If You Live Long Enough . . .

 While we were in LA I tried to go through more boxes of stuff in the garage.  The most obvious things have been taken home, given away, donated, recycled, and tossed into the trash.  What's most left are various tools - screwdrivers, saws, gardening tools - that can be used around the house, and items that have some sentimental value.  

One day I found a valise full of condolence cards my mom received when my step-father died back in 1983.  That's almost 40 years ago!

The nearest empty  horizontal space was the hood of the car.  There were lots of cards and letters, most local, but a fair number from other parts of the US, Mexico, and Europe.  Do people get so many letters still today?  Not famous people, but just ordinary folks?  Or has email and FB and text and other media cut way back on communications via the post office?  

I went through them all and decided it was time for most of them to go on to a new life via the recycling bin.  I saved some with foreign stamps for my grandson who I'm hoping will find them of interest since there are drawers of stamps in the garage too.  

Most of the cards and letters were what you'd expect from condolence messages.  There were quite a few from people I had never hear of.  And then there was one that stood out from all the rest - from someone I'd never heard of that gave a glimpse of my step-father's life I'd never heard about:  his World War II service in the US Army.  

I don't know the exact chronology, but he was a German Jew who had escaped Hitler before the war broke out.  He had gotten his US citizenship and then (probably) was drafted into the army when WWII broke out.  What he did during the war, I had no idea.  

Until I read this letter, which I think may be of interest to others as well.  It covers, fairly briefly, the story of native German speakers, who were also fluent in English, who were used in Europe to interrogate prisoners and translate documents.  I've made it higher than normal resolution in hopes people will be able to read it.  

you should be able to enlarge by clicking on the image

I'm also putting it here in hopes that it might eventually be discovered by John Henry Richter's children and/or grandchildren because I would love to hear the tapes he talks about making in the letter.  Or maybe someone has transcribed them.  

The letter got me to do something I'd been putting off - call my mom's friend Edith.  We'd been taking her out to dinner during out annual visits to LA, but hadn't seen her since before the pandemic.  And I know why I didn't call.  She was about 95 last time we saw her.  I was afraid she was no longer with us.  But I called anyway and left a message - though it was her daughter's voice on the voice mail.  

But Edith called us back shortly and invited us for coffee.  We offered to bring the pastries.  She told us she was 95!  When we got to her house the next day we were pleasantly surprised to see how easily she was walking and carrying things from the kitchen to the dining room, and even bending down to pick things up.  And her mind was totally clear.  Only her hearing is a problem.  She was good on the phone because she has an app that turns the speech into text on the phone.  And while she did talk about the past in response to a couple of questions I had, she also asked detailed questions about the mechanics of renting out my mom's house when we aren't there (most of the time.)  I was going to video some of her WW II experiences - she got out of Austria as a 14 year old just after the Germans took over there.  She got to England where her mother was doing domestic work in a large house.  

But she said that the Austrian government had sent someone out to interview her a couple of years ago.  They are documenting the lives of Austrian Jews who fled - and perhaps some that survived but I don't know.  In fact you can hear her story here.

"... for Human Reason by itself cannot cope with the essence of Evil."

In Dante's 14th Century The Inferno, the poet recounts his tour through hell led by Virgil.  At that time there was a political divide between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire.  From Cliff Notes:

"The cause of this struggle was the papal claim that it also had authority over temporal matters, that is, the ruling of the government and other secular matters. In contrast, the HRE maintained that the papacy had claim only to religious matters, not to temporal matters.

In Dante's time, there were two major political factions, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Originally, the Ghibellines represented the medieval aristocracy, which wished to retain the power of the Holy Roman Emperor in Italy, as well as in other parts of Europe. The Ghibellines fought hard in this struggle for the nobility to retain its feudal powers over the land and the peopleIn contrast, the Guelphs, of which Dante was a member, were mainly supported by the rising middle class, represented by rich merchants, bankers, and new landowners.0 They supported the cause of the papacy in opposition to the Holy Roman Emperor."

It's much more complicated. You can go to the link to read more.  

But these are human beings struggling over power.  As the then 'people of today' [Is there a better way to say this?  The people on the border of the future perhaps?] and in one of the world's then power centers, it's clear they probably saw themselves as smarter than people in the past and in other parts of the world.  Part of the illusion 'people of today" have is that they 'knew' about things people before them didn't know about. And as humans, their thoughts are relevant to us still today.  

We in the US are in a similar situation.  We are at the cutting edge of technology and tend to believe we're smarter than people in the past.  And many, if not most, US folks feel superior to the rest of the world.  

This is, of course, a gross simplification, and I confess my ignorance of Dante's times.  But I do know that the human capacity for thought and emotion hasn't changed much in the last thousand years.  There were brilliant people a thousand years ago as well as people obsessed by power and other human needs.  Evolution hasn't made humans smarter in the last few millennia.  And we deceive ourselves when we think we are smarter.  We may know more, simply because we know of things that happened after our ancestors died, but that doesn't make us smarter or wiser than they were.  

Back to The Inferno

I haven't read this book for almost 60 years when I read it in such detail for class, that I got past the modern belief that old poetry is hard and found the beauty and brilliance of it.  The short part that I wanted to quote that is in the title of this post, as I read carefully, is from what now appears to me to be a summary of the poetry to come.  It appears, though I'm not certain, that the translator has written a brief description of the content before he presents the poetry itself.  I'd note that the translator is John Ciardi, who readers may remember used to do short commentaries on NPR.  

As I looked online, I also found a copy of The Inferno, but it has been completely rendered in prose. But that may help the reader.  

