Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

Distinguished lawyers state that no attorney would allow Donald Trump to testify in his criminal trials. That is misleading. A criminal defendant has the constitutional right to testify at his trial, and the law is clear that the attorney does not control this decision. The accused decides. The attorney may advise against such testimony, and the defendant usually follows that advice, but the defendant has the ultimate authority over whether he testifies or not. Would you be surprised, however, if Trump did not listen to his lawyers?

Does Trump fully know what he is charged with in the last indictment? That charging document is forty-five pages long. It is about him, so there is a chance he read it, but not a good one.

“A President’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.” Lyndon B. Johnson.

“The American Presidency, it occurs to us, is merely a way station en route to the blessed condition of being an ex-President.” John Updike.

Several women are running for president. With our concern over inflation and deficits, we should elect a female. We could pay 70% of what we pay a man for  being president.

“I’d like to get to the point where I can be just as mediocre as a man.” Juanita Kreps.

“He told me that he was a self-made man. Later I discovered that he would have been wise to get some help.” Joan Rivers.

When a woman refuses to respond to a man’s advances, he is not disconcerted; he is merely astonished that she could be so blind to her own feelings. With a nod to Helen Rowland.

“In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on a woman.” Nancy Astor.

“Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, that is not difficult.” Charlotte Witten.

“It’s sexy to be competent.” Letty Cottin Pogrebin.

“I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.” Gloria Steinem.

“My life is not up for criticism, just my work.” Cher.

A wise person said, “Women who think they are the equal of men lack ambition.”

Behind every successful man stands an amazed woman.

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The Big Bullshitter’s Big Defense

Commentators have said that Trump might have a good defense for his latest indictment. The prosecutors, they say, must show (among other things) that the ex-president knew that he was lying when he proclaimed again and again that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud and stolen from him.

Some of my past blog comments seem to support the Trumpistas’ position, for I have said that Trump is not a liar. For that conclusion I was relying on Harry G. Frankfort’s marvelous little book, On Bullshit.

Frankfort makes a convincing distinction between bullshit and lies. Lying calls for a degree of craftsmanship to get the lie accepted, and it also requires a concern for the truth. “In order to invent a lie at all, [the liar] must think he knows what is true. And in order to invent an effective lie, he must design his falsehood under the guidance of that truth.”

The liar, thus, has a concern for the truth. The bullshitter does not. A bullshitter’s “statement is grounded neither in a belief that it is true nor, as a lie must be, in a belief that it is not true. It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth—this indifference to how things really are—that I regard as of the essence of bullshit.” And since our President does not seem to craft lies as much as utter falsehoods with an indifference to the truth, he is, by this definition, not a liar.

The bullshitter has more freedom than the liar. The bullshit artist “does not limit himself to inserting a certain falsehood at a certain point, and thus he is not constrained by the truths surrounding that point or intersecting it. He is prepared, as far as required, to fake the context as well.” Frankfort continues, “He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.” The bullshitter is not rejecting the authority of truth, as the liar does. Instead, “he pays no attention to it at all.” Without regard to the truth, Trump makes assertions, such as that the election was stolen, to suit his purpose so as not to be the loser he was.

While Frankfort’s notions of bullshit fit Trump, I don’t believe that Trump’s attorneys will say, “Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, Trump is not guilty. He is not a liar. He is a bullshitter. If the bullshit fits, you must acquit.”

Okay. Since “He is a bullshitter” is unlikely to be the defense, Trump’s attorneys may contend that he was speaking the truth about the election’s being stolen. Such an assertion, however, will require convincing evidence from the defense of electoral fraud serious enough to have altered the voting outcome (the so-called “outcome-determinative fraud”). After the 2020 election such claims were made over five dozen times and lost in court. No credible information has been found to support such an assertion, and none is likely to be discovered now.

A second defense, as has also been suggested by Trumpistas, is that Trump was not lying in his claims because he honestly believed that the election was stolen. I have been thinking about how that might play out in court.

A trial is not decided in the court of public opinion but in a real courtroom where the decision comes from a jury. We often say that a criminal defendant has the right to a trial by a jury of his peers. That is not in the Constitution. Instead, the Constitution allows the accused the right to be tried “by an impartial jury.” Some think that this means that the jurors must know nothing about the case to be a member of the jury. That is not the standard. Instead, a juror must be able to honestly pledge to decide the case, using common sense, on the evidence presented in court and the law as given by the judge. The jurors cannot decide the case on information from outside the trial. If I were called to be a juror, I would be asked whether I could set aside my conclusion that Trump is a bullshitter and could decide the case solely on the evidence and law presented at trial. If I am able to maintain impartiality, I would be a valid juror.

