Trump Undermining Military Order - Firing His Own Appointee, Navy Secretary Spencer [Updated]

The president of the United States has intervened in military justice and fired the Secretary of Navy, a person he himself appointed over a Naval justice system case with which he disagreed.  Here's a little background that I haven't heard on the news blurbs I'm hearing at NPR.  Ultimately, this is one more sep onTrump's part to weaken the US internationally, by weakening the US military.  How many rogue military will disobey their officers with the hope of support from the president?

Eddie Gallagher had become, apparently, a right wing cause.  He'd been found innocent of murdering prisoners of war, but guilty of taking a picture with a dead prisoner.  There were problems in the case according to the Navy Times and the LA Times. 

[UPDATED Nov 25, 2019 11:57am] However, other Seals testified against Gallagher - something I suspect is uncommon - though ultimately their testimony wasn't convincing because they didn't actually see him pull the trigger.  Here's description of that testimony.

I tried to find some of the Free Eddie Gallagher websites, but several had been corrupted.

Forged a website aimed at veterans has a t-shirt for Gallagher with this description:

"Chief Eddie Gallagher is a highly decorated Navy SEAL with over 19 years of honorable service to our country. On September 11, 2018, he was separated from his wife and children, and locked up in pre-trial confinement in the military brig. On July 2nd, Chief Gallagher was found NOT GUILTY of all charges, except unlawfully taking a picture with a dead ISIS fighter. Although Chief Gallagher is free, his battle is not yet over. He and his legal team are still fighting for his right to retire with a full pension and benefits.

#FREEEDDIE features the Forged Frogbones, one of our classic designs which has always been, and will forever remain deeply rooted in the Navy SEAL Brotherhood.

Please join us in our fight to #FREEEDDIE! Chief Gallagher deserves justice.
*All proceeds will be donated to the Navy SEALs Fund - Brotherhood Beyond Battlefield (501c3) Justice for Eddie Gallagher Support Fund"

Navy Secretary Spencer is a marine veteran and was appointed by Trump.  Defying the president is a major action here and clearly suggests a serious breach between Trump and the US military.  That's pretty serious.  And one more move that helps Putin by weakening the morale of the US military.

Here's from Wikipedia's post on Richard V. Spencer:

"In June 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Spencer to serve as the 76th United States Secretary of the Navy Spencer was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 1, 2017. He was sworn in on August 3, 2017 and served until November 24, 2019.
On July 15, 2019, he assumed the duties of acting Secretary of Defense and expected "to continue to serve in this role until a Secretary of Defense nominee is confirmed by the Senate and assumes office. At that time, I will continue to serve as Secretary of the Navy." He assumed the duties of Deputy Secretary of Defense on July 23, 2019.
Born in 1954 in Waterbury, Connecticut, Spencer attended Rollins College as an undergraduate, majoring in economics. After graduating, he joined the United States Marine Corps, serving as a Marine Aviator from 1976 to 1981.
After leaving the Marines as a captain, he worked on Wall Street for 15 years, holding positions at Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, A. G. Becker, Paine Webber and Merrill Lynch. Spencer served on the Defense Business Board, a Pentagon advisory panel, from 2009 to 2015 and on the Chief of Naval OperationsExecutive Panel. During his time on the Defense Business Board, he proposed shutting down domestic military commissaries in favor of negotiated military discounts at public retailers.

Republicans Were Rabid About Obama et al With Under1% of the Hard Evidence We Have On Trump And His Cronies

[Warning.  I've kept the kleenex box close today was the cold I thought had left a month ago, came roaring back.  If I were grading this post, I'd say it rambles, needs rearranging to make the flow work better, and doesn't really focus.  But I'm too drippy to revise it.  The basic theme is nothing you don't already know:  The Republicans have abandoned logic, principles, the constitution, and consistency, and the truth.  But if that sounds too repetitious and depressing, follow this link to a really cool rethinking of lined notebook paper.  And blogger wouldn't take < in the title, so I had to write 'under']]



From someone who has observed Jim Jordan for a while, we get this blistering commentary by retired Cleveland Plains Dealer editor, titled "Jim Jordan was imposed on us for egregiously partisan reasons. Now he’s afflicting the nation."[Link corrected]

In his Washington Post column of Nov. 14, Gerson showed his keen understanding of Jordan, describing him as “the Truly Trumpian Man – guided by bigotry, seized by conspiracy theories, dismissive of facts and truth, indifferent to ethics, contemptuous of institutional norms and ruthlessly dedicated to the success of a demagogue.”

