DTRT

 

I once mentioned to a co-worker, just as idle conversation, that I had observed there were usually from one to three churches on most corners of a city that was (and still is) awash in violence and crime, and it looked like no one was learning a whole lot on Sundays.   He did not like that much, stating that "church is for sinners."  I thought "wha...?" but said (and this was the wrong thing to do, judging from his reaction) one could ignore the twisting toils of religion and philosophy by substituting four words:  Do The Right Thing.  

But...while that should prevent a lot of bad behavior if practiced,  I have found it often does not work out too well for you.   

Once while I was picking up car wreck litter on the boulevard -- it is banked the wrong way and about once a month a speeding car goes off the road into the drainage area or hops the median.  Someone stopped and accused me of being the driver who made the mess and wanted my information.  A block closer to home, I once picked up some litter caught by a parked car's wheels (the wind always blows on trash day); the owner came out of his house, followed me home, and demanded to know what I was doing to his car.

Many years ago during a very bad snow and ice storm, I received a frantic call from the person on duty at the radio station where we worked.  The studio had moved to the middle of nowhere behind a farm and was no treat to get to, especially at night.  He had been trapped there long beyond his shift, probably quite hungry, and needed me to relieve him.  It would not have been right to not help, so I headed out in my mother's car with bald recapped (remember those?) rear tires.  On the way, a VW was sitting at the bottom of an icy hill with no brake lights on.  Too late, I realized it was not moving; it did move when I slid into it.  A bogus "neck pain" law suit later, I found my insurance cancelled and had to give up my own new car (not the accident one).  No good deed goes unpunished, as they say.

Away from vehicular to-dos, there are many more examples, which I will spare you, except for these:  I found a Social Security card near the local library on a walk.  I returned home, got on the computer and found an address for it, walked back and returned it, asking if this was the right residence.   The man who answered was extremely suspicious and unfriendly, but carefully took the card before shutting the door quickly.  That was sure worth all the effort.  And once I complimented a stressed mother (a relative) who was dealing with a shrieking toddler at a big noisy event just with the motivation to make her feel a little better.  Big mistake, as it was taken the wrong way.  No more unsolicited encouragement from me anymore!

I don't know why things play out this way.  Despite the evidence, I still think DTRT is a valid common-sense guide.  That ol'  karma is tricky, though.

    

What You Say?

 

We saw surf music legend Dick Dale perform in cozy local venue nine years ago.  A serious guy, he did little patter, made one joke (not repeatable here) and reminded us that "Thoughts become words, words become actions and actions have consequences."  There are many versions of this (one carrying it further: actions--habits--character), and the basic idea goes back at least as far as the Buddha, two and a half millennia ago.   

So, the words we use -- they are powerful. Amateur linguist Benjamin L. Whorf put forward a hypothesis ("linguistic relativity") that one's language influences and molds one's cultural reality by limiting our thought processes.   For example,  sexism seems built into languages with gender (Romance, that is, Latin-based ones, Hindi and Arabic); the male version of a noun or pronoun is the default.  Think of the term "mankind," or that doctor, actor or nurse have until recently pretty clearly indicated the person's gender who is being spoken of.  

German is well known for its use of long compound terms for precise description.  In this case, though, it is probably scientific and psychological thought which have influenced the language rather than vice-versa.  The Whorf hypothesis is better understood as a correlation or in a reciprocal way than as deterministic, like the old nature vs. nurture debate*.  But think about the corrosive effect of foul language in all-male environments and hip-hop music.  It is like, on a physical level, a neighborhood of empty lots, weeds and broken glass.  Both do clearly have strong negative influence.

The Hopi and Mandarin languages do not have tense.  But those who speak them do indeed know what time is and what is past or present.  So does the world look the same in different languages?  The ancient Greeks did not have a specific word for "blue."  An Australian aboriginal group thought of the sky as black.

   In 1984, Orwell made a strong case that language can and is used as a malignant tool to shape and control what we think:

Speaking of control, it is said that cats have 40 or more vocalizations.  They mostly mean "Feed me," and you had better get up and do it.

