November 9, 2008

Crowds in Grant Park

People demanding change, a museum fixed in time.

Posted at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 4, 2008

The End

Posted at 6:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

July 17, 2008

How to Save America

With John 7,000 miles away in a third world country, I have decided to fill in for him. Now, taking his wife out for a night on the town could be a little awkward and very inconvenient for me. Instead, I have decided to guest blog on this widely revered Ascent Stage.

My name is Cory Ritterbusch, and I am the only ecologist that John knows. Some of you AS die-hards may remember my blog PrairieWorks being cited in the past. I practice a small but growing form of land conservation known as Restoration Ecology in the rural Midwest. Ecological Restoration, as a verb, is the practice of repairing a damaged or destroyed ecosystem. Let's try to get our arms around the man-child that is ecological restoration to show you: How you can utilize it in some of your decision making, how to view the landscape in a new way, the power that humans possess and the damage we can reverse.

For millions of years American Indians and the ecosystem co-existed together here in America rather nicely. What is now corn and soybean fields were extensive prairies, savannas and woodlands harboring thousands of different species. Intermingled amongst these prairies were forests, wetlands, bogs, fens, and so on. There was a very smooth and seamless transition into one another without fragmentation. These ecosystems were on fire frequently, started by lighting strikes and by intentional means by Indians. It was a part of the natural process here in America for millions of years. With fire, the Midwest remained open without many trees. The plants living here adapted to these fires and became dependent on them for survival.

Beginning in the early 1800s pioneers began entering these wild areas and by 1850 the landscape had become extremely altered. Prairies were plowed into crop fields, woodlands were cut for timber and wetlands were drained. This had a detrimental effect on the species that had existed here for millions of years. With the suppression of fire and the introduction of plants from other continents, the conservative native plants had a hard time competing and were eventually extirpated. Luckily, small areas known as remnants were spared and botanists could study these areas to learn about them. These are now a benchmark for comparison and a seed bank for plant propagation. Today, restoration ecologists are mimicking the natural processes in hopes of recreating the glory of the prairie's former past.

The landscape, agricultural and energy industries have also taken notice and are learning from these ghost plants of the past. We are now utilizing native plants to amend troublesome site conditions and are designing landscapes that provide a greater sense of place. The deep root systems that native plants formed after millions of years of harsh weather conditions are being utilized for many applications including: Controlling erosion, removing toxins from soils, creating landscapes that do not require water and fertilizers, planting flower filled areas in sub-par soil conditions and for producing ethanol. Native plants also offer a greater sense of place rather than utilizing the same set of plants from state to state and region to region, regardless of climate and soil types. For example, an Applebee's restaurant chain will use the same building design and landscape design for all of its locations in today's current streamlined thought process.

Much like Frank Lloyd Wright's house designs incorporated elements of local materials, we are now doing this outdoors. Ironically, for the first time we are beginning to create landscapes that are of American influence rather than English and Japanese, the norm for the last two centuries. Replacing lawns, which have large maintenance requirements, with short grasses native to the western Midwest is just one example of how we can utilize native flora to reduce financial and natural resource strains for the betterment of humanity. Soon, we hope that the 55 billion dollar landscape industry can be trained in local plants rather than the sharpening of blades at the cost of a depleting water supply.

History comes full circle sometimes. The plants that we destroyed to create food to feed a nation can now be utilized to solve many important issues here at home. Utilizing perennial prairie plants for ethanol, installing plants that reduce labor inputs, attracting wildlife, reminding us where we are, cleaning our air and water, all while stabilizing soil in the process can be useful tools as we look towards the future. The plants that were once used to sustain an entire population of native people may do so again.

Thanks to John for allowing me to preach the power of native plants.

Cory Ritterbusch
cory@prairieworksinc.com

Posted at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 14, 2008

Can I have a nominee, please?

My senator can lead our nation. Promise.

Posted at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 10, 2008

Are you smarter than a student in 1924?

My wife and I owned a home at 60 Park Circle in Atlanta for a grand total of 14 months in the late 90's. It was an eighty-year-old, single story affair that was actually on the National Register for Historic Places, though we never exactly figured out why.

The house had a partial basement and an extremely creepy, dank, dirt-floored crawlspace. I slithered into this space almost as soon as we took ownership. Towards the back was an old trunk. When I pried the trunk open it was sorta like when Belloq opened the Ark in Raiders with the hiss and the smoke seeping out. Except my face did not melt off.

The top of the trunk was composed of several strata of yellowed newspaper clippings, mostly about the 1924 presidential election. "Keep Cool with Coolidge!"

