Vladimir is Here . . . at Last.

  

Vladimir has emerged from the block of Indiana limestone salvaged from renovation of a building on U W’s Red Square.  I don’t know which building nor the block’s purpose -- a short column 12” x 12” x 48”.  Its fresh surfaces suggest it was indoors, out of the weather.  Whatever, the block was now mine and Vladimir, I imagined, waited inside.  That was 2012 -- a six-year gestation!

It all started in 1989 when I saw the Irish National Theatre Society’s production of Waiting For Godot.  As night falls, Estragon gets chilled so Vladimir takes off his coat and drapes it around his buddy.  But now Vladimir is cold; this lanky Irish actor hunched up, back to audience, long arms wrapped around slapping his back, trying to warm himself.  That image had stayed with me all those years.

And so it began – an overly ambitious project for a presumptuous beginner who had only completed three works up to then.  


But, . . . I posed, . . .

.


. . . lined out the block


. . . and started to chip away. 

Sabah Al-Dharer working with fellow carver John Gilbreath

Whatever small success I have had with that block of limestone six years later is due entirely to the coaching, encouragement and teaching of my friend and mentor Sabah Al=Dhaher.  Sabah, a gifted graduate of the Fine Arts Institute of Basra, never got his hands on stone until he landed here in 1994 after escaping the turmoil of Saddam and Desert Storm.  

He taught me that carving rock is about light and shadow, about shaping the air around the mass, about abhorring a straight line, about nuance and inference – and about perseverance.

Off and on over the years Vladimir slowly took shape.  And he has taken on new meanings – not just cold but anguished – “he looks scared” a child visiting the stone yard said.  “Trying to hold himself together” a woman at a Pratt open house remarked.

I was never sure I was finished; even now, looking at these pictures of Vladimir in place in our front yard, I am still not sure I finished, an anxiety I have had about all my pieces.  It’s more that I stopped than finished. 

But here he is.  I now think of him as “H2O” – Homeless, Hopeless, Out’o’luck.  Struggling to hold himself together but yet grounded – perhaps an apt symbol for our times?

My next project: a 3-dimensional Yin and Yang of pure white marble and multi-hued Brucite, suspended apart, not yet conjoined but yearning for one another.  This one won’t take six years – I hope.  I started on it this morning.

Put the Dolomites on Your Bucket List

Ann and I Witness the Persistence of Culture

Samuel Huntington, whose grim predictions of the Clash of Civilizations  were pooh-poohed by progressives and neo-cons alike, based his world view on the persistence of cultures. He quoted Adda Bozeman's view that cultures involve "values, norms, institutions, and modes of thinking to which successive generations in a given society have attached primary importance." Huntington then believed ('91) that despite the apparent triumph of market capitalism and democratic ideals, the cultural patterns would persist, re-emerge and ultimately disrupt the post cold-war world. Culture will out.

Ann plays Maria Von Trapp (or is it Julie Andrews?)

Ann and I saw this firsthand the first two weeks of September which we spent in the far northeast corner of Italy, the province called Alto Adige – The Heights of the Adige River. But to the people who live there it is not Alto Adige -- it is SudTirol, The South Tyrol, and as much as Italy wishes it to be Italian, Alto Adige is Austrian, Germanic to the core.  After a 100 years trying to "Italianize" it, Italy has given up.  Culture will out.                                                                                                               

In the 9thC, Tyrol was an independent Germanic principality, part of the Holy Roman Empire. Tyrol spanned the Alps, from Meran to Innsbruck.    Its Prince split it into two duchies, between two sons, South Tyrol lying on the south slope of the Alps, North Tyrol to the north – connected by the Brenner Pass, the lowest pass through the Italian Alps.  When his line died out in the 15thC, the two Tyrols passed to the Hapsburgs becoming provinces of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.  And so they remained, except for a brief disruption by Napoleon, until WWI.

Italy entered the war in 1915, on the side of the Britain, France, and Russia, enticed by secret British and French promises to award Italy annexation of the Austrian Sudtirol.  So, the Italians marched northward from the plains of the Veneto intent on driving back Austrian troops blocking the way to the Brenner Pass, the doorway to Austria.  A vicious, lethal three year stand-off ensued. By Armistice in November of 1918, the lines stood pretty much where they always had been -- but 460,000 men had been killed, critically wounded or were missing in action.  460,000!

