The Bourne Destination

Well, I'm packing up a rucksack, a duffel bag, and a "three-day pack," and getting ready to trek down to Camp Edwards (sort of Bourne, sort of Sandwich, sort of Falmouth) for thirty days of playing in the woods, setting up tents, learning/honing basic soldiering skills, wiring computer systems, and goodness knows what else.

I might take a bit of a blog holiday during this time. But then again, I might not. If we have some downtime at night, and I've got a chance to get online, I might try to capture some of what's going on. As I've gotten way more into the habit lately of using my iPhone to photograph my surroundings, I may try to just capture what surrounds me -- the single biggest Army training exercise on the Cape since World War II -- and save the proverbial thousand words for the reader's imagination.

In the meantime, thanks, as always, for reading.

Of course, there is much talk of *service* on this solemn holiday, and no shortage of eloquent, moving, and sincere words written, typed, or spoken to mark the occasion.

The one thought I'll leave you with here is that there are many ways to serve your community, state, nation, planet, etc. and that military service is just one of them. I recently caught a newspaper headline stating that the percentage of our overall national payroll coming from the public sector is the highest it has ever been in our history. Far from being a self-loathing government employee, I just think that's worth noting, and that it might not be a good recipe for long-term sustainability.

Military servicemembers, teachers, police, and firefighters are usually the first who come to mind when we're crediting people who protect and/or make our society as great as it is. That praise is absolutely deserved, as those are noble professions and they really do enable pretty much everything else we do to happen.

But I would also add dozens of other professions, groups, and people to my list of those who make us cohesive, great, and strong. Entrepreneurs who bear personal risk to provide goods or services in a newer, better way, and provide jobs for other people in the process, rank very high on my list.

The Value of 625,000

On Wednesday night at Pollard, Richard Howe, co-author of the eponymous blog conveniently linked here and to your right, led a discussion of three Abraham Lincoln-related books in which about 20 or so local residents participated.

I decided to just engage in the discussion rather than try to take notes to summarize here on the site. As you might imagine, there were a lot of thought- and conversation-provoking points brought up by the crowd, but for this entry I'm just going to focus on two.

First, there was the question of whether the human cost of 625,000 men (roughly 4% of the male population of the U.S. at the time) justified the gains from the war for the nation.

The reason this question has stayed with me for the past couple of days during my solitary time on 495 and 93, or the more scenic 133 to 28, or wherever else I was between Lowell and Reading, is that it's not as frequently-raised as questions like whether Lincoln truly deserves credit as a "Great Emancipator" or whether the antebellum North has a claim to moral superiority over its Southern neighbors at the time.

Anyway, I'm obviously bringing some heavy-duty biases into the discussion -- I was born and raised north of the Mason-Dixon line and formed most of my original ideas about the Civil War in that environment. I've since chosen to *base* myself and form my identity around a region that fell pretty squarely on the winning side of the conflict. What's more, I'm a member of its longest-standing citizen militia, and hope to continue sporting a "Yankee Division" patch on my left shoulder for many years to come.

All that said, I still keep coming back to yes. Let's look at this fact alone -- whatever your beliefs about the true motivations of Lincoln for sending reinforcements to Ft. Sumter, or of South Carolina for seceding in the first place, or for the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, or for Chief Justice Taney's middle finger directed at the previous spate of Compromises, you have to acknowledge this -- chattel slavery existed in this great land prior to 1861, and it did not exist here beyond 1865.

Another point that seems worth acknowledging is that no person owned by another person and deprived of all basic rights -- to include freedom of expression and the right to be educated -- is going to reach his or her true potential in life.

A system of intergenerational slavery based on skin color never allows your society to have a Charles Drew, a Garrett Morgan, or a George Washington Carver, and so on. It also means no Lena Horne, no Paul Robeson, and no Jackie Robinson...which means none of THEIR forebears, or the myriad ways they enrich the world we live in. And so on. I'd like to think the tall guy in the funny hat might have been getting at this when he said, in November 1863:

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom."

