Memorializing

A friend of mine put up an interesting post a few hours ago about the true meaning of Memorial Day.

Although I'm not sure she meant to, she basically scolded us as a nation that has mostly "blithely" (her word) accepted the day as just another holiday, usually while we regale each other with "Have a Happy Memorial Day" as we go on vacations, open swimming pools for the summer, or celebrate the day off with barbecues and baseball games.

I, for one, stand guilty as charged.

Her post came into sharp focus when she reminded us of the cost behind this day by listing the number of deaths Americans have suffered in each of its wars: 625,000 in the Civil War; 116,000 in World War I; 405,000 in World War II; 36,000 in Korea; 58,000 in Vietnam. If you added all the wars Americans have fought and died in, the total would clear 1,300,000 in the past 160 years or so. Probably higher.

Not to be forgotten is the pain and grief felt by surviving family members.

So, thanks to my friend, I enter this weekend with a clearer perspective.

The first Memorial Day wasn't even a Memorial Day. It was called Decoration Day back in 1868 when it was first observed nationally and it was created by Commander in Chief John Logan of the Grand Army of the Potomac as a way to honor the Union war dead from the Civil War, which had ended three years prior.

The holiday became official in 1873 in New York, and by 1890, every Union state had adopted it as an official holiday. 

At almost the same time, there was a Confederate Memorial Day as well, which first occurred in 1874.

Eventually, as the practice of honoring deceased military members grew across the country, the name "Decoration Day" was replaced by "Memorial Day" after World War II. "Memorial Day" became the official name of the holiday by Federal law in 1967 (interestingly, the Vietnam era). The next year, Memorial Day was moved from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May to provide us a three-day weekend. That action may have been the beginning of the fading of our collective memory as to the true meaning of Memorial Day. Now we can go to the beach for an extra day and still get paid for it.

And there's one more thing to consider: Memorial Day is not only a time to honor our fallen heroes, but it's also a time to reflect on the principles of freedom and democracy they fought – and died – to protect.

For us.

 

 

 

Alito delete-o

Here's what caught my attention more than anything else after learning ultra-conservative Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito was flying an upside-down American flag outside his house shortly after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in 2021:

 

At the Alito home...

He blamed the whole episode on his wife, Martha-Ann, denying (it seems that denial is what Republicans seem to do best these days) that he had any knowledge of the "Stop the Steal" symbolism at his home and what the inverted flag meant to Trump supporters (who were in denial of Joe Biden's election victory).

I mean, yeah, Alito has First Amendment rights along with the rest of us, but as a Supreme Court justice, he also has a code of ethics to follow (not to mention a U.S. code on the proper way to fly the American flag), which I think supercedes any freedom of speech issues. Freedom of speech, we know, is not absolute.

But apparently, throwing your wife under the Trump bus is an absolute. What a manly response by this coward.

Alito tried to deflect the issue, saying that his wife flew the upside-down flag in a dispute with a pro-Biden neighbor. So much for thick skin. If you're a Supreme Court justice, or the spouse of one, why respond in any way at all? You've become a hack and no longer a justice.

There is no justice here.

By making a political statement such as flying a "Stop the Steal" inverted flag, the Supreme Court suffers a blow to what is supposed to be its institutional reputation for staying above the political fray.

Not any longer. There is now a sense that justice is no longer blind and that it is driven by a (conservative) agenda. This is important, what with two Jan. 6 related cases coming before the Court before long, including a decision on presidential immunity.

This current Alito affair, coupled with Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginnie, actually appearing at Trump's Jan. 6 speech on the Ellipse and then contacting Chief of Staff Mark Meadows via email about saving the country from Democrats is astounding.

And then to have the gall to celebrate vacations in their new RV purchased from wealthy conservative donors and who had cases appear before SCOTUS.

Clearly, both Thomas and Alito need to recuse themselves from anything dealing with Trump because of the obvious conflict of interests, not to mention the political overtones. There is no enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court. There is no accountability in the Supreme Court. This is a flaw in the design of our constitutional government that must be addressed immediately.

But, in an election year, don't hold your breath. For those of us appalled by this behavior, we are confronting insanity

B-29 mania

If the truth be told, I was never a B-29 guy.

As a World War II history buff, my heavy bomber of choice was always the iconic Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. I think a lot of my affection for that plane probably had to do with the media it received, both during the war and afterwards.

