He Thought His Words Would Not be Remembered

On a Friday long ago, a significant event happened on the fields of Pennsylvania that passed by largely unobserved.  It was a short commemorative address delivered November 19, 1863, and it lasted only a few minutes. 

The man who spoke outdoors that day on the battlefields at Gettysburg didn’t think that anyone would ever remember what he said. He wasn’t even the main speaker and he uttered only 271 words.

His handwritten notes were part of a ceremony to dedicate the bloody earth upon which thousands of American youth from the North and the South fell in what would prove to be the decisive battle of the American Civil War.

Below are a few words culled from those of Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest presidents, who delivered the Gettysburg Address 87 years after the American Revolution of 1776.  It began with:

“Four score and seven years ago…

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation [America] might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. . .

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”

On that day in November 1863, Lincoln was convinced that his nation had been waging the right struggle to hold together the nascent American Republic, despite the enormous loss of life. 

Today, in 2010, can we be as confident that it is worth the price of American blood to support the political and military systems of corrupt regimes in regions half-way around the world whose leaders and citizens don’t give a fig about the American system of values?

“Obama’s Wars”

I recently finished reading Bob Woodward’s latest book, Obama’s Wars.  The use of the plural in the title suggests to the reader that Woodward is about to discuss both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  But that’s not the case.  Woodward concentrates solely on Afghanistan. Iraq is nothing but a necessary reference, if not a distant memory.

Perhaps the most striking feature of Woodward’s 416-page work is the incredible access which this man has to the highest levels of elected, appointed and military policy makers within Washington’s Beltway, including the President.  As I paged through his work, that point comes through clearly, and I don’t think it’s a good thing: 

It puts Woodward in the position of being far too powerful as a sole-source filter and disseminator of insider information, much of which is classified.  The reason is simple:  No one can determine whether or not the distillation of the information which he presents to the reader is without bias, despite his impressive credentials.

There is also a potential conflict-of-interest related to his other position as an associate editor at The Washington Post.  For example, information from secret reports on wartime strategy was leaked to Woodward for his book and was also published in the Post.

Woodward’s writing in Obama’s Wars is highly documented, but the names of well-placed, unidentified sources from which he obtains much of his material is not available to readers.  

Other previously published sources are meticulously outlined in chapter notes.  Yet most of Woodward’s critical information and description of the relationships between major players seems to have been derived from what Woodward acknowledges as “primarily from background interviews and firsthand sources.”

According to journalistic protocol, those background sources cannot be identified by name, so that makes it possible for an author to construct a composite picture from interviews and to present it in such a way that pits one character in the drama against another.  There is much of this type of reporting in Obama’s Wars.  So which characters do you believe?

I recommend reading this book, but only with a highly critical eye (and not before bedtime!). 

Kristallnacht, the Beginning of a Terrifying Nightmare

Seventy-two years ago to this day, the Nazi regime under Adolph Hitler instigated riots all over Germany against its Jewish citizens.  When it was all over hundreds of synagogues had been ransacked, many destroyed, and at least 267 of them set on fire. 

The fury of the mobs was also let loose on thousands of Jewish businesses and homes throughout Germany and parts of Austria, where sledgehammers were taken to Jewish property.  The broken glass which littered the streets gave this – the beginning of the Jewish Holocaust – its name Kristallnacht, “night of the broken glass”

A swell of anti-Semitic sentiment had been gradually building up prior to the night of November 9, 1938, but it was the killing of a German diplomat by a 17-year old German-born Jew, Herschel Grynzpan, which became the pretext for this organized assault against Judaism:

Herschel’s parents had been deported to Poland, together with thousands of other Jews of Polish origin, despite the fact that by the 1920’s, "most German Jews were fully integrated into German society as German citizens."

That night of state-sponsored terror would become the formal beginning of years of nightmarish oppression, starvation, and abuse that European Jews would endure. 

It would not stop until Allied troops put an end to World War II, finally liberating the concentration camps and ending the persecutions that we now know of as The Holocaust.

This gives every rational-thinking American pause to consider what would happen to Jews in the Middle East, if anti-Semites like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had their way.

Gotcha! Speed Cameras Rake in Cash, Irk Drivers

The use of speed cameras is one of the hottest topics when it comes to its proven ability to catch drivers flat-footed, blasting through a red light pedal to the metal.

That’s why, in my current visit to the Washington area, an article in the Metro section of the Washington Post captured my attention.  According to columnist Petula Dvorak, the main justification that authorities use to install speed cameras is that they reduce accidents and fatalities “in school and construction zones as well as traffic trouble spots that have been known to maim and kill.” 

In Montgomery County, MD, officials highlight their effectiveness in reducing infractions by pointing out that in the first few years after they were installed, collisions have gone down by 30% in those locations.

But there is another hot-button rationale:  These innocent looking units hanging atop cross beams at intersections and mounted on vertical poles by the side of the road are astonishingly effective money-making machines.

Montgomery County has been dubbed “the speed camera capital of [this] region.” The number of cameras installed here grew from about twelve in 2007, to 109. 

Net Result:  In 2009, the county pulled in just under $21,000,000.

No, I have not mistakenly thrown in too many zeroes!  (Just imagine how much dough these digital wonders would generate for Bridgewater, if strategically placed along a few key roads and at intersections within our township.) 

However, they come with another cost, one with which Montgomery County officials are apparently OK.  These cameras have infuriated enough drivers in this area to the extent that a viral hatred for these tricksters has grown, and motorists have taken to ingenious ways of temporarily disabling them.  

Dvorak writes that they have been “cut down, torched, painted, silly-stringed, paint-balled, foiled by a simple Post-It note over the lens and repeatedly capped with Styrofoam cups and boxes.”

Just presenting the facts! 

Have a good weekend.  Thanks for reading and don’t forget:  Stay engaged.

Just One of those Things?

Not only did he sweep into office on the commitment of hope and change, but his charisma with millions of admirers seemed like the beginning of a long romance, one which would be cemented into an enduring and prosperous marriage with the American public.

Yet the honeymoon turned quarrelsome almost from the beginning and, if the polls are correct, some people in the wedding party may want a change in the family.  

When I thought about the developments of the last two years, the lyrics of an old Cole Porter song delivered by the Chairman of the Board came to mind.  As I began humming its melody today, one of the stanzas seemed appropriate no matter what the outcome of today’s elections:

“If we'd thought a bit about the end of it
When we started painting the town
We'd have been aware that our love affair
Was too hot not to cool down.”

The fallout from that torrid affair several years ago is now spilling all over the political landscape and into the lives of millions of ordinary Americans at home, as well as into those of U.S. men and women fighting in far off lands. 

The collective hope of many and the promise of harmonious change that emanated from the campaign speeches of Barack Obama now seem like a distant clarion call. Change did occur, but it has left millions badly bruised and has produced too many casualties.

If meaningful results aren’t produced, it could be:

 “So good-bye, dear, and amen
Here's hoping we meet now and then
It was great fun
But it was just one of those things.”

Americans are a patient and forgiving people, but only if they know that its leaders are genuinely moving in the right direction.