America, The Imperfect (Part Two)

"This exclusion of "all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien," from the Pacific Coast area on a plea of military necessity in the absence of martial law ought not to be approved. Such exclusion goes over "the very brink of constitutional power," and falls into the ugly abyss of racism."

Justice Frank Murphy, dissenting,  Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944)

Turning onto County Road 24.5 from Highway 50 in the remote Southeastern Colorado town of Granada, one enters the information area of the Amache National Historic Site. It was formerly called, by the US Government that created and built it, the Granada War Relocation Center. Its residents called it Camp Amache.

There are informational plaques and displays, and a short walking tour. For the dogs, a chance to stretch their legs and have some water. For us, an on-the-ground introduction to the business end of what fear, the force of law (with the threat of actual force) tinged with inescapable overtones of racism once led our country to think - erroneously, and not just in hindsight - was necessary, and just.

The audio guide for the driving exploration, available for free download, is chilling in that former detainees - prisoners - tell the stories of their lives at the camp. Listening to the voices, slowly maneuvering along the dirt paths among the dozens of foundations now overgrown with gnarled trees, eastern plains scrub... Here, rows of living quarters once stood, of five families to each flimsy building. There, the high school; its construction caused howls of outrage at how the pampered detainees were being coddled. A store.

A cemetery. Over a hundred people passed away while the camp existed.

We pass a guard tower, the only one left of the five that once stood around the camp's perimeter. They are small, cramped, appearing flimsy and treacherous even when new. Fencing follows the path of the barbed wire that once hemmed the residents in. Our downloaded guide tells the story of children at play breaching the fencing, rounded up by soldiers and herded back into the compound.

At each stop, another tale. How the residents tried to make the best of their circumstances, maintain something of a normal life. How they contributed to the war effort - war bond and recruiting posters conceived and printed in the workshops; food grown in difficult conditions not just feeding the camp but the surrounding community; of men who volunteered to serve a country that imprisoned them, some making the ultimate sacrifice. One of these men was awarded a Medal of Honor.

"There are no great men," Admiral William Halsey is famous for saying. "There are only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet." Ordinary men, and women, faced with the challenges of  global aggression and barbarism, met them in a largely successful way. Standing at what was the front gate of Camp Amache on a beautiful June day in 2023 it is hard to be judgmental, but easy to draw a lesson.

So much of what we call the United States is built on trust. We trust our elected officials to follow the rules to which we as citizens have given our consent. We trust that our institutions will accomplish their tasks within the law (and be competent doing them). We trust that our media will report facts as fact, opinions as opinion, and be honest in their assessments. We trust the process that preserves the right of every American to vote, so that our collective wishes are honored whenever we head to the polls.

No human endeavor is perfect. Some elected officials are corrupt, both personally and in how they conduct their governmental affairs. There are institutions that bend to the will of the powerful, in service of the few. It is often difficult to distinguish fact from fiction (let alone from opinion) when major news organizations decide to sway the public in the direction chosen by our "betters."

Human imperfections seem especially evident when facing something announced as an existential threat. Americans in late 1941 and early 1942 believed - in some cases due more to fiction than fact - that the invasion of the West Coast was imminent. In February 1942 a Japanese submarine surfaced off of the coast near Santa Barbara, CA and lobbed between 15-25 poorly-aimed shells at an oil tank farm. They mostly missed their intended targets (the employees there called the cops on them). The reaction of America's "thought leaders?" Apoplexy.

Fiction also played a role in framing American's point of view in those years. The popular 1943 film Air Force followed the fictitious crew of a fictitious B-17 bomber as it lands in Hawaii during the attack on December 7, 1941. After the crew is told of several instances of Japanese residents conducting "fifth column" (clandestine and subversive) acts of sabotage and taking American forces under small arms fire, the aircraft is ordered to Wake Island to preserve it from attack.

None of that happened. There were no instances of "fifth column" activities. None.

We looked at the vista, of the physical remnants of Americans imprisoning other Americans not because of individual unlawful acts, but because of what can only be described as racism. Americans in 1942 were wrong to do this - to build this place, to force their fellow citizens from their homes and fence them in. Everything that was supposed to prevent such a shameful decision failed - betrayed the trust of not just our country, but the trust of the people who were compelled to submit to this outrage.

