Notable passing. William J. Calley.

 

William J. Calley, who was convicted for his commanding role in the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, has died at age 80.

Calley only served three years under house arrest at his military apartment for the crime, before being released and cashiered from the Army.  About 500 Vietnamese civilians were killed before a helicopter pilot heroically intervened, with some ground troops assisting him.  Calley was convicted on 22 counts of murder, having been originally charged with about 100, but only served three days behind bars before President Nixon confined him to house arrest.

He kept to himself after release, but maintained the classic "only following orders" defense, which is no defense at all.  He became a successful businessman in Columbus Georgia.  In later years he admitted to friends that he'd committed the acts charged with.  In 2009 he issued a public apology, stating:

There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai. I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.

He was in some ways an interesting example of the officer corps at the time, in that he had gone to, but failed to complete, college. He entered the Army due to poverty in 1966.

Four solders were charged with crimes due to the massacre, but only Calley went forward to conviction.  There was at the time some reason to believe his "following orders" story, but in a general, rather than specific, sense.

Oddly, on this day, I'm drinking Vietnamese coffee.  I have some baseball type "patrol" caps from Australia around here that were made in Vietnam.  Vietnam is courted by the US as an ally against the country's traditional enemy, China, even though it remains a Communist state controlled country and economy.  A vast amount of the shrimp served on American tables comes from Vietnamese waters.  The country has become a tourist destination for Americans, and there is, bizarrely given the build of the Vietnamese, a Victoria's Secret in Hanoi.

Most Americans, and Most Vietnamese, were born after his conviction in 1973.

The world moved on, save for those whose lives ended that day, or were impacted by those events over 50 years ago.  Calley, at 80, was a member, however, of the generation which is only now beginning to lose its grip on power.  Joe Biden is just about the same age.  Donald Trump, who was not impoverished, is two years younger and obtained four student draft deferments while being deemed fit for military service.  In 1968, the year of My Lai, he was classified as eligible to serve but later that same year he was classified 1-Y, a conditional medical deferment, and in 1972, as the draft was winding down, he was reclassified 4-F due to bone spurs.  No combat veteran of the Vietnam War has been elected President and none every will be, as they begin to pass on.  Al Gore, agre 76, who served in the country as a photographer, was a Vietnam Veteran, however, and George Bush II, age 78, was an Air National Guard pilot who did volunteer for service in the country, but who did not receive it.

Calley's generation, which is now rapidly passing, was the most influential in American history, and in many ways which were not good ones, which is not to say that there weren't ways in which they were positive influences.  They'll soon be a memory, like the generation that fought World War One became some twenty or so years ago, and the generation that fought World War Two basically has been.  

Calley's death serves as a reminder and a reflection of a lot of things.

I've experienced total or near total solar eclipses twice. . .

 and I can't grasp why a person would travel to see one.  It seems like an extravagant waste of money to me.

Lex Anteinternet: St. Patrick's Day

Lex Anteinternet: St. Patrick's Day: A Celtic cross in a local cemetery, marking the grave of a very Irish, and Irish Catholic, figure. Recently I ran this item:  Lex Anteintern...

So, after the crabby entry, what did I do for St. Patrick's Day?

Well, my St. Patrick's Day really started on the prior day, March 16, as my daughter was in town.  We always have corned beef and I hadn't secured one, so after work (lawyers, you should be aware, often work six days a week. . . at least I do) I went to get one.

Usually, this isn't a problem, but it was on Saturday and I ended up getting one at a specialty butcher shop after going to three of them, which is a nice thing to think of in a way.  Distributism saved the holiday.

I now also have a corned pork butt, or corned pork roast, I'll have to look at the label, from the second one I visited, that visit being due to the recommendation of the first. They were really friendly at all of them, and at that one they insisted I try the corned pork, which they had just cooked one of for themselves.

It was quite good, much like pastrami.

Long-suffering spouse informed me that while she doesn't like corned beef (her DNA, I'd note, is almost as Irish as mine, but not quite) she hates pastrami.

Anyhow, I also went to the liquor store to buy stout and Irish whiskey.  I got the last six-pack of Guinness and some Irish ale I'd never heard of.

Which made me wonder what on earth was going on.  To see the shelves cleared that way was downright weird. And all the parking lots all over town were full.

I chose the liquor store as it was near one of the churches in town, and it gave me the opportunity to go to confession.  They informed me in the store, which was new, that the parking lot was full as their bar had just opened, and it was packed. That surprised me as it was about 1:00 p.m. which strikes me as really early to hit the bars.

I went to confession, as noted, and was right behind my next store neighbors.  I avail myself of the sacrament frequently, so I was comfortable speaking to my neighbor while in line.  I know what my sins and many failings are.  The very traditionally dressed women behind me in line, however, was clearly not happy with us chatting. Anyhow, it's odd as we live right next store, but we don't actually chat all that much.

