No charges, no grand jury, no nothing in the South Dakota AG Jason Ravnsborg case other than the investigators say he was driving distracted when he hit and killed Mr. Boever. Other than that, crickets. Since November 2. Of course, he is an elector, so maybe they're waiting until after December 14th.
South Dakota's COVID situation is just as bad as you've heard, and probably worse. 82,000 cases, 995 deaths and the population of the state is only 880,000. And Gov. Noem still won't do anything but look good on a horse.
But enough doom and gloom! Here's some of my favorite lighter things in life, so here's something lighter. There will be a [short] quiz at the end.
Exhibit 1: The Big Snit - perhaps my favorite animated feature of all time, outside of Wallace & Grommit.
One of my favorite Oscar moments, Sean Connery & Michael Caine eventually giving an award to Kevin Kline:
And why Kevin Kline won the Oscar: "Apes don't read philosophy." "Yes they do, they just don't understand it!"
Dr. Tongue's Evil House of Wax (from SCTV):
Salvador Dali on What's My Line. 'Nuff said.
Jimmy Stewart's favorite joke:
And my good friend and fellow SleuthSayer, Brian Thornton sent me a copy of his latest book, Suicide Blonde! Folks, it's great: three novellas of historical noir, and the lead off story should have a movie made of it with a Gloria Grahame lookalike as the lead. Maybe both leads. Thanks so much, Brian, and I loved it.
South Dakota has been in the national news a lot lately, and not just because Governor Kristi Noem has been vigorously defending the reelection of President Donald J. Trump in every venue she can find. She was very active on Twitter but now she's moved to Parler:
"It's official, I've joined @parler_app! Find me at @GovernorNoem. We need social media platforms that respect and protect FREE SPEECH. We need a whole lot more respect for Freedom and Personal Responsibilty in this country."
Wait until they hear that she's trying to figure out a way to stop Amendment A - which legalized marijuana in this state - from happening, because "it's just not right for South Dakota". So much for Freedom and Personal Responsibility, right? Constitutionally, she can't do anything about it, but I'm not sure she's aware of that.
Meanwhile, I know she doesn't care about the virus. We are in a fearsome situation up here, complete with long articles in WaPo (here and HERE), USA Today ("The Dakotas are 'as bad as it gets anywhere in the world' for COVID-19"), Forbes (South Dakota is the most dangerous place to travel in America), dire statistics in the NYTimes, and a Governor and a Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken who refuse - ABSOLUTELY REFUSE - to impose a mask mandate or a shutdown or anything else, because "freedom and personal responsibility."*
How's that working? Not so well:
South Dakota total cases – 68,671; 1 out of every 13 people in this state (pop. 880,000) has/has had the virus South Dakota active cases – 19,240; 1 out of every 46 is currently active for the virus South Dakota deaths 674 – 1 out of every 1,360 has died
Sioux Falls total cases – 22,440; 1 out of every 10 people in metro Sioux Falls (pop. 230,000) has/has had the virus Sioux Falls active cases – 6,115; 1 out of every 38 is currently active for the virus Sioux Falls deaths – 185; 1 out of every 1243 has died
And - from Johns Hopkins itself - a 56.4% positivity rate for testing, the 2nd highest in the nation.**
Heck of a job, Kristi & Paul. Maybe you can start a noir folk duo and sing about Freedom & Incubation around the nation.
Oh, and on top of everything else, back on November 10th, "South Dakota health officials acknowledged that they include NICU (intensive care unit beds designed for infants) in their total count of hospital beds available in the state — a key metric that the governor has used to defend her handling of the coronavirus pandemic." (Rapid City Journal) In case you don't know, adult human beings, no matter how old and frail, cannot fit into baby pods.
LATEST NEWS: there's the case of Attorney General, Jason Ravnsborg. If you remember, he had an accident on a dark night on a rural road and "thought he hit a deer." Instead, it turned out that he killed a local man, Joseph Boever. But no one discovered that until the next day, and in the meantime Mr. Ravnsborg had been driven home by the local sheriff, etc., etc., etc. Well, we finally got an update - November 2nd, which seems so long ago - and it turns out that the results of the investigation so far are that Ravnsborg was distracted at the time of the crash, and Mr. Boever was holding a light in his hand when he was hit and killed. (NOTE: Deer not only have more legs than humans, they don't carry lights.) But the exact time of 911 call, and the victim's autopsy and toxicology report - and any charges - are still pending. Oh, to be white and hold high office... (Argus Leader)
And then there's our local neighborhood goings on. I came home from the grocery store the other day to find a white quad pick-up truck parked in front of a rental house across the street. Big deal, right? Except as I inched past (it's a narrow street), I noticed that the window on the passenger side had a small "Police" on it. And, as I pulled into our driveway, I saw 4 guys get out of the truck, all wearing dark bulky blue sweaters with epaulettes, etc., on them, blue jeans or camo pants, and a very large gun strapped to their thigh. Well, I was planning on taking a walk, but decided it wasn't the right time. Instead I went on inside, made a cup of tea, and watched the show from my living room window, which is shielded by a large porch and an even larger tree from outside prying eyes.*** Our boys in blue went from room to room - at one point a woman came scurrying out (in 30 degree weather) wearing sweatpants, t-shirt, and flip-flops to get something out of her car (I'm betting ID) - and started taking stuff in (apparently to search a little deeper, shall we say) and bringing stuff out. They stuck around for over an hour, and then left. My personal guess is that they already had someone under arrest back at the station, and were searching for drugs and/or weapons. (Yes, they found some.)
Meanwhile, you can't get all your entertainment from a 1919 version of a picture window. My latest favorite entertainment - besides endlessly looping New Tricks - is Victorian Farm on Acorn (via Amazon Prime) - For one thing, I'm an historian, and the reenactors are historian Ruth Goodman, and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn. (I have a couple of Ms. Goodman's books, BTW. Great stuff.) Shire horses! Sheep! Cooking with coal! More sheep! Victorian Christmas! Pigs and sheep! Yes, life was hard, but it's absolutely fascinating, and I could have used a lot more than 6 episodes of it.
Speaking of Victorians, I'm rereading my way through my library of great Victorian mysteries: I've mentioned these before on SleuthSayers, but I'll bring up a couple again, because they're brilliant. And they're long and complex, which helps in these days of social isolation.
Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. Here two young women's identities are stripped from them as one dies and the other is declared dead and sent to a madhouse for life. What happened? Who died? Who lived? How can the truth be proven? Besides an endlessly twisting and turning plot, there are amazing characters: a magnificent heroine in Marion Halcombe, the ultimate Victorian cold-hearted bitch in Mrs. Catherick, and the worst guardian known to man, Frederick Fairlie, who really should have been shot at birth. And then there's Count Fosco, one of my favorite villains in all of history, with a face like Napoleon's and the heft of Nero Wolfe. Watch him as he plays with his little pet white mice and, at the same time, his irascible "friend" Sir Percival Glyde. Meet his completely subservient wife, who spends her days rolling his cigarettes, watching his face, and doing his bidding. He loves sugar water and pastry and plotting, and he never, ever loses his temper or raises his voice. His only weakness? A passionate admiration for Marion. But can that actually stop him? Don't count on it.
In Mrs. Henry Wood's East Lynne, the ostensible main plot - and a true Victorian corker it is! - revolves around Isabel Vane, an Earl's daughter who, unbelievably, is reduced to poverty and marries attorney Archibald Carlisle (SO much beneath her in birth). Mr. Carlisle is such a miracle of common sense, rectitude, honor, and beauty, that I have to admit after a while I get tired of hearing how wonderful he is. It almost makes you cheer when she is eventually unfaithful to him with a former suitor, who seduces her, impregnates her, and abandons her (the "Lady! Wife! Mother!" scene is worth the read in and of itself). Lost - in every sense of the word - and alone, Lady Isabel is believed killed in a railroad accident. However, she is only disfigured beyond recognition (isn't that always the way?), and comes back to be the governess in her old home, to her own children, and to the children of her husband and his new wife, Barbara Hare. That in itself would keep almost any soap opera running for YEARS. But what really fuels this sensation novel is the second plot, about the murder of a local gamekeeper, whose daughter, Aphrodite Hallijohn, was "involved" with multiple suitors, among them the clerk of courts (I can believe that one), a mysterious Captain, and Richard, the brother of the second Mrs. Carlisle. Richard and Barbara are the children of the local Judge, and Judge Hare does his best throughout the novel to find, convict and hang his own son. Barbara's whole goal in life (other than being the perfect wife to Mr. Carlisle) is to clear Richard's name. Each and every character is involved in the solution to this murder, and the shifting identities of various people - at least three people live in disguise for major parts of the novel - are obstacles, keys, and clues to what really happened in that hut so long ago.
Mrs. Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret curled many a person's hair back in the day, especially once it was revealed that what they thought was the secret - a secret that should be solved by anyone of moderate intelligence early on - is not The Secret at all. Let's just say that Lady Audley is a work of art, and perhaps the source material for all suicide blondes. Once again, a spicy Victorian stew of bigamy, mysterious deaths, hidden identities, even more mysterious (and convenient) arson, betrayal, adultery, heartache, and suspense, all served up at (for a Victorian novel) a fairly rapid clip.
One of the reasons I read so much Victorian fiction, BTW, and especially now, is because the Victorians were really good at writing morally good characters. As Janice Law said on Tuesday, "Evil is easy in writing, goodness is tough to do, a fact that might drive the philosophical to notions of original sin." But the Victorians - who definitely believed in original sin - mastered the art. From Miss Matty in Cranford to Ruth in Ruth, Emma in Emma, Felix and Lance Underwood in The Pillars of the House, Daniel Peggotty, Annie Strong, Miss Mowcher, and Wilkins Micawber in David Copperfield, Marion Halcombe and Walter Hartright in The Woman in White - the Victorians were masters of dishing up characters who were morally good yet unique individuals. (Notice, I have not mentioned any of the sugary sweet heroines - they're as much stereotypes as Snidely Whiplash.)
Anyway, from more modern times, also in my personal library, are yards of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe - novels, short stories, novellas. Just take me to the brownstone and drop me off, okay? I'll take some Eggs Burgundian, a look at Wolfe's library and orchids, a long discussion / debate about literature with Wolfe, and a long chat on almost anything over drinks with Archie.
Also Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse books (my favorite is The Wench is Dead); our own Janice Law's Francis Bacon series; Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series (personal favorite The Lady from Zagreb); Len Deighton's Harry Palmer novels; and Somerset Maugham's short stories - including the Ashenden British agent stories. (Ashenden supposedly influenced Ian Fleming.) And yards of Agatha Christie. And Sherlock Holmes.
Also, non-fiction: The Death of Woman Wang (how and why a man got away with murder in a poor province in 17th century China), and God's Chinese Son (biography of the founder of the Taiping Rebellion) both by Jonathan Spence; and Memories of Silk and Straw by Junichi Suga, translated by Garry Evans (pre-WW2 small town Japan).
In case you're wondering, part of the reason I've fallen back heavily on my own library is because the Sioux Falls library hasn't done interlibrary loans since March, and I've read most of what they have. And I really can't afford tons of new books all the time. Just a few here and there. So... Back to the classics!
Finally, last Sunday, I gave a sermon based on Hebrews 13:3: "Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering." About what I've seen, done, heard - I also talked about AVP and quoted one of our AVP Facilitators - Sly Sam - poems! Sermon begins around 22:50.
Meanwhile, have a Happy Thanksgiving, and stay safe, stay well, stay masked.
*We finally imposed a mask mandate in Sioux Falls last night - but with no penalty for noncompliance.
**Worst in the nation as of today is Wyoming, with 90.6% - whatever's going on there, don't go there.
***I am apparently entering the Miss Marple / Miss Silver phase of my life, but then again, I've always been nosy.
[NOTE: This story was originally published in Space and Time Magazine, Fall Issue, 2000. It's the first of my Crow Woman stories. I hope you enjoy it!]
DARK HOLLOW
Silver light, hot pine.
When I first came there was a brook over there, swift as a white hawk over grey stone. But it dried long ago. Down to a small still pool, dark as a doe's eye, in stones fawn-flanked with lichen. Still water makes silent air. I never used to hear my footsteps. Now even pine needles have a sound, like slick sand sliding.
The cornfield is new. I remember the first planting. The green spears came up, all rowed and blocked like an army setting camp. Right there. Dark That Rides called: "Crow Woman!" and we flew to trees' edge and stood gaping in their shadow, the turned earth strong as blood in our nostrils. The rabbits crept out first. First the blade, then the ear - then the mice, then the deer. That was the summer of sleek bellies. And those thick green waves, dusted gold under a bowed blue sky. Food and beauty. Each defended the other.
In winter, we said.
Winter came.
