In War, Morality Is the First Victim

I noticed that the American government very recently confirmed that yes, the murder of a daughter of a Russian nationalist with ties to Vladimir Putin was, indeed, committed by forces loyal to, or part of, the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion, now seven months in and running. As if it could have been anyone else. (Maybe it could have; Putin is rumored to be in ill health, and maybe some of Russia's own citizens might have been interested in hurrying that along.)

But it makes some people feel better in some echelons that "official" verification of this somehow satisfies a need for accuracy. The ethics of such an act are now in "official" question.

That includes the accompanying statement that the Biden Administration, had it known, would have advised against it. That brings with it a whole bunch of other questions.

Such as: Is this announcement a very weak effort to appease Putin so he doesn't freak out and contemplate, more than he already has, the use of nuclear weapons to settle Ukraine once and for all? Is this an effort, again a weak one, to give the U.S. clean hands, although it sounds like the "damned spot" of Macbeth, one that cannot be removed no matter how hard you try?

Such as: Do you really think the particular Ukrainians who had this in mind would have rung up Anthony Blinken, the Secretary of State, or someone with similar juice in the American government, and asked for consultative assistance? Like, "We've got her set up now, so we need your okay. We won't tell a soul"?

You got hopes. Focus on this would be all about cherry-picking, though. Especially because Russian troops, in their all-out attempt to intimidate the Ukrainians and perhaps believing their own propaganda that Nazis infect the population, have murdered thousands of Ukrainian civilians. The killings are often willy-nilly, incredibly random, done by what seems to be mere impulse. Sometimes the Russians have even made up excuses, but usually not. (For more on this, please read Masha Gesson's article in The New Yorker, published on August 8. I don't keep the issues forever, but I kept this one.)

In the popular vernacular of the day, these are known as war crimes. But in that frame, war is supposed to be refined to the battlefield, where the people directly involved actually have on uniforms belonging to their side. Unfortunately for the Russians, their invasion hasn't worked the magic they've planned, so Ukraine still has most of its land and all of its court system left over. If they ever catch them, woe be to the Russians who have perpetrated these atrocities.

In the meantime, vengeance is to be expected. A message got sent to Putin with that assassination: We are coming for you. Not that that hasn't already been contemplated by his side: Little doubt remains that Vloydymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, would be left alive if his country is overrun by Russia, though right now that doesn't appear likely. Brave as he is, he is no more brave than his soldiers, and will die with them if worse comes to worst. That it would solidify a good place in the history written by those with a moral base may or may not be a comfort to the family he leaves behind. Make no mistake, either: the Russians are trying to kill him this very minute. They just can't get to him.

All of which makes the U.S. a side player in acts of warlike nature. Yes, we have supplied Ukraine with plenty of weapons, which they have clearly utilized to their benefit: the Russians, to this date, have lost territory previously conquered. The spending for this has, so far, been gladly paid by a Congress with a majority of its members who see the clear and unmistakeable threat to democracy overall. It's much the same as Lend-Lease, out of which we supplied the Allies against Germany and Japan before Pearl Harbor forced us in. 

But that permission was razor-thin in the House of Representatives--it passed by exactly one vote--and I cannot help but think that, under the disgusting thumb of ex-, the Republican Party, should it take control of the House in January, might very well cut off funding in anticipation of another ridiculous term of its banner carrier, who has managed the greatest con job in American history. That would pave the way for ex- to take control again, shut down any attempts to even make Russia look bad, not to mention Ukraine's defense, and let ex- have his hotel to make money, the only thing he truly believes in, in Moscow in a horribly proportioned quid pro quo.

So what would we have done had we known ahead of time: threaten Ukraine with reducing or cutting off the funding if it carried out what constitutes a war crime of its own? Not a chance. The Democrats are caught, too: caught in the rabbit hole of supporting a war and taking on the moral debris that comes with it. Will they recommend that the actual perpetrators be tried for war crimes, too? You really think so?

I know a fellow who, early in his career before he turned to teaching, worked in Southeast Asia for Air America, a passenger and cargo company that served as a CIA front for supplying forces friendly to the U.S. in that region (and attacking those unfriendly). He was there in the early '60s--six decades ago--when almost no one knew of it. Very little has still been written and researched about it, a gap in our history which should be corrected. He brought it up in a conversation.

