I’m not sure why I’ve been leaning towards supporting John Edwards this primary season. Perhaps its his populism and anti-corporatism (although I’m realistic about his chances to actually do anything about it once in office). Or perhaps it’s because it’s refreshing to hear reasonable, quiet, calm, realistic talk during times of international crisis (as opposed to the … garbage we’ve put up with from the Boy Emperor for almost eight years). «Here’s» Edwards’ response to the Bhutto assassination:

‘Henderson: “In regards to the situation in Pakistan, if you were president, what would you be doing?”
Edwards: “If I were president I would do some of what I’ve already done. I spoke with the Pakistani Ambassador and then a few minutes ago I spoke with President Musharraf, urging him to continue on the path to democratization, to allow international investigators to come in to determine what happened, what the facts were so that there would be transparency and credibility about what actually occurred and also about the upcoming schedule of elections and that the important thing for America to do in this unstable environment is first of all focus on the tragedy that’s occurred. Benazir Bhutto was a strong woman, a courageous woman, someone that I actually spoke at a conference with a few years and she talked about the path to democracy in Pakistan being baptized in blood so she understood the extraordinary risk that she was taking by going back and it’s a terrible tragedy for the people of Pakistan, but it’s important for America to be a calming influence and provide strength in this environment.”’

The audio file is available at the link above.

A very moving, and very sad, slideshow of the «Benazir Bhutto assassination» has been posted at the New York Times. A horrible end to a horrible year.

The «complete collection of photos» is available for viewing (and purchase) at Getty Images.

Meanwhile, her 19-year-old son, «Bilawal» is purportedly named her successor. What a huge burden to place on a teenager’s shoulders.

The only end-of-the-year list I ever pay any attention to (and agree completely with) is the list of the 50 most loathsome people produced by «Buffalo Beast», which features The Boy Emperor firmly in spot el numero uno, up from el numero tres in 2005 and 2006:

‘Is it a civil rights milestone to have a retarded [emperor]? Maybe it would be, if he were ever legitimately elected. You can practically hear the whole nation holding its breath, hoping this guy will just fucking leave come January ’09 and not declare martial law. Only supporters left are the ones who would worship a fucking turnip if it promised to kill foreigners. Is so clearly not in charge of his own White House that his feeble attempts to define himself as “decider” or “commander guy” are the equivalent of a five-year-old kid sitting on his dad’s Harley and saying “vroom vroom!” Has lost so many disgusted staffers that all he’s left with are the kids from Jesus Camp. The first president who is so visibly stupid he can say “I didn’t know what was in the National Intelligence Estimate until last week” and sound plausible. Inarguably a major criminal and a much greater threat to the future of America than any Muslim terrorist.’
—BuffaloBeast.com

A better summing up of the emperor (and his assorted hangers-about) I have yet to see.

Since I wasn’t posting during the last few months, I missed noting the saddest day of the year, which made me weep. Molly Ivins is no longer with us.

The Nation collected a beautiful «salute to Molly Ivins»:

‘The country was founded by dissenters, and if as a doubter of divine authority Molly inherits the skepticism of Tom Paine, as a satirist she springs full blown, like Minerva, from the head of Mark Twain. Twain thought of humor, especially in its more sharply pointed forms of invective and burlesque, as a weapon with which to attack pride victorious and ignorance enthroned. He placed the ferocity of his wit at the service of his conscience, pitting it against the “peacock shams” of the established order, believing that “only laughter can blow…at a blast” what he regarded as “the colossal humbug” of the world. So also Molly, a journalist who commits the crimes of arson, making of her wit a book of matches with which to burn down the corporate hospitality tents of empty and self-righteous cant. Molly’s writing reminds us that dissent is what rescues the democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors, that republican self-government, properly understood, is an uproar and an argument, meant to be loud, raucous, disorderly and fierce.’
The Nation

Sigh.

God bless and rest you, Molly. You fought the good fight. We are the poorer for your passing, the richer for your acquaintance. RIP.

