My collaborator loves to hate former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Indeed, he takes the Matt Damon position that former Governor Palin does not believe that dinosaurs and man were separated by millions of years.
As the last word on this, Palin has declared in her biography, Going Rogue, that she does believe in both divine Creation and evolution and that evolution is part of the divine plan. I’d say that seeing evolution as a divine plan is the thin end of an absolutely enormous wedge. My own position can be summed up with the story of the male penguin who, after waddling fifty miles over an ice field in sub-zero temperatures, says to his mate, “Intelligent design, my ass!”
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Arkansas Politics
My father was born in Osceola, Arkansas on December 28, 1919. For anyone who saw the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, Osceola is a county seat town in the north of Arkansas, about fifteen miles from Dyess, Arkansas, where Johnny Cash grew up. In the film, there is a scene where the entire Cash family is picking cotton and someone says it will be one hundred and two degrees by noon. Speaking as someone who made a dozen week-long visits to visit my paternal grandmother in Osceola, always in the summertime, my reaction was, “Goodness, they’re having a cold spell.”
He was thirteen years old when FDR took office and told me the following story about the impact the New Deal had on the region. A popular joke had a new teacher asking her grade schoolers who built this new school. The children would chorus, “Roosevelt!”
“And who got us our new textbooks?”
“Roosevelt?”
“Who made heaven and Earth?”
A newcomer child says, “God?
His classmates got together and decided, “During recess, we’ll beat up that Republican.”
I did some research and learned that FDR carried Arkansas with 82% of the vote in 1932. Four years later, he actually improved his score, moving up to 86%. (Across the river in Mississippi, FDR did even better, with 94 and 97%, respectively.) Arkansas voted Democratic in every Presidential election from 1836 until 1968, when George Wallace carried the state as an independent.
I once asked my father which would have astonished him more: to see a man walk on the moon or to see a Republican win election to the governorship of Arkansas. He laughed and said that latter. This leads to the story of one of the great electoral flukes of American history. Back in the 1930s, John D. Rockefeller’s five sons all seemed destined for great things. Nelson wanted to be President of the United States. David wanted to run the Chase Manhattan Bank. Winthrop, however, appeared to be an utterly hopeless alcoholic. He managed to get himself expelled from Yale. (Exactly how bad to you have to be to get expelled from college when your name is Rockefeller?) The family sadly concluded that Winthrop was a lost cause and they shipped him off to a treatment center in Arkansas where they were certain he would drink himself to death.
Wonder of wonders, Winthrop sobered up after a few years. He had spent enough time in Arkansas that he’d grown to rather like the place. He went into politics as a Republican in a state that had been solidly Democratic since day one.
Winthrop was extraordinarily fortunate in his opposition. Arkansas had a four-term governor by the name of Orval Faubus, who was utterly corrupt and a vociferous racist. It was he who had forced President Eisenhower to send fifteen thousand troops to Little Rock to protect black students integrating in the local high school. Winthrop Rockefeller was a reasonably intelligent man and, as far as I can tell, an entirely honest man. (Exactly how do you bribe a Rockefeller?)
He won election in 1970 and won reelection four years later. I believe he was the only Republican my father ever supported in his entire life.
He was thirteen years old when FDR took office and told me the following story about the impact the New Deal had on the region. A popular joke had a new teacher asking her grade schoolers who built this new school. The children would chorus, “Roosevelt!”
“And who got us our new textbooks?”
“Roosevelt?”
“Who made heaven and Earth?”
A newcomer child says, “God?
His classmates got together and decided, “During recess, we’ll beat up that Republican.”
I did some research and learned that FDR carried Arkansas with 82% of the vote in 1932. Four years later, he actually improved his score, moving up to 86%. (Across the river in Mississippi, FDR did even better, with 94 and 97%, respectively.) Arkansas voted Democratic in every Presidential election from 1836 until 1968, when George Wallace carried the state as an independent.
I once asked my father which would have astonished him more: to see a man walk on the moon or to see a Republican win election to the governorship of Arkansas. He laughed and said that latter. This leads to the story of one of the great electoral flukes of American history. Back in the 1930s, John D. Rockefeller’s five sons all seemed destined for great things. Nelson wanted to be President of the United States. David wanted to run the Chase Manhattan Bank. Winthrop, however, appeared to be an utterly hopeless alcoholic. He managed to get himself expelled from Yale. (Exactly how bad to you have to be to get expelled from college when your name is Rockefeller?) The family sadly concluded that Winthrop was a lost cause and they shipped him off to a treatment center in Arkansas where they were certain he would drink himself to death.