I check out the innards of a B-29.*

Old grainy combat film footage almost exclusively featured formations of B-17s. Then you had movies like Twelve O'Clock High (which also showed up in a television series back in the 1960s) and books about the Memphis Belle (the first 8th Air Force bomber recognized to complete 25 combat missions that could send the crew home from the war. Interestingly, a plane called Hell's Angels actually flew its 25th mission before the Belle by a day, but Hollywood director William Wyler happened to be on board the Belle at the time. So there.) B-17s were everywhere. I even built a Monogram model of the Memphis Belle when I was a kid. I never could keep the wings from sagging.

For a brief span, I came to admire the Consolidated B-24 Liberator, which had a greater range and could deliver a larger payload than the B-17. But the Liberator never really captured the public's imagination in the way the Fortress did. Maybe because the B-24 looked something like a pregnant whale while the Fortress had the sleek art deco silhouette of a ballet dancer.

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was a late-war entry that didn't see any combat in the European campaign, even though it was originally designed to fly above the German anti-aircraft fire.

But the B-29 was devastating in the war against Japan. It had a range upwards of 3,200 miles and a service ceiling of nearly 32,000 feet. It could carry 20,000 pounds of bombs at low altitude or 5,000 pounds of bombs at high altitude. And it appeared in the war in early 1945, about the same time that napalm was secretly being developed at Harvard.

 

The cockpit of a B-29.

Napalm had already been used in the firebombing of Dresden in Germany in 1945, but the paper-and-wood construction of Japanese homes made napalm the obvious weapon of choice here. In the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9-10, the B-29 was the delivery system that resulted in 100,000 deaths and 16 square miles of Tokyo's destruction.

B-29s also dropped two atomic bombs, one on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki, that did less damage than the firebombing raids did, but irrevocably altered the course of world history and world politics.

So when I found out that Doc, one of only two airworthy B-29s left in the world (the other being Fifi) was going to be in Statesville last week, I had to go see this piece of American history. I called two of my friends, Mark Loper and Jay Egelnick, and we made the journey to Statesville Regional Airport.

Doc was never in combat, coming too late off the Wichita assembly line to see action. But it did serve in radar calibration after the war with a squadron of other B-29s, known as the Seven Dwarfs. That's how Doc got its name.

It also worked towing targets for practice shooting and ultimately ended up in the Mojave Desert as a target itself for bomb training. It was rescued in 1987 and restoration began in 2013 with hundreds of volunteers working to make the plane airworthy again.

The B-29 Doc in Statesville.

Anyway, the B-29 is a technological marvel for its time. While it looks something like a silver cigar, it features pressurized cabins for the crew (which meant climate control) and analog computers to operate 10 defensive machine guns in turrets.

I was always fascinated with this idea of computerized gun turrets in World War II. The computer could calculate airspeed, lead time, gravity and weather conditions to make it one of the most efficient systems of the war. While computerless B-17's and B-24's shot down approximately two fighters for every B-17 lost (an atrocious rate), the B-29 had an amazing 11-to-1 kill ratio, virtually making it a fighter/bomber. And as then-test pilot Paul Tibbetts (who dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima) discovered, if you took the armor and guns out of the B-29, you markedly improved its flight performance. Consequently, the B-29 then had a smaller turning radius than a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter in mock combat situations.

Sitting in the cockpit of the B-17 Liberty Belle years ago.**

 Mark, Jay and myself spent about 15 minutes in the plane. You entered through the bomb bay (that was loaded with various sizes of dummy bombs. At least, I thought they were dummies), climbed a ladder, then approached the flight deck that gave you a view of the pilot and co-pilot's cabin and the bombardier's station before exiting through the front landing gear well. We probably would have liked to have stayed inside longer, but there was a line of about 100 people waiting to take their turn to tour the aircraft. There were several people on board to answer questions, but there was a hurry up factor as well.

This probably concludes my visit of three of the most iconic American bombers of World War II. I actually flew in the B-24 Witchcraft when it came to Lexington a number of years ago, and got to taxi down the runway in the B-17 Liberty Belle. We were supposed to go airborne in the B-17, but a tail wheel issue prevented us from taking off. No matter. I got to sit in the pilot's seat when it was stationary.

Standing with the B-24 Witchcraft.***

 And then I was able to tour both Fifi and Doc over the years. For a military history nut, it doesn't get much better than that.

*Really great photos by my friend Jay Egelnick. 

** Great photo by my friend Donnie Roberts.

*** Great photo by my wife Kim Wehrle.

Republicans in robes

If I recall my American history correctly, one of its founding concepts – if not the founding concept – was that the United States would not be a monarchy.

Seeking independence from Great Britain and her king was the whole point.

In our republican democracy, the concept was that no man is king. No man is above the law. 

Really?

It's been that way for 235 years, when the U.S. Constitution began operating under ratification in 1789.