There were some remarkable people who left us in 2005:

‘When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom profit that loses.’
—Shirley Chisholm, who died 1-Jan-05

‘“We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch.” The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. “We put an instrument inside,” he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord’s Prayer or sing “God Bless America” or count backwards. … “We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded.” … When she began to become incoherent, they stopped’
—Dr. James W. Watts and Dr. Walter Freeman, report on frontal lobotomy on Rosemary Kennedy, who died 7-Jan-05

‘I had a happy marriage and a nice wife. I accomplished everything you can. What more can you want?’
—Max Schmeling, who died 2-Feb-05

‘Without alienation, there can be no politics.’
—Arthur Miller, who died10-Feb-05

‘America… just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.’
—Hunter S. Thompson, who died 20-Feb-05

‘Me, I’m good at nothing but walking on the set with a pretty dress.’
—Sandra Dee, who died 20-Feb-05

‘I’m just not the glamour type. Glamour girls are born, not made. And the real ones can be glamorous even if they don’t wear magnificent clothes. I’ll bet Lana Turner would look glamorous in anything.’
—Teresa Wright, who died 6-Mar-05

‘It’s inevitable that the company come back.’
—John DeLorean, who died 19-Mar-05

‘War is a defeat for humanity.’
—Pope John Paul II, who died 2-Apr-05

‘There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever… money, for instance, or war.’
—Saul Bellow, who died 5-Apr-05

‘I work hard in social work, public relations, and raising the Grimaldi heirs.’
—Princess Grace about her life with Prince Rainier Grimaldi of Monaco, who died 6-Apr-05

‘Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership.’
—Andrea Dworkin, who died 9-Apr-05

‘Well, the musicals give emphasis to love, longing, melancholy, sadness. All of that is always there.’
—Ismail Merchant, who died 25-May-05

‘I don’t really care how I am remembered as long as I bring happiness and joy to people.’
—Eddie Albert, who died 26-May-05

‘I’d like to be remembered as a premier singer of songs, not just a popular act of a given period.’
—Luther Vandross, who died 1-Jul-05

‘There’s nothing more irresistible to a man than a woman who’s in love with him.’
—Ernest Lehman, who died 2-Jul-05

‘Abhorrence of apartheid is a moral attitude, not a policy.’
—Edward Heath, who died 17-Jul-05

‘Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.’
—William C. Westmoreland, who died 18-Jul-05

‘I’m not tired of [beam me up Scotty] at all. Good gracious, it’s been said to me for just about 31 years. It’s been said to me at 70 miles an hour across four lanes on the freeway. I hear it from just about everybody. It’s been fun.’
—James Doohan, who died 20-Jul-05

‘I will be father to the young, brother to the elderly. I am but one of you; whatever troubles you, troubles me; whatever pleases you, pleases me.’
—King Fahd Bin Abdul Aziz, who died 1-Aug-05

‘There were no international terrorists in Iraq until we went in. It was we who gave the perfect conditions in which Al Qaeda could thrive.’
—Robin Cook, who died 6-Aug-05

‘It’s a brassiere! You know about those things, you’re a big boy now. … It’s brand new. Revolutionary up-lift: No shoulder straps, no back straps, but it does everything a brassiere should do. Works on the principle of the cantilevered bridge. … An aircraft engineer down the penninsula designed it; he worked it out in his spare time.’ [from Vertigo]
—Barbara Bel Geddes, who died 8-Aug-05

‘I think Alexander Hamilton has received a little bit of short shrift from history, and I think Jefferson has been treated a little bit too generously. I admire them both, but I admire them both about equally.’
—William Rehnquist, who died 3-Sep-05

‘I’ve often wondered if maybe I tried to tell too many stories in The Sand Pebbles.’
—Robert Wise, who died 14-Sep-05

‘Sid Luft was no gentleman. He was a weight lifter. He was a former test pilot. He was a gambler. He’s still one of those old-time Hollywood guys.’
—Lorna Luft about her father, Sidney Luft, who died 15-Sep-05

‘The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat. So information is a defence. Through this we can build, we must build, a defence against repetition.’
—Simon Wiesenthal, who died 20-Sep-05

‘I said to myself, where are we living? In the United States of America where you’re innocent until proven guilty, or Nazi Germany with the Gestapo calling?’
—Tommy Bond during the Robert Blake trial. Bond died 24-Sep-05

‘All I was doing was trying to get home from work.’
—Rosa Parks, who died 24-Sep-05