Wonder of wonders, Winthrop sobered up after a few years. He had spent enough time in Arkansas that he’d grown to rather like the place. He went into politics as a Republican in a state that had been solidly Democratic since day one.
Winthrop was extraordinarily fortunate in his opposition. Arkansas had a four-term governor by the name of Orval Faubus, who was utterly corrupt and a vociferous racist. It was he who had forced President Eisenhower to send fifteen thousand troops to Little Rock to protect black students integrating in the local high school. Winthrop Rockefeller was a reasonably intelligent man and, as far as I can tell, an entirely honest man. (Exactly how do you bribe a Rockefeller?)
He won election in 1970 and won reelection four years later. I believe he was the only Republican my father ever supported in his entire life.
Beauregard's Flag
Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was one of the leading Confederate generals during the American Civil War. If the South had won the war, Beauregard would certainly have been one of the Confederacy’s greatest heroes. He is supposed to have fired the first shot at Fort Sumter in April of 1861. He took over command of the Army of Tennessee after General Albert Sidney Johnston’s death at Shiloh in April of 1862. He commanded the coastal defenses of the Eastern Seaboard for much of the war and was credited with helping to defend Petersburg in 1864. While reading Gone With the Wind, I came across a short story that described General Beauregard’s popularity with the Cajuns in Louisiana. The story goes that, when a Cajun hears another Southerner praising General Lee, he is silent for moment then says, “General Lee? General Lee? Oh, yes, I remember now. General Lee is the gentleman General Beau regard speaks so highly of.”
General Beauregard’s fame comes from his design of what became the Confederate battle flag. In the early stages of the war, the Confederate “Bonnie Blue” flag (13 white stars on a blue field with one red and one white stripe) was so similar to the American flag as to cause confusion. Beauregard came up with the idea of creating a flag with a blue St. Andrews cross against a red background. After the war, Beauregard went into politics and used his flag in his political campaigns. I recently learned a detail that astonished me. Beauregard’s political platform provided for complete equality between the races. Needless to say, Beauregard’s platform did not enjoy unanimous support.
My question for the present day is, does Beauregard’s flag stand for disunion and slavery, or can it merely be a symbol for Beauregard’s subsequent political platform. As Alice said to Humpty Dumpty, can you make a word (or a symbol) mean what you want it to mean.
General Beauregard’s fame comes from his design of what became the Confederate battle flag. In the early stages of the war, the Confederate “Bonnie Blue” flag (13 white stars on a blue field with one red and one white stripe) was so similar to the American flag as to cause confusion. Beauregard came up with the idea of creating a flag with a blue St. Andrews cross against a red background. After the war, Beauregard went into politics and used his flag in his political campaigns. I recently learned a detail that astonished me. Beauregard’s political platform provided for complete equality between the races. Needless to say, Beauregard’s platform did not enjoy unanimous support.
My question for the present day is, does Beauregard’s flag stand for disunion and slavery, or can it merely be a symbol for Beauregard’s subsequent political platform. As Alice said to Humpty Dumpty, can you make a word (or a symbol) mean what you want it to mean.
Representing Decamom
The Octomom has been much in the news lately. This wretched creature, after having six illegitimate kids, managed to get fertility treatments and had eight more in one shot. In my legal career, I have represented two sextomoms (six children), and one septomom (seven kids). This past year, I met Decamom. Yes, that’s right, ten children.
In response to my collaborator's facetious question about why the state would want change of custody on her youngest, after having already received Permanent Changes of Custody on numbers five, six, seven, eight and nine, the answer is that the tenth was found to have cocaine in her bloodstream. By the time I got to the case, I learned that Decamom had failed two drug screens and had failed to appear for over 100 others. I discovered, to my considerable surprise, that, legally speaking, her children were not illegitimate. She is married and her husband is doing a lengthy prison sentence in the federal system for drug trafficking. I met her paramour and did not inquire as to his thought process in choosing such a woman as the mother of his child. (After all, she only has one conviction for soliciting prostitution.)
I did everything I could think of as a professional to represent her. However, she lost her case. If the child hasn’t suffered permanent brain damage as a result of her mother’s drug use, maybe it has a decent chance in life. What I find terrible disturbing is the thought that I am one of 260 lawyers doing assigned counsel work in Franklin County. I find the long-term implications for our civilization to be cause for despair.
