Out from my cave

After being out on disability so long, I've begun the process of beginning work again. One sign that I'm well enough to get back is my 90 minute or so sojourn in Tualatin Valley Nature Park today. These were the only two pictures I thought were good enough to go on here.

Windows

I woke up with the song Start Me Up by the Stones in my head. Don't know why. But that reminded me of the promotion of Windows 95 some thirteen years ago. Kids nowadays have no recollection typing "win" at the DOS prompt after the computer booted up to run Windows 3.1 (or anything earlier) or how frequently you got the BSOD (the blue screen of death). Worse still, how it took ten or more 3.5" floppies to even install Windows onto your computer, you know before the advent of CD-ROMs. I doubt my 26 year old sister even remembers that... though my mom wouldn't remember that either, at least by experience, as she never used a computer really back then.

Any of you remember that?

Snow & Gorge Pics

I did a the loop around Mt Hood today, but I think I overdid it... I'm sooooo exhausted now.

I had an issue with camera batteries today. I use rechargable lithium batteries. Yesterday I recharged the batteries from Monday's excursion. I'm sure that being up at Timberline for 30 minutes had something to do with the batteries losing their charge so quickly. I got rechargable batteries in Cascade Locks, but when I went to take a photo at Horsetail Falls my camera said "Charge Batteries" and then shut down. I was flabergasted. I just bought new batteries. Then I got to thinking that maybe the battery that was dying was the 3V watch battery. So I went out to Gresham, got a new watch battery, put it in, same result. So now I'm thinking the rechargable batteries I bought today weren't charged! Luckily I had a Garmin device with me, only with 3 AAs, so I put those three in and one of the old AAs in the camera, and finally it worked.

On to the photos:

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President

The Civil War, the war "testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure", which Lincoln both birthed and guided the nation through, has established himself, as if sculpted into Black Hills granite, into national rememberance. His championing the absolution of slavery has endeared him to our memory, launched him to the White House, and divided a nation.

He was a native Kentuckian, turned lawyer, then Illinois politician. Somewhere he became a gifted orator, though lost to Stephen Douglas. Yet that loss, like Reagan's to Ford, established himself on the national scene.

Lincoln was moral, and morally-guided. It helps that I agree with those morals, but it helps that his side won, else I might have altogether different views. And the victory, his ensuring that the union survived, is as important as his adherence to the prohibition of slavery. Had the union failed it is very likely that rivals would have viewed each other warily and hostily across the Potomac, the Mason-Dixon line, and however else the continent would then be divided up. Lastly, his effort at reconciliation in the post-bellum period was equally important as he did not seek to exact revenge on the ceded states.

All that said, I'm not sure if I would have prosecuted a war to maintain the union. That is a moral dilemma: to kill to abolish slavery. To shackle a man to the grave in order to unshackle his slave. Aye, there's the rub. Yet Lincoln was resolved and was able to resolve men to kill their brothers, fathers, and sons.

And he was a very capable commander-in-chief. He fired generals who weren't performing. He stayed the course with Scott's Anaconda Plan.

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President

Nearly everyone who wanted Teddy back in the job on Cafferty's website wanted him back to take on big business in America today. They want Teddy the Trustbuster. I'll give him that. He saw the inherent dangers of capital being concentrated in the hands of too few and how that disrupts the "free" in free market.

He is also remembered fondly for his conservationist efforts. Again, I find no fault with that.

Here's where I start to have problems with him, or at least the now popularly remembered version of him: he walked softly and carried a big stick--well, at least carried the big stick in a threatening manner if American interests were in doubt and swung it when American interests were actually threatened. Case in point: the Canal. Yes, it was a great thing for commerce, and for the world, but somehow I think the Panamanians got the short end of the, er, stick on that one. (And to think of the pomposity of some in the Carter years to refer to it as their canal!)

Some fondly think of him leading the charge of San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American war (that bestowed upon US Puerto Rico and the Phillapines)... but that is sometimes seen as the beginnings of American Imperialism... but I should ask the Cherokee when they think American Imperialism began...

But he is earnestly remembered as being a man of conviction, a bull moose. Yet men of conviction have demonstrated to be problematic, i.e. Hitler--not that I'm saying Teddy was any where like Hitler, only trying to argue that what convictions are matters not simply that one has them.

