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Whither Greenland?

President Trump wants Greenland. He and his acolytes say that might be accomplished by military force. Or we might buy it.

The size of the real estate grab appeals to Trump. It would be large, but not as large as it appears looking at the usual maps. Mercator projections make land masses look larger the further away they are from the equator. Thus, Greenland looks to be the same size as Africa. That is misleading. It is, in fact, a fraction of the size of that continent.

But it is still large. Larger than Alaska. Much larger than Texas.

But it is also small. Only a fraction of the coastlines is not covered in ice. Little of the island is habitable.

And its population is small. About 58,000 people live in Greenland with 20,000 in the capital city Nuuk. The rest live in small, isolated places scattered mostly on the west coast.

This is a tough place to live. Two-thirds of Greenland lies above the Arctic Circle, with the cold and the long days and nights that implies.  While there is a small amount of sheep grazing, there is no arable land. Farming is non-existent. The main food source comes from the sea, including fish, seals, and whales. Fish and fish products are 90% of the exports. Seals and whales are protected and can’t be exported, but under a quota, can be eaten locally.

Inuit, who form 88% of the population, have genetic traits that help them deal with the cold and allow them to digest fats that assist them to survive without foods from plants.  However, much food as well as almost all other basics are imported. Greenland has one of the highest costs of living in the world with a corresponding high poverty level.

Trump has maintained that Greenland is essential for our national security. He has not explained why but it is assumed that is because of future shipping lanes and because of rare earth minerals. Once again, our usual maps mislead us. If we look down at the planet at the northern pole, we can recognize the importance of the shipping lanes. Going from our East Coast to Asia takes four days less through the Arctic than the present transit routes.

Arctic paths, now quite limited, will be more open with global warming. There is a contradiction here. Trump and the Trumpistas say that climate change is a hoax. On the other hand, they have maintained that global warming is inevitable and with the inevitable break-up of ice, shipping through the Arctic should become easier.

But this does not explain why America would need to own Greenland. There are many global shipping lanes vital to us where we do not own the bordering land.

Greenland’s role in an expanded rare earth trade perhaps has been exaggerated or not placed in context. With global warming more land will become available for mining. That can be overstressed. Ice melt has increased and more land exposed, but even with rising world temperatures, the estimate is that it will take 10,000 years for the ice sheet, which is 1.5 miles in some places, to melt, or even if temperatures rise much faster than they have, 1,000 years.

Greenland currently has only one operating mine. Even if receding glaciers open more mining possibilities, the mines will not be easy to operate. Infrastructure has to be built. There are no railroads in Greenland, and the longest motor vehicle road extends for only twenty-two miles. The roads stop at the edge of the towns. Travel from one settlement to another is either by boat or airplane or more likely helicopter, and weather often shuts transportation down. Twelve-foot seas are common off the west coast, and there are icebergs. Power plants would have to be built. Housing materials–there are no trees in Greenland–would have to be imported. Roads and airfields would have to be built with materials that will not be easy to get there. A workforce would have to be imported into the harsh living conditions presumably with people who do not have the genetic advantages of the Inuit for living in Greenland.

But once again, even if increased mining makes sense, we don’t need to own Greenland. Denmark and Greenlanders have made it clear that they are willing to deal with us on future mines.

Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. Denmark has possessed Greenland for 300 years.

For centuries, Denmark governed Greenland with strict oversight, regulating commerce and allowing only limited contact with the outside world, but in the 1950s Denmark tried to modernize Greenland, which meant forcing Inuit into Nuuk and destroying local cultures. Greenland finally achieved home rule in 1979, receiving sovereignty over most internal affairs.

Denmark still controls Greenland’s foreign policy, defense, and currency. Denmark subsidizes Greenland by more than $500 million a year.

We have tried to buy Greenland before. In 1946, we offered $800 million, or $1.7 billion in today’s money, but Denmark turned that down. Today it is not clear whom we would buy it from because Denmark does not appear to have the legal ability to sell Greenland. Since 2009, Greenlanders have had the right to hold a referendum on independence whenever they want. A recent poll showed that 85 percent of Greenlanders oppose an American takeover.

But Trump has not explained why we need to buy Greenland and then subsidize it. Trump and his supporters avoid talking about what this would mean for our national debt. Moreover, a 1951 agreement with Denmark basically gives the U.S. the untrammeled right to build military bases where we want in Greenland. Indeed, we used to have more than a dozen while we are now down to one.

Nor have the American legal niceties been discussed. We have bought lands before, but it has never been as simple as a president wanting to buy foreign land. We do after all have a Constitution, and the consent of Congress or the Senate has been necessary for those purchases. We may say that President Jefferson and Secretary of State Monroe made the Louisiana Purchase, but in fact Congress ratified and authorized the funds for it. The Gadsden Purchase and the acquisitions of Florida, Alaska, and other lands came via treaties together with the authorization of the funds from Congress. A treaty, of course, requires not just the consent of the Senate, but consent by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

Of course, some Americans can’t imagine why Greenlanders shun being American. However, Greenlanders, besides native pride, may see that America opposes what Greenlanders take for granted. So, for example, Greenland has universal government-funded health care. Education is free through college. Childcare is heavily subsidized from the age of six months. Gasoline is subsidized. Abortion is available and paid for by the government. The abortion rate is one of the highest in the world with abortions exceeding live births in some years. In addition, Greenlanders are environmentalists. They have prohibited offshore exploration for oil. Most of their energy comes from renewable sources.

That social safety net is the same one that exists in Denmark, and part of the reason that Denmark regularly makes the top five on lists for the happiest places in the world. That, however, is not necessarily true for Greenland. As do many other indigenous populations in the modern world, Greenlanders have a high suicide rate.

In addition, after three hundred years joined to Denmark, there has been a cultural intertwining between Greenland and the Kingdom. About 20,000 Greenlanders, more than a quarter of the population, live in Denmark. Greenlanders have the right to go there. No one has discussed Greenlanders’ status under American ownership of the land.