But the majority of the trunk was full of books, the text books of one W. A. (William) Strange, student at Emory University, resident of 306 Winship Hall.

I didn't do anything with the books at the time. When we moved to Chicago I just loaded the trunk into the moving van. Well, two moves and nine years later I've delved back in.

There are 19 books in all, hardcover, musty, but in remarkably good shape. A snapshot of Mr. Strange's courseload via the titles shows Spanish, Accounting, Psychology, Biology, Chemistry, Latin, and American History. The scribbled marginalia in the books is almost completely homework-related. Alas, there's no musing on flappers, Prohibition, Rhapsody in Blue, the founding of IBM, the Beer Hall Putsch, the Geneva Protocol, or the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

But the history book did contain a sheet of looseleaf paper, a quiz which earned Mr. Strange a C. (He only got three wrong answers, but such was the grading.) It is an interesting little document, not at all what you'd except to find in an American History class nowadays. Of course it's only a sliver of a presumably much wider syllabus, but the questions seem decidedly regional. The phrasing of many of the questions makes it abundantly clear that there's no such thing as a completely neutral view of history.

I've copied the quiz here. See if you can do better than a 32 out of 35. (It seems you can't actually take the quiz embedded here in Firefox for Mac, though Safari works. If you are determined, the version here does work.)

You do have to love the random harmonica question.

So, what happened to you Mr. Strange? And how did your books end up in that crawlspace?

Posted at 1:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

March 24, 2008

Angioplastic diplomacy

Last week I hosted a small delegation from the Palace Museum in Chicago as we head into the final stretch before launching The Forbidden City: Beyond Space and Time project.

We planned a working lunch and had asked the Chinese team what they would be interested in eating. They emphatically requested traditional American fare, specifically Chicago grub. After a little hesitation, we went for it calling on the services of Portillo's and Giordano's.

And so, in a scene not so different from me inspecting foreign delicacies at the Night Market in Beijing the Palace Museum team cautiously approached the layout of Italian beef sandwiches, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, pizza and cheesecake.

I'm not sure the team enjoyed it, frankly. That much fast food heaped together was a bit nauseating to behold, even for me. Though the room-wide indigestion of the post-lunch meetings did have the salutary effect of not letting anyone drift off to sleep.

Transcultural and trans-fatty.

Posted at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 20, 2008

Iraqi on the corner

Yesterday I hosted some Chinese partners from the Forbidden City in Beijing. They missed the Tibet protest march by one day which surely spared me some awkward questions, but we could not escape the Iraq war anniversary march. As the protesters filed past our restaurant window last night, the translator asked me "Why doesn't your government stop it?" Which, you will admit, I could plausibly have taken to mean "the protest" given the inability to do such a thing in China -- but she meant the war itself. I had to chuckle at the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of that question.

I tried to explain America post-9/11. I tried to explain the difference between urban centers and middle America. I tried to explain my personal beliefs. I did none of these well at all.

Later that night, after I had bid the Chinese 再见, I stopped at our corner store. The owner there is an Iraqi fellow named Amir. He knows my family and we know him. He's the genial, Jacobsian neighborhood shopkeeper. The kind of guy who always rounds down the amount at the register.

But last night he was irate. He pointed to the television that's always on, loudly, to an Iraqi satellite station. The coverage was all about an Iraqi cleric who had been murdered, the archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic church, the biggest Christian Iraqi community. Amir is Christian too. He said "They killed him. They are evil." I asked who "they" was and he spewed "Muslims". "There are no good Muslims," he said.

I shook my head and said that there are plenty of good Muslims and quite a few who would agree with his outrage at the murder. But he would have none of it. He told me I only thought that because I knew American Muslims who have moderated their views in public. But he assured me that they too were evil, deep down. I started to explain that in fact most of the Muslims I know are devout and live in Cairo, but I could not get a word in. He was on the verge of tears. I told him I would prefer not to argue, shook his hand, and left.

I was troubled by it all, on this fifth anniversary of invading a country on a weapons-hunt. So I e-mailed an Iraqi colleague of mine, who also happens to be Christian, for her perspective.

Sad to say that even growing up under Saddam Hussein's regime, I never felt any of this animosity. We were all in the same deep shit, Christians and Muslims alike, both being equal victims of a cruel regime. But at least we were free to practice our religion without any threats or dangers from Muslims. I wish I could say the same today.

There are moderate, loving, peaceful Muslims, but unfortunately their numbers are dwindling and their voices shrinking. What bugged me about the archbishop's killing is the hypocrisy: can you imagine for a second how the Muslim community would've reacted if a senior religious figure was kidnapped by Christians and found dead? So while I don't agree with Amir's feelings, I kind of understand why he feels like that. A dangerous catch-22.

