Author: Peter

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A Short History of Christmas


It is easy to think that the way we celebrate Christmas today is the way it has always been.  The fact is, Christmas has changed greatly in the last 100 years, and before that, we might find it quite unrecognizable.  Christmas celebrations, traditions, the image of Santa Claus, and many other things are truly a modern construct.  In some ways, the Ebenezer Scrooge character in Charles Dickens Christmas Carol was not all that unusual in his day, 1843, and Dickens, as usual, was writing a political satire as much as anything.

The first thing to consider is the timing of Christmas.  Most scholars, theological and historical, agree that were Christmas placed at its proper time on the calendar, it is more properly an event that happened  in April.  There are two reasons for this.  First, in the bible there is the mention of baby sheep.  As with most animals, sheep give birth in the early spring which would render such newborns almost fully grown at the start of winter.

Next is the biblical reference to a census being taken.  Historians and archeologists have been able to establish such an event happening but again it was in the spring.

And finally, although this is certainly not the last fact, there is the fact that the early Catholic church worked hard to have pagan rituals removed from public participation.  In month prior to the beginning of winter, there was a long celebrated feast of having the last fresh meat of the season.  That feast is commonly known at “carnival.”  The root of that word is the Latin word “carne” which means meat.  The Catholic church correctly realized it could not have the feast removed from the public mind so it supplanted it with a feast of its own, Christmas.  The celebration of carnival also commonly saw the bringing of fir trees into the home.

If we fast forward to late 17th century America we find that Christmas was not celebrated by the Puritans and their early descendants.  The Puritans viewed the celebration as a sinful time of excessive celebration, gluttony, drunkenness, and misbehavior.  Such had been the case in the England they left and they were committed to change.  Early American almanacs leave out all mention of Christmas from their pages.

In 18th Century Boston the tradition of “wassailing,” brought from England, was practiced by the poor.  This was a tradition of begging for food.  In the mid-1700s it was simply the poor going to the houses of well-to-do Bostonians and knocking on doors begging.  By the late 1700s, it had become a practice where these people used threats of invading the homes of those who did not give to them.

The first Christmas religious service held in New England happened in 1789 by the Universalist Church of Boston.  By 1818 the practice had spread to many of Boston’s churches and the beginnings of a celebration took hold in New England.  Still, the day did not have the status of a holiday as we understand such things today.

When Clement Moore wrote “The Night Before Christmas” in 1823 he was, it is believed, relating a Dutch tradition of Christmas to his children.  It is interesting to note in the poem that he refers to Santa Claus as an “elf” and that his sleigh and reindeer as being “tiny.”  This is a far cry from the Santa Claus we know today.  Also at that time, most artist renditions of what Santa Claus looked like always included him smoking a pipe.

Still, at that time, there was no American tradition of gift giving.  Although the idea of gift giving was offered by Unitarians in 1806 it did not take off until merchants embraced the idea several decades later.  It is thought that the tradition is also an import from the Dutch where children put out their wooden shoes in hopes that Saint Nicholas would leave them a coin or two.  The 1840s saw the beginning of merchants advertising the idea of gift giving, and with that, Christmas became fully established in American.

Santa Claus was transformed in the 1890s from Clement Moore’s tiny elf to Coca Cola’s white bearded rotund full-sized Santa we all know today.  Christmas, like America itself, had become a compilation of German, Nordic, and English traditions.  Saint Nicholas himself, though, was a person of the Byzantine Empire.  Nicholas was a 4th Century bishop of Bari.  The Byzantines revered Saint Nicholas as the protector of children.  From this fact the tradition of Sinterklaas evolved in Holland and Belgium.  In that tradition, Sinterklaas had a helper with him when he delivered presents, via the chimney, to all the children.

The history of Christmas varies with the country, but as a well-accepted and widely celebrated event, it was the 19th century before it truly took hold.  The most enduring image of Christmas is the American invention of a Santa Claus as we know him now.  An image that varied greatly from one country to the next 150 years ago, now varies slightly.

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The Death of a Homeless Man


About 13 years ago I had reason to go to Boston’s Back Bay on a regular basis in the morning.  For one thing, I could find good coffee and a bagel to start my day.  I have done that pretty much daily ever since.

Then about 10 years ago I started seeing this man on the street begging for spare change.  I was always wary of giving such people money as I was not interested in assisting someone’s drug or alcohol addiction.  But this guy was different.  I saw him every morning in the same place, at the corner of Boylston and Berkley Streets in front on Starbucks.  He was never drunk or high and always quite friendly.

After a while I started giving him a dollar a day, a little more at Christmas.  I thought he should have a gift like anyone else.  After a few years I asked him his name.  He told me it was Arthur.  He knew my comings and goings and I knew his.  I found out he was an army veteran and on several occasions I tried to talk him into going to the Veteran’s Shelter to get out of the weather, and also to go to the Veterans Administration for medical help.  I had found out that some years before he had sustained a serious head injury from which some hypothesised messed up his thinking enough to keep him on the street.

