Global Warming – The Scientist Armies

Of the several ages we might inhabit, we surely live in the Age of Sheer Numbers. This also applies to science and global warming. Consider the following from Michelle Malkin’s December 2nd column “All The President’s Climategate Deniers.”

“(climate czar Carol Browner) is now leading the “science is settled” stonewalling in the wake of Climategate. “I’m sticking with the 2,500 scientists,” she said. “These people have been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real.”

According to CNN, backing up Browner, to a degree: “Human-induced global warming is real, according to a recent U.S. survey based on the opinions of 3,146 scientists. However there remains divisions between climatologists and scientists from other areas of earth sciences as to the extent of human responsibility.” No list of names was given.

In any case, writes Michelle, “last year, more than 31,000 scientists — including 9,021 Ph.D.s — signed a petition sponsored by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine rejecting claims of human-caused global warming.” Further to that:

“Bob Unruh of WorldNetDaily reported that 31,000 U.S. scientists – 9,000 with doctorate degrees in atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and other specialties – have signed a petition rejecting global warming.

The list of scientists includes 9,021 Ph.D.s, 6,961 at the master’s level, 2,240 medical doctors and 12,850 carrying a bachelor of science or equivalent academic degree.”
The Petition Project seems to be the home of these signatures. I have read criticisms of this project, that non-scientists and celebrities have signed the list. However, you can read the names online for yourself, listed alphabetically with their degrees.

My point in reporting this is not to take sides–although I do think the case for human-caused global warming has been overstated, contains data anomalies, and is being hurt by true believers as witness in Climategate—but to point out that high profile spokespersons in this debate have turned to sheer numbers of scientists to state their case.

I’m sure there are prominent scientists in this debate who are more often quoted than other scientists. But do individuals have the authority they once enjoyed?
Consider the numbers of scientists who have signed A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism petition. It runs for 18 pages in fine print with name, degree, institution. Example: Paul Ashby, PhD., Harvard University. Quite an impressive list.

How about this one from The Union For Concerned Scientists:

“On February 18, 2004, 62 leading scientists–Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors, and university chairs and presidents–signed a scientist’s statement on scientific integrity in policymaking. Over the next four years, 15,000 U.S. scientists voiced their concern about the misuse of science by the George W. Bush administration.” Again, impressive numbers. The question is: What do we do with statistics of this magnitude? How do we evaluate them, me and you?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are approximately 6.8 billion people alive in the world today. Is it possible that we have procreated ourselves beyond the level where individual talents—really big geniuses—matter much anymore? Would it matter if an Einstein, say, were to write a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt warning of the potential of the atom bomb, considering that it might get lost in a pile of thousands of emails in the president’s inbox? It might matter to the world, but who would know? Who would blow the whistle in time: “Hey, look over here!”

I believe that individuals matter, that great men and women, be they scientists, artists, thinkers, healers, what have you, can lead movements and nations and change the course of history. I think the Einsteins and Rachael Carson’s still matter. But I must admit, that lately, I see the possibility that the dark tide of sheer numbers may overwhelm the individual voice in a cacophony of voices.

Are we now living in a world where such numbers of scientists, no less, can no longer agree on much of anything in science, or anything else, and therefore become little more than contending armies poised on opposing slopes, lances tilted forward, ready to charge like armies of old?

By Hudson Owen. All Rights Reserved.

 

Tiger’s Roar

Anyone who has followed golf over the last several years has heard the phrase: “Tiger’s on the prowl,” meaning that, in a four day golf tournament, late on Saturday, Tiger (Eldrick Tont) Woods is catching up to the leader. His winning record after leading at 54 holes in a 72-hole event is phenomenal.

Now we know that Tiger prowls in other ways, as well. He has all but admitted to having extramarital affairs with one or more women. In 2004 Tiger Woods married Swedish model Elin Nordegran, with whom he has two children. Ms. Nordegran was introduced to Woods by fellow PGA golfer Jesper Parnevik.