(A friend of mine once asked, upon hearing about this case, “That’s stupid! (expleteive deleted) Hasn’t she thought of having an abortion?” Let’s not have a discussion about abortion. I should, however, point out that after her second or third or fourth illegitimate child, I’m pretty sure that Decamom knew exactly what she was doing.)
In response to my collaborator's facetious question about why the state would want change of custody on her youngest, after having already received Permanent Changes of Custody on numbers five, six, seven, eight and nine, the answer is that the tenth was found to have cocaine in her bloodstream. By the time I got to the case, I learned that Decamom had failed two drug screens and had failed to appear for over 100 others. I discovered, to my considerable surprise, that, legally speaking, her children were not illegitimate. She is married and her husband is doing a lengthy prison sentence in the federal system for drug trafficking. I met her paramour and did not inquire as to his thought process in choosing such a woman as the mother of his child. (After all, she only has one conviction for soliciting prostitution.)
I did everything I could think of as a professional to represent her. However, she lost her case. If the child hasn’t suffered permanent brain damage as a result of her mother’s drug use, maybe it has a decent chance in life. What I find terrible disturbing is the thought that I am one of 260 lawyers doing assigned counsel work in Franklin County. I find the long-term implications for our civilization to be cause for despair.
(A friend of mine once asked, upon hearing about this case, “That’s stupid! (expleteive deleted) Hasn’t she thought of having an abortion?” Let’s not have a discussion about abortion. I should, however, point out that after her second or third or fourth illegitimate child, I’m pretty sure that Decamom knew exactly what she was doing.)
The Sullivans and the USS Juneau
The five Sullivan brothers grew up in Waterloo, Iowa. Before World War II, two of the boys had served hitches in the U.S. Navy. After Pearl Harbor, the five brothers agreed to enlist in the Navy on the condition they be allowed to serve of the same ship. When notified about the possible danger, the brothers said, “if we go down, we go down together.”
Unfortunately, on November 13, 1942, their ship, the USS Juneau, which had already been damaged in the Naval battles around Guadalcanal, took a torpedo from a Japanese submarine that set off a massive secondary explosion. Astonishingly, the Juneau sank in twenty seconds. The commander of the Juneau’s task force decided that there could not be any survivors. Rather than risk losing another ship to submarine attack, ordered the ships in the task force not to make any attempt at rescue. For that decision, Admiral Halsey later relieved him of his commission. The task force commander had ordered a message sent for a plane search of the area. Unfortunately, that search was conducted ten days later.
Over 600 men died immediately. They might have been the lucky ones. Eighty men made it into the water, where all but ten died of thirst, exposure or shark attack. At least two of the Sullivan brothers were in that group.
Back in the States, Hollywood made a 1944 film called The Fighting Sullivans. This film, to a modern viewer, comes across like Ozzie and Harriet Go to War. The very last shot of the film depicts the fifth Sullivan brother, the one who was always left behind, scrambling upstairs to the Pearly Gates, “Hey! Wait up for me!”
The truth about what really happened out the South Pacific was far more than Hollywood could handle. Only years later did the ten survivors relate that George Sullivan managed to survive for five days in the water. As horrible as that experience was, one of the worst aspects of this was hearing George call out the names of his four brothers, never getting a response.
The USS Juneau
Unfortunately, on November 13, 1942, their ship, the USS Juneau, which had already been damaged in the Naval battles around Guadalcanal, took a torpedo from a Japanese submarine that set off a massive secondary explosion. Astonishingly, the Juneau sank in twenty seconds. The commander of the Juneau’s task force decided that there could not be any survivors. Rather than risk losing another ship to submarine attack, ordered the ships in the task force not to make any attempt at rescue. For that decision, Admiral Halsey later relieved him of his commission. The task force commander had ordered a message sent for a plane search of the area. Unfortunately, that search was conducted ten days later.
Over 600 men died immediately. They might have been the lucky ones. Eighty men made it into the water, where all but ten died of thirst, exposure or shark attack. At least two of the Sullivan brothers were in that group.
Back in the States, Hollywood made a 1944 film called The Fighting Sullivans. This film, to a modern viewer, comes across like Ozzie and Harriet Go to War. The very last shot of the film depicts the fifth Sullivan brother, the one who was always left behind, scrambling upstairs to the Pearly Gates, “Hey! Wait up for me!”
The truth about what really happened out the South Pacific was far more than Hollywood could handle. Only years later did the ten survivors relate that George Sullivan managed to survive for five days in the water. As horrible as that experience was, one of the worst aspects of this was hearing George call out the names of his four brothers, never getting a response.