And there are these hints that Nunes was part of the plot to get Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden  "Giuliani associate willing to testify Rep. Nunes met with ex-Ukrainian official, attorney says"

The attorney for an indicted associate of President Donald Trump's personal lawyer says his client is willing to tell Congress that Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., met with Ukraine's former top prosecutor about investigating the activities of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. . .
If true, the allegation would mean that Nunes — the chief defender of Trump as ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, which has been holding impeachment hearings for several weeks — was himself involved in the very plot the committee is investigating. 

Yet the Republican Senate is quite likely to acquit Trump if the House turns over impeachment to them.  We hear stories how they are disgusted, but don't want to lose in the primaries where they face Trump cult members.  These are kids that fawn over the bully, lest he suddenly decide to attack them.  Just think about how he insulted the Republican candidates running against him in the primary - Rubio, Cruz, Graham, for instance - are now all his toadies.

But maybe the bully metaphors are the wrong ones.  From Machievelli on we've had variations of don't take on the king unless you're going to kill him.  And so Republicans are biding their time.

We get new stories like this daily.  Yet the Republicans are busy trying to deflect attention on Joe Biden's son, or lack of transparency, or too much transparency, or witch-hunts. or that impeachment is unconstitutional overturning of the election.

Remember how exercised they got over Bill Clinton talking to then Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the Phoenix airport?  Even Real Clear Politics, a right leaning web news aggregator, could only buttress the impropriety innuendos with 'strange':

"Strange. One can understand that Lynch needs to maintain that there was no conversation about Hillary’s email predicament — she’s repeated that enough times that there’s no going back. But if they didn’t have that to talk about, they didn’t have much else to say to one another. It would be one thing if theirs had been a random run-in. But do ex-presidents really just appear at the perfect time to talk to the perfect person who is perfectly positioned to make an imperfect situation go away? If the talk was really about nothing, why was Bill Clinton so eager to have it? So eager that he was at the airport in time to catch Lynch before she got off her plane; so eager that ascending the stairs to the airplane doorway, he had all but pushed past Lynch’s head of security. Strange indeed."

This is dated May 16, 2019 - they had three years to get more than innuendo.  Why didn't they interview the flight crew they said were present?  Because even if there was something there, the Hilary Clinton Email Servers, was only an issue because the Republicans (one can guess, with the support of the Russians) made it an issue.

Yet people who tried to make their careers on stories like this, see absolutely nothing wrong with the president shaking down Zelensky, or Sondland talking to the president on his personal cell phone in a restaurant in Kiev where people around them could listen in.



Now, let me say that  Lev Parnas, the convict who's offered to out Nunes is not someone I would trust on most things.  He certainly would know, but I don't know enough about his motivation.  Does he think Trump won't get around to pardoning him on time so he's making a deal with the whoever else could lighten his sentence?  If so, how can we trust him not to lie to save himself?  Or is he making an offer which will turn out to be fake to embarrass the Democrats and blow up their investigation?  Is he just signaling Trump or others by having his attorney make this offer?  If so what's he saying?  (I suspect that's not the case since all these folks seem to have pretty good access to the president.  But maybe that's only when they're making $100K donations.)


As I've said before, what we're seeing is how many people have never grown up, never gotten over their (probably parent induced) inferiority complexes.  Trump tells them their boorishness, misogyny, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia are all perfectly all right.  He tells them that in his words and in his actions

But it doesn't even matter.  There's already enough out there to impeach Trump 50 times.

Netflix and Unions - So Far So Good

LA Times article by Wendy Lee  

"As Hollywood’s major unions gird for potentially contentious contract negotiations with the major studios, streaming giant Netflix is moving to hash out its own labor deals that could give it a competitive advantage in the event of a strike.
This summer Netflix negotiated its first overall agreement with actors union SAG-AFTRA. Last month the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the union that represents Hollywood’s craftspeople and technical workers, revealed it will negotiate its own contract with Netflix. And labor experts expect other Hollywood unions will seek their separate agreements with the streaming giant. . . 