WWI Italian MASH unit in the bowels of
The Cinque Torres

Ann and I hiked about the battle ground on the peaks of the Dolomites, the Italians dug in around the Cinque Torri, five sheer towers of rock, and the Austrians dug in on the facing peak of Pasubio, against which the Italians threw useless frontal assaults, from which they took relentless artillery barrages, and under which Italian miners tunneled and blew off a third of the mountain peak.  On Dec 13^th, 1916, White Friday, 10,000 combatants were killed, but killed in avalanches rather than by combat.  Brutal, senseless slaughter and suffering.

As we know, in the end the Allies won the war, though not with much help from Italy except for tying up Austrian and German troops in the mountains. So Italy, by treaty in 1920, was awarded the Sudtirol which they promptly re-named Alto Adige.

In 1922, Mussolini set out to “Italianize” his new province, banning German being spoken in public and taught in schools, renaming towns and villages, confiscating properties of Austrian veterans and granting them to Italian veterans, appointing Italian mayors and municipal officers, and so on.

In 1938, when Mussolini joined the Axis powers, he and Hitler struck a deal whereby resistant German speakers would be forcibly resettled in Bavaria and in Tyrolean Austria, by then annexed by Germany.  In 1945 and ‘46, almost all of those resettled returned to their Sudtirol.  It should be noted that the Nazis and Wehrmacht were unwelcome in Sudtirol – these folks considered themselves Austrian, not German – and certainly not Italian.

Bozen's Luna Mondschein, as
German a hotel as one could imagine

So what did Ann and I find in Alto Adige, in 2018, after nearly 100 years of being Italian?  We found Bozen, not Bolzano; Meran, not Merano; and Stern, not La Villa.  We found newly-built German-style architecture, either Tyrolean or Bauhaus; German-style Catholic churches; neat, tidy, orderly,

Meran, not Merano

graffiti-free villages; German menus with beers more prevalent than wines – despite that many restaurants were owned and run by Italians.

 

A typical Sudtirol street

And what did we learn?  That German is the mother tongue of 73% of the households in Alto Adige.  That the manufacturing plants and large orchards and vinyards are German speaker-owned.  That there is a subtle but strong class distinction with German speakers looking down on their Italian farm and service worker neighbors.  That unemployment is 3+%, vs 6+% for the adjacent Veneto, which is truly Italian, and over 11% for Italy as a whole.  That so strong was the separatist movement in the 1970’s that Rome, with Austrian pressure, granted Alto Adige (and Trentino -- their sister-province) considerable autonomy and, in 1991, struck a deal that 90% of their federal taxes would stay in the hands of the provincial governments and only 10% would be sent to Rome.  Imagine how Jerry Brown would love that deal!   Some Sudtirolese still want to be separate, not part of Austria, but an independent, Germanic state. The Schengen Agreement brought the long sought-for free passage between Austria and Italy, and there is an active movement to have issued double passports – Austrian and Italian.

 . . . .

The persistence of culture, grandparent to grandchild, generation after generation.  It won’t be lured away with enticing rewards and privilege, it won’t dwindle away, as with Mexican-Americans who have been resident in Texas and New Mexico for 400 years; it won’t be stamped out even with campaigns of genocide as with our own indigenous Americans who insist on being Navajo or Nez Perce or Cayuse today or as with Orthodox Jewry in Israel.  The Chinese will return to their Emperor and Mandarins, though in a new guise; the Russians to their Czar, though with a new title; the Arabs and Afghans to their clan and tribal Chieftains.  The Turks rejecting Ataturk and reverting to a new Sultan. 

Culture will out.  Huntington was right.  Civilizations, which are cultures writ large, are clashing.

The mistake we make over and over is thinking one culture is superior to another, that ours is best, that we can force or entice other peoples to become like us. Let's create a capitalist, market democracy in Iraq; how bout imposing the rule of law on Afghanistan. Right -- those have worked out well haven't they?  