The indictment indicates that dozens of respected people — people who might be called as witnesses and whose testimony would have to be considered by the jury — told Trump that the screams of fraud were false. This information came to Trump from federal officials, state officials, White House officials, and unanimous court decisions. Many, if not most, came from conservatives and people whom Trump appointed and had praised. Using common sense, a jury seems likely to conclude that anyone who heard again and again from people he had trusted that fraud claims were bogus could not have honestly believed the opposite — at least not without countervailing proof.

Perhaps Trump does have countervailing evidence and will present witnesses who told him with a straight face that the election was stolen, and, moreover, that he chose to believe them in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It does not mean, however, that he wins just because he could put forward such testimony.

Prosecution witnesses will testify as to what they said to Trump and explain why the cries of fraud were hogwash. If Trump has witnesses who testify that they told him otherwise, those witnesses will be asked what they told Trump to support their unsupported claim. All the witnesses can testify as to what Trump said in these conversations. Did he ask about the bases of the claims? Did he ask those claiming election fraud in Arizona, for example, why Arizona officials dismissed the claims of fraud? What is their proof? Since the election fraud deniers have the facts on their side, a jury is likely to believe that any normal person would believe the factual reports over those presenting false claims. Of course, you might maintain that Trump is not a normal person, but the jury can’t operate on preexisting knowledge of the ex-president, and an assumption of abnormality would be warranted only if evidence is presented to that effect. That would be fun to see.

It is the case, however, that mental states are often an important issue in a criminal trial. Think of a self-defense claim where the accused is not guilty of a homicide if he believed that his life was in danger. Sometimes the jury can be convinced of that from a thorough exploration of the killing’s context. Witnesses might testify that the victim was advancing on the defendant with a knife or ax or gun shouting frightening threats when the accused shot him. That might be analogous to Trump’s situation if all the credible people had told him that the election was stolen and had supported their opinions with convincing facts. Trump, in self-defense, might have thought it appropriate to behave as he did. However, that’s not what the credible people told him.

Many times in a self-defense case, there is no independent evidence about the killing’s context. Sometimes the facts seemingly contradict what the defendant may have claimed after the death. The victim may have had a cellphone or a wallet in his hand, but the defendant may have said, I thought I was going to die because I thought he had a gun.  In these circumstances, the defendant almost always has to convincingly testify about the belief that his life was in danger to avoid a conviction. That seems analogous to Trump’s situation. Could his attorneys convince the jury that Trump honestly believed what was untrue? It would necessitate Trump’s testifying that despite repeated and credible reports, he continued to believe a false narrative.  It is, of course, unlikely that he will testify at all; almost everyone seems to believe that he can’t win if he has to face cross-examination. That conviction seems assured if he testifies tells us a lot.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

Let the people decide. That is the phrase I have heard from various right wingers after Trump’s latest indictment. The next election should settle his fate. That could, of course, be said every time an office holder is charged with a crime, something that happens many times each year. For good reasons, however, the determination of whether a person has committed a charged crime is not decided by an election. The people do decide, but they are the ones plucked from the stream of humanity to be jurors. That is our legal system, one embedded in the Constitution and our history.

          I know that those who proclaim “Let the people decide” do not believe in or understand the rule of law, but I wonder if they are foolish, are ignorant, have no memory, are hypocrites, or are simply trying to be funny. (Probably not the latter; I have noticed that right wingers rarely have a good sense of humor.) The indictment was handed up precisely because Trump was unwilling to let the people decide. The people voted in 2020 and decided decisively against him. There is no reason to believe that if he is on the ballot in 2024 and he loses that he will accept the people’s decision. Recent history shows that he won’t.

I love my small car. It is the right vehicle for parking on the streets of New York City. It can sometimes be parked where few other cars can. When either the spouse or I maneuver into such a tight place we proudly announce to the other, “I fit the Fit into a Fit spot.” Street parking is especially hard in Manhattan where the spouse recently had a doctor’s appointment. I found a small, but tempting opening at the curb and stopped to back in. A big truck waited behind me. I parked the Honda Fit on the first try with eight inches to spare in front and six inches behind. I heard honking. The truck had pulled up alongside me. The driver opened his window, smiled, stuck his hands out, and applauded. I smiled and waved. I was too late to yell out that I had gotten into tighter spots, but at my age it was nice to be acknowledged for a dexterous feat, even a mundane one.

Owning old houses, I have been through many renovations and repairs. I have learned that whenever a worker starts a job, if he did not do the previous work, he will tell me whoever did it before did not do it properly.

A mystery of life: I went to the new dollar store. And spent $78.76.

