Concocted Outrage

A tempest was erupting over the weekend after FOXNews started running a story claiming that Rep. John Lewis was denied the opportunity to address a gathering of Occupy Atlanta.

A lengthy video posted online over the weekend showed what happened when the Democratic congressman tried to address an "assembly" of protesters in his home state. Instead of giving the floor to a man who is not just a longtime U.S. representative but a revered civil rights icon, the protesters employed a tangle of parliamentary procedures to ultimately prevent him from speaking.

A stunned Lewis could be seen watching the whole thing unfold before ambling away.
Asked about the incident Monday, a Lewis spokeswoman told FoxNews.com "the only comment that we're going to give is the comments already made." In a prior interview about the matter with the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Lewis said, "It's okay," and that "they didn't really deny me."
The end result, though, was that Lewis did not get to speak to the protesters.
The procedures they used -- rather, invented -- would make the Senate blush. Imagine some combination of Model U.N., Lord of the Flies and a Phish concert.

If all one did was read the FOXNews account, I can understand some outrage.

Things are not always as FOXNews would have us believe they appear to be.

A story in Atlanta's Creative Loafing on-line draws a slightly different picture of the events.

Congressman John Lewis visited the Occupy Atlanta rally at Woodruff Park last night approximately 45 minutes after its planning session, or General Assembly, started. Despite saying he did not want to speak, the civil rights icon was invited to address to the crowd. When the topic of allowing Lewis to speak was presented to the group, "Joe" (pictured in red) held up his arms to "block" Lewis from speaking.

"Joe" said he was against Lewis speaking because the movement is "not about one individual" and that it has been built on the idea of "no hierarchy." The crowd decided the congressman could speak after the General Assembly, but Lewis had to leave for a previous engagement.

No Phish concert references here.

I was led to this site from Joan Walsh's Salon piece on this same incident.

A YouTube video made its way around Twitter Saturday, showing the Atlanta offshoot of Occupy Wall Street in the middle of a General Assembly meeting, debating whether to ask Rep. John Lewis speak to the group. The answer was no, and the reaction on Twitter was almost unanimously negative: How could these people insult a civil rights hero that way?

I had the same reaction – until I understood what exactly occurred. It turns out Lewis came by, on his own, during a General Assembly meeting, to observe the group, and didn’t ask to speak. One of the activists suggested that he be invited to say a few words, and most of the assembly seemed fine with that – until one of them, a guy identified as Joe, stood up and disagreed. While expressing respect for Lewis’s work, he said the movement was “not about one individual” and it supported “no hierarchy.” Because the group was in a planning session, someone suggested that Lewis speak at the end of their agenda, but the congressman had another event and couldn’t stay.

I watched the video with growing frustration at what I perceived to be an insult to Lewis. But if you watched the whole thing, Occupy Atlanta has a process, like it or not, and the activists stayed true to their process. Everyone who spoke expressed respect for Lewis and a desire to hear him speak, but not in the middle of their planning meeting. By the time I finished the video, I could understand that.

Most important, John Lewis himself understood that. He noted he hadn’t asked to speak, and he was happy to observe. “I support the protesters in New York and here,” Lewis told Atlanta’s Creative Loafing before leaving the park. “It is the right time and the right place to be… It is the will of the people. When I was young we did similar actions. It is grassroots democracy at its best. I think something good will come of the moment.”

As he was leaving the area where the protest was occurring, Lewis stopped for a quick interview. This is after the events that everyone is all in a huff about.



A friend of mine sent me the link to the original FOXNews story, and even reading that I came to the same general conclusion Walsh did - the group had a process, and Lewis, respecting it, went on with his day. Even so, the framing of this whole event, and the way FOXNews and the various channels that funnel information like this, set off my bullshit detector. It didn't take any time at all to discover a host of sources on the event in question that, in sum, clearly show a fundamental truth when dealing with FOXNews stories: It didn't happen that way.

There has been just a bit too much offense taken by African-Americans and others at a series of movements, grass-roots and going viral, that are working to draw attention to various injustices. Nothing wrong with that. We all need our consciences pricked, our perspectives expanded. All the same, it's just a little too neat, a little too interesting that all this outrage at the alleged insensitivity of these movements is occurring. I do not doubt the very real concerns some folks have, say, of the SlutWalk movement. I do not doubt the worries that a movement concerned with increasing disparities in wealth would ignore very real concerns of race and gender inequality, as has too often happened in the past. What I do doubt is that the expressed concerns are somehow as spontaneous as they appear.