Netflix has the ability to go it alone in labor negotiations because unlike Hollywood studios such as Disney — as well as tech rivals Apple and Amazon — it does not belong to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the collective bargaining group that represents studios in negotiations with unions representing actors, writers and directors.
As a result, Netflix would not be subject to any contract dispute that erupts between the unions and the studios should they fail to reach agreement on new film and TV contracts — all of which expire next spring or early summer. Writers, actors and directors could continue to work on Netflix shows even if they staged a walkout with members of the producers alliance.

As a Netflix subscriber, this is good news.  Not only do we get lots of good movies, but it turns out I'm supporting a company that, for now anyway, has a healthy understanding of unions.  But if they heads of Netflix watch the movies I see there, then one would expect a positive attitude toward unions.

But I won't assume that things will always be this way.  As corporations get larger and more powerful, they often forget their original values.  

Who Are The Three Amigos?

 The Three Amigos is:  (from the Dallas News):

"the name Sondland gave to himself; Perry, the former Texas governor; and Kurt Volker, another diplomat, as the group overseeing U.S.-Ukraine relations."

Basically, these three men took over for the career diplomats working in Ukraine to carry out Trump and Giuliani's behalf to try to get Ukraine president Zelensky to conduct an investigation of Hunter Biden in exchange for a meeting with president Trump and for the release of the funding for Ukraine's military.  It's a name they called themselves.

image from Las Vegas Review Journal

Rick Perry, former Texas Governor, who still heads the Energy Department (though he has announced his resignation), the agency he wanted to abolish.

image from ABC

Gordon Sondland a hotel owner who was appointed as Ambassador to the European Union after donating $1 million for a ticket to the Trump inauguration.

image from CNN

Kurt Volker, (from The Hill:)

"Volker began his career as a CIA officer before working as a foreign service officer for the State Department during the Reagan administration. He was appointed as U.S. ambassador to NATO in 2008 by President George W. Bush. 

“Based on multiple readouts of the meetings recounted to me by various U.S. officials, Ambassadors Volker and Sondland reportedly provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the President had made of Mr. Zelensky,” the whistleblower wrote in the formal complaint."

I'd note that Sondland testified yesterday that he and the others didn't agree with the president's demand for an investigation on Hunter Biden, they felt that the President wouldn't budge, and thus the best way to get the funding released to Ukraine was to get Zelensky to comply.


Here's a brief clip from the original Three Amigos.

Remembering Watergate Heroes - Sam Ervin and Barbara Jordan

It's the second sunny day down here on Bainbridge.  I've been happily busy walking my nieta* to and from school.  She's at a great age and we're having lots of fun.

And then there's the impeachment hearings that are eating up my time.  Just seems like something I should be doing.

My Watergate memories (it was always called Watergate hearings, not impeachment hearings in my memory) are mostly of the Senate Committee lead by North Carolina Democrat Sam Ervin, a man with the charm and wit that no one could demonize.  "Ah'm just a country lawyer," was his disclaimer.

Here's a very short video of him interrogating a witness.







When I think back to the House hearings, only two names jump out.  The incredible Barbara Jordan and the methodical Elizabeth Holzman.

A reminder (and antidote to the likes of Reps. Jordan and Nunes) of the seriousness of these proceedings.





Just some context for what we're living through yet again.

*the Spanish nieta is shorter and sweeter than that English word granddaughter

As We Examine Hilcorp's Purchase of BP's Alaska Holdings, Looking at the Charter for the Development of the Alaska North Slope Seems Appropriate

Over ten years ago I came across something called the Charter for the Development of the Alaska North Slope.  This post tells that story.  I've been getting hits on the story form various places and organizations in the last couple of months.  I'm guessing that this interest is related to BP's selling it's Alaska interests to Hilcorp  so I thought I should post this again.  So here it is:

Monday, February 02, 2009

Charter for the Development of the Alaska North Slope

When I wrote a post about the Conoco-Philips ads in the ADN some time ago, the "Charter Agreement" came up and I wrote:

I also know that CP makes other contributions to the community such as $100,000 to the Museum in 2007. And there was a $3.68 million gift to the University of Alaska also in 2007. But we need to put an * on that. The University of Alaska press release on the gift also says,

The annual gifts stem from a charter agreement between the oil companies and the state regarding the BP merger with ARCO in the late 1990s. Part of the charter agreement identifies public higher education as a top priority for charitable donations . . .

