My New Religion: Boxerism

I have pondered in the past about how many of our religions today are based on books of superstitions written in the Bronze Age. This thought always makes me think, why not have a religion based on a newer book from the last century perhaps. But of course L. Ron Hubbard beat me to it. I would rather have a religion based on a good book, something from the literary canon. What about Animal Farm by George Orwell? This an allegorical book not to be taken literally. This is the perfect book to base a religion on.

In the book, after the animals take over the farm, the pigs take charge and found a religion called Animalism. I could start following Animalism. Why not? I love animals. This does cause me some personal conflicts. The first commandment of Animalism is "Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy." I do identify with this. I trust and like most four-legged creature more than I do two-legged, but this first commandment would put me in the category of the enemy. This is not a good religion for me. I need a religion that puts me at the top, that puts me as the good one and the other (non-followers) as the bad. I could rewrite the tenets to support my needs like the pigs did.  For example, they added the words "to excess" to the fifth commandment to be "no animal shall drink alcohol to excess" and they added "without cause" to the sixth to be "no animal shall kill any other animal without cause."  In kind, I could amend the first commandment to be "whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy except for me and my friends." That might work. I could easily use this commandment to demonize anyone I wanted to. That is one of the best advantages of having a religion, you get to moralize and get to have an easy template to judge others. Ultimately, Boxerism works better for me.

Boxer is the horse in Animal Farm, more specifically a work horse. Boxer is simplistic, naive, innocent and hard working. He does most of the work on the farm. He believes all you need to do in life is work hard and good things will come to you. "I will work hard," is his motto. He is a hero of the rebellion for he was an important factor in the Battle of Cowshed where he had a decisive victory over the stable boy. He ends up breaking his leg and the pigs sell his carcass for some whiskey and his remains carted off to be made into glue. I love this book. I've got to reread it again.

Boxer is perfect for a religious figure. For one, he is a rebel. Like most rebellions it was only successful for a short of time The human overlords were simply replaced by porcine overlords, but he is still a heroic figure, someone the people can look up to. He was killed, perhaps martyred, by someone he trusted that is a plus in the religious realm. He returned after his death as glue. 

The workhorse reins will be our religious symbol, we will wear these around our neck:

If our bosses complain, we will claim religious persecution. After all, it does bear the motto, "I will work hard" on its base.

Our religious city will be in India, Motihari, the birth place of George Orwell. We will lead bus tours for the holiest of Boxerists. Our gift shops will make a killing selling kitschy crap like this:

Why? Because Boxer is sacred. "All hale Boxerism!"

Since we don't know what day Boxer was transformed into glue, we will randomly pick a day to be our high holy days ... let's say, I don't know sometime in late December. 

I once had a girlfriend who told me that she cried when she read Animal Farm. This was toward the end of the relationship of my young adulthood, when I was grappling for reasons to like her. My ears perked up.  "Do tell!"  Was she lamenting the state of the humanity, a doomed political animal? No, she said, "Poor Boxer!" Yes, it does work at a literal text. It is perfectly fine to extol the masses and then take their money. Televangelist do it everyday. Let me snort their glue (in religious ceremonies only of course) and be happy with their delusions.

Amen.

Cokie #bestdogever

Euthanizing your pet is perhaps the most macabre experience you will ever have in your life. I've had to do it three times now and I can't imagine ever getting used to it. It is not just the loss of the creature that you love that is so awful, but the experience in general is really difficult. The vet comes into the room with a syringe of chemicals, they insert it into your pet's veins and they slowly pass-away in peace. They don't even seem like they have died. They seem like they are just staring.  You have to close their eyes. When you pick them up, only their limp body convinces you that they are gone. Perhaps it is more humane than the alternatives, but this doesn't stop it from being an awful experience. Not only do you have the loss of a loved one to deal with but now you have this awful memory for the rest of your life.

I am a privileged person to have had my dog, Cokie, in my life. She is the only dog that we've had that we have had since the very beginning of her life. When we picked her up she fit in the cup of my hands. All our other dogs came "pre-owned" with a ton of issues ranging from aggression to abandonment, while Cokie had none of these. We like to think it is because we had her since she was born that she was perfect. I can't say I've ever met a dog like her. She lit up the room. Everyone wanted to pet her. We had a line of people who wanted to dog sit. She was sweet and gentle and every child we knew wanted to take her home with them. How an extremely imperfect person as myself got thrown into the role of making the decision on whether this perfect creature would live or not ... I do not know.  How could I judge of her suffering? How do I judge on whether it is her suffering or my own that drives this decision? I am a wretch.