So instead of just citing the one line I'd originally intended, I'm going to give you all of Canto VIII.  First I'll give you the online version, which is more like a Cliff Notes rendition.  I'll do this in sections.  

Then I'll give you John Ciardi's description (I think that's what it is).  And finally I'll give you the poetry itself, which by then, should make sense.   I think you'll find the verse itself much easier to follow this way, though in fact, it isn't all that difficult. We're doing all of Canto VIII.

Ciardi:

"The Poets stand at the edge of the swamp, and a mysterious signal flames from the great tower.   It is answered from the darkness of the other side, and almost immediately the Poets see PHYLEGYAS, the Boatman of Styx, racing toward them across the water, fast as a flying arrow.  He comes avidly, thinking to find new souls for torment, and he howls with rage when he discovers the Poets.  Once again however, Virgil conquers wrath with a ward and Phlegyas reluctantly gives them passage." 

From the online version:  [I'd note this is available for public use]

Inferno Canto VIII:1-30 The Fifth Circle: Phlegyas: The Wrathful

I say, pursuing my theme, that, long before we reached the base of the high tower, our eyes looked upwards to its summit, because we saw two beacon-flames set there, and another, from so far away that the eye could scarcely see it, gave a signal in return. And I turned to the fount of all knowledge, and asked: ‘What does it say? And what does the other light reply? And who has made the signal?’ And he to me: ‘Already you can see, what is expected, coming over the foul waters, if the marsh vapours do not hide it from you.’

No bowstring ever shot an arrow that flew through the air so quickly, as the little boat, that I saw coming towards us, through the waves, under the control of a single steersman, who cried: ‘Are you here, now, fierce spirit?’ My Master said: ‘Phlegyas, Phlegyas, this time you cry in vain: you shall not keep us longer than it takes us to pass the marsh.’

Phlegyas in his growing anger, was like someone who listens to some great wrong done him, and then fills with resentment. My guide climbed down into the boat, and then made me board after him, and it only sank in the water when I was in. As soon as my guide and I were in the craft, its prow went forward, ploughing deeper through the water than it does carrying others.

And now for our first taste of Ciardi's rendition of the poetry into English:

[Other than taking a picture of the pages in the book, this use of bullets was the easiest way I could render the structure of the verses, but rest assured, the original doesn't have the bullets, just the form of one main line and two sub-lines.]

• Returning to my theme, I saw we came
• to the foot of a Seat Tower;  but long before
• we reached it through the marsh, two horns of flame
• flared from the summit, one from either side, 
• and then, far off, so far we scarce could see it
• across the mist, another flame replied
• I turned to that see of all intelligence
• saying: "What is this signal and counter-signal?
• Who is it speaks with fire across this distance?
• And he then:  "Look across the filthy slew:
• you may already see the one they summon,
• if the swamp vapors do not hide him from you."
• Now twanging boxspring ever shot an arrow
• that bored the air it rode dead to the mark
• more swiftly than the fling skiff whose prow
• shot toward us over the polluted channel
• with a signle steersman at the helm who called:
• "So, do i have you at last, you whelp of hell?"
• "Phlegyas, Phlegyas," said my Lord and Guide,
• "this time you waste your breath:  you have us only
• for the time it takes to cross to the other side."
• Phlegyas, the madman, blue his rage among
• those muddy marshes like a cheat deceived,
• or like a fool at some imagined wrong.
• My Guide, whom all the fiend's noise could not nettle,
• boarded the skiff, motioning me to follow;
• and not till I stepped aboard did it seem to settle
• Into the water.  At once we left the shore,
• that ancient hull riding more heavily
• than it had ridden in all of time before.

Did you notice the rhyme scheme.  In the book's intro Ciardi explains that he decided NOT to use the original's triple rhyming in the English.

Now back to John Ciardi's description as we move along

"As they are crossing, a muddy soul rises before them, it is FILIPPO ARGENTI, one of the Wrathful.  Dante recognizes him despite the filth with which he is covered, and he berates him soundly, even wishing to see him tormented further.  Virgil approves Dante's disdain and, as if in answer to Dante's wrath, Argenti is suddenly set upon by all the other sinners present, who fall upon him  and rip him to pieces."

Before going on, I'd note this context Dante's anger toward Filippo Argenti from Fandom:

"In history, Argenti gained the animosity of Dante Alighieri; the two were on opposite sides of the civil war between the Black Guelphs and White Guelphs. The most popular reason given for this mutual hatred is that Argenti opposed Dante's return to Florence, and while the poet was in exile, he took all of Dante's possessions for himself. As such, Dante writes of his enemy being placed the fifth circle of Hell among the Wrathful after death." 

And then back to the online version:

Inferno Canto VIII:31-63 They meet Filippo Argenti

While we were running through the dead channel, one rose up in front of me, covered with mud, and said: ‘Who are you, that come before your time?’ And I to him: ‘If I come, I do not stay here: but who are you, who are so mired?’ He answered: ‘You see that I am one who weeps.’ And I to him: ‘Cursed spirit, remain weeping and in sorrow! For I know you, muddy as you are.’

Then he stretched both hands out to the boat, at which the cautious Master pushed him off, saying: ‘Away, there, with the other dogs!’ Then he put his arms around my neck, kissed my face, and said: ‘Blessed be she who bore you, soul, who are rightly indignant. He was an arrogant spirit in your world: there is nothing good with which to adorn his memory: so, his furious shade is here. How many up there think themselves mighty kings, that will lie here like pigs in mire, leaving behind them dire condemnation!’