He didn't mind discussing the possible death of civilians one bit. "It's part of war," he said with a straight face. "Civilians are going to get in the way." He knew people were being bombed, way before Congress ever considered entering that tragic war. He knew that while some of them could be called enemy, many of them weren't. He didn't seem remorseful. In acts laden with moral dilemmas, he had settled his long ago.

Should this be written off as the "price of freedom"? A defense against worldwide communism that couldn't be opposed? The moral implications of that are sorry to contemplate, including the very fact that this very respected union member who told me didn't have a problem with it. 

I demonstrated and worked with those who opposed that war, once that it was exposed. I didn't, and still don't, have a problem with that, either.

Considering that, who is right and who is wrong? What is justifiable and what isn't? Does the murder of one who also had nothing to do with the actual war going on become the exception to the moral rule, or should it be lumped into the same bin as the murder of many? I leave that to you.

As long as it appears to be a one-off, I doubt that many Americans will object to this murder. If it's tied to Putin, nobody will mind much. But that young woman, Daria Dugina (yes, I will say her name), couldn't have known what was about to happen to her. That is a randomness no less chilling because it happens on the other side of the world, no less outrageous because it happened to a single person rather than to thousands. (Something that should be also connected to school and supermarket and church and nightclub and concert and newspaper office and movie house shootings, but I digress)

Unquestionably, morality of any sort is one of the first victims when war is waged. It reinforces what I once told a class of mine: "The only real issue of war that gets decided is whether or not you're alive when it's finished."

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Maybe We Should Step Aside for the Newer Folk

Time is another one of those periodicals that has shifted from a conservative curmudgeonly approach to public affairs to a far more progressive one. As such, it is welcome to see.

One of its semi-regular features--every couple of months or so--is to display people of the next generation who are already making a difference in our world, a hundred at a time, in different aspects of our culture. This past week's edition, for instance, gives brief bios of:

• Mykhailo Fedorov, 31, Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation, who is the front line of his country's battle against Russian disinformation, a.k.a. lies;
• Eugenia Kargbo, 35, the first ever Heat Officer of Freetown, Sierra Leone, who strategized the planting of a million trees to reduce the core temperature of that city;
• Leah Stokes, 34, political science professor from the U-Cal Santa Barbara, a major contributor to the Biden effort to significantly lower emissions;
• Jessica Nouhavandi, 37, co-founder and lead pharmacist of Honeybee Health, which became the first mail-order pharmacy in the U.S. to ship abortion pills;
• Cassidy Hutchinson, 25, who bravely testified to ex-'s horrible behavior and the threats to democracy caused by insurrectionists to the January 6 committee;
• Lawrence Wong, 49, Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister;
• Wally Adeyemo, 41, the first black U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury;
• Kaja Kallas, 45, the Prime Minister of Estonia;
• Chris Murphy, 49, Senator from Connecticut, a Senate leader in gun control;
• Annalena Baerbock, 41, German Foreign Minister;
• Dr. Caitlin Bernard, 38, an ob-gyn in Indiana, who has put herself in the forefront of the twisted, ridiculous ban on abortion in that and many other states.

That's out of a hundred that Time has noted. Note the ages. There are extremely competent people coming up now, and it indicates that they want to take on the world that our--my--generation has largely screwed up: climate, authoritarianism, backwards thinking, abuse of religion, resistance to change, endless bickering, etc., etc., etc.

The time is coming when we'll have no choice but to get the hell out of their ways. The elder statesmen are running out of energy, and running out of ideas to motivate people. The political ads we are being pummeled with during this dismal election season is but one example.

The sooner, the better. Our selfishness, which some theorists have tried to justify as leading to a better way (Ayn Rand, for instance), has led to rabbit holes all over the place. Nobody wants to rely on anyone else anymore. Nobody thinks they can.

This invading world of just me, only me, nobody else matters, is cascading humanity right off a cliff. The insistence of some people to base their decisions on outright lies is frightening, and will lead to conflicts entirely avoidable.

Somebody has to clean up this mess. Not my generation. We've created it.

Some of us have been waiting for the next bunch of burgeoning adults to grab the reins and guide us in a new direction. The above people are examples of those who could. My only piece of advice to them: Hurry the hell up!