Cokie's perfection started in 2002. We had only one dog, Rex, at that time. He needed companionship for when we left him alone. My wife saw a free German shepherd puppies ad in the paper. She drove over Lake Champlain to Crowne Point, NY to a trailer park. The only pup left was the runt that no one wanted because she was so small. She was the smallest in a litter of ten so she didn't get a lot of time at her mom's teats early on. The people who owned her parents, kept them outside so when we took Cokie home her stomach was distended with worms. She had the worst puppy breathe I have ever smelled and she was obsessed with licking which is something that she never got over. I don't think I've ever fell in love so quickly.

I remember a few years ago, I was on the phone with an insurance agent who wanted to charge me higher rates because I had a German shepherd and I tried to explain "she only weighs 40 pounds" and of course, she wouldn't ever bite anyone, but might lick someone. This didn't convince him and I found another agent. She didn't look like a shepherd. We got a lot of comments about her when we brought her into public.  "Is that a fox?"  " ... a coyote?"  "... a dingo?"  Right! I have a dingo as a pet. Both of her parents were German Shepherds but she didn't look like one. She never got any black in her coating.  It just meant that she lacked the agouti gene so she was only tan. Her being only tan and very small, convinced some that she wasn't a Shepherd.

About three years ago, we were vacationing with two dogs in Saguenay, Quebec, a beautiful area just a few hours drive from the Canadian border. We rented a dog-friendly place that wasn't really very friendly for dogs. This is just a reminder that dog-friendly only means that you can have dogs; it doesn't mean that it is a good place to have them. This place had a loft for the bed and a steep staircase that was more like a ladder. There was no stopping her from going up to be with us at night while we slept. I could help her get up but getting her down was another story. She fell down the last few stairs and hurt her hip. This breed normally has hip difficulties so this didn't help and she was around ten years old so prognosis wasn't good. She hobbled around for awhile and she got worse as the years progressed. When she was young she used to run around the dog park keeping pace with the whippets, but no longer. The last year and a half of her life we had to carry her outside for her bathroom breaks. The winters were not pleasant. Her light weight made this a lot easier for us. She spent the last two years of her life on her bed not doing much, but not in pain. Her quality of life was still good. It must have been the pain killers that eventually destroyed her liver.

I had a dream today that I was holding her. I could feel her very familiar coat, I felt the breathe in her chest going up and down and her heart beating. I believe she even licked my face like she used to do. This was nice. It felt very real and sweet; it felt like a good-bye or perhaps that she was forgiving me. Regardless, I had a somber reminded of my loss. I know it is an irrational guilt I have for euthanizing her, but it will remain. It did with the other two. No matter how I tell myself it was the ethical thing to do, I feel just awful about it.

Now that my three dogs are dead and I have two new ones, I honestly pledge that I will never have three dogs around the same age again.  Too much heart-ache and expenses all at the same time.

Comparing my Paris and Spain Trips

Last year's trip to Spain was a blur, quick and hectic. This year when we went to Paris, to celebrate my 50th birthday, it was well planned and longer in duration. One of the few things I can say about both of them, Europe is awesome and beautiful and her people are friendly. I am not sure why anyone would spend a cent on a Disney vacation, when Europe is so close, especially for anyone on the East Coast like us.

I don't go to Europe often. If I had more money, I would remedy this. I've only been on that continent four times. It is not cheap, but with the Euro not doing so well, it is a pretty good time to go. If Greece pulls out of the Europe Union, which it might shortly, expect the Euro to crash and this becomes an affordable trip for anyone not in the EU, provided that non-EU currencies don't go along with it. My first trip to Europe was to the western half of Ireland (the Ring of Kerry, Galway, Killarney, etc.) for an in-law's wedding. This was a great trip with no problems with language. The greatest challenge was driving on the left hand side of the road with our rental. I caught a bug, a Europe travel bug. I loved it. In 2007, we took a river cruise on the Danube that went from Prague in the Czech Republic through Germany and Austria and ended in Budapest, Hungary. It was one of the best times I've ever had. Last year's Spain trip and this month's Paris trips are only other times I've been.