_________

*The subject of one of the Three Stooges' best films.

 

A Real Wonder Woman

 

 Augustina Raimunda Maria Saragossa i Domenech was celebrated by Byron in one of his best-known poems:

"Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul?  Foiled by a woman's hand before a battered wall..."

When Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 1808, driving all the way to Lisbon and forcing the flight or abdication of Spain and Portugal's kings and installing brother Joseph as the new ruler, Augustina accompanied her husband, Sergeant Juan Rosa, immediately to the resistance, bringing along their young son.  The desperate defense of Zaragoza, which they joined, was mostly up to civilians facing an overwhelming French force. 

After heavy bombardment, the invader attacked at several points.  At Portillo gate, those gunners and militia who were not already dead fled to the central town square.  The abandoned 24-pounder cannon Augustina was near had been loaded with canister (shrapnel) shot; she touched it off and fired right into the face of a dense enemy column, driving them back with great loss.  The citizen defenders, inspired, rallied and returned to the barricades, holding the besieging army at bay for three months.  But their home was left in ruins.  Napoleon  was informed of the high casualties, and that "It is impossible that Zaragoza should ever recover; this city is a horror to behold. "

Amazingly, Augustina and Juan escaped and later participated in the second siege of Zaragoza, the defense of Tortosa and the decisive battle of Vitoria.  She became so ill she almost died, and their son did.

Honored as La Artillera and Maid and Defender of Zaragoza, Augustina was made a lieutenant and granted a lifetime pension by the grateful king -- the only female officer of the Peninsular War. 

Juan was also promoted to lieutenant and survived the war by eight years.   Augustina remarried a doctor, had a daughter, and lived to be 71.  She is buried near the scene of her brave stand, at the parish of Nuestra Senora del Portillo.

Portrayed by Goya

     

This Is New

 

We had two guests this Thanksgiving, one familiar and one brand new.  For eleven years, Blackberry the cat has been quite enthusiastic about sharing some turkey, for which he is quite thankful (you can tell by the purrs).  In her new Bumbo chair (above) 5 1/2 month old granddaughter Lucielle sat perched on the table, about to enjoy some of her first big people food, mashed sweet potatoes, like her a local, organic product.

 At first she rolled it around in her mouth, warily checking it out,  followed quickly by wide open eyes and a big grin.  More, please!  She ate the whole little bowlful, then eyed all the other dishes on the table:  "Okay, what's next?"  Someday, she and Blackberry might be competing for that turkey.

Having a fast-developing baby around has been quite a change.  Corners have filled up with child furniture and equipage, including a stroller that we still have only half figured out.  The Bumbo chair and changing table/crib combo are huge improvements on the cheap, clanky things we had when her father was little.  

Lucy's changing and growing at an astonishing pace.  Where a few weeks ago her hands were swinging around randomly, she can now spy my sweatshirt zipper pull looking up sideways, go for and grab it accurately on the first try.  

We're looking forward to more Thanksgivings, as well as other occasions and milestones, with this happy little sweet potato eater.

    

Olio*

 

It's time once again to clear out the attic here at "Just Sayin'."  So, here are three sort-of blog ideas, apropos of nothing:

Going Medieval

The list of very old places in Europe I want to see keeps growing.  Just found about the "Ruelle des Chats" -- Cats' Alley -- in Troyes, France. It is about seven feet wide, and the house tops lean into each other.  Guess there wasn't good urban zoning in place back in the Thirteenth Century.  They did, however, place stones along the bases of the buildings so people could get up out of the way of horses.  The structures you see today are reconstructions after the great fire of 1524,  but certainly look old and odd enough for those of us who like this sort of thing.

What If?

What if we had accepted the 1954 election in Vietnam, which chose Ho Chi Minh as president as the French closed up shop?  Would anything have turned out substantially different if we had not decided on twenty years of war instead?  The result was the same, except maybe Laos and Cambodia might have gone a different, much less miserable and violent, way.  