H.G. Wells said that humanity is in a race between education and catastrophe (and that quote is over a century old). The above people are examples of those who have watched things start to crumble. I hope they have learned well. They have a big job ahead of them.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Mr. C's Theory: Russia Is Losing the War

I taught a course called 20th Century Conflicts back in the day. The last time I taught it was 19 years ago, so it's possible that you might conclude that I might be ineligible, or at least outdated, to recall it.

I don't think so. I used to teach something that I had thought up all by myself--hadn't read it in any book as such, hadn't heard it in any college lecture. But in all the wars we studied in that course, it was consistently true. 

I gathered the relevant facts together and concocted a theory. I think it still works, and the war in Ukraine verifies it.

To wit: to win a war, a country facing another country must be superior in four areas: Technology, production, strategy, and morale. If it wins all four, it will win. If it loses just one, that one may have an adverse effect upon the other three, and it may easily lose. If there is no clear advantage, the war may easily grind into a stalemate.

The only variable is time. Over time, things a country may have in advantage might turn against it. A country might have a good strategy starting out, but that might prove to be too costly in men and materials. It might have the advantage in men and materials to start, but its strategy might prove to drain that advantage as things move along. It might also build that advantage through a spike in production, as the U.S. did in both world wars. And all countries who engage in war have plenty of morale starting out, but often that morale wanes.

When Russia first attacked Ukraine, it gained ground fast, partly because Ukraine's government tried to remain calm and panic-free right up until invasion time. So Ukraine's overall preparation was poor--bad strategy.

Ukraine was also frightfully undersupplied. It had weaponry, true, but not nearly enough to handle Russian tanks and planes. But it has gained enormous ground in that regard, since American President Joe Biden made a strong stand against the invasion, did a great job organizing NATO behind Ukraine's defense, and began shipments of both American offensive and defensive weapons. Technologically, then, Ukraine is catching up after being clearly outgunned at the start. By year's end, it will have the benefits of another $12B in American military aid, too.

Russia, led by the fascist monster Vladimir Putin, propagandized its troops into believing that somehow, Ukraine represented a threat to their borders (which it never did and never wants to), and that its claims for that land were legitimate (they never were). That provided sufficient morale boosts for them to invade and try to conquer the whole nation, reaching the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv, as well as destroying parts of the city itself.

In the meantime, though, Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelenskyy rallied his country's defenses. Not only enlisted solders responded, but also the population at large, which certainly did not agree with Putin's insistence that certain lands naturally belonged to Russia. There is no more powerful defensive force than national reverence and pride. Russia's experience in the Second World War ought to have been enough evidence of that, since it sacrificed a great deal of life to the Nazi invasion, which got to the outskirts of Moscow.

The war has now lasted seven months. In that time, Russian casualties have been enormous. Russia has felt the need to call up reserves and then to institute a draft. Nothing rare about that.

But just as some Americans decided to flee their country during a war in Vietnam they had real issues with, so too are thousands of Russians now fleeing that country to avoid being called into service to put their lives on the line for a war they are no longer sure of. That's a sure sign that, regardless of the horribly misleading propaganda that the Russian government is trying to guarantee that its citizens absorb, hopefully (but not absolutely by any means) divorced from what news is coming in from the West, people have concluded that getting killed for Ukraine just ain't worth it.

Ukrainian forces have been reported to have pushed the Russians back in more than one area. Whatever strategy the Russians employed at the start of the war has now been thrown back in their faces. Calls back home, recorded surreptitiously, indicate that Russian soldiers are getting nervous and cynical about that strategy. Morale is weakening.

Putin has hinted of the use of nuclear weapons if things continue to go badly. But that may be a standstill as well, since the U.S., as a member of NATO, has warned Putin about going off the deep end. We will have to see about that.

So let's go over my theory's parts again:

• Technology--Ukraine's defenses have seemed to catch up to Russia's assault.
• Production--As long as NATO and U.S. aid continues, Ukraine should benefit. But providing soldiers is part of production, too. Right now, Ukraine doesn't seem to need any. That may change.
• Strategy--Russia seemed to assume that showing up would be enough, and that throwing superior numbers at Ukraine would prove decisive. But it has lost more than 50,000 killed. We lost 58,000 killed in Vietnam, true. But that took eight years. And Ukraine has counterattacked successfully in places.
• Morale--It doesn't look as if Ukraine's men are leaving the country. They're making a brave stand. Their president is leading the way. Russian men are trying to escape the new draft.