So imagine how stunning it was for us believers in the Constitution to see the Supreme Court of the United States listening to arguments from former president Donald Trump that he has sweeping presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. Trump, seeking a second term as president, is the guy currently out on bail for charges of fraud, election interference and a number of other alleged crimes.

There are 88 felony charges in all. No wonder he is seeking immunity.

Shockingly, the Supreme Court heard Trump's arguments for presidential immunity on Thursday, even though the concept of presidential immunity does not exist in the Constitution. It's shocking that the court even heard these arguments in the first place. Worse than shocking, actually. It's disgusting.

Six members  of the court – justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett "I like beer" Kavanaugh – form an ultra conservative bloc that has already repealed Roe v. Wade (even though the Constitution does not mention abortion. Yet, Alito said Roe should be revoked expressly because it was not mentioned in the Constitution. The hypocrisy of these Republicans in robes is overwhelming. There is nothing impartial about them).

On Thursday, instead of actually hearing arguments about whether presidential immunity exists, the debates devolved into abstract potentialities and possibilities for the actions of future presidents.

In other words, the court seems to be leaning towards giving Trump a pair of golden skates. I have no idea why this court is so intent on protecting a guy who separates children from their parents at the border; from a guy who calls members of the military "suckers" for their service and sacrifice, from a guy who said he would be a dictator only on the first day of a second term in office (Yeah, right. Name a dictator who abdicated after just one day), from a guy who suggested that the Constitution be suspended.

The moment the court grants Trump even partial immunity (when no president has ever needed it before) is when we lose the value and the promise of the Constitution itself. It's the moment when we elevate one man above the law. 

It's the moment when we all lose.

 

GOP's war on women

Just when you thought Republicans couldn't reach any deeper in their quest to control the rights of women through anti-abortion laws, up pops Arizona.

Last Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court (seven justices appointed by a Republican governor) approved a long dormant pre-Civil War law (1864) that bans abortions with few exceptions.

It seemed bad enough when the conservative United States Supreme Court sent the country back nearly 50 years by reversing Roe v. Wade a year ago, which legalized abortions in 1973. Now we have a state supreme court sending us back even further – 160 years to be exact.

The law predates Arizona's statehood (1912) by nearly 50 years, which means Arizona was simply a territory back then. Also, the law makes no provisions for rape or incest, allowing abortions only if the mother's life is in danger.

The state court also hinted that doctors who perform abortions can be prosecuted under the 1864 law. If that happens, resurrecting the 1964 law throws out a lower court decision that said doctors couldn't be prosecuted for performing abortions in the first 15 weeks. Doctors might now serve terms between two to five years if convicted.

The 1864 law, designed by men, also occurred before women were given the right to vote under the 19th amendment in 1920. You can see where this is going.

If immoral and incompetent decisions like this continue, the next thing you know, women will be required to remain barefoot and pregnant because that's a way for men to keep control over them.

Why is this thing even given new life after lying dormant for so long? The implications are enormous. How many obstetricians do you expect will remain in Arizona if there's a threat of a jail term hanging over their heads for virtually any treatment of a pregnant woman? How many industries will reject Arizona as a state with its head in the 19th century? How many women will die for the lack of proper health care?

All of this is pending, of course. The court gave the parties involved two weeks to file objections, so there's that. 

But for now, we're living in a world created by the rapist/ex-president/presidential candidate Donald Trump (You did this), who just so happens will be in court this week in Manhattan to begin a criminal trial, allegedly for paying two women (one of them a porn star) six-figure sums to keep quiet about their affairs with him prior to the 2016 election.

In technical terms, Trump is being charged with falsifying New York business records.

It was under Trump that Roe v. Wade was overturned by a court where he appointed three Supreme Court injustices for a 6-3 conservative majority and which ultimately set in motion the fevered time machine that is now engaged in reversing women's right to choose. 

Ironically, and sadly, a reversal for all of us...

Bombs away

I suspect there was a time when the Sunday between the Final Four on Saturday and the NCAA Championship game on Monday was pretty much considered dead time.

At least it was in my house.

But I'm guessing elsewhere, too.

I was a men's basketball snob. As a sports writer for The Dispatch, I covered men's basketball in the Atlantic Coast Conference for years, and then watched the men almost exclusively on television when I wasn't watching the ACC. 

In my defense, I don't think my snobbishness wasn't all my fault. I mean, when did ESPN start covering women's basketball on a regular basis? I rest my case.

Iowa's Caitlin Clark in practice.