Bleached sticks under a whipped grey sky. Order wind-shredded and it won't take much to wipe it clean. We stood at the end of the path of trees and watched as hard slaps of cold burst across the field to rattle the stalks like bones -- and then I heard the water. "No," I said, just as Dark That Rides began to step outside. He stopped. I could feel him looking at me. "Listen." We listened as the wind played that tattered harp in runs and rills and splashes. The white hawk back. Water and food and beauty. He sighed. "If it pleases you," he said. The field's still there.
There's a man at the edge of it, looking. Right now.
Norm sat in the car while Stan stood outside, smoking a cigarette, staring intently across the field. Stan was looking for the perfect spot, and Norm had nothing better to do than to go along. Norm wasn't too bright, but Stan was brilliant in his own way. Stan talked and Norm listened. Stan said "Let's go"; and Norm hopped in the car. It was a man and his dog kind of relationship which suited them both. Lately, they'd been coming out here a lot. Stan figured that right here, or rather, over there, was what he was looking for. The field was open, but behind it was brush piling into thicket into rock into the whole tangled mess of Dark Hollow.
The wind rattled a handful of ice against the windshield, jerking Norm awake. They worked nights, and hadn't slept yet. Stan opened the door and got in, letting a blast of cold air into the car.
"Yep," Stan said, driving away. "That's the place."
Silver light, cold dawn.
When I first came, the tall grass hid the thin dirt path as if it were something shameful. Later it grew wide and rutted. I can still smell the dust from when they poured out a river of gravel and made it level. I thought the wind would never wash the air clean again. That night I lay in Dark That Rides's arms and dreamed they had broken up the moon and sent it spilling in white shards upon the earth.
"Hush, beloved," he said. His arms strong and gentle, cradling me in the night. "You're safe." His kiss like a breath on my hair. "All things are safe."
In his arms, it was true. It is true.
But I wonder when I see a man, the same man, standing on that road, looking across the field, time after time.
Stan was sure now. He had the plan, he had the victim, and now he had the place. Norm sat sleeping in the car, as usual. Stan flicked away his cigarette and something fluttered on the ground, catching his eye, stooping him over. Just an old plastic grocery bag, dirty and empty and stiff with sleet. When he straightened back up, the field had changed.
He'd seen it before, in some book, maybe in school. A painting. He didn't remember who did it, but he remembered it clearly. An endless field of bleached dry corn bowing under a dark gray sky, two thick planes of color, with a handful of black arcs that were crows, cawing their way through the storm. The only thing missing was a figure walking in its heart.
And then there it was. Walking away from him, through the corn. His heart pounded, waiting for it to turn. It didn't. The wind died. The crows had sunk back down into the corn. Everything was quiet, except for a sound like water. The figure kept walking away from him. It was a woman. It was Val. His desires took him so fast he didn't even think before he started running after her.
In the car, Norm saw Stan run off and sat up. The crows rose from the fields, cawing wildly, and then something darted past the car, huge and brown. He ducked without thinking about it, and a tap at the window nearly made him jump out of his skin.
"Are you all right?"
An old woman, wrinkled and bent and brown, was standing on the road by the car, looking in the window at him. She tapped again at the window, and he rolled it down. "Are you all right?" she repeated.
A coughing fit shook him speechless, but he managed to nod.
She waited until he finished. "You need to go back to your home. Now." Her eyes, bird clear, bird bright, bird cold, scanned the earth and the sky, and ended with him. "It's not safe out here." He just nodded, as if she was making sense. "Not safe for you," she said, without emphasis, but with certainty. Then she walked away, down the gravel road. He finally managed to call out the window and ask her if she needed a ride, but she said, without turning, "No." And walked on.
He watched her disappear around the curve. Suddenly he felt cold and afraid. He had to get out of there. Where the hell had Stan gone, anyway? All the old tales about Dark Hollow rushed through his mind. Crow Woman. Her lover, Dark That Rides. Dark That Rides. Get out now! his mind screamed. But Stan had the keys. Get out! Get out!
Silver light, silver leaves.
When I first came, it was night and there was no moon. A river of stars spilled down into the trees, to where I lay on oak leaves starting with every sound. Late, late, so very late, Dark That Rides passed by. He made no sound to wake me, no touch to move me. But I knew that he was there. In the dark. Watching me. And I was terribly afraid. I did not know him then. I did not love him, then.
Stan came back, panting, clutching his side, furious. It must have been a trick of the light, or his imagination, or just that he wanted it so bad. There was no way it could have been Val, she'd still be at work. He should have known that. He relieved himself of a string of profanity before Norm could get his attention. "All right. What is it?"
"We got to get out of here," Norm said. "Now."
"What are you talking about?"
"Just, we got to get out of here. This ain't no place to be, Stan. Believe me."
"What's got you so riled up?"
"Just give me the keys!" Norm shouted, and lunged at him. Stan's eyes gleamed.
Silver light, dark light.
I stood up and called out to the night, "I am Crow Woman. Whoever is out there, I am here. Waiting. Come and meet me."
His voice filled the night, warm and dark and strong. "I am Dark That Rides. And I swear no hurt shall touch you."
I believed. But I was so tired. "You do not know," I said. "My enemies are many. They want my life. I am ready to give it to them. I do not care any more."
"Care," he said. "Tomorrow they will come, and I will rid you of them. Now sleep until morning. You are safe."
That night I lay on oak leaves beneath an obsidian sky and slept on warm dark wings that rose and fell and rose and fell and rose and fell.
Stan looked down at Norm's body. Shock and fright leached all the pleasure out of him. The bloody rock fell from his hand as he looked around. No one anywhere in sight. He felt Norm's pulse. Nothing. The back of Norm's head was a mat of blood. He had really killed him. Then the triumph surged. It wasn't the plan, but it proved that he could do it. Now all he had to do was finish it. He hoisted the body on his shoulders.
Silver light, hot fur.
The men found me in the morning. They had been hunting me for days. Their dogs sniffed me out. They ran up the slope, baying at me. I clung to the oak tree and waited. The dogs made a circle, snarling and growling, their teeth sharp and white and hungry. The men were smiling. Their teeth were sharp and white and hungry. In their hands gleamed sharp knives. They were so close I could smell their sweat. Their blades were high above my head. Their hands reached out to pull me down. And then they stopped. Fear tore them apart, cleaved mind from body, soul from flesh. Fear of my beloved. Fear of Dark That Rides.
Stan bundled Norm's body into the deepest part of the plum thicket in Dark Hollow, dragged brush around it, and stood back. No one could see that anybody had ever been there. It was sleeting, rasping all around him. That would cover up any tracks he might have left. And who would be looking for tracks? If it was only Val, and not Norm, not that he was going to miss Norm, but - Val. Yeah, well, her turn was coming. He stood there, at the edge of the Hollow, dreaming it, all of it: her fear, her pain, her death.