A sense of that cross-cultural embedding comes across Peter Høeg’s excellent book Smilla’s Sense of Snow or, alternatively translated, Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, which was made into a not overly successful streaming show. More successful has been the show Borgen, what might be called the Danish House of Cards. The third season highlights the relationships between Greenland and Denmark.

The cultural blending is demonstrated further by Inuuteq Storch, a Greenlandic photographer who was the official representative for Denmark at the prestigious Venice Biennale and who is having a showing at MOMA P.S.1 now through the end of February. You can find some of his pictures on the internet.

Whither Greenland? They seem mostly to want to be left alone.

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Hope and Kindness (Guest Post From the Spouse)

These days I have not been a half-glass full kind of person, but I have been thinking about how to be hopeful in the face of difficult times. So…in no particular order, here are some things that I find hopeful:

I am of the opinion that our current president is trying to accrue to himself powers to which he is not entitled. It gives me hope that millions of others feel as I do and have taken to the streets to say so.

Despite what the administration tells us about rampant urban carnage, crime is down in New York City and the murder rate is lower than it was in the 1950s.

I am hopeful when I learn that many staff members of the conservative Heritage Foundation resigned to protest their director’s tacit condoning of the white supremacism of Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes.

I am horrified that Hamas butchered Israelis and that Israel has decimated Gaza and destroyed Palestinians in retaliation. But I am hopeful when a Syrian Muslim singlehandedly tackles a man with a gun, saving the lives of many Australian Jews in the midst of celebrating their faith.

While many people have been misinformed about the safety of the measles vaccine and have stopped giving it to their children, I am grateful to know that vaccines for measles and polio and Covid and flu even exist.

Even though the United States as a government seems to have abandoned its role as a charitable donor to the world, it is encouraging to know that other individuals and privately funded organizations continue to bring health and hope to the poorest countries of the globe.

I have a friend, a woman in her 60s, who was trained as a surgical nurse. Three times a year she volunteers to accompany a team of doctors and technicians as they go to areas of Africa, South America, and Ukraine offering surgical relief to those with facial anomalies and horrific battlefield injuries. I find this inspiring.

Watching chained immigrants duck-walked to a foreign prison is a living nightmare. However, there continue to be lawyers and organizations that are working tirelessly to protect their rights.

It is a gift that people continue to write books that inspire, entertain, and educate me.

It is gratifying to see white men helicoptering a black woman and her child to safety after a flood.

I am thrilled to be reminded that Beethoven wrote glorious but challenging choral music, and that people are willing to spend long hours rehearsing that music in order to sing it to me.

It gives me hope when someone opens a heavy door for me.

It gives me hope that pop-up foodbanks appeared to help those suffering during the government shutdown.

In our house it’s good news that the Green Bay Packers made the playoffs.

And it brings me happiness and hope when my husband brings me not one but two cookies from the resident lounge on his way back from the gym.

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Again, Whither Venezuela?

By now we all have a basic knowledge of what has happened in Venezuela. Circumstances are quickly changing, though, and what might have been said yesterday would be different today. Much about the future of that country is now unknowable. I don’t plan to concentrate on all those possibilities, but instead, to give background about what is known so there will be some context as events in Venezuela unfold.

We do know that Maduro and his wife were dragged out of their country and brought to NYC where Maduro had been under indictment since 2020. New indictments of Maduro, his wife, his son, and several Venezuelan government officials have now been filed. Maduro pleaded not guilty today at his arraignment.

This is similar to the 1989 invasion of Panama to capture the de facto ruler who was under drug indictment in Miami. Manuel Noriega fled to the Vatican mission in Panama City seeking sanctuary. The U.S. used various tactics to get him out including weaponizing the heavy metal music of Van Halen by blasting it at the mission. After ten days of Van Halen, Noriega surrendered and was brought to Florida where he was put on trial, convicted, and sentenced to forty years.

The first question might be, If Maduro was brought here illegally, can he be tried? A basic principle of our criminal law, affirmed by the Supreme Court several times, is if a defendant is within the court’s jurisdiction, it does not matter how the person got before the court. Maduro can be tried.

A second question arises since international law gives immunity from criminal indictments for heads of state. Noriega raised this defense, but it was easily denied because he was not the legal head of Panama. Maduro may also raise this defense, but it should lose. The president has the sole authority to recognize foreign governments, and we have not recognized Maduro as the valid head of the Venezuelan state. Maria Corina Machado won primaries to be the opposition candidate to Maduro in 2024 elections, but she was barred from running. She was replaced by Edmundo Gonzalez, who, neutral observers said, won in a landslide. Without presenting evidence, the National Electoral Council declared victory for Maduro. However, the U.S., European countries, and others refused to accept Maduro as legitimate.

With Maduro gone Trump has stated we are going to run the country until there is an acceptable transition. That transition, however, does not seem to include the leaders chosen by the Venezuelan people—Gonzalez and Machado—but the non-legitimate vice-president Delcy Rodriguz.

Although the Trump administration is trying to avoid that term, we are now in the world of regime change, a place we have been many times before. We can hope that this one goes better than many of our other attempts.

Our most recent effort at regime change was Iraq in 2003. Our failure there shows the difficult tactical and moral issues that such change can bring. We wanted to eliminate the brutal ruling party, a sensible seeming goal, and undertook what was called de-Baathification. As a result, there was no one else who had experience running the country, and something like anarchy broke out. This helped bring about the creation and rise of Isis as well as increased power to Iran, for which we continue to suffer. There can be, there will be, collateral consequences for regime change.