Anyway, one March a few decades ago, looking for something to watch on that dead Sunday afternoon, I tuned into the women's NCAA final. I'm pretty sure it was Tennessee against somebody, and the scales fell from my eyes.

Pat Summitt was an intelligent coach. These women could run plays. They could knock each other over in the paint. And most impressively, they could hit consistently from the perimeter. Maybe even better than the men.

I figure it was pretty much Summitt and her Volunteers that brought women's basketball into national prominence. She posted a career record of 1,098-208 (.841) and won eight national titles.

At about the same time, the University of Connecticut was flexing its muscles under coach Geno Auriemma, further enhancing the women's game. Auriemma, still an active coach at age 70, has a career record of 1,213-162 record (.882) and 11 national titles. 

All of which brings me to today's championship game between Iowa and South Carolina. Interest in women's college basketball has never been higher than it is now, and a large part of that is due to Iowa's Caitlin Clark, who's swishing bombs from the logos on the court. Clark recently became the overall career Division I scoring leader – men or women – and she comes into today's game with 3,921 points. Whoa.

More than 14 million viewers watched Iowa defeat UConn 71-69 on Friday and I'm guessing that number could be even higher today. 

I have a feeling that South Carolina, undefeated this year under coach Dawn Staley (37-0), might have the better overall team. That's why I think the Gamecocks will win the title. But Clark will put on a show, and that's why the game might be the most watched women's game ever.

I'll be watching, too.

Get yer red-hot Bibles

As if we didn't know already, the rapist/huckster presidential candidate Donald Trump has created an even deeper bottom than he's ever drilled to before.

A few days ago, Trump offered us his version of the King James Bible, complete with an addendum of the United States Constitution, all for the low, low price of $59.99. Trump calls it his "God Bless the USA" Bible. And just in time for Holy Week.

Hurry. Come get yer red-hot Bibles before they're gone. Let's make America pray again. 

You don't have to look far to see that this is just another scheme – like his recent unveiling of Trump gold lame sneakers – to raise money to help pay his mounting legal fees. 

How incredibly offensive. On several counts.

His intended audience is clearly the evangelical Christian nationalists who, by blindly following the cult of Trump, have shown themselves to be a cult of hypocrites themselves. These people once followed the teachings of Jesus Christ. Now they are following the dictates of the Antichrist. There's no other way to describe this inappropriate indignity. Selling Bibles for personal gain.

Wouldn't a true Christian – and especially a professed billionaire – donate the sales of the teachings of Jesus Christ to benefit the poor, the destitute, the hungry?

One of the first things that struck me about Trump's latest loathsome endeavor was how he shamelessly combined government with religion: the Bible and the US Constitution in one leather-bound package. It's kind of a weak but obvious ploy to declare that only Christians can be patriots.

You, too, can be a God-fearing patriot for only $59.99 (Translation: help pay for my legal fees and vote for me).

And yet, in the 235-year history of this constitutional republic, there always has been a clear separation of church and state. It was intentional – the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing. There are 4,543 words in the constitution, and not a single one of them is the word "God."

The Founders were ever conscious of the persecution the pilgrims endured in their break from the Church of England, the state church.

It was not going to happen here.

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries," wrote James Madison, the chief architect of the U.S. Constitution.

In the First Amendment we find two provisions about church and state: the Establishment Clause and the Exercise Clause.

The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from "establishing" a religion. The Free Exercise Clause protects a person's right to practice religion as they please.

The country was to be a democracy, not a theocracy.

Thomas Jefferson was the first to coin the phrase "separation of church and state" in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, a religious minority that feared religious persecution. In his letter, Jefferson, then the president, cited that the free exercise and establishment clauses, in unison, built "a wall of separation between church and state."

And so it has been since 1789.

But now we have a former president who is also a current presidential candidate hawking bibles overtly  and intentionally combining church and state. It's dangerous. It's divisive. It's anti-constitutional. Because of Trump, who shows no moral values whatsoever, much less Christian values (think porn star Stormy Daniels. Think Trump rape victim E.J. Carroll. Think 4,000 migrant children torn from their families; six years later, hundreds are still to be reunited), we now live in an era of rising antisemitism and attempted Muslim bans. Are these groups – and others – finding religious freedom in this country, or are they finding persecution instead? Are we becoming what we were never intended to be? In Trump's narrow vision, it would appear so.

The irony is that Trump is hawking his Bible (which he cynically claims is his favorite book while grinning his Elmer Gantry grin) with the U.S. Constitution included, when it's clear he has read neither.

The First Amendment not only guarantees us free speech, but freedom of religion as well. And hopefully, freedom from Trump.

And it's Holy Week.