I will also credit him being one of two American presidents being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On Roosevelt's part, it was for mediating peace to the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-05.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President

Camelot! Didn't anyone then realize that King Arthur's court met with bad demise? Yet the contemporary media was bandying about that term in consideration of him...

But it was not without reason that this appellage was visited upon his administration. Like Arthur, Jack was young, energetic, idealisitic, visionary, and charismatic. Those were the reasons why he is fondly remembered. And he was cut down so unexpectedly, so young; another reason why he'll be so long remembered.

He did have a resume. A senator from Massachussettes. A war hero. Good-looking. Intelligent. Did I say good-looking? Jackie was beautiful too--not that I'm saying that I think she looked beautiful. Everyone else back then did. So she's remembered in her petticoat even though she survived him by decades.

But on to substance. Basically, he was the man for the post-war period (post-WWII, post-Korea). His youth complimented or made that. I'm not sure which. He made college students want to serve their country (you know that famous University of Michigan address, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"). He gave them the Peace Corps (thanks in large part to Sargent Shriver). He declared his mission (sadly not seen fulfilled by himself) of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade (the 1960s). His was the formulative years of white political backing of the civil rights movement.

Yet though idealistic, youthful, and optomistic, he was tough--and therein lies some detraction. He was a cold warrior. If he wasn't there was no way he would have ever been elected. (Barely eeking out being Catholic...) First there was the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba. Then there was the Cuban Missle Crisis. I'm sure that there are more defenders of his actions there than there are detractors. I have to agree with one of the commentators on Cafferty's website: Kennedy brought the US this close to war with the Soviet Union. However, I'm ignorant about what I'm ignorant about. Who knows what the world would have been like if there had been Soviet nuclear missles parked off of Florida. By the 1980s that really meant nothing with the advent of submarines carrying a nuclear missle payload. But for the time of 1962 onward, it may have put more swagger in Soviet policy. I, for one, am glad Krushchev blinked--even if I was born more than a decade later. Yes, I know more than one student was upset that they had to do the homework.

Then there's Vietnam. We'll never know Kennedy's intentions. He sent advisors there, but how long would he have kept them there? I speculate that he probably would have followed the same course as LBJ. People are projecting hindsight and their own wishes on a liked assainated President to really believe that Kennedy was just about to pull troops out of Vietnam on November 23, 1963 (the day after his death...) Foreign Policy in regards to containing Communism was very nearly universal in both the Republican and Democratic Parties.

He would not be remembered so ardently today if not for his assaination, but that is not to say that he wouldn't still have been well liked if he survived to his twilight years.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President

FDR is fondly remembered for leading the nation through the Great Depression into the Second World War. That covers so much!

The nation was reeling from the Depression which struck back in 1929. During the 1932 campaign, he offered hope to the many despondent, impoverished Americans, culminating in his first inaugeral address where he proclaimed that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Many of the commentators on Jack Cafferty's website yearned for someone who wasn't a "fearmonger" (as they see it Bush/Cheney have used fear to advocate their policy of intervention in Iraq--a failed policy these detractors would say, detaining prisoners at Guantanimo Bay, enlarging federal abilities to monitor communications in its various mediums, and use of controversial interrogation tactics). With his New Deal, Roosevelt greatly broadened the Federal Government, both in its beaucratic size, but also in its perceived mandate.

First, its size. Roosevelt created several federal agencies, mostly for the purpose of finding some way in which to employ men without jobs. In short, FDR had the federal government step up to deal with what recently failed businesses left in its wake, unemployed people. It undoubtedly helped with the morale of those who would otherwise be doing not much else; it also provided money to those households, obviously. It could also be included that FDR increased the size of the Supreme Court just so that his legislation would pass judicial review.