It is difficult to compare these two trips because they were so very different. Spain was coastal so we rented a car and hit many towns and cities while in Paris, we stayed in one city and took the Metro. Spain was spontaneous and short while Paris was well planned and twice as long.

Spain: Last summer my wife and I were contacted by a single friend who received a week of free time at a time share in Spain. She had no one to go with and since it had two bed rooms and she is friendly with both of us, she asked us to accompany her. We took the opportunity, she picked the city and we paid for the rent-a-car. The car and flight were the big costs, the food wasn't so much because we had a kitchen. We were there for only a week. From the apartment's porch we could see the Mediterranean Sea, but we were atop a huge hill. There was little close to us, with no coffee maker in the apartment, I had to drive to get coffee. We were in the Costa de Sol (translate to the Coast of the Sun) which is aptly named. It is quite beautiful.  It is in the Andalusia region near the stunning city of Malaga which I heard pronounced about ten different ways. We drove up and down the highway all week going to different spots, a couple of days were just beach stop. We had a great time, but it was tiring. Driving in Spain sucks.

Paris: When I was pondering what I wanted for my 50th birthday. We thought of some material goods, like I've thinking of buying a scooter, but the idea of going to Paris for a week seemed so much more appealing and special. We learned from our trip to Spain last Summer that a week was too short of a trip. By the time you recover from jet lag, half of your week is done. So we stayed for ten days. Renting a car was out. I don't want to drive in Europe again if I can avoid it. We decided to stay one place the whole ten days and do day trips from a home base. France is famous for their mass transit system, so we did everything we wanted to do via train, metro and walking.

We stayed in Montmatre which meant nothing to me until I visited. It is a gorgeous urban neighborhood in Paris famous for its big hill with the Basilica at the top. It is home to the Moulin Rouge and the neighborhood where they filmed, Amélie , one of my favorite French films. It is also famous for all the artists that lived there like Picasso and Dali. We found the apartment on HomeAway.com, a web site which has served us well. We haven't yet had a bad experience and have used it about a half dozen times. The apartment was small like most Paris apartments. When we pulled the couch out for a friend, we had to move the kitchen table. Its smallness didn't matter. This was basically just a place to sleep and eat, a home-base. It was perfectly situated on two major Metro lines. When we stepped out of our front door (see above), we were surrounded by cafes and bakeries. Each morning we planned our day's adventure over breakfast.

The Two Complaints I Hear About Paris:
Our experience of Paris couldn't have been better. The two complaints I've heard the most was the rudeness of the people and dirtiness of the city (namely, lots of dog shit).  We didn't have any problem with rudeness. It is a large city and we expect a certain level of "urban flair," but Paris is no more rude than New York or Boston. Most of the residents (non-service people) that we talked to were very pleasant and downright enjoyable to talk to. One guy started talking to me on the Metro because he noticed we were playing the same game on our phones, Two Dots. Between his broken English and my very poor French, we talked a while about the game. Compared to the stone-faces I get on the Boston T, this was downright joyous. My guess, is that the people who complain about Paris being rude, aren't very good tourists. They are probably are rude themselves. Probably the same people who complain about Montreal being rude.

On my last trip to Manhattan, I stayed in a neighborhood that had a dog shit problem. You really had to watch where you walked, the sidewalks were very gross. This is what I expected from Paris. In the ten days I spent in Paris, I think I saw only one pile of shit and it was on the side of a trashcan. Apparently, this really was a problem at one point. It has been illegal to not pick up after your dog in since 1982 but they just started to enforce it. This NPR story covers it well.  I guessed, I timed my trip well. Bon voyage sans excrement! (something like that).

The Best Of Paris:
Our experience is that the best of Paris are the smaller things. The Louvre was okay, but we preferred the smaller museums like the D'Orsay Museum which is in a spectacular old train station. Of the museums we visited, we enjoyed the Musée de l'Orangerie and the Rodin Museum more. While the Louvre was overwhelming and extremely crowded even on a Wednesday, these other museums were intimate and not so crowded. The L'Orangerie is mostly Impressionistic paintings with two room size circular Monet paintings. You stood in the middle of these paintings surrounded by them. Because the Rodin Museum is mostly sculptures, most of his work is in a garden. We were there on a beautiful Summer day and we got to see of his major work, The Thinker, The Kiss and The Gates of Hell.