When I wrote about Venezuela in October, I suggested that the administration’s actions might be more about oil than drugs. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, and Trump is concerned about American oil he claims was stolen. The right-wing strongman Juan Vicente Gómez, the military dictator who ruled Venezuela from 1908 until his death in 1935, granted concessions that left three foreign oil companies, two of them American, in control of 98 percent of the Venezuelan market. Venezuela became the world’s second-largest oil producer. Oil accounted for over 90 percent of the country’s total exports. Gómez’s successors tried to seize greater control over the country’s economy, and in 1943 approved a law that required foreign oil companies to relinquish half their profits

Venezuela nationalized the oil industry in 1975. In January 1976, the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDSVA) took over the exploration, production, refining and export of oil. American oil companies Exxon, Mobil, and Gulf were hard hit as was the Dutch giant Shell. The companies, which by then were accounting for more than 70 percent of crude oil production in Venezuela, lost roughly $5 billion in assets but were compensated just $1 billion.

While Venezuela formally nationalized its oil industry in the 1970s, beginning in the early 2000s under Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor, Venezuela moved beyond its earlier state ownership model and launched another wave of expropriation. Foreign operators were forced into minority positions alongside Venezuela’s national oil company, PDSVA, or saw assets seized outright. Major U.S. firms, including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, ultimately left the country and pursued international arbitration over uncompensated takings. They are still waiting for their money.

The consequences for Venezuela’s oil industry were severe. The state oil company lost access to foreign capital and technical support. Skilled engineers left the country. This was especially damaging to Venezuela because its crude is ultra-heavy, which is harder to refine than light, sweet crude found elsewhere. When foreign partners exited Venezuela, PDVSA lost the ability to sustain the complex system required to deal with the heavy crude. Production declined steadily, falling from more than 3 million barrels per day before the expropriation to under 1 million bpd in recent years.

By the time Maduro assumed office in 2013, the industry was already in structural decline. Corruption, mismanagement, and U.S. sanctions under his tenure further constrained output and exports.

Venezuela’s oil industry cannot be simply, magically brought back. Not only must the oil infrastructure be brought back, refining heavy crude takes a lot of energy, and the power grid has also been deteriorating. The necessary improvements require both time and plenty of money.

Where will that money come from? Oil companies are unlikely to invest until Venezuela is a stable country and perceived as one. And first there has to be a successful regime change. Until then, perhaps the only source of investment would be our tax dollars, which would move us further away from free enterprise and a market economy, and towards a form of state capitalism, a road Trump has been traveling. But that is for another day.

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When is the New Year?

The New Year did not always begin on January 1. In some ages and places January 1 started another year, but in other places and ages a new year began on December 25 or March 1 or some other date. In early England and its American colonies, March 25 was New Year’s Day, which strikes me as odd. I may be conditioned by the January 1 date, but it only seems natural to begin a new year as a new month begins. March 1 or April 1 seem to be possibilities for another year, especially since these are days of spring in the northern hemisphere when we see the earth being renewed.

          In England and America January 1 became New Year’s Day in 1752 as England adopted the Gregorian calendar. Trivia question: When was a year not a year-long? The answer: 1751. The British parliament passed a law adopting the Gregorian calendar in 1750 mandating that the year 1751, which began on March 25, would end on December 31 with the next year beginning on January 1, 1752. Thus, 1751 in England was only 282 days long.

          There is another answer to that trivia question, however. The Julian calendar in use in England was not quite accurate, something that had been recognized during the Middle Ages. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII adopted the more accurate Gregorian calendar, which had January 1 as a year’s starting point. (What are the odds? Gregory adopted the Gregorian calendar.) This deletion required the elimination of ten days so that 1582 is also a year that was not year-long.

          Of course, because the Pope made this change–even though it was a good one–many Protestant countries resisted it, apparently thinking that if the Antichrist was behind it, then it could not be all good. Eventually, of course, other countries recognized that the Gregorian calendar was not some sort of devilish trick and adopted the new style of dating—even the Anglican British.

          Today countries that had used different calendars have adopted the Gregorian calendar, including Japan, Egypt, Korea, Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. New Year’s Day starts at the stroke of midnight on January 1, and it is the most celebrated time around the world as billions are excited by fireworks, whistles, and bells, local time of course.

          Even though I don’t understand why we celebrate the day, come Thursday, I, too, will be wishing folks a “Happy New Year!”

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Send Back the Song Which Now the Angels Sing.

I look forward to Christmastime. I like much of the seasonal music. In these weeks of possibilities, in my mind I sing Christmas hymns, carols, and songs, and I sing them perfectly. However, in reality I do not sing them aloud because no one can recognize anything I vocalize. Only dogs want to harmonize with me.

One that I love is “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” It contains the marvelous verse: “Peace on the earth, good will to men/From heaven’s all gracious king/The world in solemn stillness lay/To hear the angels sing.”

(When I recently said, Peace on the earth, good will to men, a listener who I assumed knew neither the song nor the Bible story accused me of being woke. The woke version, however, would say, “Peace on the earth, good will to people of all gender identities.” See if you can work that into a hymn.)

I am unsure, however, about the inclusiveness of the blessing. My Bible acknowledges that some authorities have the angels saying “peace, goodwill among men.” But this version has it: “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!’” I find this ambiguous. If God were pleased with all men, this is inclusive. But the granted peace might only have been given to a subset of humanity that had pleased Him.

The song’s refrain, of course, refers to the Biblical story that begins, “And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, watching over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them.” (The shepherds were not washing their socks by night as many Sunday School children think.) That angel announces that the Savior had been born in Bethlehem and was lying in a manger. The shepherds hurry off, find the stable, and spread the angel’s words.

This leads to the many creches I have seen. Always in a creche is a manger with the baby Jesus. Mary and Joseph are nearby and a little further away are the kneeling shepherds along with some of their sheep. (We should pay more attention to the sheep because they were celebrating the first Fleece Navidad. I have seldom seen a dog in the countless manger scenes, but a German shepherd would not be inappropriate. Naples is known for its creches, and all sorts of figures are placed around the baby, including representations of historical figures and relatives of the creche’s owner. Even so, I found it strange that I could buy a tiny representation of Maradona to place in my Christmas scene. I did not do so.)