Until we acknowledge and accept the persistence of culture, we will not make any progress on our shared, trans-cultural problems of global warming, migration, population control, militarization of space.  Cultures persist; culture will out.  Empathy, acceptance and respect are the necessary lubricants to moving forward together to address Earth's and Mankind's problems.

Here's to you from Kuhleitenhutte, at 2,651m

     

A Lucky Guy

Merano, Sept. 11th

Having come this far, I am grateful for many things; I am a very lucky guy.

I owe gratitude to my grand-parents, for their Taylor, Morehouse, Waller and Cook genes are providing me a platform of health on which I think I can still think; and on which to travel, crew, X-country skate-ski, and mountain hike. Yes, I have two artificial knees, a re-built shoulder, two plastic lenses in my eye-balls, no gall bladder, a “uni-cep” rather than a bi-cep, and only 2/3rds of a colon, yet here I am drafting this on my 84th birthday while hiking about the Dolomites and the Texels. And of course, I am especially grateful for the dedication and skill of Dr. Bruckner (knees), and for the team of Dr. Walsh (the insistent gastroenterologist), Dr. Hanly (the gifted surgeon) and the remarkable ICU staff who saved my life at St. Mary’s in Grand Junction, Colo seven years ago.

I am grateful to my parents, first for having me in the fall of 1934, the second lowest birth year of the 20thC, which meant doors easily opened at colleges and universities I could never crack open today. Second, for their dedication to educating their children. And mostly, for their values of integrity, self-reliance, and service which are the standards I test my impulses against again and again. And for my sisters, whom I see all too infrequently, who share those values and who are models of artistic and social activism.

I am grateful, looking back, for enforced national service, back in the day, and my resulting immersion into the melting-pot of Army life. And I guess I must admit, ruefully, gratefulness for being born white (though Ancestry says I have a trace of Benin or Togo in my DNA) and thus an unconscious beneficiary of wholly undeserved white privilege.

I am grateful for the counseling and therapy and reflection that fortified me to break my first marriage and leap into the unknown in search of intimacy and partnership.

I am grateful to the karma that brought Ann Janes into the Rotary Club meeting to which I was speaking — and, thus, into my life. I am so grateful for Ann — for her curiosity, for her love of outdoors, for her love of music, for her charm in groups that makes up for my lack, and most for our mutual, unconditional love that has carried us forward together for 30 years.

I am not grateful to religions but for the teachings of men like Jesus, the Buddha, Socrates, Locke, Marx and Piketty. I am grateful for many who modeled for me leadership, judgment and initiative, people like Jim McFarland, Pete Townley, Bill Marriott, Bob Anderson, Karen Lane, Sabah al Dhahar, Bob Hutchinson — responsible people who made good things happen — and also for those several other associates, who shall remain nameless, who modeled for me negative values and behaviors to eschew. And I am especially grateful for many friends — social couples, old chums from Minneapolis, buddies from the Olympic Club, Horizon House and Pratt — you know who you are.

I am grateful for the discipline of work, for through it both Ann and I have achieved modest successes that provide sufficient financial security to allow us to explore and experience the world.

I am grateful to Barbara, mother of my three children; despite all, we teamed to raise three healthy and productive adults. I am grateful that two of them are better parents than I, and the third, the best uncle any niece or nephew could want. I am grateful for the spouses they have brought into our lives, and for Ann’s two sons and their families who so enrich my life. Between us: nine fascinating grandchildren, one great-grandchild and a second great-granddaughter on the way.

I am sure this sounds preeningly self-congratulatory — but is not life so transitory, change so inevitable, the future so unforeseeable? I am increasingly self-conscious about being such a lucky guy and so very grateful for the blessings I have received.

(Posted 22 Sept upon return from Italy since was unable to post from Merano.)

Bastille Day: Ruminations on France

The seeds of our recent visit to France were planted last winter when Ann and I brought together two friends who had corresponded but never met, Karen L and Roger W.  When Roger was planning a two-week November retreat to “just be” in Paris, I had shared with him Karen’s “Karen at Large” blog posts written during her eighteen-month sojourn in Paris.  The two corresponded and Karen gave Roger many tips on off-the-beaten-path delights that he took advantage of.