Yes, as was noted Wednesday, it took ANOTHER 100 years for all of our nation to live up to the promise of these words, but I don't there's any question that the violent cataclysm that preceded them played a huge role. I also don't think slavery "would've just died out," if allowed to do so over time, as there are STILL some people nostalgic for the system who'd have the means to exploit it if they could. I *get* that an Irish immigrant laborer requires an almost-infinitely smaller initial fixed cost than a chattel slave, so it would be better to use Irish immigrants for imminently-dangerous activities like building bridges (or digging canals!). That said, people could still find uses for slaves, and the motivations might not be strictly economic, dollars-and-cents, seemingly rational sorts of calculations. If people buy completely-impractical luxuries to show wealth and satisfy ego, might they buy people if they could?

The second point I'll hit on is something that was raised by Mrs. Sonia Skillman concerning the war's inevitability. I can't remember exactly how she phrased it but she brought up the idea that the violence that mars our history is as much a part of our American character as are things like industriousness (yes, we work the longest) and our famously forward-looking mindset (check out David Brooks' 'On Paradise Drive' for modern implications of that).

Anyway, her point had me running back to my bookshelf to check out the inscription to Paul Johnson's epic "A History of the American People." It reads:

This book is dedicated to the people of America -- strong, outspoken, intense in their convictions, sometimes wrong-headed but always generous and brave, with a passion for justice no nation has ever matched.

Those words come from a Briton who sees us from the outside looking in, but to me that only makes them all the more meaningful. Added up, they help give credence to Sonia's point.

I'd also note that we had already fought a war whose origins traced back to this contentious issue. In the 1820s, when Anglo settlers first made their way into what was then Mexico in large numbers, the first serious dispute that arose was over the question of whether people could own slaves -- more proof that it tugs at the emotions in ways that more mundane things like local meals taxes and Headmaster searches don't tend to do.

Two last bullets:

* The recently-restored Abraham Lincoln photo above, like that of the Tewksbury-based benefactor below, was a highlight of the "halftime tour" led by Ms. Rosemary Noon in between segments of the discussion.

* This ought to be done again. Obviously, there's a strong selection bias in a crowd of people willing to go to the library to learn about Abraham Lincoln on a Wednesday night, but one of my initial takeaways was that the participation level was more than double that of any discussion section I can remember from college.

LDNA Summary, 5/24/10

On Monday night, CM Bernie Lynch spoke to a packed house at Caffe Paradiso about the proposal to bring Inspectional Services and Permits under one roof (that of the Deputy Director of the Dept. of Planning and Development).

The proposal, he said, would bring more effective code enforcement, more accountability, and better "across-the-board communication."

Several questions arose about how this would affect the License Commission. Because the License Commission stands apart statutorily, it would not be affected by the proposed merger.

Some very spirited debate about the License Commission followed. A near-universal sentiment was expressed that the LC's meeting time (3 p.m. on Thursdays, with an agenda put out mid-Morning) made attendance near-impossible for most residents with commitments during the traditional workday.

CM Lynch talked about the need for the LC to more aggressively move against rule violators, which drew CC Bud Caulfield to draw on personal anecdotes about noise and other infractions and to emphasize the point that, "If the law is in place, damn it all, enforce it!"

The most innovative proposal came from LDNA President Kathleen Marcin, who suggested half-jokingly (okay, quarter-jokingly) that if the bars could just stay open until 6 a.m., there would be no "last call rush" and therefore fewer issues of excessive noise and disorderliness in the streets around 2 a.m.

A Cartoon for June

Thank You, Mr. President

I'm here at work late-ish (hey, I start early) getting ready for a teleconference with some folks in Washington State and just caught a headline that had me breaking into a grin: President Obama announces National Guard troop deployment to US-Mexico border.

I'm smiling not just because I think it's *good for business* (I'm gainfully employed through mid-2012, thank you very much) but because I think it's the right thing on many levels.

First of all, if we have a porous border, it opens us up to tons of legitimate national security threats that have the potential to make 9/11 and Pearl Harbor seem small by comparison. That's way more of a threat, in any sense of the word, than are the droves of undocumented immigrants who enter the country each year.

That said, undocumented immigration IS a problem that needs to be addressed, for the strain it creates on the social services and communities it affects most.

As for the millions already here, they ought to be placed on a path towards permanent residency, and, potentially, citizenship.

Yes, it's been done before, and it's been successful in many respects; it has not, however, been accompanied with real, truly serious measures to start securing our borders.