It's all upsetting but maybe the more so because the cleaving of national identity along religious lines is not unique to Iraq. You see it here too.

The media and blogosphere of course is alight with commentary on five years of occupation. Lots of acrimony and analysis. But I return to the thought that there must be many people like Amir on both sides, full of hate, deeply sad, and not giving a damn about the cartographic assemblage known as Iraq.

Posted at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 26, 2007

Laboratory Conditions

The past spring I went on a field trip to scout vintage hardware for a film project with Steve Delahoyde of Coudal Partners. We ended up in Los Alamos, New Mexico. We ended up making a slightly different film.

Presented in five parts, one per day this week. Start here.

(Wow, glad that came along. The image of the impaled turkey was making me ill.)

Posted at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 26, 2007

Kleptomerican

Recently someone stole the American flag we've had flying outside our home for years. My wife and I each thought the other had taken it down because of high winds. Only later did we realize it had been snatched. The house doesn't look right without it.

My wife is upset because it means some ill-intentioned stranger came up off the street and onto our porch. At night. With the kids sleeping just above. Meanwhile I'm pondering motivation. Does this mean the thief is aggressively pro-American or anti-American? You could make either argument. Of course, the real answer is likely that the burglar was aggressively drunk.

Guess I'll have to booby trap the next flag. Maybe use the exploding ink packs that banks put in their money stashes. Yeah, I like that. I bet Colbert would too.

Tags: american, flag, theft

Posted at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 7, 2007

Can't we all just get along?

Ah, apparently we can.

Who's that next to Bush? (Get annotatin'.)

Tags: bush, matroyshka, putin

Posted at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 20, 2007

“Nice, but a little weird”

I've been in Los Alamos, New Mexico helping Steve Delahoyde from Coudal Partners on their latest short film project 72°. The original idea was to travel here to scope the Black Hole museum/junkyard/post-nuclear monument for vintage computing equipment. Scope we did, and find we did. The pieces we need are huge, dirty, and packed into a dark aisle crammed with decrepit gizmos. If we end up using them for the film we might have to do so on (or near) location. Would cost a fortune to transport.

We also decided to do a little side documentary on the town itself. The place is amazingly normal on the surface ... a little too normal. Think Pleasantville or The Truman Show. It is a company town through and through, but one in which the ties that bind are not as simple as, say, in a Ford factory town. Secrecy and security are pervasive. Perched on a hill with virtually no crime, Los Alamos also boasts a higher IQ per capita than just about anything but the smallest university town.

Steve writes:

It's a town that has seen hardly any population growth since the 1950s. It's a place where nearly everyone who goes to school here leaves. It's a place where few people are allowed to talk about what they do for a living. It's a place that has the largest average income of any town in the country, yet the retail sector is a shambles and few businesses survive.

Naturally we had to find out more. We spent two days interviewing anyone we could get our hands on. Merchants, teachers, lab employees and retirees, museum docents and even the town peace “kook”. (He's no kook.) You never quite know what you're going to get when you walk up to someone and ask to mic and video them, but almost to a person the interviews surprised and enlightened us.

• The merchant who fields angry requests from townspeople not to sell a tourist t-shirt with a mushroom cloud on it.
• The Los Alamos native who returned (a rare act) to teach geology at the high school and who sees an upside to the devastating fire in 2001 that denuded nearby mountainsides: easier access to rocks.
• The retired physicist working at the hardware store who remembers a Japanese couple thanking him at the science museum for Los Alamos' role in ending WWII.
• The irate lab employee who can't believe the rest of the country doesn't know (or care) about the fact that the laboratory is now a for-profit venture run by a consortium apart from the US government.
• The man who sees little difference between the fire that spread out of control after being deliberately set by forestry officials and the consequences of nuclear arms proliferation.

We're looking forward to sharing these amazing stories with you, as Steve works to edit the many hours into a coherent piece. For now, here are two video snippets: postcard one and postcard two. As always you can follow the main film's progress at the 72° blog.

See also: The discards of Los Alamos

Tags: computing, film, losalamos, newmexico

Posted at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

February 24, 2007

Impaneled

This week I was selected for a panel. No, not that one. The day after returning from Russia I had to report for jury duty and was selected. Just what one needs to catch back up after two weeks abroad.

The trial was civil. Personal injury. Really the stereotype of an ambulance-chasing lawyer with a plaintiff trying to milk an injury for all it is worth. In July 2000 the plaintiff was riding her bike along a relatively busy road. The defendant was stopped at a stop sign, looking left at oncoming traffic. He let his foot off the brake to idle forward and did not see the biker crossing from the right. They collided. The biker toppled over onto her knee. Ambulance came. Away she went.

