A Suggestion to President Trump

Every member of the committee which will award the Nobel Peace Prize is Norwegian, appointed by the Stormont, Norway's parliament. Norway is a founding and active member of NATO. They share with Sweden, which just joined NATO after years of standing aside, growing alarm about Russia's sabotage and disinformation campaigns, submarine intrusions into national waters, and air space violations.

If you so hunger, Mr President, to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, would it not be prudent to be seen as an even-handed mediator, a conciliator favoring neither one side nor the other? Whether so or not so, you are increasingly believed to be catering to Putin's wishes. Is not your claim to be seeking to broker a just peace weakened by use of a Manhattan real estate developer to negotiate, one who appears to seek accommodating Putin and who coaches Russian counterpoints on how to win points with you?

Is this the way to impress the Norwegians, to be regarded as helping find a settlement that awards and encourages Russion aggression? 

Autumn Leaves

A couple of weeks ago, before the onset of our steady November rains, I lay abed one morning idly staring out our window wall into the back yard. (Until recently, I awoke and the feet hit the floor. Now, suddenly, I can laze about in bed for ten minutes or so. Must be that the trazadone Doc has prescribed to help me get to sleep is working its pharma-magic but on the other end of the night.)

Anyway, the oranges of the big leaf maples, the umber Japanese snowdrop leaves, the brilliant reds (I’m told) of the Japanese maples were drifting down in a gentle breeze from the south. Of course, Johnny Mercer’s Autumn Leaves became my ear worm for the day.

(I’d best explain that “I’m told.” I am partially color blind. I see oranges and yellows – at least my version of them: I have no idea what you see. But for reds and greens, they just don’t register. This time of year, Ann will call out some apparently vivid red which I don’t see. She gets mad at me: “Of course you do; you’re just saying that!” Now, if I had lung cancer or a broken leg would she get angry? But my inability to share in her joy of color enrages her. I don’t get it.)

I asked Co-Pilot to help me trace the evolution of the song. I knew it was originally French; Yves Montand, Edith Piaf, and Juliette Greco among others made it a favorite from 1947 on. The French original, a poem by Jacques Pre'vert set to music by Joseph Kosma entitled The Dead Leaves, Les Feuilles Mortes, is a sad, philosophical lament on the inevitability of loss and death of one's love.

In 1947, Jo Stafford recorded an English version with adapted lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Adapted, not translated. Mercer’s take is more romantic, more focused on longing, nostalgia and sweet memory:

                But I miss you most of all my Darling,

                When autumn leaves start to fall.

I acquaint it with high school, perhaps Jo Stafford's version mixed up with Nat King Cole's; he didn’t record it until 1955, by which time I was either ending junior year or beginning senior year at Hamilton. It was Cole’s recording that set Autumn Leaves into the pantheon of the American Song Book, since recorded by everybody: Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Bill Evans, Frank Sinatra, Chet Baker, Billy Eckstine with Benny Carter, Ella Fitzgerald  and tons more.

Nat King Cole was a phenom. He was topping the charts in ’44 and ’45 (with whites, just as was Jackie Robinson to erase the color line in baseball) and steadily thereafter. Whatever he brought out, sold out. We danced to and necked to Nature Boy (’48), Mona Lisa (’50), and Too Young (’51.) Are you old enough to remember those?

By the time I got to Hamilton College, fall of ’52, the tail-end of the GI Bill vets were gone a year. But they left a legacy at my fraternity (yes, regretfully, I’m one of those) of revering Edith Piaf and of making an annual pilgrimage to Hickory House to hear Mary Lou Williams or Marian McPartland or Dinah Washington. And, of course, Nat King Cole continued to mesmerize us – and our parents.

So, are you still with me? Since watching autumn leaves literally drift past my window the other morning, the song has popped up again and again: “Alexa, play a Bill Evans track, please:” Autumn Leaves, first up. (I always say please to Alexa and to Co-Pilot; my mother taught me to be polite.) Tuning in to KNKX: Autumn Leaves.