I have heard that you should live every day like it is your last. Hogwash. If l did that, I would never have clean clothes. On the last day of my life, I am not doing the laundry. Or the dishes.

“Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.” Mark Twain.

My latest diet that I am sure will work: I can eat anything I want, but I must eat naked in front of a full-length mirror.

“I am still looking for a man who could excite me as much as a baked potato.” Laura Flynn McCarthy.

“Never eat more than you can lift.” Miss Piggy.

Gouda, Roquefort, and cheddar make a fromage à trois.

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Lew’s Judah (concluded)

Civil War general and author Lew Wallace left the governorship of the New Mexico territory in 1881, but not to retire to domesticity. President James Garfield had read Wallace’s Ben-Hur shortly after its 1880 publication and became convinced that the author had a deep understanding of the eastern Mediterranean. Garfield appointed the author to be U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople.

The story goes that after his formal introduction to the Turkish Sultan, Wallace extended his hand to shake. The courtiers were aghast; no one touched the Sultan, much less a Christian. The Sultan, however, when he understood Wallace’s gesture, took his hand, and the two developed a close relationship.

Besides his diplomatic duties, Wallace toured the Holy Land. He had described it in Ben-Hur only from research, but he felt that his representations stood up to the first-hand observations and changed nothing in subsequent editions of the book. He toured parts of the Ottoman empire and drew upon these travels for his book The Prince of India; or Why Constantinople Fell, which he published in 1893 and thought his best novel.

The election of Grover Cleveland ended Wallace’s diplomatic career in 1885. The Sultan supposedly wished for Wallace to work for the Ottoman empire, but Wallace, still in his fifties, returned to Crawfordsville where he lived for the rest of his life.

He constructed a study outside his Indiana home. At first it was surrounded by a moat, which was stocked so that he could fish from it. He later filled it in because he thought it endangered children. It still stands now as the Lew Wallace Study and Museum, where his painting of the Lincoln conspirators is hung.

The remarkable man continued to write, publishing several more books, but he also displayed another talent later in his life — that of inventor. He obtained eight patents, including one for a travel fishing rod and reel. He died in 1905 working on his autobiography, which his wife finished after his death.

And now I have finally read his most noted accomplishment, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Well, not every word of it. Wallace’s research shows itself in the novel through many lengthy descriptions of such things as galley ships, stadiums, customs, and geography. These sometimes go on for pages and pages. I confess that I skimmed many of those as well as the long descriptive paragraphs that introduced each character. (Wallace certainly did not believe the advice given by the successful writer to the fledgling one in Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews: “You only need to give one or two details about a character’s physical appearance. It’s all the reader needs to build an image in her mind. Anything more is a distraction.)

The subtitle may indicate that Jesus is a central figure in the book, but that is not so. We read of his birth (in a cave, and he is not laid in a manger) that draws on the Bible, and we encounter him as a youth, but he then disappears until he emerges again near the end of the lengthy book. Mostly, the book reads like a typical nineteenth century adventure story, although it is better written than others I have read.

The plot in brief: The princely, Jewish Judah Ben-Hur is sent off as a slave to galley ships after he almost kills a Roman governor accidentally. His family estate is confiscated. His mother and sister are imprisoned and catch leprosy. Ben-Hur miraculously escapes from a galley ship during a battle. He saves a rich Roman, who adopts him. He trains to be a warrior and charioteer. He cripples a hated Roman in the famous chariot scene. Perhaps this book is ultimately about love and forgiveness, but if so, only after Ben-Hur exacts revenge on those who wrecked his and his family’s lives. Of course, there are two beautiful women, one of whom the readers know is not a good person — not the right one for Judah — while, of course, the other beauty is.

Eventually, Judah begins to follow Jesus as Jesus begins his public ministry. Judah at first believes Jesus will become a king who will overthrow the hated Romans. Gradually, however, Ben-Hur realizes that Jesus is offering a paradise not of this earth. We can breathe a sigh of relief that Judah ends up with beautiful, virtuous Esther and that with his riches, because of his new faith, he does good works.

Although it sounds like something planted by a modern public relations flack to sell books, it is said that Lew Wallace found his faith in writing the book. It did not have the same effect on me. However, while most of the book seemed a cut above ordinary, the description of the crucifixion, which follows the Bible closely, was both moving and powerful.

So…Lew Wallace, writer, illustrator, general, governor, diplomat, and inventor. A full life and a legacy that lives on in Ben-Hur.