The biker wasn't badly injured. No cuts, a few bruises, clothing completely intact. She hurt her knee the worst and that was the crux of the case. The emergency room sent her home with some pain med after a clear x-ray. The biker never went to see her family doc but went to a couple of orthopedic surgeons and a chiropractor. The former could never find anything wrong with the knee, though they did not doubt that she was in pain -- a pain that she described as debilitating, if intermittent, and one that prevented her from biking and other exercise. She undertook physical therapy six weeks after the doctor advised it.

Therapy seemed to help, but for some reason she stopped. Then, three years and nine months later she went back to the doctor. He found water on the knee but at this point could not say whether it was a result of the impact or of non-use.

The plaintiff wanted $6,000 in medical bill compensation, about $1.7k for salary lost, $25k for loss of normal life, and $25k for pain and suffering.

As on the only other jury I've been on, the drama and intensity of persuasion that went on in the jury room far exceeded that in the courtroom. The jurors actually elected me foreman -- which was just as well; I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible so I got to control the pace of deliberation somewhat.

It came down to the bizarre gap of time between treatments and the sense that if she truly was in debilitating, normal-life-altering pain that she would have done something in the intervening years. That her lawyer was a bumbling slimeball and the defense attorney was sharp and concise didn't help her case at all. In the end -- though there was one initial juror hold out (isn't there always?) -- we arrived at unanimity by agreeing that a sufferer bears some responsibility in the successful outcome of one's treatment. That is, if you smack me in the head with a bat, you are at fault. But if my doctor insists I need surgery and I refuse, I can't hold you liable for what happens because I declined surgery. This is what happened with the biker and her strange lapses in treatment and physical therapy.

We awarded her recompense for most of her medical bills up until the gap in treatment. Nothing for salary. Uh, hello, it was a salary not a wage and she testified that the doctor gave her a note for work so that she'd be paid for the missed time. Nothing for pain and suffering. Nothing for loss of normal life. In a sense, a victory for the defense.

One thing we debated a bit in the jury room was the complete absence of mention of insurance. Some jurors really wanted to focus on it. Did insurance decline to cover? But since it wasn't mentioned we couldn't debate it. This irritated some jurors.

So, after two days on the Cook County payroll I was $34.40 wealthier and infinitely further behind in work. I will say that it was interesting to spend a week in China then a week in Russia then come back to the USA to engage in one of the only modes of direct civic engagement short of voting or military service. I'm not saying I was humming the national anthem or anything. Just agreeably content to be reminded of something quintessentially American.

Tags: america, jury, law

Posted at 8:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

October 12, 2006

Fighter Pilot

Last year I wrote about my wife's grandfather who had recently passed away. William Boulet was an American fighter pilot in WWII. His story is amazing. Especially interesting is his recollection of his time as a Nazi prisoner of war.* So I've finally digitized an interview conducted at the D-Day Museum and posted it online. (Miss you, Grandpa!)

I realize the audio is a bit low. I'd really like to use Google's captioning functionality at some point.

[*] For example, Boulet's Nazi interrogator, Hans Scharff, is the subject of a book and roundly considered the best of the whole war. Many prisoners interrogated by Scharff praised and even befriended him after he emigrated to the US post-war.

Posted at 7:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 14, 2006

Threatdown

Amazingly today was the first time I'd flown since the terror plot in London was foiled. Certainly there was plenty of B-grade security theater from the TSA, but I was surprised to consider how all this threat level nonsense may fundamentally change how I travel and, possibly, how I work.

So I packed last night for a two-day overnight trip. Backpack for computer, small rolling bag for clothing. Nothing special. Once in the airport I realized I needed to dump the sanitizing hand gel from my backpack. Still no big deal. My fault for not remembering. Then, as my overnight bag was being scanned it occured to me that I had toothpaste, shaving cream, mouthwash, and other liquids in there that'd need tossing. Instead, I got out of line and checked it. OK, fine, so again I forgot. But that's the thing. This latest ban basically means no carry-on overnight luggage. Which means no quick on-off of the plane or in-out of airports..

I know, I should have known and packed/checked accordingly. But the point is, this might actually push me to reconsider overnight trips. I'd rather destroy myself with a first-flight-out last-flight-back daytrip than have to wait at baggage claim or, worse, risk losing it because I checked it. And there's a difference in the amount of work you can get done in one day than in two (or three). All because some idiot terrorists who never would have pulled off their plan succeeded in terrorizing us anyway.