When Tiger, age 33, burst onto the pro golf scene, after being a three-time U.S. amateur champion, he not only won; he dominated. He won the 1997 Masters by 12 strokes and the 2000 U.S. Open by 15 strokes. To date, Tiger has won 71 Professional Golf Association tour events. His closest rival is Phil Mickelson, five years older, who has won 37 tour events. Tiger and Phil draw large galleries when they are competing well in the same event.

Golf is one of the last gentleman’s games. It has a genteel character to it. The commentators generally speak better English than in most sports. Players joke politely with one another. They don’t trash talk, on microphones, at least, or get into fights. The game is played at a leisurely pace, even when millions of dollars are at stake. Players take their time lining up shots, especially when putting. When the ball goes out of bounds, players and officials discuss at length what options are available for the next shot. The galleries are characteristically helpful and quiet when instructed to be so. Once when Tiger’s ball landed behind a large rock, fans worked together to move the rock. Players walk from hole to hole on manicured green swards with beautiful trees and flowers, stone bridges over babbling brooks. Some scenic courses are located by the ocean. You could spend your entire life at the Augusta National Golf Club, Georgia, where the Masters is played each year. Golf is a slice of heaven on earth.

When Tiger arrived, legends Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas were still playing competitively, albeit mostly at the senior level, and Byron Nelson, the grand old man of golf, still held court at his Byron Nelson Classic. They recognized the young genius and welcomed him into their fold. He looked like a gentleman and talked their game. He knew the history of the game and its famous golf courses. He had supposedly learned stern character lessons from his Vietnam Veteran father. He seemed to possess an inner calm, perhaps from his Asian mother. They accepted his energetic fist pump; let the man show his strength. Let Tiger roar. He flashed a ready smile. He was not a gate crasher; he was one of them.

Tiger stands atop the kingdom of golf and a personal empire built from winnings and endorsements. Engineers labor to please him with sophisticated clubs and balls designed with space age technology. Ultra slow motion cameras and swing coaches analyze his swing and back swing. He is continually working on his swing, putting, every aspect of the game; training, pumping iron daily.

Then came November 27, 2009, when Mr. Woods drove his black Cadillac Escalade into a hedge, fire hydrant then a tree, near his Orlando, Florida mansion, in the wee hours of the morning. Accounts of the incident differ; my favorite is that Tiger was found snoring, barefoot on the street.

We understand, though not always condone, “transgressions,” as Tiger puts it, in our celebrities, sports and otherwise. Tiger was apparently known on the golf circuit to be a hound. He was a closet cheater, and accepted all the same by his peers. There are undoubtedly other hounds on tour. What Woods has now done is to bring tabloid headlines to the genteel game of golf, a roar not of his choosing but which he is responsible for. Every day the world awakes to new bombshells and cutie pics of alleged mistresses. The kind of stuff you associate with football players and loud sports. Booty calls. The latest news is that his wife has moved back to Sweden, and the mistress count has risen to seven, maybe ten, all white. He had once said in a TV interview that he loved his wife Elin “with all my heart.” People believed him.

It remains to be seen how fans and pro golf will treat the Prince of Tees when he crawls out from under his privacy rock and walks the green swards again, as he someday will. Jesper Parnevik has already said publicly that he thought Tiger was a “better sort of man than that.” Which must hurt. Jack Nicholas said “It’s none of my business.” Will galleries boo him? Faint camera clicks have been known to throw him into a cursing fit. He always had a temper, tossing clubs for his caddy to retrieve after a poor shot. Will family men like Michelson look away when asked about Tiger? How long will big name sponsors support him?

Tiger Woods once had the world on a string. He had us right where he wanted us. Now Tiger is going to hear the sound of unfriendly fire. Tiger Woods is going to have his Vietnam moment, maybe his long war.

By Hudson Owen. All Rights Reserved.

