Steve Hely's Blog, page 119
December 26, 2016
Top Ten HelyTimes Posts Of The Year
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Watching the America’s Cup Race. Mrs. Kennedy, President Kennedy, others. Off Newport, RI, aboard the USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. by Robert Knudsen
Hey, thanks for voting in this year’s HelyTimes Awards!By reader vote, these were considered
The Top Ten Helytimes Posts Of The Year
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10) Shorter History Of Australia
about Geoffrey Blainey’s book on how that country became what it is, and their national cry Cooo-EEE!
9) Jo Mora and Mora Update
about how the Uruguayan-Californian artist influenced almost a century of design
8) Travel Tips From Bill and Tony
Conversations between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton
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7) San Francisco
A visit to that famed city and the Diego Rivera murals hidden around it
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6) Khipus
On Incan rope counting systems and their decipherment
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5) Jackie Smoking Pregnant
An investigation into a photo of the former first lady
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4) Twenty Greatest Australian Accomplishments of All Time
This was by far our most popular post by views
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3) Death Valley Days
A trip to the national park, and its place in our national consciousness
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2) Lady Xoc
About the Mayan queen of the 8th century
The definitive winner for the year?:
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1) Boyd, Trump, and OODA Loops
A review of writing by and about fighter pilot John Boyd, who offers a way into DT’s thinking.
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Honorable mentions:
a brief look at Sanders and Trump
about you know who, comparing him to Tim Ferriss.
a big wild roundup.
on how a Swiss chocolatier came to own freshwater springs in Southern California
about the Vietnam War correspondent, Kubrick pal and Zen Buddhist
on the work of Randall Collins, an underappreciated hero
A Description of Distant Roads,
extracts from a 1769 description of California,
a dispatch from rainy New Zealand,
and a personal favorite,
about Willa Cather, Walt Whitman, and America.
The most popular post of the year
by views, was
American Historical Figure Who Reminds Me Of Trump
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posts about The California Condition. Photo by Edward Curtis.
Thanks for reading Helytimes. We really appreciate all our readers. We write it just out of graphomania and a compulsion to work out, catalog and channel puzzles, curiosities and questions of interest. It’s wonderful to know there are people who enjoy the results.You can email us anytime at helphely at gmail. Let us know what you think.
All the best for 2017.
Buy this book on Amazon or at your local indie bookstore:
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sent by reader Katrina
Best HelyTimes Posts Of The Year
Watching the America’s Cup Race. Mrs. Kennedy, President Kennedy, others. Off Newport, RI, aboard the USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. by Robert Knudsen
Hey, thanks for voting in this year’s HelyTimes Awards!
By reader vote, these were considered
The top ten Helytimes posts of the year
10) Shorter History Of Australia
about Geoffrey Blainey’s wonderful book of that title
9) Jo Mora and Mora Update
about the fantastic California artist
8) Travel Tips From Bill and Tony
Conversations between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton
7) San Francisco
A visit to that famed city
6) Khipus
On Incan rope counting systems and their decipherment
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5) Jackie Smoking Pregnant
An investigation into a photo of the former first lady
4) Twenty Greatest Australian Accomplishments of All Time
This was by far our most popular post by views
3) Death Valley Days
A trip to that wonderful national park
2) Lady Xoc
About the Mayan queen of the 8th century
The definitive winner for the year?:
1) Boyd, Trump, and OODA Loops
Which I think holds up as a way into DT’s thinking.
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Honorable mentions:
a brief look at Sanders and Trump
about you know who, comparing him to Tim Ferriss.
a big wild roundup.
on how a Swiss chocolatier came to own freshwater springs in Southern California
about the Vietnam War correspondent, Kubrick pal and Zen Buddhist
on the work of Randall Collins, an underappreciated hero
A Description of Distant Roads,
extracts from a 1772 description of California,
a dispatch from rainy New Zealand,
and a personal favorite,
about Willa Cather, Walt Whitman, and America.
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posts about The California Condition. Photo by Edward Curtis.
Thanks for reading Helytimes. We really appreciate all our readers. We write it just out of graphomania and a compulsion to work out and catalog curiosities and questions of interest, but it’s always wonderful to know there are people who enjoy the results.