Long suffering spouse is a better chatter than I am.

I went home and I fixed the St. Patrick's Day meal, which is my chore.  It was good, but the corned beef was uniquely not very fatty.  Long suffering spouse and daughter liked it better than the usual, grocery store bought, one.  I like the fatty one better.

We'll see what opinions are on the pork.

On St. Patrick of Ireland's day itself, the first thing I did was go to Mass.  The Gospel reading was as follows:

Gospel

Jn 12:20-33

Some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover Feast came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,  and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew;  then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them,  “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to you,  unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,  it remains just a grain of wheat;  but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me,  and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.

“I am troubled now.  Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven,  “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.” The crowd there heard it and said it was thunder;  but others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered and said,  “This voice did not come for my sake but for yours. Now is the time of judgment on this world;  now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth,  I will draw everyone to myself.” 

He said this indicating the kind of death he would die.

It struck me because of this section:

Amen, amen, I say to you,  unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,  it remains just a grain of wheat;  but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me,  and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.

The reason is that I've been going through a lot that's been forced up on me recently, together with others upon whom it's been forced, but I'm finding myself unique making decisions for everyone, and not for what I want to do, but for others. The stress of it has been gigantic and when I stop to think about it, it's depressing.

I went home and made a breakfast out of a bagel and left over corned beef.

In the afternoon, I went out fishing and took the dog.  On the way, I was listening to a podcast, like I'll tend to do.  It was a Catholic Answers Focus interview of Carrie Gress and it was profound.  I'll post on that elsewhere.  

We didn't catch any fish.  Nothing was biting, so we came home.

By that time, I'd finished the short Gress podcast and listened to This Week.  I've later listed to Meet The Press.  Both featured Republicans try to tell people that when Donald Trump promised a bloodbath if he isn't elected, he didn't really mean that, but was speaking instead about cars coming in from Mexico from Chinese factories. The full text of his speech stated:

We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected, now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars. They’re building massive factories.

It's interesting that Republicans feel compelled to continually tell you that Trump didn't mean what he said. It's also interesting that a person with such a strange pattern of speech is listened to.  He rambles and repeats.

The other thing that the shows all dealt with was Chuck Schumer calling for an Israeli election as he's upset with the current Israeli government.  A lot of people are upset with the current Israeli government, including a lot of Israelis, but an American elected official calling for a new government in another democracy is really beyond the Pale.

St. Patrick's Day's meal was left over corned beef and Brussels Sprouts, and cheese lasagna from the prior Friday.

No big blowout, no "Craic".  Just an observation that probably more closely resembles that of centuries of Irish people, in Ireland and the diaspora.  A small family gathering, a small feast, a little regional alcohol.  Reconciliation and Mass, and knowing that today the grim problems of the last two weeks, on this Monday, return.

Robert Clary

We were not even human beings. When we got to Buchenwald, the SS shoved us into a shower room to spend the night. I had heard the rumours about the dummy shower heads that were gas jets. I thought, 'This is it.' But no, it was just a place to sleep. The first eight days there, the Germans kept us without a crumb to eat. We were hanging on to life by pure guts, sleeping on top of each other, every morning waking up to find a new corpse next to you. ... The whole experience was a complete nightmare — the way they treated us, what we had to do to survive. We were less than animals. Sometimes I dream about those days. I wake up in a sweat terrified for fear I'm about to be sent away to a concentration camp, but I don't hold a grudge because that's a great waste of time. Yes, there's something dark in the human soul. For the most part, human beings are not very nice. That's why when you find those who are, you cherish them.

 Robert Clary (born Robert Max Widerman), famous for Hogan's Heroes.

Saturday, September 2, 1922. Anthracite Coal Strike Ends.

 

Country Gentleman, for its Saturday issue, ran the second part of a story that it started the week prior.

It's interesting to note, FWIW, that in depictions of rural children from this era, such as this one, they're commonly depicted sans shoes.  A lot of these illustrations, while romanticized, are fairly accurate, which would suggest that farm children, at least in some parts of the country, did typically omit footwear in the summer.   That certainly doesn't ever seem to have been the case here, however.

The Saturday Evening Post came out with a portrait by Charles A. MacClellan of an attractive, but very serious looking, woman which is apparently entitled "Back To School"

Judge went to press with certainty that at least beer was going to be exempted from Prohibition.

Judge was correct, of course.  Not only beer, but alcohol in general, would come back starting a decade later, although not all at once with a sudden repeal of Prohibition at the national level, as so often imagined.

Interestingly, this has a modern parallel in that what had been constitutionalized, a ban on alcohol, was reversed even though not everyone was in favor of that reversal, leaving the states to sort it out, which they did, but not instantly.  The Dobbs decision effectively does that with another issue.