I was not the only person who had something of a personal relationship with Arthur.  There were any number of people I saw who regularly stopped to give him a dollar and chat a little.  Arthur was always pleasant, seemed to have a good memory for what people told him, and would tell us when our cars were in danger of being ticketed.

The years passed and Arthur, to me anyway, seemed to be a fixture of early morning Boylston Street.  I always made sure I had a single dollar in my wallet that I could give to him, and when I forgot and did not have one, I told him I would bring one to him right after I got my coffee which I always did.  I had come to feel a sense of obligation towards him.  I never felt pity for Arthur, he made his choices for reasons he did not care to reveal.  He had said to me on several occasions that he was actively looking into housing.

This morning as I walked into get my coffee, not at Starbucks but at the Au Bon Pain right next door, a man who works for the MBTA (Boston’s transportation system) who knew me by sight pulled me aside.  He told me that Arthur had died some days before from an apparent heart attack.  He told me that Au Bon Pain had actually put up a notice about Arthur’s death.  That too speaks to the worth of the man, more than he ever realized.  Arthur Dorgan of Quincy Massachusetts had died and a memorial service was being held for him.  I felt immediate and deep sadness.

As I left I could not help but notice the vacancy on the sidewalk where I had come used to seeing Arthur occupying each morning.  Arthur Dorgan may have died a penniless street person in Boston’s fashionable Back Bay, but his stature among men was big.  Arthur showed an uncommon kindness which many of us lack too often.  If there is a heaven, I am certain God was waiting there for him and said to him as he entered, “Welcome home Arthur.”

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Christmas Gifting


This is a tough time of year for so many.  We are clueless on what to get our families and they do not help a lot by giving us good ideas.  I thought I would make a couple of comments along with suggestions relative to gift giving.

When I was in high school we put on a play one Christmas named “The Gift of the Magi.”  If you are unfamiliar with it, I recommend you read it.  It shows the true spirit of giving at this time of year.

When my wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas this year I said quite honestly that I could not think of a single thing.  Of course that answer is not entirely acceptable, so I gave in and said the Kindle Fire would be nice.  But the truth is, I  want for nothing and a small box of really nice chocolate would have been more than enough as well as pleasing me greatly.  I really love it that I am in a place that I am not looking to get anything and loving it.

Another thing I learned some years ago, Christmas aside, is to give without the expectation of return.  For example, someone always seems to be looking to borrow a dollar or two.  I can think of nothing worse than loaning someone money.  When they do not pay it back timely, or at all, it is far to easy to be very resentful.  I hate being resentful.  Now when I give someone a little money I tell them they are not to pay me back but they must promise me to do one thing, pay it forward.  That is, when the time comes, they too will be in a position to help someone out in like manner and they should do so as I did for them.  At that point their debt is paid in full regardless of the amount.  Amazing how well that works when you are not expecting someone to pay you back.

This Christmas I told one of my daughters that if she made some of her fabulous Christmas sugar cookies for me that would be more than enough.  If you think about it, the best gift of all is one that the giver made themself.  I asked another of my daughters to get me a bit of chocolate that I had indicated on Amazon.com on my wish list there that I desired.  None of the chocolate I want is outlandishly expensive but where I am a total chocolate addict, I am certain to be pleased.

That is one thing you all can do to help people out with their gift buying.  Go to your favorite stores’ web sites and put together a wish list.  Direct those who want to give gifts to those sites and they will no exactly what you want, no guessing.  Even better, no returns for you or the gift giver.  It can also be great if the person you are giving the gift to lives at some distance from you.  You can have the gift wrapped and delivered to that person!

The two things I would love to have are far too expensive to be a Christmas gift and something I need to do for myself.  I have come to believe that most things I could want fall into the category of being things I need to deal with myself.  For those who feel some obligation for giving me something, I have decided to keep it very simple and inexpensive.  Just the fact that they give me a little something is all I really need.  It is truly the act more than the gift itself that is important.  Would you not agree that is true?

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Keep the “Occupy” Movement Going!


It was my desire when I first started this blog to keep it non-political.  I can not in good conscience do that for the moment.  The one thing I will do is to remain non-partisan in the discussion.  That said, I think we, the 99%, desperately need to keep the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, and all the other so named movements, alive.

I have a fair amount of expertise in the historical economics of America at the beginning of the 20th Century.  What I can say is that we are absolutely reliving those days.  The dire economic circumstances of large portions of the American landscape in the early 20th century has reappeared.  In those days it was union activism that did the most to change the disparities of the day.  The powerful of the day, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and their contemporaries, were able to wield large amounts of political power.  They were also very well insulated from any legal actions.  Their actual participation in actions against strikers that directly resulted in death was never brought before a single court.  Although people are not dying directly from industrialists hiring of thugs with guns and clubs, people are dying because industrialists, and other power brokers, have convinced politicians that their actions do not need to be regulated, monitored, or subject to litigation.  That last was the result of a Supreme Court decision that barred a class action suit brought by women against Walmart, even though lower courts had held the action to be proper.  That single case has given powerful corporations precedent against all class action law suits regardless of how reprehensible their actions.  Because of those actions, and others, people are forced to choose between eating and needed medication, between heat and clothing, between education and work.

The Occupy Wall Street movement made the statement that Wall Street had been bailed out with the expectation that the same good turn would be given to the troubled mortgage holder.  That has not happened and there is overwhelming evidence that it is not going to happen.  The forgiveness Wall Street received was not passed on to the average American.  To the contrary, financial interests have redoubled their efforts at foreclosure.

The blame has to be shared.  The top 1% are obviously at fault.  But in league with them are the 535 members of Congress, the President, his cabinet and advisors.  We elect these  people to serve as our voice.  All have failed us to one extent of another.  None is blameless.

The Republican Party has vowed to stop all attempts at regulating Wall Street even though they are fully aware that Americans overwhelmingly are in favor of such regulations.  Democrats have failed in regulating Wall Street because they have not presented well focused bills to the Congress while making Americans aware of their specific intentions.  They have been gutless.

Democrats boldly took the idea of getting all Americans affordable healthcare.  Republicans fought the idea tooth and nail against it saying it was forcing something on the American people they did not want.  That of course was a bold-faced lie.  If you ask any American if he desires to have health insurance, it is unimaginable to think anyone would answer such a question in the negative.  What the Republican membership never asked was what would work for everyone.  What the Democratic membership utter failed to do was to explain in incredibly simple terms how affordable insurance would benefit everyone.

The above are but two examples of the failures  of our entire political leadership.  There are of course numerous more.

The Occupy Wall Street was as far as it went a total success.  Most Americans had not thought in terms of being a part of the 99%.  The idea of a large economic gulf had not been a part of the public thought process since the early 20th century.  Now it is.

It was predictable that powerful political forces would see to it that protestors would be removed from their settlements.  What the protestors had failed to was have a “Plan B” at the ready when that time came.  History, however, tells them exactly what they need to do to not only continue the process, but to bring it to a successful finish.

In the 1912 Lawrence (MA) Textile Strike the political forces of the day made it nearly impossible for strikers to assemble outside their workplace.  The strike leadership came up with an idea that the politically connected had no defense against.  The strikers formed a long and continuous chain of people who, during business hours, marched in a two-mile loop that encompassed the business district and industrial districts.  The strike leadership recognized that strikers could be arrested for loitering if they stood in one place, thus empowering their adversaries.  The strikers were instructed to keep moving, stay off the streets and on the sidewalks.  They did this all day, every day, until their demands were met.  It became impossible for not only city and state leadership to ignor the strikers’ demands, but President Taft became involved and thus brought a congressional committee into the dispute.

The exact same tact can be used today by each and every “Occupy” movement.  They must show a presence in the financial districts and the business districts where they are  located.  They do not have to set up tents and stay, they need only show up each day and form a continuously moving sea of protestors who walk the sidewalks of their cities.  Cities will be unable to claim public safety or public health, as has been done, as a reason to break up the protests.  Still, such protests will remain in the face of the public, but more importantly, will have the public looking to the 1% to resolve the issues.  Such protests will necessarily cause disruptions in traffic, concern that daily business will be affected, but with no laws being broken, as the original occupy movements actually did, it will force the issue.

I do not know how this message can get to those involved with “Occupy” leadership, but if any of you do know such people, please pass this idea along.

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The Original Tea Party


On December 16, we will celebrate the 238th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.  At the time, however, no one referred to this event as “The Boston Tea-party.”  In fact, it was called many things.  One newspaper referred to it as “the Boston Harbor teapot.”  I think that is as close as it ever came to tea party at the time.

The destruction of tea in Boston Harbor was really the initial salvo upon the power of the crown over the colonies.  Not even the “Boston Massacre” rose to that level.  John Adams defended the British soldiers who were indicted on charges of murder for the events at the massacre and won them acquittal.  He proper pointed out that the soldiers had been put into a position of defending themselves against a mob and their action were well justified.  His cousin, Samuel Adams, of course, vehemently disagreed with him.  That was in 1770.

In 1773 the political atmosphere in Boston and Massachusetts had changed significantly.  The original Townshend Acts, which introduced the tea tax, had been largely reversed by the crown to assuage the colonists.  But the English parliament saw the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a particularly defiant group who were intruding upon English commerce which all of them, to a degree, were involved in.  They had taken aim a Boston in particular by creating a law called “the Boston Port Act” which limited the ability of Massachusetts to trade.  When parliament had required the tax collectors to be English officials the people of Massachusetts had found ways around them.  Certain English laws required goods sold in the provinces to have been made in England.  The Massachusetts citizenry were particularly contemptible of this law and lead the way in the original “Buy American” revolt.  This was particularly felt in the selling of fabric.  The homespun fabrics of local manufacture were literally quite rough compared to the machine made fabric imported from England.  It was because of a Boston merchant selling only English goods over “Made in America” that had brought on the Boston Massacre.

The men who led the attack on the three British cargo ships transporting tea were led by none other than Samuel Adams.  The supposed disguise they used, dressing up as Indians, was a particularly poor job even by their own estimates.  Even more so, immediately after the tea was destroyed, Samuel Adams stood in the pulpit of the Old South Church and recounted the events of that day leaving no doubt that he was the leader.

Americans felt their access to tea was a right and not a privilege and that it should be defended as such in parliament.  It was not.  The people of England paid no tax on their tea.  Conversely, not only were Americans required to buy their tea from English merchants, American ships had been bringing tea to America, they were also required to pay a small duty on it.  To be sure, the duty in itself was not unreasonable nor did it make the tea too costly.  But the fact that their English brethren did not pay a tax infuriated Americans.  By this time Americans were clamoring for a say, a seat, in parliament which they believed they had a constitutional right to as they were as much English citizens as were their brethren in England.  The whole attack on the ships carrying the tea was based on that one simple principle.

The tea cargo itself, in today’s dollars, would be worth well over a million dollars.  The crown simply could not overlook that fact and told the leaders of Massachusetts that the debt was owed to the damaged merchants.  The colonists responded that they did not know who had perpetrated the crime and that it was inherently unfair to put such a burden on all the people of Massachusetts when only a few had committed the crime.  Of course, as I said before, the leaders of Massachusetts were fully aware of exactly who had committed the crime.  Curiously, the names of those involved was never documented and no attempt to pay the debt was ever made.

The incident on that day may have never gained a name except that well after the Revolution members of Boston society still celebrated their afternoons with what they referred to as “high tea,” an old custom first practiced in England.  These events in Boston society became a who’s who in society in the late 18th and early 19th century.  We do not know who, but some in the press started to derisively refer to the “high tea” as “tea parties.”  Someone made the connection between those tea parties and the dumping of the tea and the name stuck.  The “tea party” was never meant to be complimentary.

In 1773 Massachusetts, few people who engaged in that original “tea party” had any thoughts about separating from the English government.  It was only meant to tell parliament that Americans had the right to be heard as a voting group in parliament.  It was supposed to be an attention getter and nothing more.  They were not even looking to have the tea tax reversed, which is why I find it peculiar that today’s Tea Party seems to be all about that.  The group more exemplary of that original “tea party” is the “Occupy Wall Street” group who are not looking for political power but to be heard.  I cannot help but wonder how that had become lost in the translation today.

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Addiction–My Ongoing Struggle With Chocolate


I have no idea when I was first introduced to chocolate but whenever that was, it was love at first bite.  I was probably given chocolate ice cream as an infant which means, of course, it is all my parents fault.  They introduced me to one of the most addictive substances known to man.  I am certain that I inherited this affliction so it is something they had to have known about.

When I was old enough to earn a little spending money, I never had an allowance, my first thought always was to buy some chocolate.  There was a small general store near our house and I was a regular customer at its candy counter.  The thing is, one candy bar was never enough and in those days most candy bars cost five cents, except the Peter Paul brand that cost a dime but they had coconut in them which I have never cared for.

I was a slave to the Chunky bar, the Nestle’s chocolate bar, and when they came out, the Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes.  A mere twenty-five cents meant the ability to buy 5 chocolate bars!  I do not remember ever having a sugar high from all the chocolate I ate but maybe that was because the chocolate high I experienced was more powerful.

Curiously, or maybe not, I have never been a fan of hard candy but that may be because it is never chocolate.  I remember during the Christmas season being disappointed that most candy was something other than chocolate.  As you can imagine, food-wise, Easter was my favorite holiday as chocolate reigns supreme.  Think of it, they make huge chocolate bunnies!  Who would not like that?  Certainly not me.

I was always one of the bigger kids when I was in elementary school, taller but not fatter although I did carry a little extra weight.  But when I became an adult, and my chocolate addiction had not subsided, my weight became a constant problem.  To be fair, chocolate has been far from my only food problem as an adult.  Things like fried chicken, bacon, and just about anything else that it fatty, I find appealing.  Still, if I were to make a list of foods I really like, chocolate would be number one on any such list.

An example of how addictive chocolate is to me came a little more than a week before Thanksgiving this year.  I knew I would be going to my sister’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.  I was bringing a lot of snacking things.  I had bought two bags of M&Ms.  I was home alone with them one day and my addiction was calling out to me.  I desperately needed that taste of a little chocolate.  I opened one of the bags and swore to myself that I would only have one handful and no more.  This one pound bag of M&Ms was finished off by me before the end of the next day.  Once opened, I did not stand a chance against that bag of M&Ms.  I could almost literally smell them from any room in the house.  They called out to me, “Eat me!  Eat me!”  Being the pleaser that I am, I honored their request.

I know there exist 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, and others.  But there is not a single 12-step program for those of us thoroughly addicted to chocolate.  I am mired entirely within this addiction and there exists no help!  Like any good addict, when I am feeding my addiction it feels great.  But afterwards, I promise myself that I will get it under control or even swear it off entirely.  I have known success to a limited extent, as much as 2 months one time.  But invariably I find myself doing chocolate’s bidding.

The most embarrassing part of this addiction is when I have to see my doctor.  She does a blood test which always shows my blood/chocolate levels to be well above the acceptable level.  I am serious about this.  That level is more commonly known as your triglycerides.  My triglycerides are frequently off the charts.  It is a heart attack waiting to happen.

I want to start a support group of some sort.  I am certain there are other chocolate addicts out there but I do not know who they are or even how to make contact with them.  I am hoping that this might be just such a vehicle.  I will be impatiently awaiting to hear from other chocoholics now that this is posted.

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What the Attack on Pearl Harbor Really Did to America


December 7, 2011 marks the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan.  Most people see that as America’s entry into World War 2.  That is actually not true, as I will show later.  But just as importantly, the attack changed the complexion of America forever.  It was America’s coming of age in the world, if you will.

Prior to December 7, 1941 America was an isolationist country that had not ever fully participated in a war in Europe or Asia.  You may say, but we were in World War 1, and you would be correct.  But our participation in that war was fairly brief.  Even though we declared war on Germany on April 4, 1917, it was not until the spring of 1918 that the first US troops arrived in Europe.  A little over six months later the war ended, and while the US did sustain substantial casualties, its involvement more hastened a battle weary Germany to the armistice.

The post World War 1 scenario had the US taking a decidedly isolationist role in the world.  US troops strength was greatly reduced, its air service was almost discontinued, and its navy gutted.  Although the US and England had assumed leadership of the oceans, the US largely left such duties to the English.  Although the US doubled its troops strength between 1920 and 1940, those troops were not prepared to fight a war.  While the navy had built some new ships to replace its old ships, as Pearl Harbor illustrated, the majority of the Navy was a fleet of obsolete ships.  All the battleships at Pearl Harbor on that day were of World War 1 heritage or older.  The aircraft carriers that the Japanese had as their highest priority were, to say the least, underwhelming.  On December 7, 1941 the Navy had a total of eight aircraft carriers on its roster which included the first carrier it ever owned.  That carrier, the USS Langley, was sitting in the Philipines and never saw action.  Two of the three remaining carriers were the ones stationed at Peal Harbor.  These ships, the Lexington and the Enterprise, were at sea at the time of the attack.  The USS Saratoga was en route to San Diego.  The rest of the fleet was assigned to Norfolk Virginia.  The Japanese feared the carriers in particular and the reason was for exactly what they did to Pearl Harbor they realized could be visited upon Japan.

To say the least, the US never saw the attack coming, although there had been plenty of warnings.  Not the least of which was by one General William Mitchell who at his own court-martial in 1926 had predicted that the Japanese would attack the US at Pearl Harbor.  US leadership scoffed at the idea citing the close relations the US enjoyed with Japan at the time.   But between that time and 1941 Japanese militarists had taken virtual control of their government and had begun a campaign of imperialism in China and southeast Asia.  It needed the raw materials necessary to maintain a sizable army and navy.  These included oil, iron, and rubber, none of which Japan had within its borders.  After Japan invaded Japan the US cut off oil and scrap metal exports to Japan.  While the US viewed the action as diplomatic, Japan’s leadership viewed it as a virtual act of war.  By 1939 Japan knew it would have to deal with the US in military actions and prepared for that.  Its attack upon Pearl Harbor was an action it had practiced in great detail for well over a year prior, to include finding a port area on its own shores that doubled as a Pearl Harbor look-alike where it performed many bombing runs.

In 1939 when Germany attacked Poland President Roosevelt already knew he would have to fight a war in Europe eventually.  But FDR and his advisors knew very well that the people of the United States were in no mood for a foreign war.  To that end, when he ran for president in 1940 he did so saying he would keep the US out of the war in Europe.  Even though he had already accepted that we would have to fight a war in Europe, neither he, nor anyone else, suspected that the impetus to fight that war would come from Asia.

While FDR knew that any substantial increases in Naval strength would be noticed by the world community, he felt that updating the air service could be done fairly easily.  The truth to this is the fact that only two new aircraft were developed between 1941 and 1945, the P-51 and the B-29.  The entirety of the remaining inventory was in production at the outset of the war.  The Army Air Corps actually had more aircraft than pilots at the outset of the war.

After England and France sustained huge loses at Dunkirk, England requested immediate assistance from the US in the form of troops and material.  Then, as now, the president could not commit troops.  FDR recognized he also could not send ships and other material without getting the wrath of the Axis and the American people.  To circumvent this, FDR entered into a “treaty” with England that became known as the “Lend/Lease Act.”  The act allowed FDR to lend or lease mothballed ships to England.  Once that commenced merchant marines and other cargo carriers supplied England with the aircraft and other materials it needed to sustain the war with Germany.  By mid-1941 the US was in a virtual fighting war with Germany already as German submarines had attacked many of the convoys.  The US Navy had been escorting these convoys and had returned fire.  For all intents and practical purposes we were at war with Germany but since there had been no signficant loses of American lives, FDR could not declare war.

It is not unreasonable to infer that where America was, and is, an immigrant nation, and that a significant portion of the US population were first or second generation immigrants from the warring nations, a substantial portion of Americans might view such a war against their relatives as being undesirable.  The biggest reason, however, was that the average American could not imagine a scenario where Germany would bring the war in Europe to America’s shores.  The US population did not have a stomach for a foreign war as it still had a good memory of how ugly World War 1 had been.

Americans in November 1941 were apparently blissfully unaware of the presence of German submarines patrolling the US Atlantic coast.  The war in Europe was at our doorstep even though it had taken no aggressive action.  Americans may have also been lulled into a false sense of security by the British having sunk Germany two most dangerous warships, its battleships Bismark and Tirpitz.  Germany had no active aircraft carriers and had only one unfinished in a port.  At the time trans-Atlantic flight was confined to small aircraft and all larger aircraft made the trip via Gander Newfoundland or Ireland.  The US did have such capability but this was not something the average American knew.  This fact is shown by the fact that on December 7, 1941, while the attack on Pearl Harbor was underway, a number of B-17s were flying into Pearl Harbor from the US west coast.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was enough to completely change the American attitude of going to war.  The fact that American ships had been sunk and American lives lost was more than enough.  But the Roosevelt administration felt the average American could not understand the extent of the death and damage done at Pearl Harbor so the details of the attack and pictures of the attack were kept from the American public for well over six months, and even then it was judiciously released.  The few pictures that were released were done in the Saturday Evening Post, and other such picture magazines.  FDR got the press to agree to an embargo on information and to censorship.  For the duration of the war all press releases had to be authorized through the War Department.  Few objected.

Now, exactly 70 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, it can be difficult for us to imagine the American landscape on that day.  America was truly a sleepy country but it leapt into action, and, as Japanese Admiral Yamaguchi, who headed the attack on Pearl Harbor, clairvoyantly said, “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant.”  American sprang into action and almost overnight industry was converted from making cars and refrigerators to making tanks and aircraft.  America woke up and vowed never to be asleep at the switch ever again.  America built war ships at a mind numbing rate.  At one time Henry Kaiser, who built the “Liberty Ships,” completed a ship in slightly less than five days.  The US took the lead militarily and has never looked back.  Americans have since overcome any urge to revert to isolationism as well.  Pearl Harbor did a lot more than bring the US into the war.

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The Universe Does Not Know I Exist. Thank God!


There was a time, not that many years ago, that I believed that the universe was constantly conspiring against me.  I found out that such feelings are actually rather common.  I guess the first question is, did I really believe the universe was against me?

During my childhood and teen years many bad things happened to my family and me.  I was left with a lot of question but few answers.  Things did not change much when I reached my adult years.  I was still at a loss to explain why so many things happened, not just to me, but all around me.  For example, I remember believing during the 1970s that if I watched a Red Sox game on television, they would lose!  I really believed that.  In fact, I seemed to have the uncanny ability to watch games that they did lose.

When that belief went away others crept in.  I frequently believed that people in power were out to get me.  It did not occur to me that I had done anything to incur their wrath.  I was simply the victim of their evil ways.

I could offer to you what I thought to be the facts of my being misunderstood, or how I had innocently stumbled into situations that were compromising.  I was certain that there was some sort of black cloud following around just waiting for the worst possible moment to bring some sort of pain on me.

Then one day, a good friend told me to get over myself.  All those beliefs I had indicated that I thought somehow I was so important that the universe actually took note of my existence.  I was told that I was neither that important nor that powerful.  Negative things happened without regard to my existence.

I was told that well over ten years ago and I have to admit that it has taken most of that time for me to entirely grasp that concept.  Then one day I embraced the concept of the universe being unaware of my existence.  The relief I felt was huge.  It was also very empowering.

How can I possibly believe that the universe being unaware of my existence to be a truly wonderful thing?  Simple, it relieved me of the burden of having to be right in everything I do, everything I think, and everything I believe.  Along with that I discovered that I did not need to explain myself to everyone for anything I do or believe.  Being answerable to myself is more than enough.  I acknowledge with ease my mistakes.  There is no more belief that I can “get away” with something because no one will know.  I will know and that is more than enough.

The thing that brought it all home was my looking at the whole universe, literally.  I joined the mind numbing task of trying to understand the vastness of the physical universe in both physical size and time of existence.  That has proven nearly impossible.  Then I tried to imagine the Milky Way Galaxy to the universe and found how truly small and relatively insignificant our galaxy is.  From that point, going from the galaxy to the solar system to the Earth and finally to me gave me a wonderful perspective of how minute I am when compared to the universe.  I have a better chance of seeing an atom with my naked eye than of seeing me in the universe.

Today when I think of the things that are happening around me, I view them as an extremely small set of things relative to the many trillions of events happening simultaneously around the universe.  That give me pause to consider how important any one event that is happening relative to me and that I am aware of.  I have found that most of the events I consider to be important are important to me alone, or a small number of people at best.  That being true, I find that when it gets really cold, something I really dislike, acceptance comes to me and I remind myself that summer is on the way.

Finally, I now carry with me a small stone in my pocket everywhere I go.  I can be frequently seen rubbing the stone with one of my hands.  The stone is a reminder to me of the existence, absolute, of powers far greater than me in extremely small containers.  The stone has one of the four forces of the universe inside it, the strong nuclear force.  If it were possible to release the entirety of that force within that one stone the results would be at least a 20 mile radius of absolute destruction.  Now that is power!  I have nothing within my control that even approaches such power.  I have absolutely no control over such power.

It is good to know how powerless I am.  It comes in handy when I think or someone else thinks I can have some sort of power over something or someone.  It is one of those hopeless tasks to believe I could have such power and it is much more effective to conduct myself as such.  When I let go of the idea that I need to do something, and instead make myself available to be available when there is something I can do.  Those times I can do something are one out of one hundred at best.

Being extremely unimportant is really nice.  I move freely without fear or regret.  I am no longer so busy watching my steps or planning my next step that I have lots of time to observe the universe, in all its beauty, pass by.

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The Death of the Daily Newspaper?


In a word, yes.  I read the Boston Globe on a daily basis.  I truly enjoy reading it and look forward to those minutes.  For as long as I can remember I have read the daily newspaper.  Back when I was just a kid, my father bought the Sunday Boston Herald, then a premier daily newspaper in the city.  We also received the other six days of the week, the local newspaper, The Lawrence Eagle Tribune.  For two years, when I was 12 and 13, I delivered that paper.  That paper did not in those days have a Sunday edition, as it does now, but there was another local paper that filled that need, The Lawrence Sunday Sun.  The Sun was heavily invested in the greater Lawrence community.  It allowed for the area high schools to have one of its teen journalists provide a column.  Those columns were merely a popularity who’s who of the local high schools, but it did get us teens reading the paper, if only for that vanity.  Importantly, it put a newspaper in front of us on a regular basis.  It made us want to have that newspaper regularly.

My last two years of high school were spent in Bordentown New Jersey.  The school there encouraged us to read one of the New York dailies, the Times or the Herald Tribune.  I chose the Herald Tribune and enjoyed it very much.  But somewhere in the earl 1970s it fell victim to economic forces and it went out of business.  This, as it turned out, was just the opening round of many such events, some of which included one newspaper buying out its competition.  But I digress a little early.

In the 1960s I can remember the Boston papers on Mondays through Friday having at least two editions a day.  The Boston Globe had a morning and an evening edition.  The Boston Record American, had a morning edition, a racing edition, a baseball edition, among others.  Again, the 1970s saw the end to most such extra editions.  Newspaper subscriptions and readership was declining.

The 1980s saw the beginning of increasing newspaper prices.  Did the increase in price lead to the decline in readership?  I rather doubt it.  In the 1980s television exploded with the beginnings of cable television, and with that, the ability of the individual to get his news fix at almost any hour of the day.  People began to opt to watch the news rather than read the news.  There is something to be said for video news, it is usually much more timely than anything you can read in a newspaper. But the downside of video news, in my opinion, is you also frequently get far fewer details about any single event.  To this day, the newspaper still does a superior job, as a rule, to video journalism.

Broadcast journalism, in my opinion, emphasises what used to be called “yellow journalism.”  Yellow journalism is the use of pictures and phrases that quickly evoke an emotional response for the reader, or in today’s parlance, the viewer.  Such news is not well researched, not scientific, and is truly only interested in capturing an audience for that moment in time.  Today’s video news tends to focus on tragic incidents ad nauseam.  I find myself talking to the television and saying, “what about the rest of the news?  Certainly something else happened today!”  But you would never know it because the news stations conveniently leave out the rest of the news.  But they know that people are drawn to these dramatic events and even though they cannot reasonably provide anything new to the story, they will play up even the smallest portion in their unending quest to keep people watching them.

The things on the news I would like to see on a daily basis, and a little long than a 10 second snippet, is a daily economic report, a daily political report of what happened in Washington DC today, a political report on the state, and follow-up news reports on those events that are likely to impact our lives.  The Michael Jackson trial, the Casey Anthony Trial, and all other such events, while interesting, do not deserve the air-time they received.  None of those event directly affect us.

