Author: Marc

A couple of days ago, I boarded a plane to the civilized parts of the country. Aboard the aircraft, I encountered two things that pissed me off.

First, a group of men were speaking Spanish (which I understand with difficulty) loudly enough and clearly enough for me to understand them. This may not sound like much, except that they were sitting on opposite sides of the aircraft and with three rows between them. I was sitting in one of those rows.

Second, competing with these men was a small child. I would admire both its endurance and its volume, but for my murderous rage. Actually, most of the flight didn't involve murderous rage. That came later. The miserable shrieking wretch was alternating, "Mommy ... Daddy ... " Approximately 5 minutes prior to landing, a woman holding the miserable spawn of whatever demonic entity curses air travel asked in a clam, sweet voice, "You want to go to Daddy?" and handed the child to the father. The child was immediately silenced. My murderous rage was not directed at the child.

I was awakened at approximately 5:04 in the morning by an earthquake. Strangely, I opened the bedroom door to see if anyone else had noticed. Nope. So I went back to sleep. It was on the news the next morning. I actually thought it was kind of cool. It was the first earthquake I ever noticed.

I thought the Gettysburg National Park was well done. We had recently seen the movie Gettysburg and I was surprised to find that my 8-year-old recalled several key figures of the battle. I think the fact that so many monuments had been erected by veterans and survivors of veterans within living memory of those battles showed the humanity and tragedy of this sort of warfare. I appreciated the professional historians knowledgeable about the people associated with the battle as well as the battle itself that eagerly answered all questions. The weather even cooperated, with the July heat reflecting the climate of those three days 147 years ago this month. If only I had been wearing a thick wool uniform...

Of note, the crowds around the various museums in D.C. were from points throughout the world. At Gettysburg, on the other hand, the only languages I heard were English, German, Spanish, and French (in that order). It seems this is a site of interest only to those raised in culture of the West.

Author: Marc

Larry at My Old Kentucky Homesite had an article up today: This Will Not Be on the Test. It included this question:

Question 6.: According to the bible, Noah’s Ark was 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 45 cubits high. A biblical cubit = approximately 1.5 feet. If the ark was filled to capacity with animals on the morning of the first day, and it rained for 40 days, how many animals in total were eaten by each Tyrannosaurus Rex on board?

Author: Marc

Shelby Foote begins this second installment of this history with the leadup to the Union disaster at Fredericksburg. Rather than a simple description of what are generally considered the greatest tactical back-to-back Confederate triumphs at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, Foote gives a great deal of background that helps the reader to see how these came to pass. Giving the reader insights of the personalities of such generals as Burnside and Hooker, we can see how rapidly promoted men with a reputation for aggression can succumb to the caution that destroyed so many Union generals early in the war.

Foote seems to take pains to portray Nathan Bedford Forrest in a true genius. I find this fascination understandable, but I think his successes could be easily explained as a basic philosophy. First, he made a point of showing more physical courage than could be expected of any but the most fearless of men. Second, stack that on top of the strategy that had proven the most successful, attack and attack and allow no quarter. Third, we should note that the style of cavalry warfare employed by the South was much more easily supported when based out of friendly country. That was the sort of luxury the Federal forces could never expect. Thus would I posit that Forrest's success was due greatly to his circumstances mixed with the singular characteristic for which none can fault him: he followed through with his arrogant talk to an extent approached by no other general of either side.

The pace of the narrative is such that the reader will be pulled away from the idea that Gettysburg essentially ended the war, but for mopping up. Given where it occurred in this series, we can see that things are far from decided by that single battle. While it is true that, in many ways, it was the beginning of the end, it is historically more accurate to consider it the beginning of the long decline.

The author doesn't accentuate the characters beyond their actual contribution, which is important. To this point, we see that General Grant is only beginning to receive the accolades of the leadership, and then only with the crucial capture of Vicksburg. A great deal of naval activity has escaped the notice of most Americans, but Foote illuminates this portion of the story in great detail.

As this portion of the story ends, Foote foreshadows the destructiveness that the South will witness in the remaining years of the war.

Author: Marc

I am currently reading five books, which is pretty typical for me. Others often ask why I do it, and I have a few answers. First, my mood changes such that I don't feel like reading a particular kind of book at the moment. Second, I have multiple media that are not always handy. On an airplane, I take both my Kindle and a dead tree book. At takeoff and landing, I can't read the Kindle during takeoff and landing (apparently, electronic devices cause the aircraft to burst into flames, resulting in massive loss of life). At home, I have so many dead tree books that I will probably not live long enough to finish them. I burn through from 20 to 50 books a year, but some of my books are enormous and dense.

Aside: do you remember this from the Washington Post back in 2008:

In his column, Rove says that Bush read 95 books in 2006 alone. In 2007, he read 51 books and as of last week, he had read 40 in 2008.

Author: Marc

Understanding that many of the stories related by the first Europeans returning from the New World were grossly exaggerated or even completely fabricated, an item of interest struck many. Some of the more fantastic descriptions, such as the golden city of "El Dorado" quickly gained the status of legend. Attempts to find them invariably failed, with many (or even most) ending in tragedy. It would remain as such until Western man was ready to commit to months or even years in the most miserable conditions imaginable.

