Morning Fog

Monumental Excess - About Ike, And What's Not To Like

Who knew anybody was planning a monument to Dwight David Eisenhower in Washington DC?  Apparently Congress knew, having set up a commission for the purpose back in 1999.   And now, finally, a possible design for the monument, by Frank Gehry, is getting its first exposure to the public.

As always, there are those who think the new design proposal is marvelous, and others who think it misses the mark.   I'm in between.  I like the novel aspects of the architecture itself; and I favor innovative designs over the mundane.   The mundane is well represented by the World War II memorial, which Stalin would have loved; and the new Martin Luther King Memorial, which Mao Tse-Dung would have loved.  

On the other hand, I agree with Roger Lewis that a memorial focusing on Eisenhower's boyhood does not make a lot of sense.  Also I can tell you that a theme of trees just doesn't fit -- I've been to Abilene and trees are not typical of the landscape.  Oh, and is that a grain silo I see in the design?  Interesting, but it may look a bit out of place in Washington.  Architecturally, I fear for Gehry's design because imaginative public art has a way of being ground into kitsch by Congress.  Witness, for example, the ridiculous addition of the very traditional statues of soldiers to the clean, modern line of the original design of the Vietnam War memorial, or consider the aforementioned WWII and MLK efforts. 

Time will tell how the design will turn out.  It may be a quite different one.

Meantime, the stealth commission having beavered away for more than ten years now, it's probably too late for me to ask my questions:   Do we really have to have a colossal monument to every President somewhere along the Mall, and where does it all stop?  How great is great enough to merit a monument?  Is there a Chester A. Arthur commission yet?

Somewhere, it's written that a person must have "lasting historical significance" to be honored by a major monument (think of the "major award" in A Christmas Story and you'll get the picture that pops into my head when I say that).  I wouldn't deny that Eisenhower may qualify; perhaps more than some others because he did a lot that was both historically significant and important to his country even before he became President.  I've been looking for a good, comprehensive biography or history of DDE and his times, but haven't found a satisfactory one yet.  And he grew up in Kansas, where both my parents were raised and where I spent and at times misspent a small segment of my youth. 

But if we are honest, using the "lasting historical signficance" measure, wouldn't any U.S. President probably qualify?  Especially when there are willing partisans of his party in Congress ready to push his cause?  Will existing "naming opportunities" -- like the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (which has a sculpted head of the eponymous Pres), or the Ronald Reagan Building (how curious that a huge building to house the federal burreaucracy should be named after this particular President) -- suffice for their fans, or will we have to build city-block-sized monuments to them too?  We can already foresee that in 20 years or so, pressure will be building for a monument to Obama, if only as the first African-American President, and to George W. Bush, if only as the creator of the most colossal economic collapse since Hoover... (no, seriously, Bush will be nominated because the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks occurred on his watch). 

For me, it's enough already.  Let's wait a respectable period to decide about someone's historical significance before we throw up monuments to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who happens to get elected President.  A hundred years would be about right.  From that perspective, we know who's who, and save ourselves an awful lot of smelting.

What Zola Knew

Germinal is by some accounts still the most widely read of Émile Zola's novels, and at least two films have been made based on its story.   It is in part an exposé of the bleak world of late-19th-century French coal-mine workers and their strike, in part a story of a love triangle.   Oh, and by the way these days, to this American reader, it's also a bore.  Yet it's always possible to find interesting, even enlightening, tidbits in even the least likely of places.

When Étienne, the novel's protagonist and strike organizer, recites his arguments aimed at persuading the colliers to strike, the first step in realizing workers' rights is to destroy "the state."  And though this coalminer is channeling Marxist dogma here, I was struck by the paradoxical similarity between him and those contemporary rabble-rousers who want to "starve the beast" of government.  Of course in both cases the desire is only only replace it with one more to their liking.  

Today's extreme conservatives might be surprised to learn how much they share with Marxist theoreticians and activists of 150 years ago.  Yet, reading Zola's novel the day after my last posting ("The Shared Nuttiness of Right and Left") the comparison was stark.  In both cases, the solution to the excesses of capitalism is to blame government. 

In Germinal, the miners' strike doesn't end well.  And as we now know, communism was not the answer - whatever the question may have been.  "Communist" governments nearly everywhere have gone out of business, and those that survive have transformed themselves into capitalist societies hiding out in Maoist clothing.  The willful effort to force government into atrophy for temporary political gain is no less a dead-end path into the future. 

In Zola's time, the excesses of profit-seeking behemoths were easily hidden and needed to be brought to the attention of an ignorant public.  Today, the excesses are well known, recent, and highly publicized, so there is little excuse for ignoring them or (worse) putting them on a pedestal.  Like Zola, we should be focusing on identifying the real causes of our ills, rather than undermining the institutions that act as a counterweight to them.  