Last night, Ann and I attended Seattle Opera’s Recital Series’ presentation of Patricia Sings Piaf featuring Patricia Racette accompanied by pianist Craig Terry. Ann enjoyed it more than did I: for me, Racette’s operatic voice did not quite catch the anguish of the original. But it was a fine evening – and there again, of course: Autumn Leaves. I suppose it’s inevitable in November, but again and again, there it is: the sad, nostalgic longing triggering sweet memories of my own on this, my 92^nd journey around the sun.

 PS I was reading this draft aloud to Ann in the kitchen. Alexa, in the adjacent dining area, must have been eavesdropping. She interrupted my reading to dutifully deliver Bill Evans' Autumn Leaves again.

PPS, four days later: Last night, I was clearing the piano in preparation for Max's and his accompanist's audition tape rehearsal. Atop a pile of Ann's Dad's organ and piano sheet music, there it was again: Autumn Leaves with lyrics in French and English! 

Have You No Shame, Sir, At Last? Have You No Shame?

I echo the famous question “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at last? Have you no sense of decency?” asked of Sen Joe McCarthy by Joseph Welch, counsel for the US Army at the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings. That marked the turning point of McCarthy's career.

To President Trump, I ask: Have you no shame, sir, at last? Have you no shame?

Yesterday, President Donald J. Trump disgraced himself and the Presidency in his hypocritical remarks at Arlington National Cemetery, put into his mouth by some lackey, perhaps Stephen Miller who prepares many of his speeches. This Draft-Dodger Donald J. Trump, who received in 1968 a 1-Y deferment from his Queens draft board after his fourth student deferment had expired (and later, in ‘72, a re-classification to 4-F) on the basis of his claim to have a letter from a doctor (Podiatrist Larry Braunstein who, it turned out, was a tenant of Fred Trump’s) attesting that Donald J. Trump had bone spurs. Trump later said the bone spurs were “minor” and “cured themselves without treatment.” How convenient. And where is this purported letter?

This is same Donald J. Trump who during the 2017 wreath-laying at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, turned and asked his chief of staff, General John F, Kelly “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” General Kelly, who rose from enlisted infantryman to four-star General, was renowned for his leadership, presence, and accountability. Kelly was stunned.

This is the same Donald J. Trump who in August of 2018, upon the customary lowering of flags to honor Sen John McCain’s death, stormed “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser.”

Yesterday, President Trump indulged in hyperbolic eulogies for “fallen heroes”, who answered their nation’s call, “borne the battles” and “formed ranks of mighty walls of flesh and blood”, “lived through nightmares so that we could live the American Dream” and so on and on. What hypocrisy!

He also broke the law forbidding political use of National Military Cemeteries for political purposes by calling out by name his predecessor and lying about the Biden administration’s management of the VA.

In the past, I have shrugged off Trump’s lies and stupid claims (yesterday’s? That we won WWI) but now he has gone too far – cynical, hypocritical claims of loving, respecting, revering veterans and military service – this from a first order draft-dodger. He has defamed those buried at Arlington; has dishonored men like Gen. Kelly; men like Major General Bill Boice with whom I travelled in Sicily; like close friend USMC Capt. John Meredith, who voluntarily undertook two combat tours in Viet Nam.  Trump has made a mockery of such service. 

At the recent Hegseth meeting of general officers from across the globe, Trump accused them of being soft, of "wokeness", of not being martial. He threatened that if they did not like his directives, they should get out, losing their rank and their retirement. He had previously said, to Kelly, that he "wants generals like Hitler's generals", evidentally totally ignorant of their disdain for Hitler and of Operation Valkyrie's attempt to assassinate him.

Moreover, yesterday at Arlington and Tuesday, a week ago, at the Pentagon, he disgraced himself. 

With his hypocrisy and disdain for selfless service he has besmirched the office of POTUS – and this is unforgiveable. 

Have you no shame, sir, at last? Have you no shame?

 Fletch Waller (SSgt. USAR, 1958 - 1964)