When an incident occurs that doesn't smell right, it is always best to check it out. I have done so, and see no reason, as my FB friend insists, to "defend" John L. Lewis from something that didn't happen. Lewis needs no help defending himself. His demonstrated courage is a matter of the historical record. Furthermore, he needs no defense in the face of things that, simply put, didn't happen.

There may be no story here, but at the same time, there is. The story, however, is FOXNews reporting an event in a way that clearly intends to smear as racist a movement that considers itself both (small "d") democratic and inclusive. Maybe, just maybe, if some of the outrage at the folks in Atlanta were directed at the real racists here, we might be getting somewhere.

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 24

No.

No, but closer.



When I was in high school, I discovered the writings of Anais Nin, specifically this:

Unlike other writings on sex, particularly those of Ms. Nin's lover, Henry Miller (who, for the longest time, I confused with Henry James, God knows why), Nin offered a vision of sexuality that was potent, filled with the marvelous combination of love and lust that is the best human beings can do. Not content to titillate, she took certain erotic conventions - "Artists and Models", etc. - and gave them a twist, making them her own. Not the deep blue of mid-20th century pornography, or the faux-scandalous writings of D. H. Lawrence or the sex-pulps:

Anais Nin's writings introduced me to the possibility not only of literary sex, but the romantic possibilities inherent in carnal desire. While much has changed over the decades, I still hold that when a man and a woman are in love, their physical desire can manifest itself in a kind of freedom that makes of sex something more than simple reproduction on the one hand, or animal grunting on the other. I am grateful I was schooled in the possibilities inherent in human sexual love by Ms. Nin's writings.

And thanks to my sister, Susan, for holding her copy while she was in Africa in the Peace Corps.

Lisa gets edited. Randall feels like yodeling.

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 23

The first year we were married, Lisa and I lived in an apartment, so pets were out of the question. Having both grown up in homes with pets, we talked about the animals we wanted, different dog breeds, how many cats. Within a week of our move to Jarratt, VA, we were the recipients of 2 kittens from the Owen farm. Dubbed Hobbes, because she was tiger striped and Calvin and Hobbes was the best comic ever; and Patch, being a tortoise shell calico with a bright orange patch over one eye, they graced our home, Hobbes for ten years, Patch for almost 15.

In April, 1995, we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to purchase the pick of a litter from a AKC registered Great Dane brood. Lisa and I had both agreed that large dogs were preferable, and you don't get larger than a Great Dane. When Moriah was born in 1997, we were a bit concerned she might become jealous of the attention the baby received. We brought Moriah home, set her car seat down on a coffee table, and let Gretchen come in. On a leash, we allowed her to sniff the baby. Her nose went from head to toe back to head, she seemed to consider the smelly little newcomer for a moment, then licked Moriah's head. From that moment on, Gretchen was a great protector.

We lost Hobbes in the fall of 2004, Gretchen two days after Christmas that same year. For a while, Patch was the lone non-human denizen of our house. Then, in March, 2006, Lisa and I spent a day looking and found a fluffy, forgotten St. Bernard puppy. It didn't take much convincing. So, Dreyfus joined the brood.

In the fall of 2009, a young, male, fixed, de-clawed cat wandered around our subdivision in Poplar Grove. He spent a day or two at our neighbors, including eight hours on the lap of Tom, who, having MS, is confined to a wheelchair and didn't mind at all. The next day, he ran across the street, in to our open garage, and we now had Buddy.

Last fall, three young kittens were hanging around the back door of the church. They were scrawny, hungry, and, with rain and wind, cold. I was against doing anything more than providing some kind of shelter for them at church until I saw them. Of course, the one we ended up with is loud, full of brass, and utterly entertaining as only a cat full of herself can be.

I think that's enough animals for everybody.

Lisa shows some pride. Oh, deer, Randall.

How The Left, And America, Loses

A few weeks back, Tulane University political science professor Melissa Harris-Perry wrote a piece in The Nation, for whom she writes on a monthly basis, that became the focus of much controversy on the Left.