Their shared enthusiasm for Paris at that lunch meeting fired my adolescent imagination: “Ann, let’s go to Paris for a month.”  My vision was lounging around each morning nursing a coffee in a sidewalk café a’ la the lost generation and watching the Parisian parade pass by – a myth from the 1920’s, a vision in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, but a reality long gone.  Anyway, “No way,” said Ann, “I want to get out into the French countryside.”  We compromised on two weeks in Paris and a week in Normandy, terra incognito for both of us.  Well, we got it backwards; it should have been one week in Paris and two in Normandy.  One should go to Paris for either five days or six months but not in-between.  An added week in Normandy hardly scratches the surface.

Paris

We couldn’t find a suitable Airbnb or VRBO/Home Away in Saint Germain des Pres, where we had always before stayed, nor on Ile Saint-Louis or in Le Marais.  We took a flyer on a unit in the 8^th Arrondissement, just north of the Ronde on Champs-Elysee, telling ourselves that we were cleverly avoiding the spring tourist glut.  While fully functional, it was no Home Away; its Arab owners had not endowed it with any personal effects – no pictures on the walls, no books, just an immense TV uselessly dominating the living room.  And the 8^th turned out to be apartment buildings and offices, almost devoid of galleries and restaurants, though with help of TripAdvisor we did scour up a couple of good ones in the neighborhood.

After four days, I submitted this to my college class secretary, who was trolling for Alumni Notes news:      

               Jottings from Rue de Colisee, Paris

It’s too bad May does not come with two syllables, for then the song could have been written accurately.  Aprils in Paris, and its Parisians, are usually chilly and austere, but May — oh my! The days are longer, the air softer, the skirts shorter, the stilettos taller, the leaves and flowers and complexions in fresh bloom, the sidewalk cafes full. Even the elderly Mesdames and their little toy dogs have spring in their steps again.

Ann and I blundered into a demonstration protesting the police killing of a young black man, Ismail Deh. Combat-ready cops backed up with tens of paddy wagons lined the streets leading into the square, but all was peaceful albeit raucous. I got stopped for an on-the-street interview, but despite painful echoes of home, they weren’t interested in the views of a American, and on Ave. Franklin D. Roosevelt, of all places.

FDR: now there was a Presidential change-agent. Today, we love Macron — more than do the French. Two reasons: first, he, he isn’t ours; don’t we always love Queens, Presidents, PM’s we don’t have to deal with? Second, Macron is so much more Presidential than our dangerously narcissistic he-who-shall-not-be-named. Consider Macron’s address to the Congress: concerns about shared world problems, about what is right, about pragmatism trumping ideology. And the structure and delivery, a president who speaks in good English. . ..

Macron used “I” as in I advise, I suggest, I believe. He-who-shall-not-be-named (my pitifully small protest  to deny him that which he most covets, to see and hear his name) simply uses “I” as the measure of all things, as in I am the greatest. Mohammed Ali, whom the French also love, another adept at manipulating the public and press, but Ali wasn’t a con — he was the greatest. And he lived out his faith and principles instead of selling them out, willing to sacrifice his crown for what he believed was right.

Today’s Paris is busy, crowded, wrestling with problems; not the version I fantasized. Most things for me are not what they once were; nonetheless, Paris — and life — in May are still wonderful.

(And today, Macron is still calling out our narcissist, thank goodness.)

Well, enough on Paris – and two weeks was more than enough.  We did sit in sidewalk cafes from time to time; I did make a run each morning to the nearby boulangerie for fresh croissants or a baguette; we did see some very good exhibits, especially one on Lissitzky, Malevitch and Chagall in Vitebsk and a wonderful recreation of Brancusi’s Vaugirard atelier. And we did walk, averaging about ten miles each day.