To try to think we can somehow deport, let alone identify, let alone find, even a meaningful percentage of the millions who live here now "without papers" is preposterous. From any point of view, it makes way more sense to bring them INTO the fold -- doing that is pretty much a win-win for both the tax man and the society writ large.

But that's not the whole answer. As John McCain said today, the President's move today is a great start but it's not enough...most likely, we'll need even more National Guardsmen to accomplish this mission.

Whether you think that makes me a bed-wetting liberal, or a rifle-toting conservative, I have no idea.

But if I could pick, I'd opt for "big-hearted pragmatist."

Wheeler, Blumenthal, and the Google Era

Earlier this week the stories about Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal lying about his wartime service record and former Harvard student Adam Wheeler lying about his academic resume both hit the airwaves.

I'm not that surprised by either.

The Wheeler case is a lot less famous, but it rivals The Talented Mr. Ripley and Catch Me if You Can put together. The long and the short of it is that one young man doctored his high school records, his SAT scores, his college transcripts (he pretended to be transferring as a 4.0 student from MIT when he was accepted), and submitted bogus recommendations on stolen letterhead. He had basically gotten away with it but overreached a bit, when he submitted plagiarized work for an overseas scholarship competition and tried to transfer over to Yale after charges of academic dishonesty at Harvard came to light.

Blumenthal, who is running for the US Senate seat from CT recently vacated by Christopher Dodd (and yes, I intentionally did not just say 'Chris Dodd's Senate Seat'), only did what politicians -- and all storytellers, really -- have been doing since time immemorial -- he stretched the truth and then began to *live* that stretch until it took on a life of its own. Now, he's apparently decided to take the offensive, despite the fact that someone who earns his living as a lawyer, dealing with the finer points of language's minutiae, seems to have transposed "during" with "in" and "other people" with "we," and can't see any problem there at all.

Wheeler isn't the first student to doctor a transcript, and Blumenthal isn't the first politician to fib about his background (just ask VP Joe Biden's non-existent 'coal miner ancestors' who helped tank his 1988 Presidential bid, but were strangely never mentioned by the media in 2008).

The shame in both cases is that Wheeler could've lived a perfectly successful life without ever having to lie about his academic achievements, and Blumenthal could've sailed right into the Power Brokers' Inner Sanctum (the US Senate) without ever having to lie about his service. But regardless of whatever happens to either, both are now going to be wearing some major-league scar tissue for years to come.

The part that surprises me, though, is that all this happened in the age of Google, YouTube, and instant connectivity.

Many people who served in Blumenthal's Marine Corps Reserve Unit would've known he'd never actually set foot in Vietnam, as would many others close to him who'd taken the time to learn the whole story at a time when Blumenthal wasn't giving an emotional stump speech (Chris Shays, for instance, apparently knew the truth and had worried about the train wreck that Blumenthal set up for himself).

Frankly, I'm surprised no one blew the whistle on Blumenthal sooner. Many years ago, it would be easy to completely lose track of a person, but in the era of Web 2.0, anyone famous that you once knew is just a Google search away. (And who out there hasn't Googled an old acquaintance out of pure curiosity?)

Ditto for Wheeler. I mean, it just seems like it would've been too easy for the Harvard admissions office to call his old high school, whose number was just one simple search away, or to check down the road at MIT with any of those recommenders (whose contact information could've been gleaned...wait for it...with a Google search). In fact, I'm really surprised they didn't. And how anyone submits any plagiarized (and already published!) work in the era of Google scores instant stupidity points.

Going forward, I would imagine that imposters like Blumenthal and Wheeler are going to have a harder and harder time fabricating, as the Internet becomes even more ubiquitous and people become about as used to Google searches when they wish to know something as they are to reaching for a fork when they're hungry.

Footloosin' On the FOB

This video was shot by members of the Massachusetts Army National Guard during an 18-month rotation (6 in the States, 12 in Iraq) to Forward Operating Base (FOB) Summerall, between Bayji and Tikrit, Iraq.

It's a bit long, so you may want to skip over some parts, but it definitely captures the living conditions on a FOB (not deplorable, but quite a few stars away from the Ritz), as well as the ways that soldiers relieve the stress of separation from home, indirect fire attacks, IEDs, and twelve-hour days stacked endlessly upon one another with no weekends or holidays.