February 20, 1942. President FDR signed the infamous Executive Order 9066, consigning many Japanese Americans to isolated internment camps, one of which was the Amache Camp in south eastern CO which housed 9,000, a majority of whom were American citizens. A "Day of Remembrance" was held at the History of Colorado Museum in downtown Denver.
In 1983, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians concluded that those who had been locked up posed no threat, and that there was no military necessity for the internment.
The commission determined that racial bias, rather than on any true threat to national security, led to the internment, according to Sites of Shame, with information on the camps. (Denver Post, Feb 20, 2017)
Fake News, Nazi style. Not President Trump's illogical reference, but the real thing. The Book Thieves is about immense number of scholarly material simply swept away as the German army marched across Europe. The author note that of relevance today, with the talk of fake climate science, is one particular Nazi canard: Albert Einstein was not "a serious scientist, being a promulgator of 'Jewish science.' Not unlike today, science was viewed through a political prism." You know: liberal, progressive talk of what is not happening around the globe. Tell that to the polar bears -- or the scientists forced to evacuate their long-standing station in Antarctica by a huge, widening crack in the ice shelf.
Keillor. Having checked in at his chosen chain motel in VT, Keillor first comments on the ubiquitous TV in the motel lobby, before moving on to more interesting topics on a lovely, snowy New England evening.
[There was] a big TV in the lobby, two heads on the screen, a man and a woman, talking, about the news, I guess, though the sound was low and nobody was listening. It was a background murmur, like ocean surf or the wind in the trees. For this, these faces are paid millions a year and I suppose they imagine they play a large role in the life of the nation, whereas their function is more like houseplants. They’re decor.
One can only wonder, were the well-paid, talking heads, on Fox or CNN? In either case what did their choice say about the chain or the manager's politics?
Teen scientists. This article in Monday's Optimist column highlights stories of some of the American teens who are participants in this year's annual National Science Fair. Note their names -- more than a few non-European immigrants, President Trump!
TJ and Sally Hemings. Archaeologists and restorers are hard at work "re-covering" a bit of the past at Monticello, Jefferson's mansion in VA. A bedroom thought to have been used by Sally Hemings, converted to a bathroom is now being restored, scheduled to be open to the public later this summer. "[M]any historians now believe the third president of the United States was the father of [Sally Hemings'] six children...Time, and perhaps shame, erased all physical evidence of her presence at Jefferson’s home....a building so famous that it is depicted on the back of the nickel."
Vice President Pence. Above the fray or out of the loop? History seems to show that the White House often views the VP as a constitutionally required interloper, best kept at arms length. The most egregious instance historically was FDR's failure to "read in" Vice President Truman on the Manhattan (atomic bomb) project. Occasionally, a president has seemed to truly value the VP's counsel; Barack Obama and Joe Bidden being the best, most recent examples. Though, even then, there were bumps in the road.
Another article titled, "Shadow president or just shadow?" It also seems more than a little out of the ordinary for the president to send the vice president overseas to major conferences and to meet foreign dignitaries. While he holds campaign-like rallies in FL. But, as columnist Mark Shields said on the PBS News Hour, "campaigning is fun; governing is tedious, difficult, time-consuming, and demands your attention...Policy is not spontaneous, it's specific...."
Pence's soothing words in Europe, played against Trump's seemingly contradictory message in FL, left our European allies wondering, "Will Pence emerge as a capable vice president, empowered by his willingness to delve into policy details where the president will not, or is he yet another grunt in Trump’s freewheeling army of disruption?"
Washington, D.C. is not NYC. In a recent column Michael Gerson notes, There is a certain kind of New Yorker who really believes Frank Sinatra: “If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere.” The world of Manhattan real estate must have seemed to Trump like the big leagues. It wasn’t. And the techniques that succeeded in his little world — the taunting, the exaggerations, the bluster, the threats, the bullying — do not translate well in dealing with real professionals. The ones who fight Russian influence. (emphasis added)
Good dam? Or damn bad dam? The recent problems/concerns with California's Oroville dam and spillway have brought to the fore -- yet again -- the not so good condition of the nation's dams, spillways, and levees. Some 200,000 down-stream residents near Oroville were abruptly ordered to evacuate after the area's recent heavy rains. Oroville holds back the Feather River and is the nation's tallest dam. (At 770 feet, Oroville, an earthen dam, is 44 feet higher than the more massive concrete Hoover Dam.) How is your nearby dam or levee? (Links in the quote below.)