And I: ‘Master, I would be glad to see him doused in this swill before we quit the lake’. And he to me: ‘You will be satisfied, before the shore is visible to you: it is right that your wish should be gratified.’ Not long after this I saw the muddy people make such a rending of him, that I still give God thanks and praise for it. All shouted: ‘At Filippo Argenti!’ That fierce Florentine spirit turned his teeth in vengeance on himself. 

And now the verses themselves from Ciardi:

• And as we ran on that dead swamp, the slime
• rose before me, and from it a voice cried:
• "Who are you that come here before your time?"
• And I replied:  "If I come, I do not remain.  
• But you, who are you so fallen and so foul?"
• And he:  "I am one who weeps."  And I then:
• "May you weep and wail to all eternity,
• for I know you, hell-dog filthy as you are."
• Then he stretched both hands to the boat, but warily
• the Master shoved him back, crying, "Down! Down! 
• with the other dogs!" Then he embraced me saying:
• "Indignat spirit, I kiss you as you frown.
• Blessed be she who bore you.  In world and time
• this one was haughtier yet.  Not one unbending
• graces his memory.  Here he is shadow in slime.
• 
  
• How many living now, chancellors of wrath,
• shall come to lie here yet in this pigmire,
• leaving a curse to be their aftermath!"
• And I:  "Master, it would suit my whim 
• to see the wretch scrubbed down into swilll
• before we leave this stinking sink and him."
• And he to me:  "Before the other side
• shows through the mist, you shall have all you ask.  
• This is a wish that should be gratified."
• And shortly after, I saw the loathsome spirit
• so mangled by a swarm of muddy wraiths
• that to this day I praise and thank God for it.
• "After Filippo Argenti!" all cried together
• The maddog Florentine wheeled at their cry 
• and bit himself for rage.  I saw them gather.
• And there we left him.  And I say no more.
• But such a wailing beat upon my ears,
• I strained my eyes ahead to the far shore.

Now one final time back to Ciardi's description:

"The boat meanwhile has sped on, and before Argenti's screams have died away, Dante sees the flying red towers of Dis, the Capital of Hell.  The great walls of the iron city block the way to the Lower Hell.  Properly speaking, all the rest of Hell lies within the city walls, which separate the Upper and the Lower Hell.

Phlegyas deposits them at a great Iron Gate which they find to be guarded by the REBELLIOUS ANGELS.  These creatures of Ultimate Evil, rebels against God Himself, refuse to let the Lowest pass.  Even Virgil is powerless against them, for Human Reason by itself cannot cope with the essence of Evil.  Only Divine Aid can bring hope.  Virgil Accordingly sends up a prayer for assistance and waits anxiously for a Heavely Messenger to appear."

And as I get to this point, and look at the verse coming below, this language about human reasoning  being unable to persuade Evil, is missing, though the idea that God can open the gates is there.  

                                                                                                                                                       And now back to the online version

Inferno Canto VIII:64-81 They approach the city of Dis

We left him there, so that I can say no more of him, but a sound of wailing assailed my ears, so that I turned my gaze in front, intently. The kind Master said: ‘Now, my son, we approach the city they call Dis, with its grave citizens, a vast crowd.’ And I: ‘Master, I can already see its towers, clearly there in the valley, glowing red, as if they issued from the fire.’ And he to me: ‘The eternal fire, that burns them from within, makes them appear reddened, as you see, in this deep Hell.’

We now arrived in the steep ditch, that forms the moat to the joyless city: the walls seemed to me as if they were made of iron. Not until we had made a wide circuit, did we reach a place where the ferryman said to us: ‘Disembark: here is the entrance.'

                                                                                                                                                          Inferno Canto VIII:82-130 The fallen Angels obstruct them

I saw more than a thousand of those angels, that fell from Heaven like rain, above the gates, who cried angrily: ‘Who is this, that, without death goes through the kingdom of the dead?’ And my wise Master made a sign to them, of wishing to speak in private. Then they furled their great disdain, and said: ‘Come on, alone, and let him go, who enters this kingdom with such audacity. Let him return, alone, on his foolish road: see if he can: and you, remain, who have escorted him, through so dark a land.’

Think, Reader, whether I was not disheartened at the sound of those accursed words, not believing I could ever return here. I said: ‘O my dear guide, who has ensured my safety more than the seven times, and snatched me from certain danger that faced me, do not leave me, so helpless: and if we are prevented from going on, let us quickly retrace our steps.’ And that lord, who had led me there, said to me: ‘Have no fear: since no one can deny us passage: it was given us by so great an authority. But you, wait for me, and comfort and nourish your spirit with fresh hope, for I will not abandon you in the lower world.’

 

 

So the gentle father goes, and leaves me there, and I am left in doubt: since ‘yes’ and ‘no’ war inside my head. I could not hear what terms he offered them, but he had not been standing there long with them, when, each vying with the other, they rushed back. Our adversaries closed the gate in my lord’s face, leaving him outside, and he turned to me again with slow steps. His eyes were on the ground, and his expression devoid of all daring, and he said, sighing: ‘Who are these who deny me entrance to the house of pain?’ And to me he said: ‘Though I am angered, do not you be dismayed: I will win the trial, whatever obstacle those inside contrive. This insolence of theirs is nothing new, for they displayed it once before, at that less secret gate we passed, that has remained unbarred. Over it you saw the fatal writing, and already on this side of its entrance, one is coming, down the steep, passing the circles unescorted, one for whom the city shall open to us.’ 

Back now to Ciarda's verse.  This is the last portion I'm going to do.