Almost all creches include the Three Wise Men even though the Bible tells us they were not outside around a manger. Those men first go to Herod and tell him that signs reveal that the king of the Jews has been born. They want to know where to find Him. “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.’” An assembly of chief priests and scribes say that it is written that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem. Led by a star to the City of David, the wise men “going into the house [Italics added] they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.”

(The Three Wise Men followed the big star. Were they the first groupies? Yes, I know that the Bible does not say that there were three wise men. That number is merely assumed from the number of gifts. As kids, we liked to sing, “We three kings of orient are/Puffing on a royal cigar/One was loaded and exploded./ We two kings of orient are.” That passed for Sunday School humor among us.)

The Bible does tell us about the manger. Joseph and Mary had traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem where her labor began. “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” A song I sang as a kid begins “Away in a manger/No crib for a bed/The little Lord Jesus/Laid down His sweet head.” That hymn always seemed insipid, and it is not one I replay much in my head. I only learned as an adult another song relating to that same Biblical passage, No Room at the Inn. It is now a favorite, both for its infectiousness and its layered meanings. I have heard the gospel song with varying lyrics from different artists, and now each Christmas season I make a point of listening to it. This year I heard on YouTube renditions, both good, from Mahalia Jackson and Ann Murray.

Mary and Joseph were away from home because: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. . . .And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.” Luke 2: 1-5.

(I don’t know if this census included any controversial citizenship questions. The passage says “all the world.” I have a strong feeling that the Mayans and the Japanese did not enroll. Of course, this passage is one of many that demonstrate that the Bible cannot be taken literally.

The angelic appearance in the fields surrounding Bethlehem is sometimes referred to as the Annunciation to the Shepherds. The Annunciation, which has been celebrated in many famous paintings, was the announcement to Mary that she would become pregnant even though she had not “known” a man: “The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, . . . ‘And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.’ . . . And Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I have no husband?’ And the angel said to her, . . . ‘For with God nothing shall be impossible.’”

(The Virgin Birth is in the Bible. The bizarre notion of the Immaculate Conception is not.)

The Bible contains another annunciation of the virgin birth. It comes earlier in the Bible than the one to Mary, but later in time. Mary is already pregnant, and Joseph, engaged to Mary, for obvious reasons knows he is not the father. He plans a divorce when an angel appears in a dream and tells Joseph not to reject Mary for she has conceived through the Holy Spirit. The angel continues that the son should be named Jesus, “for he will save his people from their sins.” As a result, Joseph did not reject Mary “but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.”

Mary is honored for her faith in accepting her pregnancy, but Joseph’s conduct should be celebrated at least as much. His action is an incredible expression of faith, much more it seems to me than that of Mary. Mary finds herself pregnant, but she knows that she is a virgin. Perhaps it is not so hard under these circumstances to accept that the Holy Spirit was responsible. However difficult the acceptance was for Mary, surely it was much harder for Joseph. He finds his fiancée pregnant. He knew he did not impregnate her. It is an extraordinary man of faith that would accept what the unnamed angel told him. If you are going to celebrate faith, this is an act for celebration.

Mary’s annunciation story presents few facts about her. She is a virgin. She married Joseph. She accepts what Gabriel tells her. We learn little about her actions, personality, or character other than the angel telling her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

We do not know why she has found favor. It surely can’t be that she is a virgin. The story is based on the notion that virginity was expected on the wedding day. There were many virgins in the land. Perhaps she was favored by the Lord because she led an exemplary life that we should emulate. But if so, we can’t try to be like her because we do not know why God singled her out. As far as we know, she found favor just as a powerball winner finds favor. Mary has been simply the winner in God’s lottery.

On the other hand, Joseph’s annunciation story reveals something about the kind of man he was. When he finds himself a cuckold because his betrothed is pregnant, my Bible says, “Her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.” Of course, after the angel speaks to him, he abandons this thought, but look at his character. When many men would have been vindictive or trying to save face, he was thinking of another, the one who apparently wronged him. He did not want to shame Mary. Joseph is not just a man of incredible faith, he is a helluva nice guy. The Bible does not tell us that Joseph was favored by God. No reason is given for him to be the “father” who raises the savior. But we do know that this is a faithful man who can put others before himself. We can see at least a bit of Jesus in Joseph. Joseph seems to be someone to emulate, and perhaps he should be pushed more to the center of the Christmas story.

For some the Christmas stories constitute a test of faith. Do you believe in the virgin birth? Do you believe in the guiding star? I am not a believer in any of the Christmas story. For me, its truth is simply irrelevant. His “resurrection,” another test of faith, is also irrelevant. Instead, I would like to believe what truly matters and what points the way for a better life for me and a better world for all is the life He lived.

I like Christmas. Every year during the season I feel a few moments of that spirit where maybe someday there could be peace on earth and good will towards men, or more realistically, a bit more peace and good will. For a few moments each year, the concluding part of the song about the midnight clear haunts me with its possibilities:

“An ye, beneath life’s crushing load/ whose forms are bending low/ who toil along the climbing way/ with painful steps and slow/ look now! for glad and golden hours/ come swiftly on the wing./ O rest beside the weary road,/ and hear the angels sing!

“For lo! the days are hastening on,/ by prophet seen of old,/ when with the ever-circling years/ shall come the time foretold/ when peace shall over all the earth/ its ancient splendors fling,/ and the whole world send back the song/ which now the angels sing.”

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Whither Venezuela?

President Trump hints that the United States will attack Venezuela’s homeland even though there is no declaration of war or other congressional authorization for such a hostile act. Trump has been a norm breaker, but in this instance, he would not be, for the United States has a long record of invasions and incursions into Caribbean countries. I heard from several people who had watched Ken Burns’s The American Revolution that his version was not the history that they had been taught in school. Even fewer of us were taught about our colonial adventures in Latin America.