As time flows, these things may change, of course. They may get worse for Ukraine. But they may also get much worse for Russia. And gains recently made on the battlefield by Ukraine will assist in the will to resist and absorb what for them have been frightful casualties, including the slaughter of innocent civilians--except that slaughter may well increase the will to resist, not diminish it.

To try to make things "official," Russia has claimed that it has annexed four parts of Ukraine--as if the besieged country will now accept that. That's kind of like the American colonies declaring themselves to be free from Great Britain; bold gesture, but it had to be backed up with military force (which it was, or just enough of it to wear down the British). Russia might not be so lucky, though. Diplomatically, it seems to be an effort for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine while claiming victory.

As such, it may be an effort, too, to bolster morale within Russia. National pride is now at stake there. Russia is now stuck with justifying all those dead soldiers, all those families now without their sons. As in America with Vietnam, that will linger through the decades and serve to wear away national loyalty.

America responded by making wars it had no right to make. That is the pushback that results from defeat: register a victory, or try to, to even the scales. Doesn't always work. Yup--Russia will not go away if it loses. War begets more war. And Russia is losing this one.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

First Amendment Day: A Time to Reflect

September 25 is celebrated, at least in some spaces, as First Amendment Day, because the Bill of Rights, of which the First Amendment is the crowning achievement, was approved on September 25, 1789. The First Amendment is seen as a gateway to democracy. I think it is democracy. Without it, nothing else in the Constitution would matter, nothing would hold up.

The document is so sweeping as to take your breath away. It encompasses so many potential actions and previous activities that its scope surpasses astonishment. But it is what we're made of. Without it, there's nothing about America that makes it unique or pleasant to live within.

If you wade into the First Amendment, though, your head begins to spin. The first set of issues must come from the first part of the statement: Freedom of religion. The "establishment clause" is supposed to stand in direct juxtaposition with the "free exercise" clause that immediately follows. That is, government can't establish an "official" religion because I'm supposed to be free to deal with religion as I see fit, including not at all. The phrase is there to keep government out of my mind, within which I am free to think as I please and free to express myself in like manner. No coercion allowed, in other words. 

There is supposed to be a separation of church and state. And in the most practical sense, ask any legislator of either party, whether they're inclined to admit it or not, whether discussion of What Jesus Would Do enters any hearing on any budget. It's all symbolic and meant to be no more than a salve.

Maybe that's what the Supreme Court had in mind when it allowed a high school football coach to lead his team in prayer after a game, in full sight of the crowd and all. But isn't there implied coercion behind joining the team in prayer? Isn't there a chance that, if push comes to shove, a certain player wanting to be on the starting team wouldn't be allowed to because he took a principled stand?

But the Supreme Court is now filled with Catholics. They won't leave that on the shelf. They listen to a source we were supposed to be free from. Supreme Court justices should not be religious. To the contrary, they should be agnostics. These issues should be moot. Laws should not be passed nor activities governed by whether or not they please the almighty as someone understands them.

Onward to freedom of speech and press, closely bound in practice. A current case in front of the Supreme Court asks whether social media sources which have become widely used can ban certain people from belonging to them. 

It's a tricky issue as the current Supreme Court is put together. The majority believes that businesses should be allowed to function in the freest atmosphere possible, ideally without interference. So a private corporation (which has been interpreted to be a 'person' in Citizens United) can allow or disallow membership as it pleases, right? But if that social media becomes so pervasive, like Twitter or Facebook, so that 'everybody' uses it, isn't that unfair and a denial of rights that have fused onto everyone else? If I'm excluded, I'm free to establish my own social medium, right? But the economic burden placed upon me is beyond enormous. It's folly to assume that just anybody can create their own corporation, right? But if that's true, where did the creators of Facebook and Twitter get their impetus? So that doesn't work, at least not logically.

But since ex- has been muscled out of Facebook and Twitter, his sycophants in important positions, such as Ken Paxton, Texas attorney general, come rushing to his defense of being able to spread innuendoes and lies in the most popular and widely-used medium. So is the purpose of such media to spread the truth? Or to spread information and misinformation (i.e. lies) to allow the public to make a decision as to the degree of believability it wishes to accept? Stay tuned. This one will be interesting.