We bought a couple of five day Museum Passes that covered the entrance to all of these including a pass to a short boat cruise on the Seine and a double-decker bus tour around the city. It also covered the Metro for those days. We did the math and we saved about $50 by buying the pass. You also got to go to the front of the line with the pass. Our friend, Julia from Germany, who used to be our foreign exchange student, stayed with us for a few days. She got into all the museums for free because she is a student in the European Union. Gotta love Europe!

Like the museums, the smaller cathedrals were more interesting. Notre Dame was spectacular but we enjoyed the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris  (Sacré-Cœur Basilica) and Ste. Chappelle more.

The Basilica is atop of the highest hill in Paris and just a short walk from our apartment. Ste. Chappelle, which is on the same island in the Seine as Notre Dame, is unique in its architecture. You are not going to see anything else like it. This might be that when I planned to go the Notre Dame, I knew what to expect, while these other two were completely foreign to me.

In addition to all the museums and cathedrals, we did a lot of eating. Every meal was amazing. We went up the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, walked along the Seine, went down into the Catacombs, visited a couple of historic cemeteries and even went to the zoo. We walked a total of 55 miles in ten days. So if you are planning a trip to Paris (a city of stairs), try to go with someone with which you are comfortable reciprocating foot massages.

The Slow Burn of M*A*S*H Jumping the Shark

I was pleased when I noticed that the television show M*A*S*H was added to Netflix for streaming. I often watch Star Trek while trying to sleep at night. I have seen these episodes so much that I can close my eyes and listen. It puts me out. Since I have never watched M*A*S*H from start to finish, this was a good time to start rewatching one of my favorite shows from my childhood. I've always been curious as to when the show got bad (aka Jumped the Shark). The show starts off as one of the best shows on television being both very funny and socially relevant, which is rare. It also has its fair share of pathos. By the end the 11th season, it is unwatchable. The last few seasons are so bad that I cannot watch it while trying to sleep. It just makes me angry. It is no longer funny, the drama is bad and so preachy and self-righteous. It is almost insulting at times. How did something so good get so bad?

For those that don't know, the term Jump the Shark, is in reference to an episode of Happy Days when the character Fonzie jumped a tank of sharks with his motorcycle. It marks the moment which the show went from being a pretty good show to a really bad show. When a show Jumps the Shark, they have started to decline into a bad show. This moment is not clear for M*A*S*H for its decline is a slow burn happening in stages.

The book MASH: A Novel About Three Army Surgeons by Richard Hooker (aka H. Richard Hornberger) came out in 1968. I haven't read it mostly because I've heard it isn't worth it. It is mostly a retelling of stories and anecdotes of his experiences in the Korean War with the names changed (the 8055th MASH unit was changed to 4077th etc). The general theme revolves around how three army doctors (Trapper John, Hawkeye Pierce and Duke Forrest) used comedy to deal with the tragedy and stress of war. The books covers the entire war and ends with a big good-bye scene when the war ends.

The film, based on the novel, came out in 1970 directed by Robert Altman, screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr. and starring (the three army surgeons) Elliot Gould as Trapper, Donald Sutherland as Hawkeye and Tom Skerritt as Duke. Duke is the only one not to make it into the television show. The movie poster was the first place where the asterisks appeared between the letters in the name: M*A*S*H. It caught on afterwards. Altman was the 9th director offered the task. His style of directing clashed with the stars. Gould and Sutherland tried to get him fired at one point. Like most of his films, it is difficult to follow without a star or a strict plot but with an ensemble cast of characters appearing somewhat chaotically throughout the film. The script was only loosely followed because the actors were given direction on what was happening in the scene and asked to improvise. Most of the dialogue in the film come from the actors. Like most of his films, I love it. I find his films more lifelike because of the chaos. It won the Golden Globe that year for best film and the Palme d'Or at Cannes but lost all the major Oscars to Patton, a much more serious war picture.