The crows were silent. Nothing moved except the sleet tapping the ground and the wind in the trees, stirring them, bowing them, clapping them together like cold and brittle hands. There was no wind, but suddenly he felt very cold.
"I warned him," a voice said. He looked up and saw a young woman standing among the trees. She was very beautiful, very alone. He smiled, his teeth white and sharp and hungry. Her eyes were steady as she said, "There is no sense in warning you." She made a signal with her hand. Stan grinned wider and moved towards her, then stopped. Behind her, beside her, was something else, something that grew retchingly fast, retchingly dark, retchingly hideous... He tried to turn, to run, to wrench himself away, but his mind had lost its body, or his body had lost its mind, or -
A pillar of molten darkness lifted itself up above a forty-foot cottonwood and clove it in two. One whole half of the tree came crashing down to the ground, into him, leaving the other half upright. Its torn heart, raw and open to the wind and sleet, was, mercifully, the last thing he saw before he died.
Silver light, warm night.
We watched as they came and took away the bodies. Dark That Rides had made a blood trail they could not ignore, though they would have liked to. I could hear them whispering about me, about my beloved. "Strange things happen in Dark Hollow." Here, where all is safe. The only strange thing here is this:
My true love has my heart and I have his, but I have never seen his face.
Meanwhile, we had some more proud militia types - the Michigan Wolverine Watchmen (???? - obviously they've been reading too many Marvel comics; that or they all went to UofM. Although I doubt it...) - who decided kidnapping Governor Gretchen Whitmir and trying her for treason at a kangaroo trial and then executing her on national television was a great idea, along with attacking police officers and starting a civil war “leading to societal collapse”. (NYTimes)
NOTE: Why, why, why do so damn many white militia types want societal collapse? Where do they think they can buy their favorite gummy bears? And lest you think these are rugged survivalists, remember that most of this gang was involved in the armed protest / assault / invasion at the Michigan Capitol building back in April as they sought... <checking her notes...> access to haircuts and hardware stores. (The Guardian)
Update: turns out the Michigan Wolverine Watchmen were planning to not only kidnap, try and execute their governor, but also the Governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam. Listen, you rugged semi-constitutionalists, if states' rights are the most important of all, what the hell gives you the right to interfere in the governance of another whole state?
And what is that they really want, anyway? I've noticed that most white supremacist organizations - including the Proud Boys - have quit using the term "white supremacist" (puts people off) and instead call themselves "Western chauvinists". And there's a key right there - because the mind set of these groups is predicated on a false idea, a toxic nostalgia, for a world in which (white) Americans (men) ruled the world, we were the wealthiest and strongest nation in history, everyone did what we said (except, of course, the Russians who back then were mortal enemy #1), and life was perfect. Gas was cheap, a man - any [white] man - could earn enough to support a family, and the women could stay home and take care of the family as God intended. Our suburban way of life was the envy of the world, and only we had it and we deserved each and every bit of it because we worked hard for it.
Granted, people did work hard for it - but the reason for our prosperity of the late 1940s through much of the 1960s was because we were the only industrialized country which had not had its major cities bombed to rubble in the almost 7 years of WW2. 70-80 million people worldwide died in WW2. Some 60 million Europeans became refugees during the entire World War II period. According to the United Nations, a million people had yet to find a place to settle by 1951, more than five years after the fighting stopped. There was a need for massive rebuilding all across Europe, Asia, north Africa, and the Middle East: buildings, infrastructure, factories, homes. After a war that long, everybody needed consumer goods: clothing, shoes, cars, furniture, etc. And for years, the United States - relatively untouched by war - had a monopoly on production and sales of just about everything. That was the economic miracle of the 1950s. Based on the desperate poverty of almost everyone else in the world.*
And that is why I call it toxic nostalgia, because to bring back the glory days of the 1950s and 60s would require a return to that level of global poverty. Instead, what we're seeing today (pandemic aside) is a world in which poverty is decreasing, countries are increasing production and prosperity - and instead of accepting it and joining in, some Americans are waxing way too nostalgic about when we "ruled the earth". And dreaming about how to get back there.
And that's not even nearly as bad as the superfund toxic nostalgia about the good old days of the ante-bellum South, in which slavery wasn't so bad, and somebody needed to pick all that cotton, and at least the slaves all got converted to Christianity and were saved. That, too, lingers on - along with all the old BS about how slaves deserved to be slaves, because they were so inferior to whites. Iowa Rep. Steve King asked a while back, "which nonwhite subgroups had contributed more than white people to “civilization.”
This, and far too many other reasons are why we have a serious white supremacist problem in this country. Thanks to Wikipedia, here's an incomplete list of White Supremacist Groups in the United States:
Creativity Alliance, (formerly known as the World Church of the Creator) is a white supremacist political organization that advocates the racialist religion, Creativity. Mainly religious rather than political, the radical Creativity Alliance or Church of Creativity, founded by Ben Klassen in 1973, worships the white race itself rather than any deity, and advocates a radical form of white supremacism known as RAHOWA.
Hammerskins, also known as Hammerskin Nation, are a white supremacist group formed in 1988 in Dallas, Texas. Their primary focus is the production and promotion of white power rock music, and many white power bands have been affiliated with the group.
Identity Evropa is an American neo-Nazi and white supremacist organization established in March 2016.
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as The Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present [25] organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy and nationalism. The Klan is classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.[26] It is estimated to have between 5,000 and 8,000 members, split among dozens of different organizations that use the Klan name as of 2012.[27]
Occidental Quarterly, is a printed far-right quarterly journal with a web segment, TOQ Online, including interviews, essays and reviews on the website.[30]
I can guarantee you that each and every member of all of these organizations knows what "Stand back and stand by" means.
I've mentioned this before, but this incident will always haunt me. Years ago right after the Timothy McVeigh bombing, one of our regular militia visitors at the courthouse told me, "War has been declared." When I said the children in the day-care weren't soldiers (remember, 19 children were killed in a daycare there, as well as 3 pregnant women), he replied, "There are no innocent victims." And he meant it. And was not apologizing for it. And was proud of it.
White supremacist literature (see "The Turner Diaries") is all about "getting rid of" (i.e., killing) everyone who doesn't meet their standards, to the point where you wonder if even in our weapons-rich environment, there really are enough bullets to get that job done. Because they are all about purity policing the world. They really do want to create a white paradise, but of course, there are a lot of "whites" in their world who they don't consider truly white, or white enough. And as their immediate world gets whiter, they expand their list of undesirables, and make more and more "white people" non-white. In the long run, there's no one "good enough" left.