The worst indignity? Well, I was smart enough to know that I could not bring a cup of coffee through security (though many others were pissed to have to dump out their fresh cups). So I bought a cup on the other side of security. Two sips in boarding began and I was told that I needed to dump it. Say what? Dump this coffee in a secure zone? What could I have done to it? Did they suspect the coffee kiosk has doctored the beverage? And if there is concern about liquids past security shouldn't that problem be tackled at the source, rather than letting travellers buy the beverages in the first place? This is such lunacy.

Can't wait for my international trip on Saturday.

Posted at 8:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

May 20, 2006

Ground Zero bickering stops for a moment to Think Different

The International Freedom Center, a cultural hub designed to commemorate 9/11 by promoting America's most important value at the site of its worst foreign attack, was shelved last year when the governor got cold feet because victims' families wanted the entirety of Ground Zero turned into a somber memorial to the dead.

911Memorials.org, a grass-roots watchdog site that helped expel the Freedom Center, has been tracking developments at Ground Zero. Today they asked "Can a glass box save Ground Zero?" (a reference to the new Apple Store design on 5th Ave).

Well, in any event Apple opened a nifty store at GM [General Motors]. LMDC in creating the below level plaza design cited the GM building plaza. That plaza was a dreay failure. Amazing what a glass box did for improving it. A glass box would sure address a lot of problems they have now.

Um, hello? Was no one awake last year? Snøhetta's design for the Freedom Center -- now the design for the ambiguous Cultural Center and possibly for the Memorial museum itself -- is exactly that. The majority of 9/11 artifacts was to be housed underground with at least one above-ground entry via the glass box that was the cultural center. How is it that the Apple design is now a unique inspiration? And isn't Snøhetta still contracted for some construction at Ground Zero? I'd like to know what problems the glass box/mostly underground design will solve this year that it would not have solved last year?

Posted at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 5, 2006

"Mama, I gotta make my guitar louder"

OK, so, today. Let's see.

Had lunch with Les Paul, music pioneer and inventor of the solid-body electric guitar. Encountered a Braille edition of Playboy magazine (yeah you read that right) owned by Ray Charles. Ran my hands through the actual straw that filled the costume of Ray Bolger, the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. Chatted about abortion with the inventor of Lasik eye surgery. Went home. Responded to some e-mail. Kissed the wife and kids. Went to bed.

Actually, most of the day was spent with Les Paul, an extraordinary, vibrant 90-year-old Renaissance man who is one of the most charming people I have ever met. Known to one generation as the co-host of a TV show with Mary Ford in the '50's and to another as the brand on an exceptional type of Gibson guitar, Les Paul understands his place in history, though he is humbled by it, and knows that it is his responsibility to preserve his contribution to American culture. In his home, Les Paul has a Xanadu-like collection of audio-visual media (on a truly bewildering spectrum of recording media) and the artifacts from his career as a performer and inventor (guitars, effects gizmos, recording equipment). This man was a celebrity geek before such thing was in vogue. Musician, inventor, television personality, storyteller, and (thankfully) packrat, Les Paul probably would not even understand the received wisdom of the left-side right-side brain paradigm.

Today one of my colleagues noted that he was going to devote the next few years of his life to becoming as young as Les Paul. To this Les, in a room full of academics and museum-types, leaned back on his chair and mimicked taking a long drag from a joint. This man is 90 years old. He is obviously physically well; Les Paul plays two sets every Monday night at the Iridium club in NYC. But what strikes you is how mentally sharp he is. His stories do not ramble but arc right when they should. His tinkerer's mind grasps technology concepts that elude people half his age. And his ear -- despite hearing aids -- detects the textural differences between pianos made a few centuries apart.

Do I have a man-crush on Les Paul? You bet I do.

He told the story today of being hired to play music to patrons at a drive-in movie theater half-way between Waukesha, Wisconsin (his birthplace) and Milwaukee in 1930-something. To amplify his voice he took apart his mother's phone receiver. He stuck one half of it on top of a broom handle propped upright in a cinder block and wired the other half into a radio. Voila. After his performance he got a note saying, "Good show, kid, but your guitar needs to be louder." This note changed music forever. Les Paul went home, told his mother that he needed some way to amplify his guitar, and set out to construct what became the solid-body electric guitar that has been so important to the 20th century music. His prototype, a 2.5 foot length of railroad track (!) strung with guitar wire and undergirded with the guts of a telephone magnet like his makeshift microphone, was the first in a series of inventions that eventually became the Gibson Les Paul.