More importantly, however, it that FDR was elected because he declared, in essence, that the business of the federal government was in the caretaking of its population. In reading all of the comments on Cafferty's blog it struck me how beloved FDR was, but also for how beloved Jefferson was, but for a dramatically opposite reason. Jefferson was on many occassions championed because of his belief in a small federal government. FDR was the antithesis to this "anemic" government, but Jeffersonian America was not early modern America. Both had arguable reasons for their views. As stated, the United States in 1932 was in crisis. That crisis started in 1929 with the stock market crash where fortunes were lost. There was a run on the banks because money seen was more safe than money put away. Money on paper was money no more--there was deflation. However, folks still had debts and deflation made it extremely difficult to pay back. Especially farm debt. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s excerbated the problem and left hundreds of thousands homeless (remember The Grapes of Wrath?) There was going to be no private sector solution to the problem. Hoover tried and failed at various stragtegies and was personally blamed by millions of Americans for their plight. The big-government solution was the only solution. (And unlike Hoover, FDR met with better success in getting his programs to work. He was an adept administrator.) This belief in the federal government as the caretaker of its people is one of Roosevelt's greatest legacies, whether for good or ill. I've also have read in different places that FDR's socialism saved America from Communism... I'm not sure that I'd go that far, but his policies at the very least kept the nation more cohesive than it would have been otherwise.

Another fondness for FDR lies in his spouse, Eleanor Roosevelt. Like FDR, she was reviled amongst Republicans... She was an intelligent, independent mind who went across the nation as FDR's eyes and ears. Moreover, the average American trusted her, which is why Mrs Roosevelt was one of the few non-presidents that some of Cafferty's commentators wished would be president now.

It should also be remembered that FDR was the original Great Communicator. His radio addresses allowed him into many families' homes and demonstrated his understanding of their plight, but also allowed him to explain his policies and their efficacy. Mrs. Roosevelt's trips across the country aided him greatly in these addresses. It also allowed him to convey his sense of hope.

Hope. That was one of the items that many commentators on Cafferty's website wanted to be communicated by a President. It was one of the huge draws to Reagan. It was one of the huge draws to the man from Hope, Bill Clinton. It was one of the huge draws at present to Barak Obama. People went to be reassured that things will get better. FDR was able to do that in a believable way, like Reagan after him.

Vision. FDR was also able to communicate his vision to the nation through his fireside chats. That is another draw for Cafferty's commentators. It's why so many loved Kennedy (Jack or Bobby), Reagan, Clinton, even the current President Bush, when he received accolades, it was in part because he did have vision, albeit a controversial vision.

Unity. Americans of the Great Depression believed that they were all in a struggle together (The Grapes of Wrath withstanding...) and FDR made it a common struggle. Yes, there were those who opposed his adminstration in Congress (thus necessitating the packing of the Court--they'd question the constitutionality of his measures, it would end up going to court, and be found unconstitutional, etc.), but the picture of the nation drawn by FDR was that of a nation united overcoming the struggles of the Great Depression.

December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. If the nation wasn't truly united before Pearl Habor Day, it certainly was thereafter. This is the last reason I'll give for why so many look at FDR with fond memory. He was commander-in-chief in two huge theaters of war--the nation has never experienced a world-wide conflagaration like this before and hopefully never will since. He let the military fight its battles (blessed with capable and brilliant generals), but he was a master diplomat with Churchill and Stalin. Managing that war, from mobilization, to prioritization (as much a political decision as a military one), to inspiration after a series of losses in the Pacific, took a man of uncanny ability. So what if he was taken off the top secret list for his throwing away secert memos into the White House trash can? And he demonstrated remarkable foresight... He recognized that Nazi Germany would eventually present a problem to the US and bolstered Britain's defense through the lend-lease act (and I believe that was his idea); he recognized that Britian could no longer remain a colonial power after the war and kept nudging Churchill in that direction. Some critics may say that he should have had foresight regarding Pearl Habor, but his administration was in talks with Japan over their colonial expansion into China and Southeast Asia, finding it untenable.

Surely the man had to have faults... Well, the one that immediately comes to mind are the Japanese internment camps. That isn't remembered well and he went along with it. I'm not happy with packing the Court. It showed too much of presidential aggrandizement.

One last thought, I believe that the US involvement in the Second World War is what finally brought the US out of the Depression. It was slowly recovering before, but the federal government infused the economy (bond-backed, of course... dulling the pain of deficit-spending) with so much money, it was the New Deal on steroids. The military became another alphabet agency for all intents and purposes.