Remember, the Nazis declared European Slavic people to be non-white, and good for nothing, according to Hitler, but to be "slaves to our culture". That and be slaughtered to make room for more pure German Aryans.
Remember, Timothy McVeigh bombed a government building knowing there was a day care center in it full of children.
*I told this to someone last week, who was amazed - they'd never heard this explanation of the American 1950s before. God knows what they're teaching about WW2 these days...
**Not to denigrate Ancient Aliens - it's a great piece of mental cotton candy.
ALSO: We finally got an update on the South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravsborg case - 4 weeks later - where Gov. Kristi Noem and Public Safety Secretary Craig Price on Tuesday gave an update on the Saturday, Sept. 12 crash that killed 55-year-old Joseph Boever. Noem and Price spoke to reporters from the Sioux Falls City Hall. The audio of the 911 call made by South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg was released, but otherwise, "The incident remains under investigation, and Price declined to answer some questions, saying he wants to release a full report when the matter is concluded." (Argus Leader)
Color us all suspicious. Because if this had been anyone but a high government official, this investigation would be over and charges would have been filed.
A few weeks ago, when the Atlantic article came out saying that Donald Trump had called people in the military "losers" and "suckers", I got into it on-line with someone about evidence. They didn't approve of anonymous sources. So I posted the video of Trump calling McCain a loser and "not a war hero":
And the Howard Stern interview, where Trump called STDs his "personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier."
And said that I thought we could perhaps extrapolate future behavior from prior statements. Now I wouldn't have minded an argument on freedom of speech - I'm always ready to defend that one - or even the validity of judging someone by their past behavior. BUT the reply I got was that "the videos are just circumstantial evidence." So I blew a gasket. Because of course no, they're not.
(Legal Definition) "Circumstantial evidence is proof of a fact or set of facts from which one could infer the fact in question. For example, that a suspect is seen running away from a murder scene with a weapon in hand is circumstantial evidence he committed the murder. This contrasts with direct evidence, which directly proves the fact in question. An eyewitness who testifies to seeing the suspect shoot the victim is direct evidence." The direct testimony, on record, on tape, is direct evidence. Period. You can argue that the person was lying, or bragging, or telling a story - but you're gonna have to prove that. Meantime, what they said is what they said.
In history, we call direct evidence primary sources: original things (diaries, letters, stelae, pottery, tombs, and other original artifacts of all kinds). Secondary sources are analyses or discussions about primary sources (like textbooks, pundits, op-eds, and conspiracy theories). For an historical argument to be sound, it must be supported / defended by primary sources, and must be analysis of the evidence. Yes, opinions will crop up and even barge in, but there damn well better be strong primary sources.
That does not mean there will not be debate, furious, even murderous. It also doesn't mean that point of view doesn't matter, whether from the originator or the historian. For example, in the old days, i.e., up until the 1950s, most history was about war, royalty, and nobility, with a very occasional mention of peasants. That was what was "important" to the primarily European men who wrote history. And there was also plenty of documentation - low hanging fruit you might say.
But then things changed, because historians began to study things like 100 years of church registers, noting the number of bastards born in, say, a town in Normandy. Or the court records of counties, noting how many cases of assault there were in an average year (a lot - the Middle Ages had a fairly high level of violence). Or... you get the idea. And suddenly we had social history, with histories of (for example) a village in the Pyrenees like Le Roy Ladurie's brilliant Montaillou. This was based on Inquisition documents (1294-1324 AD) where they wrote down the interrogations of peasants about the Catharist heresy in their village (and there was a lot), and along the way recorded everything from how people got their bread (and how much it cost) to who combed whose hair for lice and why.
This also changed what was seen as the impetus for change. For example, today, it's pretty much a given that the Renaissance was largely triggered by the Black Death, which (by killing a third of the world in its first 4 years - 1347-1351 - and its repeat performances every 10-20 years for the next 300 years) basically overturned much of the medieval order of peoples and ideas (including that "God's in His heaven and all's right with the world - obviously something was seriously wrong), and set the stage for not just the Renaissance but Martin Luther and the Reformation.
In the same way, Jared Diamond's 1997 Guns, Germs & Steel, challenged the traditional Western Eurocentric theory of world history by showing through primary sources (direct evidence) that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate primarily in environmental differences and had nothing to do with the superiority of Europeans over the rest of the world. (See Wikipedia for a concise overview, but better yet, read the book yourself - fantastic.) And it in turn fed off of Alfred W. Crosby's The Columbian Exchange, which discussed the widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Old and New Worlds, changing ecosystems world-wide. (Again, read the book.)
BTW - one of the great examples in literature of historical arguments (and how much analysis, deduction, argument, and debate they require) is not Dan Brown, but Tom Stoppard's 1993 play Arcadia, which deserves far more productions (and at least one movie! Please!) than it has gotten. Alternating between the mid-1800s and the present, the present scenes show dueling historians arguing over the following primary sources: mid-1800s "game books" (i.e., hunting records at a country house), a diary (by a young girl), and a number of letters and notes tucked into a poetry book which itself was heavily underlined. All of which seem to indicate that Lord Byron killed minor poet Ezra Chater in a duel over Chater's wife at this country house where they were all guests at the same time, and after which Mr. Chater disappeared, and Lord Byron fled to the Continent for two years. Solving what belonged to whom (including who did all that underlining) is a masterclass in historical deduction and detection.
Anyway, the point is that you can debate the meaning of various primary sources, i.e., direct evidence - what you cannot debate is that they are real and they are relevant. We have to keep people accountable for what they say and write. Especially politicians, who currently are trying to have it both ways: They mean what they say until they're in the hot seat, and then they either never said it or didn't mean it or were only joking.
We have to keep reminding people that without the clear, continuous definition of original sources / direct evidence vs. secondary sources / circumstantial evidence, we will lose more than good historical argument: we will miss justice as well. And perhaps democracy.
As you may or may not have heard, South Dakota has hit the national news a lot lately.
Governor Kristi Noem has been talking regularly on Fox News, promoting South Dakota's freedoms, and is currently traveling around the upper Midwest to campaign for Trump. (Fox News)
She has also been spending CARES money on ads around the country urging people to move to South Dakota, where "we respect your freedoms" and "We're open for business!" (AP News)
We hosted the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in August, where 460,000+ bikers came to a town of 7,000 and held one hell of a week-long party. The national COVID-19 repercussions are debated (Politifact) but I can tell you it's a fact that Meade County (Sturgis) went from 71 cases before Sturgis to 487 and counting (that's 1 out of every 14), and most of the other West River counties show large spikes as well. (Pennington County - Rapid City, etc. - went from 942 cases to 2,091.)