So a minimum amount of contribution is required by this Charter Agreement that was a condition for the BP-ARCO merger. I called Scott Goldsmith, the author of the ISER report, to find out how to get access to the Charter Agreement.He wasn't sure if he ever actually saw a copy, but said he'd check for it tomorrow. [Update: I also called UAA Advancement and later the UA Foundation called and said they would find the Agreement and email it to me .] On the internet, nearly all references I find about BP or ConocoPhillips contributions to the University have that standard clause in them.

Well, a few days later, I got an email from the University of Alaska Foundation with a copy of the charter. But we were in high gear preparing to go to Thailand and what with the traveling and getting into things here, I didn't get around to posting that agreement. (It's down below) I haven't had a chance to study the whole charter, but I expect there is plenty to chew on.

For the time being, let's just look at the part that discusses community charitable contributions:

D. Community Charitable Commitment. Within three months after the merger is completed, BP and ARCO [what BP wasn't allowed to buy of ARCO because it would have given BP monopolistic power in Alaska eventually became Conoco-Philips if I got this right] will establish a charitable entity dedicated to funding organizations and causes within Alaska. The entity will provide 30% of its giving to the University of Alaska Foundation and the remainder to general community needs. Funding decisions by the entity will be made by BP and ARCO, with the advice of a board of community advisors. BP and ARCO will provide ongoing funding to this entity in an amount that is equal to 2% of BP's and ARCO's combined aggregate net Alaska liquids production after royalty times the price for WTI. Specific entity funding levels will be calculated annually on the same date each year, referencing the liquids production and the average NYMEX WTI prompt month settlement price for the 12 months immediately proceeding the calculation.

So here are some questions I have:

1. Who monitors these contributions to be sure that they are making the contributions required?
2. How do members of the public find this out?
3. Are they contributing what they are required to contribute?
4. Are they contributing more than they are required to contribute? (If not, can either company seriously claim to make charitable contributions? This was simply a business deal, a required cost of doing business in Alaska and not really charitable donations.)
5. Who is on these boards and are the meetings announced and public?

A quick Google search got me to the BP website. Searching there for charter agreement I got a copy of the 2007 annual report on the Charter Agreement for 2006. It is four lines over four pages - for the whole charter agreement. Plus a cover letter to Governor Sarah Palin. The part on charitable giving says this:

COMMUNITY CHARITABLE GIVING

The BP Board of Community Advisors met in February, 2006, at which time they
reviewed 2005 community spend [sic] and plans for 2006.

BP spent more than $10.2 million in support of community programs in 2006,
consistent with the formula detailed in the Charter.

Approximately $3 million was contributed to the University of Alaska Foundation
(1/3 of community investment).

ConocoPhilips's website gave me this message:

Connection to server www.search.conoco.com failed (The server is not responding.)

Why do I think that is the extent of the oversight? Even BP didn't think it was important enough to proof read it carefully. Am I being too cynical? Did the Governor's office demand back up information so they could see how the 2% times the price of WTI? I don't know. What about all the other issues in the Charter? What sort of scrutiny do they get? Just this brief annual report?

Since I'm pretty busy right now in Thailand, I'm going to have to hold off on pursuing these questions. Though I might send them to my representatives in the State Legislature.

Meanwhile, here is the rest of the Charter. I hope other bloggers and non-bloggers start reading it carefully to see whether the oil companies are living up to the agreement. I guess first we ought to figure out which state agencies are responsible for keeping track.

Charter for Development of the Alaskan North Slope

Publish at Scribd or explore others:  Government  Business & Legal  conocphilips  BP

TSA Starts Trip Poorly

We both got flagged by the security machine at the Anchorage airport.  I got a very intimate patting down.  "I have nothing in my pockets"  "You're wearing Levis.  The keep you warm and the machine detects heat."  J got the same treatment.  But she got a second one as well.  Here's my wife the terrorist.

Really, how many 70+ year old American women terrorists have there been in the US?  Ones who have a record of recently flying fairly frequently without incident and have round trip tickets, etc. 