Walmart Art

Walmart Art.  Does that sound like a bad idea?  Well, it depends on how you mean it.

The good meaning, to my mind, is the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, financed by the Wal-mart fortune, and located in the Arkansas town where the giant discount merchandising firm first saw light of day.

I think it's a very positive development that the new museum has chosen to focus on American art; that by all accounts, it's "doing everything right" in terms of building its collection; and perhaps best of all, that it is located in a rural setting, far distant from any major city, much removed from the places where we expect to find "important" art collections. 

Here in the Washington DC area, it seems a new museum opens its doors about every other week.  In only the past decade or two, we've seen the Spy Museum, the Newseum, and the National Museum of the American Indian.  Pending now is construction of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture.  And these are only the blockbusters; I'm sure I've neglected to mention several score of smaller museums that have popped up in the same period. 

It's too much.  The overconcentration of museums in a few major urban areas gets to the point where it's impossible to take everything in.   Also, it seems to me to create a downward cycle of less and less interesting special exhibits, as each museum feels the need to try to grab its share of the museum-visiting public by having a new "attraction."   

Let's hope that the Crystal Bridges museum will become a success, expanding the audience for worthy art beyond the usual jaded clientele.  I wish them well.   

Memorializing Martin Luther King

The new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was officially opened to the public in Washington DC this week.  It has caused a lot of controversy. 

First there is a certain element that complains that it's unnecessary, or that only "Democrats" (a code word, in this case) wanted it, or that King shouldn't be memorialized because he had foibles (do they mean unlike Jefferson, just down the road?).  This group can be dismissed as small-minded, I think.

Then there are those that complain that the actual statue of King was sculpted by a Chinese sculptor (yes, really!) and it looks like Mao-Tse-Dung.  Actually I agree with this complaint.  Tell me they couldn't find an American sculptor, maybe even an African-American one?  I don't think it much resembles King, and it does have a communistic style to it.  (I was going to put in a photo at this point, but better, have a look at the graphic and video in the Post, which offers a myriad of views from every angle)  However, these decisions were made and publicized years ago; it's too late for complaint on this score; the time to challenge would have been when sketches and renderings were everywhere in the media.

Most recently, there is a kerfuffle about a statement King once made using the term "drum major."  It was a longish quote, and when the planning commission (headed by one Ed Jackson) changed its mind about where to place it, the sculptor said it was too long to fit.  The Commission's decision was to "paraphrase" it, but in doing so, they gave it a completely different nuance.  Maya Angelou, a member of the commission who doesn't seem to have paid much attention to its proceedings, now complains of this fact. 

This latest quote kvetsch has reawakened all the other objections again.  The group described in the second paragraph above, for example, thinks Angelou should be ignored, or blamed for not noticing sooner.  But those plaints are essentially irrelevant to the matter of the quote.   This is a historical monument.  It seems to me you just don't "paraphrase" a quote on a historical monument.  It's antihistorical and wrong.  Nothing against chief architect Ed Jackson, Jr., but the blame must fall on him.  He is an architect but not a historian.  He had two viable choices:  Not to move the quote, or to insist on the full quote.  Paraphrasing was not an option.  Would we tolerate a Lincoln Monument that would have Abe saying "About ninety years ago..."? 

Taken as a whole, the monument is an impressive and worthy memorial.  Now, regardless of who's at fault, the inscription should be corrected.  

Manholes Of Minneapolis

I spent about a week in the Minnesota Twin Cities recently.  There's a lot of public art in the area, particularly in Minneapolis -- street statuary, fountains, much of it very impressive.  But the one thing that really caught my imagination was the specially commissioned manhole covers that line the city's walking/shopping street (Nicollet Mall).

They sort of took me back to the day when it wasn't at all unusual to see rather fancy art or decoration on everyday public items.  Manhole covers, but also grates, benches, bus stops, or even fire hydrants.  I recall also the custom of stamping bricks with the name of the place they were produced.  The sidewalk in front of my grandmother's house (built in the late 19th century) was bricks, each of them imprinted with "Lawrence, Kansas."

But... back to the present day.  One neat thing about the Minneapolis manhole covers is not just their elegant look and well-executed design, but that, in the midst of the metropolis, the eleven different designs represent eleven plants or animals that are important in the local lore and/or economy:  walleye, northern pike, loon, timber wolf, ladyslipper, wheat, corn, oats, wild rice, apples, and Norway pine.  There are also surprises, if you look closely, in at least some of them:  a squirrel in the pine tree, or .. is that maybe a worm in the apples?

Below are two of them -- the apples and the walleye -- just as samples.  You can see all of them at the artist's website, www.katekburke.com, under portfolio/public art/manhole covers.