Mark Twain is purported to have said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." We should remember that every time a pundit, a politician or a supposed leader utters the words existential threat and proposes something shameful. Our country has succumbed to temptation too many times.  The place we visited, or one like it, Americans should experience for themselves, and remember, the next time we are invited to take unreasonable counsel of our fears and prejudices.

SMH

 "I can’t understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars."

Fred Allen

In the middle of yet another doctor's visit, it came up (I swear not my intention); how was I enjoying retirement? In a room with three young women - an MD, a physician's assistant and the...help me out, here. She is the chart slinger, the one who asks how life has been treating you since the last visit. Technician?

How else would I answer? I love being retired. Love it. It's eighty degrees, not a cloud in the sky. I'm sitting in my summer writing office - my back porch - with my beloved Havanese at my feet and thinking I might do some day drinking. I've gotten in a bike ride, twice visited the kids down the street at their lemonade stand (get the chocolate chip cookies).

How do I keep busy, they ask. Well, I write. Books. About cops. Who are women. Yes, under my own name. Yes, they are on Amazon. A book title? The Fort in the Harbor is newest. One of them actually writes it down.

I used to carry cards, but they were so quickly out of date and it seemed, I dunno, presumptuous. As I've said before, I suck at marketing. I'm a horrible self-promoter. That's okay. As Dirty Harry said, a man has got to know his limitations. But, these folks seemed sincere and if one of them buys a book, I'm ahead.

Curious, I sign onto the Kindle Direct Publishing dashboard that tells me how I'm doing. Usually, it's not bad - a few books purchased, some pages read. It'll tell me if one of these medical folks actually followed through. And... What the hell?

My next check from Amazon will be in the hundreds of dollars. In the hundreds?! Someone, or a collection of someones, has read nearly ten thousand pages of my novels in the last 30 days on Kindle Unlimited. And, I've sold... No way.

In fact, way.

My dear wife found something on line, a marketing company that, for a reasonable fee, puts something on their web site for a day or so. I did it, just for the hell of it - reserved a day in late May. And, holy cow!

Not only that. Posting my blog in my bio led to ten thousand hits this month. Crazy!

And, it seems that one of the folks yesterday bought the Kindle version of Fort.

So, thanks! I hope you like the books, find them interesting, entertaining, informative. Leave a comment on Amazon if you've enjoyed the reading experience.

And, if you couldn't dig it? That, you can keep to yourself.

America, The Imperfect (Part One)

 

As if through a glass, and darkly
The age-old strife I see —
Where I fought in many guises, many names —
but always me.

George S. Patton

Riding the Bikecentennial Trail on a ten speed during the summer of 1976, I left my overnight camp in Eads, Colorado and headed east into the freshening breeze (that would soon be a steady 15 mile an hour prairie wind). Several miles out of town I happened past the abandoned shell of the tumbled-down remains of a building with "Chivington School" written on its face. I stopped, to drink some water and have a handful of trail mix, and take the above picture.

That night, in my tent somewhere near the Kansas-Colorado border, I read about Chivington in the tiny guidebook issued by the Missoula company that had pioneered the route. It was not a happy story.

In 1864, fresh from an heroic [ed. note - some contemporaneous accounts suggest incompetent and overblown] performance in the 1862 Civil War Battle of Glorieta Pass near Sante Fe, New Mexico, Major John Chivington led 700 members of the Third Colorado Calvary in an attack on tribes of Cheyenne and Arapaho camped along Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado Territory. Described variously as a Union Army or, a territorial militia, they perpetrated an early morning raid that the guidebook suggested was an "alleged" response to the theft of a number of head of cattle. The tribes had gained the permission of the US federal government to be exactly where they were - "It was reported" my little guidebook said, genteelly, "that an American Flag and a white truce flag flew in the camp."

Upwards of a hundred and fifty - mostly women and children - were murdered by Chivington and his men. The text daintily mentions the nine Colorado soldiers killed [one immediately assumes by friendly fire] and then enters into a discussion about slaughtered buffalo herds.