The 2008 general election was another referendum on old-fashioned electoral racism—this time among Democratic voters. The long primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Obama had the important effect of registering hundreds of thousands of Democrats. By October 2008, it was clear that Obama could lose the general election only if a substantial portion of registered Democrats in key states failed to turn out or chose to cross party lines. For Democrats to abandon their nominee after eight years of Bush could be interpreted only as an act of electoral racism.

--

The 2012 election may be a test of another form of electoral racism: the tendency of white liberals to hold African-American leaders to a higher standard than their white counterparts. If old-fashioned electoral racism is the absolute unwillingness to vote for a black candidate, then liberal electoral racism is the willingness to abandon a black candidate when he is just as competent as his white predecessors.

--

In 1996 President Clinton was re-elected with a coalition more robust and a general election result more favorable than his first win. His vote share among women increased from 46 to 53 percent, among blacks from 83 to 84 percent, among independents from 38 to 42 percent, and among whites from 39 to 43 percent.

President Obama has experienced a swift and steep decline in support among white Americans—from 61 percent in 2009 to 33 percent now. I believe much of that decline can be attributed to their disappointment that choosing a black man for president did not prove to be salvific for them or the nation.(italics added)

The piece makes a number of claims of fact that Harris-Perry does not support with any evidence. Furthermore, the claim in the last, highlighted, sentence, is among the most absurd things I have read in quite a while. Finally, Harris-Perry does not marshal a single piece of evidence, say, a bunch of white liberal bloggers who are writing off Pres. Obama next year, and reading in to their reasons any kind of double standard. Instead, a refusal to vote again for Pres. Obama is, for her, prima facie evidence of "a more subtle form of racism," which, to be honest is a clunky way of phrasing what she really means. That white folks on the Left who are criticizing the President are doing so because they are racists.

I feel no need to respond to silliness like this. Others have, including Gene Lyons in Salon.

See, certain academics are prone to an odd fundamentalism of the subject of race. Because President Obama is black, under the stern gaze of professor Harris-Perry, nothing else about him matters. Not killing Osama bin Laden, not 9 percent unemployment, only blackness.

Furthermore, unless you’re black, you can’t possibly understand. Yada, yada, yada. This unfortunate obsession increasingly resembles a photo negative of KKK racial thought. It’s useful for intimidating tenure committees staffed by Ph.D.s trained to find racist symbols in the passing clouds. Otherwise, Harris-Perry’s becoming a left-wing Michele Bachmann, an attractive woman seeking fame and fortune by saying silly things on cable TV.

Race is difficult to talk about under the best of circumstances. We aren't living in the best of circumstances, and the insistence that white liberals own up to their racism because Obama hasn't been salvific becomes yet another hurdle over which people need to leap.

If they so choose.

Now, criticism of Harris-Perry has, at times, been ugly. That's kind of the way things go on the Internet, and in the country at large. A few, like Bob Somerby, have managed to keep their focus pretty clearly on the dubiousness of her factual claims, the dearth of evidence to support them, and the sheer audacity involved in writing that oft-mentioned, and highlighted here, sentence. She has responded, and has not exactly covered herself in glory.

Along comes this article, which quotes a Harris-Perry piece from April in which she argued that the pauperization of the mostly white middle class is introducing them to the long-standing disparities in access to power under which African-Americans have lived throughout most of our history. She has a big, important point here, but it isn't anything original.

The argument that there is something we can call "racist capitalism", as distinct from "capitalism", is ludicrous. Obviously capitalism is racist to the core. It is also patriarchal. It reinforces heterosexism. Any and all forms of narrow normative power structures that limit access and economic justice and equality are supported by capitalism. To argue that only now, with the re-enactment of Gilded Age economic policies are whites suddenly aware of their own marginalization in the face of immense power is factually inaccurate and historically ignorant. Forty years ago the links between racial and economic justice were clear enough.

When the public space in which we all need to talk about economic justice, racial justice and equality, becomes muddied by nonsense, we all lose. When legitimate criticism of Pres. Obama and his record gets lumped in with birthers and bigots, we all lose. When academics cannot even muster evidence for their arguments, then insist that they don't have to because any criticism of black academics is the same as dismissive racist attacks, we all lose.

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 23

On the mend from a serious, sudden bout of illness, I ventured out today to snap a picture of a sun flare. I think it turned out quite nice.

After despairing that I would get such a picture, this is a blaze of glory.