What if the French (maybe we do have a blog theme here) had not tried to claim and conquer the Ohio Country in order to link up their colonies in Canada and Louisiana?  Losing the latter to either the British or Americans later was probable, but they may have kept Canada more or less along its present borders and not have instigated the French and Indian War, which certainly contributed to the beginning of the American Revolution.  Several French Canadian officials did see and express that they did not nearly have the resources or manpower to make the Ohio expeditions turn out favorably.  But the 1789 Revolution and Napoleonic wars would have resulted in Canada's loss in any case.

The Big List

I was thinking about favorite books yesterday; here are mine.  What would you add or subtract?

The Story of Mankind (Van Loon), History of Greece (Bury), The Great Game (Hopkirk), The King Must Die (Renault), Memoirs of Hadrian (Yourcenar), Studs Lonigan (Farrell), In Our Time and For Whom the Bell Tolls (Hemingway), Dubliners (Joyce), On the Road (Kerouac), A Small Town in Germany (Le Carre), Voyage of the Beagle (Darwin), The Wind in the Willows (Grahame), Death Comes to the Archbishop (Cather), Rome Across the Euphrates (Stark), Translations and Selected Poems (Pound), The March of Folly (Tuchman), Translations from the Chinese (Waley), Iberia (Michener), South Wind (Douglas), Raintree County (Lockridge), Treasure Island and The Black Arrow (Stevenson), The Golden Bough (Frazer), Julian (Vidal), Caesar (McCullough), August 1914 (Solzhenitsyn), The Farfarers (Mowat), The Alexandria Quartet (Durrell), The Fatal Shore (Hughes), The End of the Road (Barth), and Circe (Miller).  

________________

*Olio = miscellany.  A very useful crossword puzzle word.

Your Fourth-Quarter Game

 

It may not seem so when you are looking at it in your future, but retirement doesn't mean you get off the train and sit on a bench.  Change doesn't stop and planning, adaptation and decision making are challenges you must, not might, deal with.   For example, grandchildren:  our home is now crowded with new baby furniture after all these years!  And all that landscaping that you ambitiously planted over time?  Now it's huge and not the weekend outdoors entertainment it used to be.

Many relocate, especially to a latitude without winter or to a lower cost of living area. We researched and visited, but with all the pros and cons (the latter often not clear early on), it would have worked out about the same. If we had to shovel the snow, that would outweigh things like mosquito-borne disease -- but not hurricanes.  We pay our association fee and do not worry about blizzards or Category IV storms.

Social Security and Medicare (you know, those dangerous slides into Socialism) made the modern idea of retirement possible.  Before, if you did not possess wealth, you got to work yourself to an early death or move in with the children.  If you were just on your own and lived too long, well, you were on your own and not in any kind of good way.  When our grandfather was working as a young man in the early 20th century, it was 10 - 12 hours a day six and often seven days a week.  He did survive until the 40-hour week (opposed as socialist, of course) came to be and finally enjoyed a retirement with a pension.  He was smart, but lucky too.

Life can be slower and simpler in retirement; you can finally embrace Thoreau's advice.  If you cling to status and have not eliminated debt completely, either you can afford it or it sinks you.  What would the bill be for replacing this roof?

Not dealing with commuting traffic or overpaid co-workers who do very little work or not having to schedule a few vacation days twelve months in advance?  Yes, please.

Except... that big fresh breeze of freedom often will be counterbalanced with the chill wind of increasing health problems.  It's always something.   That rule of this  life is not one of those things that change. 

Still, it's a good deal and I'll take it.

      

 

Nine Lives

 

The chameleon Trebitsch as Chao Kung

Many people follow the same occupation for most or all of their lives. But one Ignac Trebitsch was quite the opposite as he was, successively (quoting author and scholar John  Lukacs), a petty thief, journalist, Presbyterian missionary, clergyman, councilman in Halifax, a vicar in Kent, researcher for a philanthropist, member of the House of Commons in 1910, oil drilling speculator in Eastern Europe, a defendant in criminal fraud lawsuits, promoter of a WWI scheme against the German fleet, British prisoner for three years, press secretary in Germany, military advisor to Chinese warlords, and Buddhist monk with a small sect following. This chaotic journey across the globe ended with his death in a Shanghai hospital in 1943. 