We hosted the Sanford International golf tournament in Sioux Falls September 7-13th, which was the first golf tournament to allow spectators, and we can hardly WAIT until the COVID-19 figures come out from that. (Argus Leader)
As a result of all this stuff, South Dakota is in the top ten, and may still be the #1 hotspot for COVID-19 in the country for a couple of weeks now, thanks to a 10%+ positivity rate. A popular response to Gov. Noem's "We're open for business!" ad slogan is, "And we're wide open for COVID!" (Argus Leader) (NYTimes)
And, most recently, our Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg drove home from a GOP political event in Redfield, SD, and hit and killed a man walking along the shoulder of Highway 14, just west of Highmore, SD around 10:30 PM on Saturday, September 12th. (NYTimes)
From the beginning, AG Ravnsborg has said that he thought he hit a deer. This has been met with considerable skepticism and some derision here in the Mount Rushmore State, because everybody in SD has either missed or hit a deer at some point in their driving lives. When we first moved up here, we asked why collision insurance was so expensive and mandatory - since we do have a low population / population density - and were told it was because of the deer. We have a lot of deer.
And to be purely informative, I must tell you that humans do not look like deer. For one thing, we have fewer legs. We also wear clothing, walk upright, and have arms that flail a lot as we soar through the air.
Despite an on-going investigation, shrouded in secrecy for almost two weeks now, AG Ravnsborg put out a two-page statement (via his campaign office, on his official Attorney General letterhead, two days after the accident) about what happened. Since my fellow blogger Cory Heidelberger has posted, analyzed and summarized this and other aspects of the case, please check out his blog HERE. The following quotes, etc., are from Cory:
Ravnsborg apparently views “ongoing investigation” as a conditional excuse for silence: he refuses to answer questions from the media out of “respect” for the “process” and a his desire to let investigators do their work “without any interference or appearance of impropriety on my part.” Yet he feels arguing his case in public, without cross-examination, does not interfere with the investigation at all.
Ravnsborg says he had drunk no alcohol Saturday night.
Ravnsborg fudges his story a bit, saying now that he initially thought the man he hit was “a large animal (likely a deer)”.
Note also the grammatical distancing: Ravnsborg says, “My vehicle struck something….” Making the subject of that sentence “my vehicle” instead of “I” is like saying “My firearm shot something” or “My pen wrote something.”
Ravnsborg says he stopped, called 9-1-1 immediately, and investigated the scene with Hyde County Sheriff Mike Volek. He and the sheriff saw no sign of the large animal they were looking for.
Ravnsborg reports his car was too damaged to drive safely. That level of damage suggests Ravnsborg was moving at a pretty good clip coming out of Highmore.
Ravnsborg says Sheriff Volek, who lives near the accident site, loaned him his personal vehicle to go back to Pierre. Ravnsborg brought the car back in the morning with his chief of staff and spokesman, Tim Bormann, to drive him back.
Ravnsborg says he and Bormann stopped at the accident site on the way to Sheriff Volek’s house. The debris from Ravnsborg’s car was still on the road. Ravnsborg and Bormann walked the shoulder and “discovered the body of Mr. Boever in the grass just off the roadway. My chief of staff and I checked and it was apparent that Mr. Boever was deceased.”
“Just off the roadway”—that’s a key detail. The victim was not thrown far away from the road into the beanfield. The grass in the ditch was not high: Boever had hit a hay bale in that ditch with his truck earlier Saturday; a KSFY photo also shows a bale in the ditch, indicating the ditch had been recently mowed. The body does not seem to have been hidden by vegetation.
Ravnsborg drove to Sheriff Volek’s house immediately to tell him they’d found a dead man. The Sheriff came back to the site with Ravnsborg and asked him to go back to Pierre.
An investigation suddenly graduates from car-deer accident to human fatality, and the sheriff on the scene tells the suspect apparently responsible for the death to leave the county?
Interesting... Very interesting... But coming from the state that has given us two big juicy scandals (EB-5 and GearUp!), well, anything's possible.
Meanwhile, KELO-TV has a photo of the car Ravnsborg was driving (Kelo-TV). The windshield is almost gone on the passenger side.
Meanwhile, of course some people are already blaming the victim for taking a walk at night on a rural road. (See Here) (The writer of this is a GOP State Legislator. Politics is EVERYWHERE.)
My response: Why Boever took a walk is totally irrelevant. The last I heard, this is South Dakota, in the United States of America, and each and every one of us have the right to take a walk whenever and wherever we want as long as we're not trespassing. Unlit, rural highways are a really excellent place to see the stars, for one thing. For another, he might well have wanted to get something he forgot out of his truck. And finally, his mental condition, history of alcoholism, or anything else is irrelevant. He was the victim, not the driver. It is the driver's responsibility to explain why he hit and killed a human being. QUIT BLAMING THE VICTIM. Someday it might be your cousin lying by the side of a road, dead, while someone else says, "well, what were they wearing?"
Meanwhile, this is the victim's cousin (SD State Legislator Nick Nemec) on going to the accident scene (KELO):
At the time the brakes were applied (clearly visible due to tire skid marks) the right hand tires of the car were well onto the shoulder of the road. This stretch of US14 has wide paved shoulders with rumble strips at the white line.
I stepped off the tire skid marks and they went on for over 200 feet before there were two parallel blood skid marks on the paved shoulder. This first blood marks were about 6″ wide and 6′-8′ long.
There was then a skip for about 20 feet before a wider blood skid mark closer to the edge of the shoulder that was about 1′ wide and 20′ long. There was then another skip of about 20′ until a dried pool of blood in the grass on the edge of the road.
The pool of blood was 2′ from the edge of the pavement (I measured with a tape measure) the grass here had been mowed late this summer and had regrown to 8″ tall (I measured it). This was the very edge of the grass and the ground was nearly level with the shoulder of the road at this point, the ditch slope had not really begun yet. Black flies were buzzing in the air just above the blood pool.
As I stood there a flatbed truck drove by carrying a red Ford Taurus with a huge hole in the passenger side of the windshield. The truck turned into the SD DOT yard near the speed limit sign and drove into the shop and the overhead door quickly closed. Highway patrolmen and other authority figures immediately surrounded my vehicle as I drove up to the building and parked. I requested permission to photograph the windshield of the vehicle and was denied...
I saw traffic cones marking stuff and new paint marks of a different color on the road. I don’t know how long the road was reduced to one lane but a friend told my brother Victor that FBI agents were seen on the scene later that afternoon.”