Lunch on Place du General Patton

In France, it's ee'full

Normandy

Train to Le Harvre, Hertz to Honfleur on the mouth of the Seine, a fishing village now dependent on tourism, but charming and hospitable.  We were ensconced in a tiny garret atop an ice cream shop right on the quay of the old ship basin, 43 steps up a narrow, spiral staircase; but worth the climb – windows facing about 280 degrees, five different views.  And greeted with two bouquets of flowers, a bottle of Normandy cider (hard), a fresh baguette and pastries.  And tiny it was, but even so, a kitchen fully equipped – even shell holders for escargot and spice shears -- and all sorts of personal pictures, memorabilia, books and whatever --  truly a Home Away.

Provence is hill-top towns, built for defense; Normandy’s towns are nestled in vales and along river bottoms, snug and peaceful.  Aquitaine is one castle after the next, remainders of the internecine wars that beset the region; La Normandie is barns, orchards, herds of cows, cider mills and fromageries, one after another.  And in the Calvados, the eponymous cider distilleries; why don’t we here in Washington distill our own apple brandy?

Normandy was not always peaceful, of course.  The Vikings, Norsemen, raped and pillaged through it for 200 years.  From Normandy, William the Bastard went to England and became William the Conquerer (taking two Valer brothers with him, from whence came Wallers.)  In June of 1945, the English and their American brothers came back. La Normandie paid the price as did no other Region for the liberation of France.  The cemeteries and museums, the German pill boxes, the wrecks along the beaches as at Arronmanches, remind one constantly.  Yet asking for directions to the Musee de la Bataille de Normandie, the natives of Bayeux were only vaguely aware of where it was; time does scab over wounds.

The best was the Memorial at Caen.  That’s a full day of WWII.  Europe: starting with the treaty of Versaille, the rise of Hitler, the Holocaust, the Eastern Front, the battle for North Africa, Italy, France and then across Germany, and the Nuremburg trials.  Asia: starting with Japan into Manchuria, the US entry, island-hopping the Pacific, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and war-crimes revenge.  I was particularly struck by the questions raised about victors and losers, about collaboration and claims of resistance, about lapses of memory re Vichy France and the “traitors” Petain and Laval.  No evasions or euphemisms, no self-satisfaction -- a memorial that asks questions of each of us.

WWII questions stimulated Ann.  She was reading The Nightingale while in Paris, quite by coincidence.  Normandy triggered lots more.  She has just finished reading Atkinsons' Guns at Last Light, a terrific, highly engaging history of the war to liberate Western Europe; I am re-reading it now.  And we've been watching movies: Patton, Dunkirk, The Longest Day (poor) and Mrs Miniver, Saving Private Ryan, and Twelve O'Clock High to come.  

Normandy and Brittany, which we never did get to – Honfleur is at the east end of Normandy, 2 ½ hours from Mont St. Michel or Cherbourg – calls me back.  It’s beautiful and peaceful.  Its oysters are to die for.  Its cheeses – there must be more than a hundred varieties – are scrumptious.  And we hardly scratched the surface.

Le Vieux Bassin from Chez Janes-Waller

again

Le Moulin de la Gelette, Bayeux

Private Ryan was here

Le Leutenancy, Honfleur

What Does France Mean?

It appears I have unwittingly become a Francophile.  Macron is the strongest voice in support of the unity of the EU.  He is willing to speak truth to power, whether featherbedding rail unions or the American President and our Congress or racists or parliamentarians hanging onto their seats or civil servants running the airports or immigrant-bashers.  Especially proto-fascist immigrant bashers; the only set-back this year to Europe’s jingoist, populist parties was France’s rejection of Marine Le Pen’s mob at the last elections.  Incidentally, 17 of the 23 taking the field for France tomorrow in the World Cup final are sons of immigrants to France.  

France and the US are the only two major countries explicitly dedicated to Liberty.  That is why Bartholdi created the Statue of Liberty, as a gift from the people of France to their brothers, the people of the United States on our 100 birthday.  On this Bastille Day, we ought to remember their example.  Sure, the French have gone off the rails from time to time – The Terror, Napoleon, restoration of the Bourbons, Vichy, Indo-China and so on – and may yet again. We may be going off the rails a bit right now.  But at bottom, France and America share core values worth fighting for, values that are timeless: liberté, égalité, fraternite.  

Viva La France.

