Governor McDonnell's Rebel Yell

Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell is being said to have "stumbled" badly with his decision to announce that April would be "Confederate History Month" in Virginia. McDonnell's office issued a proclamation to that effect, one that, unbelievably, managed to omit any mention whatsoever of slavery. The governor then, when confronted with an entirely predictable uproar, tried to rationalize the omission by explaining that "There were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia." He then dug himself in deeper by mentioning tourism as being a significant factor in his calculations.

I am wrestling with this a bit as I try to decide how to approach it. First of all, I am not at all convinced that McDonnell was in any way surprised by the reaction to his proclamation. The governor, or at least someone in his office, had to know that there would be a ferocious backlash almost immediately. That they chose to go ahead, regardless of the consequences, leads me to almost believe that they welcomed the controversy. It is not exactly a secret that McDonnell is being outflanked on his right by Virginia's attorney general Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II. So, what better way to shore up your conservative bona fides then by invoking the glorious "Lost Cause"? It really is quite ingenious. First you issue a proclamation that is sure to provoke a strong reaction from just about everybody. Then, weather the storm for a day or two before making the obligatory apology, followed up by calls to various civil-rights leaders.

My decision to use images of both the Confederate Battle Flag, and the battle flag of the Third Reich, is obviously designed to provoke an emotional response. Southerners will undoubtedly cry foul, and condemn any association with a government as odious as Hitler's. The point that I'm trying to get across is simply that both flags stand for things that are basically repulsive to a good many people. During the Civil Rights Era, the rebel flag was used by opponents of desegregation as a symbol of defiance, and it is impossible to ignore that history. My thinking is that both flags should be consigned to museums where they can be used for educational purposes. They should not be flying over government buildings in either the United States or Germany. Yes, they are a part of history, but it is not a history that anyone should be celebrating.

Sons of Anarchy

I just finished reading a rather astonishing call-to-arms from a blogger who is fond of historical allusions, yet is either oblivious or dismissive of the more recent history of mobs breaking glass. The blogger, Mike Vanderboegh of Pinson, Alabama, calls upon the "modern Sons of Liberty" to "Break their windows. Break them now". What he is doing is inciting individuals to go to the homes and offices of members of Congress, specifically those who voted for what he labels as "Nancy Pelosi's Intolerable Act" (Health Care Reform), and then break the windows of the buildings. Now the first thing that comes to mind is whether or not Mr. Vanderboegh himself intends to cast the first stone in defense of liberty. My guess would be probably not, but you never know.

Exactly where were all of these "modern Sons of Liberty", or Three Percenters, over the eight long years of George W Bush's Reign? They didn't find anything "intolerable" about any of his acts? Vanderboegh invokes the sacking and burning of Massachusetts Lt. Governor Thomas Hutchinson's home in August of 1765 by the original Sons of Liberty, presumably to lend some heroic luster to what amounts to acts of vandalism. Nice try Mike, but chucking a brick through Nancy Pelosi's window and then running off like a common thief is not going to transform you into Sam Adams. Of course you could always use an empty Sam Adams as your projectile, but then you'd have to forfeit the 5 cent bottle deposit. Whoever said "Freedom isn't Free" must have anticipated your splendid rebellion.

My suspicion is that a couple of centuries, and much mythologizing, have combined to scrub away the sins of those original Sons of Liberty. Thomas Hutchinson, whatever his failings as a man and as a governor, was a learned man who had been working for years on a history of the Bay Colony. He home contained a valuable library and things of beauty, not to mention his family. A family that was forced to flee for their lives as a drunken mob attacked their home and proceeded to pillage and burn it down. The first thing they went for was the wine cellar. After it was over, the manuscript for his book lay trampled in the mud. To me, the sacking of Thomas Hutchinson's home was an act of barbarism.

Patriot leaders, like the aforementioned Sam Adams, sought to harness the power of the mob to incite a revolution. But the last thing they wanted to see happen was a social revolution, one that might threaten the sanctity of property and their own privileged positions. As a result, most were horrified by the spectacle of mobs of rabble putting elegant homes to the torch. It was all to easy to imagine their own homes meeting the same fate. Instead, they wanted a revolution that would leave the existing social structure intact. A conservative revolution, if you will. And that is exactly what they achieved.

Urban Cowboys

I've been working through all of my accumulated hours of videotape these past weeks. This video is a highlight reel of Andrew's baseball season from the Spring of 2005. I was working at Hill Holliday New York at the time, and one of my coworkers put this terrific video together. I have since taught myself how to make movies, but my efforts never seem to quite measure up to the always excellent results that Annie achieved.

The location of the baseball field is Murphy Brothers Park, on the East Side of Manhattan, nestled alongside the FDR Drive at 18th Street and Avenue C. The brick buildings behind the field are Stuyvesant Town, and you can also see the ConEd Plant looming behind the fences. It may not look like a Norman Rockwell painting, but it is baseball just the same.