You can email us anytime at helphely at gmail. Let us know what you think.
All the best for 2017.
Buy this book on Amazon or at your local indie bookstore:
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sent by reader Katrina
December 23, 2016
The Generals by Thomas Ricks
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This book is so full of compelling anecdotes, character studies, and surprising, valuable lessons of leadership that I kind of can’t believe I got to it before Malcolm Gladwell or David Brooks or somebody scavenged it for good stories.
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Generaling
Consider how hard it would be to get fifteen of your friends to leave for a road trip at the same time. How much coordination and communication it would take, how likely it was to get fucked up.
Now imagine trying to move 156,000 people across the English Channel, and you have to keep it a surprise, and on the other side there are 50,350 people waiting to try and kill you.
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The Puerto Rican 65th Infantry Regiment’s bayonet charge against a Chinese division during the Korean War. Dominic D’Andrea, commissioned by the National Guard Heritage Foundation
Even at a lower scale, say a brigade, a brigadier general might oversee say 4,500 people and hundreds of vehicles. Those people must be clothed, fed, housed, their medical problems attended to. Then they have to be armed, trained, given ammo. You have to find the enemy, kill them, evacuate the wounded, stay in communication, and keep a calm head as many people are trying to kill you and the situation is changing rapidly and constantly.
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32nd Brigade Command Sgt. Maj. Ed Hansen, on floor in front of podium, accepts reports from battalion command sergeants major as the brigade forms at the start of the Feb. 17 send-off ceremony at the Dane County Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Madison, Wis. Family members and public officials bade farewell to some 3,200 members of the 32nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team and augmenting units, Wisconsin Army National Guard, in the ceremony. The unit is bound for pre-deployment training at Fort Bliss, Texas, followed by a deployment of approximately 10 months for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs photo by Larry Sommers.
Being a general is a challenging job, I guess is my point.
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U.S. Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, left, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command, talk on board a C-17 while flying to Baghdad, Dec. 15, 2011. Source.
I saw this post about Gen. Mattis, possible future Secretary of Defense, on Tom Ricks blog:
A SecDef nominee at war?: What I wrote about General Mattis in ‘The Generals’
The story was so compelling that I immediately ordered Mr. Ricks’ book:
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A fantastic read. Eye-opening, shocking, opinionated, compelling.
The way that Marc Norman’s book on screenwriting works as a history of Hollywood:
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The Generals works as a kind of history of the US since World War II. I’d list it with 1491: New Revelations On The Americas Before Columbus as a book I think every citizen should read.
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source: Atomic Heritage Foundation
The observation that drives The Generals is this: commanding troops in combat is insanely difficult. Many generals will fail. Officers who performed well at lower ranks might completely collapse.
During World War II, generals who failed to perform were swiftly relieved of command. (Often, they were given second chances, and many stepped up).
Since World War II, swift relief of underperforming generals has not been the case. The results for American military effectiveness have been devastating. Much of this book describes catastrophe and disaster, as I guess war is even under the best of circumstances and the finest leadership.
Ricks is such a good writer, so engaging and compelling. He knows to include stuff like this:
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Ricks describes the catastrophes that result from bad military leadership. How about this, in Korea?:
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What kind of effect did this leadership have, in Vietnam?:
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He discusses the relationship of presidents and their generals:
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Yoichi Okamoto photo found at LBJ Library archives, C8051-16
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Here is LBJ, years later, describing his nightmares:
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Ricks can be blunt:
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Hard lessons the Marines had learned:
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Symbolically, There’s a Warning Signal Against Them as Marines Move Down the Main Line to Seoul From RG: 127 General Photograph File of the U.S. Marine Corps National Archives Identifier: 5891316 Local Identifier: 127-N-A3206
A hero in the book is O. P. Smith
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who led the Marines’ reverse advance at the Chosin Resevoir, when it was so cold men’s toes were falling off from frostbite inside their boots:
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The story of what they accomplished is incredible, worth a book itself. Here’s Ricks talking about the book and Smith.
A continued challenge for generals is to understand the strategic circumstances they are operating under, and the political limitations that constrain them.