After the film's success, Hornberger wrote follow-up novels, the first being M*A*S*H Goes to Maine which follows the characters after the war and then M*A*S*H Mania, the characters in their old age. Eight more novels were published, written by ghost writers and published under Hornberger's pen name (Hooker). When the filming of the second book failed, it was decided to attempt a television show instead. The show started in 1970 and was almost cancelled after the first year due to low ratings but was saved after its time slot was changed to be after a hit show, All In the Family.  Time slots were important back then before DVRs and the Internet. Two of the best comedies ever made for American television were now going back to back. A few seasons in, I started watching when I was old enough to stay up that late. I remember having classmates in elementary school whose parents did not watch it or let their kids watch it because of the war aspect. "There is nothing funny about war." The Vietnam War was still very much active and in the news. Looking back on it now, comedy seems to be a completely appropriate response to the quagmire of war.

First big problem with the show is that the show went on almost four times longer than the actual war. The US was involved in the Korean War a little over three years ... from June 1950 to July 1953. The show went on for 11 seasons (255 episodes).  This means that, in showtime, roughly four days happens in between each episode. Watching the show now, this causes some problems. In one episode, they are suffering from a heatwave and the very next episode, they are preparing for below zero temperature. They also had four Christmas episodes (seasons 1, 7, 9 & 10).  Of course, when they were making the show back in the 70's, no one knew anyone would be binge watching in the 21th century. Also, when they started they didn't know they were going to have 11 seasons. If they did, they might have paced themselves differently. But don't you think once they had gotten to the third Christmas episode, they would have called an end to any new ones?

I've talked to people who were in MASH units in Korea and they like the show. They say that it is not a bad depiction of what it was like. The war, of course, is worst than 1970's American television could show and the jokes were dirtier but they basically got it right, which is really nice to hear. The big thing they got wrong is the amount of time the G.I.'s got to stay together. They spent a very short amount of times together. The characters Margaret and Hawkeye spend the entire war in the same unit together. This just did not happen. People were in and out of their lives so fleetingly that they barely got to know each other. Perhaps this made it easier to clown around. Close attachments were not made. As soon as you got close to someone, they were gone. Not to sound too meta, but perhaps this is why the show got so lame in the later years; the characters got to know each other too well. Intimacy eliminated the need for comedy.

It is ironic that if M*A*S*H had only been on television the same length of the war, it might have gone down as the best show ever. But as the main characters started leaving the show, they were replaced with good characters but not quite as good as the original. This makes the shows fall from grace to be a gradual one. When the show was cast, Wayne Rogers (who portrayed Trapper John) was told that his character would get equal billing to Hawkeye. But after a couple of seasons, he saw how his character was playing second fiddle to Alan Alda's. His character was edgy. He was cheating on his wife, he missed his kids and he drank heavily. He was replaced with B.J. Hunnecutt (portrayed by Mike Farrell) who was much less edgy and more moral than Trapper. B.J. doesn't look like a Californian in 50's; he looks more like a porn star from the 70's. McLean Stevenson (who portrayed Colonel Henry Blake) left the show the same season as Rogers for similar reasons. Stevenson's Blake was one of the funniest part of the early years. Blake was incompetent, bumbling and a skirt chaser. He was replaced by Harry Morgan's Colonel Potter who was stern, mature and not very funny. After a great three years, they lost two of the best characters, replaced them with less funny more moralistic counterparts. Let the shark jumping begin.

Another two seasons go by and the two trouble making surgeons continue to gang up on Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan and Major Frank Burns, but the two Majors are no longer a couple. Margaret gets married and Frank loses it. Frank, a cartoonish character, doesn't really develop much. The Major Burns that Robert Duval portrayed in the movie is much more serious and pious. Larry Linville's Burns is a buffoon that did not mature as the show progressed but became increasingly unbelievable as the show continued. Linville recognized this and was simply sick of playing the same fool for five years, he quit after his contract ran out. His leaving the show should have been an improvement at this point if they hadn't replaced him with Charles Emerson Winchester III (portrayed by David Ogden Stiers), a stereo-typical Boston snob. They replaced the buffoon with a self-righteous douche-bag. Another less funny character coming in making the show more serious.