Newspapers, on the other hand, cannot afford to devote the space for such drama.  But they are also victim to their own devices.  Newspapers, for whatever reason, have become increasingly poor at fact checking.  For quite a number of years I worked in an area that made the news, aviation.  My boss, a particularly bright man, could frequently be heard bemoaning the improper assertions the newspapers had made.  His attempt to correct them fell on deaf ears, even though he was an acknowledged authority.

The thing is, newspaper are going to die simply because the number of people who read anything at all is falling.  Our society has made it too easy to capture information in pictures.  People, for whatever reason, are less and less inclined to read about what is going on around them.  It has become so bad that a friend of mine, who is a retired journalist, has himself forsaken the daily newspaper.  The bottom line is, people are finding more than enough reasons, regardless of how illogical, to not read.  This is a sad commentary on our society, I believe, but a true one.

I have become a bit of a victim to this myself.  I do still read a newspaper every day of the week, but I no longer buy the paper version of books.  I have come to enjoy reading my books on my Kindle.  Even so, I miss the tactile feel of paper and even as I read my Kindle, I cannot help but miss that paper volume.

I do not think the daily newspaper will cease to exist in my life time, but I do believe it will cease to exist in this century.  As I write this, more and more newspapers are offering electronic versions you can download on your Kindle or that you can subscribe to on the Internet.  But I don’t believe that will be enough.  It is a stopgap measure forestalling the inevitable.  What I fear most is that we are quickly becoming a society of illiterates.  What else can happen to a society that forgoes reading for watching videos?

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American Socialism


I was watching the news last night when a political attack ad was shown.  The ad claimed that Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts senatorial candidate, is a radical leftist of dubious motives.  This sort of attack is nothing new on the American political scene.  The ad also contends that people like Warren are trying to make our government socialist in style.  Again, nothing new with such a charge.

If you think the political attack ads you see today are nasty, let me assure you, they pale in comparison to 19th Century rhetoric from that century.  Remember, Aaron Burr felt his honor had been challenged when a letter to a newspaper claimed he was a “dangerous man.”  Even though dueling was illegal, Burr killed Alexander Hamilton.

In the late 19th and early 20th Century socialism was a new economic philosophy that had  taken root in eastern Europe.  This socialist movement was embraced by the poor of those various countries.  They had suffered under the tyranny of various governments.  When those same people emigrated to the United States they brought socialism with them.  It had worked and that was all they needed to know.

In 1907 a new labor union was started, the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World).  At its head was a man who was an avowed socialist, William “Big Bill” Haywood.  Haywood was firmly in the American memory because of his involvement in the violent strikes in which the Western Federation of Miners was involved.  At the time Haywood was the president of that union.  But even more, Haywood was arrested  for the murder of Idaho Governor  Steunenberg.  It was an obvious ploy by Haywood detractors and Haywood was acquitted.  But  the  spectre  of  violence followed Haywood.  Even more, because of its then radical ideas and ideals, the IWW attracted many self-proclaimed anarchists.  Emma Goldman was an extremely outspoken socialist and anarchist who frequented IWW strike gatherings.  But history showed Goldman to be if anything, a peaceful woman.

America had been stunned  when President William McKinley was assassinated by a self-proclaimed anarchist in 1901.  Even though that man never had anything to  do with the IWW, the perception was that all things to do with the  IWW were  socialist and violent.

In 1912 the IWW oversaw the largest strike America had ever seen in a single city, the Lawrence Textile Strike.  Newspapers, politicians, and people of power an influence made certain the perception of this IWW  strike was negative.  To that end, the owner of one of the mills involved acquired dynamite and had it hidden in a boarding  house.  The police were informed of its existence and that its intended use was to be against one of the mills.  The dynamite was quickly discovered and the newspaper  ran with the idea that violence was imminent.  As it turned out, the only violence that ever happened was precipitated by either the police or state militia.  The leaders of the strike, Big Bill Haywood being one, we labeled  as a threat to the American way.  But in the end the strikers, headed by the IWW, won.  A mere two years later, however, the popularity of socialism in Lawrence had waned.  One final thing, at a US Congressional hearing was a socialist representative from Wisconsin.

For over 100 years now conservatives have been yelling wolf about perceptions of socialism creeping into the American scene.  In the early 1920s when the USSR was formed the scare was strong.  But when it became obvious that the USSR had too many internal problems to be of any threat to the US, that  scare died out.  Then again, in the mid-1950s, Sen Joseph McCarthy saw to it that this communistic socialistic scare was front and center yet again.  Thousands of people’s lives were ruined by unfounded charges.

It tires me when powerful  people  point towards that far left or far right and claim that those people pose an imminent threat to our American way of life.  They do not and they never have.  Our country has never known a people that a small fringe group did make loud noises.  The only validity such groups have is that  which we allow.  I find it reprehensible for mainstream conservatives and liberals to use such tactics.  There are far more important things we need to be talking about.  Elizabeth Warren is not some sort of a radical extremist.  I am not fully aware of the politics of everyone in our Congress, but I think it fair to assume that most, if not all, of our Congress is not extremist or radical.