Although Americans coveted Cuba throughout the nineteenth century and the United States had tried to purchase the island from Spain, America sent troops into Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Even though the conflict was concluded before the year’s end and even though Cubans had been fighting for their independence from Spain for decades, America occupied the island until 1902. We pulled out and allowed Cuba its independence only after she agreed to the Platt Amendment which permitted the United States to intervene when needed for “good government” and agreed further to lease us Guantanamo Bay in perpetuity for a handful of dollars. With the Platt Amendment as justification, we had troops in Cuba from 1906 to 1909, sent them back in 1912, and ruled Cuba militarily from 1917-22.

American troops, however, have been sent to more Caribbean places than Cuba. Using civil unrest as a justification, the United States sent troops into the Dominican Republic in 1916. They stayed there for eight years. More recently, 42,000 of our troops were ordered into the Dominican Republic in 1965. They left a year-and-half later.

We did not ignore the other part of Hispaniola. We occupied Haiti in 1915 and continued to do that for two decades, finally withdrawing our troops in 1934. In 1994, the United States again sent troops into Haiti to “restore democracy” and did again ten years later as part of a multinational force. Haiti, however, remains a troubled, failed country.

Our Haitian occupation was long, but we occupied Nicaragua even longer, from 1912-1933. We say that our Afghanistan war was our longest, but our armed forces were in Haiti and Nicaragua for nearly as long.

During the Mexican Revolution (1910–1917), the United States occupied Veracruz and sent troops to chase Pancho Villa.

We, however, intervened with more than just our military in Latin American countries. In 1954, the CIA led the overthrow of the Guatemalan government; the CIA directed the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Moreover, the United States has tried to coerce our neighbors through sanctions, boycotts, and embargoes including those on Cuba and Nicaragua.(We did not limit such actions to the Americas. Daniel Immerwahrin “The United States Is an Empire” collected in Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, Myth America: Historians Take the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past [2022], states that the United States during the Cold War secretly interceded sixty-four times in other countries to oust a government or tilt an election, often in support of authoritarians.)

Our actions in the Caribbean were designed in part to keep Europe out of the Western Hemisphere, following our self-proclaimed Monroe Doctrine, which, by the way, has no basis in international law. Thus, part of the reason for our occupation of Mexico’s Veracruz was to keep Germany, with whom Mexico was friendly, at bay. We occupied Nicaragua for those decades partly to make sure that no other country would build a waterway to compete with the Panama Canal.

Sean Mirski in We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and Rise of the American Colossus (2023) also suggests that the United States was discomfited by some countries’ debt. Some Latin American countries borrowed profligately from Europe and could not pay their bills. Under international law, the creditors were entitled to use force to collect the money owed to them. This was often a simple procedure when tariffs were the chief source of a country’s revenue. The creditors were allowed to seize the customhouse and collect the duties. The United States was concerned about this kind of European intervention in the Western Hemisphere with the additional concern that the Latin American countries would grant the Europeans more concessions in order to have their sovereignty restored. Facing these possibilities, America thought it was better for it to intervene and use the customs revenues to pay the Europeans. This was often beneficial for the Latin American countries where corruption was so endemic that little tariff revenue made its way to the public fisc. The Americans did not skim the money, or at least not at the same rates, as the native tax collectors. As a result, the debtor nation often saw its revenues increase.

Europe learned to play America in these circumstances. European interventions were expensive, and those foreign powers often actually wanted America to do it instead. America soon recognized that the debt and corruption problems would recur unless the countries became stable and lived within their means. This then required United States to become more involved in the internal affairs of the Latin American countries often leading to military interventions and authoritarian governments.

This pattern can be seen in the Dominican Republic which, in 1907, agreed that United States could appoint a receiver to collect customs duties until the outstanding Dominican debt was paid. Even so, or perhaps as a result, the next decade saw an eight-year occupation of the Republic by the United States.

America, however, intervened, invaded, occupied, and meddled because of more than concern about Europeans getting footholds in the Americas. We were also seeking to protect our own businesses. Our first occupation of Haiti came at the urging of what is now Citibank. Many American businesses urged the occupation of Veracruz. American companies often had massive holdings in Caribbean countries. For example, by 1926, United States companies owned 60% of Cuban sugar industry and imported 95% of the sugar crop.

The United States also claimed an interest in preventing communists from getting power in the Americas. For example, Lyndon Johnson said he was sending troops into the Dominican Republic to protect American lives and property but also to prevent establishment of communist dictatorship. Reagan placed embargoes on Nicaragua because of fears the country was becoming communist.

However, as Stephen Kinzer says specifically about Foster Dulles in The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War (2013), America foreign policy in general “could not distinguish between indigenous nationalism and imported communism.”

Furthermore, our foreign policy has often conflated support for large, multinational corporations with opposition to communism. Guatemala is a case in point. Seventy years ago, Jacobo Árbenz, the head of the Central American country, wanted land reform. He meant to purchase uncultivated acreage for the government to be redistributed among the people. Eighty-five percent of the United Fruit Company’s vast holdings in Guatemala were in those very uncultivated lands. The corporation cried “communism.” They cried even more when Guatemala offered to pay what United Fruit claimed the land was worth for tax purposes. The corporation wanted ten times that amount. Our country’s response: Overthrow the Central American government, which we did.

Over the years our interventions succeeded in keeping European countries from grabbing significant influence in the region. They also succeeded in increasing the profits and influence for a number of multinational companies. They may have kept the price of bananas and other commodities lower than otherwise. However, they did not improve the lives of most of those in the region, and they did not improve the working lives of most Americans. Finally, our actions did not lead to democracies or stable governments, and thus our interventions continued.