Of things in print, recent bannings have become frenzied and ghastly irrational, as I have documented not long ago. Let me ask this, though: If To Kill a Mockingbird can be banned, wouldn't that also be true of a recent book published by someone named Helgard Muller, referring to ex- as The Son of Man--the Christ (Which is, reportedly, being distributed at ex-'s rallies now)? If that is permissible for open discussion, as incredibly crazy that assumption is, what in To Kill A Mockingbird would be equally as absurd? And what would be in it that would ban its distribution and allow Muller's obvious pack of lies to be distributed?

Free press is free press. Publish and be damned. And I hope Muller is. But to ban it would bring down opprobrium on the censors, make Muller and ex- into victims (again), and draw more attention to it (as I've said here before). Better to allow stupid people to be openly stupid, to reflect the desperate extremism that is beginning to emerge due to a doubling-down on the same fears that got ex- into the ultimately inappropriate position he unfortunately occupied for four long years. The meaning of that enormous mistake is just as eligible for analysis as any other public act or office.

That's allowing the "marketplace of ideas," as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes called it long ago, to function as it should, as a self-regulating force that allows reason to overcome nonsense. But that assumes that people will step up and make their stands known. That cannot be guaranteed. But the First Amendment protects that, too.

Meeting in assembled places is also covered by the First Amendment. That includes meeting to complain as well as celebrate. Ex- showed us what he thought of assemblies he didn't like when he sent police both on foot and mounted horses to break up a Washington, DC, Black Lives Matter protest just outside the White House upon George Floyd's murder in 2020. But he praised the Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 as being "good people." You can't have it both ways, though. You must allow the stupidly unthinking to say what they wish, as long as they don't get in anybody else's reasonable way.

That's the double-edged sword of freedom. That's what we have to live with in order for liberty under law to continue to function. Should ex- get back into power, one of the first things he'll do is to try to stifle those outlets who are unrelentingly critical of him. He will not merely criticize them, either. He will try to take 'official' steps to keep them from bringing him back into public scrutiny, which is what free speech and press are supposed to be for.

That's why he must be stopped, and the rigging of election results so that one side is guaranteed victory must be stopped, too. That will take a huge roar of outcry. Our jobs, our collective and individual jobs, of preserving democracy aren't finished yet. Indeed, they are just beginning. 

That should be the message of First Amendment Day: Preserve it while it can yet be preserved. Once lost, it will be practically impossible to get it back. The shadow of fascism lurks, and the First Amendment is the only thing that can ward it off.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

The Plague of Banned Books

I got hold of a part of USA Today last weekend, which featured a large and ever-growing number of books that someone or other has decided needs to leave shelves because they threaten--well, you'd have to ask them. Some of these titles astonish me:

The Odyssey

Lord of the Flies

Of Mice and Men

A Light in the Attic

Maus

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Animal Farm

The Catcher in the Rye

The Things They Carried

Beloved

To Kill A Mockingbird 

The Outsiders

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1984

The Hunger Games

The Handmaid's Tale

The Color Purple

A Separate Peace

Born A Crime

The entire Harry Potter series

There were several others, but I gather that you've heard of the above.

Yes. Cancelled. Forbidden. I can't even.

Granted, I haven't read all of these, but I've read enough to understand that banning them, even calling them into question, violates any decent sensibilities and reflects a staggering paranoia that, while it could be called natural because of the current regressive state of things, calls thinking into question.

To these people, thinking must be dangerous--thinking that isn't pre-conditioned, I suppose. Except nobody can do that. Nobody can tell anyone what to think and then guarantee that that thinking will be all the thinking that people do. It's not only arrogant and slavish, it's downright stupid.

Plus what are people going to do--cancel, or force to cancel, cable television? When adaptations to To Kill a Mockingbird or Animal Farm or Of Mice and Men or The Hunger Games or Animal Farm are shown, will they put out notice and warn parents of the awfulness of those films?

Here's the ultimate irony of book banning: 1984. I book about control of thinking banned by people who want to control thinking. A book about the manipulation of language brought by those who supported the man who told them not to believe what their eyes were telling them--and meant it.

Maus? Really? An allegory about the Nazis abusing and killing the Jews? What are the banners doing, joining the Holocaust deniers? Or is it that they just don't like rats? If not, avoid All Quiet on the Western Front, too (which, by the way, has also been banned), because there are plenty of rats and the atrocities they commit (or merely following up on ongoing atrocities, take your pick) in that work.

Is this a drilling down on Black Lives Matter? On critical race theory, which is a concoction of graduate school thinking which, until a radically conservative conjurist introduced, had never been in any mainstream conversation in any school, public or private?