It's nice to know someone felt the way I did about this one. For Summer, the sun adds a bit of romance to an already romantic shot.

When "Assassination" Isn't

There's been a whole lot of buzz about the murder of Anwar al-Awlaki by folks who are outraged that an American citizen was killed by his own government. There's been a whole lot of talk about "due process" and "extra-judicial murder" and, now, secret panels.

I'm certainly no fan of Star Chamber tactics.

On the other hand, Anwar al-Awlaki had, for all intents and purposes, declared war on his home country. He encouraged others to attack Americans at home and abroad. He was, for lack of a better term, engaged in rebellion.

Seems to me a good case can be made that taking him out was well within the purview of Executive Powers dealing with rebellion.

Look, I'm no fan of the whole "War on Terror" crap that stay-at-home war bloggers want others to fight. On the other hand, there are people out there who are actively engaged in planning to do our country and our fellow Americans serious physical harm. We may not like that protecting the United States involves messy stuff like killing people, but this isn't about people's feelings. We may not like that some of those who are targets of our national defense are fellow Americans. There are Constitutional protections regarding having one's life taken outside the due process of law.

Sometimes, it becomes necessary to take the heat for violating the due process clause if, in so doing, lives can be saved.

I know it's heretical for a self-professed lefty to say it, but, like the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki made the world a little bit safer for Americans.

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 22

I can't remember where I read it. Maybe Carl Sagan's The Dragon's of Eden. That which most clearly set human beings apart from other animals, in an evolutionary sense, was not our cranial capacity; elephants, dolphins and whales, even raccoons, are smarter than proto-humans.

It was the humble evolutionary device of the opposable thumb.

With the squaring of our pelvic bones that started to give proto-humans the possibility of an upright posture, and forelimbs freed from the need to assist in locomotion, our evolutionary ancestors could venture out from the trees. They could expand their capacity for tool-making inherited from other primates. As evolution rewarded the survival of more and better tool-makers, more upright, hand-using critters, our cranial capacity, brain-mass to body-mass ratio, and other things we only think make us uniquely human increased.

It all started with the ability, occurring a couple million years ago in small animals that looked an awful lot like chimpanzees, to touch four of the digits on a forelimb with the tip of the other that was both long enough and flexible enough to reach them.

Simply put - hands make humans.

Lisa muses with poesy and humor on the way hands express love. Randall exposes what happens when poets worry too much over a couple verses.

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 21

Some people identify themselves with their job. Others with relationships. In thinking of a way to do a "faceless self-portrait", I wondered what was the best way to take picture of myself without taking a picture of myself. Then, I looked to my left and this is what I saw.

Then, I turned and glanced at the bottom of the computer screen.

For better and worse, it is books and music that tell the world who I am. This big picture - just one set of shelves in our house; the number of songs in my iTunes account - can be overwhelming at times. Even to me. So, here's a sample.

Other than my wife and children, if you want to know who I am, see a picture of me, it lies here.

Lisa is southern, so she cleans when the stress is high. Randall would scare a young Jamie Lee Curtis, I suppose.

O! For A Thousand Tongues To Sing

A couple decades ago, the weirdest thing happened. Someone recorded a small group of monks doing what they do several times a day - chanting in prayer and praise. The recording became huge, and soon, monks were appearing everywhere, even in techno recordings.

There is no doubt there is aesthetic value to the cloistered chant.



But, Latin isn't the only language God knows. There's Greek.



Russian.



Even Arabic.



Ours is a God of many peoples, many languages, and we who call ourselves Christians, no matter where we are, add our languages and dialects in prayer and thanksgiving in whatever tongue we use to create not Babel, but a glorious chorus in many languages and from many traditions.

All music participates in this grand chorus.

Bar Hopping With Mr. Picky - Jordan Rudess
Your Own Special Way (Live) - Genesis
Vanishing - A Perfect Circle
The Moon Touches Your Shoulder - Porcupine Tree
A Place In The World - Pat Metheny Group
You Can Never Hold Back Spring - Tom Waits
Bertha - Grateful Dead
Southside of the Sky - Yes
La Le Lo - Acid Mother's Temple
Waiting For The Answer - Dead Soul Tribe

We should let our spirits ride, shouldn't we . . .

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 20

I'll admit it. I had to look up "bokeh". I thought it was a typo of "broken", and had something else planned.