‘I- I- I watched him for fifteen years, sitting in a room, staring at a wall, not seeing the wall, looking past the wall – looking at this night, inhumanly patient, waiting for some secret, silent alarm to trigger him off. Death has come to your little town, Sheriff. Now you can either ignore it, or you can help me to stop it.’
—Donald Pleasance in 1978’s Halloween, produced by Moustapha Akkad, who died 11-Nov-05

‘The changes in both radio and television are mind-boggling.’
—Ralph Edwards, who died 16-Nov-05

‘Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.’
—Eugene McCarthy, who died 10-Dec-05

‘There’s a thin line between to laugh with and to laugh at.’
—Richard Pryor, who died 10-Dec-05

‘Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.’
—William Proxmire, who died 14-Dec-05

The year that was: « Goodbye Hunter S. Thompson »:

‘‘Politics is the art of controlling your environment.’ That is one of the key things I learned in these years, and I learned it the hard way. Anybody who thinks that ‘it doesn’t matter who’s President’ has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid War on the other side of the World — or been beaten and gassed by Police for trespassing on public property — or been hounded by the IRS for purely political reasons — or locked up in the Cook County Jail with a broken nose and no phone access and twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower. That is when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief. That is when you will wish you had voted.’
—Hunter S. Thompson via John Cusack in the Huffington Post

Stuff like « this » makes me wonder if my desire to return to my home state is really all that wise of an idea:

‘An essay contest at a New Mexico high school asks students to explain why preserving marriage between men and women is vital society and why unborn children merit respect and protection. The contest, at Farmington’s Piedra Vista High School, is being held in connection with an essay contest sponsored by United Families International, an organization whose primary mission is “to strengthen the family by promoting marriage between one man and woman and the protection of human life, including unborn children.” The students were given the option of either writing a response to two questions about preserving marriage and the protection of the “unborn” or submitting a personal narrative.’
—365Gay.com

I wonder … what would the parents have done if the questions were about granting constitutional marriage equality to all and preserving a woman’s right to reproductive choice? I think I already know the answer. Yet another reason to erect not only a wall of separation between church and state in the schools, but also between politics and state in the schools. And yes, there is a difference.

“Rabbi Yoffie! You’re my new hero!”

We need more courageous heroes like « Rabbi Eric Yoffie » to speak more truth to power:

‘The leader of the largest branch of American Judaism blasted conservative religious activists in a speech Saturday, calling them “zealots” who claim a “monopoly on God” while promoting anti-gay policies akin to Adolf Hitler’s. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism, said “religious right” leaders believe “unless you attend my church, accept my God and study my sacred text you cannot be a moral person.” “What could be more bigoted than to claim that you have a monopoly on God?” he said during the movement’s national assembly in Houston, which runs through Sunday. …
‘He used particularly strong language to condemn conservative attitudes toward homosexuals. He said he understood that traditionalists have concluded gay marriage violates Scripture, but he said that did not justify denying legal protections to same-sex partners and their children. “We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations,” Yoffie said. “Yes, we can disagree about gay marriage. But there is no excuse for hateful rhetoric that fuels the hellfires of anti-gay bigotry.”’
—Associated Press

Amen, Rabbi Yoffie! You’re my new hero.

Meanwhile, Fascist FunDumbMentalist leader Jerry Falwell announced he’s starting « a religious holy war against anyone who won’t say ‘Merry Christmas’ », complete with McCarthyite snitches in the public schools:

‘Falwell has put the power of his 24,000-member congregation behind the “Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign,” an effort led by the conservative legal organization Liberty Counsel. The group promises to file suit against anyone who spreads what it sees as misinformation about how Christmas can be celebrated in schools and public spaces. The 8,000 members of the Christian Educators Association International will be the campaign’s “eyes and ears” in the nation’s public schools. They’ll be reporting to 750 Liberty Counsel lawyers who are ready to pounce if, for example, a teacher is muzzled from leading the third-graders in “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” An additional 800 attorneys from another conservative legal group, the Alliance Defense Fund, are standing by as part of a similar effort, the Christmas Project. Its slogan: “Merry Christmas. It’s OK to say it.”’
—SF Gate

Rabbi Yoffie … Jerry Falwell … not much of a contest as to which one is closest to G-d, eh?