Whether allowed or not, today, even eventually, it's not now for me, as this is colonoscopy day.  

I've been dreading it and really pondering changing course.  It's not so much the procedure itself, it's the medications they require the day and early morning of which cause . . well. . . diarrhea.  I hate being sick, and I'm not sure if it's worth it.

Having said that, according to something I read, 1 in 23 men get colorectal cancer, which sounds like a lot.  But that's 4.35%, which doesn't.  In an abstract fashion, I feel that everyone ought to get this simple diagnostic tool, but I'm hypocritical enough to be reconsidering it.

Again, it's the diarrhea medication that I'm dreading at the time I type this out.  I'd rather skip eating several days prior, which seems like it ought to do the same thing.

The United Mine Workers and the Policy Committee of the Anthracite Coal Operators came to an agreement for a year, which brought to an end the dangerous strike that had been going on for some time.

Friedrich Ebert, President of the German republic, declared the Deutschlandlied to be the national anthem, but only the third stanza of the song.  It remains the German national anthem today, having regained that position in the Budesrepublik in 1952, again starting with the third stanza.  The militant first stanza was used during the Third Reich.

The coyotes were howling in the distance, and not just a little, but a lot.

I don't know if a person can pick up moods or attitudes by reading a blog.  I.e., I don't know if you can read a blog and detect these things.

I also frankly think that people are generally bad at picking up such things anyway, or if they are, at a certain point, they disregard them if they don't fit their own world view in regard to the subject.  I.e., once a person has reached a certain point in life, people's views regarding that person are fixed, and at a societal level.  

We see examples of that all the time.  On rare occasion, and it is rare as it takes courage, somebody will make a radical shift in their lives.  A lawyer leaves his practice to become a priest.  A doctor leaves his to become a farmer.  An accountant becomes an automechanic.  Whatever.  When these things happen there's always a little bit of shock to those around, and a mild suggestion of, well, he must be crazy.

So too is the view when somebody has a personal shift.  People depend on certain other people to occupy certain roles, indeed they depend on them to such an extent that they don't allow those people to bend in them. They have to break, actually, before anything is noticed.  Somebody will be worked to death because heavy work was the role they had, and other people depended upon them to work.  After a tragic demise occurs, people will express shock and surprise, but I wonder how shocked they really are.  Maybe they noticed and just let it happen, as it was to their own benefit.  Many other examples could be provided.

I'm noting all of this for an assortment of reasons.  

Recently I've been feeling like the Lone Ranger on some things and it's a role that I'm not really comfortable with.  I'm not going to go into detail on it, and it's not a sudden shift in anything.  My world outlook is largely the same it is when I was five, which puts me out of sync with almost the entire world in some ways.  

One of the ways is that I've become disgusted with the behavior of a society in a lot of ways.  I deal with problems professionally and in recent years I've come to be a person whom people confer their personal problems to as well.  On a lot of days I start working on dire problems early, handle those problems all day long, and then come home to an entire set of problems.  I've had enough of problems in a lot of ways.  It doesn't matter, however, the problems keep coming.

Indeed, in recent weeks the problems have expanded exponentially.  There's no refuge from them at all.  I'm not going into detail on any of them, but I've literally had days when I've come home and thought that I just want to crawl into the basement, turn on anything on television, and forget the problems.  Instead, my long-suffering spouse will find me, and suddenly I'm given a complete new set of problems.  I've found myself saying "I can't take one more problem" more than once.  It doesn't matter, I'll get them.

The problems that I dislike the most involve fighting.  Not in the physical sense, but in the argumentative sense.  This operates as an enormous self-inflicted irony in my case, as my occupation involves a constant application of the "adversarial process".

Indeed, that's part of the existential problem that I find myself faced with right now.  Maybe its just my mood, which if so is now a mood running for weeks and weeks, but my belief in the adversarial process is broken.  Recent events have taught me that the oft cited claims by lawyers that the process is the best one for sorting out disputes is largely propaganda, and largely propaganda designed to allow them to tolerate being mercenaries.  Added to that, I'm not at the point where I feel the often cited plaintiff's lawyers' claims about representing the rights of the downtrodden are completely false.  I find very little empathy among that group of people, as some recent personal events have demonstrated to me in a shocking way.  A colleague recently said to me, believing the propaganda, that "to be a plaintiff's lawyer you have to have empathy".  That's crap.   They may actually be better off without it.

Indeed, I think they are.  A lack of empathy allows themselves to approach their craft without concern over the impact, to anyone.  And indeed, I've come to the conclusion that this is probably a personality trait best suited for the law, which is part of the problem with the law.  Apathy is the supposed opposite of empathy, and I don't know that really fits it, but in some ways perhaps it does.  I recently experienced a situation in which a plaintiff's lawyer demonstrated a shocking lack of empathy for a genuine ongoing crisis.  In thinking of it, I think this is common to a fault. There are exceptions, but they're rare, I fear.

