Race and the Past

William Faulkner once observed that the past isn't dead - it isn't even past.

Not that there aren't people who try to bury it.

Today's New York Times has an article about the race riot 90 years ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma. When I was growing up in Tulsa, I never heard about the riot. It was typical of riots by whites against blacks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this case, spurred by untrue rumors of a black on white sexual assault, armed white citizens attacked the prosperous black area of town known as Greenwood, killed perhaps 300 residents and burned the area to the ground.

My grandparents, who lived in Tulsa at the time, never told me about it. After they died, I found an old photograph of a distant Tulsa neighborhood engulfed in flames.

No wonder my grandparents never told me. My maternal grandfather was a member of the Klan. Both he and my paternal grandfather were among the armed rioters on that day.

It wasn't a glorious day in my family's history.

Or that of my home town.

Singing from the Wrong Sheet of Music

Last Saturday, we attended a baccalaureate ceremony for our graduating grandson.

There was lovely music, sung by the college choir. Early in the ceremony, the choir sang a spirited rendition of "America the Beautiful."

Unlike the unsingable drinking song with Francis Scott Key's lyrics that we chose as our national anthem in 1931 under President Hoover, "America the Beautiful" isn't bombastic.

I wonder how much of our national readiness to go off firing rockets comes from "bombs bursting in air" and prideful assertions that we are "the land of the free" and the "home of the brave."

Maybe if we had a less bombastic anthem, we could pay more attention to the arts of agriculture and industry, the challenges of diplomacy and the creation and celebration of beauty and a bounteous plenty. Who knows what heights such an anthem might inspire us to achieve.

"America the Beautiful" is just such an anthem.

Delicious Seed Corn

The Governor vetoed the NC legislature's budget which reduced our education spending to the level of Mississippi.

All over a penny sales tax.

Are the citizens of NC so cheap we would withhold a penny from our schools? I don't think so.

But all of the Republican members of the general assembly and five Democrats made it clear they don't give a fig for our children. Or our college students. Or the economic future of the state.

I know something about Mississippi. I started school there in 1943. I graduated from Ole Miss in 1958.

If you really want to, it isn't hard to win a race to the bottom.

We don't want to go there.

But as I warned before, we are eating our seed corn. I hope we enjoy it.

Libya

I see our military actions in Libya are drawing fire.

I am agnostic about the wisdom of what NATO is doing there. But I believe the president's actions are legal.

Have we forgotten "the shores of Tripoli" in the Marine Corps Hymn? That refers to a war we waged against the so-called Barbary Pirates from 1801 to 1805 under President Thomas Jefferson. We didn't declare war.

Throughout our history, the Navy and Marine Corps fought in foreign conflicts, including our "Quasi War" with France under President Adams, without a declaration of war. Our founders were quite suspicious of a standing army, but harbored no similar prejudices against the Navy and its associated Marines. The Constitution, for example, prohibits appropriations for the army longer than two years, but has no similar limitation for naval appropriations.

This historical and legal foundation became muddled by the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947.

Why we felt the need for DOD is a mystery. We had just triumphed in the greatest military conflict in history, with our original structure of a Department of the Navy and a War Department (the army). Unification was a solution in search of a problem.

There's nothing we are doing in Libya right now that can't be handled by what we used to call the "Navy/Marine Corps Team."

Keep the army in their garrisons until we need them and then call up the militia and declare war. It worked well for a long time. And put the Air Force back in the Army, where it belongs.

Rambling

Cambridge MA, Tuesday, June 14, 2011

I understand from a recently published list of media that cover Pamlico County that mine is a "rambling blog."

I prefer the term "eclectic."

I don't object to "rambling." I certainly never promised to limit my thoughts to certain subjects or to Oriental and Pamlico County.

I hope my readers don't mind.

This week, we're rambling in Massachusetts.

Afghanistan, Bananastan

I was glad to see in Pamlico Today that Congressman Walter B. Jones, Jr. has come out publicly for a withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Senator Aiken of Vermont once observed during the Vietnam War that the US could well declare victory and bring the troops home, leaving the conflict to be resolved politically.

Not a bad idea for Afghanistan today. We need to get over the illusion that we can remake the world by force of arms. We may have better success by using the force of ideas. Or example.

New England

We got out of New Hampshire just in time to miss the debate.

Still cold here in the Boston area. Visited Winchester, MA today, where I lived while studying international relations, including courses in international economics. Lovely place. While it's a bit chilly today, it becomes really chilly in midwinter.

The house we lived in still looks over the street as it always did.

Much has changed, but much is the same.

Graduation Day

Hanover, NH Sunday, June 12, 2011. The Dartmouth class of 2011 graduated this morning. It was cold and rainy, but both funny and exciting.

The commencement address was delivered by Conan O'Brian.

There were two valedictorians - both were young women. Forty years ago, no women were admitted. Now, about half the student body are women. And most of the honors graduates.

The same number of graduates were named Wang as were named Smith.

It was a diverse student body. Many of color, including Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Oriental Americans, South Asians and Africans. They are America's new elite.

Today we saw the future in Hanover, NH. And the future is good.