Veteran's Day

Below is my post from 2013, slightly edited:

November begins on a personal note with my birthday. In recent years the celebration has been muted. (I'm at the age when I look back more than I look ahead.)

Dad, near Tokyo in 1945

Today, Veteran's Day, we remember my father and his five brothers, World War II veterans all, who have passed on. Dad's ashes are at the family church, while the others are interred at Punchbowl.

On November 19th the nation will honor the 161st anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's great speech in the aftermath of an horrific battle. And on November 22nd the nation will remember the life and death of John F. Kennedy 61 years after his assassination.

In a strange way revisiting traumatic events such as WW II, the Civil War, and the JFK assassination gives rise to hope. The obstacles that the nation overcame 61, 80, and 161 years ago dwarf those that it faces today, and there is no good reason why we shouldn't be equally--and ultimately--successful in solving our problems as well. © 2024 Stephen Yuen

America Dodged a Bullet

Bloodied but unbowed (AP photo)

Here's what we know at 10 PM Eastern Daylight Time, according to the WSJ:

A suspected shooter fired multiple times toward the stage in Butler, Pa., where former President Donald Trump was holding a campaign rally Saturday, according to the U.S. Secret Service. The shooting occurred at approximately 6:15 p.m. Here’s what we know so far:

Secret Service personnel “neutralized” the suspected shooter, who is now dead, according to Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the bureau.

The shooter was firing from an elevated position outside the rally venue. Witnesses said he was on a roof.

One spectator was killed and two others were critically injured in the incident, which is under investigation as an attempted assassination.

Trump has said on social media that he was shot in the upper right ear.

He was rushed to a medical facility for evaluation; his campaign said he was fine.

An “AR-style rifle” was recovered at the scene, law enforcement officials said.

President Biden was briefed on the shooting and was “grateful to hear” that Trump is safe.

The shots rang out about 10 minutes into Trump’s speech at a fairground 35 miles north of Pittsburgh. Secret Service members jumped to the stage and surrounded Trump, leading him away. Photos and video showed blood on Trump’s ear and face.

Thousands of people attended the rally, which came just two days before the Republican National Convention begins in Milwaukee, where Trump will formally become the party’s nominee.

As a former president, Trump continues to receive Secret Service protection. As a result, his rallies involve intense security protocols, with attendees being restricted to carrying only small bags and having to pass through metal detectors when they arrive.

Tragic as the deaths and injuries are, the outcome could have been much worse. Had the gunman's aim not been off by an inch, or had former President Trump not turned his head at the last second, the assassination of Donald Trump might well have triggered a real civil war.

Such a "war" would perhaps be not as violent as the 19th-century version but one that could have resulted in open defiance by individuals, even entire States, of a Federal Government against which grievances have been building for at least a decade.

Do you think January 6 was an insurrection? Despite the rhetoric, that wasn't one, and if we're lucky we won't find out what a real one looks like.

Appreciate It For Its Own Sake

A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie’ (1866), by Albert Bierstadt (WSJ/Brooklyn Museum of Art)

A work of art that was famous, then forgotten, then rediscovered, Storm in the Rocky Mountains (1866) helped to rekindle the American spirit after the carnage of the Civil War:

Created in the gloomy Civil War era, the painting conveys the grandeur of the American West at a time when the nation’s belief in Manifest Destiny roused hopes and dreams even for citizens who were not headed west. Studded with emblems of the frontier—a soaring eagle, a black bear, pristine lakes, big skies, steep cliffs and a Native American camp—“A Storm” is, in the words of art historian Linda Ferber, writing in the museum’s 2006 “American Paintings in the Brooklyn Museum: Artists Born by 1876,” “a pivotal work in American cultural history.”

Modern historians who view history through a normative lens describe the period following the Civil War as an era to be deplored by late 20th century standards, when the United States adopted the imperialist philosophies of the European nations and rode roughshod over indigenous peoples.

If we dispense with moralizing but focus on the descriptive, the "winning of the West" was inevitable, given the developments of the Industrial Revolution, the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad (1869), and the incentives of the Homestead Act (1862).

The creation of the sea-to-shining-sea America in the 19th century produced an America that won two World Wars and one Cold War, the latter without significant casualties. Must we take the evil with the good? That's way above this humble blogger's pay grade.