Or is it just that someone thinks that kids can't read about bad things at all? Things like:

• Gayness (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, A Separate Peace)
• Bullying (Blubber)
• Racism (The Hate U Give, Eleanor & Park, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter)
• School shootings (Nineteen Minutes)
• Atheism (The Golden Compass)
• Colonialism (The God of Small Things)

You know, stuff like that. If anything, I now want to read these books and discover what someone had a problem with. The fact that there are many best-sellers among these is, what, evidence of the damage in our culture? With our sinfulness? With our lack-of-straightness?

And do people think the assigning of these books, with their tax dollars (and how much money per person in any jurisdiction covers the cost of a copy or two of any book?), represents a betrayal of their values? That whatever school libraries and teachers assign must align with their thinking, however ill-informed it may be? That because they think a certain way, everybody else's thinking is not only bad, not only wrong, but is to be prevented somehow?

So much of this is about race and gender. People have never stopped being afraid of a lack of whiteness. They have never stopped being put off by gay people acting in loving ways in public. The thoroughly neanderthal candidate for Wisconsin governor has said as much: no public displays of gay affection. Keep that in your closet. (Would he introduce legislation preventing it? If elected, don't put it past him.)

Reducing information feels comforting. But it builds walls. It encourages the same behavior everywhere. And it never, ever works.

Of course, not all school libraries are banning all of the above books. To compile lists in such a big nation as ours leaves one with the impression that all books are under examination and that we are all being whitewashed, excuse the pun. But it is bad enough.

This is what happens when minds are stifled and paralyzed, when negative possibilities overwhelm the positive, always easier to do. When panic meets exaggeration. It is a human element that we do not prefer and that we too often ignore.

What to do? Talk up the problem. It is not true that where it does not now exist, it won't or can't. That will become true especially where Republicans seize power, where it becomes popular to bring out phraseology such as "woke," to confirm that whatever a particular book contains cannot be good for kids.

No. Do not wait. Don't assume rationality surrounds you. There are ways to fight this, and fight this we must.

Talk about it openly, logically, and especially calmly. Ideas, by themselves, are just that--ideas. They can cultivate minds and often do, not poison them. 

And do not accept the cherry-picking that reactionaries insist upon to justify their inclinations to take books off shelves. Use the word context often and with effect. Ask those who would censor, "Have you actually read the whole book? Is it utterly without merit or importance?"

Staying calm and speaking out is not walking away. Staying calm and speaking out is being an advocate for reading, for intellectual curiosity, for thinking, for kids. Kids are wiser than we think. But they also need guidance now, more than we think. The world is a different place, yes, but not one that we can hide them from. We must stay rational and keep the lines of communication not only open, but inviting.

Banning the above mentioned books, though, robs young people of important opportunities to know things about the world that they will need to know once they emerge into it as adults. Fear cannot overtake it. It won't. Reading these books under guiding hands is the answer, not preventing any challenges whatsoever.

They're smarter than us, anyhow. They'll find a way around it this plague, as contagious as the viral one we've endured. Ask yourselves this: Is this more dangerous than having guns?

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Give It Up, Chuck, and Save It

I'm not a monarchist. Seems to me Americans gave that up in 1776, and we've been none the worse for wear since (though this country is in bad, bad condition). Plus, I've always wondered what it would be like to be a "subject," which is the word used to designate citizens of monarchies. Subjected to what? (We've been subjected to ex- for four years. That's plenty enough.) But Great Britain and America have been excellent friends for almost the whole time after the War of 1812, so it's worth speculating upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II recently, given that she was so beloved by so many of the British. Her importance to them cannot possibly be equivalent to us, but importance nonetheless deserves to be reflected upon.

I'm not sure how much I care about the British monarchy, either, especially in the wake of having watched the cable series "The Crown." What it's supposed to represent, and what it actually does, cut to the essence of image and its maintenance vs. reality.

One of the best, and most recently shattered, examples of this was the dicey progression of then Prince Charles and his stunning wife, Diana, through a marriage that he didn't want but felt forced to accept by his Mr. Uptight father and then, due to jealousy, pretentiousness and disloyalty for which royals are known, made sure she didn't want it, either. Both acted unethically but within a kind of by-law that dictates that if you do that, you try very hard to make sure nobody in the public knows--except people do.