 

After Pearl Harbor, an Airman’s Tale

When the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor raced across the land at the speed of radio, my Old Man was poised to make a killing. He had recently graduated from a fancy New England college—not bad for a dirt poor youth from rural Mississippi—and was living in Richmond, VA. He was set to apply his new engineering skills to the wiring of a large Army base in Virginia, a plum that had fallen into his lap. It would make him rich. Plus, he was in love. Then came the news. There wouldn’t be time now for the job before he would be drafted. His chance at a fortune gone, he signed up with the Army Air Corp, with the hopes of becoming a fighter pilot.

The Army decided he was too large for a fighter cockpit and trained him to pilot the B-17. Faded photostats of his Individual Flight Record show that he flew no fewer than six models of two light planes and five models of the B-17 Flying Fortress. In the Midwest, his bombardier practiced dropping 50lb. black powder bombs on a bullseye from low altitude. One bomb went astray and hit a barn. The farmer ran outside and shook his fist at the plane.

Tragedy struck when his plane caught fire during a training flight and not all of his crew bailed out safely. Later, in the Southwest, he took his gunners out in a jeep to hone their defensive skills by hunting jack rabbits with Thompson submachine guns. In Spring, 1943, he shipped out with the newly formed 379th Heavy Bombardment Group, piloting his $200,000 B17F to Iceland, to refuel. With his Tokyo wing tanks bulging with aviation fuel, he barely cleared the ice cliff at the end of the runway. He and his crew touched down in Kimbolton, England, his home away from home until Spring of ’44.

He settled into barracks life, preparing for the task ahead, writing to his war bride back home nearly every day. He told her how much he missed her and complained about the prevalence of Brussels sprouts on the menu.

By Hudson Owen. All Rights Reserved.

 

The Last Battle

When I ponder the war in Afghanistan, dark images from the vault of my imagination come to mind, images from the Last Battle: the Poet vs. the Machine. I choose “poet” over “man,” because I hear the storyteller, the bard who will tell the tale of his people, as Homer did in The Iliad.

The poet might be armed, but that is inconsequential. He is more of a spiritual leader like Joan of Arc. The machines might be monsters from the Transformer or Robocop movies, or swarms of metallic squid-like creatures overwhelming Zion in The Matrix finale. The poet leads tribes of hi-lo armed warriors: swords, missiles, guns—you get the picture.

Presently, the armies of the United States and Europe are stymied in Afghanistan by a rag tag bunch of religious fanatics and criminal gangs equipped with infantry weapons; without armor, body armor, air power or heavy artillery. One can say that the terrain and rules for engagement favor al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and that might be true. Even so, this is a remarkable situation.

What the enemy has is a fanatical will to win. Our soldiers fight hard, along side the Canadians and Brits, but most of the Europeans have no stomach for this fight. They spend little treasure and almost no blood. The Predator missile attacks decimate al-Qaeda leadership, but fail to destroy them or slow down the Taliban. Our armies cannot deny the Taliban anything essential to their war effort: men, weapons or money. Our generals tell us we are not succeeding, which means we are losing. Our only hope, really, is in a larger, improved Afghan army, not more hi-tech weapons.

Predator is the tip of the robotic spear. Reaper and Global Hawk are larger, longer range drones. The Navy now has Fire Scout, a robot helicopter. The Army is testing MULE, a robot vehicle the size of a Humvee armed with anti-tank missiles and a machine gun. There are presently 2,500 Pakbots on treads in Iraq and Afghanistan dismantling explosive devices. “I think we’re at the beginning of an unmanned revolution,” said Gary Kessler, who oversees unmanned aviation programs for the U.S. Navy and Marines. “We’re spending billions of dollars on unmanned systems.” The Air Force now trains more operators for unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) than pilots for its fighter jets and bombers.

Of course, a foot soldier directs Pakbot from a safe distance, and human operators guide Predador strikes from bunkers thousands of miles from the battle space, requesting permission to launch Hellfire missiles from the chain of command. But the trend is clear and, to me, unsettling. Sure, the purpose of these robot systems is to save lives. If I were the boots on the ground, I would want Pakbot and his buddies clearing the way for me.