Born to a well-off Jewish family in Hungary, he began his first occupation, that of a thief of gold watches and jewelry, after they were ruined by a stock market crash.  As religion and politics are the natural refuges of scoundrels, Ignac went to England in the 1890s to begin conversion to Christianity with the Society for Promotion of Christianity Amongst the Jews.  He stole from them, of course, and high-tailed it back to Hungary and Germany where he met his future wife Margaret Kahlor.  Not surprisingly, Ignac abandoned her and their two sons at various times in various countries, even as far away as Java.

In case you might still give our ramblin' man some benefit of the doubt, consider what he wrote in a pamphlet during the Japanese occupation of China:  "They molest nobody...they are kind and helpful to the people..."

In China during WWII he conspired with German agents to install himself as leader of Tibet under the Reich after the untimely death of both the high lamas.  His life ended not as king of the Himalayas, but as a Buddhist monk named Chao Kung (he styled himself an Abbott) with only two followers.

Punch magazine had some fun with the unusual  Member of Parliament

 

 In between being a Christian and Buddhist, he joined the Theosophist religious movement, which is the source of today's New Age culture, believe it or not.  One might, maybe, question his sincerity in any of it.  But he probably enjoyed the wild ride.

De Gustibis

 

Sometimes we keep the same tastes most or all of our lives (like I can't stand celery and won't change that), sometimes they evolve as we mature, and many times they are dictated by current trends and we have to go along with the fads to get along.  Looking back on many of our choices (especially the 1970s fashion above), all we can say is What was I thinking?? 

Tastes in the arts are harder to explain.  I am attracted to paintings and drawings which suggest a story, or tell that story strikingly well (like the illustrations of N.C. Wyeth or Dorothea Lange's photographs).  Implied stories include the Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile, the question of what "The Thinker" was pondering so deeply, and one of my favorites, "Sun on Prospect Street" by Edward Hopper:

The quiet may be deceptive.  Something seems off.  What is it?

Abstract artist Rothko is probably more highly regarded in critical circles than Mr. Hopper, but what does one get out of this?

And some people's taste may be much more for the simple, literal and sentimental.   

General Motors long ago said they made a car for every type of customer and every budget.  The target audience for a 1960 Cadillac would have been... a wealthy Batman?

I could never have seen myself, way back, listening to Sinatra and sipping a rye whiskey Old Fashioned.  But there is always something new to discover and try out if you preserve an open mind.  At eleven years old, our cat Blackberry is as curious and flexible as ever; he sets a good example.  Actually, I have learned a lot from him (but probably will not develop a taste for bugs).

  

       

  

Trippin'

 

Like a lot of people, we haven't been too far from home in a while, and when I find out about someplace fascinating it exerts a pull (until the idea of going to an airport sinks in).  What I have in mind right now is the oldest district of the northern German city of Bremen:  the Schnoor.   It was a fishermen's village until the River Balge silted up and disappeared, and like Bruges in Belgium for a like reason, has been frozen in time.  In the late 1950s it was preserved and rebuilt and in 1981 they put the brakes on further commercial development.  And the streets are too narrow for vehicles!

You may remember that this city is famous for the Grimm fairy tale "The Town Musicians of Bremen," but I'll bet you didn't know that decaffeinated coffee was invented here.

Speaking of Bruges (more properly Brugge, its Flemish name), one place we remember there fondly is the very old De Garre pub, which is at the end of a long, hard to find alley off the square.  Above its entrance you will find no hint it is in there; in fact there was a small sign that said "Tacos" (??) when we visited.

The house beer is an amber Belgian Trippel, and is probably the best we have ever had (so, worth a flight to Europe).  But have some respect:  it is 11% ABV (alcohol) and if you have another one, you'll never find your hotel.  But you will be quite happy none the less.