The USS Juneau
My Encounter With a Rogue Psychologist
When I was attending Arabic language classes at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey in August of 1980 to August of 1981, the dropout rate was close to fifty percent. One day, the sailor who sat next to me in class had an anxiety attack and was sent back in training. At the time, the thought of being dropped from language course and being sent out to sea as a nonrated seaman terrified me. Furthermore, after seeing Seaman Zimmerman completely freak out, I was scared of getting too scared. I found out that the Presidio Monterey Dispensary had a counseling center. Upon discovering that it was FREE, I decided I would see a counselor once a week after class so I could, in effect, count my marbles and make sure I still had all of them.
For a while, I was seeing an Army Captain by the name of Frank King, who seemed to have a pretty good idea of what he was doing. One afternoon, I got to the Dispensary and Captain King was not there to greet me. After a minute or two, I had the orderly on duty page him, but there was still no response. The two of us went back to Dr. King’s office and knocked on his door. A few seconds later, Captain King opened the door just slightly and told me that he was working on a stress case and that he would be with me shortly. We had our usual session, and I didn’t think anything more of the incident until the next day, when I got back to the Navy Barracks. I had received a message that there was a call for me from the Criminal Investigation Division. I immediately called the CIE personnel, wondering what they wanted. Shortly thereafter, I learned I’d be talking to a different counselor. It was not until several weeks later that I learned that Captain King was under investigation for making improper advances on his female patients.
I graduated from DLI in August 1981 and went off to Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas for four months of additional training. One day in late October, I was taking care of some paperwork at the Navy admin center when I heard I’d been subpoenaed to testify at Captain King’s court martial. I was on the next flight, and arrived in Monterey on Thursday evening, which made for one of the best four-day weekends of my life.
When I took the stand, the defense tried to get me to say that I had seen everything that had been going on, and that everything had been above-board. That’s not what I saw and that’s not the testimony I gave. On cross examination, the prosecutor asked me why I’d been seeing Captain King. I told him, “Academic stress.”
The prosecutor asked, “Did Captain King ever tell you that you needed ‘relaxation therapy’?”
“No.”
“Did he ever tell you to lie down on the sofa?”
“No.”
“Did he ever dim the lights?”
“No.”
“Did he ever touch you?”
“Uh, I think we might have shaken hands.”
I found out later that six servicewoman had testified that Captain King had made improper advances during counseling sessions. My brief testimony was just one more nail in Captain King’s coffin. The court martial convicted him on all counts, and he was shipped off to Leavenworth. After leaving the Navy in June of 1984, I attended Notre Dame Law School and occasionally told the story of the Captain King Court Martial. In December of 1987, just as I was about to take my last final exam at Notre Dame, I got a call that I’d been subpoenaed to testify at Captain King’s retrial. I was flabbergasted to learn that he’d managed to get a new trial on appeal. While out on bail, he had allegedly committed date rape. So he was on trial for all of his previous charges in addition to the alleged rape. I learned a few days later that the defense had stipulated to my testimony so I was not going to have to fly to Leavenworth, Kansas in December. Captain King was convicted on all charges a second time, but a military appellate court reverse the rape conviction and, ultimately, he was released on time served.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mine is that six years and a few months in Leavenworth does not strike me as a lenient sentence. To this day, I enjoy the irony that Captain Frank King managed to totally trash his career through his egregious, unprofessional conduct, and I managed to get a five-day weekend in Monterey.
A lawn at the DoD Center at Monterey.
For a while, I was seeing an Army Captain by the name of Frank King, who seemed to have a pretty good idea of what he was doing. One afternoon, I got to the Dispensary and Captain King was not there to greet me. After a minute or two, I had the orderly on duty page him, but there was still no response. The two of us went back to Dr. King’s office and knocked on his door. A few seconds later, Captain King opened the door just slightly and told me that he was working on a stress case and that he would be with me shortly. We had our usual session, and I didn’t think anything more of the incident until the next day, when I got back to the Navy Barracks. I had received a message that there was a call for me from the Criminal Investigation Division. I immediately called the CIE personnel, wondering what they wanted. Shortly thereafter, I learned I’d be talking to a different counselor. It was not until several weeks later that I learned that Captain King was under investigation for making improper advances on his female patients.