Still, on some scarred plain in the future, I hear the voice of the poet calling his warriors to battle; not bin Laden, whose poems are not my poems, someone more like Mel Gibson in Braveheart. On the opposite field are the machines, with their unblinking camera eyes. What is the civilization behind the machines? What are its values? What, if anything, do its people sacrifice for? Will they be the good guys? And what will they do when their human foe, after much loss of blood, has beaten their robots into the ground? I wonder.

By Hudson Owen. All Rights Reserved.

 

The Show Trial of the Century

Recently, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he had chosen a New York federal district court in Lower Manhattan as the place where 9/ll master mind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four high level al-Qaeda henchmen will be tried as civilians. They are presently incarcerated Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This has caused an uproar, to say the least.

The question is why? In his November 18, 2009 op-ed piece, “Why We Should Put Jihad on Trial,” Steven Simon wrote: “Historically, the public exposure of state-sponsored mass murder of terrorism through a transparent judicial process has strengthened the forces of good and undercut the extremists. The Nuremberg trials were a classic case.” He went on to say that “highlighting the transparency in our judicial process would strengthen America’s reputation just as cracks are beginning to appear in the jihadist base. A growing number of radical Muslim clerics and theoreticians have reversed course in recent years.” Simon is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Nuremberg trials were military tribunals conducted in Germany after World War II. The War on Terror, a term not used by the Obama administration, is not over. Attacks are continually being plotted on U.S. soil, and we also know, in Pakistan and other places. The Fort Hood massacre was a terrorist attack. So this is not a time of reflection in which to contemplate our moral superiority and give enemy combatants rights that American service men and women would not enjoy facing a U.S. military tribunal.

One could say that the Nuremberg trials were fair, in that not all of the accused were found guilty and executed. The trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and henchmen, on the other hand, will be an open and shut case, followed by execution. The President has said as much. He was quoted as saying that the critics of the decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in civilian court won’t find it “offensive at all when he’s convicted and the death penalty is applied to him.” Realizing his gaffe, President Obama went on to say he didn’t mean to suggest he was prejudging the outcome. At his hearing before a military court on Guantanamo, KSM declared his wishes to die as a martyr. So if we execute him, he will get his wish. As to the difficulty of presenting evidence obtained by waterboarding, Mr. Holder hints at plenty of clean back-up evidence that could keep the al-Qaeda holy warriors tied up in our judicial system till the end of their days—and no doubt costing additional millions of dollars.

The Nuremberg tribunals were show trials, albeit less tawdry than the Soviet show trials of the 1930s. The trial contemplated by Mr. Holder and his team is no less a show trial. That is what is transparent about this entire production, when it takes place. Each defendant will have several lawyers, say, 20 all toll. How long will it take each of them to have his say? When KSM sits in the docket, in a suit and tie and trimmed beard, and is asked by these defense lawyers to describe in detail the horrors of his many waterboardings, will he speak quietly, with great dignity, of his pain, eliciting sympathy from the court? You can bet that these details will come out, for unquestionably this trial will also be about the Bush administration, that authorized waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques. The Bush team will be tried in absentia. Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Holder and his ilk, The Bush team was unable to bring al-Qaeda leaders to trial after they surrendered their useful information. Now, the villains are still around to haunt Mr. Holder and the new president.

Mr. Holder has declared that he will take responsibility if the trial somehow goes badly. That’s big of him, but hardly reassuring as much more than his personal reputation is at stake. The New York trial of Ramzi Yousef and blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and co-defendants for the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center, which killed six individuals, turned up information to the defendants’ lawyers that may well have proved to be useful to al-Qaeda in the far more deadly September 11, 2001 attack. In 2005, defense lawyer Lynn Stewart, following a nine-month trial and thirteen days of jury deliberations, was found guilty of conspiracy, providing material support to terrorists and defrauding the U.S. government. She has been out on bail since then. On November 17, 2009, the Court of Appeals affirmed her conviction, ordered the district court to revoke her bail immediately, and remanded the case for resentencing. How many lawyers from the show trial team will be similarly inclined to pass along privileged information that could lead to the death of more Americans?