I will, at this point, allow you all to consider all the clues that are given as to what happened and make your own pre-investigation report conclusions. Personally, my view is that - with his consistent statement that he thought he hit a deer, and the body was not discovered until the next day - there is no way that AG Ravsnborg could have been looking at the road at the time of impact. Texting? Nodding off? Distracted by something else?
Updates will follow as they're released from South Dakota, where we talk like Mayberry and act like Goodfellas. And sometimes we just BS all over the place.
I was talking to someone who shall be nameless about "certain people" who harp on how the Central Park Five should still be in jail. Now the Central Park Five were falsely accused, and convicted, based on coerced confessions and a lot of cover-up of things like the fact that none of their DNA matched the DNA in the case. But to "certain people" they should be still in jail because (1) if they were innocent, why did they confess in the first place? and (2) "These young men do not exactly have the pasts of angels."
My response to #2 is, "Who does?" and give them a steady stare.*
My response to #1 is, there's a long list of reasons. The obvious reasons that they were juveniles (four were 15, one was 16), interrogated for hours, without counsel, without food (Dylan Roof was given Burger King takeout), and violence. (One of the defendants said, "I would hear them beating up Korey Wise in the next room", and "they would come and look at me and say: 'You realize you're next.' The fear made me feel really like I was not going to be able to make it out." Wikipedia)
And there's also the reason that (in my experience) young adolescents have a self-destruct button built into them which is inexplicable, unpredictable, and always hits at the wrong damn time in the wrong damn way. Adolescent males are of most notorious for a tendency to direct their violence outwardly, as in every freaking school shooter we've ever seen. But the self-destruct button hits both sexes in self-harm (cutting etc.), running away, running off with the absolute wrong/worst person possible, and/or suicide attempts, all of which are different ways of giving up on life. Because they don't see any way out and / or they no longer give a damn. Confessing to a crime you didn't commit is another way of doing it.
One example of this was done by Agatha Christie in Towards Zero, in which two characters - Sergeant Battle's daughter (a minor character) gives up and confesses to a crime she didn't commit, which stumps Battle. Why would she do that? Why? He cannot understand - but because of his daughter, he can see and believe someone else…
And of course, in James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk, Fonny is falsely accused of raping a woman, and arrested and jailed before trial. It's a slam-dunk case for the prosecutor, because a cop places him at the scene of the crime, Fonny has priors, as does his primary witness to his innocence, and he is black. The result? He ends up accepting a plea deal and serves time - years of time - for a crime he didn't do.
Sometimes the law works against you. Sometimes life works against you. Drugs, hard knocks, poverty, and other disasters - "If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all" - can easily lead to a hopelessness that can be summed up in "What the hell." Whether it's confessing, killing, suicide, or cutting yourself to the bone.
Or running away: 99% of runaways leave home because home is a lousy place to be. Most of them leave broke, with the clothes on their backs, and all the self-worth of a sandflea. It makes them very vulnerable, easy targets for drug dealers, pimps, cons, gangs, cults, and anyone who shows them a hint of attention. "What the hell. It just doesn't matter." To anything anyone does to them or with them.
And it's not just inmates and runaways. I've seen a few college students hit a crisis and literally sandbag their entire lives. One I knew was making straight A's, and then something happened (I never did find out what), and he literally quit coming to class the last 2 weeks. I chased him down and told him if he'd come take the final, he could probably pull out a "D" (as in "D" for "done") or maybe even a "C". And he said, sure, he would - but he didn't. And so he flunked. My class, every class, and dropped out of school. No idea what happened after that.
I think the self-destruct button is far more common than any of us like to think.
Isn't that what most mid-life crises are? Figuring, "What the hell", and going out and doing some incredibly stupid crap - from drugs to crime to skeevy relationships - that you may well be too old to survive?
And then there's long-lasting trauma. I can't tell you how many people I'm talking to who are worn out, exhausted, and struggling with depression and even despair because of 2020 - I mean pandemic, politics, wildfires, hurricanes, and the economy all wrap up to make it hard to stay always cheerful and bright. Not to mention the constant gaslighting. Check out this wonderful article by DS Leiter:
Not to mention some of our politicians. Our own Governor, Kristi Noem, said last week at a Rotary event (after we passed the 14,000 case mark), that "I won't be changing my recommendations that I can see in the near future. I think this is where we expected we would be. None of this is a surprise. Originally, based on modeling, (our) peak day in June, we would have up to 10,000 people in the hospital in South Dakota that had COVID-19." (Argus Leader) In other words, until we have 10,000 people in the hospital in South Dakota, life will continue to go on as normal. Of course, with only 880,000 people in the entire state, 10,000 hospitalized would mean the whole state has it, but what the hey.
Meanwhile, our Governor is having a great time. Here she is at September 4th's South Dakota State Fair Bull Bash (Huron Plainsman) Photo from Twitter:
Sigh...
Anyway, I'm certain that a lot of people are hearing [one of] the voices in their head** saying, "What the hell. Maybe we should just go ahead and catch the damn virus and get it over with." Except that the prognosis for 100% recovery from COVID-19 is decreasing rapidly with every new batch of information we get. Or "What the hell. Maybe we just won't vote - it won't do any good anyway." Well, you can figure out your own reasons why that's bull.
All I can say is that this year, this pandemic, and life under almost any circumstances is a marathon, not a sprint. Don't let the voices in your head get to you, and don't hit the self-destruct button.
“Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum”***
* If you have lived an angelic past, God bless you and keep you, but we're going to run out of things to talk about. And I probably won't believe you.
** Someday I should write a blog post about the voices, but don't expect it to be coherent. As I tell my fellow Al-Anons, that I don't call mine "the committee" because committees are organized.
*** Yes, I know that isn't proper Latin. 😎 I like it anyway.
We live in a quiet neighborhood in what's called central Sioux Falls. We're close enough to two universities that, pre-COVID-19, we saw skateboarders with dreadlocks heading home from class, students playing hackey sack in someone's yard, students walking through snow wearing parkas and shorts. Late afternoons were always interesting; early mornings were always quiet.
It's a real neighborhood: ages range from families with small kids to a retiree who lives in Florida. People walk their dogs. One of our neighbors has two cats that roam around and take turns hanging out on various porches, including ours. Lots of old trees, old houses, old porches. Mostly quiet. The occasional fender bender or outright crash (especially when students are in a big hurry to get somewhere). The occasional argument that reaches a crescendo out on someone's porch, sidewalk, or on the street. Many of the latter are currently sparked by a Lothario in a rental who's running [at least] two women at the same time.