Fast forward to early summer, 2023. We are set up in the Hasty Campground of the John Martin State Park near Lamar. Intent on revisiting one of the memorable and haunting moments of my cycling journey we travel not just to the exceptionally defunct town of Chivington (est. 1887) but journey over miles of dirt roads to the battlefield itself. It is an emotional experience that is hard to describe.

An American flag flies over the "Visitor Center" at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site which is, more precisely, a prefab building that was probably transported there on a truck. The banner is oddly configured - there are not fifty stars yet here it is at an official US facility. A nearby plaque explains. It represents the flag that leaders of the tribes camping peacefully by Sand Creek were instructed to fly - that they were in fact flying the day of the assault - to signify that they were there with permission of the federal government. They were, in fact, involved in negotiations to reach a long-term agreement. There's more.

Two officers commanding companies of the 1st Colorado - Captain Silas Soule (son of Maine abolitionists) and Lieutenant Joseph Cramer, a New Yorker - refused to fight and ordered their men not to fire on the inhabitants. Both wrote letters that, astonishingly, resurfaced only in the year 2000 detailing the attack, the presence of white traders who were also fired upon and of atrocities perpetrated on the living and the dead by Colorado soldiers. 

Captain Soule's letter is particularly disturbing, as he spares no one's sensitivities in reporting about women and children, on their knees pleading for their lives, hacked to death in the frenzy of indiscriminate killing. Captain Soule had accompanied Major Edward Wynkoop and was personally aware of the peace talks, and assurances of safety that had been extended by the US government. He later testified against Chivington, and was himself murdered on a street in Denver by assailants who were never brought to justice.

What is to be made of this? Aside from the obvious indignities - it took into the 21st Century for the facts of this horror to be accessible and acknowledged, for example - it is left to the individual to ponder what their heart says. All I know is that a visit to the battlefield did not settle the unease I have felt since taking the picture in July, 1976 during the celebration of America's Bicentennial, and Colorado's Centennial. Indeed, it only guaranteed further study, and a longer exploration of the battlefield itself.

As for the small collection of abandoned buildings called Chivington... It should keep it's name.

The decaying buildings (the two story school house is but a few rows of bricks on a crumbling foundation) should be allowed their ultimate ends. This forgotten place stands as a reminder that America is a great country, Colorado a magnificent place to live, to work and to raise a family, and they are greater still when all of our history is available to be understood, lest it be repeated.

One Job

 

“Congratulations to our hometown heroes, the Vegas Golden Knights, on conquering the Championship.”

Allegiant Airlines Facebook post, June 13, 2023.

 

Can’t you see it. The young marketing department person, feet precariously on the first rung of the company advancement ladder, in charge of non-critical Facebook posts (“Wanna get away?” Oops, wrong airline) gets a late evening text message:

Hey, the Golden…whatevers just won their match and they are carrying around a trophy. Put something out, huh?”

Roger that, boss. And, so they do.

I have fond memories of Allegiant, from a very very AM 2003 charter flight (Apple Vacations) from Denver to Cancun. It was an aged DC-9, probably wearing the livery of its third or fourth owner. It boarded at 4:15 AM – we’d really not slept in the limo that picked us up at 2:30. The captain was standing in the cockpit doorway greeting us:

Me: I hope you’re more awake than I am, Captain.

Him: Not especially. But, the plane knows the way.

It was a pleasant flight, a nice breakfast served. This was “Back in the day” when immigration forms were passed out and the flight crew helpfully conducted a tutorial on how to fill in the blanks. Like Mexican Customs did anything but stamp them a hundred and twenty-seven times. Nevertheless…

The lead flight attendant was affable enough, tall and stout, wearing a pastel green Boston cabbie-style scally. He had a thick Eastern European accent, which didn’t much hinder the easy stuff. When it came time to fill in the state of our destination, he said, “Quintana Roo.”

Fully three quarters of the passengers looked at someone else and half-whispered, “Huh?” If you’ve ever given directions to a group, or taught class and said something indecipherable, you know the looks and how they jump out at you. So, he said it again. And, again.

And then he shouted it into the microphone, totally over modulated and now completely unintelligible. Red-faced, tight-jawed… Finally, he spelled it out.