Ramzi Yousef, nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, predicted that the Twin Towers would be attacked again and would fall.

Anyone who worked or lived downtown in the aftermath of the 9/ll attack, will never forget those days, weeks, months. The city from Canal Street south was locked down; there were check points everywhere, police in SWAT gear guarding key buildings, dust and ash covering closed stores along lower Broadway, the sickly sweet odor of cooked flesh in the twisted burning rubble.

The intense security presence cut down on street crime, but reminded us daily of the target we were. Who knows what nuts, home grown terrorists or foreign operatives will come to town during the show trial of the century. What about the unknown perp who tossed a hand grenade into a large flower pot on the sidewalk a couple of years back? Or the “bicycle bomber,” who left a pipe bomb in front of the Army recruiting center in Times Square that destroyed the entrance? Do you think any former radical clerics will show up on the street and denounce Islamic violence? Do you?

New York to Eric Holder: We don’t want you and your gaudy show trial designed to embarrass the president who came to town days after the attack, buoyed our spirits, gave us billions to rebuild, and chased after our enemies. We don’t want it, we don’t need it. We don’t want to hear it on the news, see it on the street, live in fear from it day after day. Just go away.

By Hudson Owen. All Rights Reserved.

 

Major Hasan and the 800 Pound Gorilla

Maybe you have seen those television commercials where a huge gorilla sits next to an uncertain individual and offers friendly advice, winding up the spot by saying: “Hey, what do I know, I’m just the 800 pound gorilla in the room.”

In the wild, adult male gorillas seldom weigh more than 500 pounds. It was not so many years ago that people talked about the 600 pound gorilla in the room. True to our growing tendency to exaggerate the metrics to make our point, the gorilla has put on weight. The question is: Who is the 800 pound gorilla in the room where Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan is being discussed in absentia?

In his eulogy before a crowd of 15,000 at the Ft. Hood military base for the slain, President Obama praised the courage of the soldiers who braved Maj. Hasan’s gunfire to help the wounded.

“It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know – no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice – in this world, and the next.”

Good words, strong words, confident of God’s justice in the next world. I pause at “tragedy.” People will say what they want, and “tragedy” is a word that readily comes to mind to describe horrific events. It also is a word that mitigates blame. When people say that something is “tragic,” they are implying that it was just one of those things, an act of God like an earthquake, that might have been avoided but wasn’t. Too bad, now it’s time to move on. Who are we to blame? “Islam” and “terrorism” were not mentioned in the President’ sermon.

Army Chief-of-Staff, General George Casey, spoke to Meet The Press’s David Gregory in much the same language. He said: “As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

Really? There are two kinds of diversity: the naturally diverse populations in nature, and diverse human populations. The Indian peoples in Pre-Columbian America were diverse tribes. They did not all look alike, think and act alike. Some were warlike like the Sioux, others were peace-loving like the Hopi. The more recent variety of diversity that arrived with political correctness places the interests of minorities ahead of whites. That was the diversity Gen. Casey was speaking of. Major Hasan was a minority of Palestinian heritage. As such, he was promoted to the rank of Major even after receiving poor performance reviews at Walter Reed Hospital where he worked. In other words, it is almost impossible for the Army’s politically correct promotion system to turn down a Muslim medical doctor even after he sends up red flags about potential disloyalty and acts of violence.

Consistently, major legacy media have portrayed Mayor Hasan as the victim of stress. The Los Angeles Times ran an article on the massacre titled: “Fort Hood Tragedy Rocks Military as It Grapples With Mental Health Issues.” Time magazine followed suit, posting an article titled: “Stresses at Fort Hood Were Likely Intense for Hasan.” The real stresses at Ft. Hood were on the soldiers returning and going back to Iraq and Afghanistan after multiple deployments in combat zones. Major Hasan never faced a bullet fired at him or had his vehicle blown up by a roadside bomb. As his pay grade is in six figures, he is not poor. His stresses were internal, between the call to duty and deployment to Afghanistan as a psychiatrist to counsel soldiers in the field, which he dreaded, and his growing ties to Islamic extremism, culminating in his yelling “Allah Akbar” (God is Great) before he opened fire on the unarmed and unsuspecting soldiers at Ft. Hood.