 

 

"Documentary" Film Of Value - Fair Game

Another film we recently watched in the Morning Fog household was "Fair Game," which tells the story of Valerie Plame, the CIA agent who was publicly outed by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and her husband Ambassador Joe Wilson.

Of course this movie isn't really a "documentary," but a fictional drama based upon real people and occurrences.  Its appeal as a film depends heavily on the drama of the two main protagonists, the seeming unfairness of their treatment, and the coldly impersonal way a bureaucracy destroys at least one career and a couple of lives.  All drama, even if based on reality.

But it's valid to call the film a documentary in one regard.  That's the one that drew my attention and that makes the flick "worthwhile."  It documents the tendency of the CIA to tailor its product -- supposedly the unbiased analysis of a wealth of raw information -- to what it knows its consumer - usually a President and his senior staff - wants to hear.  That, of course, makes the product worthless.  If viewers might be tempted to suppose this case is a rare hiccup in an otherwise smoothly running system, there's plenty of evidence around to demonstrate it's not.

In the Plame case (according to the film), the agency's analysts (some of them) made the proper call:  The now-notorious aluminum tubes were not at all similar to anything that might constitute parts for a nuclear weapon; they should be ignored.  But the false positive (i.e., that the tubes were intended for Saddam's nuclear program) had more political resonance, and there were enough politically motivated bureaucrats in the agency to turn the agency's "intel" 180 degrees.  Black became white. These reports reached the willing ears of White House minions who were totally uneducated regarding intelligence and didn't know the difference between intel (a synthesis of reports from various sources, evaluated for their reliability, credibility, and convergence with other reports) and raw data (meaningless factoids until placed in context).  The rest is history.

Along the way, the whole march down the garden path was abetted by a tendency among our political leadership to accept that the CIA is always right.  This is assumed because of all the money we spend on them (nobody really knows how much) and the neat toys they have like satellite cameras, drones, and listening devices.  But the toys are mostly handy for developing those factoids, and when it comes to analysis, other agencies often seem to get better results.  This truth is faithfully reflected during an interagency meeting in the film, when the representative of the State Department's tiny in-house intelligence operation is the one who tries to bat down the false "assessment."

It's often asserted, in the post-nine-eleven, post-economic-meltdown world, that there are too many intelligence agencies and that we could save money by consolidating.  That might be true if we could find a way to insulate the main agency, the CIA, from the political agendas of policymakers.  The way to do that remains as elusive as the Loch Ness Monster.

Documentary Film Of Value - Inside Job

Years ago I would seldom have thought to watch a documentary film.  Boring!  Not entertaining!   But things have changed (or maybe I led a misguided middle age), because some now get good reviews and even do well at the box office for a week or two.  Lately at our house, we've watched three that were well worth the viewing time.

First among them was "Inside Job," the Oscar winning flick that tells the tale of our latest economic disaster -- its origins, its development, its acceleration toward crash, and even the aftermath (currently).  In each of these phases, there are some interesting points.

First, I know that even by discussing our recent recession/meltdown/whatever-you-call-it, some will suggest that this film is biased.  Yet I think it's a fair representation of what's been happening.   Political conservatives today like to ignore the role of the Bush administration and point to Clinton; liberals like to load the blame on Bush. 

There is plenty of blame to go around, but the real seeds of the disaster lie in the Reagan administration, when the process of dismantling existing safeguards, crippling regulatory agencies, and ignoring conflicts of interest began in earnest.  The film clearly shows how Clinton, in his time, often went along with that theme, perhaps listening to the "wrong crowd," and more eager to develop a robust economy than to safeguard it.  Ultimately, though, it was in the Bush administration that things got far out of hand, that the signs of danger were clear, and that the only actions taken tended to accelerate the impending crisis.

The main lesson is that all politicians have been in thrall to the "experts." Those experts -- including the economic bigwigs of every administration since 1980 -- came right out of the industry they were supposed to oversee, and mostly wound up representing that industry, rather than the greater interests of the nation.

Most of the lessons are sad ones.  The saddest is that we aren't yet cured of the problem.  Some of the few efforts that have been made to trim the power of financial interests (such as revision of the credit card business, or efforts to restrict certain kinds of risky financial instruments) are being fought tooth and nail by the huge money conglomerates.  In fact, the film claims they are spending more money now to influence lawmakers than before the crisis a mere two years ago.  And given what I see in the media, there's no reason to doubt that claim. 

More sadness:  Efforts to fix the damage, necessary though they were, also seem to have concentrated financial power even more intensely in a handful of major firms.  This idea is being pursued in an upcoming HBO flick, "Too Big To Fail."