Now the United States seems poised for military action on Venezuela’s home soil. It is almost impossible to gauge the likelihood of success because the goals are murky. A stated goal has been the elimination of “narcoterrorism” to reduce overdose deaths in this country. If that were the real reason, we could declare victory now. Few of the drugs bought in the U.S. come from Venezuela, and these drugs cause almost none of the overdose deaths. Maybe we want Venezuela’s oil. They have a lot of it, and it’s being inefficiently managed. The real goal, however, seems regime change. We want Nicolas Maduro to leave office. Many people do. He is an illegal, brutal ruler overseeing a failing economy. It is not surprising that many citizens have now left Venezuela. But even if regime change is the goal, it is not clear why Trump and Rubio are singularly fixated on Caracas and not other countries with brutal rulers. Rubio may have a far too personal interest. His family fled Cuba, and Rubio has always resented Venezuelan support of Cuba.

History does not necessarily repeat itself, but history often holds lessons. We have forced many regime changes in Caribbean countries. Peace and bonhomie seldom followed. Instability with harsh conditions for the people of those nations often has. Whither Venezuela?

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Who is Perez?

The first gospel begins with a genealogy, which concludes, “So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportations to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.” Fourteen seems to be a key, but its significance is not stated, and it is not self-evident at least to this reader. I am surprised, however, that with its repetition it has not become part of the iconography of the nativity story. Perhaps the Christmas table should have fourteen candles or a basket of fourteen pomegranates, but I am not aware of any such tradition.

I am aware of only a few of the names in the genealogy. Most ring no bells, but the unknown ones such as Amminadab, Uzziah, and Zerubbabel at least seem Hebrew. One of Jesus’s progenitors, however, seems out of place–Perez. I think of that as Spanish or as the fictional detective on Shetland Island, not as a Biblical name. But there it is in the genealogy: “Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Herzon. . . .” (Tamar is the first woman mentioned in the ancestry list. Only a few other women are mentioned. Jewishness may pass through the mothers, but mostly mothers are overlooked in this genealogy, at least until we get to Mary—“Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.” Although the Bible says that Joseph did not take part in the conception of Jesus, the genealogy is his. We are told nothing about Mary’s lineage, which strikes me as strange.)

The mention of Perez in “The Gospel According to Matthew” is anodyne, but his birth chronicled in Genesis is not exactly an oft-told story. Judah, Perez’s father, “sees” the Canaanite Shua, whom he marries. My Bible states that Judah “went in to her, and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Er.” Apparently, Judah penetrated his love-at-first-sight several more times, and the sons Onan and Shelah were born. Judah marries Er to Tamar (why Tamar is selected is unclear). However, Er is a bad boy for he “was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him.” This thirty-eighth chapter of the first biblical book only leaves it to our imaginative speculations as to how Er erred and to the method of the slaying, but we do know that Er is dead.

Judah then turns to his second born and using that only slightly euphemistic language tells Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” Onan, however, is displeased that any resulting children will not be considered his and interrupts his duty: “so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother.” (Other Bible translations state that this happened repeatedly.) He should have thought twice and lingered more because “…what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him also.” (I understand from this story how onanism became a word for coitus interruptus, but I don’t understand how it became a synonym for masturbation.)

Of course, there was still the third son, but Shelah was understandably not too eager to do his duty as a brother-in-law “for he feared that he would die, like his brothers.” Shelah was apparently young, however, and Judah said to Tamar she should live with him “till Shelah my son grows up.”

Tamar, not surprisingly, is frustrated. When Judah, after becoming a widower, goes off to shear sheep, Tamar dresses as a prostitute and intercepts him. Judah does not recognize her and assumes “her to be a harlot.” Apparently thinking that this is his lucky day, he says “Come, let me come in to you.” He offers a baby goat in payment, but she exacts instead some of Judah’s personal possessions. He enters her and she becomes pregnant. Let’s pause here. Two of Judah’s sons have been struck down by the Lord for their transgressions, but Judah escapes that punishment. Perhaps because his wife was dead, his employing an apparent prostitute did not anger Yahweh. Tamar similarly avoids God’s wrath. I guess Tamar got the heavenly pass because the Lord did not pay attention to women or she only wanted a baby and acted to keep it all in the family.

When it is clear that she is pregnant, Tamar produces Judah’s personal artifacts, and he realizes that he is the father. A form of happiness, or acceptance, results. Judah says, “‘She is more righteous than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my Shelah.’ And he did not lie with her again.” And the result is the birth of Zerah and his twin Perez, the ancestor of Jesus.

In reading this story the other day, I wondered at what age it is appropriate for children to read this rather explicit sexual history. If you can’t say gay, can you talk about semen on the ground and “let me come in to you”? How would you answer questions from an inquisitive third grader about Judah and Tamar? Perhaps the Bible should be banned from grade schools.

This is not the only dicey sex that lurks in the genealogy, which also delicately states, “David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. . . .” Uriah’s wife, of course, was the beautiful Bathsheba spied by the peeping Dave. David could not keep his desire in check and impregnates her while she is still married. David, as military commander, sinfully arranges for Uriah to be killed in battle. The supposedly pro-life Lord punishes David by having this first issue with Bathsheba die in early infancy. Later David and Bathsheba produce Sol. (I discuss David, Bathsheba, and Uriah in my post of June 11, 2018. Search for Bathsheba.)

While Jesus, according to the Bible, results from a Virgin Birth, his genealogy contains harlotry, seduction, onanism, voyeurism, and murder. I don’t think that Matthew presented the genealogy for this purpose, but while the miracle of his birth may indicate divinity, he is also linked to very human ancestors. Perhaps true believers should remember both at Christmas.

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Snippets

The sign was for a holiday event that I have never seen but would like to: “A drive-thru living Nativity.” Do you think there are camels???

A few years back I asked a political scientist what a democratic socialist was. She replied that they used to be called “liberal.” Today’s democratic socialists seem to want to remind Democrats of their roots with concerns for housing and food costs, wages, and childcare with the belief that such issues should not just be left to untrammeled free markets. But now such concerns that led to social security, public housing, Medicare, and Medicaid are considered so left wing as to be out of the mainstream.