“Jesus, save us from your followers!”

I’ve been meaning to blog this for weeks, to read it into the record, so to speak. But what with grad school hell, I just haven’t had time.

I’ve long thought that we need to take Jesus back from his followers. And Bill McKibben wrote up « some persuasive arguments » last August in Harper’s:

‘Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nation’s educational decline, but it probably doesn’t matter all that much in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor. On this essential matter, most Americans—most American Christians—are simply wrong, as if 75 percent of American scientists believed that Newton proved gravity causes apples to fly up.
‘Asking Christians what Christ taught isn’t a trick. When we say we are a Christian nation—and, overwhelmingly, we do—it means something. People who go to church absorb lessons there and make real decisions based on those lessons; increasingly, these lessons inform their politics. (One poll found that 11 percent of U.S. churchgoers were urged by their clergy to vote in a particular way in the 2004 election, up from 6 percent in 2000.) When George Bush says that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher, he may or may not be sincere, but he is reflecting the sincere beliefs of the vast majority of Americans.
‘And therein is the paradox. America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior. That paradox—more important, perhaps, than the much touted ability of French women to stay thin on a diet of chocolate and cheese—illuminates the hollow at the core of our boastful, careening culture.’
—Harper’s

McKibben goes on to sum things up nicely in a way with which I wholeheartedly agree:

‘But straight is the path and narrow is the way. The gospel is too radical for any culture larger than the Amish to ever come close to realizing; in demanding a departure from selfishness it conflicts with all our current desires. Even the first time around, judging by the reaction, the Gospels were pretty unwelcome news to an awful lot of people. There is not going to be a modern-day return to the church of the early believers, holding all things in common—that’s not what I’m talking about. Taking seriously the actual message of Jesus, though, should serve at least to moderate the greed and violence that mark this culture. It’s hard to imagine a con much more audacious than making Christ the front man for a program of tax cuts for the rich or war in Iraq. If some modest part of the 85 percent of us who are Christians woke up to that fact, then the world might change.’

To which I can only add, ‘Amen!’

Thank you, Canada! And thank you Neil Hodgins and all our wonderful friends!

Pics are up: « The Wedding »

« The Reception »

I’m melancholy tonight, listening to « Harry Connick Jr.‘s » Way Down Yonder in New Orleans, Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?, Basin Street Blues and, especially, City Beneath the Sea, his love song to New Orleans, which is one of a handful of my favorite cities on the planet. Tears my heart out, but I needed to hear them (and my boy Harry) tonight.

Gosh. I feel so … honored. « Jerry Falwell now approves of me getting my master’s in elementary education », as long, of course, as I don’t ‘recruit’ the little buggers … whatever that means:

‘“I don’t think homosexuals should be granted a special minority status,” he told the paper. However, he said that gays, including teachers, should not be denied jobs solely because of their sexuality. “As long as a person obeys the law and doesn’t recruit a student to a certain lifestyle, they shouldn’t be prevented from teaching,” Falwell said. “Every American should be allowed to work wherever he or she wishes as long as they obey the law.” He has a caveat for that too, though. He said he is not going to hire gays for teaching positions at Liberty Christian Academy or Liberty University. “Our doctrinal belief is that homosexuality is wrong,” he said. “We also believe heterosexual promiscuity is wrong. Those have been standards since the beginning.”’
—365Gay.com

Well, okie dokie then. I need to look up the law that says ‘gay teachers can’t recruit students to a certain lifestyle,’ and then we’re good to go. I’m so relieved.

Just as on 11-Marzo, we were all Madrileños and on 11-September we were all New Yorkers, as of 7-July we are all « Londoners ».

‘Once the shock had settled, I started to feel immense pride that the LAS, the other emergency services, the hospitals, and all the other support groups and organisations were all doing such an excellent job. To my eyes it seemed that the Major Incident planning was going smoothly, turning chaos into order. And what you need to remember is that this wasn’t a major incident, but instead four major incidents, all happening at once. I think everyone involved, from the experts, to the members of public who helped each other, should feel pride that they performed so well in this crisis. London won’t be beaten, we spent 20 years under the shadow of the IRA, and are used to terrorists. The medical staff at the BMA building did their best to save their ‘civilian’ staff from looking at the carnage that was left from the bomb on the bus.’

