordered some of the enslaved natives to mine for gold under the threat of having their hands chopped off if they were unsuccessful. Finally, there is documentation of sexual enslavement of the native population.
By the time he returned to Spain in November 1504 from his fourth and final voyage, Christopher Columbus had fallen from royal favor. He was no longer Admiral of the Oceans and Seas or Governor of the lands he had visited. This was in part due to complaints about him as an administrator, but there were other factors.
First of all, he was no longer unique. Other explorers had visited the New World on behalf of Spain, Portugal, and England. Maps of the northern and eastern parts of South America had by then revealed that Columbus had not reached the riches of eastern Asia as he had claimed. One of those explorers was an Italian mapmaker named Amerigos Vespucci. It was he and not Christopher Columbus for whom the two American continents would be named.
CELEBRATING CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS!
In evaluating whether or not Columbus’s clear mistreatment of Native Americans or indigenous people should bring about his removal as one of our national heroes, three things should be considered. These are:
(1.) Was his treatment of Native Americans unusual for his time?
(2.) Was his treatment of Native Americans a part of a pattern of treatment followed by others at his specific recommendation?
(3.) Was his accomplishment enough of an historical turning point to make him uniquely significant?
For me, the answer to the first question is, that as horrible and reprehensible as his mistreatment of Native Americans was and as difficult as it is for our modern consciences to stomach, it is instructive to take the following into account: Great empires such as those of Alexander the Great, Genghis Kahn, the Ottoman Turks, as well as Spain, France, and England advanced via their militaries rather than by their physical and social scientists; Also, one should consider how Spain, France, and England treated their own people; Columbus’s last voyage was over by 1505 and Britain’s Henry the Eighth hadn’t even begun his thirty-eight year Reign of Terror in England yet; The Catholic Church and the governments of France and Spain hadn’t even begun to draw, quarter, hang, behead or burn any of their political opponents and religious heretics in Columbus’s lifetime; Therefore, why single out Columbus for special condemnation?
The answer to question two is a slam dunk. Columbus as much as anyone else you want to name is singularly accountable for his own actions and absolutely no one else’. He didn’t direct or command the actions of either Cortes or Pizarro. Of course Columbus’s cruelties are a part of the record of his life, but so are the practices of the religious, political and social mores of the 15th and 16th centuries which most certainly had their effect on his behavior. The days in which Columbus lived were a combination of religion tinged by superstition along with social and political institutions that demanded the absolute submission of the poor and those who were different. This explanation does not excuse Columbus; it includes him in a time that is much beyond our comprehension.
Finally, it was Christopher Columbus who, with his brother Bartolomeo and his two friends Martin and Vicente Pinzo, were ready to command the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina respectively, before anyone else was ready to sail for any other country. Thus began a continuum, not of immorality but of discovery. That is what we celebrate.
By all accounts Christopher Columbus was an excellent father, a considerate and faithful lover, a marvelous brother, and a loyal friend. On top of all that, he was one hell of an explorer.
No way, however, would he ever get my vote for governor!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, October 1, 2007
LIED IN? LIED OUT?
By Edwin Cooney
I devoutly wish I had thought of this myself, but I heard the following point made by a political observer yesterday during a discussion about the forthcoming 2008 presidential campaign.
Asserting, as most people do these days, that we were lied into the Iraqi war by the Bush administration, this observer suggested that we could be lied out of it by well-meaning but ambitious Democrats. Strangely enough, that thought, in all its stark clarity, hadn’t occurred to me before. However, when you think about it, such a possibility makes sense. Just as a nation can be lied into a policy, it can be lied out of that policy as well. After all, the pain in many of our hearts over the destruction and death we’ve caused the innocent civilians of a nation that has never invaded or done us any harm, may cause us to lie, deny, or even mythologize our way out of Iraq.
As Lady Hillary leads a pack of dissatisfied Democrats toward the nomination, the overwhelming consensus of their “progressive/liberal” backers favors a complete American military withdrawal from Iraq before—if possible—but certainly by the spring of 2009 under a new Democratic administration.
As historians will no doubt observe in twenty or thirty years, the devil to the solution of the war in Iraq will have been found in the details. The main purpose of an American pullout would of course be to lessen tension within Iraq. This would then solidify the current government so that it could not be swamped by Al-Qaida or pro-Iranian forces which might use Iraq’s rich petroleum resources as the source of its possible military reprisal against us.
It’s reasonable to assume that a nervous Iraqi government will be looking to the world community for support if it can’t find sufficient support for its existence at home. One of the sad ironies of President Bush’s tenure in the White House is that right after the 9/11 Al-Qaida attack on us he could have asked the world for just about anything America needed in order to sustain practically any purpose or goal we sought and he would have received it. However, after he flaunted world opinion in favor of his own determination to run our foreign policy according to the neocon membership of PNAC (Project for A New American Century), it appears that the world community’s mood or inclination has swung almost completely in the opposite direction.
Thus, it may be the first task of the next administration, even if it is headed by Rudolph Giuliani, to call for an international peacekeeping force to substitute for American troops and corporations in Iraq. Even should such an endeavor proceed smoothly enough, it’s still likely that more American lives may well be sacrificed during whatever extended period of time is required to bring about such a transfer of leadership.