Setting aside our--and I include myself in this tendency--to look at everything through an ideological or political lens, I can appreciate Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie as a work of art by itself. May I do more of that in the New Year.

Just Like a Picnic

The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) is less than
two miles from the Space Needle and Pike Place Market.

On Tuesday Antifa militants took over six blocks of downtown Seattle in the Capitol Hill area, including the East Precinct Police Station.

It's a sign of news polarization that your humble blogger learned of it through conservative media, some of which are likening the takeover to the armed insurrection by the Confederacy.

Looks like fun in the sun (Seattle Times photo)

As for liberal publications, the San Francisco Chronicle as of this writing has zero mention of the story, not even on the back pages. (It's a conservative belief that a biased media buries stories unfavorable to Democrats until they are forced to cover them.)

President Trump has made noises about sending in the military to re-establish control, while the Governor of Washington and the Mayor of Seattle dismiss the ongoing situation as minor.

The Seattle Times, which of course has to report on the story, has chosen to cover it from the human-interest side much as it would a picnic. The first three paragraphs:

Welcome to the CHAZ, the newly named Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, where most everything was free Tuesday.

Free snacks at the No-Cop Co-op. Free gas masks from some guy’s sedan. Free speech at the speaker’s circle, where anyone could say their piece. A free documentary movie — Ava DuVernay’s “13th” — showing after dark.

A Free Capitol Hill, according to no shortage of spray paint on building facades. And perhaps most important to demonstrators, the neighborhood core was free of uniformed police.

A mask-wearing family! (Don't
show anyone without a mask)

Hey, free food, free movies, free gas masks. Except for the guys openly carrying guns, the air is filled with peace, love, and understanding.

President Trump would be wise to let Seattle and Washington State handle the situation. It's way too early to give the political opposition a photo-op of the tanks rolling in. (Too much like Hungary, for you old-timers.)

As of this moment the area is controlled by a peaceful mob (an oxymoronic phrase, to be sure) but the situation is unlikely to remain stable. Without a police presence the temptation of a few bad actors to loot businesses and perhaps residences will be too strong to resist. At that point Seattle police will have to step in (frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the area isn't already crawling with undercover cops.)

Show them you believe in Federalism, Mr. President, and wait for an invitation.

A Benefit Program That Ends After 155 Years

World War II is remembered by a dwindling number of Americans and World War I by almost no one (the last WWI veteran of any nation died in 2012). The last survivor of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake died in 2016.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that veterans' benefits from the Civil War (1861-1865) were being paid until this month.

Irene Triplett (1930-2020, WSJ)

Irene Triplett, the last person receiving a pension from the U.S. Civil War, has died at the age of 90.

Ms. Triplett’s father, Mose Triplett, started fighting in the war for the Confederacy, but defected to the North in 1863. That decision earned his daughter Irene, the product of a late-in-life marriage to a woman almost 50 years his junior, a pension of $73.13 a month from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Mose Triplett (WSJ)

Mose Triplett fathered his daughter in 1930 when he was 83 years old. By all accounts he had an undistinguished life:

a civilian with a reputation for orneriness, [he] kept pet rattlesnakes at his home near Elk Creek, N.C. He often sat on his front porch with a pistol on his lap.

“A lot of people were afraid of him,” his grandson, Charlie Triplett, told the Journal.

If you live long enough, it's probable that you'll become famous. In the case of father and daughter, their combined longevity put them in the history books.

The New Rules Are All So Confusing

Piss Christ (Time photo)

It was 30 years ago, but as the cliché goes, it seems like yesterday that artist Andres Serrano displayed a photograph of Piss Christ, a crucifix submerged in the artist's urine.

The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art granted Piss Christ an award which included a $15,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.

The controversy was predictable, with religious conservatives decrying the work and the cognoscenti lauding its artistic expression.

Great works of art provoke, we were told, and if you are offended it says something about you, not the work itself.

Statue of Robert E. Lee, Charlottesville (CNN photo)

There is now a burgeoning movement to take down statues honoring soldiers, the flag, and other symbols of the Confederacy. Speaking as one whose ancestors were neither slave nor slaveowner, I don't have a dog in this hunt.

I will only observe that in 2017 taking offense is justification for censorship and removal or destruction of works of art. This time it's not the viewer but the work itself that is the problem.

The new rules are all so confusing.