The show is becoming a drama at this point, often called television's first dramedy, a poorly written drama with a laugh track. The laugh track always seemed out of place in this show because it was obvious that they weren't filming in front of a live audience. It is a left-over from the radio days when a joke could not be followed by silence. The network insisted on it. It is easy to forget it is even there until the jokes stop being funny. In the later seasons, when the show becomes painful to watch, the laugh track was toned down a little, but not enough. You can watch the last six seasons without laughing once, but that laugh track is there laughing along with the "jokes" as an awful reminder, this show used to be funny.

If you need a Jump the Shark moment, the best I can find is when all the characters began to get along. Of the two heavies in the early episodes, Margaret was the only one left. In the season five episode, "The Nurses," Margaret takes a turn toward being nice. She says to her nursing staff, "When did one of you ever even offer me a lousy cup of coffee?" and is invited into the nurses tent by the end of the episode. In season six's "Comrade in Arms," she and Hawkeye are caught behind enemy lines and have a love affair. From this point on, the show is not the same. Everyone gets along including Charles ... it is the camp against the world and no inner conflict. This makes for bad television. The fact that Margaret now has a 1980's style big hair perm at this point, makes the show downright ridiculous. They don't look like people from the 50's.

The Jump of the Shark is complete and we land on the other side of the shark tank when Radar (portrayed by Gary Burghoff) leaves the show at end of season eight. He is the only actor of the main characters to carry over from the movie and probably the most comically understated performances on the show. Burghoff hated portraying a teenager for eight years. By the time he left the show in 1979, he was in his mid-30's. His screen time was replaced by two recurring characters Klinger and Father Mulcahey who should never have left the shadows of any plot line.

Anything after this point is not worth watching. These late seasons are a reminder of how bad American television was back then. M*A*S*H  stood out as an excellent show for many years. It was a ground breaking show that should have ended long before it got this bad. It ended with a big bang though. The last episode in February 1983, a two and half hour long movie, had a record 125 million viewers. We only had 83 million homes at the time. These type of numbers nowadays are unheard of, mostly because we have a lot more options. Of the really bad episodes, it is one of the better ones but that is the best thing I can say about it. 

Why I Went to the Bernie Kickoff and Why I Left Early #feelthebern

I have been a long time supporter of Bernie Sanders. I have voted for him for US Rep and for Senator. I donated to his campaign for Senator even though I know and like the person he was running against. The moment he announced he was running for President, we donated (the very first day). I like Bernie. I think he'd be a great President, but after attending his supporter kickoff today, I don't think it is going to happen. I didn't have a lot of hope before, now I have none.

Democratic Socialism is the way to go for our society, I have little doubt about this. Our society is becoming fractured across economic lines and our environmental problems seem insurmountable. Government can and does work provided that you have people who believe it can work and have the leadership ability to get it done. If you have read this blog in the past, you know there is no chance that I will be voting for a Republican, not even for dog catcher at this point. I find Hillary Clinton to a capable person and would probably make a fine president. If she is the Democratic candidate, I will probably vote for her. But for now, I remain with Bernie. While Hillary is a hawk, Bernie is a dove. In being sick of war, I am not alone. I will stand with the dove. With Bernie, what you see, is what you get. He speaks his mind and he follows through. You can't ask for more in a politician. I don't always agree with him but I trust him.

I had the day off today and I was excited that Bernie was announcing his candidacy today in Burlington. I had a doctor's appointment in the morning so I could go early and attend the supporter's meeting before Bernie's rally.  I went to the supporter meeting and was so turned off, I just left.  They started off by holding hands. This is a political event, I did not want to hold hands and I didn't. They formed a circle, I stood outside. They widened the circle so that I could join and I refused. I got dirty looks. I didn't care, I came to a political event not a prayer meeting. Then they started the Occupy Wall Street stuff ... the microphone test.  If you don't know what I am talking about, I included a video below as an example. Every time someone talked (in a tiny crowd of 20 people or so), everyone repeated each word to amplify it. I felt like I was in a Borg cube. The political grand standing started, people making empty speeches probably making themselves feel really good about themselves.  I was out of there. 