For those looking for a holiday gift, a new calendar featuring Vladimir Putin in many poses has been released. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has not announced whether Trump has already obtained his embossed, autographed copy.

It was easy for me to spot the error. Maxwell King in The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers was debunking and ridiculing rumors about Mr. Rogers. Those silly rumors included that he was a convicted child molester and that he wore long sleeve shirts to hide tattoos. Another one was that he had been a sniper in Vietnam with many “kills” to his credit. The author reported that Rogers was never in the military and continued, “Fred Rogers was also much too old to have been drafted, given that the draft started in 1969, when his show was just getting established.” Of course, he could have been in the armed forces without being drafted, but what leapt out to me was the confident assertion that the draft started in 1969. I, along with many, many others, got a draft notice in 1968. The Selective Service Act of 1948 authorized conscription of young men, and many, including many I knew, were drafted into the army between 1948 and 1968. In 1969, the Act was changed to institute the draft lottery (you can look it up), but there was a draft long before that. But back to Mr. Rogers. I learned many fascinating things about him in the book, but I wondered, having spotted the error, whether I should doubt other things I had read in The Good Neighbor. I decided that I should not. The error was not about the life of Fred Rogers but about an extraneous fact. There was no reason to doubt the biographical research.

Fashion is dangerous. According to David Reynolds in Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him, Winston’s mother died at 67 while still lively. She “died suddenly from a haemorrhage. This followed a fall in the high heels to which she was addicted, which had caused a broken ankle, followed by gangrene and the amputation of her foot.”

I grew up a few blocks from the western shores of Lake Michigan, where I spent much time playing, walking a dog, and just gazing out, often seeing long, thin ships carrying ore on the horizon. Even so, I have read little about the Great Lakes partly because, unlike the oceans, rivers, and swamps, little has been written about them. These important bodies of water are largely ignored by most Americans. However, John U. Bacon’s The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald taught me a lot about the commercial importance of the Lakes and the dangers of their waters. Frightening waves are often steeper and come closer together on the Great Lakes than on the oceans. And, of course, there is a good deal to learn about the Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank on November 10,1975, a sad and disturbing event that many of us only know about from the Gordon Lightfoot song. The book is a page turner. Highly recommended.

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Deck the Halls (from the spouse)

I am among the least “artsy-craftsy” persons in the world. I never made anything out of macramé, can’t hook a rug, can’t make a damn thing out of popsicle sticks, but…I’m really good at making Christmas decorations!

I’m not sure where this talent – so uncharacteristic of me — came from. Maybe when I was little. When I was the tender age of six or seven, Mother had my sister and me making our own Christmas stockings. Mother cut the template out of green felt, provided us with scissors, sequins, ribbons, other colors of felt, little angels, needle and thread and had us go at it. Do you know how hard it is for a seven-year-old to sew on a sequin??! No glue was provided (was Elmer’s glue even invented back then?). But I did it and am the better for it. I had that stocking (with my sequined name in white felt) until I left for college!

Mother was good at making Christmas decorations, and I copied some of her designs. She was a major felt fan and had made beautiful ornaments using styroform balls covered in felt, gold braid, sequins (you can attach them to styroform with a pin through the middle which is a whole lot easier than sewing!), and other glittery things. When we were first married and living in our first apartment and our first Christmas came around, I was determined to decorate with a little Christmas sparkle. The local Woolworth’s (my go-to place for all home goods) had an eclectic fabric collection in its basement, and they had…FELT! And sequins! And ribbon! And pearl-headed pins! And even little styroform balls! I was in business and set about trying to recreate my mother’s masterpieces. P.S. We still hang these little treasures on our Christmas tree.

The next year I found larger styroform balls, and wider ribbon and made an arrangement of the (felt-covered) balls on various lengths of ribbon to hang from the mantelpiece. And so…I was on my way to Christmas decoration stardom!

When I finally got a real job and opened a real lab (my own!!!), I discovered that the most fabulous florist supply store in all of the New York area was a mere 2 blocks from my lab. Can you even imagine what treasures they have in a florist supply store? I soon found myself in a Christmas decorators’ heaven. At Christmastime, they carried at least 100 kinds of Christmas-themed ribbon, pin lights, regular lights in all colors, extravagant collections of greens (fake, yes, but incredibly realistic), sparkly things of indescribable luxuriousness, life-sized white doves, golden stalks of this and that, and real poinsettias for cheap. I had a house by now – a Victorian house – a house crying out for a full, over-the-top Dickens decorating spree. So I bought:

200 feet of garlands;

10 white doves;

Yards and yards (who was counting?) of 2” wire-stiffened ribbons of various design;

8 luscious stalks containing some sort of exotic fruit surrounded by exotic greens and normal fir-tree-type greens (Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Trust me, they were beautiful.);

2 wreaths;

And goodness knows what else.

I didn’t know what to do with the yards and yards of ribbon, BUT…help came in the form of the famous “Bow-Dabra” (I probably found it in Woolworth’s), a kit that showed one how to make fabulous bows – the best $9.99 purchase I ever made!

With the help of an extremely skeptical husband, I decked the halls. The garlands outlined the doors; the wreaths went on the outside front door panels (they were promptly stolen – just the way the neighborhood was at the time); the white doves fluttered amid the dining room garlands; the exotic fruit perfumed the living room garlands (well, not really, but they added a salutary bit of sophistication).

It was glorious, if I do say so myself.

When our child came along, I made…yes! green felt stockings for the three of us. Sequins (glued, not sewn!) glittered on our names cut out of white felt. It’s now almost 45 years later, and we still stuff those very same stockings with goodies to open on Christmas morning.