It was thus discomforting for some when Senator Clinton, Senator Obama and former Senator Edwards suggested during one of the interminable Democratic presidential debates last Wednesday night that a residual military striking force might be required in the region until 2013. Such suggestions almost always make idealistic voters exceedingly nervous and even cynical. Prior to taking the helm of national responsibility, a presidential candidate has the luxury of sympathizing with the heartfelt anxieties of his or her ideological constituency. However, any potential leader who totally surrenders to that inclination just to please rather than to educate his or her supporters risks a loss of their essential integrity once it comes time to report to the people from the great height of the presidential lectern.
Hence the rub. Even the most sincerely idealistic president must come to terms with the broken world he or she inherits. It is from the height of that high and mighty office that its occupant, formerly a mere citizen, now must face and cope with the world situation created by the inclinations and actions of an imperfect predecessor.
There is also the recent history of our presidential leadership. Some will remind us that back in 1968, Americans looked to a new party and president to get us out of the continuing and nightmarish Vietnam conflict. They got Richard Nixon and a continuation of that war’s death and destruction. Even so, history, I believe, demonstrates the inclinations and the solutions of previous generations seldom fit with the situation of today.
Forty years ago, the lessons of World War II determined the foreign policy guidelines followed by our national leadership:
Never be cowed by a brutal dictator;
Challenge rather than appease dictators and you’ll avoid war;
Military strength and moral vigor are the only sure antidotes to war.
We, of course, can’t afford to completely abandon these principals, as they do have a place in responsible international assessment. However, it seems to me that the above principles should be accompanied by the lessons of some even more recent experiences.
Mr. Nixon used to assure us that we would lose all of our credibility in world affairs should we abandon South Vietnam to Communist adventurism. However, less than five years after our frantic departure from our embassy roof in Saigon, both Israel and Egypt warmly and even hungrily accepted President Jimmy Carter’s assistance in creating a peace settlement which has lasted nearly thirty years. This was possible in large part because both Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat felt understood and acknowledged by the United States of America. Lesson: one commands respect and power as president when demonstrating a thorough understanding of the realities of others’ existence.
President Ronald Reagan, though personally furious over the shooting down of Korean Flight 007 on September 1st, 1983, over Sakhalin Island in Soviet territory only went so far in his response. On September 15th, he revoked Aeroflot’s permit to fly in and out of American cities--a ban which lasted until April 29th,1986. Additionally, he deliberately embarrassed the Soviets in the United Nations. Still, there was no further loss of life beyond that of the passengers and crew of Flight 007. Lesson: The measured response even to international barbarism is the most effective type of response;
President George H. W. Bush built a mighty and genuine coalition of Middle Eastern nations supported by Japan, Great Britain and others to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Lesson: realistically identify the legitimate ambitions and fears of those affected by the crisis which you consider important enough to involve the treasury and lives of the American people.
As I see it, giving President Bush the benefit of the doubt even in the wake of testimony that our March 2003 invasion was being planned in 9/11’s advance, Iraq is the result of our knee jerk reaction to Al Qaida’s attack on the World Trade Center. Lesson: even when you find yourself outrageously victimized, don’t allow your response to create a civil war that your own people will be forced to pay for with too many of their young lives.
Thus the question: If we were lied into Iraq, isn’t it all right if we’re lied out of a situation we never should have been in?
Answer: Absolutely not. A lie creates harmful conditions or circumstances in both personal and international relations which otherwise wouldn’t exist. While it’s certainly true that some of our most capable leaders have been capable liars, those lies have always damaged rather than enhanced their reputations as well as causes. Insofar as I am aware, no successful historic venture has been predicated on a lie. If we allow our fears to dominate our capacity to wisely and realistically view the world as it is rather than as we fearfully see it, we will indeed be vulnerable to any or everyone’s persuasive deception.
As for the likelihood of being lied out of as we were lied into Iraq, I think it’s remote. But as remote as it is, it does bear watching.
My guess is that the best place to begin watching for our vulnerability to being lied out of Iraq is within our individual selves.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
I devoutly wish I had thought of this myself, but I heard the following point made by a political observer yesterday during a discussion about the forthcoming 2008 presidential campaign.
Asserting, as most people do these days, that we were lied into the Iraqi war by the Bush administration, this observer suggested that we could be lied out of it by well-meaning but ambitious Democrats. Strangely enough, that thought, in all its stark clarity, hadn’t occurred to me before. However, when you think about it, such a possibility makes sense. Just as a nation can be lied into a policy, it can be lied out of that policy as well. After all, the pain in many of our hearts over the destruction and death we’ve caused the innocent civilians of a nation that has never invaded or done us any harm, may cause us to lie, deny, or even mythologize our way out of Iraq.
As Lady Hillary leads a pack of dissatisfied Democrats toward the nomination, the overwhelming consensus of their “progressive/liberal” backers favors a complete American military withdrawal from Iraq before—if possible—but certainly by the spring of 2009 under a new Democratic administration.
