Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
JANUARY 23, 2021 – Interpreting history—or current events—is dicey. You can’t approach past or present wholly free of your own bias complex, constructed from your upbringing, education, disposition, intelligence, personal experiences, religious beliefs (or absence thereof), and cultural influences. Nor, of course, can the historian or journalist be free of her or his bias complex. …
JANUARY 22, 2021 – Yesterday my book club met via Zoom to discuss our latest “assignment”—The Contest – The 1968 Election and the War for American’s Soul by Michael Schumacher (See Monday’s post). Geezers now, we readers were 12 to 14 (me) in that watershed year. By 1967, I’d become a certifiable news nerd. I …
DECEMBER 30, 2020 – One of the books I’ve been reading lately is The Warmth of Other Suns – The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. The bookmark is approaching the index, and I will miss this book—and its characters—after I’ve finished. The title was lifted from a poem by American writer, …
DECEMBER 28, 2020 – Awhile back I mentioned a new old book I’m reading—The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture by James M. Billington. It’s one of the densest histories of any I’ve read. Part of the “density” is the subject matter, with its complicated mix of religion, politics, and military …
DECEMBER 16, 2020 – Even as a kid, I was fascinated by Russia. I’m not sure what was to account for that early interest. Perhaps it was the slide show during our family’s annual get-together with the Ibeles a few days before Christmas in 1961. Warren Ibele, the dad, was Dean of the School of …
DECEMBER 8, 2020 – For today’s post I’d composed another anti-Trump rant but then stumbled across something far more interesting: a fireplace stone. Yesterday evening I was reading my father’s book, My “Auto” Biography. To write about his life, he used the clever vehicle (as it were) of family automobile ownership. When I say “book,” …
DECEMBER 7, 2020 – If you’re a Boomer, just try getting your head wrapped around this: the youngest American WW II veteran is 93. If you’re younger than a Boomer, you probably consign WW II to ancient history, right back there with the Civil War or . . . the Peloponnesian War. By the time …
NOVEMBER 30, 2020 – Unless you’re Norwegian, you’ve probably never heard of Jan Baalsrud. I hadn’t until the Netflix movie, The 12th Man. As I later learned from a 2016 New York Times magazine article, the film accurately portrays actual events. (The scenery’s out-of-this-world . . . because it’s in Norway.) Baalsrud was part of …
NOVEMBER 13, 2020 – To distract myself further from the news, yesterday evening I watched the 2001 German film, As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me. It’s based on an allegedly true story, later fully debunked, about a German POW sentenced to 25 years in a post-World War II gulag prison camp on the …
OCTOBER 29, 2020 – In the aftermath of Trump’s upset victory in 2016, people struggled to explain Trump’s draw. Misogyny and racism were among the explanations, which were indictments of the “deplorables” who voted for the Orange Man. But the more empathetic among reasonable people reached for a deeper explanation: folks who’d been “left behind” …
OCTOBER 25, 2020 – Today’s edition of CBS Sunday Morning featured a segment on the contested presidential election of 1876—an historical episode providing valuable insights. America had been torn asunder by the Civil War (1861- 65). In the aftermath came Reconstruction and the Civil War Amendments; for a time, Blacks in the South were afforded …
OCTOBER 22, 2020 – Last night I finished reading Barbara Tuchman’s Stilwell and the American Experience in China – 1911 to 1945 (See my 9/3/20 post). Her thesis: America’s wartime policy toward China was a failure, and the outcome would’ve been more beneficial to our long-term interests had we not continued to back “G-mo”—Generalissimo Chiang …
OCTOBER 12, 2020 – Federally, today is officially Columbus Day, named after the mariner who “sailed the ocean blue in 1492.” A number of blue states and cities, however, have decided this is all wrong. They’ve re-dubbed it, “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” I’m in favor of calling it simply, “October 12.” First, Columbus did not “discover” …
SEPTEMBER 24, 2020 – Yesterday I stood in line for an hour to cast my ballot—affirmatively, convincingly, beyond all attempts to lose, miscount, question or disqualify that ballot. It would be no exaggeration to compare my feelings to how one feels when participating in a ritual of one’s religious organization. Granted, everyone wore a mask …
SEPTEMBER 22, 2020 – As one headline after another suggests America is the Titanic amidst icebergs in the North Atlantic, we should take measure of our ship—our country—to understand better what kind of vessel we occupy. We’re 50 states, big and small, urban and rural, coastal and inland, West and East, North and South—each with …
SEPTEMBER 14, 2020 – My third memorable fifth-grade lesson was about battlefield courage. The lesson could be traced directly to the Civil War. Background is in order. My dad was a student of the Civil War. He’d read all of Bruce Catton’s books on the subject and owned the four-inch-thick, illustrated volume, Civil War, published …
SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 – If human affairs in this country seem to be spinning out of control, they’ve got nothing on China during most of the 20th century. I’m re-acquainting myself with China’s historical chaos, misery and outrages by way of a re-read of Barbara Tuchman’s Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911 – …
SEPTEMBER 1, 2020 – Here we are, deep into 2020, stuck in a cinema watching an old black and white movie. Though we’ve seen the film before, we still fall for all the devices a Hitchcock throws at us. And then there’s the music—never underestimate the soundtrack’s effect on our fears. I’m speaking of Trump …
AUGUST 28, 2020 – Last night my wife and I watched portions of the RNC. We wearied of the shameless fear-mongering and contemptuous disregard for truth. What put us over the top, however, was the dense, unmasked crowd on the South Lawn of the White House. Cable commentators (GoebbelsNews excepted) couldn’t hide their dismay. Rudy …
AUGUST 24, 2020 – With the approach of another academic year—one fraught with unprecedented challenges—I’m reminded of my own classroom days. My favorite subject was history, an interest fostered by my dad—in lieu of bedtime stories, he’d read me excerpts from such works as William Prescott’s classics, The Conquest of Mexico and The Conquest of …
JULY 21, 2020 – On the porch recently, my wife and I were immersed in novels by Lisa See; stories about modern China. In each, the Cultural Revolution figured prominently. “When did Mao take over?” My wife asked, breaking the silence. “1949,” I said. Silence returned. Coincidentally, days later an acquaintance dropped off a book. …
JULY 11, 2020 – After a week at the Red Cabin I’m feeling safe from humanity. I rarely even skim “the news” and rely on my wife, who reads it, to inform me if the world has in fact gone over the ever-threatening proverbial falls. I must confess, however, that yesterday I glanced at headlines. …
JUNE 30, 2020 – I must confess. Over the years, I’ve often skipped the introduction to many a book I’ve read or attempted to read. “Why an ‘introduction’?” I’d silently ask every time. “If it’s important enough to include, why not incorporate it into the book itself?” Often written by someone other than the author, the …
JUNE 27, 2020 – The more our world seems to descend into chaos, the more I descend into . . . a study of history. Currently I’m still working with the Renaissance, but that period keeps pulling me back to the Middle Ages and pushing me forward into the Reformation. No matter where I land, …
JUNE 23, 2020 – People reacting to the recent rash of statue sackings fall into three groups. First: angry folks pulling down symbols of racism—symbols erected by very white, very dead white . . . women (surprise!) who’d organized themselves in 1894 as the United Daughters of the Confederacy, primarily to build all those statues. …