So it came as a shock when, a few weeks ago, the cops woke everyone up at midnight. We were sound asleep, and it took me a while to realize it wasn't a dream: someone really was banging on the door. And wouldn't stop. I pulled on my bathrobe and stepped gingerly toward the front door. I could see numerous cop cars, lights going like crazy in the street, and someone walking up and down our porch in between bangs. He stopped and shone a flashlight in through our living room window: and I will admit, even though it is Sioux Falls, SD, and I am a rapidly aging white woman in a quiet neighborhood - I held my breath as I turned on the living room light and waved. And went to open the door.
He was very polite. He apologized for waking us up, but there had been a drive-by, with a lot of shots fired, and he needed to know if everyone in the house was all right. I said yes. He asked if I was sure. I said, yes. Then he asked if I would please go through my house and check for bullet holes in the walls, and if I found any, to please let him know. And if not, I could just turn off the lights and go back to bed. I said I would, and began turning on all the lights, looking at all the walls, and thankfully, found nothing. (I did not check the detached garage - I figured it could wait till morning.)
I will say that there's nothing like checking the house for bullet holes to wake you up thoroughly, and it took me a long time to get back to sleep. Not to mention that the cops didn't leave for another hour or so, and the lights... And then it started to thunder... And storm...
The next day the whole neighborhood was groggy. But we all figured it was a one-off. My personal suspicion was that the Lothario had gotten into another fight and he or one of the shes was venting.
And then, two days later, around 2 in the morning, we all heard more gunshots - but this time it sounded like they came from the street(s) behind us. Turns out it did, a couple of blocks away. So a lot of us called the police and asked for more patrols for a while. And they are apparently working - things calmed down, and we're back to pretty much quiet, so that's good.
Along the line, we discovered that there's a house a few blocks away that recently became a rental and was rented (apparently) to people who've turned it into a drug house. "The police are keeping their eye on it", I was told. I drove by it a while back and it doesn't look nearly as trashy as you might expect.
Meanwhile, people are talking, worrying - and writing - about "what's happening to our wonderful community?" But Sioux Falls isn't Mayberry any more. Sure, back in the 1960s and 1970s it had only about 60,000-75,000 people. Even in 2000 it was only about 125,000. But today, metro Sioux Falls is around 260,000 people; it's the largest city in the state. We're at the intersection of the two interstates that cross South Dakota - I-29 and I-90. We're the medical center of the state - if you get in real trouble, this is where you'll be airlifted. We're the financial hub as well. And we have been promoted on national media a few times for being one of the best places to live.
Result? People move here. And with people comes trouble. Drug cases are increasing; crime is increasing generally; and almost every week guns are stolen from unlocked cars. Yes, you read that correctly - apparently people just aren't getting the memo that leaving guns in an unlocked car might not be a good idea. In fact, last night the local news announced that it had happened again... Sigh...
Still, it's a lot safer than Philadelphia, Los Angeles, or Atlanta, all of which Allan and/or I have lived. I'll stay put. Granted, I'll also keep an eye on the drug house and on the Lothario...
Last week was the 75th anniversary of the United States' atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, 8:15 AM. (Nagasaki was bombed August 9, 1945 at 11:01 AM.) I'm not going into the whole history of how those two cities were chosen to be the first and only cities ever to be nuked, nor why no demonstration bomb or warning was given, nor how, even after Nagasaki, Japan's war council still wanted to continue fighting the war. (It wasn't until the Emperor announced that, as long as kokutai - which approximately means Japanese sovereignty - was recognized, he was going to surrender to the Allies, that the war council was forced to acceptance. Sort of.)
But what I want to talk about is the power of the written word.
Back when I taught History of Japan classes (Ancient in the fall, Modern in the spring), when we got to WW2, I had them read John Hersey's Hiroshima and showed them Frank Capra's short film Know Your Enemy: Japan. You can watch it too, below.
The New Yorker has put the magazine version of Hiroshima (originally published August 24, 1946, and it was the entire magazine) available for free online HERE.
After watching the movie in class and reading the book, they had to write reports analyzing both as propaganda and/or journalism. And then we discussed it all in class.
Couple of things: they found Frank Capra's propaganda techniques pretty funny and pretty crude. Most of them almost always ignored the fact that John Hersey chose as his protagonists those who Americans would be able to relate to.
"A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb, and these six were among the survivors. They still wonder why they lived when so many others died." - Hiroshima, p. 2
MY NOTE: If that sounds similar to the opening line of Thornton Wilder's 1929 The Bridge of San Luis Rey: “On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below.” - it should. Hersey cited it as a direct inspiration for his Hiroshima.
Anyway, the six characters are:
Mrs. Nakamura - widow raising children.
Dr. Terufumi Sasaki - dedicated physician, very Westernized.
Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge - German Jesuit priest living in Hiroshima.
Pastor Kiyoshi Tanimoto - Methodist pastor who loves America.
I mean, really, 3 Christians? Japan is at most 2.3% Christian, and the majority are Shinto and/or Buddhist. One foreigner? Two doctors? Mrs. Nakamura is about the only "typical Japanese" in the book. Think that might be on purpose?
Anyway. To move on to what struck me, year after year. The students, as I say, found Capra's movie crude and even funny. The visuals - piles of dead babies, flamethrowers used on living people, etc. - didn't bother them a bit. In fact, most of them didn't even remember those. But they found Hiroshima harrowing. I always had someone who said, "that scene in the [___] gave me nightmares." And a lot of heads nodding in agreement.
This shouldn't be surprising.
"An average American youth will witness 200,000 violent acts on television before age 18. Violence is often considerable, even in programs not advertised as violent. Overall, weapons appear on prime time television an average of nine times each hour.19 An estimated 54 percent of American children can watch this programming from the privacy of their own bedrooms."
Volume I: summary report of the American Psychological Association Commission on Violence and Youth. 1993.
I'd say it's gone up since then.
Anyway, they'd been jaded. They've seen dead babies before; Grand Theft Auto and other video games provide explicit ways of tearing off people's heads, disembowling them, etc.
But words are still effective. If the writing is good. And Hersey's is very good. What scene affected the students most? Depended on the student. The wounded in the river; Father Kleinsorge wandering around with pieces of glass in his neck and back; the burns; the bodies; the vomiting; the polluted river; the skin… They had nightmares.
That's what writing is all about, isn't it? Making someone see it - whatever "it" is - in their minds.
If you can do that, they'll never be able to forget. We've all read scenes like that. We've all - I hope - written at least one scene like that.
