The Hurricane of (18)'15-

It's hurricane season, and we apparently even have one headed this [New England] way for the weekend. It reminded me of an interesting passage in the 1859 book "Two Hundred Years Ago; or, A Brief History of Cambridgeport and East Cambridge" by Sophia Simpson. The "Great Gale" she describes so vividly was in fact the Hurricane of September 23rd, 1815, which meteorologists today estimate was a category 3 storm. Sophia starts out-

"On the 23rd of September, a violent gale of wind destroyed a large amount of property. At sunrise the clouds seemed to be gathering, and there was every indication of an approaching storm-

We've got a picture of the book here.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Fourth of July Concert-

Everybody grab a beer, pull up a seat and think about whether you want a hot dog or a burger!

Gotta start the concert with this one, one of my favorite songs about America. Sing along!




Now we're going to change the pace up a little, just to make all our friends from down south feel at home, y'all!




Are we rockin'? If anyone needs another beer, help yourself, the cooler's full. All right, how about a little Johnny Cash-




You just can't have a 4th of July "Happy Birthday America" concert without playing The Boss, but which song? 'Born in the USA' seemed too predictable, but then I thought of this, in honor of Mama Marie, who died this week-




And, of course, we have to end with the great Ray Charles-

Random Thoughts on a Rainy Monday-

There's been a lot of talk about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright lately. I'll come right out and say, I like the guy, not only for his skills as an orator, but for his willingness to talk Truth to Power. For anyone who has paid attention to the story but not yet seen the full sermon in question, it's probably worth 9 minutes of your time to watch it here-



I spent several hours one day on You-Tube watching a variety of sermons he's given, and he's quite thoughtful and compelling-



So there it is. I could be wrong, but as he said today, in answer to a rather tired question about his patriotism, "I served six years in the military. Does that make me patriotic? How many years did Cheney serve?"

and so it goes.

Annual Patriot's Day Post

[First posted here on April 7, 2006]

It's Patriot's Day here in Massachusetts, a legal holiday not familiar to many folks outside the Bay State. It commemorates the Lexington-Concord Battle of 1775. Patriot's Day now means the traditional 11 a.m. Red Sox game, the Boston Marathon, and services and re-enactments in many towns which have companies of volunteer Minutemen who dress up in colonial-era garb and march on their town greens. The Lexington-Concord area has the whole bunch of celebrations, including a local company of the British 10th Regiment of Foot, the soldiers who were among the companies that marched to Concord that day. As a kid growing up in Concord, I always wanted to be one of the Redcoats. My illusions were shattered one day when I was walking down by the post office and saw a lanky Redcoat take off his tall tin hat and squeeze himself into a tiny VW parked by the curb.

Today I actually thought twice before putting up anything about Patriot's Day on the bookstore website, because I've found over the years that in other areas of the country most folks have no idea what Patriot's Day is, and now it sounds a bit like a Bush Administration stunt, or something a militia group would come up with. That annoys the crap out of me. The biggest mistake the Liberals made was to let the Conservatives co-opt Patriotism. What's up with that?

Peope who are upset with the way the country is going these days have got to show everyone that Patriotism does not equal unquestioning support of everything this or that political party does. Show people that you can be Patriotic without checking your brains at the door, and that you can fly a flag proudly without disengaging your brain from all critical thought processes. Liberals and Democrats have to fight back. Fly a flag, for crying out loud. I do every day now. Now that we've got a nice wrap-around porch, on the 4th of July we'll put red-white-and-blue bunting on it too.

The co-opting of Patriotism by a single political party is not healthy for the country. It's time to fight back. Wave your flags, boys!

And happy Patriot's Day!

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

-Concord Hymn, Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, April 19, 1836

Well, Slap a Pickle on Me and Call Me a Grilled Cheese Sandwich...

Stunned, I am stunned to see good documentary-making going on here.

I am a long-time loather of Ken Burns' "documentaries". His various stylistic conceits, which others see as cool, I see as crap unscholarly, anti-historical and just plain confusing and a pain in the ass to watch if you are trying to put anything into a recognizable historical context. His 'Civil War' series had me foaming at the mouth within fifteen minutes.

However, just as a broken clock is bound to be right twice each day, somehow or other Burns gets it right with his new documentary about America in World War II, titled simply 'The War', which began last night and runs, as far as I can tell, for most of the rest of the month. It is compelling, moving and thought-provoking.

My wife calls me the most militarily-inclined pacifist she has ever known. It's true- military history fascinates me. I want to know why people wage war, and how they feel about doing it- not the generals, but the enlisted people on the line. For one reason or another I feel that's very important to understand. Two good books that make good reading for those interested in the topic of war and how it is viewed by the individual soldier are "Closing with the Enemy. How GIs Fought the War in Europe, 1944-45" by Michael D. Doubler, and "The World Within War. America's Combat Experience in World War II" by Gerald F. Linderman. I read the first one a month ago and am about halfway through the second one at the moment.

One thing Burns' documentary seems to be doing is deflating the myth of WWII as a "Good War". It was certainly a "Necessary War", but there is absolutely no such thing as a "Good War", and there never has been. I'll be interested to see, in the very long run, how this film affects Americans perceptions of the current war in Iraq.

As stunned as I find myself to say it, Burns' 'The War' is damned good tv and well worth watching.

Southwestern Daze

We were blogging a bit about hiking last week, which made me go and look for some old pictures. Amy and I have a friend who has a place in the hills of extreme southern Utah, outside Kanab. Last time we were out there I got some pictures of a few side trips we took. The scenery in that part of the country is just spectacular, at least to an East-Coaster like me.

The spectacular red hills outside Kanab-



We took a day trip to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. The north rim is just a few hours south of Utah, and gets about 1/10th of the traffic the south rim gets, which means there is no traffic going in, you can actually find a place to park when you get there, and you can take your beer out onto the terrace and relax. This looks Photo-shopped, but it isn't-



We took an overnight tent-camping trip to Zion and Kolub canyons. These are pics of Kolub, with my original captions-

You want to hike all the way to where?!?!?

Amy points out that if the stream can get down, we can go up...

So let's go!

well ok, maybe not up there.

We fly in and out of Las Vegas on our trips to Utah. This trip we had rented a fancy Jeep Wagoneer which had a thermometer on the dashboard telling us how hot it was outside. On the way back to Las Vegas we saw with delight that it was only a crisp 102 degrees, and so we took a quick side trip to very aptly named Valley of Fire-

The Valley of Fire was damned hot. It also features some spectacular rock formations. These are "beehives"-

I found a shady spot, as the entire Valley melted around me-