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Lew’s Judah (continued)

By the end of the Civil War, Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur, had regained such respect that President Andrew Johnson appointed him to the military tribunal that would try the seven men and one woman accused of plotting to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. All eight were convicted. The tribunal sentenced four of them to prison terms, and the other four, including Mary Surratt, to death by hanging. Five of the nine military commissioners later recommended clemency for Surratt. Wallace, the only lawyer on the commission, was not one of them. The president did not grant the reprieve, and Mary Surratt was hanged. (See the posting on ajsdad.blog of May 6, 2020: “The Hanging in the Museum.”)

Six weeks after the Lincoln assassination trial concluded, Wallace was appointed to preside over another military tribunal, this one to try Confederate Captain Henry Wirz, the commandant of the notorious Andersonville prisoner of war camp in Georgia. Wirz, too, was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was hanged on November 10, 1865.

Digression: In high school, I became aware of the horrors of that Confederate camp when, seven years after it won the Pulitzer Prize, I read MacKinlay Kantor’s Andersonville. After I got used to Kantor’s punctuation—no quotation marks, later adopted by Cormac McCarthy and others—I found it to be a powerful book. Only later did I learn that some thought it age-inappropriate for secondary school readers and tried to have it banned from high schools. (See the posting on ajsdad.blog of June15, 2023, and June 19, 2023: “It Was So Age-Inappropriate What I Read.”) Perhaps the language bothered some; the novel is filled with profanities, which is not surprising because Andersonville portrays the inhumanities of the prisoner of war camp. It is not so much an antiwar book but one detailing human degradation. Henry Wirz, who suffered injuries during the war, is portrayed as a still sick man trying to do his best in controlling the horrors in an impossible situation. The military commission, if it was in the book, was merely a coda to the heart of the lengthy book about the construction and operation of the camp. The book may have introduced me to Lew Wallace, but I don’t remember him from the novel.

Wallace’s life took a strange turn after his service on the military tribunals. Apparently invited by Benito Juárez, he went to Mexico to become a major general in the Mexican Army. Juárez was elected to the Mexican presidency in 1861. Shortly thereafter with Mexico facing a major financial crisis, he repudiated foreign debt prompting French Emperor Napoleon III to seek the overthrow of the Mexican government. France invaded and installed Maximilian as emperor of Mexico. The United States at least nominally supported Juárez but, occupied with the Civil War, gave him little support. Even so, Juárez returned to the Mexican Presidency in 1867, and Wallace was off to support him. It is not clear what happened in Mexico, but Wallace soon returned to the U.S. deeply in debt.

He settled again in Crawfordsville, Indiana, to practice law, which he detested. Wallace published his first book in 1873, a historical novel, The Fair God, about Cortez’s conquest of Mexico. Wallace, however, was not the only author in the family. His wife, Susan Arnold Elston Wallace, published six books, two of which were illustrated by Wallace. Her most notable literary work was an 1858 poem titled, “The Patter of Little Feet,” which gave us the phrase.

It is not surprising that Wallace illustrated his wife’s books. They were a close couple, and he, among his many facets, was a talented artist. During the Lincoln assassination trial, he sketched all the defendants, except for Mary Surratt, whose face was nearly always veiled during the proceedings. Shortly after his failed Mexican excursion, Wallace used the drawings as a basis for a painting, usually called “The Conspirators,” which depicts those convicted except for Surratt. The large canvas, roughly five feet by five feet, now hangs in the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum in Crawfordsville.

Lew Wallace’s first novel sold well and perhaps this success inspired him to begin his work on Ben-Hur. He had not been to the Holy Land but did extensive research at the Library of Congress for the new book. Writing, however, was not then a full-time occupation, so when asked in 1878, he accepted a new appointment as Governor of the New Mexico territory.

Santa Fe may have seemed like the perfect place to finish his manuscript, which he did but with some major distractions. After engaging in Civil War battles, judging those charged in Lincoln’s assassination, dealing with the horrors of Andersonville, and seeking to defend the Mexican republic, the sparsely settled New Mexico could have been a haven made for writing. Instead, Wallace encountered the Lincoln County War and the almost mythical Billy the Kid.

The Lincoln County War started in 1878, the year Wallace came to New Mexico, and ended in the year he left, 1881. This is the only “war” I know of that started with a dispute over dry goods businesses and, of course, since this was the Old West, cattle. When a member of one faction was murdered, retaliatory murders ensued climaxing in a five-day gun battle in 1880. The most famous of the participating gunfighters was Henry McCarty, aka William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, who, legends say, killed twenty-one men before he was killed at the age of twenty-one.