The first part of the last century was such a time. While no longer "discovering" continents, the rich nations of the West sought to break records and explore the vast uncharted territories of such diverse places as the bleak wasteland of Antarctica, the jungles of Africa and Oceania, and the seemingly impenetrable tropical rainforests of the Amazon basin. This book tells the story of the last expedition of one such man. Spanish writings from the time of the Conquistadors tells of a great city in the Amazon, wealthy and vast. One of the first modern explorers came to call this fabled city "Z." This would come to be the obsession of one of the greatest explorers of the age. In 1925, along with his 21-year-old son Jack, and Jack's friend Raleigh Rimell, Fawcett set out up the Xingu River to find it.

Until recently, I had never heard of Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett. This book became my first introduction to that person, even though I was quite familiar with him indirectly. The heroes of such stories as The Lost World, King Solomon's Mines, and numerous others depicted some fanciful iteration of the adventurer. The famed Royal Geographical Society was exactly the sort of organization that adventure movies strive to replicate.

Perhaps owing to his day job as a writer for The New Yorker, Grann is brief in his descriptions and does not dwell on details. He tries to put together a narrative interspersed with snippets of his own travails in making an attempt to follow in the footsteps of the hundreds of individuals aspiring to the rôle of Henry Morton Stanley to Fawcett's David Livingstone. One thing that struck me about this was that I inferred the search for Fawcett was a much larger sensation than the search for Livingstone. That may have been greatly influenced by the time. With the rapid increase in the range and speed of transportation and communication, people were able to maintain a "news feed" of a sort that had never existed in the past. As well, the world was seeking heroes in the aftermath of a terrible war and in the presence of fearful uncertainty.

I think Grann should have provided more information depicting others engaged in exploration of the same area, either as collaborators or competitors. Perhaps he didn't wish to bore the reader with a side topic. He does, however, describe the intimates of Fawcett (in particular his nuclear family) vividly enough for us to get a sense of their struggles with his lifestyle even before his disappearance.

Aside: I found it interesting that Fawcett (and, later, his wife) turned to charlatans seeking advice from the spirit world. This movement was popular in England and in the U.S. at the time. Perhaps, again driven by the zeitgeist, many who had suffered tragedy sought solace where they could find it. Such people famously included Fawcett's friend Conan Doyle, who had lost a son in World War I. I was a bit disturbed to see respected individuals falling so readily for such chicanery.

Author: Marc

My unfortunate fascination with the American Civil War brings me to another obvious point of history. In 1861, The Democratic Party was the party of inherited wealth and the Republican Party was the party of entrepreneurial wealth. As has been the case for wars going back a hundred generations, the Civil War was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. But that is too cheap and easy. Let us take a closer look at the far-reaching implications. The political might of the North was concentrated in the hands of the magnates of industry. In the South, the aristocracy ruled as it had in old Europe. Where even such prominent Union figures such as Lincoln and Grant can be damned with their own words of overt racism, the men of the South were more insidious. Certainly the disparagement of "lesser races" was spread thickly throughout Confederate rhetoric, but only in the face of a more important extant point. So long as "the nigger" is "the nigger," those members of the class called "poor white trash" have someone upon whom to look down. Imagine yourself as a dirt farmer in South Carolina, with a situation not far removed from serfdom. "At least I ain't a nigger." seems a perfectly reasonable rationalization of your condition (at least in the first person).

During the reconstruction, it is doubtless that those holding the reins of power throughout the nation found that they shared more than had previously been imagined. Chief among these: concentration and perpetuation of wealth. The nouveau riche became accepted to the extent that their votes participated in the maintenance of monetary might. The blue bloods were willing to extend their hands in welcome to the upstarts, so long as there was some reciprocation. This came in the form of recognition of past prestige. We can look upon a number of old names who are not much more than upper middle class these days. But among the representatives of this class, we see many individuals who would be destitute but for their family names.

The robber barons have intermarried with Mayflower society, resulting in the Republican Party of today.

Author: Marc

I was on a South Pacific sojourn for the past week and a half or so. During that time, I spent the relatively little free time running, swimming, and visiting with colleagues. I managed to run a total of almost 78 miles, went to the beach 5 times, and had dinner with colleagues several times. A few interesting things popped up. Some of the people I work with are "James, "Jack," "Joe," and "Jeri."

James, Jack, and Joe have approximately the same job I have, but have all been doing it for twice as long. When viewing a live camera with poor refresh rate, James posited that the strange figures were ghosts. He then went on to start talking about a show he watches called "Ghost Hunters." Apparently, he is as interested in paranormal crap as I always was. During the ensuing discussions, James, Joe, and Jack all but stated that they did not believe in gods, ghosts, fairies, or other magical creatures. I wondered of the nature of our work. Our sort of work requires a vigilant skepticism of engineering data, a critical view of operations, and an active search for unanticipated possibilities.

I found this idea intriguing, but at a dinner (the food was excellent, but the service was rather slow), I found a certain amount of disappointment in another colleague. We were discussing the use each of us had made of one of the only free days during this activity. Jeri said she had gone to church. James said, "Well, if you were praying for the Dodgers, it didn't take." From the icy stare, we could all see that James had struck a nerve. Apparently, Jeri spends a great deal of time at church. I had no idea. First, I find myself among rational people. Then I find one that is so serious about her religion that she becomes downright offended at an offhand remark obviously in jest. What bothers me a great deal about being around religious people is that some of them (not most, at least among those I know) are so easily offended that one has difficulty holding a normal conversation around them.