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Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld walks with Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez after arriving at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq on Dec. 6, 2003. Rumsfeld is in Iraq to meet with members of the Coalition Provisional Authority, senior military leaders and the troops deployed there. DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. Andy Dunaway, U.S. Air Force. (Released) source
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Recommend this book. One of the best works of military history I’ve ever read, and a sobering reflection on leadership, strategy, and the United States.
December 19, 2016
Great book, great name
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Somehow came across the name Hortense Powerdermaker and I knew I had to have her book. [image error]
Some good observations:
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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang:
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How about this?:
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Me, I’m trying to be like Mr. Well Adjusted:
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December 18, 2016
Perspective worth hearing
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saw this letter to the editor of the Financial Times on somebody’s Twitter.
Fala
all pics from Wikipedia about Fala and Eleanor
Franklin Roosevelt had a famous dog, a Scottish terrier, named Fala. I’ve told his story before. Supposedly Fala got left behind after FDR was up in the Aleutian Islands in 1943. The Republicans in Congress accused FDR of sending a destroyer to recover Fala. (Who knows, maybe he did. And is not loving your dog noble in a president?)
FDR turned the tables on the scandal with this rejoinder:
That was back when you could make a good clean Scottish joke and the nation would love it.
The other day a friend of mine’s mom died. She was 87. I’d had maybe eight meals with this woman, we got along great. We’d had some good laughs together in our limited time. She was funny and smart and cool and had led a life of adventure.
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One story she told me was about having lunch at Eleanor Roosevelt’s house.
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She was in college at Vassar in the early 1950s, and she knew some niece or something of Mrs. Roosevelt. Eleanor, then a representative at the UN, asked the niece to round up some young people for a luncheon, so there she went.
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She didn’t have much to say about Eleanor, just that she was gracious, but she did remember Fala sat on her feet under the table.
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Anyway, I thought I would write this post because I was thinking about my friend’s mom. I felt I might commemorate the passing, perhaps, from living memory, of an historic and noble dog.
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Suffering from deafness and failing health, Fala was euthanized on April 5, 1952, two days before his twelfth birthday.
December 17, 2016
Last minute gift idea?
Why not buy five copies and give them out to five lucky friends?
You can buy it on Amazon or at your local indie bookstore. Looks good in any home:
I think the gift getter will be touched and delighted!
December 16, 2016
One last chance?
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stirred the pot the other day with this tweet.
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I mean, I like being lumped in with the #coolkids.
When I tweeted that, I meant what I said: it would be a cool movie. The Electoral College members are mostly, as I understand it, a bunch of ordinary schmoes. 99 times out of a hundred their job is rubber stamping, a comical bit of leftover political inanity.
But what if, one day, it wasn’t so easy?
What if, one day, these ordinary citizens were called upon to make a tough choice.
A choice that would bring them right into the line of fire.
A choice that would change history.
The idea of Trump in the White House makes me sick. 61,900,651 Americans disagree, obvs. An Electoral College revolt is a crazy fantasy. But I enjoy thinking about it!
What is right and wrong for the Electoral College to do?
Says the National Archives:
There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states. Some states, however, require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote. These pledges fall into two categories—Electors bound by state law and those bound by pledges to political parties.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that Electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties’ nominees. Some state laws provide that so-called “faithless Electors” may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector. The Supreme Court has not specifically ruled on the question of whether pledges and penalties for failure to vote as pledged may be enforced under the Constitution. No Elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged.
Today, it is rare for Electors to disregard the popular vote by casting their electoral vote for someone other than their party’s candidate. Electors generally hold a leadership position in their party or were chosen to recognize years of loyal service to the party. Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99 percent of Electors have voted as pledged.
The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) has compiled a brief summary of state laws about the various procedures, which vary from state to state, for selecting slates of potential electors and for conducting the meeting of the electors. The document, Summary: State Laws Regarding Presidential Electors, can be downloaded from the NASS website.
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From the NASS website, here’s how it goes down in my home state of California:
Whenever a political party submits to the Secretary of State its certified list of nominees for electors of President and Vice President of the United States, the Secretary of State shall notify each candidate for elector of his or her nomination by the party. The electors chosen shall assemble at the State Capitol at 2 o’clock in the afternoon on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December next following their election. In case of the death or absence of any elector chosen, or if the number of electors is deficient for any other reason, the electors then present shall elect, from the citizens of the state, as many persons as will supply the deficiency. The electors, when convened, if both candidates are alive, shall vote by ballot for that person for President and that person for Vice President of the United States, who are, respectively, the candidates of the political party which they represent, one of whom, at least, is not an inhabitant of this state.