This time, though, having been one-upped by his recalcitrant wife and thus thoroughly embarrassed because the female took it upon herself to violate the Male Prerogative of having something on the side, Charles forged forward and broke up the hypocritical union. He quickly re-connected, or perhaps publicly connected so as to avoid all doubts, with the one woman he always clearly adored, Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Diana? She got around. One of those liaisons led to her very premature death, one that has been lionized and practically drowned in obsession--the 25th anniversary of which has just been observed.

When the basis of one's life and the solidity of one's future has clearly been shattered, when getting up in the morning becomes one's major challenge, one is likely to do some things that amaze and shock some and cause others to wink and grin gently, when feeling better in the short run wins all hands and feeling better in the long run can't be foreseen under any circumstances. When one is faced with survival, the survival mode is anything but normal and regular, conventions be damned. Maybe one gets over it, like Charles. Maybe one doesn't. Diana might have, but we'll never know.

But poor Charles. He's still attached to Diana as the bad guy, even though he tried to address the reality of the matter and set things straight, to do the right and honorable thing, not to maintain what others might call the right and honorable thing, except that the right and honorable thing doesn't always ring true and genuine, especially after having done what nobody thinks is right and honorable. Divorce has pain and inevitable labeling to it, normalized in western culture now to such an extent that it is no longer considered all that unusual--which may be the route that we've taken to decadence, whether we like it or not. We continue to go through the trappings of marriage and all its celebrations, hoping that all who have done so will fulfill its challenging hopes, but quite aware that they often don't.

Diana lives on in immortal legend, though she became just as guilty in proclivity to put her vows in some dusty room and help herself in deserved but very tricky revenge. But because she came off as much less the fuddy-duddy to Charles' traditional snootiness, she is practically worshipped now. Magazine publishers bring her back every so often to raise their coffers. She would have wrinkles by now, but nobody dares create a projection of that.

All this provides ready-made tarnish to the inevitable succession of Prince Charles to being King Charles III upon the passage of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who (according to the TV series) stood to accept at least part of the blame, through inertia, for the aforementioned, doomed union.

Charles is doing his best to fall into the grooves that tradition and practice demand. Yet most people will view him in opaque terms. He is tainted regardless. He will do his best to rise above it, but that's not his call anymore. When one is out in front of the public, the public applies the label. That can be cruel, but it is nonetheless true.

This will hamper Charles like a leg brace, or an operation that didn't go entirely well. It can be viewed as not even his fault anymore, but it always can be referred to. He enters this batter's box with a strike against him.

There's a way he can salvage credibility, though, and restore some of the monarchy's dignity. Time and service will be one, and he will doggedly apply himself to it. But he's getting on, too, and the status of outliving one's enemies can't be guaranteed. The anti-monarchists will have fresh meat to chew, and the forces that dubiously introduced Brexit can be a mighty force if given a new grist for its mill.

So maybe he should do this: After, say, a year or two in which the presence of the British monarchy has been re-established and noted by both pro- and anti-mavens, he might want to abdicate the throne and give it to his first-born son, William, who seems to be perfectly happy with his beautiful wife, Kate, a traditional, unabashed mom, enjoying a relatively happy family life, and appears to be royal in all things he has done and will do with his calm bearing and ease of representation. It might be viewed as the restoration, if you will, of what anyone who likes that particular monarchy would be waiting for upon Charles' ultimate demise, but wouldn't otherwise get it for twenty years or more. William has only turned 40. His reign might be another four decades, maybe more.

Charles could cut a better deal than Prince Edward, the planned successor to the throne that opened up after George V's death in the 1930s. But he ran headlong at his American, divorced lover, determined to marry her, ran away from the throne because he knew what it meant and couldn't fight the feeling. Of course, according to "The Crown," he turned out to be a genuine Nazi sympathizer and overall leech upon many people's doings. I don't think Charles III would do that. 

But he might become something of a royal consort himself, kind of what lawyers of counsel become once their time has passed an nobody knows what else to do with them; they get the last phone call, but they do get one. Edward tried to do that, but upon his own invitation, which proved to be every bit the annoyance that had been predicted. Charles might insist upon consultation, but might also, with that sense of history, avoid meddling.