So. « Ayn Clouter writes movie script treatments ». Who knew?

‘What is really needed to refresh the medium is to bring in, not “politically correct” references to current society, but real down-and-dirty politics filled with Red State values. Hence this treatment for a much better remake of the original material, meant to be financed by a Scaife grant and subject to oversight by Medved and Dobson. (Yes, I switch the starting jobs for the future “thing” and “torch”. That’s prosaic license.)’
—Ayn Clouter

Ayn rocks the place.

Undaunted by the « autopsy »,

Terri ‘Schiavo’s brain damage “was irreversible … no amount of treatment or rehabilitation would have reversed” it, said Jon R. Thogmartin, the pathologist in Florida’s sixth judicial district who performed the autopsy and announced his findings at a news conference in Largo, Fla. Still unknown is what caused Schiavo, 41, to lose consciousness on a winter morning in 1990. Her heart beat ineffectively for nearly an hour, depriving her brain of blood flow and oxygen. A study of her organs, fluids, bones and cells, as well as voluminous medical records, failed to support strangulation, beatings, a drug overdose, complications of an eating disorder or a rare molecular heart defect. All had been offered as theories over the past 15 years. Thogmartin said the cause will probably never be known. … The autopsy was performed the day after Schiavo died. It included 72 photographs of the outside of her body; 116 photographs of internal organs; 58 X-ray views before the autopsy and 28 during and after it — 274 images in all.’

« the Fascists refuse to give up the woman’s dead body », preferring to continue to use it as a political football.

‘Jeb Bush said Friday that a prosecutor has agreed to investigate why Terri Schiavo collapsed 15 years ago, citing an alleged time gap between when her husband found her and when he called 911. Bush said his request for the probe was not meant to suggest wrongdoing by Michael Schiavo. “It’s a significant question that during this ordeal was never brought up,” Bush told reporters.’

Of many outrages perpetrated in the last four-plus years, this ranks right up at the top. If there is a God, may He harshly judge these shameless, self-promoting, ignorant and hollow human beings. And I use that last term loosely.

On Memorial Day, I always think back to 1989, when as a newspaper reporter, I was privileged to meet a great group of heroes:

Memory Of WWII Still Vivid For Vets
(Part I of the Wake Island Story)

‘Considering the power accumulated for the invastion of Wake Island and the meager forces of the defenders, it was one of the most humiliating defeats the Japanese Navy ever suffered.’
—Masatake Okumiya, commander, Japanese Imperial Navy

By Steve Pollock
The Duncan (OK) Banner)
Sunday, August 13, 1989

MARLOW – It all came back to them this weekend – the stark terror of facing death while kneeling naked on a sandy beach the stinking hold of the prison ship; the brutality of the Japanese; the obliteration of youthful innocence.

They fought and bled for a two-and-a-half-square-mile horseshoe of an atoll in the midPacific called Wake Island. They were United States Marines and they did their duty.

There were 10 men of that Wake Island garrison at the Marlow home of John Smith this weekend. With Smith, they talked, drank and smoked their way through the weekend, laughter masking deeper emotions of brotherhood, camaraderie and painful memories.

In the Smith kitchen, their wives continued the latest of an ongoing series of therapy sessions, attempting to exorcise some of the demons of the last 44 years of their lives with the hometown heroes.

———

In 1941, with war inevitable, the U.S. government began construction of a series of defensive Pacific Ocean outposts, including Wake, designed to protect against Japanese aggression. They were a little late.

Little Wake atoll, with some 1,616 Marines and civilians huddled on its three islands, was attacked at noon, Dec. 8, 1941, several hours after Pearl Harbor.

The Marines knew war was possible, but “didn’t think the little brown guys had the guts to hit us,” one of them said.

———

Jess Nowlin’s hearing aid battery is getting a little weak as the afternoon wears on, but his memory and sense of humor are still sharp.

He said the Marines were going about their business when they heard the drone of approaching aircraft.

“We thought they were B- 17’s out of Pearl coming in to refuel. They weren’t. They broke out of a cloud bank at about 1,800 feet, bomb bay doors open. They tore us up,” Nowlin said.

The Japanese attacked from sea and air, but the Marines held out until Dec. 23; only 400 remained to defend 21 miles of shoreline from 25 warships and a fleet of aircraft. Surrender was inevitable.