There are at least two ways of detecting terrorists:  One is to examine the person - find out if there is anything in their background or behavior that suggests a problem that needs more attention.  That's not what all these airport detectors do.  They examine based on the machine.  They told me when I pointed out that my wife was a very unlikely suspect that "if the alarm goes off, we have to exam."   

This really does feel a lot like theater.  Somewhere there has to be a happy medium between ethnic profiling and terrorist profiling.  How much time and money does TSA spend on people who have .00001 chance of being a terrorist?   I'm sure they have detected plenty of guns with the machines, thrown away lots of pricy water bottles, and someone has sold a lot of scanning machines.  

(I checked.  There seem to be a fair number of companies making money of this theater. ) 

But once we were in the air, life looked better.

The fresh snow on the Chugach looked magical.  

And the Olympic Range was poking out of the clouds as we neared Seattle.  So was Ranier.

If you look closely, there's an airplane to the right of the mountain against the clouds.  

And walking my granddaughter to school we passed this tree with all its leaves in an almost perfect circle below it.  

The school is really wonderful.  It's part of the public school system, but like Stellar and Polaris in Anchorage, it requires a lot of parental volunteer work.  There's grades 1-6 in two large connected and non-institutional classrooms.  Here's a part.  

Every child should have access to a place like this.  I stayed about 15 minutes.  All the kids had stuff to do and were working quietly.  My granddaughter was writing in her journal.  Then they had a small meeting where they talked about empathy.  And about lice - it's that season.  

Later, after school, we went for a walk through the woods while she was having a music lesson.

There's lots of other things to write about, but I've been busy.  

Barr: ". . . so-called progressives treat politics as their religion . . Conservatives . . . are interested in preserving. . . the proper balance of freedom and order "

The title quote comes from the US Department of Justice website!  It's from a speech Attorney General William Barr delivered last night at the Federalist Society's 2019 National Lawyers Convention.  Here are three full paragraphs from that speech:

"In any age, the so-called progressives treat politics as their religion.  Their holy mission is to use the coercive power of the State to remake man and society in their own image, according to an abstract ideal of perfection.  Whatever means they use are therefore justified because, by definition, they are a virtuous people pursing a deific end.  They are willing to use any means necessary to gain momentary advantage in achieving their end, regardless of collateral consequences and the systemic implications.  They never ask whether the actions they take could be justified as a general rule of conduct, equally applicable to all sides. 
Conservatives, on the other hand, do not seek an earthly paradise.  We are interested in preserving over the long run the proper balance of freedom and order necessary for healthy development of natural civil society and individual human flourishing.  This means that we naturally test the propriety and wisdom of action under a “rule of law” standard.  The essence of this standard is to ask what the overall impact on society over the long run if the action we are taking, or principle we are applying, in a given circumstance was universalized – that is, would it be good for society over the long haul if this was done in all like circumstances?
For these reasons, conservatives tend to have more scruple over their political tactics and rarely feel that the ends justify the means.  And this is as it should be, but there is no getting around the fact that this puts conservatives at a disadvantage when facing progressive holy far, especially when doing so under the weight of a hyper-partisan media."

You notice how he's arguing that the liberals (I guess the Republicans now vilify 'progressives' as the Left has begun using that term to avoid the taint of the Republicans campaign to make 'liberal' into a dirty word) want to be God - 'holy mission;'  'remake man and society in their own image;'  'deific end.'  

The people I know who see themselves as progressives are interested in making the United States live up to the spirit of the Constitution, whose letter including slavery and other problematic realities.  They believe in justice, equality before the law, freedom, etc.  I'm not sure what Barr is thinking about when he says progressives want to remake man and perfect him.  (I personally would use human instead of man, but for this I'm using his words.)  Does he mean freeing slaves?  Ending segregation? Giving women the right to vote?  And recognizing that all humans, regardless of color, religion, gender, ability, etc. have equal rights under the law?  After all, Republicans have been working hard to 'perfect' humans by passing laws to prevent abortion and other practices they don't like.  

But I didn't post this to argue these points.  I think they are so ludicrous they don't need anyone to point out the problems.  But obviously if an educated man like Barr believes what he's written here, others do too.  So I did a little critique.  I could go on if anyone who sees this doesn't understand what I object to.