Blessed are the peacemakers, we're informed by the Beatitudes, but we're not told that there's any peace for them in this life.  Not at all.  Being a peacemaker isn't peaceful, it's tiresome.  It also, ironically, means that the peacemaker is constantly drowning in strife, but not of his own making.

It's a role that's easy to escape.  Thinking on it myself, I had a lawyer act as a mediator in a case some time back who retired from it.  I've twice asked if he'd come out of retirement to handle a mediation in matters he'd be good at.  In no uncertain terms, he's said no way whatsoever.

That example is a good one.  He made a complete break.  He retired and won't be drawn out of retirement. Absolutely not  It was hard for me to grasp at the time, but it isn't now.  He must have had enough of the fighting.  

Added to this is a couple of other things.  One is already hinted at.  I've occupied a certain role in life, personally and professionally, for a very long time.  I've been feeling uneasy about some things existentially for some time, but I tend to keep my own thoughts to myself, as introverted peacemakers do.  That means that by the time you express them, you are unlikely to be listened to until the expressions are too blunt to ignore.  I'm not really even at that level yet, although in some quarters I'm starting to be.

If you are at that level, there's a really strong trend for you to be disregarded.  People generally have the "it'll go away" type of reaction, or "we depend upon you. . . " reaction.  In the latter, it's often very true, but it also has the "your own concerns be damned, we need you to do this.", even from people who are close to you.  The chances of somebody saying "oh gee, we get it your concerns, let me lift this load from you and put it down" are, quite frankly, nonexistent later in life, or at least it seems that way to me.

As part of this, and a major part, you aren't allowed to make such statements regarding a house you built yourself. That's definitely part of it.

People fall into roles, or are even forced into them, more in life than we might suppose and this is particularly true for people who have values.  People lose the ability to avoid working, which is a blunt way to put it, at some point in their early adulthood. At some point beyond that, their ability to avoid serious work largely end as well.  Some do, but many do not.  From their, people's roles in life become more and more determined societally rather than on their own.  Look around at the people you meet today and you'll find that the highly ambitious are probably occupying all their roles as they desired to achieve them, but they made a lot of sacrifices in order to get there.  Most people don't and are shoved into the roles they occupy.

Nonetheless, we all occupy roles at least partially of our own making.  And the longer you are in those roles, for whatever reason, the harder it is to escape them.  That makes us prisoners of cells we built ourselves, and at some point we lose the keys to them.

Which I guess answers a question I've had from time to time, which is why won't God aid me in escaping them.  I don't want to escape anything I’m morally bound to, my family or those I love, but certain other problems.  It's very hard for me to grasp why I have certain very strong impulses in this area, but my efforts are basically put down.  I'm not allowed any easy escape.  Why is this?'

My long-suffering spouse would answer to this, and has, that perhaps you need to be where you are for some reason only God knows.  Maybe that is it.  We're not put here on Earth for a decade's long vacation, but for other reasons.

Well, maybe, but I'm tired of it.  I saw a comment by another devout Catholic the other day which in jest stated something like "God can quit testing me any time now".  I feel that way seriously.  If I'm here as my roles serve some other purpose, selfish though it is, I'd like that purpose to be picked up by somebody else now.

The "check engine light" went out on the Dodge yesterday morning.  I have to drive to Denver, which I hate, today.  The shop didn't have time to take it in to fix it, but they did have time to read the code.  The turbocharger is going out.  When it goes, and it will, it'll cost at least $3,000 to fix.

One more thing.

Last night, I went to bed early.  I was tired anyhow, and frankly after a horrific day I came home and had a glass of Irish Whiskey.  Having a glass of whiskey after a bad day is a bad idea, but I did it anyhow.  One more thing.

I went to bed, as noted, early.  At 9:00 the phone went off.  I leave my phone on at night in case one of the kids call.  It was a client.  I didn't answer the phone.  One more thing.

At 11:00 the dog started barking.  He never barks.  I heard it in my sleep first, but then it woke me up.  Droggy, I woke my long-suffering spouse up, and she took the dog out back. We thought he needed to go out for obvious reasons.  While she was doing that I could smell the smell of a distant forest fire in a year that's been full of them. One more thing.  The fires are due, as if anyone could now ignore it, to a decades long refusal on Western societies part to address an obviously arriving climate crisis.  One more thing.  I suggested she close the windows, even thought it was hot, and turn on the air conditioner, even though I don't like it.  She did.

That came about after we brought the dog back down to go to bed. He kept making muffled barks.  Then I could hear it. 

The coyotes were howling in the distance, and not just a little, but a lot.

They were speaking to the dog.  And to me.