Wise Guys

Earlier today a viewer made a rather unexpected comment regarding one of my youtube videos. The video in question is titled "PS 40 5th Grade Play", and is exactly what the name implies. I taped the entire play, trimmed it down to about 7 minutes, and then uploaded it to my youtube channel. Anyway, the viewer's comment was "This was the school that mob boss Lucky Luciano attended". And, lo and behold, it appears that he is correct.

Did anyone know that NYC has a museum dedicated to organized crime? I made that discovery while attempting to verify my viewer's claim. The grandly named Museum of the American Gangster is housed in a former speakeasy, and is located at 80 St. Marks Place in Manhattan. If you follow this link to their web page about Mr. Luciano, then you will see that he did indeed attend the same school as my son Andrew. It would seem that the famous Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky attended PS 40 as well, and the school is where the two boys began a life-long friendship.

I recall reading something several years back about efforts to build an organized crime museum out in Las Vegas. And I remember thinking that a museum like that belongs in New York City. Nearly all of the iconic mob figures hailed from NYC, including Chicago's Al Capone, who was born in Brooklyn. I'm not certain what happened with the Vegas project, but I am very much looking forward to paying my first visit to that former speakeasy.

Andrew is quite impressed that such a infamous character attended the same school that he just graduated from this past year. Andrew has heard of Al Capone, but not Charles "Lucky" Luciano. I told him that Luciano helped us with the invasion of Sicily in WWII by establishing contact with his counterparts in Italy, and urging them not to cooperate with the Germans and Italians defending the Island. Whatever he did was deemed valuable enough to spring him from prison, but he was deported to Italy immediately. Meyer Lansky is an equally fascinating character. I think that he was the inspiration for the Jewish mob boss in The Godfather movies.

Andrew took on the role of President Kennedy in the play and delivered a condensed version of his inaugural address. He enjoyed playing the president, but I suspect that if we had known this sooner, Andrew would have made a pitch for including the school's most notorious alumni in the play. He already had the dark suit; all that was missing was the fedora and violin case.

The Bronx Is Up and The Battery's Down

Through trial and error, I have been steadily teaching myself the intricacies of transferring video footage from analog to digital. Providing one has the correct hardware and software, the process is not that difficult. The problem is knowing what to buy and making sure it is compatible with my operating system. Connecting a VCR machine to a computer struck me as alchemy at first - it seemed impossible that it would actually work. But, the video embedded below stands as happy testimony to my success.

My obsession with all things NYC-related remains undiminished. This video sat for years in an analog format collecting dust, until I decided to bring it into the light of day via the magic of youtube. The footage provides a window that affords us a rare glimpse of the city as it appeared more then a half-century ago. And, even more remarkable, it is in full-color. We can be thankful that the producers of this film had the foresight to capture that world before it disappeared forever.

Embedded below is "The Vanishing El"...

Funny Money

A North Carolina Congressman has introduced legislation to replace Grant's likeness, with that of Ronald Reagan, on the $50 bill. I must confess that I was indifferent to this idea initially, but that changed when I read this op/ed piece by historian Sean Wilentz, posted on the NYT's web site. Wilentz does a terrific job of setting the record straight as concerns the much-maligned reputation of Ulysses S Grant. And, in the process, he exposes this proposal as both a travesty and an injustice.

Let them name another ship, freeway, or airport after Reagan, if they must. But, leave him off our currency please. Doesn't anyone see the irony of putting this man's face on a bank note? He ran up record deficits throughout his two terms in the White House. The Right's repeated efforts to deify Ronald Reagan grow ever more tiresome. These characters just can't get over the fact that FDR was the greatest American president of the 20th century, and nothing they do can change that. Roosevelt liberated Western Europe from the Nazis, while simultaneously crushing the Japanese Empire. And Reagan? Well, Reagan did dispatch a fleet to tiny Grenada to chase away some Cuban construction workers, and at the same time, gave Clint Eastwood a neat idea for a movie.

ICE, ICE, BABY

It seems inexplicable to me that this country is unable to build even a modest version of a true high-speed rail service, one that measures up to the ones found in a half-dozen other countries. The closest thing we have is the Amtrak Acela service between Boston and Washington, DC, and that would be considered a regional express service, at best, if compared to what exists elsewhere in the world. In order to have true high-speed trains, you need dedicated right-of-ways, free of slower moving trains, like the freight trains that share the rails with Amtrak.

The author of the opinion piece that I link to above has the right idea. If you only going to allocate 8 billion dollars to promote high-speed trains (a pittance if ever there was one), then your best bet is to spend it all on upgrading the one rail corridor we have that approaches world-class standards. Instead the money is being dispersed among 31 states, only two of which have so far come up with concrete proposals. The Amtrak Northeast Corridor is not even included in the dispersal of funds.

As you view the slideshow that I set up to the right of this post, question why it is that we lag so far behind the rest of the world when it comes to high-speed rail service. And particularly think about it the next time you are forced to take a plane to travel less then 500 miles, a trip that typically involves more time getting to and from the airports, then actual time spent in the air. There is a better way, and all that is lacking is the national will to make it happen.