My purpose here is to point out the blatantly partisan tripe that Barr has posted on the Department of Justice website.  The attorney general of the US is supposed to enforce the law without bias.  But this speech raises great doubt whether he can actually do that.  I can't help but believe that under his idea of justice, progressives would be given less benefit of the doubt than would conservatives.  Because, he believes they are simply wrong.

Part of me thinks the whole attempt to suppress the actual beliefs of academics and journalists and judges in an effort to make them 'neutral' is a misguided cause.  It's better to know what they believe so we can judge whether they are able to act neutrally when they do research, report news, or pass judgment.   But the ability to put aside one's personal loyalties in one's professional capacity is not something everyone (many?) can do.  

But Barr's behavior regarding Trump suggests strongly that he can't do that - from the misleading summary of the Mueller Report to his defense of Trump over the Constitution and the people of the United States - suggests he can't.  And his comments in this speech are so ideological and so off the mark in both his characterization of liberals and conservatives as to raise question about his abilities to interpret the world.  Or his honesty.  

I should thank two Tweeters for point this out:  Shalev Roisman and Justin Levitt who I follow because he's an expert on voting and redistricting.

My natural instinct was to take a screenshot before they take his speech down.  But in this administration there is no shame.  And they probably see nothing wrong with this speech.  And they really don't care what the liberals think anyway.  They've got the US governments websites to plaster their ideology.  But I did take a screenshot (and of course they can be doctored too, but the forensics team will be able to see that this shot wasn't doctored - but that question should always be in your mind.

And I need to mention Anchorage got its first snow today.  We haven't even had traces.  But we got a good white cleansing today.

Do Bike Studded Tires Really Work?

I imagine that they wouldn't be selling if they didn't work.   Riding on packed snow is one thing.  My winter bike did that fine without studs.  But now that our winters are icier, I broke down and bought a pair of studded tires.

Yesterday was a real test.  It had been drizzling most of the night onto below freezing pavement.  The ice was obvious.  Walking without grippers was a challenge.  Was I going to try out my tires on this horrible day to go to my last Pebble Mine class (there's one more, but we're going south for  a Thanksgiving granddaughter visit.)

The floor had been installed and the electricians were finishing up their second day of converting our house to the 21st century.  I was really skeptical, but Erick, one of the electricians encouraged me.  He's rode on studded bike tires one winter and he was fine.  Never fell off.  Just keep my bottom on the seat.  Skeptically, I decided to try it out on our block.

Let me tell you.  It was amazing.  There was never a dicey moment, except in my head.  I was cautious all the way, checking the brakes as I went down hills and slowing before going around corners, but the bike never wavered.  It never slid, it never let on that it was basically on ice all the way.

My aging body tells me to let up sometimes, and my rebellious inner child says, don't be a chicken, keep moving.   I know this probably isn't the smartest thing for me to do, but if I only did the safest think in life, my life wouldn't have been as interesting.

And now I know these tires are really good.  I also know they aren't fool proof.  But if they worked today, they should be good most of the time.


So, Jacob*, yes, they work.  


*comment #1


Meanwhile we're scrambling to get the house back in order after the disruptions from the workers, get things ready for our house sitter while we're gone, take care of last minute loose ends to tie up (you now have to 'join' the US Postal Service to stop your mail, but you can buy stamps online too and they say they'll let me track the incoming envelopes and packages online), and get packed.

Some Impeachment Cleansing - Old Post On Confucius And Thomas Jefferson

Serendipity plays a big role intros blog.  I got an email from someone who claims to be an English teacher praising an old post of mine and linking to her blog.  It has the normal SEO (Search Engine Optimization) fingerprints, but I did look at the link to my blog in the email.  I didn't see any naturally connections to her theme, but the page did include this four year old post about a movie on Confucius and also Thomas Jefferson useful for Trump induced brain damage. 

Think of this as an attempt to reset our national political/moral thermostat to normal and away from the crazy settings the Trump administration has reset it to.  Or think of it as a lozenge for the political sore throat Trump has given us all.  

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Something For Alaska And US Majority Leaders To Think About

 This comes from the movie Confucius. (孔子 (Kong Zi) Director: Mei Hu).