In the midst of the Lincoln County War, Bonney wrote Governor Lew Wallace offering his testimony about one of the murders in exchange for amnesty. Billy and the Governor met a few days later, and Wallace promised the gunslinger clemency for the testimony. To guarantee his safety, Bonney agreed to be arrested and placed in jail. Bonney testified, but the local district attorney refused to free him. Wallace felt double-crossed by the DA, and Billy the Kid by Wallace. Two months later Billy escaped from jail and vowed revenge on Wallace. Bullets were later fired into Wallace’s home, but no one knows whether Bonney was the shooter. Wallace, however, posted a $500 bounty for Bonney’s capture, and Sheriff Pat Garrett captured Billy and three others. Billy the Kid sent Wallace at least four letters seeking release, which the governor ignored. Bonney was convicted of murder and sentenced to hanging, but again he escaped, killing two men in the process. Wallace posted another $500 bounty, and three months later, Pat Garrett shot and killed Billy the Kid.

(concluded July 31)

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Lew’s Judah

Does a century end with a 99 or with a double zero? How you answer that question determines the answer to my trivia question: What was the bestselling American novel of the nineteenth century? Many sources say it was Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly (published in 1852), but others say that in 1900 Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ had passed Uncle Tom’s Cabin in sales. Ben-Hur, published twenty-eight years after Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book, was a phenomenon. It remained the largest selling American novel until it was surpassed by 1936’s Gone with the Wind, when the literate American population was much larger than it was a half-century before. My guess, however, is that while many readers of this blog not only know the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, they have read the book, and that many also have read Gone with the Wind and know that Margaret Mitchell wrote it. How many, however, have read Ben-Hur or even know the name of the author?

Although it did not make it to my small Wisconsin town until six months after its premiere, the 1959 movie first introduced me to Judah Ben-Hur. It was one of my first dates. However, any of my hopes for a makeout session before going home were dashed — not, I am sure, because of my lack of charm and appeal –but by both the film’s religious conclusion and its length. The movie is over three-and-a-half hours long and that does not include the overture (remember movie overtures?) and the intermission (remember movie intermissions?). The movie was a huge box-office success and won eleven Oscars, including for best movie and best actor for Charlton Heston, who seemingly did not learn from his role that you can be a hero without holding a gun. (Eleven Oscars have not been surpassed but that total has been matched by Titanic and one of those god-awful Lord of the Rings nerdfests.)Other actors were considered for the lead role including Burt Lancaster and Paul Newman, who apparently turned it down because he was convinced that he did not have the legs for a tunic. (Did Newman ever show his legs in any of his movies?)  

This movie was not the first visual depiction of the book. In 1899, a play of Ben-Hur opened on Broadway. The book’s author only consented to the theatrical production after stipulating that the crucifixion not be staged and that Jesus not be portrayed by an actor. Instead, Christ was suggested by a beam of light. In the 1959 movie version, an actor portrayed Jesus, but his face is not seen and his voice is not heard. In the 2016 remake, an actor for the first time portrayed the voice, face, and figure of Jesus. There was also a 1925 version. It starred the Mexican American heartthrob Ramon Novarro, né José Ramón Gil Samaniego, who became Hollywood’s Latin Lover after the death of Rudy Valentino and whose considerable appeal apparently also included his legs and whose closeted homosexuality helped cause his gruesome murder in 1968.

Of course, Ben-Hur is not complete without the chariot races which, in the 1959 movie comprise a thrilling nine minutes long segment (with a teenage boy yelling out during my initial viewing that the bloody face of a driver looked like a pizza, a food only recently introduced to my town.) In that long-ago live play, it was staged with live horses running on hidden treadmills. The stage production was so successful that it toured for two decades requiring four railroad cars to transport the equipment. Over twenty million people saw it.

Although I have seen televised fragments of the 1959 movie many times since my high school days, I gave Ben-Hur little thought over the next half-century. Covid changed that. At the beginning of the pandemic, the local, friendly library where I spend summers erected a plexiglass shield to separate patrons from staff at the checkout desk. On the patron’s side, two stacks of books held the plastic upright. The blue bindings, all the same, suggested “classics.” I now know that they were part of the International Collectors Library. An insert in each books said they came in “The William Morris Binding, a modern adaptation of a superb Old Victorian bookbinding specimen.” The original covering was designed by William Morris for his book Utopia.

Ben-Hur was on the top of the right-hand side stack of books restraining the plexiglass. After a few visits to the post-Covid checkout facility, I asked if I could take out Ben-Hur. I was told that I could not because it continued to be part of the protective device’s support system. Recently, however, I asked the wonderful librarian again about the novel’s availability. Mary Ann, tall and slender with a charming smile and sparkling eyes, said yes. (I have never had a real conversation with Mary Ann, but I am convinced that she is smart and witty. Alas, I confess to being too old for her.)