I graduated from DLI in August 1981 and went off to Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas for four months of additional training. One day in late October, I was taking care of some paperwork at the Navy admin center when I heard I’d been subpoenaed to testify at Captain King’s court martial. I was on the next flight, and arrived in Monterey on Thursday evening, which made for one of the best four-day weekends of my life.
When I took the stand, the defense tried to get me to say that I had seen everything that had been going on, and that everything had been above-board. That’s not what I saw and that’s not the testimony I gave. On cross examination, the prosecutor asked me why I’d been seeing Captain King. I told him, “Academic stress.”
The prosecutor asked, “Did Captain King ever tell you that you needed ‘relaxation therapy’?”
“No.”
“Did he ever tell you to lie down on the sofa?”
“No.”
“Did he ever dim the lights?”
“No.”
“Did he ever touch you?”
“Uh, I think we might have shaken hands.”
I found out later that six servicewoman had testified that Captain King had made improper advances during counseling sessions. My brief testimony was just one more nail in Captain King’s coffin. The court martial convicted him on all counts, and he was shipped off to Leavenworth. After leaving the Navy in June of 1984, I attended Notre Dame Law School and occasionally told the story of the Captain King Court Martial. In December of 1987, just as I was about to take my last final exam at Notre Dame, I got a call that I’d been subpoenaed to testify at Captain King’s retrial. I was flabbergasted to learn that he’d managed to get a new trial on appeal. While out on bail, he had allegedly committed date rape. So he was on trial for all of his previous charges in addition to the alleged rape. I learned a few days later that the defense had stipulated to my testimony so I was not going to have to fly to Leavenworth, Kansas in December. Captain King was convicted on all charges a second time, but a military appellate court reverse the rape conviction and, ultimately, he was released on time served.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mine is that six years and a few months in Leavenworth does not strike me as a lenient sentence. To this day, I enjoy the irony that Captain Frank King managed to totally trash his career through his egregious, unprofessional conduct, and I managed to get a five-day weekend in Monterey.
A lawn at the DoD Center at Monterey.
Hirohito’s Conversion
In the aftermath of his surrender in August 1945, General of Army Douglas MacArthur acted as shogun. He had a virtual free hand from Washing to put in place any Constitutional reforms he saw fit. For example, making over a million tenant farmers into landowners, legalizing labor unions, institution a free press (with just one restriction: no criticism of MacArthur) and giving the vote to Japanese women. I must admit to feeling a certain malicious glee when I point out to certain feminists that MacArthur may be history’s greatest Suffragette. (Suffrager?)
MacArthur was a devout Episcopalian and saw Christianity as a positive influence on Japan. He encouraged missionaries (indeed, requested) to come to Japan to spread Christianity as a bulwark against Communism. The recently discovered diary of Defense Secretary James Forrestal relates that MacArthur told him he considered ordering Emperor Hirohito to convert to Christianity. Had he done so, many interesting questions would have been raised.
Until Hirohito renounced his divinity, he was the head of the Shinto church. This did not prove an insurmountable obstacle; the Vatican reached an understanding with the Shinto authorities allowing a sort of hybrid Shinto/Catholicism in Japan. (While I find that a bit bizarre, it’s much more sensible than some of the horrendous sectarian strife that has occurred in the past millennium.)
One of the first questions would be: If Hirohito converted to Christianity, which denomination would he convert to? Would the divine descendants of the Sun Goddess accept the Pope as head of his church, or, if he became Anglican, would he accept the monarch of England as the head of his church? Unfortunately, there was no option to convert to “white-label” Christianity, so that moment passed.
MacArthur was a devout Episcopalian and saw Christianity as a positive influence on Japan. He encouraged missionaries (indeed, requested) to come to Japan to spread Christianity as a bulwark against Communism. The recently discovered diary of Defense Secretary James Forrestal relates that MacArthur told him he considered ordering Emperor Hirohito to convert to Christianity. Had he done so, many interesting questions would have been raised.
Until Hirohito renounced his divinity, he was the head of the Shinto church. This did not prove an insurmountable obstacle; the Vatican reached an understanding with the Shinto authorities allowing a sort of hybrid Shinto/Catholicism in Japan. (While I find that a bit bizarre, it’s much more sensible than some of the horrendous sectarian strife that has occurred in the past millennium.)
One of the first questions would be: If Hirohito converted to Christianity, which denomination would he convert to? Would the divine descendants of the Sun Goddess accept the Pope as head of his church, or, if he became Anglican, would he accept the monarch of England as the head of his church? Unfortunately, there was no option to convert to “white-label” Christianity, so that moment passed.
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