As a wee tot, the AJ was frightened by the white doves (thinking, I guess, that they might fly down and peck at him), but he got used to them at some point. Also, while I favored a Christmas tree trimmed completely in white/gold lights and golden ornaments (sparkly, you know), the AJ preferred a more colorful model with multicolored lights and “traditional” ornaments. Guess who won? For this multicolored extravaganza, I made a tree skirt. Now. I CAN sew a little, so I went to my favorite fabric store (a step up from Woolworth’s), bought yards of red and green velveteen (NOT felt this time) and at least 20 yards of gold braid. This little project designed to save us money (home-made, after all) set us back a month’s mortgage payment, but it fit the tree perfectly, and it WAS elegant, if I do say so myself.

You’d think that would have been enough. Ha! You jest! I have since bought two of those beautifully-crafted carolers (from Byers’ Choice, Ltd.) who sing on the coffee table in their authentic Victorian garb (complete with a real rabbit fur muff for the lady and a leather satchel carried by the man); an elaborate three-foot bearded Santa in a fur-trimmed velvet cape (got him for $10 at a flea market) holding a lighted wreath that’s on a timer (!); and three paunchy “Christmas ladies” whom I fell in love with in Duane Reade (they wear hand-crafted outfits that include real knitted scarves and hats made of…felt). They welcome people to the entrance hall. I didn’t craft any of these personalities (all way beyond my capabilities), but I appreciate their addition to our festivities.

As we got older stringing the garlands over the 10-foot doorways proved a bit too far to go, so the garlands were “repurposed,” and were wound around the banisters outside on the stoop decorated with red bows (no white doves). After the stolen-wreath caper, we never did much to the outside of the house, so this is a departure – one worth repeating in the future.

About four years ago, I realized that I had more pine cones, sequins, baubles, holly berries, ribbons, toy soldiers, exotic fruits, tiny stuffed angels, etc. than I was ever going to be able to use – no matter how many table centerpieces I made. So I gave a party. I provided wine, glue, wire, wreath forms, and sundry vases and watched my friends create their own Christmas cheer out of my cache of wonderment.

I love Christmas decorations.

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Ken Burns and Trump the Outlier

Many people have been enthralled by Ken Burns latest film, this one on the American Revolution. Burns and his crew are tremendous filmmakers. The script always flows seamlessly, incorporating visuals, talking heads, and narration seemingly based on extensive research. He has a winning technique, which he employs no matter the subject matter– jazz, baseball, the Roosevelts, the Dust Bowl or the Revolution. The subject matter is forced to fit the technique, but that technique always seems to leave viewers feeling as if they have learned a lot, that they are intellectual, with little effort on their part.

In a well-prepared presentation at our current events discussion group, a fellow resident talked about Burns’s The American Revolution. Among her points was that the history was more complex than what she was taught when in school; that the outcome may now seem inevitable, but it was not at the time; and that the American “story” is one of a journey that continues. In response to comments, she said that President Trump was only temporary and that she had great confidence in the wisdom of the American people, or at least of her grandchildren. I thought that suggesting Trump was sort of an outlier and that good-sense Americans would soon prevail missed some of the points she drew from the Burns’s documentary. Our history is complicated, but good results are not inevitable.

Unfortunately, Trump is not some outlier. Many if not most mainstream Republicans before Trump took over supported tax cuts skewed to the rich; did not support healthcare for the many; threw up scares about immigrants; opposed “wokeness”; bashed universities; bashed science; suggested there was unconstitutional discrimination against whites, especially white males; maintained that there was rampant discrimination against Christians; promoted islamophobia; and so on. Trump did not create these positions; he just said them more stridently and colorfully than other politicians.

This made me think of Timothy Egan’s, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them (2023), the story of the rise of the twentieth century Ku Klux Klan. This a story not of the deep south, but of Indiana and of D.C. Stephenson, who in effect ruled the Hoosier State in the 1920s. Stephenson did not build this new Klan by himself. Egan points out that the Klan of the 1920s was built with blessing of Protestant clergy. Stephenson, however, had abilities and shamelessness that still exist in modern demagogues. Egan tells us that D.C. Stephenson “had the touch and the charm, the dexterity with words and the drive. He understood people’s fear and their need to blame others for their failures. He discovered that if he said something often enough, no matter how untrue, people would believe it. Small lies were for the timid. The key to telling a big lie was to do it with a conviction.”

The Klan was seeking to make America great again by returning the country to a previous time. It supported eugenics and mandatory sterilizations to limit America to the “right” kind of people that used to be the only Americans. It blessed the restrictive immigration law, the National Origins Act of 1924, which prevented the “wrong” kinds of people from entering the country. It denied the shared humanity of people, and thus the Klan opposed the teaching of evolution because evolution implies that all people had a common origin.

Stephenson’s downfall came when a brave prosecutor arrested and tried him for a horrific rape and murder. Although the disgusting evidence was clear, he still retained power because his followers “believed the trial was a hoax and witch hunt.” The true heroes were the twelve average men of the jury who convicted him leading to a life sentence.

There is much worth studying in this story. The prosecutor pointed out that “‘Stephenson forced a super oath’ on public officials. This super oath was greater than the oath of constitutional authority.” When loyalty to an individual becomes stronger than to the greater good or the constitution, society is in danger. Stephenson demonstrated that “democracy was a fragile thing, stable and steady until it was broken and trampled. A man who didn’t care about shattering every convention, and then found new ways to vandalize the contract that allowed free people to govern themselves, could do unthinkable damage.” And our journey continues. Stephenson’s downfall was not inevitable. Because he committed a horrific crime, he was the eventual cause of his own downfall. But it took a brave prosecutor and brave jurors to make sure that downfall occurred.

As unusual as Stephenson may now seem, Timothy Egan asks the still relevant question: “What if the leaders of the 1920s Klan didn’t drive public sentiment, but rode it? A vein of hatred was always there for the tapping. It’s still there, and explains much of the madness threatening American life a hundred years after Stephenson made a mockery of the moral principles of the Heartland.”

What if Trump does not drive public sentiment but rides it? A vein of hatred will exist after Trump departs. Glass-more-than-half-full optimism about the American people and seeing Trump as an outlier will not change that. I wish I were mistaken.