Our Dutch guide, Arjan, without whom we would have never found De Garre.

A world away, another favorite of ours is the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square.  When we went out on the balcony/patio outside its Broadway Bar, there was only one other person  -- very different than when they broadcast "New Year's Rockin' Eve" from there.  It's the best view of the famous ball drop there is. 

So much for cities; let's go to where the sand and palm trees are.  Da Conch Shack is on the Blue Hills beach on Provodenciales island in Turks and Caicos.  It's an old fishing settlement, and seafood and rum are in plentiful supply.  With reggae music floating on the breeze, it's a wonderful spot in the bright sunlight or through the warm night.  We were excitedly told that Keith Richards was there the previous day.  They may say that to all the tourists, but with its funky pirate vibe, Da Shack looks very much like his kind of place.

Jay is Fay (The Broadway Gangster)

 

           Larry Fay               Live fast and die young

There was, very likely, a real-life model for Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby, 1925), forgotten today, whose life was as colorful as they come.  Larry Fay, like the fictional Jay, made his money the old fashioned way -- from bootlegging, bringing liquor in from Canada and from the rumrunner boats.  He sold it at his nightclubs in New York, the Casa Blanca and the El Fey, playing the part of the fashionable bon vivant dressed in custom Bond Street clothes.  Like Gatsby, he had a mansion on Long Island where he threw lavish parties.

And he had a Daisy of sorts, former showgirl Evelyn Crowell, who quickly became a mistress of Joseph P. Kennedy and then married another rich man after Fay's dramatic death.  He was shot four times by his club doorman, Edward Maloney, on New Year's Eve 1932, because he had reduced employee hours and pay.

Fay had hardly made a mistake before in the dangerous life he lived.  In the early twenties he made so much from a winning 100 to 1 odds bet at Belmont Race Track he bought a taxi fleet.  Then came his scheme to corner the New York milk market and fix prices, for which he was indicted but skated away free.  

Mary Louise "Texas" Guinan, former stage and film star, headlined at Fay's establishments -- so successfully that she took half the profits.  "The Queen of the Nightclubs" was the epitome of the Jazz Age,  still remembered for her catchphrase greeting, "Hello, suckers!"  Barred from bringing her road show to France because of her reputation, Texas opened a new one back home called "Too Hot for Paris."  The 300 Club, often raided, was all hers, but there was little time left to enjoy it as she died shortly after Fay, in 1933.  

Since Prohibition was over, maybe their time was up, too. 

  

 

Prime and Plus

 

How many times a day do they come at you through advertising (in any of its myriad forms)?  Unless you have the radio off driving through western Nebraska, it's endless.  One thing I've learned is that anyone proffering an unsolicited sales pitch does not have a good deal for you.  If you wanted and needed something, you would have already done your research and gotten it yourself.  

Take Amazon Prime "membership" or all the "+" streaming channels.  You can get free shipping without a whole lot of effort and don't need any Prime.  And Disney+ (and all the others): first, do you need any more content or entertainment?  There is always a lot that needs to be done, and you're not doing anything productive for yourself or your family by sucking in all those empty electronic calories.  The local library donation sale has all the Disney productions you might want, and they probably will be the older, really good stuff.  For a dollar or less.

We will never figure out why people fall so completely for the clever words and exhortations of others, be it a dictator or a marketer.  

Single-use small kitchen appliances, recreation vehicles which lose their value quickly and either must be maintained, insured and licensed or they will become yard clutter,  big houses, luxury cars, vacation homes...nothing you need, and the satisfaction felt after acquiring them is brief.  We used to think we needed a television in every room; it became clear they were really just ugly and space-wasting dust catchers.  We keep reducing the number of cable TV channels, but can't just get down to the half dozen we actually watch, which is undoable and may lead to the return of the cable box someday.