“Oh,” we all said in instant recognition. Two hours later I was having my second margarita on the beach, beside my lovely wife, at a wonderful resort alongside the Caribbean in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico.

This person last night was given one job. It should have been fairly simple. The Vegas Golden Knights, playing excellent hockey in front of a goaltender pulling crucial saves out of…thin air…crushed an exceptional opponent on the way to:

Winning The Cup.

If Allegiant is hiring social media part-timers during hockey season, I’m ready to go. I’ve written about this particular sport (Denver Post, June 2001, A Place Where Dreams Come True). All I ask is the occasional flight to Quintana Roo.

Not Your Average Opinion

 "This case is about dog toys and whiskey, two items seldom appearing in the same sentence."

Justice Kagan writing for a unanimous Court. Jack Daniel's Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products, LLC., 599 U. S. ____ (2023).

Maybe not at her house.

But I'm here not to criticize her writing, or her. I'm not, to put an especially fine point on this, here even to praise her or the Court. I am here to rejoice that in this era of fractious media, of personal attacks masquerading as argument... Of a time when "activists" appear to protest in front of the homes of Supreme Court Justices (illegal), when confidential Court business is leaked to the media in order to mobilize opposition among partisans (probably illegal) and fully all of the members have received death threats (wildly illegal) - that there remains in this land someone willing to display a public sense of humor.

First, and most obvious in this opinion, is the unusual use of - wait for it - pictures displayed in the main body (as opposed to an appendix). Justice Kagan supplies a picture of a Jack Daniel's bottle after having made the following comment:

A bottle of Jack Daniel’s—no, Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7
Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey—boasts a fair number of
trademarks. Recall what the bottle looks like (or better yet,
retrieve a bottle from wherever you keep liquor; it’s proba-
bly there)

This comment cannot be construed as "Evidence before the Court," because she does not tell you where this comment comes from. It is, rather, "Taking judicial notice" - something so normal and obvious the Court can decide it is true on it's own. It is also circumstantial evidence that Justice Kagan knows from personal, probably first-hand experience.

The bottle's shape, the attached labels and the fonts used to print them... All part of the Jack Daniels trademark. Okay, so the dog toy people came up with this:

 

I think it's clever, but, suggests Justice Kagan:

On the toy, for example, the words “Jack Daniel’s”
become “Bad Spaniels.” And the descriptive phrase “Old
No. 7 Brand Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey” turns into
“The Old No. 2 On Your Tennessee Carpet.” The jokes did
not impress petitioner Jack Daniel’s Properties.

Much of her opinion is a review of what trademarks are and why they are important to both their owner and the consumer ("They ensure that the producer itself—and not some “imitating competitor”—will reap the financial rewards associated with the product’s good reputation."). She touches on The Lanham Act - Congress's attempt to protect trademarks - and then cites a case that helps...sort of but not really...explain how the First Amendment protects some (but not all) forms of parody.

It is the Rogers case, involving an attempt by actor/dancer Ginger Rogers to protect her trademark - her name - when used in a parody play spoofing her and her longtime dance partner Fred Astaire. Five will get you ten that none of Justice Kagan's law clerks had any idea who those people were. But there she is, a student of pre-WWII motion pictures.

It is a matter of confusing the consumer, writes Justice Kagan. She compares the dog toy, and the possibility Jack Daniel's was somehow involved, with:

[A] consumer would no more think that the song was “produced by Mattel” than would, “upon hearing Janis Joplin croon ‘Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a
Mercedes Benz?,’ . . . suspect that she and the carmaker
had entered into a joint venture (citing Mattel, a case about a Barbie parody song.)

 It's all too much fun. Eventually, she gets to the point - VIP loses, Jack Daniel's wins. You should read the case in full - she's a really good writer.

In honor of Justice Kagan and her eloquence, my dear spouse and I have created the "First Monday in October." 2 oz Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey, 3 dashes Angostura orange cocktail bitters, 1/4 oz Simple Syrup. Garnish with cherry and a slice of orange peel. Serve in an official Liberty Bell tumbler my wife found on line.

Here's looking at you, kid.