• "My son, the Master said, "the City called Dis
• lies just ahead, the heavy citizens,
• the swarming crowds of Hell's metropolis."
• And I then: "Master, I already see
• the glow of its red mosques, as if they came 
• hot from the forge to smolder in this valley."
• And my all-knowing Guide:  "They are eternal 
• flues to eternal fire that rages in them
• and makes them glow across this lower Hell."
• And as he spoke we entered the vast moat
• of the sepulchre.  Its wall seemed made of iron
• and towered above us in our little boat.
• We circled through what seemed an endless distance
• before the boatman ran his prow ashore
• crying:  "Out! Out! Get out! This is the entrance."
• Above the gates more than a thousand shades
• of spirits purged from Heaven for its glory 
• cried angrily:  "Who is it that invades
• Death's Kingdom in his life?"  My Lord and Guide
• advanced a step before me with a sign
• that he wished to speak to some of them aside.
• They quieted somewhat, and one called, "Come,
• but come alone.  And tell that other one,
• who thought to walk so blithely through death's kingdom,
• he may go back along the same fool's way
• he came by.  Let him try his living luck.
• You who are dead can come only to stay."
• "O my beloved Master, my Guide in peril, 
• who time and time again have seen me safely
• along this way, and turned the power of evil,
• stand by me now," I cried, "in my heart's fright.  
• And if the dead forbid our journey to them, 
• let us go back together toward the light."
• My Guide then, in the greatness of his spirit:
• "Take heart.  Nothing can take our passage from us
• when such a power has given warrant for it.
• Wait here and feed your soul while I am gone
• on comfort and good hope;  I will not leave you
• to wander in this underworld alone."
• So the sweet Guide and Father leaves me here,
• and I stay on in doubt with yes and no
• dividing all my heart to hope and fear.
• I could not hear my Lord's words, but the pack 
• that gathered round him suddenly broke away
• howling and jostling and went pouring back,
• slamming the towering gate hard in his face.
• That great Soul stood alone outside the wall.
• Then he came back;  his pain showed in his pace.
• His eyes were fixed upon the ground, his brow
• had sagged from its assurance.  He sighed aloud:
• "Who has forbidden me the halls of sorrow?"
• And to me he said: "You need not be cast down
• by my vexation, for whatever plot
• these fiends may lay against us, we will go on.
• This insolence of theirs is nothing new:
• they showed it once at a less secret gate
• that still stands open for all that they could do-
• the same gate where you read the dead inscription;
• and through it at this moment a Great One comes.
• Already he has passed it and moves down
• ledge by dark ledge.  He is one who needs no guide,
• and at his touch all gates must spring aside."

This paperback is so old and so cheaply made that the pages were falling out.  

AIFF2022: Saw Two Excellent Films - The Wind And The Reckoning and The King Of Kings

 There were film festivals in the past when I was up until 3am writing about that night's films.  But the Festival is reduced this year after two years of mostly virtual festival and my coverage is also reduced.  So tonight I'm just going to give brief comments on the two films we saw.  They deserve more, but this will have to do.   

The Wind and Reckoning featured gun battles with Hawaiian backdrop.  It's Native Hawaiian actors spoke to each other in Hawaiian on screen in this adaptation of a book written in Hawaiian by one of the characters in the story, that was only recently translated into English and then more time to be able to make the film.  Essentially we see what I took as civil war veterans rounding up Native Hawaiians suspected to having leprosy to be sent to the leper colony on Molokai.  The film focuses on one family whose home is invaded in the middle of the night and how they fought back.  It was a narrative based on the written account.  

The picture above was before the film when some of the cast members did an opening chant.  Aaron Leggett, President and Chair of the Eklutna Tribal Council (with the beaded sash) was there as was Mayor Dave Bronson, who said a few words about the importance of the values shown in the film.  I'm not sure who wrote that for him, but he left shortly after the film began.  That's a pity because he might have learned a lot from both the film and the discussion afterward.  The man in the middle is Leo and he's working on making Hawaii an independent nation as it was before the US took over by force in 1893. He handed out these flyers for people who want more information.

Ko'olau, if you haven't guessed, is the hero in the film along with his wife.  

The second film The King of Kings was a documentary by Harriet Marin Jones who first learned about her grandfather, Edward Jones when she was 17 on the way to university in the United States.  And what an amazing story it is.  Edward Jones' father was a well-to-do Black Baptist preacher in Mississippi who moved his family to Chicago in 1919 after the KKK showed up at his house.  There he had some odd jobs while going to Northwestern University, but transferred to Howard University to avoid the discrimination he felt at Northwestern.  When he returned to Chicago and got into the numbers business - what was called "Policy."  For a nickel people in the poor Black community could buy the hope of money for a decent dinner and for a few even getting rich.  Jones got rich and stayed pretty much off the radar of the white mob because his money business was in the Black community.  Again, to avoid discrimination, he moved his family to Paris, but then back to Chicago as WW II begins.  He moved the family again, this time to Mexico.  

Marin's family history becomes a wild tale about the richest Black man in the US, and one of the richest men in the US.  Essentially, his illegal business - running a numbers game = became legal much later when the State took it over and called it a lottery.  

Marin came to the festival from France and answered questions after the film.  Aside from the incredible story, I was also taken by how she put the film together - particularly the use of animation of photos.  Not animating the people, but how the pictures were animated in relation to each other - almost like a moving collage.  It was unique and added greatly to the telling of the story.  Here's more on Jones and the film maker from the Block Club Chicago.

There was one more film staring at 9pm - well later because the discussions after the first two films went way over time (and it was worth it) - but as much as I'd have liked to stay, I needed to get to bed at a reasonable time tonight.  