So Chuck, it's worth thinking about. In yielding the trappings of privilege (or at least the bulk of them), you might in fact be bringing a stamp of legitimacy upon the scars of what you earned in a street fight that has long since passed, but never forgotten. Okay, it happened. But okay, you hung in there and understand that only with a fresh start can your beloved monarchy have, or earn again, the luster you crave for it. You have a son who seems to guarantee the respect and honor that you can never completely regain. Better to step aside and watch it soar again, if it possibly can.

If a monarchy stands for anything, and I'm doubtful about that, it should stand for whatever it can claim to be good and decent. William's succession to a throne abdicated by Charles III might just do that. Worth a try, anyhow.

Sometimes, you have to give something up so you can go on, unburdened. Divorce is like that. Charles knows that, too. It's humbling, but it's also liberating and presents the possibility of a future one can be proud of. He should think about giving up something else that, in so doing, might more closely guarantee him an honored place.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

The Day I Met Bill Russell

I met Bill Russell once. I was bold and brave, and one had to be.

The stories about Russell being reserved and private were very true. I knew that as I approached him.

It was in an airport, I forget which one: They all blended together after a while. I want to say Oakland, but it might have been Orlando, on one of my NEA junkets to a meeting or conference or something. No matter. He seemed to be trying to make a connection. I saw that I had one moment to move in, and I took it.

Like so many others of our generation, I revered Russell. Who didn't? His basketball success with the Boston Celtics, unequalled then and now, and willingness to take his notoriety a step farther on social issues had made him an American icon.

He gave interviews sparingly, not to just anyone. He did a personal reflection article for Sports Illustrated, back in the day when it was taken far more seriously, saying that, for example, he didn't give autographs because he believed it was far more important to shake hands with someone to show by touching them that he cared about them. 

He also collaborated with Taylor Branch, the author of a famous trilogy of the civil rights movement, for a book called Second Wind. It was a memoir, a reflection, and a way of telling the world that life goes on for athletes who are no longer competing. It was very personal, unique and stated very eloquently at times. I thought it was excellent and inspirational.

And I thought it might be a good moment to tell him that some white guy had read it. It was one of those times when one gets into the amazingly right place at the right moment. Had I stopped to stare and admire him, that moment would have been gone.

The hell with it, I thought, not the first time I had said that to myself, taken a risk, and succeeded beyond what I had imagined. Sometimes, said Tom Cruise in the film "Risky Business," you just gotta say "What the fuck!" and make your move.

So as Russell started up some ramp on the way to his gate, I walked up to him. He hesitated but did not stop walking. I'm sure he was suspicious. He sure looked it.

"Mr. Russell?" I said. He looked at me, deadpanned. Some white guy he didn't know. Swell.

He was not pleased. Didn't I know? Nobody else had stopped him. I found it difficult to believe that nobody else knew that here was Bill Russell, for heaven's sake, the winner of all winners, crusader for civil rights, and not a soul seemed to know it. But maybe everyone else knew their boundaries better than I did. His dignity surrounded him like cellophane. But I had made up my mind to take the once-in-a-lifetime chance.

I introduced myself, as if he would remember, offering my hand. I said I was from Wisconsin. I told him that I had read Second Wind and thought it was a great book. I thanked him.

He raised his hand slowly and took mine, though not strongly. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate for him to offer his first. But I had remembered what he had said about the importance of shaking hands, and to overlook that would be perhaps insulting. 

He must have sensed the respect. "Thank you," he said. He sounded sincere. I bothered him no more. He walked on.

I thought that that was a lot to get out of him. I thought I had accomplished a great deal in that single minute. I had met one of the great legends of sport, of America. By sheer chutzpah, by friendly ambush, I had met Bill Russell. 

He actually spoke to me, too. Wow. I was proud of myself: I hadn't frozen up. I've met ex-presidents, and I hadn't been so nervous.

He is gone now, having left his enormous legacy that will only grow with time and tide. I admired the way he lived his life, aware of his celebrity status, at times eager to utilize it but unafraid to draw lines to keep away unwanted annoyances. In a way, I crossed that line that day, but he knew that I had done it with the best of intentions, a true admirer who just wanted to touch him for a moment.

We need, and have needed for some time, more Bill Russells. We need people who transcend the present, clashing moment and show us a way past it. By standing among us, this proud black man exuded the fierce determination of trying to find somehow, some way, for others not black to recognize latent equality--not just in the law, but in our hearts. If we do not see his equal for a while, it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Be well, Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark