Earlier this month Carl Erskine passed away at the age of 97. The last of the Brooklyn Dodger players on the 1952 and 1953 teams that were the subject of Roger Kahn's best selling The Boys of Summer. A good long life for a good man, about whom I wrote in 2020. He leaves behind his wife of 76 years and fond memories among all those he encountered and helped.
Carl was one of two surviving members of the Dodgers 1955 World Championship team. Now only Sandy Koufax, 88, is left.
Time of your life, hey kid? Indelible mood music from Tangerine Dream. Hearing it, images from 1983 flood back into my mind. Not just of the movie.
Roger Pielke Jr on the actual state of climate science as of 2024, with a nod to John Kerry for recognizing the reality of the consensus, as accepted by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is quite different from the media and NGO consensus, as well as quite different from President Biden's frequent assertion that the climate crisis is "the existential threat to human existence as we know it" (November 21, 2021, though you can see a similar statement from the president from earlier this month).
In the video below, Pielke discusses why the the current consensus is a temperature increase of 2-2.5 degrees Celsius by 2100 from a 1850-1900 baseline, of which half that increase has already occurred. He explains why climate scenarios were so far off, and the growing disconnect between the science and what is being presented in the media and elsewhere as a threat to human existence.
The temperature increase will pose problems, but it is a manageable one with the right policies in place, and does not pose a threat to human existence.
The presentation starts at 29:40 and runs for about 12 minutes. And extra added bonus - the first speaker, Steve Hayward, at 18:35 mentions The State of the Nation's Ecosystems report, a product of the Heinz Center, for which I served on the advisory board.
The scenario problem that Roger addresses was the subject of a previous post, Changing Climate, in which I go into more detail on not only how the scenarios originated, but how the least plausible one has been, and continues to be, deliberately and unethically used to scare the public. Please don't fall for the continued stream of dire news articles on climate because they are all based on studies using RCP 8.5, the unrealistic scenario which has diverged so much from reality that it will be completely discarded soon - at least in the IPCC world.
Along those lines, YouTube has added an explanatory note to the video above on Climate Change which links to the UN's Climate Action website which contains quite a bit of disinformation and hyperbole.
— Saul Goodman ⚖ (@itsSaulGoodman) April 21, 2024
Lalo, Gus, Mike, and Howard. They're all gone now. Lalo murdered Howard. Gus killed Lalo. Mike buried Howard and Lalo, and then Walt bombed Gus and shot Mike.
. . . in examining politically-charged and high-profile issues such as these, the Office must exercise - and has exercised - special care. First, juries can bring strongly held views to the courtroom in criminal trials involving political subject matters, and those views can, in turn, affect the likelihood of obtaining a conviction, separate and apart from the strength of the actual evidence and despite a court's best efforts to empanel a fair and impartial jury." (p.5)
Let me put this in plain English. Any prosecution filed in Federal Court by Durham would have had to be in the District of Columbia or the Eastern District of Virginia. Durham recognizes that in a politically charged case in those districts you cannot convict anyone coded as anti-Republican. In 2020, Biden won 95% of the vote in DC and 81% in Arlington County, Virginia.
The reality is that the Federal workforce and the consultant/lobbyist blob that lives in these areas are heavily Democratic and have grown more radical over the years. This is a problem not just for the legal system, it goes to whether our democracy can work in a fair way.
It is entrenched and very astute on ways to preserve itself. For many reasons, the current system needs to be disrupted.
Article 2, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states,
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.
Because of the dominance of Democrats in federal service, a Democratic president can effectively implement their agenda, but a Republican president will not get deference from that same bureaucracy, which is protected by civil service and union rules and almost impossible to fire obstructionists. A few years ago I was seated at a ball game next to a guy who had recently retired as a senior economist in the Department of Agriculture. When I asked what his job involved, he replied, "making sure political appointees didn't make any important decisions." During the Trump administration, the president encountered continual obstruction on implementing his policies. Finally, and too late, like so many things he did, in October 2020 Trump issued an Executive Order creating created a new job category for federal employees in policy-related positions, dubbed Schedule F, that would exempt them from civil service protections and make them easier to remove. After all, if the President is vested with the executive Power under the Constitution, why should he not be able to control the executive branch, instead of leaving the Power with unelected bureaucrats?
However, to ensure that the bureaucracy remains dominated by Democrats, the Biden administration's Office of Personnel Management just issued final regulations that according to Government Executive online:
The new regulation — which will be published in the Federal Register for public inspection on Thursday — seeks to provide 2.2 million federal employees with defined protections that would make it difficult for a future administration to re-apply the Trump policy, known as Schedule F.
Democrats understand how critical it is for the party to maintain control of the Federal government, regardless of which party controls the Presidency. This is an undermining of the constitutional authority of the President and is a direct attack on our democracy. It also ensures that those living in DC and surrounding districts will remain loyal to the party, with the consequences for our legal system outlined in the Durham Report.
In his hypocritical statement, released at the time of the OPM Rule, President Biden claimed:
"Today, my administration is announcing protections for 2.2 million career civil servants from political interference, to guarantee that they can carry out their responsibilities in the best interest of the American people,"
It is precisely because Democratic control of the bureaucracy allows the party to politically interfere with our democracy when a president of the opposing party is in office that the new rule is being promulgated.
For more on the danger of the administrative state, read this piece by Philip Hamburger of Columbia Law School and founder of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, an organization I support.
-----------------------------------------------------
(1) For my other posts on the Durham Report go here.
Vanilla Fudge doing their cover of The Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On, a #1 hit for the Motown group in 1966. This is from the Ed Sullivan Show on January 14, 1968. For the full nearly 7-minute album version listen here. One of the great covers in rock. Fudge specialized in slowed-down versions of rock and pop songs. I listened to a lot of their stuff. Drummer Carmine Appice is the best-known member, going on to play with Rod Stewart and many others, along with authoring a popular training book for drummers. Three of the four original band members, including Appice, toured as recently as 2022.
I may write this guy in.
We have quite a choice ahead of us deciding between Trump and Biden. Here are my thoughts on whom to vote for. pic.twitter.com/kB2yhdw3Pe
— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) March 19, 2024
What were the 70 men gathered on the Lexington Green before dawn thinking as the sky began to brighten? They knew the Regulars were coming - they weren't called the British because that word included those gathered on the Green. They would have heard the approach of the Redcoat column coming up the road and then the voices of the officers. Within a few minutes seven would be dead. April 19, 1775.
The British moved on to Concord where they met disaster and then had to fight their way back to Boston. Retracing their steps from Lincoln to Concord along what is now known as Battle Road and taking casualties all the way, they entered Arlington. Nearing Arlington's border with Cambridge at Alewife Brook, the Redcoats encountered 78 year old Samuel Whittemore. Whittemore was a farmer with extensive military experience, fighting in both King George's War (1744-48) and the Seven Years War (1756-63). He was also quite prolific in his personal life having, by 1775, more than 180 direct descendants, most living in the same area.
Whittemore, with his home directly along the road of British retreat, decided he needed to do his part. Taking his musket and pistols, he waited until the Redcoat column approached, rose up from behind his stone wall and fired his musket, killing a soldier. As the British advanced on him, Whittemore drew his pistols and killed two more. With that the British were upon him and he was shot in the face, bayoneted somewhere between 6 and 13 times, clubbed in the head with a musket, and left for dead.
Several hours later, neighbors noticed Samuel was still moving and brought him to the town doctor who proclaimed there was nothing to be done for him other than dressing his wounds and waiting for Whittemore to die. They waited 18 years, as Samuel Whittemore died in 1793 at the age of 96.
The engraving on the marker in the picture is inaccurate as he was only 78 at the time. The house seen to the right of the marker is Whittemore's home, which still stands. For a decade I worked just on the other side of Alewife Brook on Whittemore Avenue in Cambridge. You can read more about the British retreat from Concord in The Road Back.
Today is the 249th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution. Next year will be the 250th and the year after that the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Time will tell if that nation, conceived in liberty, will continue to endure.
Last night we attended a very enjoyable concert by the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain, done with their usual humor (along with paper airplanes being tossed). Covering everything from ZZ Top, Robert Palmer, The Clash, Willie Nelson, a medley of Life on Mars/My Way/For Once In My Life/Substitute/Born Free, The Muppet Show Theme, James Bond movie theme, to Black Sabbath's Paranoid intertwined with Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. They did a straight and beautiful version of The Cranberrie's Dreams, and closed with God Gave Rock n Roll To You from Kiss.
I've been a fan for years and it was a treat to finally see the group in person. This was part of the annual Arizona MusicFest and the venue was the Casa de Christo Lutheran Church in Scottsdale, which was perfect for the concert.
The most significant aspect of Iran's attack on Israel last night was the Jordanian and Saudi military intercepting drones and cruise missiles, undermining simplistic narratives about the Middle East. Three Jordanian civilians were killed in the attack. One Israeli Bedouin child was critically injured.
A shorter list than my non-fiction one.
My Antonia by Willa Cather.
Last year I read Death Comes For The Archbishop by Cather which was simply wonderful and a book I will reread. My Antonia was very enjoyable, if not at quite the level of Death Comes. Set in the late 19th century farmlands and small towns of Central Nebraska where Cather grew up, the book deftly captures memorable characters and the physical settings. Never thought I'd be a Willa Cather fan but now I'm deciding which of her books I should read next.
A Chateau Under Siege by Martin Walker.
Set in the Dordogne region of France, I look forward to each installment of the Bruno, Chief of Police series. This is the latest and while a good read, I fear the overall quality has begun to decline. I still enjoy the settings, many of which I am familiar with, and the characters but if you haven't read the books, I suggest starting from the beginning and going through the first dozen and avoiding this one.
The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
I'm still making my way through this one. It's slow going. Maybe it is the translation. I now know where Norm Macdonald got the inspiration for his version of The Moth Joke. I hear Norm's voice in my head when reading the book.
Night Soldiers by Alan Furst
One of my favorite authors, this was a book I reread. Furst wrote about 15 novels all set in Europe during the years leading up to WW2 and during the war itself. Night Soldiers, the first in the series, and its successor, Dark Star, are more sprawling in scope, time and geography than the later books, but essential as they set the framework for Furst's world. His characters are Russians, Eastern Europeans, Poles, French, and sometimes British, caught in the murky world between the Soviets and the Nazis, where every other group has its own agenda, where alliances and motives shift quickly. As history, the settings and dilemmas are very accurate. Night Soldiers and Dark Star provide as good a background on those times, and the terrible choices faced by so many, as any academic history.
Night Soldiers held up well upon rereading. The story of a Bulgarian in his late teens, living in a Danube river town, who witnesses his younger brother beaten to death by fascist thugs, and is then recruited by the Russians and set to Moscow for training as an intelligence agent. Over the course of the book he is in Spain and France, before coming full circle to return to the Danube. The novel covers 1934 to 1945. After Dark Star, Furst's later books are set in a tight time frame from 1937 to 1941 with a number of recurring characters. The writing is captivating and precise until the last two books in the series which fall off in quality.
Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly
Another favorite. Connelly has three different series of crime novels built around the characters of (now retired) LAPD detective Harry Bosch, current detective Rene Ballard, and Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer. All are worth reading. Resurrection Walk is his most recent, featuring both Bosch and Haller who are half-brothers.
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy
I've seen the movie four or five times and it is a great film, on my top 10 list. You can read my full take on the novel here, but I summed it up this way:
The 500 page book makes for intense and compelling reading, I couldn't put it down. It is also completely bonkers, an insane fever dream . . .
No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Quite a book, deserving of being on your must read list. Reflecting upon it led me to some thoughts in Carryin' Fire and What Is To Come.
We'll start with two books by recent speakers at the Scottsdale Civil War Roundtable.
When Hell Came to Sharpsburg: The Battle of Antietam and Its Impact on the Civilians Who Called It Home by Steven Cowie
There are plenty of books about the military aspects of Civil War battles but few about what happened to civilians caught in those violent clashes. Steven Cowie spent, when he wasn't working his day job, 18 years researching and writing about the people in and around Sharpsburg, Maryland, the site, in September 1862, of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history. For the civilians it was not just about the day of battle, terrible as it was, but about the six weeks following when the Army of the Potomac was based in, and around, the town. Most homes that weren't destroyed were converted into hospitals to care for more than 10,000 wounded soldiers and home and farms were looted, crops and stock confiscated, even the fence posts that separated pastures and properties were taken. Disease outbreaks took dozens of lives and then it took decades to get any compensation for the destruction (the last case wasn't resolved until 1915 and many received nothing). Incredibly well-researched and documented, it also provides much insight into mid-19th century farming.
A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation by John Matteson
If you come to this book expecting a detailed study of Fredericksburg and how it changed the nation you won't find it. Instead, despite a title probably insisted upon by the publisher to boost sales, A Worse Place Than Hell is a finely written, engaging, and touching study of five Civil War figures (only two of them soldiers) and how their lives intersected at Fredericksburg in December 1862. Four of the subjects are from the North - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, Louisa May Alcott, Walt Whitman, Arthur Fuller, and one Southerner, John Pelham. Alcott and Whitman both started their nursing duties in the wake of the battle and Matteson writes of how that experience shaped their lives and writing. Holmes was a soldier, wounded annually; shot in the chest at Ball's Bluff in 1861, in the neck at Antietam the following year, and in the foot at Chancellorsville in '63. He was at Fredericksburg but saw no action because of debilitating illness. Fuller is the figure readers are most likely to be unfamiliar with. A Massachusetts clergyman, chaplain to a regiment from the state, and meeting a tragic end in the streets of Fredericksburg. Pelham was the young and charismatic commander of Jeb Stuart's mobile artillery unit. A courageous, gallant, and innovative leader he played a key role at Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg before dying in a skirmish in March 1863. Despite some errors on the military history side, this book is highly recommended.
I Can't Tell a Lie by James Bish.
"Father, I can't tell a lie. I chopped down the cherry tree". Supposedly said by young George Washington to his father as related by Parson Weems in his early 19th century book. Since Weems was an itinerant preacher and huckster who just made stuff up, the story is obviously nonsense and has been regarded as such by historians since the late 19th century. But is it really nonsense?
Jim Bish is a historian, an expert genealogical researcher, and has lived in Virginia for many years (he's also a friend). I Can't Tell a Lie makes the argument that it is very possible that the tale related by Weems is true. The story is in two parts. The first is a careful examination of what Weems wrote versus what we all think he wrote, because what he really wrote is key to the case that what he wrote might be true. The second is the genealogical and historical research about the linkages between the families living on the narrow neck of land between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers in the 18th century. While Parson Weems may have been itinerant, he was also connected to the Washington family. I came away convinced that it is very possibly a true story. For a detailed analysis of the historiography on the Weems story you can also read this article by Bish and a co-author.
De Gaulle by Julian Jackson
One of the great figures of 20th century Europe. He drove Churchill and FDR crazy during WW2 but he ended up getting his way. A remarkable man and Jackson shows us how great, how frustrating, how inspired, and how wrong he could be at times. His political resurrection in 1958 in the midst of the Algerian crisis was something I knew little about and Jackson tells it well. De Gaulle was a very undemonstrative and private man but I learned that when he and his wife had a daughter with severe down's syndrome (she never learned to speak) they insisted upon raising her with the rest of the family when the common practice at that time was to institutionalize. De Gaulle doted on her, often singing songs and spending hours with her at his home, expressing his emotions in a way that the public never saw.
Commanches: The History of a People by TR Fehrenbach
Learn about the origins of the tribe in Wyoming, their move to the Plains, the century and a half domination of the Southern Plains, subduing other tribes, and holding off the Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans until the 1870s. The greatest Indian horsemen, Fehrenbach's book describes in detail the culture and lifestyle of the Commanche with a sense of both understanding and sympathy and of the inevitability of their ultimate fall. I was a bit puzzled that Fehrenbach spends so much time in the last part of the book on the history of the Texas Rangers and the frontier strategies that finally conquered the tribe and also saw some commentary and reviews mentioning the same thing. It was only when I realized that the original title was Commanches: The Destruction of a People, that I understood why that material was included.
The Year That Broke Politics by Luke Nichter
This book was a revelation. It's about the 1968 presidential election. Well-documented, it overturns several myths about that campaign. Most startling to me was the extent of communication, including meetings, between Richard Nixon and LBJ, and the president's preference that Nixon win the election. LBJ was concerned about his legacy, both on civil rights and Vietnam, and did not trust Hubert Humphrey on the latter. Nixon reassured LBJ about his support for civil rights and led LBJ to believe he was more in touch with his views on Vietnam than Humphrey. Lots of other interesting material make this book worth reading.
The Savage Storm by James Holland
I've already written about this book about the war in Italy from September through December 1943 in Incident at Bari. Looking forward to the next installment on the Anzio and Cassino campaigns due this fall.
To Hell And Back by Audie Murphy
As a kid I only knew about Audie Murphy because I saw him in some cheesy Western movies. Though I later learned he was the most decorated American soldier in WW2 and had written an autobiography, I ignored it thinking it probably wasn't very good. I changed my mind after listening to James Holland describe, on his We Have Ways Of Making You Talk podcast, how he initially thought Murphy's recounting of an incident in the Italian campaign was probably inaccurate, but upon walking the terrain realized it was 100% correct and went on to describe his book as one of the best of WW2 memoirs. Murphy used a ghostwriter so there are some literary touches, some dialogue invented, and the names of his fellow soldiers changed, but in preparation for the writing Murphy and the writer traveled to Sicily, Italy, France and Germany to revisit the battle sites and, from what I've been able to find out, is accurate. The book is written in the present tense. Murphy does not describe himself in heroic terms. Almost every one of his fellow soldiers is killed or wounded as he relates in detail what combat was like. When Audie describes his state of mind at the end of the war, you realize he had what today would be called PTSD. Reading up on his life after the war we learn that indeed he had difficulties, taking sedatives to help him sleep and sleeping with a gun under his pillow.
Charlie Hustle by Keith O'Brien
Just published biography of Pete Rose. The author interviewed many of those, including family members, who knew Rose. O'Brien even spent several days with Pete in 2021 until Rose cut him off. The book is about the rise and fall of the all-time baseball hit leader and the choices he made that led to his current pariah status. Well done.
Malintzin's Choices by Camilla Townsend
I became aware of this book while listening to the Rest Is History 8-part podcast on Cortez's conquest of Mexico. The podcast, with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook is the best of all the history podcasts. Malintzin. It is about the young Indian woman, probably in her late teens, who had been taken from her tribe and given to the Aztecs, whom she hated. Upon encountering her and realizing she knew the Aztec language and was very quick to pick up Spanish, she became Cortez's trusted translator upon whom he relied in his negotiations with the Aztec (or Mexica, if you prefer). She also became Cortez's mistress and bore him a son, whom he recognized and made an heir. Townsend's book tells the story of the conquest and its aftermath from Malintzin's perspective, which makes for compelling reading about a world-changing event.
Many movies exist about a lone inventor in a garage having a eureka moment, but almost none about manufacturing, so it’s underappreciated by the public. Compared to the insane pain of reaching high-volume, positive-margin production, prototypes are a piece of cake. - Elon Musk
One of the privileges of working thirty years for manufacturing companies was getting to see how things are made. In factories that make jet engines, light bulbs, silica gel, the sealants to ensure canned foods stay safe, refrigerators, separators for car batteries, medical equipment, locomotives, water treatment products, cement admixtures, materials that go into contact lens solution and toothpaste, the ingeniously designed packaging material that allows meats, chicken, and salads to stay fresh, and gas and wind turbines. The design and engineering creativity and the discipline and knowledge of workers is simply astonishing and, as Musk points out, largely unrecognized. I enjoyed being part of organizations that made things that people want and use, or made the things that go into the things that people use.
This reminds me of the very misunderstood notion of American exceptionalism. Exceptionalism does not mean wonderful or superior. Exceptionalism was how the European powers saw the American nation when it was founded in the late 18th century. The idea of a nation founded on a creedal document. The motto on the seal of the United States is novus ordo seclorum ("a new order for the ages"). Foreigners recognized the new country and its people as something new and different. Its pretentions to equality and democracy made America a strange, outrageous, and dangerous notion to a world of nations and empires based on monarchy and aristocracy.
Apart from its intellectual content, what was particularly striking about Guelzo was his eloquence, aided by a mellifluous broadcaster type voice. Many of us were particularly amazed by the Q&A. His response to questions, many of which were quite challenging, was astonishing well composed. No ahs or ums. No awkward pauses and he often pulled lengthy quotes from Lincoln letters and speeches seemingly with no effort. During his talk and the Q&A he made reference to Lincoln's rhetorical techniques and I realized he was employing them himself, often adding humorous remarks.
I was invited to join some of the other attendees to have dinner with Prof Guelzo and was seated next to him and found him a wonderful dinner companion. At the end of the dinner he engaged in another Q&A with us and it was as amazing as the one following the lecture. Truly an extraordinary evening.
A live performance by Billy Strings and his band, along with Sierra Hull on harmonies and vocals. Billy and Sierra are two recent favorites of mine. The song is a cover of a massive hit by Post Malone from 2019. I know nothing about Post Malone other than what I've just written but this is a very good song.
Casper van Wittel, born and trained as a painter in the Netherlands in 1652, emigrated to Italy in the late 1670s where he remained until his death in 1736. Known for his landscapes, van Wittel was a popular artist of the times and his paintings provide a record of how Rome looked before its transformation, beginning in the late 19th century into the metropolis it is today. I've written before about van Wittel. Of note, it was only around 1900 that Rome regained the same population it had in the second century AD. For more on what happened between those times read Belisarius Enters Rome.
This painting depicts the Colosseum, built in the 70s AD and the area around it. It is a bucolic scene. In other paintings of the amphitheater, van Wittel depicts sheep grazing next to the remains of the monumental structure. On the right is the Arch of Constantine, constructed 315-20. In front of it is the mysterious, and stubby, Meta Sudans which existed until it was destroyed during Mussolini's dictatorship in the 1930s. In the far distance behind the arch to the extreme right is the aqueduct that brought water to the Palatine Hill where the emperor's palace was located. The severing of the aqueduct in the 6th century meant the abandonment of the Palatine.
The perspective of the painting is from the lower part of the Esquiline, one of the seven hills of Rome. To the left of the artist would be the ruins of Trajan's Baths. In the Meta Sudans post there is an 1890 photo showing some of this area. Looking to the right of the Arch and aqueduct, this 1850 photo, taken from the Colosseum provides a view of the Palatine which would have been very similar to what van Wittel would have seen a 150 years previously.