Through a haze of cigarette smoke, Robert Mac Brown, a veteran not only of World War II, but of Korea and three tours of duty in Vietnam, remembers the post-surrender scene on the beach.

“We were stripped naked and they hog-tied us with our own telephone wire. A squall came through, but lasted only about 10 to 15 minutes. One of my clearest memories of the whole operation is of watching the water run down the bare back of the guy in front of me,” Brown said.

Japanese soldiers lay on the sand in front of the prisoners, swinging machine guns back and forth. The click of rounds being loaded into chambers was ominous. Fingers tightened on triggers.

“There was an argument between the landing force commander and a guy with the fleet. They screamed at each other in Japanese, arguing about whether to kill us or not,” Brown said.

The Marines made their peace and prepared to die.

The argument to make prisoners of the Marines and civilians won the day. The prisoners were allowed to grab what clothing they could to cover themselves.

And then a living hell began which would only be ended by the birth of atomic stars over southern Japan nearly four years later.

———

Taken off the island on small ships, the prisoners were forced to climb up the side of the Nittamaru, a former cruise ship pitching about on rough seas.

As the men walked back through the ship and down to the hold, the crew beat them with bamboo sticks, in a gauntlet of brutality.

Packed in the stinking hold, several hundred Marines and civilians had only one five-gallon bucket per deck to hold human waste. For the 14 days of the Nittamaru’s passage from Wake to Shanghai, they could barely move.

The cold of Shanghai was felt through their thin tropical khaki. It was January 1942. Robert Brown was to have married his girl on January 12. She married someone else.

“I thought you were dead,” she later told him.

———

From Shanghai, through Nanking, Peking, Manchuria and Pusan, Korea, the group journeyed in packed cattle cars to their eventual destination, a coal mine on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, where they dug in the shafts alongside third-generation Korean slave labor.

They were slaves themselves until August 1945.

“Thank God for Harry S. Truman and the atomic bomb,” several survivors said, as the others echoed that prayer.

They went home to heroes’ welcomes, but the public ”’never fully appreciated or understood what we did,” Nowlin said.

———

They’re much older now — in their 60’s and 70’s — and it was a family reunion of sorts; they claim to be closer than brothers. They don’t miss their “get-togethers” for anything in the world; Robert Haidinger traveled from San Diego with a long chest incision after recently undergoing a major operation.

As they gazed through the Oklahoma sunshine, they didn’t see the cow bam beyond the lovegrass rippling in the August breeze; it was a Japanese destroyer was steaming close in to end their lives all over again.

“It was awful, terrible; I wouldn’t have missed it for anything; you couldn’t get me to do it again for a billion dollars,” Nowlin summed it up.

———

The men: Tony Obre, Fallbrook, Calif; Robert Haidinger, San Diego, Calif.; Robert Murphy, Thermopolis, Wyo.; Dale Milburn, Santa Rosa, Calif.; George McDaniels, Dallas, Texas; Jess Nowlin, Bonham, Texas; Jack Cook, Golden, Colo.; Robert Mac Brown, Phoenix, Ariz.; Jack Williamson, Lawton; Paul Cooper, Marlow, and John Smith, Marlow.

The cost of the defense of Wake Island, from Dec. 8 to 23, 1941: Americans: 46 Marines, 47 civilians, three sailors and 11 airplanes; Japanese: 5,700 men, 11 ships and 29 airplanes.

Wives Cope With Husband’s Memories
(Part II of the Wake Island Story)

By Steve Pollock
The Duncan (OK) Banner
Sunday, August 13, 1989

MARLOW – It all came back to them this weekend – fists lashing out during nightmares, the traumatic memories, the attempts to catch up on lost time.

The wives of 10 Wake Island survivors met in Marlow with their husbands this weekend for reasons of their own.

“We go through therapy every time we get together. We help each other with problems,” they said.

The wives: Florence Haidinger, Maxine Murphy, Opal Milburn, Irene McDaniels, Sarah Nowlin, Betty Cook, Millie Brown, Jo Williamson, Juanita Cooper and Marie Smith.

———

They did their own bit during World War II: The Red Cross, an airplane factory in Detroit, North American Aviation in El Segundo, Calif, Douglas in Los Angeles, the Kress dime store.