Both films tonight continue a theme of bringing stories of outsiders as told by the outsiders themselves.  

A Lesson In Simple People Power From Sweden, Late 1800s

The Story of Gósta Berling by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlof is the story of people in rural Sweden in the late 1800s.  People deal with evil spirits and the word of God, the beauty and the dangers of nature, and the challenges of making a living in the northern regions of earth.  There are rich people and poor, good and evil, hard workers and lazy.  

It shouldn't be surprising how much human beings then and there are like people here and now.  

The villagers have walked out at the end of the Sunday services in the local church.   Their protest is quiet and simple and effective.  A lesson for us today to think of ways to creatively make our protests known. 

This excerpt takes place in a later chapter called The Drought.  It's late summer and there has been no rain since June.  Crops are dying, forest fires are burning.  People are getting desperate.  All are questioning if it is their behavior that has caused God to withhold the rain.  

"It was a Sunday in August. The service was over. The people wandered in groups along the sunny roads. On all sides they saw burned woods and ruined crops. There had been many forest fires; and what they had spared, insects had taken.  

The gloomy people did not lack for subjects of conversation. There were many who could tell how hard it had been in the years of famine of eighteen hundred and eight and nine, and in the cold winter of eighteen hundred and twelve, when the sparrows froze to death. They knew how to make bread out of bark, and how the cows could be taught to eat moss.

There was one woman who had tried a new kind of bread of cranberries and corn-meal. She had a sample with her, and let the people taste it. She was proud of her invention.

But over them all floated the same question. It stared from every eye, was whispered by every lip: “Who is it, O Lord, whom Thy hand seeks?”

A man in the gloomy crowd which had gone westward, and struggled up Broby hill, stopped a minute before the path which led up to the house of the mean Broby clergyman. He picked up a dry stick from the ground and threw it upon the path.  

“Dry as that stick have the prayers been which he has given our Lord,” said the man.

He who walked next to him also stopped. He took up a dry branch and threw it where the stick had fallen.

“That is the proper offering to that priest,” he said.

The third in the crowd followed the others’ example.

“He has been like the drought; sticks and straw are all that he has let us keep.”

The fourth said: “We give him back what he has given us.”

And the fifth: “For a perpetual disgrace I throw this to him. May he dry up and wither away like this branch!”

“Dry food to the dry priest,” said the sixth.

The people who came after see what they are doing and hear what they say. Now they get the answer to their long questioning.

“Give him what belongs to him! He has brought the drought on us.”

And each one stops, each one says his word and throws his branch before he goes on.

In the corner by the path there soon lies a pile of sticks and straw,—a pile of shame for the Broby clergyman.

That was their only revenge. No one lifted his hand against the clergyman or said an angry word to him. Desperate hearts cast off part of their burden by throwing a dry branch on the pile. They did not revenge themselves. They only pointed out the guilty one to the God of retribution."

“If we have not worshipped you rightly, it is that man’s fault. Be pitiful, Lord, and let him alone suffer! We mark him with shame and dishonor. We are not with him.

It soon became the custom for every one who passed the vicarage to throw a dry branch on the pile of shame.

The old miser soon noticed the pile by the roadside. He had it carried away,—some said that he heated his stove with it. The next day a new pile had collected on the same spot, and as soon as he had that taken away a new one was begun.

The dry branches lay there and said: “Shame, shame to the Broby clergyman!”

Soon the people’s meaning became clear to him. He understood that they pointed to him as the origin of their misfortune. It was in wrath at him God let the earth languish. He tried to laugh at them and their branches; but when it had gone on a week, he laughed no more. Oh, what childishness! How can those dry sticks injure him? He understood that the hate of years sought an opportunity of expressing itself."

The book's copyright is long over and you can read the book at Gutenberg.org or you can listen to a Swede reading it in English at the Internet Archive here.   This chapter is Part II, Chapter XVI.

How Wisely Did The No Constitutional Convention Campaign Spend Its Money?

The Alaska Constitution requires a ballot measure on the ballot every ten years, asking voters whether there should be a new constitutional convention.  This year Alaska held the sixth such election.  

Those pushing for an election had two main goals:

1.  To make abortion illegal by either cutting out the Constitution's privacy language, adding new language that would outright ban abortions and/or say the privacy section doesn't cover abortions.

2.  Make the process for choosing judges more political so they could get judges who will not interpret the privacy clause to allow abortions.

There were any number of additional far right goals that they would love to tamper with if they got the chance.  

The measure lost decisively on Tuesday.  Mail-in, absentee, and questioned ballots are likely to make the No vote even higher and there's no way they could change the outcome.  

 

An Anchorage Daily News article today tells us:

"Defend Our Constitution dominated spending 80 to 1.

They recently reported spending $4 million and raising $4.7 million. The donations came mostly from Outside organizations like the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which is based in Washington, D.C. and has been described as a left-wing dark money group.*

Convention YES spent about $50,000, usually from small contributions from individual Alaskans, allowing them to make small ad purchases."

So, how effectively did both sides spend their money?  It's hard to know.  But since we've been voting on this question every ten years now since 1972, we can at least look at the margin of victory for the NO vote over the decades:

Alaska Constitutional Convention Question (1972)
Result		Votes	Percentage
No		55,389	65.49%
Yes		29,192	34.51%

From Ballotpedia

Alaska Measure 1 (1982)
Result		Votes	Percentage
No		108,319	62.93%
Yes		63,816	37.07%

From Ballotpedia

Alaska Constitutional Convention Question (1992)
Result		Votes	Percentage
No		142,735	62.70%
Yes		84,929	37.30%

From Ballotpedia

2002 was 72% No;  28% Yes.  [This image from Alaska Division of Elections because I couldn't find the 2002 election from Ballotpedia.]