Documentaries are being made. Oral histories are being taken. Strategies for the preservation of his legacy are being executed. Everyone knows that documenting Les Paul's life is a race against time (though you would not think there was much urgency from his vitality). But all one really wants to do is slow down and sit on a couch and listen to him tell stories. It isn't the hundreds of guitars in his house or the vintage recordings or the goofy doodads he created to manipulate sound before digital audio made it commonplace. It is the stories in Les Paul's head that are priceless, Americana if ever that word had meaning. This is what we must document now. The material culture is but punctuation on his extraordinary exposition.

Posted at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 2, 2006

Rose-colored glasses

The city of Austin is throbbing in anticipation of the Rose Bowl. I don't follow college football closely at all and can't claim to be even moderately knowledgeable about matters that generate so much trash-talking and inanity. Still, it is hard to avoid the interesting aspects of this matchup that have little do to with football. There's a tempting blue state-red state analogy to be made what with the celebrity photo-ops on the Trojan sidelines while most Longhorn fans are, let's face it, Bush-loving conservatives. (I spotted not one, not two, but three copies of Sean Hannity's latest book being read in the waiting area for a charter flight out of Austin to Ontario, CA today.) That kind of facile, polarizing thinking does make sports matchups more fun, I suppose, but ultimately it rings just as hollow as all the post-election talk of two Americas. For instance, on NYE Austin held its first ever "First Night" parade and fireworks celebration -- easily one of the most eclectic, left-leaning public spectacles I've participated in. Yet, nearly everyone -- including the freakiest of the paraders -- was adorned in burnt orange or celebrating UT in some way. I'd like to see Texas win, but I can just hear Rush Limbaugh or the conservative blogosphere reading more into a Longhorn national championship than is warranted. Some tripe about west coast vs. heartland values. (Maybe they already have?)

And thus you have the first and likely last post about football on Ascent Stage for 2006. Go Cubs!

Posted at 8:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 24, 2005

Thanky

Happy Thanksgiving to the US readership of this blog! Here's hoping you get your fill of family, friends, and fowl.

And to those readers not in the USA thanks for reading. Here's a list of places people have visited Ascent Stage from recently. I don't know who you are, but I'm glad you stopped by!

Buenos Aires, Argentina
Vancouver, Canada
Beijing, China
Stockholm, Sweden
Silkeborg, Denmark
Valladolid, Spain
Pune, India
New Delhi, India
London, England
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Kitchener, Canada
Mechelen, Belgium
Hong Kong, China
Fleet, England
Arequipa, Peru
Dusseldorf, Germany (Kraftwerk, is that you?)
Nottingham, England
Coventry, England
Montreal, Canada

Posted at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 12, 2005

Deliberately wearing the wrong clothes

I'm a Civil War novice. Dad paraded my siblings and I yawningly through battlefield after battlefied in our youth and I've come to know patriotic Galena, Illinois -- Ulysses Grant's place of residence at the outbreak of the war -- as a second home over the last decade and a half. Still, I know next to nothing about the war or the period. I'm just an unreconstructed European Studies major dropout, I guess.

That's changed recently, though. Or, is starting to anyway. During the course of the International Freedom Center project and the Eternal Egypt History Channel documentary I had the fortune of working with Peter Kunhardt, principle of the documentary team at Kunhardt Productions and descendant of Frederick Hill Meserve, one of the earliest and certainly the most prolific collector of Civil War photographs in the country. The collection, begun in the 1890's, contains nearly 200,000 images including all of the known extant photographs of Abraham Lincoln. (Yeah, you read that right.) Peter and his brother Philip are conscientious stewards of this trove and their enthusiasm for the subject matter is infectious.

I met the brothers in Springfield a while back to tour the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. It was a surprisingly moving experience. Hard to impress when it comes to museums, I left thoroughly so. So my interest was piqued and I purchased David Herbert Donald's Lincoln. The biography was engrossing and powerful, an ample primer to the universe of scholarship and opinion surrounding Lincoln as we approach the bicentennial of his birth. Donald sticks very close to Lincoln and the primary sources, letting the eloquence and complexity of the railsplitter's life emerge on its own. The picture that develops of Lincoln is of a politically-engaged but heretofore mostly politically-failed misfit whose genius, once in office, could be attributed to his ability to hold together magnetically repulsive personalities in his cabinet, to capitalize on his caricature-as-character backwoodsiness, and to steadfastly adhere to conviction inside a tempest of diverse national opinion.

Donald's biography ends a few sentences after Lincoln is pronounced dead, basically hanging this Civil War-era neophyte off the narrative cliff. But, rather than pick up the thread at Reconstruction I've backed up a bit and started on William McFeely's Grant. A different type of book than Donald's, McFeely's Grant often tells the story from inside Grant's head, reading into his spartan correspondence and statements with something approaching pscyhoanalysis. Where Mary Todd Lincoln is a big part of Donald's book, Julia Grant is the key to the life of her husband for McFeely. Her letters to Grant do not survive, but his replies to her serve as a touchstone for much of the insight into the man's character. Grant's relationship with his father -- who seemed never happy with his son's increasing accomplishment -- is also closely read.