They married their men after the long national nightmare was finished, and their lives became entwined by one event: the Japanese attack on Wake Island Dec. 8-23,1941.

Since the first reunion of Wake survivors and their spouses in 1953, these women have been like sisters.

“We love each other, we’re closer than family,” Jo Williamson said.

In Marie Smith’s kitchen, therapy was doled out in a catharsis of talk little different from that of the men gathered on the patio. Talk is said to be good for the soul; these women heal great tears in theirs every time they see each other.

According to the wives, the men came home from the war, married, had children and tried to pick up where they left off.

They wanted to take care of their families and try to catch up. They were robbed of the fun times of their late teens and early 20’s, the women unanimously agree.

“They have also lived every day as if it were their last,” Sarah Nowlin said.

———

The men needed some help after their harrowing battle and brutal three -and-a-half-year captivity.

According to the women, doctors never realized therapy was in order: “They never got anything.”

One man lashed out with his fists during nightmares; after a few pops, his wife learned to leave the room. Another would slide out of bed and assume a rigid posture on the floor, arms and legs folded. Yet they have all been gentle men.

“I’ve never seen my husband harm or even verbally abuse anyone,” a wife said Reunions such as this help the men and women deal with life as they age. The youths of 16-22 are now grandfathers and grandmothers in their 60’s and 70’s.

———

Life today is a bit baffling to them.

Extremely proud of their men, the women have no patience with draft dodgers, flag burners, Japanese cars or foreign ownership of America.

They didn’t agree with the Vietnam war policy, but duty to country should have come first, they said.

“I didn’t want my son to go to Vietnam, but I would have been ashamed of him if he hadn’t,” one said.

The issue of flag burning stirs violent protest and emotion in the group: “Made in America”’ labels are on everything they buy.

And the younger generation does not enjoy the women’s confidence: “I don’t think they could do what we were all called on to do,” they agreed.

And as Marlow afternoon shadows grew longer, the women of Wake continued to cleanse their souls.

Author Philip Caputo had an interesting interview with Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that I caught the other day at lunch. And the NPR website has « an interesting section featuring Caputo’s writing on the Kent State shootings » on the 35th anniversary:

‘The hill slopes down in a sweep of green to a green field. That must be the practice field where the Guardsmen knelt and fired with their World War II M-1 rifles. It is quite peaceful today, empty, banal. Below, I spot what appears to be a marker, walk to it, and discover that it’s merely a piece of sculpture. Somewhat frustrated, I climb back up and ask a student, “Is the memorial around here?” “Right over there,” he says, pointing at a clump of trees. It is unobtrusive to say the least, almost covert, hidden under a grove of oaks and maples: a marble tablet set in the ground near some marble slabs that, I guess, serve as benches. The sole decorations are a few artificial flowers bound with pink and purple ribbon, a foil pinwheel that turns lazily in the breeze, the blades silver on one side, painted with the stars and stripes on the other. Its modesty seems deliberate, as if it commemorated a dark secret, like the gravestone of a relative who shamed the family. The tablet is covered with dead leaves, which I brush off to read the chiseled legend:

IN LOVING MEMORY
Allison Krause
Jeffrey Miller
Sandra Scheuer
William Schroeder

RESPECTFULLY REMEMBERED
Alan Canfora
John Cleary
Thomas Grace
Dean Kahler
Joseph Lewis
Donald Mackenzie
James Russell
Robby Stamps
Douglas Wrentmore

‘For all its uninspiring nature, it is a kind of war memorial, honoring the casualties of the day when the Vietnam War came home.’

It’s a fascinating look at a period which is still a fresh wound on the nation’s soul.

Here on the 60th anniversary of VE Day, I’m watching two films, Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph des Willens and the Criterion version of the French film Nacht und Nebel.

The first is the face that the Germans wanted to present to the world, the second is of the reality. Both are quite shattering, especially Nacht und Nebel, which pulls no punches in its imagery and which is not for the faint-hearted or weak-stomached.

Both documentaries should be viewed by all for purposes of ‘never again!’

But we live in an empire where our fellow citizens are being purged from churches because of political dissent.

Humans never learn. Never again? No.

Inevitably again.