Alaska Ballot Measure 1
Result		Votes	Percentage
No		179567	66.59%
Yes		90079	33.41%

From Ballotpedia 2012

Alaska Ballot Measure 1
Result		Votes	Percentage
Yes		62,985	30.15%
No		145,937	69.85%

From Ballotpedia   2022   [These numbers will change when all the mail-in and absentee ballots are added in.]

So, the highest NO vote has been 72% NO in 2002.  The lowest No vote was 62.7% in 1972.  

I'm guessing they could have spent $2 million and still defeated the measure soundly.  Probably $1 million.  The extra $2-3 million could have done the state a lot more good spent on the governor's race and a few of the state legislative races.  

I suspect a lot of money was wasted in this campaign.  Sometimes you don't know, but in this case we have ten years of election results suggesting Alaskans aren't interested in a Constitutional Convention.  

*I'd note that "has been described as a left-wing dark money group" is just troublesome language.  Use of the passive voice allows you to say something happened without saying who did it.  "Has been described as" could be pinned onto nearly any phrase.  And 'dark money group' is a short hand cliche that means 'bad'.  I'd bet half the readers would have trouble giving an accurate definition and they certainly wouldn't all define it to mean the same thing or in a way that would accurately describe the Sixteen Thirty Fund.  

AIFF 2022 Poster And Reaching Avanos (Metacyclicly) [UPDATED September 28, 2022]

My brain has been wandering.  I've got half a dozen posts either in draft form or in that wandering brain.  But sitting down to type them up here has been a challenge.  For one thing, I just got a copy of the 2022 Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF) poster.  

I think it looks great and I'm trying to find out the artist [UPDATE:  Jessica Thorton] so I can give credit here.  The festival will be all live this year, not much Bear Tooth, a lot of museum if I remember right.  

My summer biking Anchorage trails in real life/from Istanbul to Cappadocia in my head is complete. 

Actually, Cappadocia is a region with several major towns..  The biker whose map I was following on RidewithGPS ended up at the far end of Cappadocia in the town of Avanos.  Here are some pictures from https://visitmyturkey.com/en/avanos/.

These are out in the country side nearby.  From Wikipedia:

"Old Avanos is riddled with a network of small underground "cities" which may once have been residential but are now mainly used by the many pottery enterprises. Although there is no documentary evidence to prove when these structures were carved out of the earth, it is probable that work on some of them began in the Hittite period.

As Venessa, the ancient Avanos was the third most important town in the Kingdom of Cappadocia (332BC-17AD) according to the geographer Strabo.[5] Although it was the site of an important temple of Zeus, nothing remains of it today. [5]In Roman and Byzantine times Avanos had a large Christian population who were responsible for the rock-cut Dereyamanlı Kilisesi. [6]Unusually, this is still occasionally used even today."

Avanos, by the route map I was following, is 891 km from Istanbul.  I made it to 897 km on Saturday and today went on to 912 km.  (900 km = 559.23 miles)  Weather permitting, I'm now hoping to hit 1000 km (621 miles).  I thought that was pretty good for the summer until I talked to a friend the other day who did over 600 miles in 13 days in France.  Oh well.  

But I'm hoping that by 2024 at the latest I will have been to Istanbul and Avanos in person.  

Then there's the follow up on the Words in the Constitution post.  

Dimitrios Alexiadis

I've also got pictures from an ACLU event on prisons and the people in them that was co-sponsored with several other organizations that work with prisoners.  Just putting up pictures is relatively easy, but there were important messages as well.  But if I wait too long I'll forget the details.  

And more.  But the bike, the yard, Netflix (watching the rescue of the Thai soccer team from the flooded caves series now - finished two episodes and the international cave divers have reached the boys, and there's still a bunch more episodes to go; enjoying trying to catch as much Thai as I can; don't think this is a spoiler since we saw this live in the news a couple of years ago), and other things steal from blogging.  Oh yeah, got my bivalent booster and flu shot the other day too.  Slightly sore arms, but that was all.  

Looking For Queen Elizabeth II In Invisible Cities

Queen Elizabeth II from
National Portrait Gallery

The news of Queen Elizabeth II's death comes as I'm reading Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.  Calvino's book imagines the tales that Marco Polo told Kublai Khan about the cities Polo had visited, many in Khan's empire, many not.  

Polo laments the impossibility of accurately describing these cities.  He raises questions about how to merge the past and the present,  the apparent and the invisible, the body and the soul of the cities he's visited.  Nothing is as it seems, or at least nothing of importance is.  His stories remind me of ethnographer Clifford Gertz' 'thick description".  The stories would suggest  caution taking too seriously the people explaining the meaning of Queen Elizabeth II's passing.

Let me give you an example. I also ask you to slow down.   Calvino wasted no words.  Read each word.  Maybe even read the passage twice.  

"In vain, great-hearted Kublai, shall I attempt to describe Zaira, city of high bastions.  I could tell you how many steps up the streets rising like stairways, and the degree of the arcades' curves, and what kind of zinc scales cover the roofs;  but I already know this would be the same as telling you nothing.  The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past:  the height of a lamppost and the distance from the ground of a hanged usurper's swaying feet;  the line strung from the lamppost to the railing opposite and the festoons that decorate the course of the queen's nuptial procession;  the height of that railing and the leap of the adutererer who climbed over it at dawn;  the tilt of the guttering and a cat's progress along it as he slips into the same window;  the firing range of a gunboat which has suddenly appeared behind the cape and the bomb that destroys the guttering;  the rips in the fish net and the three old men seated on the dock mending nets and telling each other for the hundredth time the story of the gunboat of the usurper, who some say was the queen's illegitimate son, abandoned in his swaddling clothes there on the dock.