In the end, what I got, while perhaps not "bokeh", nonetheless fits the bill for what I read. Part of the image is still. Another part is blurred. Some other participants have the subject clear, with the rest blurred. I went for a blurred subject. If this is wrong, well, mea culpa.

If there is anything my daughter Miriam enjoys more than the simple freedom of childhood in all its forms, I don't know what that might be. She is a person who embraces all the excitement and joy of each day, and expresses it - sometimes loudly! - with verve, gusto, and always always always a smile. Moriah is my thoughtful one, the more sober, serious older child. Miriam, though, takes it all in both hands, laughing and transparent in what seems to be her apparent conviction that her smile and charm will cover a multitude of sins. She may well be right.

An exemplar of this attitude is the endless hours she spends on our trampoline.

The child defies gravity, and common sense, by doing flips. More power to her, I say.

I hope when she's my age, and scenes like this make her bladder weak and her back hurt just from watching, she remembers when she was so fearless, so sure that life was all hers.

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 19

So I skipped a day. Sue me.

Back in the dim, dark days when Lyndon Johnson was President, gas was around 30 cents a gallon, and The Beatles were still, technically, together, there was a little boy who had the brightest ginger hair one can imagine. He wore it long, as was the style at the time. It was wavy, and his mother, recalling her youngest brother's curly hair, would spend time each day curling long strands around her finger, giving him long ringlets. Some days, the little boy's father would take pictures of him.

This would be not just any day, but Christmas Day, 1968.

This was just a day. I still don't like having my shirt tucked in.

Orange makes Lisa think of everything from candy corn to an old muscle car. It may well be the color of her life. Randall sticks to the essentials - death and the Cleveland Browns, which do go together well, I might add.

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 18

If you can walk a mile in these, they might not have anything left to them . . .

After you've left these tattered bits of cloth behind, check out Lisa's tiny shoes, and her musings on melon-squeezing and ankles meeting shoulders. Leave it to her to take shoes someplace warm and damp.

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 17

Of all the technological marvels of the past quarter century, nothing amazes me more than what has happened to Alexander Graham Bell's humble telephone. Being 45, I am still young enough not quite understanding that I am no longer young. In my youth, this was a phone:

In order to place a local call, you dialed four numbers. You might well end up reaching a party line, limiting privacy. This expanded a bit when one had to add the last digit of the exchange, or a whole exchange to call the town next door. It took forever to place a call, because the dial seemed to take forever, especially if there were a whole lot of high numbers to dial.

Today, one of several phones in our house looks like this:

We still talk of "dialing" someone, but we don't dial. Usually we hit a single button. That is if we want to speak. Sometimes we just type out a quick message for the other person to read.

When the phone isn't being used to play music, check out the internet, or play a game. What was once a large, clunky household appliance, has become a bodily attachment for which direct communication with other human beings is only part of its overall uses. Even more than new drugs to combat diseases, or the latest website, or the ever-growing speed and memory of home computers, it is the humble, telephone that is at the heart of my own sense of amazement at technology.

Lisa weighs the good and the bad, and includes a family moment that might coin a new word.

War In A Museum

Reading the obituaries in my hometown newspaper today, I saw the passing of yet another World War II veteran. The late Jack Joseph Lombardi, 93, served in the artillery, according to his obituary, "in places like Normandy, N. Africa, France, Germany, Italy and the Battle of Ansio [sic]." That would be "Anzio", for those not paying attention.

Those little words hardly do justice to the experiences the late Mr. Lombardi had. Having just completed Rick Atkinson's The Day of Battle:The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944, I can easily attest to the reality that Mr. Lombardi's experiences in that mountainous peninsula cannot really be captured in a few pithy phrases. The Allied invasion of Italy remains a point of controversy nearly seventy years later, as do the leaders of the Allied armies - Mark Clark for the American Fifth Army; Bernard Montgomery and Oliver Leese for the British - with that misspelled city, the point of an amphibious landing of dubious strategic value that became an abattoir of American and British lives being the most contentious.

Up until 1943, the war did not exist in Western Europe. The main German focus was in the east, where Stalin's Red Army, over the previous winter, had fought a new kind of war - house to house, sometimes room to room - to reclaim the southern city named after the man whose only title was "Marshal". It had not been easy. Stalin had issued multiple orders that not only desertion, but withdrawal and cowardice were to be answered with immediate execution. At some points near that city of Stalingrad, units fought with other units pointing machine guns at their backs. Through patience and a willingness to absorb horrific losses, as well as tolerate temperatures that killed as many on both sides as bullets did, the Russians routed the Germans from their city after having trapped the Wermacht troops who had entered it.

By contrast, the just-completed North African campaign, Operation TORCH, was a sideshow. Using the Italian colony of Libya and Occupied French colony of Tunisia as staging grounds, the Germans under Erwin Rommel had hoped to drive across the Sahara, taking control of the Suez Canal. By so doing, the British would be forced to go round Africa to resupply their forces fighting the Japanese in India. When Rommel was routed by Montgomery at El Alamein, it was because Churchill, ever the Victorian, was adamant that contact with the Jewel in the Crown not be severed. Control of the Mediterranean was roughly equal until the entrance of the US Navy swept Nazi U-Boats; the loss of the Suez might well tip the balance in the German's favor.

El-Alamein was the bright spot for the Allied effort in North Africa. Monty, who reveled in the fame and glory that followed victory, had made a fatal mistake of not pursuing Rommel's forces immediately, allowing them to retreat in good order - something at which the Germans became adept - until the Americans landed in Morocco, swept across the Atlas Mountain, and became the messy anvil to the British tiny hammer. Eventually trapping the German armies near Tunis, the hope was to destroy them there, a plan that did not go all that well. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in North Africa congratulated himself on having chased the Germans out of the desert, but it was clear no plan for the destruction of Germany in Europe was in place.

The decision to invade Sicily and Italy was determined as much by politics as strategy. The British wanted the Mediterranean to be clear of enemy navies. Chuchill continually referred to the southern coast as Europe's "soft underbelly", and wanted landings on the Adriatic coast of northern Italy to be a staging ground for an invasion of Austria and southern Germany, which he insisted would draw Wermacht troops not only from Italy, but also from the Balkans and Greece. Whether or not he was correct, whether or not it would have been possible for the Allies to fight across the eastern Alps to Austria is a moot point; Allied performance in the much less rugged Appenines up the spine of the Italian peninsula at least suggests that such a course would have ended in annihilation as easily as it would have victory.

The invasion of Sicily began with the command structure from Africa still in place - Eisenhower in overall command, Patton leading the American forces, Monty the British - and what amounted to an attempt to encircle most of the island, trapping or destroying the Italian and German armies - the former of which didn't have much heart in the battle; the latter of which was only effective at stopping Montgomery's movement up the east coast of the island. Patton managed to move quickly and easily, facing largely Italian troops who often seemed more eager to throw down their weapons than fire them. The British in the east faced two Wermacht units, one of which, the Herman Goring Division, was among the very best. Unlike the long open stretches of desert that favored the kind of rapid movement Montgomery insisted was possible, Sicily is a mountainous island, with little to no serviceable road mileage that would be available for massed, large vehicles. Facing the twin opponents of German troops and uncooperative landscape, Monty's relatively short trip to the eastern city of Messina, just across a two-mile straight from the Italian mainland, bogged down.

Patton, bedeviled by what he saw as Montgomery's incompetence or cowardice, swung wide and fast, aided in no small part by a coup in Rome that left the structure of Fascist rule intact even as Benito Mussolini spent a few months under house arrest until rescued by German troops arriving by glider. Once word reached the island that il Duce was gone, the Italian armies, who never really wanted much to do with the Nazi grand plans anyway, started surrendering en masse. Faced with the reality that his armies no longer had any will, the Savoyard King, Victor Emmanuel, surrendered. The Allies continued plans for an invasion of the boot, but considered it pro forma now that the Italians were out of the war.

The Germans, however, had other plans. From Hitler through Alfred Jodl, the Wermacht's top General, through the whole command structure, the Germans intended to contest every inch of Italian soil. It was General Kesselring, the top German Commander in Italy, who described fighting there as "war in a museum", and it was. Troops used remnants of the old Roman Appian highway to move on. Every little village and hamlet seemed to have stone pillars and monuments dating to antiquity. Some cities boasted birthing various Roman Caesars or generals, or claimed Ulysses or some other mythical hero as their founder. Of places as different as Capri, Salerno, and Anzio, various Roman writers such as Pliny, Juvenal, and Cato had written or spoken.