One similarity between these two very different giants of American history is striking. McFeely calls Lincoln and Grant both "masters at deliberately wearing the wrong clothes," that is, at being able to use difference as an advantage, deriving vitality from the friction of idiosyncracy rather than the comforts of likemindedness.

I'm not finished with Grant nor, I suspect, with this period. You won't see me re-enacting Bull Run any time soon, but I fear I'm hooked. Suggestions for future reading are very welcome.

Incidentally, for you parents out there, the Kunhardt brothers have another claim to fame. They are the grandsons of Dorothy Kunhardt, author of the classic children's book Pat the Bunny.

Posted at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 30, 2005

Expelling freedom

Yesterday Governor Pataki killed the International Freedom Center, a project I have been working on for over a year. This facility, part of the original master plan for Ground Zero and once championed by Pataki, was intended as a complement to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum also to be built on the original parcel of land that the towers occupied.

The idea was simple and highly-regarded: to respond to great tragedy with great hope, to show the world that freedom is the opposite of the forces that led to the destruction of the World Trade Center. The IFC had wide bipartisan support. It was led by a personal friend of the President's and advised by academics on both sides of the political spectrum as well as relatives of victims. The governor, the mayor, the LMDC, and everyone else directly involved in the rebuilding of Ground Zero was pleased with this approach.

Until a grieving a family member with a political agenda provided an argument that set the conversative blogosphere and news networks aflame. She claimed that presenting multiple perspectives on freedom -- what it means to different people, how it is struggled for, how the ideal of freedom guides and misguides our nation and the world -- that this multitude of voices would end up "blaming" America for 9/11. Her rhetorical trick (which the right lapped up and spewed out again and again) was to conflate a multiplicity of perspectives on freedom with a multiplicity of perspectives on what happened on that horrible day. These are fundamentally different things. Yet, the distinction was lost on the grass-roots bloggers who galvanized victim's relatives and first responder organizations in NYC to their cause, pouring salt in the open wounds of these family members by telling them that the IFC would dishonor their deceased loved ones.

Soon the IFC was labelled as anti-American. And the press loved that. The screech of the media feedback loop made this falsehood louder and louder. The Bush Administration early on left it to NYC to decide on the IFC fate. Pataki waffled and made the IFC (and Drawing Center -- a one-time tenant of the same space) promise never to do anything that would "denigrate America". The IFC agreed to this. Yet, Pataki still killed the Center, apparently having made up his mind anyway.

If this has taught us anything it is that emotions are still extremely raw -- too raw for reasoned, non-politicized discussion -- when it comes to the terrorist acts of 9/11. (Even the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania finds itself embroiled in a controversy of dubious merit.) Though the wounds will never heal for many people, the passing of time will permit a critical distance from which to judge the various proposals for how to treat the space. But there is no time. Leaving Ground Zero unbuilt temporarily seems like a weak position to politicians. So Pataki has put an end to the IFC and suggested that the memorial museum, currently underground, will occupy the building once designed for it. Meanwhile, across the street, an additional 300,000 square feet of retail space has been approved.

The International Freedom Center would have been a noble response to the vile acts of people imprisoned by perverse conviction. Now, if the "Take Back The Memorial" groups have their way visitors to Ground Zero will be treated to the twin horrors of an oversized memorial devoted to graphically retelling the story of Sept. 11 and a monstrous retail mall begging for their tourist dollars.

Are crushed fire trucks festooned with American flags really an appropriate way to memorialize what happened that day? Wasn't more assaulted that day than people and property?

Posted at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 23, 2005

Semiotics of freedom

A question for you. What is the difference between these two things?

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Give up? The first establishes the freedoms that Americans enjoy and must protect at all costs. The second is a symbol of that freedom. OK, so another question. Which is more important to you? Which would you be more likely to put your life on the line for? Seems to me an easy choice.

Whenever the issue of flag desecration comes up I can't help but think of early religions that came to value physical depictions of a god more than belief in the deity itself. Aren't we past this, people?

Posted at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 19, 2005

International Freedom Center building design announced

The design for the International Freedom Center -- the only above-ground building on the original parcel of land from the World Trade Center -- was released to the public today. Given the flashy, contentious architecture of the Freedom Tower and a desire not to loom too prominently over the memorial pools, the IFC designs are fairly understated. The building is raised off the ground to permit lots of ground-level interacion and wandering. But what I love most is that the raised structure is the opposite of a building that falls down. It levitates, is ascending -- an implicit counterpoint to the collapse of the towers.