(example of Occupy's mic test - not from today's meeting)

In order to win the Presidency, you need mass appeal. This approach failed for Occupy Wall Street, why would it work here? This approach will never have mass appeal. They almost lost me and I love Bernie. How are they going to appeal to rest of the country, most of whom don't even know him? I fear that if they they continue this way the rest of the campaign, then it will fizzle miserably.  I am holding off writing any more checks to Bernie for President. It is time to get real. 

Internment Camps and Racism

I find most of the conversations that we have about race to be quite shallow. They usually end in finger pointing or someone saying something like "you don't think I'm a racist, do you?" or my favorite "I'd hate to sound racist but ..."  As an American that knows a little bit about history, I start off with the default setting in that I assume if you are an American, you are a racist. How can you help not be? Our history is so seeped in racism, just by the the virtue of you being born here, you cannot help but have some sort of hang-up about race. Racism is in our Constitution. We ended slavery not by decree like other countries, we had to have the bloodiest war in our history to do so. The man on the US $20 bill was responsible for the force marching of 16,000 natives into relocation camps (we called them reservations). They were taken from their ancestral homes in Florida and Georgia and marched across several states to land west of the Mississippi River. I could go on about Jim Crow laws, voter suppression, mass incarceration or the Tuskegee experiments. Is that all in our past? Are we post-racial? Fuck no! The idea that we are post-racial was put forth by guilt ridden suburbanites who wanted to feel good about themselves because they voted for a bi-racial president. We are an inch up the yard stick of racial progress, empty conversations are just marking a notch on stick or a ditch on the road of progress.  In light of all the racist bullshit I've been seeing on the news lately (of Ferguson and Baltimore etc.), I would hope that the only people talking about a post-racial society, are only doing so ironically.

I do realize that if you overuse a word, you belittle its meaning. If every attack of violence or rebellion is called terrorism, we belittle real terrorism. Therefore if everyone is a racist, then no one is racist. I understand the semantics. I am fine with this. Consider it a bump on the road of progress, once we get over the name calling, we'll be thrust into a real conversation.

You ready? Let's talk ...

When it comes to Presidential acts of racism, we usually don't think of recent history. We usually think of the aforementioned Jackson and his Trail of Tears or John Adams and his Alien and Sedition Acts or one of the slave owner presidents. We don't think of FDR. Can you imagine Americans being taken from their homes, put on buses and put into camps? It is something that our liberal icon, Franklin Roosevelt, did. The internment camps of recent past is a crime we talk little about today. It is difficult to understand how this could happen.  Americans have a tendency to overreact, like the Patriot Act and two unsustainable wars after the 9/11 attacks. Obviously, we don't learn a lot from our history. The racism I witnessed after those attacks may not have been as bad as what the Japanese went through after Pearl Harbor, but it was pretty gross nonetheless .... and it still lingers. Since we still haven't gotten over slavery, I expect this isn't going away anytime soon.

Let go back a few years before the war. After President Arthur passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which forbade anymore immigrants from China, Japanese immigration greatly increased on the American west coast. Due to laws passed in 1907 and 1924, it completely stopped. This is relevant in that by the time the Japanese government attacked Pearl Harbor, all the Japanese families living in the US (mostly California) had been here for over 30 years. They were still forbidden to be citizens, couldn't vote or officially, own land.  The devastation caused by the 1906 earthquake, gave rise to more segregated schools during the rebuilding boom. A small isolated population was easy to demonize.  On February 19, 1942 Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt initially giving the Secretary of War the authority to treat parts of the US as war zones. This started with curfews and other restrictions to everyone of Japanese ancestry and lead to interment camps.

We often hear them referred to as Japanese interment camps which is deceptive because it wasn't just Japanese but Germans and Italians were interred as well. About 60% were Japanese. The difference being that only certain professions were interned of Germans and Italians (ranging from photographers to engineers). Entire families of Japanese were interred. After their homes and business were taken, they were carted like cattle, we then asked them to sign loyalty oaths. Due to the 1924 Immigration Act. when they owned land, they often had the names of white men on the deeds because they couldn't own land in their own names. After internment, their property easily was taken. Even when they were released, they had to start over. This was the perfect storm of racism.