The Allied war effort in Italy was hampered by a combination of factors, not least of them the handing off of leadership from the top tier of Allied generals - Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley had all been claimed by preparations for OVERLORD, the invasion of northwestern Europe - and what amounted to a conspiracy of topography. Unilke the vistas across the deserts of Africa or the plains of northwest and eastern Europe, the mountainous spine of Italy was not hospitable to a war of fast movement. Roadways were restricted, and vulnerable to the side that controlled the high ground. Having arrived first, that would be the Germans, a fact the also kept the Allied war effort bogged down for months. The coastal areas were breeding grounds for disease and typhus, malaria, dysentery, and other diseases ran through the troops. Finally, the basic strategic goal of the Italian campaign became a matter of debate. Was the point the destruction of the German armies in Italy, or the occupation of Rome, now already an occupied city?

After landing at Salerno, with the British swinging wide to take ports on the Adriatic coast, the Allied effort looked an awful lot like the First World War. Two massed armies, facing one another across a relatively small front, with the Germans playing defense as the Americans, then the British, threw too-small forces against defenses in depth. Whole divisions were sacrificed in vain attempts at breakthroughs through the fall and winter.

It was Chuchill who saw possibility in an amphibious landing at Anzio, north of the stalemate. Landing significant forces behind the front lines, the Allies could then push, first, south, to break through the German defenses, the sweep north, both destroying the German army and retaking Rome.

The problems at Anzio, however, were a microcosm of problems in the rest of the Italian campaign. The troops, while brave, were too small to effect the decisive blow Churchill envisioned. Having gained the advantage of strategic surprise - the Germans knew an amphibious landing was coming, just not where - the Allies did not take advantage of the first 36 hours of relatively easy landing and expansion of the beachhead, giving the Germans time to regroup and mass forces. When they counterattacked, they nearly drove the Allies back in to the Tyrrhenian Sea. Anzio, like the rest of Italy, became a stalemate.

Atkinson's marvelous narrative of the Italian campaign moves back and forth in perspective, from the Roosevelt and Churchill right down to young draftee soldiers writing home. Capturing the confusion, boredom, and horror that was war in Italy, the reader comes to hear the voices of Patton and Clark, Leese and Juin, the leader of a Free French unit that included Berber tribesmen from Morocco, the goumiers, or "goumbs" as the Allies called them, who were the focal point for the Allied breakthrough in the spring with their assent of unscalable mountains and their vicious tactics that terrified the Germans they faced.

In a style reminiscent of such journalists-turned-historians as Barbara Tuchman and William Manchester, Atkinson has combed through official and private archives, in multiple languages, to present to readers a part of the Second World War we don't thing about too often, yet was the proving ground, and ending ground, for so many. We read in detail of the many horrors of modern warfare, as young men discovered that romance and gallantry disappeared under the weight of massed artillery and aerial bombardment. We read of generals who met their match, either in the terrain or the enemy or themselves, trying to continue the war of movement, yet finding it frustrated by German defenses and the mountains of Italy.

Atkinson has done us a favor by reminding us that the Second World War wasn't all hedgerows and fleet tank battles on open plains, but dirty, sometimes freezing slogging through mud and across small rivers, facing snipers and machine guns as well as official incompetence. For the late Mr. Lombardi, who was there at "Ansio", it is nice for those who have come after to have a place to go so that we can catch a glimpse of the reality behind that misspelled word.

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 16

I'm going to cheat today. Again.

The past five years I have tried to be heard above the din. I thought that getting in to the internet mix might make a difference. I've been conscientious, honest, occasionally brutal, but never unfair. At the end of it all, I've done little but waste hours scouring for stories, sitting and thinking, then typing typing typing. For what? Even internet communication is infected with the stupid that is pervasive in the land.

It isn't just how idiotic so much of our public discourse is. It is the constant noise. I have come to the conclusion that Americans are ill-informed on so much that is essential in their lives because there is no way to sift through the barrage of noise vying for their attention. Everyone says this, or that, or the other thing without thought, without weighing the wisdom of doing so. The barrage is deafening, and I have come to the conclusion that it is largely meaningless.