Confucius consents to an audience with the royal consort of Wei against the wishes of his disciples.  She has a reputation as a beautiful woman with a sketchy past and she clearly is intent on seducing the great scholar.

She starts off by asking about the Book of Odes, and the love poetry in it.

Screen shot from Confucius. (孔子 (Kong Zi) Director: Mei Hu)

He politely rejects her request to become his student and to meet again.  She then asks about his theories of government. 

Screen shots from Confucius. (孔子 (Kong Zi) Director: Mei Hu)

Screen shots from Confucius. (孔子 (Kong Zi) Director: Mei Hu)

Screen shots from Confucius. (孔子 (Kong Zi) Director: Mei Hu)

While there is much about Confucian teaching that is problematic today - particularly his rigid hierarchical power structure and his low regard for women - there is also much of use to our political leaders today.

I'd note that Thomas Jefferson, one of the inspirations of the Tea Party,  was something of a China scholar.  From a scholarly paper "Thomas Jefferson's Incorporating Positive Elements From Chinese Civilization" by Dave Wan. 
(Note that the poem Jefferson clips out in the passage below, is the one referred to by the Royal Consort of Wei in the film - "The Book of Odes."  The poem is a tribute to the Prince of Wei - several hundred years prior to Confucius.)

"Founding Inspiration from the Confucius’ Classics

       In the nineteenth century intellectuals in the United States often enjoyed creating personal scrapbooks, in which they would cut out their “favorite newspaper articles and poems” and past “them onto the backs of old letters to create a sort of personal literary anthology.”  None of us will feel surprised to know that Thomas Jefferson, “an Enlightenment intellectual,” created a scrapbook in his own way. Some time from 1801-1809 Jefferson included in the section of his scrapbook titled Poems of the Nations an ancient Chinese poem from The Book of Odes. His love of the poem provides us with a window through which we can look into his efforts to learn from Chinese culture. What he wanted to learn from the poem?

       Below is Jefferson’s clipping of the poem:

                                           A Very Ancient Chinese Ode
Translated by John Collegins seq
Quoted in the To Hio of Confuciues
(….from a manuscript presented in the Bodlein Library )

SEE! how the silvery river glides,
And leaves' the fields bespangled sides !
Hear how the whispering breeze proceeds!
Harmonious through the verdant reeds!
Observe our prince thus lovely shine!
In him the meek-ey'd virtues join!
Just as a patient carver will, Hard ivory model by his skill,
So his example has impress'd Benevolence in every b[re]ast;
Nice hands to the rich gems, behold,
Impart the gloss of burnish'd gold:
Thus he, in manners, goodly great,
Refines the people of his state. True lenity,
how heavenly fair !
We see it while it threatens,—spare!
What beauties in its open face!
In its deportment—what a grace!
Observe our prince thus lovely shine!
In him the meek-ey'd virtues join!
His mern'ry of eternal prime,
Like truth, defies the power of time!

       The poem pays tribute to Prince Wei from the State of Wei, who was loved, respected and remembered by the people of his state. Confucius (551-479 BC) highly praised Prince Wei, described in the poem, when he quoted this poem in his famous book, The Great Learning, to provide a standard to inspire other princes and leaders of various states to follow. Confucius said,

In the Book of Ode, ‘Ah! The former kings are not forgotten’ Future princes deem worthy what they deemed worthy, and love what they loved. The common people delighted in what they delighted them, and are benefited by their beneficial arrangements. It is on this account that the former kings, after they have quitted the world, are not forgotten."

Important themes that we should remember from Confucius is his emphasis on ethics, on education, on harmony and treating people with respect and taking care of the poor and less fortunate. 

Just something to think about on a cloudy Saturday.


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I don't particularly recommend this film as a film.  But as an easy (and visually beautiful) overview of the life of Confucius it will do.   It tends to give us a series of vignettes of his life,  with very little character development.   The two actors in these screenshots are (from Wikipedia):

• Chow Yun-fat as Confucius or Kong Qui, also known by the honorary title Zhong Ni.
• Zhou Xun as Nanzi, the royal consort of Wei.

Zhou Xun was in Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2002) a film very much worth seeing.  She was also in Cloud Atlas.