That seems pretty standard. In some states they meet in the governor’s office or the office of the secretary of state. In Massachusetts they will meet in the Governor’s office:
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Barry Chin for The Boston Globe, found here.
Here’s what the good ol’ Constitution says about the EC.
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Photo credit appears to belong to Julie Stapen, NYT
Now, what is the point of all this? If you’ve read at all about the EC, you will know that Hamilton made the case for it in Federalist 68, which you can read a summary of here or the real thing here.
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You’ve probably seen this quote:
Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States
But to me, the more interesting one is this one:
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.
Wow!
Now, I hear the argument that the cool kids are always changing the rules. I don’t think I agree with the logic of this petition, which is half “Hillary won the popular vote” (who cares, that’s not the rules we were playing by) and half “Trump is unfit to serve.”
The Trump being unfit to serve bit was up to the voters. Seems very dangerous to me for the Electoral College to start making that call. That is some wonked aristocratic bullshit that the Constitution maybe intended, but which the Constitution as practiced and understood has moved away from?
But if it were proven Trump colluded with a foreign power, then I think hell yeah! If you believe, as I do, that the Constitution is a genius mechanism full of checks and failsafes, isn’t the Electoral College designed exactly to be one last chance for good old-fashioned citizens to stop a presidential candidate who allowed a foreign power to gain an improper ascendant in our councils?
I don’t think we have the proof that Trump did that. But I think the Electors are totally within their rights to think about it and decide what to do.
In closing my feelings are well summarized by Ben White:
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December 12, 2016
Hadith
Reading some of the sayings of The Prophet, the Hadith, in Thomas Cleary’s translation:
A word of warning for PEOTUS:
December 11, 2016
Prince
sent to me by reader Mat W., no idea where he found it.
Jill Willis(Prince’s publicist, 1989–90, and co-manager, 1990–93): He was always dressed in what could look like show/stage clothes: a couture suit, matching handmade boots from a shoemaker in Paris, his hair done and full makeup. One time, I had taken the red-eye from L.A. to Minneapolis and went home long enough to shower, threw on a baseball cap, jeans, sweatshirt, and drove over to the studio. I went up the stairs and Prince was coming down the hall from his office. “Going fishing?” he asked.
Recommend this oral history from Prince’s friends in GQ. Two more good highlights:
Van Jones: He was very interested in the world. He wanted me to explain how the White House worked. He asked very detailed kind of foreign-policy questions. And then he’d ask, “Why doesn’t Obama just outlaw birthdays?” [laughs] I’m, like, “What?” He said, “I was hoping that Obama, as soon as he was elected, would get up and announce there’d be no more Christmas presents and no more birthdays—we’ve got too much to do.” I said, “Yeah, I don’t know if that would go over too well.”
and
Van Jones: Prince wrote music the way you write e-mails, okay? If you were transported to some world where the ability to write e-mails was some rare thing, you would be Prince. He was just writing music all the time. He slept it, he thought it. And it wasn’t all great—some of it was good, some of it wasn’t. But he had no expectation, he was just being himself. It’s like you cut the water faucet on—I don’t think the faucet is sitting there thinking, “This is the best water ever!” The faucet is just doing what the faucet does. That’s kind of how he was.
The Van Jones ones were the best, which led me to Mr. Jones’ wiki:
Wiki:
He has described his own childhood behavior as “bookish and bizarre.” His grandfather was the senior bishop in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, and Jones sometimes accompanied his grandfather to religious conferences, where he would sit all day listening to the adults “in these hot, sweaty black churches” Jones was a young fan of the late John and Bobby Kennedy, and would pin photographs of them to a bulletin board in his room in the specially delineated “Kennedy Section”. As a child he matched his Star Wars action figures with Kennedy-era political figures; Luke Skywalker was John, Han Solo was Bobby, and Lando Calrissian was Martin Luther King, Jr.