Reading the book has made me interested in Lew Wallace, who, of course, is the author of Ben-Hur, but it turns out that he was much more than a writer. I had known that he was a Civil War general but I knew little else about his remarkable life. Lewis Wallace was born in 1827 in Indiana. When the Mexican War started, the nineteen-year-old Wallace volunteered for the army. Serving under Zachary Taylor, he did not see combat but became a regimental adjutant and left this army service as a first lieutenant. He returned to Indiana, married Susan Arnold Elston, had a son, practiced law, and served a term as a Democrat in the state legislature.

Two weeks after the attack on Fort Sumter, Wallace, a firm believer in the Union, became the commander of an Indiana regiment. Five months later, after involvement in some minor battles, he became a brigadier general and was given command of a brigade. Early in 1862, after performing well in more major actions, Wallace was promoted to major general, the youngest (age 34) in the Union army. Within a month, however, Grant and others criticized his decisions at the Battle of Shiloh (Wallace maintained that his orders were unclear), and he was removed from front-line command. Throughout his life, Wallace felt that the blame from Shiloh was unjust, and even near his death fifty years after the battle, he was still defending his actions at the battle.

Wallace, however, continued with his military career with notable successes in Kentucky and in defending Cincinnati. However, what gained him most praise was not a victory. Confederate General Jubal Early, with superior forces, defeated Wallace’s troops at Monocacy Junction, Maryland, not far from Washington, D.C. With skillful maneuvering, however, Wallace’s army impeded the Confederate drive to Washington for a day, giving Grant time to send reinforcements to the capital. Grant recognized Wallace’s effective tactics and praised him at the time and later in his autobiography.

(continued July 27)

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Oppie and Me

Although I lived in the same small town as he did for nearly four years, I never saw him nor did I look for him. I may have had some vague idea of his importance to twentieth century history, but J. Robert Oppenheimer was hardly at the forefront of my consciousness.

I don’t remember what I knew about him when I was in college. I was probably aware that he was director of the Institute for Advanced Studies and that he had headed the group that developed the first atomic bomb. It was only after graduation, however, that I learned more details about the Manhattan Project.. I learned then that the Project comprised a colorful group with antagonistic personalities and huge egos. (Perhaps my favorite was the Hungarian Leo Szilard, who seemed like a real jerk and spent hours each day soaking in a tub where he said he accomplished his important thinking.) Oppenheimer was not only an important theoretical physicist but also had to be a skillful administrator to get the scientists, technicians, and support staff to work effectively together.

In college I may have known that Oppenheimer had been stripped of his security clearance in a proceeding that many thought unfair. Only much later did I learn that the hearing came to what seems contradictory conclusions: Oppenheimer was a loyal American but also a security risk. As Richard Gid Powers wrote in Broken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI (2004), Oppenheimer lost his security clearance because of his associations, ideas, and public positions, “not because of any proof of disloyalty.”

While Oppenheimer’s security hearing came during the McCarthy era, its roots went back decades earlier. Although Americans elites had denounced radical movements since the nineteenth century, World War I and its immediate aftermath brought increased denunciations of “communism,” “bolshevism,” “anarchism,” and “socialism.” Those isms were soon used to discredit all sorts of ideas and their proponents—the income tax, birth control, opponents of prohibition, advocates of evolution, unions. The labels implied foreign control and ideas. In the 1930s, with the failure of our economic system apparent, many leftist groups sprouted that flirted with, or even kissed, the idea of communism. Oppenheimer, who before the Depression had little political consciousness, was drawn to such groups. Furthermore, his brother and sister-in-law were communists, and his wife had been married to a communist. Although Oppenheimer’s loyalty had been checked and rechecked by FBI and the Atomic Energy Commission, at the time of his security hearing, it was not farfetched to call him a fellow traveler.

Mostly, however, Oppenheimer came to be seen as a security risk for views he espoused after World War II. While the government was becoming increasingly secretive, he wanted more openness so that nuclear policies could be discussed sensibly by a wide range of knowledgeable people. He objected to the secrecy surrounding decisions about the hydrogen bomb and believed that concealing information about the bomb increased the dangers of international misunderstandings. To many, however, secrecy and security were coupled. Thus, to oppose secrecy, as Oppenheimer did, was equivalent to undermining national security.