Most of the camps were segregated as well. Most of the Germans and Italians were sent to Camp Albuquerque in New Mexico. The only camp that housed a significant mix was Crystal City in Texas. Multiple nationality camps were against the Geneva Convention. Crystal City was mainly used to house detainees who were expected to be used in prisoner exchanges. Roughly 50 camps existed scattered throughout the Western states. The idea of interning more Germans and Italians was unpopular, for one, there were over 50 million Germans in America at the time and some of America's most popular people were Italian.  Joe DiMaggio was Italian. After all, they looked like us. Not like those damn slanty-eyed Japs! (**deep sigh**)

If you are looking for something to ponder on Memorial Day.  Here is something:  At the start of World War II we didn't allow Japanese Americans to serve in the military. But Roosevelt changed his mind shortly after the war started and they formed the 442 Infantry Regiment of the Army. They recruited from the camps. They fought mostly in the Italian campaign. It is one of the the most decorated units in American military history with 14,000 men earning 9,486 Purple Hearts and 21 metals of honor. Even a sniveling peacenik is impressed by this. 

Avengers: Age of Excess

I was excited to see the new Avengers movie yesterday. I went to see it alone. I was quickly disappointed. It was choppy, uneven and difficult to follow at times. Having grown up reading Marvel comics, I await the newest installments from the Marvel Cinematic Universe with too much glee for a 50 year old man to admit. The technology did not exist to set these books to film when I was a kid, so I welcome the excess usually ... provided that the excess is well done and worth the money I spent to see it.  I can't say that Avengers: The Age of Ultron was worth it .. the wait or the money.

The Avengers were never my favorite comic. I read it and enjoyed it, but I was more into the more angst ridden heroes like Spider-Man, Daredevil and the X-men. The more cavalier Captain America and Iron Man were too perfect for me to wrap my little head around. A war hero loved by all and an obnoxious millionaire with high tech toys didn't really resonate with this post-hippy working class teenager. The Hulk was the only member of the Avengers that had any appeal to me, but he had his own book so The Avengers book took a back seat. But when Marvel came out with the first Avengers film a few years ago, they pulled me in again. It was one of the best comic book movies ever made. Most of them are stinkers, but when a good one comes along, I have to really embrace it. Among the better ones I would put Spider-Man 2, The Watchmen, Guardians of the Galaxy and Batman Begins. The Avengers joined that list. The follow-up to it, did not. Expectations were high and they fell miserably.

Most of the members of The Avengers already have their own film franchises (Captain America, Ironman, the Hulk) so no time is wasted on their back stories in this film.  The remaining two, Black Widow and Hawkeye don't, so screen time had to be wasted on character development. This isn't usually a problem if it is done well, but it isn't in this film. Hawkeye's back story, well, who cares? He is not a very interesting character. An archer just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense in this group. It didn't seem to make a lot of sense when I read the book as a kid. I wouldn't have been upset if they killed him off. Black Widow is a different story. She has an interesting back story and has always been an interesting character. She is the only woman in the group, so of course, her back story had to be a romance (of course not) ... with David Banner, a guy who can't get excited or he might hurt somebody. It was a bit too much like Twilight for me and just seem to be stuck in the film. It went no where. The one joy of the film is the introduction of The Vision, always one of the more elusive and mysterious characters. He was so well done in the film. His presence almost saved the film for me.

I haven't even gotten to the biggest problem with the film. It was just really hard to follow. For one, I couldn't tell what was going on in some of the action sequences. I had no sense of who was where in some of the scenes and who was fighting whom. They were so choppy that the moment I thought I understood what was happening it would cut to another shot or another scene altogether. This type of choppiness continued throughout the film, not just the action scenes, making the narrative difficult to follow.

As far as plot goes, I don't ever expect profundity or anything to challenge any of my ideals. I simply expect good fun and a few hours of pure entertainment in comic book films.  But I can't say I am entirely sure what our villain, Ultron's, evil plan was or what his motivations were. He was trying to destroy the human race so we could evolve into something new. What? When he couldn't get the nuclear codes, he decided to take some East European country, make it fly and turn it into a meteor to destroy us like the dinosaurs?  Uhm, what?  Am I right about this!  Did I get that right?  I am still unsure. Lets hope the next Avengers film is better and less of a muddle.  Hopefully, we'll get less excess and more clarity as to what the heck is going on.