Un-dirty Four Letter Words

Yesterday the Coad Table met, a group of foreign affairs buffs who gather monthly to discuss US policy toward a given country or region.  Our topic was overly-broad: US relations with the EU and the other, non-member European states.  Our consensus? First, that great damage is being willfully done to our historic partnerships with Britain, the EU majors (potentially even with Stockholm and Oslo should he-who-shall-not-be-named continue to lust after a Nobel Peace Prize) and that this intentional damage is being done to a Europe weakened with its own populist nationalism and threatening to come undone.  We are not acting as a concerned friend but, rather, as a playground bully demanding a weakling’s lunch money -- a far cry from the US of the June 6^th 74 years ago.  (Ann and I just returned from Normandy, steeped in the lore of '44.)

The second consensus was that to change direction requires focusing on ourselves, here at home.  We need to elect a Congress willing to take initiatives, to strangle via purse strings, to exercise the War Powers Act, to debate and resolve policy directives re global warming, immigration, trade and arms reduction. We need a Congress intent on reversing the eighty-year trend toward Executive power and on re-balancing respective Congressional and Executive Branch roles.

In the course of our discussion of accords and treaties, one of our fellows commented that “collaboration is not a dirty word.”   That set my mind to mulling four-letter dirty words and un-dirty words, four letter words that we should wield in developing our foreign policies and relations with others.  Words like read—as in reading history, position papers, and cultural profiles; words like meet, hear and look; like open, feel and care – as in empathy; like join and meld and team. Perhaps if we swore by these four-letter words, we might begin to treat others as chums rather than as chumps to be bested in contracts and deals.

   

Any change in our foreign relationships must start here at home, with us.  It may take years to undo the damage and re-build trust but the time to start is Now.  This November.  It’s only 150 days away.

Merci, Monsieur Le Preside'nt, pour un bon exemple

Macron Addresses U S Congress: 4/25

Wow! Now there is an example of what democratically elected Presidents should deliver: leadership, vision, and pragmatism, all sold with conviction, courage and civility.  And in pretty good English, too; sentences with power; without anger but with passion; with no pandering to audience; with no appeals to our meanest natures but only to our higher angels.

Je suis un Macroniste.  (Thanks to Karen L for correcting my grammar.)

A Work in Process

The other day, sharp Shanna Crutchfield from Visions of Equity, a consultancy working with us of Pratt on Racial Equity, described herself as “a work-in-process.”  I am struck by that.  I, too, have been and am a work in process.  I suppose we all are in our own ways, some more radically than others, some at different speeds than others.  In my case, process speeds have come in spurts – especially on matters of social awareness and unearned privilege.

My first, wholly unearned privilege, of course, was pure demographics.  1934, the year I was born, was third lowest year for US births since the WWI.  By the time my high school class of ’52 were applying, colleges and Universities had graduated the tail end of the GI Bill crowd. More labs and dorms had been built for them and faculty hired; schools had capacity to fill and were hungry for those few of us, two-thirds of whom weren’t even seeking admission.  Ten years later, when the baby boomers were applying, including a lot more of the women boomers than in our day, schools could be selective.  I couldn’t then have cracked open the doors to a Hamilton or Harvard.  And business was booming in the late ‘50’s, when we few went into the job market, mainly men of course, companies were scrambling to hire us.  

  

My second, unearned privilege was that Y chromosome.  In 1976, I was put in charge of General Mills’ Marketing Services, a collection of departments that executed the marketing programs of our brand divisions.  Sixty-five percent or more of my 400+ employees were women.  I was 42, well brought up, well-educated and always respectful of women, though I had not worked around many other than secretaries.  Boy, did I have a lot to learn (through sheer confrontation) about unconscious male privilege! Suppositions shattered.  I am proud to have carried over those lessons to Marriott and Westin, and helped move women into positions of responsibility they earned and deserved.  But, I regret to say in hindsight, I should have done more about sexism; we were too lenient on harassers in those days before #MeToo. 