Oppenheimer also questioned the wisdom and morality of what was becoming our basic defense rationale in a nuclear war: massive retaliation or mutually assured destruction. John Lewis Gaddis says in The Cold War: A New History (2005) that Oppenheimer opposed the hydrogen bomb arguing that such an apocalyptic device could never meet “the Clausewitzian standard that military operations must not destroy what they were meant to defend.” Oppenheimer’s biographers said, “He wanted to encourage open democratic debate on whether the United States should adopt genocide as its primary defense strategy.” In the eyes of government officials, Oppenheimer was a security risk not because he was sending secrets to foreign governments but because his views could weaken our resolve to defend this country in the only way it could be defended. The phrase was not yet used, but Oppenheimer was the victim of a cancel culture designed to send a wider message. Those biographers, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin in American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005), say, “One scientist had to be excommunicated. But all scientists were now on notice that there could be serious consequences for those who challenged state policies.”

Since I knew little of this history in my college days, it’s not surprising that I was not on the lookout for Oppenheimer as I know I would have been for Einstein ten years earlier. However, I am surprised by what I have learned about Oppenheimer’s funeral. I thought that I was aware of all big events, and most small ones, that happened on campus. Oppenheimer died in February of my senior year, and his funeral was held at a famous campus building a week later. It was a big event. Among the six hundred attending were Nobel Prize winners, diplomats, politicians, novelists, musicians, and dance maestros. It must have been big news, and I read the papers. It occurred only a few hundred yards from my dorm, but I have no memory of it. I doubt that the ceremony was open to students, but it would have been worth a try. At a minimum, it would have offered a chance at a unique red carpet-like experience. Perhaps I was so taken up by finishing my senior thesis, or by thoughts of entering a wider world, or attending more parties that this collection of notables completely escaped my notice.

Now the movie Oppenheimer, based on American Prometheus, is opening. I hope that the movie is a success. It would be welcome to have a blockbuster not just about a comic book hero or its equivalent but about a real, complex polymath (how many people do you know who learned Sanskrit to be able to read Bhagavad Gita in the original?) whose life was at the core of many crucial chapters in 20th century American history. I plan to see it, but it is three-hours long, and a man my age usually needs breaks in that long of stretch. I may have to wait until it streams.

Perhaps first I will see Barbie.  

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Snippets

A news source reported that TikTok influencers have taken up pasta salads. I remember a generation or two ago when cold pasta, veggies, and cheese were the rage. They were a novelty, something different. But no matter how many I sampled, they all were, in what is not too much of an exaggeration, an abomination to good taste. Perhaps they are better now. Or perhaps a new generation will eventually learn what I did decades ago.

One of the best things many people could do for their descendants would be to sharply limit the number of them.

A wise person said, “People who boast of their ancestors confess that they belong to a family that is better dead than alive.”

The hottest new parlor game. Everyone gets a slip of paper and a pencil. Everyone secretly makes up a name for a new drug. (In an advanced version, the letter “X” cannot be used.) The slips are folded and tossed into a bowl. Each participant draws out a slip and then makes up a disease the new drug treats. Both the name of the drug and the disease are scored by all.

“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.” Mark Twain.

Has Donald Trump ever blushed?

Down the road, but I am glad to say 250 miles down the road, a manhunt was on for a man who escaped from jail. A news report said that the escapee was a “self-taught survivalist.” Are there community colleges or technical colleges or other institutions that teach survivalism?

I was convinced that the spouse’s hearing was slipping. I stood ten feet behind her and whispered, “Honey, can you hear me?” Nothing. A few steps closer, I repeated, “Dear, can you hear me?” Again nothing. I went right behind her and whispered in her ear, “Honey, can you hear me?” With irritation, she snapped, “For the third time, yes!”

I have learned how to have the last word with the spouse. I say, “Yes, dear.”

I didn’t know what to eat for breakfast, but luckily my canary flew into the electric fan. I had shredded tweet.

I asked my doctor if I really needed to give up wine, women, and song. No, he said. Sing as much as you like.

My friend was teaching his son right from left. When Harold picked up the dropped car keys, he asked, “Luther, what hand did I use?” The confident reply; “The left.” With an exasperated tone: “Luther, you know better than that. It was my right hand.” With an even more exasperated tone: “Dad, I know my right hand from my left. Why do I need to know yours?”

“I have never been hurt by anything I didn’t say.” Calvin Coolidge.

“There is often a sin of omission as well as of commission.” Marcus Aurelius.

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First Sentences

“In March 1939, as the world hurtled toward a catastrophic war, the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church gathered to elect a new supreme pontiff.” David I. Kertzer, The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler.

“All the Venables sat at Sunday dinner.” Edna Ferber, Cimarron.

“As the scientific world prepared to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species in 1909, an amateur English geologist named Charles Dawson made a momentous find thirty miles from Darwin’s country home in southern England.” Edward J. Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion.

“They found the corpse on the eighth of July just after three o’clock in the afternoon.” Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (translated from the Swedish by Louis Roth), Roseanna.