In fact, dams and levees across the United States are falling into dangerous disrepair. According to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, U.S. dams are degrading far faster than they are being repaired. By 2020, 70 percent of dams in the United States will be more than 50 years old. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation’s dams a D grade in its 2013 infrastructure report card, while levees earned a D-minus.
The German "left." It goes without saying that in international affairs some very strange things, totally unforeseen, happen. Germany's left-leaning Social Democratic (SPD) party is rebounding from hard electoral times, in large part by responding to President Trump's perceived, but uncertain, European policies. Many in the Trump camp may have thought that his victory would lend aid and comfort to the German nationalists. But....
What is happening in Germany is the kind of Trump bump perhaps never foreseen by his supporters — a boost not for the German nationalists viewed as Trump’s natural allies but for his fiercest critics in the center left....now staging a surprisingly strong bid to unseat Chancellor Angela Merkel....His anti-Trump platform comes as Germans are questioning American power more than at any point since the end of the Cold War, illustrating an erosion of allied faith in the new era of “America first.” A recent poll found that only 22 percent of Germans see the United States led by Trump as a “reliable partner” — putting it only one percentage point above Russia.
The United Arab Emirates' bold plan. A plan for 2117 was announced by "...Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai and vice president of the UAE, [who] sounded confident about the project. 'Human ambitions have no limits, and whoever looks into the scientific breakthroughs in the current century believes that human abilities can realize the most important human dream...' " This is not a shining terrestrial "City upon a Hill," but, rather, al Maktoum plans for his city to be built on a far distant hill on Mars.
I just read finished Hidden Figures about the American space program. Back in the day, getting into space, orbiting the Earth, and going to the moon sounded just as improbable. Today, why not Mars? At least at present, the UAE can certainly fund such a bold adventure. If humankind's timid venture to the moon provides any indication, the necessary planning and technology for a Martian sojourn can be had.
Who are we? In his column last Saturday, George Will discussed the memoir of Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, “All Falling Faiths: Reflections on the Promise and Failure of the 1960s. Judge Wilkinson locates the genesis of today’s politics of reciprocal resentments in “the contempt with which the young elites of the Sixties dismissed the contributions of America’s working classes.” We have reached a point where “sub-cultures begin to predominate and the power of our unifying symbols fades. We become others to ourselves....But in the coarsening, embittering 1960s, Wilkinson writes, “more Americans annihilated fellow citizens in their consciousness than were slain on the field of any battle.” In a harbinger of very recent events, “the short-haired and hard-hatted sensed that class prejudice had simply been substituted for race hatred.”
In another , area of concern, remember It Takes a Village? Here is another thought on who we are, thease words from a US veteran diagnosed with adjustment disorder, less severe than PTSD. "The village has chosen us to do its dirty work, but the village doesn’t quite know how to bring us back. We need more substantial strategies to integrate our soldiers back into society beyond hollow celebrations."
2018 secession. Fill in the blank here. 1860 : secession & slavery : the South :: 2018 : secession & ? : California. There is a move afoot in CA, you know among those crazies on the west coast to put a secession question on the ballot in November 2018. "[T]he group, Yes California, is collecting the 585,407 signatures necessary to place a secessionist question on the 2018 ballot." A tall order, indeed. In a bit of west-coast hyperbole, one academic consultant (?) in San Francisco says, “We can lead what’s left of the free world.”
Can one state transform itself into a nation? Hard to tell, but it should be noted that CA does boast the world's 7th largest economy. Not everyone is convinced. According to Bill Carrick, [Los Angeles's mayor] Garcetti’s political consultant. “Something like this is a rabbit pulled out of a hat; there’s not a chance in the world it will pass.” Nor did the pundits foresee a President Trump.
Thank you for reading. Have fun looking for links to those disturbances in Sweden! The best one I have found is the large group of Swedish "polar bears" (i.e. nude, icy-water plungers) stampeding out of their icy-hole, headed for the nearby sauna. Truly!
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