Unfortunately, novelty and quantity trump quality for the most part in an overheated global economy.  Two examples why quality is always the best route to go:  I have my father's WWII uniform jacket, made by Hart Schnaffner Marx (officers buy their own uniforms) -- it still looks great, actually new, after all these years.  I had several pairs of Florsheim shoes and they were near perfect many decades after they had gone out of style.

Less stuff is so much more.  This fellow knew what is needed and what is not --

  

"Let me tell you about the bear necessities..." 

That's Just Silly

 

It surprised me that the Beatles didn't lose their popularity when their work went in unusual new directions after "Rubber Soul."  "Yellow Submarine,""Sergeant Pepper's" and "Magical Mystery Tour" sounded more like musical theater than what we were familiar with from the lads.   We had heard of Gilbert and Sullivan, but thought that to be antique and quite dead.  But that tradition was long (operetta, minstrel shows, commedia del 'arte, all the way to the scatological Roman popular stage) and lived on in all the media forms of the 20th century -- vaudeville, radio, movies and television.

The appeal of irreverence, satire and skewering bureaucracy and especially officiousness increases in trying times.  The tragic events and head-turning rate of change of the last 110 years called for an antidote in the repartee of Burns and Allen, the fast paced exchanges of Abbott and Costello, the madcap hijinks of the Marx brothers, Monty Python, Benny Hill and Robin Williams.  

The Beatles would have known about a fellow Liverpool native and multitalented singer, Tommy Handley, whose show "It's That Man Again" held the record for the largest radio audience ever.  It ran on the BBC from 1939 to 1949.  Absurdity reigned at 8:30 on Thursday nights, helping in no small way to get Britons through terrible times.

                                            

A  crew of 70 characters presented a rapid fire, up-to-the-minute topical comedy sketch show -- doesn't that seem a lot like "Saturday Night Live"?  One of the most popular, Mrs. Mopp, with all the double-entendres, had to have been the model for the randy Mrs. Slocombe on the 1970s television riot "Are You Being Served?"  Her famous tag line "TTFN" spoken as she ended a scene, went on to become part of the language.  Television and  movie characters have since had to have one ("Dynomite!" "All right all right all right" "Bond.  James Bond" -- the list is endless).  

Wherever it's found, we can always use a little silliness.   

  

     

   

Old Gold

 

When I was a boy, one of my favorite things was to hang out with Grandfather in his large detached garage.  It was his man-cave for sure, full of gardening and canning equipment, a small tractor or two, a .22 and a small-gauge shotgun, a detailed rain and weather log, onions drying on a suspended rack, pesticides that are banned today, and that corner stuffed with oil and gas cans with the smell of getting things done.  I once looked around and said, "You know, I really like old things."  With a big grin he replied, "Well, you must like the hell out of me, then!" 

It all went after he passed, but I did save the Maryland Graham Wafers tin from the kitchen because it was always there, reminded me of them (I always wondered when did they get it?) and had the appeal of great midcentury commercial design.  Today it is still in plain view and has a use again, holding the birdseed.  Someone might also save it one day, but what about all the knotted, crocheted and embroidered fabric items Grandmother made that we have had on tables for decades?  Without a story, and some little acquaintance with the person who created them, meaning is lost and they may be, too.

I admire antiques, but fortunately don't have the room for them.  What I really am drawn to, and have quite enough of, are old pieces of little value that ordinary people bought and used.  They have all been refinished (I guess all they had back then was varnish, but that is so ugly) and serve as well as they ever did.

Having two cassette decks with bad belts and many audio cassettes I didn't want to get rid of, I recently went to Just Audio in Middle River, Maryland where they not only repair old equipment but have a showroom full of that sort of thing, all restored.  Talk about a kid in a candy shop.  I traded in my two and when I saw a Kenwood deck from about 1985, I knew I'd made a new friend.  It now sits atop a receiver from 1986 and they look like twins.  The point of this seemingly unrelated story is that audio gear from the 1970s to mid-80s, the vintage stuff, is what I (more than) like.  I could have gotten a new machine for only a little more, but that's not for someone who "likes old things."