More:  The horrendous shifts in income distribution in the U.S. over the past thirty years, and the surprising statement that this is the first generation of Americans whose sons and daughters won't live better lives than they did.  It's not that government is indebting our future; financial moguls  are doing that.

And more:  Many Republicans continue even today pushing efforts to beggar regulatory agencies, hand banks, brokers, and credit companies more power, cut taxes for corporations and robber barons, and in general to perpetuate the "what, me worry?" attitude of the famous Alfred E. Neuman, so ably channeled by "Dumbya," even while attempting to duck responsibility for his legacy by never uttering his name.

A discouraging picture, but one worth watching.  You're guaranteed to learn a little something.

Best Selling Political Books

Have a look at this listing of the best-selling political books in the last week of 2010.

Like surfing the internet, this kind of reading can only reinforce already-held views; to judge from reviews the top three sellers have received, none of these books will open any new windows.  The Bush memoir, in particular, is likely to live on in history largely as the worst, most self-serving, least informative book of its kind ever written.  I've always assumed the shelves of the (Dubya) Bush Presidential Library must be filled with comic books; Decision Points ought to fit right in.

Still, ever alert for the positive side of the coin, I note that maybe one heretofore unremarked result of the Republican resurgence in last November's elections is that it got the Republican "base" to read.   Something.  Other than their bibles.  Maybe.

 

Obama: What Is He Thinking?

A lot of commentary, over the past two years, has focused on how President Obama often comes across as diffident -- some even say indecisive -- as for example when he avoided prescribing specific ideas for health care reform, or took a good long while to formulate a policy for military operations in Afghanistan.  It has seemed to me that Obama's style of deliberation and decision-making owes much to his academic background and, although it can't fairly be described as indecisive, it's certainly unusual in a successful politician.

Harvard American history Professor James T. Kloppenberg agrees that Obama has often seemed a "mystery," but he thinks he's found the key by studying the political influences that helped shaped Obama's views as he matured.  So, he's written a book:  Reading Obama: Dreams, Hopes, and the American Political Tradition.   A book on historical, legal, and political theory isn't probably destined to become a bestseller, or even be widely read, outside the Groves of Academe, but if you're interested in this topic, you might find it fascinating. 

One interesting line of explanation is that Obama's approach reflects the historical truth that our Constitution itself is the product of a dialogue between very different concepts of governance.  Many of these differences were resolved, in the final document, by compromise which did not fully satisfy either party.  Kloppenberg suggests that one of the wisest things the framers did was to allow for amendments to our basic law, recognizing that the debate (at that time, characterized as between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists) would continue -- as indeed it has, to this day.  For Obama (says Kloppenberg) this means a recognition that nothing is ever settled, that ideas and laws need constant reevaluation, and that a lively debate is essential to reaching good decisions.

E-Reading

The market for e-readers, or "electronic books," continues to heat up.  Amazon Kindle this week unveiled its newest version, which offers wireless connectivity not just in the U.S., but internationally (click-to-buy in the right-hand margin of this page).  Borders has been offering the Sony equivalent (mundanely dubbed the "Reader") for quite a while, and now Barnes & Noble has one too, coming out in November under the name "Nook." 

(What is it about this week, I wonder, that we get these new e-readers, Windows 7, and swine flu vaccine all at once? Our cup runneth over.)

I remain happy with my Kindle 2, about 9 months old now, and am unlikely to upgrade or switch any time soon.  Kindle for me is a green choice; 90% of the books I read are not ones I want to keep or refer to later, so they just pile up (and up and up) until I get around to donating them.  I'm just happy to have stanched this constant buildup, especially if it saves a tree or two.  Any of the readers would accomplish this, so I haven't tried the latest models, but for those interested, here are a couple of reviews, one on the international Kindle, and one on B&K's Nook (both are from Wired.com/GadgetLab). 

If I were shopping around, I'd probably still gravitate toward the Kindle, though their piecemeal updating of features one by one is getting a little annoying.  The Sony Reader seems almost an also-ran.  Borders's promotion of it has been halfhearted.  The website doesn't feature it on a homepage splash; and even in a Borders store, I found I had to go looking for it; you could shop in Borders all day and not know the Sony Reader existed.  Also, it's not clear whether Borders offers any price advantage on books; they don't say so, and you can't check out the e-books tab on the website until you download their e-reader software.  Nook might be a great product, but it's not here yet, and the above-linked reviewer's main enthusiasm seems to be that Nook promises to make it possible to lend your e-book to others.  I'm really not sure there are throngs of people out there who regularly lend books to others, and if you're not one of them, who cares?

I still think there is a future market for these e-readers (as opposed to reading things on your tiny cellphone screen) but there will have to be an effort sooner, rather than later, to settle on one format for e-books.  Consumers won't put up forever with proprietary hardware/software that ties them to a monopoly for book purchases.