As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands.  A description of Zaira as it is today should contain all Zaira's past.  The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the blisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls." 

Queen Elizabeth is like a Calvino city.  Her death is not simply the death of one human being. It's a death in a monarchy that goes back more than a millennium.  It's the death of the heir to an empire that ruled much of the world, claiming the riches and labor of the people who were subjects of that ruling royal family.  While Queen Elizabeth II reigned longer than any other monarch in her family, she also reigned over the sharp decline of the empire and of the family's power and scope.  

Henry VIII image Wikipedia

"Queen Elizabeth II is the Church of England chief, officially known as the Supreme Governor, and sits at the helm of a centuries-old British institution established by the monarchy. Its founder was Tudor monarch King Henry VIII, one of the country's most infamous leaders, who created the breakaway institution after turning his back on Catholicism. Centuries later, the Queen has emerged as another landmark ruler who continues to honour the former King's religious practices. But people have questioned whether the two figures who share a throne also share blood.. . 

While there is no direct line between the two, the modern royals have a distant connection to the Tudors.

They owe their existence to Queen Margaret of Scotland, grandmother of Mary Queen of Scots, and King Henry VIII's sister."  (From Express)

 Henry VIII lived from 1491 - 1547. 

What is real and what is imagination?  What is real, but incomplete?  How many Queen Elizabeth IIs are there?  The one seen by her father King George VI?  Her's sister's Elizabeth.  Her husband's.  The views of her children and grandchildren.  There's Gandhi's Queen Elizabeth. Nelson Mandela's? John F. Kennedy's? Churchill's?   Marilyn Monroe's or Elton John's? And every British subject has their own version of the Queen.  

Shakespeare wrote a plays about Henry VIII.  Netflix aired a television series about Elizabeth II.

Where lies the true Elizabeth II?  Nowhere and everywhere would be Calvino's Marco Polo's answer.  

Invisible Cities also includes descriptions of conversations between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo.  
In this excerpt I'm only using Kublai Khan's thoughts.  For perspective, Khan lived from 1215 - 1294.  Calvino wrote about him in the 20th Century.

Kublai Khan from WikePedia

"From the high balustrade of the palace the Great Khan watches his empire grow.  First the line of the boundaries had expanded to embrace conquered territories, but the regiments' advance encountered half-deserted regions, scrubby villages of huts, marshes where the rice refused to sprout, emaciated peoples, dried rivers, reeds.  "My empire has grown too far toward the outside.  It is time,"  the Khan thought, "for it to grow within itself," and he dreamed of pomegranate groves, the fruit so ripe it burst its skin, zebus browning on the spit and dripping fat, veins of metal surfacing in landslips with glistening nuggets.  

Now many seasons of abundance have filled the granaries.  The rivers in flood have borne forests of beams to support the bronze roofs of temples and palaces.  caravans of slaves have shifted mountains of serpentine marble across the continent.  The Great Khan contemplates an empire covered with cities that weight upon the earth and upon mankind, crammed with wealth and traffic overladen with ornaments and offices, complicated with mechanisms and hierarchies, swollen, tense, ponderous.

"The empire is being crushed by its own weight," Kublai thinks, and in his dreams now cities light as kites appear, pierced cities like laces, cities transparent as mosquito netting, cities like leaves' veins, cities lined like a hand's palm, filigree cities to be seen through their opaque and fictitious thickness."

Thank You Vin Scully For Making The World A Better Place

Before the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, my dad and I would root for the Hollywood Stars, a Pittsburgh farm team, at Gilmore Field in Los Angeles, near the Pan Pacific and Farmers Market.  My dad was a very amateur artist and this picture of Gilmore Field was a birthday present the year the Dodgers moved to LA.

From then on it was the Coliseum to watch the Dodgers, and later Dodger Stadium*.  But most times it was Vin Scully over the radio.  I knew I enjoyed listening to him call the game.  He knew all the players' stats, stories of their personal lives, their training, and lots of other baseball trivia,  that he would weave together to make listening to a baseball game on the radio exciting.  And there was that voice.  He was like a family friend.   Many nights I had my radio under the cover to hear the end of the game when it was supposed to be off. And if you went to the game you would hear his voice echoing from transistor radios all around you.  

What I didn't know at the time was how special he was.  That came over the years as I grew up and moved off.  I'd come back and Vin Scully was still doing Dodger play-by-play.  And he was at it, it seemed, forever.  A part of my history kept alive by that voice calling plays.  Even my grandson has heard Vin Scully calling Dodger games live.

So thanks Vin Scully.  You enriched my life and millions of others for so many, many years.  

My main Scully years were all radio and I tried to find some audio to post here, but here's a complication of Scully calling different games on television.  Best I can do for now.  

*The story of Dodger Stadium is not one to be proud of.  It involved the displacement of an important community of Mexican-Americans near downtown LA.  

Bill Allen - My Respect For Him As A Pre-Modern Man In A Modern World

When I heard last week that Bill Allen had died, I immediately wanted to write a bit of a remembrance.  I sat through three different political corruption trials in 2007 and 2008 where he was a key witness for the prosecution.  He had already pleaded guilty and would explain each time how he had given money to different Alaskan GOP politicians so they would vote favorably for the oil industry, for his company VECO in particular.