Long exposure to the crazy has left me exhausted. Weary of the fight, I continue to turn ever further inward. In the midst of this experiment in solipsism, something brought me to an abrupt standstill:

In the face of an image such as this, what can we say? What possible response to a too-long exposure to the realities of most of the world would be adequate?

I wonder if it is at all possible to make all our noise stop long enough so that we can hear this mother's weeping? Are we willing to expose ourselves to her reality long enough to help her fill the hole in her life? Are we willing to engage in conscious, conscientious silence so that the voices of those who need to be heard can touch our lives? Are we willing to risk silence so that we can really listen?

Reading this, I heard Joan Crawford's voice.

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 15

With a little help from a little black cat and a bright sunny window . . .

Just when I had despaired of getting a silhouette, I am rescued by a cat who is otherwise indisposed to sitting still.

It's like one of those gorgeous brooches, only it sits on your desk instead of your lap.

Warning: What Follows Could Depress You

With autumn here, a bit of melancholy has seeped in. Not in a bad way. I actually enjoy that bittersweet feeling that comes with the setting of another year, as the world goes to rest.

Alas, the only way to get a decent soundtrack involves really depressing songs. But, that's OK, too.



There's some irony here. The man singing here, Peter Steel, died last year. So, I guess he was right. I like his baritone voice, though.

Here's another cheery selection, musing on the possibility that our world might not be as marvelous as like to pretend.



I should be clear. I am fortunate beyond words in so many ways in my life. I have a beautiful, loving wife; the most wonderful daughters a father could imagine; I am gainfully employed, and the most difficult financial worry we have is how we are going to make all the payments for our Disney trip next March.

So much the rest of the world suffers just to survive. Children die from preventable diseases. Rival factions from Sierra Leone through Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and beyond kill and destroy for power. Central Africa struggles to settle itself after a decade-long war that was the equivalent of the First World War in Europe in terms of body count and political upheaval. Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and so many other countries are wracked by de facto civil war. In Burma, you can be jailed for having contact with relatives outside the country.

In other words, a melancholy, less than sunny view of the world helps one keep perspective. On a planet where children quite literally shit out their insides, where men are trained to kill through enforced desensitization - using random hostages as targets - and young women strap bombs to their bodies, it seems to me that we need to remember the real horrors of life.

It isn't all cut and dried, though. Even in the midst of horror, there can be beauty. Music, for example, helps us remember that.

The Narrow Way: Part I - Pink Floyd
Come See About Me - The Supremes
Vesperae Solennes Confessore: Dixit Dominus - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Blue Skies (Live, Carnegie Hall, 1938) - Benny Goodman Orchestra
Sorrow - The National
Howlin' At The Moon (Live) - Kansas
Poor Boy Blues - Ramblin' Thomas
Innocence - Renaissance
Break It Down Again - Tears For Fears
Cheating The Polygraph - Porcupine Tree

I will be less solipsistic next week, reflecting on the ridiculous, irrelevant Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees. See, one of the most inventive, interesting, consistently awesome bands around will never . . . ever . . . make that "august" institution. Steven Wilson is a musical genius, and one of his many outlets is his band Porcupine Tree, who will be eligible next year. Here's one of my favorites of theirs, which also goes along with today's theme (as do most of their songs, really).



The tour-guitarist with the gorgeous high tenor is American-born singer-songwriter John Wesley. With a name like that, a good United Methodist like me would automatically be a fan. Here's his website, where you can download his albums for free!

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 14

You ever get

the feeling

you

were being

WATCHED?

These eyes speak volumes, except it's in cat, so you have to translate.

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 13

I asked Moriah to walk around yesterday morning while the band rehearsed before first service and snap some pictures. I have gone through the results, and there are at least thirteen things with me in each of them, so, which one do I pick . . .

Of course, the one I picked makes my ass look big. . .

There's the guitar, stand sheet music, and stool. Jeff, Emily, and Eli Moore, who aren't "things" per se, but they are in the picture. Drum kit, piano, stool, sheet music on piano, keyboard. The screen on the wall behind us. And chords, lots and lots of chords, to make us sound oh, so, loud.

Lisa in her stacks. Probably better than the whole kitty litter thing.

30 Day Photo Challenge, Day 12

I am cheating. I stole this photo from a friend of mine. She took this from her car on her 'Droid. I couldn't get a shot like this if I used a high-end professional camera and set it up.

Picture by Lisa, words by William. Faulkner, that is.