And just sometimes, the old comes back even better:

Play It Again

 

The previous post on the end of the Gaucho era leads to today's on the infamous Pincheira Brothers gang of the early 19th century; not just another tale of bad actors and rascals, it has a bigger point.

Royalists fighting against the independence movement in Chile, the brothers lost and took up a new career as bandidos, much like ex-Confederates did in the U.S. after heading west after 1865.  Mostly mestizos themselves, they allied with Native tribes such as the Boroanos to ravage Chile and Argentina, rustling and robbing.  The Natives were being hard pressed by General Juan Manuel Rosas conducting a war of extinction against them (at least 6,000 were killed).   As in our American West, the motive was to take their land for stock ranching and grain farming.  As usually happens, in these two arenas or even after the Norman conquest, a few thousand favored ones were given the land (and were very lightly taxed, as users of Federal grazing land in the West are charged little).  The gang (over 1,000 strong -- a considerable force) stole away to a hidden cave at the Andean foothills their pursuers could not find.  Just like Pennsylvania's Robber Lewis in a previous post.

               La Cueva de los Pincheira

This phenomenon of mass crime and disorder occurs again and again throughout history after wars as soldiers and sailors are discharged en masse, usually penniless and homeless.  The rise in piracy after a succession of European wars of empires is another clear example.

Another parallel:  Rosas held close to absolute power for 23 years (until 1852), not hesitating, along with his loyal wife Dona Encarnacion, to send out his thugs to intimidate and murder anyone expressing even a hint of opposition.  How they resemble the Perons a century later.  He was vengeful, cruel and popular, pursuing an aggressive and botched foreign and economic policy.  If that doesn't remind you of some of our own fearless leaders since 1980, this stands out: red was his theme color, and everyone fell in line wearing it on hats and clothing, waving banners as he passed by.

Below is a picture of Facundo Quiroga, the "Jaguar of the Plains," a powerful provincial Argentine warlord who was Rosas' ally until they fell out and Rosas had him assassinated.  He reminds one of rogue Republican state governors who defy Federal government today (he summarily rejected an earlier new national Constitution), and his fate is shared (minus the bloody end) by officials and hangers-on who  dare to deviate from total and unquestioning loyalty.   Not to their country or the idea of justice or democracy, but to a demagogue. 

 Human history, unfortunately, is like the same side of a recording being played over and over again.  

"They Don't Do That Anymore"

 

Ricardo Guiraldes, scion of a notable Argentine ranching family, saw the end of the gaucho way of life coming forty years ahead.  His novel Don Segundo Sombra (1926) idealized the cowboy era much like Zane Grey did for the North American West; an elegy for tradition passing away.  The story is based on real-life neighbor Segundo Ramirez.

Guiraldes wrote in the estate house, La Portena, of the 1500 acre estancia in the heart of cattle country near Areca until his death at age 42, and was affectionately known as the "voice of the gaucho."  

The gauchos wandered from job to job all over Argentina, supporting themselves in between on wild cattle and ostriches.  Their distinctive accoutrement of beret or Andalusian sombrero, baggy pants, large knife, poncho and scarf reminds me of the Cossacks, another hard-living brotherhood whose glory days are gone.   

 The urban and land owning elite of Argentina grew tired of the gauchos' drifting, drinking and lawlessness, working over decades to rein them in.  Like the wild and free clan life of the Scots highlanders,   it was soon after popularized and romanticized when the threat was removed.  The moment the gauchos must have known it was over came in the late 1960s with the last traditional cattle drive.  Five ranch hands drove around 400 cattle from San Antonio de Areco to the stockyards outside of Buenos Aires in three days.   Said one, "They don't do that anymore.  Now they put the cattle in big trucks."

Segundo Ramirez himself

     

The Point Is...