The third unearned privilege?  Race. I am, Ancestor tells me, a stew of Northern European and British genes, that stew that over eons, evolved ‘whites’.  Pratt’s racial equity initiatives, and Shanna’s encouragement, have challenged me anew.  I was raised in an unequal Maryland of segregation and discrimination.  We were aware; I was raised in a family that was intolerant of racism. Our father was intolerant only of intolerance, and he was a fighter. But despite being aware of and opposed to the hardships and injustices delivered on black Americans, it wasn’t until the coin of Discrimination has been flipped over to its other side, White Privilege, that my in-process once again has been sped up.

Examining my white privilege has abruptly confronted my attitudes, certitudes and sensitivities.  It seems, after all, it’s not too late for an old dog to learn new tricks.  The now question is what do I do with this awakening? One of the first changes is to think equity rather than equality.  I’d always focused on equality of access and opportunity. But in the light of privilege, is equality enough? What does equity demand?  Tough questions – personally, professionally, and politically.  What causes deserve support?  What politicians deserve support?  What should my town and community be doing?  Where should my energies and resources be applied? What do I want my grandchildren to believe? What actions are affirmative?

I have few answers so far, but lots of new and unsettling questions.  A work in process, indeed. 

In deed?  TBD.

Reflections on Marching for “Their” Lives: a Lost Opportunity for Seattle

After posting pictures of the Seattle march, of course friends asked what it was like?; what did I think?; what did I feel?  I had been nattering to myself about it in any case; now such questions forced me to articulate the musings that bothered me last night and this morning.

The powerful Washington and New York marches filed moving images and stirring words, they had emotional punch.  Our march, for me at least, offered few if any of those.  Naturally, it was smaller, but moreover, as we moved onto five-lanes-wide 4^th Ave, the crowd spaced itself out both in width and length so we lost that tight mass that impresses on-lookers and energizes marchers, that sense of solidarity and impact.  We sort of ambled along.  Efforts to get chants started faded away after a few repetitions.  By 4^th Ave, I could move freely through the crowd, chasing signs that intrigued me (especially those most disparaging “the predator in chief.”)

The morning Times and the local TV coverage have made no attempt to gauge the size of the crowd; “several thousand” they said, as if embarrassed by an under-whelming turnout. Crosscut estimated “more than 50,000.” (Crosscut's coverage had the right focus: on the kids. Google it up; this program doesn't allow me to link.)

 

The signs and chants were mainly generic, almost clichés: Never Again; Ban Assault Weapons; Guns Are Not School Supplies; NRA, Go Away.  All worthy, but none Seattle-specific.

But they weren't saying much . ..

When we arrived at Seattle Center, on the “mall” adjacent to Key Arena and the International Fountain, we milled about aimlessly.  On stage was a Shoreline High guitarist; in interludes, Bob Dillon songs from the ‘70’s were being played; a woman student from some school or other sang.  

After half an hour or so, I headed for restrooms in the Armory, which was packed with folks lined up at every food stall looking for lunch.  The stragglers were still arriving.  Eventually, Governor Inslee spoke glowingly about turning the state over to the youngsters, but murkily about gun controls.  Some students spoke, but much of the crowd missed them.  Voter registration was urged. But whatever end-of-march focus and energy the organizers hoped to have had long since been lost.

My estimation: a set of lost opportunities.  The energy and anticipation we felt at Cal Anderson Park (where Attorney General Bob Ferguson had spoken passionately about how Washington State lags others re high capacity magazines and assault rifles) dissipated step by step.  We needed more marshals to keep the mass dense when we reached the wide downtown boulevards.  At the end of march rally, we needed vibrant calls for local, specific actions – action by the City Council (which has discussed constraints on gun purchase and ownership), by the King County Council (which is ambivalent), by the State Legislature (which is hog-tied.)  If there were such calls, most of us never heard them.  The papers and broadcasters never reported them.

True believers will charge me an impatient, hyper-critical, cynical old fart.  And it would be cruelly facile to say the march fizzled.  But, undeniably, opportunities were lost.   

Today, I Marched for Their Lives: Natalie, Molly, Parker, Max, Ella, Christopher, Liza and a Million Others

From Cal Anderson Park to the Seattle Center --

Mine was an M-1; His was an M-16

Orange is the color of ban

Yes, she really feels this way.