“By September 1986, after four years as secretary of state, George Schultz had grown accustomed to presiding over official dinners for foreign dignitaries visiting Washington: the rigorous protocol, the solemn oratory, the contrived cordiality.” Stanley Karnow, In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines.

“Today, on this island, a miracle happened: summer came ahead of time.” Adolfo Bioy Casares, The Invention of Morel.

“The unlimited money unleashed into politics by the Citizens United decision in 2010 powered up the influence of the fossil fuel industry, which went to work hiding its political mischief behind an array of phony front groups and co-opted trade associations.” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse with Jennifer Mueller, The Scheme: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court.

“I drove to the Crossroads with the windows rolled down, the radio off, scanning the flat, packed earth in the glare of the afternoon light, the land broken up by clumps of creosote and rabbitbrush.” Ruchika Tomar, A Prayer for Travelers.

“I have done things the wrong way round all my life.” Andrea Wulf, Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of Self.

“It was the coldest winter for forty-five years.” Ken Follett, Eye of the Needle.

“The Middle East, as we know it from today’s headlines, emerged from decisions made by the Allies during and after the First World War.” David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East.

“You wake up with the answer to the question that everyone asks.” Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.

“The stories of Rondon do Pará had prepared me for a dodgy, crime-ridden place, but when I first visited the little Brazilian town on the eastern edge of the Amazon, it didn’t look particularly threatening to me.” Heriberto Araujo, Masters of the Lost Land: The Untold Story of the Amazon and the Violent Fight for the World’s Last Frontier.

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Snippets

During recent Fourth of July ceremonies, I was reminded that I was taught that it was disrespectful to applaud after the national anthem for several reasons. You don’t applaud after an anthem or hymn. And you don’t applaud the performer because the point is to honor the country’s symbol, which requires no applause, not to praise the performer. I am willing to bet, however, that many people think they are doing right when they clap after the last bar.

Mark Clague in his interesting book O Say Can You Hear? A Cultural Biography of The Star-Spangled Banner suggests that each week at NFL games different patriotic songs be played starting with the National Anthem. In following weeks perhaps America the Beautiful, Lift Every Voice, God Bless America, This Land Is Your Land, and My Country ’Tis of Thee would accompany the raising of the flag. I think that this is a good idea for all American sports and should also be the norm for baseball’s seventh inning stretch’s patriotic song.

It seems odd to me that hospitals now release patients after giving them a goody bag containing a toothbrush, warm socks, maybe soap, etc.. But I use some of the stuff I received recently.

Who was the innovator who first started mowing patterns onto sport fields?

“It takes two to speak truth—one to speak and another to hear.” Thoreau.

I wrote the following in this blog’s post of June 30, 2023, titled “The Job Comes with Pay, Power, Prestige . . . and Criticism . . . and Billionaires’ Gifts”:

“Congress has a limited sort of check on the Supreme Court. It can pass a new law if the Court has wrongly interpreted a statute. I am pretty sure that this has happened, but I can’t come up with an example. Perhaps someone can help me out.”

My friend Dean came to my rescue, referring to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. Ledbetter worked as a supervisor for the Goodyear Tire Company for nineteen years. As she neared retirement, she learned that she was being paid significantly less than men doing the same work with equal or less seniority. She sued Goodyear under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Supreme Court overturned her trial court victory. The Civil Rights Act contained a statute of limitations that required a suit for pay discrimination within 180 days of the discrimination. The Court held that the clock started ticking with the first discriminatory paycheck even if employees had no way of knowing they were being screwed. Of course, in a place where employee pay is not public knowledge few would know immediately of the discrimination against them. Ledbetter was working for Goodyear for over a decade before she learned that she was being shortchanged in comparison to men. Under the Court’s interpretation, if a company could keep its discrimination hidden for half a year, it was in the clear. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pact Act of 2009 in essence overruled the Supreme Court by amending the Civil Rights Act so that the 180-day statute of limitation starts anew with each discriminatory paycheck or compensation. And, oh yes, the Supreme Court Justice who wrote the opinion that allowed corporations to discriminate was Samuel Alito. He was joined by John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas.

The time, alas, has come to consider moving to a “retirement” community. We were at an open house for such a facility along with a half-dozen other couples. I started chatting with a man in a beautiful blue shirt. After we introduced ourselves to each other, we drifted apart to get some cheese cubes and meet others. After the illustrated presentation, the blue-shirted attendee came over to me and said, “It was nice talking with you. I hope we meet again, but, sorry, my memory isn’t what it once was. What was your name again?” I paused for quite a bit and finally replied, “When do you need to know?”