 

People have always rewritten or spun history to suit their point of view, the discoverable facts taking a back seat.   Engaging, made-up stories live on forever -- Nero certainly didn't fiddle during the Great Fire of Rome and likely didn't set it, as the popular tale goes.  There was a great worldwide flood and sea level rise as the Ice Age ended, but the story of Noah doesn't really explain that very well. I have several late 19th century U.S. history books; the common theme is we're heroes and everyone else inconviently got in the way.  It took getting  to Guns, Germs and Steel to see why and how things happened.

I think most of it can be interpreted, beyond events triggered by fear and hate, by considering two related factors:  control of trade and resources, and the millennia-old quest for free or very cheap labor.  Julius Caesar enslaved about a million Gauls, Middle Easterners  raided Africa constantly for the same reason, children worked in deadly factories and coal mines, and we in the New World had that Atlantic trade in humans running for centuries.

You won't find it in the Iliad or most accounts, but the Trojan War was about control of the lucrative trade between the Aegean and the Black Seas.  The Romans were motivated to eliminate those great traders, the Phoenicians, from the Mediterranean and the silver mines of Spain and despite passionate Senatorial speeches obscuring this goal, that was the reason for the three Punic Wars.  Commerce was everything to the Carthaginians and they were willing to fight for it until their utter destruction. 

 We learn in school that the War of 1812 was ignited by the kidnapping of Americans to serve in the British Navy; that was an important, but not the only, part of the war's close relationship to the Napoleonic conflicts.  More importantly, for Great Britain's blockade of European trade to work, they had to stop American commerce from crossing the Atlantic to France.  Resources were in contention also, as Britain also wanted control over the Great Lakes to be under Canada.  

After Napoleon abdicated in April 1814,  four invasion forces were freed up to put an end to a war that did not need to be pursued any longer.  All failed to achieve their main goals, (as at Ft. McHenry and New Orleans) while support for continuation faded rapidly among governments and the mercantile class.  As for the territory issue, the Empire was not going to keep American expansion out of the Lakes anyway.

World trade pursued peacefully and in good faith has had much better results historically than going to war to seize power over wealth.  But I wonder what the eventual outcome will be from Nixon's (really big business') opening up of China.  

     

We Aren't Going to Make This Easy, Part II - or - More in the Ongoing Struggle With Bad Design

 

If you are looking for the serial number on the underside of a MacBook Pro, good luck.  The type is very light gray, and the size of an ant's foot.  This info can be called up on the screen, but if you're out of battery this would be the (useless) backup.  However, the box it came in is quite nice, so they got that right.

 There are hundreds of words, symbols and numbers on the back panel of our garage door opener, but the only thing you really need to know is where the "Learn" button is -- you will use it many times when the machine loses its programming from a power loss or several other mysterious reasons.  It is not labelled -- why not?

I rented a Chevrolet Cruze once, not by choice, but it was what they had available at an airport.  Instead of words, every control had only cryptic symbols.  I never did find the lights switch.  Car reviewers have said that even tech-savvy BMW drivers couldn't figure out their early touch screen controls.  Our Bush-era car has very few things anyone can't figure out intuitively.  You can even turn on the heat or cooling without taking your eyes off the road to scroll through menus.

  We had to accept a new "smart" thermostat along with the replacement heat pump.  The lettering is tiny with very low contrast (unlike the much better example above) and of course it has layers of useless functions which, if used, could ball up the system so badly you won't even be able to get the air conditioning going.  All those nighttime and vacation settings don't really do much of anything you couldn't just as easily acccomplish by turning the temperature setting up or down.  With a physical dial, as Nature intended.  

In a lot of homes, the clothes washer and dryer are crammed together in an opening that doesn't allow the dryer to be slid out for cleaning lint from the duct pipe, which must be done.  I used to have to disconnect the washer after removing the louvered doors, wrestle it out and then pull the dryer out part way (there wasn't room for more than that) and go to work, mostly upside down.   An added six inches or so more of opening width on either side would make this task so much more doable. 

That was the only one of these design messes I could fix.  The appliances went down to the basement, which is a better place for all that noise, too.  Makers of cars, thermostats, garage door openers and MacBooks, the rest is up to you.