I thought I had a post that spoke to the part I wanted to say.  But I couldn't find it.  

I just read Michael Carey's Anchorage Daily News opinion piece remembering Bill Allen, so I'll refer you to that.  I met Michael on the first or second day of the first of the trials.  He'd heard that the defendant had been a former student of mine and invited me to lunch.  I told him I couldn't talk about what I knew about Tom from my teacher-student relationship, but he still took me to lunch that day.  Michael's a good man and I appreciate his view on things.

Michael's article got me to look again back into the archives of this blog and I found what I was looking for.  It's in a post talking about the stories imbedded in the trail, in this case, cultural stories. I'd note my use of the term "pre-modern man."  This doesn't mean cave man.  It refers to the value systems prior to the Scientific Revolution and the application of science and rationality to agriculture, the production of goods, to medicine, and to government and law.  It was a time when family and power were the key things that mattered. 

From Pete Kott's Trial: The Underlying Stories September 15, 2007

"First, I would note that the main character in the trial so far has been Bill Allen. Pete Kott has said very little since the first day when the jury pool assembled and Kott stood up with the attorneys and introduced himself as "Pete Kott, the defendant." Since then he's been a quiet shadow sitting between his attorneys. Witness Rick Smith has a supporting role to Bill Allen. So let me try on this story as an interpretation of some of what is happening here in court.

We have a clash of two different cultures - a pre-modern, tribal world and a modern, legal world. In Bill Allen's world, as I tease it out of his words and behaviors, power and family are the main values. Loyalty is a second, but lower value. The law, the government, the legislature in particular are seen as either obstacles to be overcome or tools to get what you want. Allen is clearly an intelligent man. Coming from a poor family, as he told the story, where he and his family survived as 'pickers' of fruit and vegetables in Oregon, he often missed school to pick. He finally dropped out at 15 to earn money as an assistant welder. He has used his wits, his ability to work hard, and his ability to size up people, to create a business that earned between $750 million and $1 billion last year, according to his testimony. 

In the world he described, good and bad referred to how something would affect his business. Good legislation was legislation that would benefit - directly or indirectly - Veco's prospects. Good people were those who supported Allen and Veco. Money was a sign of power. And with money, this high school drop-out could show his power over the better educated. He could buy legislators. He paid Tom Anderson to be a consultant who did, apparently, very little for his monthly check. He paid for political polls for state legislative candidates. He handed out checks to legislators. They had audiences with Allen in the Baranof Hotel's Suite 604. But symbolically, he could really show his power by building the addition to Ted Stevens' house and by hiring Ted Stevens' son for $4000 a month to do "not a lot." The most senior Republican U.S. Senator was beholden to him. Surely, that's a sign of power. He even bought a newspaper - The Anchorage Times.  So all these educated people worked for him - a high school drop out who'd picked fruit as a child. 

Earlier in the trial, I'd thought perhaps loyalty was the main virtue in this world - the loyalty of the Pete Kotts. The loyalty of his Veco employees. He said he trusted Kott as a friend who would do whatever it took to support him. He told the court he'd put aside $10 million when Veco was sold, to support the loyal employees who'd worked for the company and made it what it was - not the executives, but the workers. 

But then I looked at the situation before me. Allen was the government's witness against his most loyal servant, Pete Kott. We've watched this tribal culture on HBO - in the Sopranos and in Rome. We see it in the car bombs of Baghdad. We even see it in the White House where the rule of law is trumped by the raw use of power, and the redacting of significant parts of the Constitution. If the rule of law has any meaning in this culture, it is might makes right. And when the FBI confronted Allen with hundreds of hours of secretly recorded audio and video tapes, he saw that their army of investigators and attorneys had more juice than Veco. In this conflict of power, the FBI had him by the balls, a graphic image that would say it all in Allen's world.   And to protect the ultimate core of a tribal culture, his family, he abandoned Kott and the others, to keep his family out of prison.  

This is not an immoral man. Rather this is a man who lives by a different code of right and wrong from the one that now judges him. Family and power come first. Loyalty to underlings comes next. He told the court he didn't expect anything from the Government for his testimony. He recognized their power, and in their place he would not treat his vanquished with 'fairness'. But he also had his own pride - in the powerful company he built by his own hands and wit, in his own hard work - and as he told Kott's attorney, "I won't beg" the government to lower his sentence. He'll take what comes as a man. He's protected his family, whatever else happens, happens.

This man who ruled by the pre-modern values of power and personal loyalty is put on trial by the rules of a modern state, where rationality, not personality count. Where merit, not loyalty and personal connections, is the standard. (A merit system generally prefers college degrees to dirty fingernails.) His behaviors are judged, not by power, but by laws. The kind of laws he paid legislators to write in his favor and that he ignored when they were in the way.  

I think it is important to recognize the good qualities in Allen. This is a man who, it would appear, was raised in a culture where poverty was bad and thus money was good. No one was there to help him, he had to help himself. The modern, civilized world failed him. It forced him to work as a child. The school system didn't work for him. The idea of rule of law wasn't, apparently, one he learned from his family and he wasn't in school enough to get it there. With what he had, he built a large corporation which gave him the power to take care of his family. He played well by the rules of tribal culture. 

And lest those of us who believe in the rule of law get too smug, tribal instincts are alive and well under the veneer of civilization we wear. We see it flare up in divorce courts, at football stadiums and boxing matches, among hunters and fishers. It's part of our humanity. We're still learning how to balance the tension between protecting our own and helping others, between the freedom of the individual and the good of the larger community.