Snøheta, the Norwegian design firm responsible for the Biblioteca Alexandrina (a true masterpiece), created the plans.

Full press release here.

Posted at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 29, 2005

Eyeball-to-eyeball

My wife's grandfather passed away a few weeks ago. He was an amazing man for dozens of reasons, but one part of his life that stands out for me was his service during World War II. Grandpa was a fighter pilot running missions out of the UK. In 1944 he was shot down and captured by the SS. He spent the rest of the war in POW camp, tortured but not broken. But that's a story -- and a fascinating one -- for another time. Recently I was watching an interview that the National Archives did with Grandpa a few years ago. One section of the interview, which I have transcribed here, was rivetting. It does a good job of presenting this man as he really was: practical, brave, and merciful.

I was on my own, our flight was broken up. I got on the tail of a German who turned at me because he was being chased by two others. He didn’t see me, but he made a 90 degree turn so I had to turn in to him. By the time we passed head on I opened fire and in about two turns I was on his tail -- the P51 was good, you could turn inside the other guy.

I chased him all over the countryside, gradually losing height. Finally when he got near the deck he made a most peculiar move. Instead of evading the fire he pointed his nose straight at a church. I said to myself, this man is crazy -- he thinks I won’t fire because he’s got his nose pointed at a church. But I realized it wasn’t Sunday and there couldn’t be any people in there so I opened fire.

So then he started going all over the place and finally I got him down to where he lost all his speed and all his attitude and he tried his last trick. It’s called "throwing the anchor out". You cut the gun, you fishtail, you slow the plane down. He didn’t throw flaps, but all of a sudden he was trying to get me to pass him – that’s "throwing the anchor out." Well I didn’t pass him because the P51 had a better propeller than the German [planes] did.

First thing you know as far as from here to that wall -- 25 feet away -- we were flying eyeball-to-eyeball. I was lookin' at him and he was lookin' at me. I'll never know why I did it. I said this guy is going to be dead in about one minute. I felt sorry for him. I just wanted to give him a chance to save his life. So I just gave him the ol' thumbs-down. Any aviator will tell you what that means: put your plane down. And he knew what it meant. I had those two guys [US fighters] behind me screaming to get out of the way and they’d shoot him down instantly but I gave him his chance, put my thumb down and he turned away put his nose down got the first open field. [He] bellied in, his plane tore itself up the two wings and the tail came off but he landed safely 'cause he landed upright on his fuselage.

There was a huge cloud of dust and those two fellows who originally had him in their gunsights when he turned into me they circled him and if he had not been in that cloud of dust they would have strafed him. Everybody had their choice. I would not strafe a guy who was down, but some of the guys they’d strafe anything. When I was a POW the Germans were especially mad because some of our pilots would kill a man in a parachute. Some people think it's sporting; others don't I saved that German's life by ordering him to put his plane down. He had less than 10 seconds to make up his mind he had lost all of his speed so he didn’t have a chance he was going to be shot down. He decided to save his life and he did.

Somebody asked me once, did you claim that plane was shot down? I said sure I did, what do you think? The plane went down and was tore up, but he saved his life. I hated to see a guy lose his life that could fly that well. I don’t know what happened to him he could have come back up and shot at some of our people the next day but we didn’t worry much about those German fighters as much as if they had been winning.

I'll post about his experience in the Nazi prisoner camp next week.

Posted at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 3, 2004

Who the terrorists least want in office

A few months ago a friend of mine told me that, come Election Day, the choice of who he would vote for would be made simply by answering this question: 'Who do the terrorists least want in office?' By this he implied that the answer was Bush, the assumption being that Bush scares terrorists. I think this isn't just wrong, but diametrically wrong. Bush is the best adversary that a terrorist could want. Determined, zealous, combative, and antagonistic, Bush is the epitome of a straight-out-of-a-comic-book enemy. He elevates the conflict to epic drama, precisely the kind of drama that instills fear and recruits impressionable moderates to the terrorists' cause.

And let's not forget that a regime as worrisome as Iran actually endorsed Bush, though perhaps that's more a comment on Kerry. Hard to know.

I really don't think that terrorists are trembling that Bush will lead America for the next four years. The vast peacable majority of the world's populace is disappointed, of course, but terrorists aren't like most people. To them the only good conflict is one that becomes mythic and changes the way people think. Bush is this mythic enemy. Can you imagine a terrorist trying to rally young men to his cause by invoking the evil determination of John Kerry?

Posted at 5:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)