As historians will no doubt observe in twenty or thirty years, the devil to the solution of the war in Iraq will have been found in the details. The main purpose of an American pullout would of course be to lessen tension within Iraq. This would then solidify the current government so that it could not be swamped by Al-Qaida or pro-Iranian forces which might use Iraq’s rich petroleum resources as the source of its possible military reprisal against us.
It’s reasonable to assume that a nervous Iraqi government will be looking to the world community for support if it can’t find sufficient support for its existence at home. One of the sad ironies of President Bush’s tenure in the White House is that right after the 9/11 Al-Qaida attack on us he could have asked the world for just about anything America needed in order to sustain practically any purpose or goal we sought and he would have received it. However, after he flaunted world opinion in favor of his own determination to run our foreign policy according to the neocon membership of PNAC (Project for A New American Century), it appears that the world community’s mood or inclination has swung almost completely in the opposite direction.
Thus, it may be the first task of the next administration, even if it is headed by Rudolph Giuliani, to call for an international peacekeeping force to substitute for American troops and corporations in Iraq. Even should such an endeavor proceed smoothly enough, it’s still likely that more American lives may well be sacrificed during whatever extended period of time is required to bring about such a transfer of leadership.
It was thus discomforting for some when Senator Clinton, Senator Obama and former Senator Edwards suggested during one of the interminable Democratic presidential debates last Wednesday night that a residual military striking force might be required in the region until 2013. Such suggestions almost always make idealistic voters exceedingly nervous and even cynical. Prior to taking the helm of national responsibility, a presidential candidate has the luxury of sympathizing with the heartfelt anxieties of his or her ideological constituency. However, any potential leader who totally surrenders to that inclination just to please rather than to educate his or her supporters risks a loss of their essential integrity once it comes time to report to the people from the great height of the presidential lectern.
Hence the rub. Even the most sincerely idealistic president must come to terms with the broken world he or she inherits. It is from the height of that high and mighty office that its occupant, formerly a mere citizen, now must face and cope with the world situation created by the inclinations and actions of an imperfect predecessor.
There is also the recent history of our presidential leadership. Some will remind us that back in 1968, Americans looked to a new party and president to get us out of the continuing and nightmarish Vietnam conflict. They got Richard Nixon and a continuation of that war’s death and destruction. Even so, history, I believe, demonstrates the inclinations and the solutions of previous generations seldom fit with the situation of today.
Forty years ago, the lessons of World War II determined the foreign policy guidelines followed by our national leadership:
Never be cowed by a brutal dictator;
Challenge rather than appease dictators and you’ll avoid war;
Military strength and moral vigor are the only sure antidotes to war.
We, of course, can’t afford to completely abandon these principals, as they do have a place in responsible international assessment. However, it seems to me that the above principles should be accompanied by the lessons of some even more recent experiences.
Mr. Nixon used to assure us that we would lose all of our credibility in world affairs should we abandon South Vietnam to Communist adventurism. However, less than five years after our frantic departure from our embassy roof in Saigon, both Israel and Egypt warmly and even hungrily accepted President Jimmy Carter’s assistance in creating a peace settlement which has lasted nearly thirty years. This was possible in large part because both Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat felt understood and acknowledged by the United States of America. Lesson: one commands respect and power as president when demonstrating a thorough understanding of the realities of others’ existence.
President Ronald Reagan, though personally furious over the shooting down of Korean Flight 007 on September 1st, 1983, over Sakhalin Island in Soviet territory only went so far in his response. On September 15th, he revoked Aeroflot’s permit to fly in and out of American cities--a ban which lasted until April 29th,1986. Additionally, he deliberately embarrassed the Soviets in the United Nations. Still, there was no further loss of life beyond that of the passengers and crew of Flight 007. Lesson: The measured response even to international barbarism is the most effective type of response;
President George H. W. Bush built a mighty and genuine coalition of Middle Eastern nations supported by Japan, Great Britain and others to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Lesson: realistically identify the legitimate ambitions and fears of those affected by the crisis which you consider important enough to involve the treasury and lives of the American people.
As I see it, giving President Bush the benefit of the doubt even in the wake of testimony that our March 2003 invasion was being planned in 9/11’s advance, Iraq is the result of our knee jerk reaction to Al Qaida’s attack on the World Trade Center. Lesson: even when you find yourself outrageously victimized, don’t allow your response to create a civil war that your own people will be forced to pay for with too many of their young lives.
Thus the question: If we were lied into Iraq, isn’t it all right if we’re lied out of a situation we never should have been in?
Answer: Absolutely not. A lie creates harmful conditions or circumstances in both personal and international relations which otherwise wouldn’t exist. While it’s certainly true that some of our most capable leaders have been capable liars, those lies have always damaged rather than enhanced their reputations as well as causes. Insofar as I am aware, no successful historic venture has been predicated on a lie. If we allow our fears to dominate our capacity to wisely and realistically view the world as it is rather than as we fearfully see it, we will indeed be vulnerable to any or everyone’s persuasive deception.
As for the likelihood of being lied out of as we were lied into Iraq, I think it’s remote. But as remote as it is, it does bear watching.
My guess is that the best place to begin watching for our vulnerability to being lied out of Iraq is within our individual selves.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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