Barack Obama is our first president raised in the age of political correctness, multiculturalism and diversity. He takes these as a given in his world. The President and his men have discarded the “War on Terror” in favor of “overseas contingency operations.” Ever heard of it? Think you will remember it? Wars have become “crimes.” Major Hasan committed a “crime against our nation,” said the President.” The President talks about “success” not “winning” such a battle against crime. Apparently we can lose this war on crime and still experience success. It isn’t winning that counts, it’s how you play the game.

History has a way of burying this child’s play. The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial arch in Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, isn’t dedicated to “success” but to the victory of the Union Army in the Civil War. Soldiers do not charge up the hill in the teeth of enemy fire for the cause of overseas contingency operations. They fight for gold, love, country, their fellow soldiers. They do not fight for diversity.

The President and his men do not understand anger in war. The U.S. was angry at Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Americans said impolitic things like “A good Jap is a dead Jap.” Anger fueled the long trek across Europe and the Pacific that culminated in victory and a new age. More men died in single battles in World War II than all the losses in Iraq and Afghanistan to date.

The 800 pound gorilla reminds us of history. It advises us to think clearly and speak honestly, to call a spade a spade. It might appear friendly and benign in TV commercials, but it has the strength to thump us pretty hard if we ignore it.

By Hudson Owen. All Rights Reserved.

 

A Poem for Veterans Day

Vietnam

There will always be a jungle
where an old man sits on a mat
and buries the day in opium sleep,
and a young mother searches
among the dead for her own.

There will always be a wind
that blows through the village,
sweeping the clouds from the moon
and the incense from the temple,
the rude rekindling of war.

We will always be coming home from Vietnam.
The dead came first in caskets,
making the long flight, churning the least inside.
And the whole, or nearly whole, and the wounded.
And even those who never went.

For the war was brought home from the start,
fought in hearts and minds, on campus,
in the news, everywhere you went;
on every street in America was a corner of Vietnam.
Everyone saw the images and heard the names.

Those who went can say how the closeness was,
how it tasted, felt, poured into their lives,
played along their nerves, struck their bodies,
or hardly touched them at all—
inasmuch as one can say these things.

They would say, and have said,
how the war was hell and they survived,
that they fought for freedom, for something,
and were damned proud, or liked it;
or they hit a mine inside that was their war.

Those who didn’t go too have a tale to tell:
how they sensed the poison and said hell no,
sat beneath clubs and rifle butts,
beneath a greater threat, and spoke out,
sang to the soldiers, their brothers, and were glad.

And they would say, and will say,
though the times have changed and they have changed,
that they fought their own war their own way,
sought out danger to prove themselves,
or it hardly touched them at all.

We will always be coming home,
for there will always be a bar
where the choice not made will stir the drink
and the conversation comes from strangers
busy with their lives while you were gone.

We will always be coming home
to that place that stopped when we left,
searching for that country of the soul
where what we were and wanted and did
is found on a local street, some manhood map.

So we will always be returning
to the neighborhood before it changed,
to cheap jeans and short lines,
to our senior or junior year,
to our own geography and confusion.

We will always be coming home
to a story and to America,
to the eddy of violence from never losing,
and always losing something to change;
to our own first dreams and violences.

Remains are coming home,
forensically given their dog tags, it is hoped.
As the leaders who gave the orders came back
to sell their memoirs for millions
and be washed in the glow of stardom.

The missing will also be coming home,
whispered by the dead at rest in their wall.
And soldiers will always be going out,
and the great chants will always echo.
But we will have come home, some place like home.

From The Endless Evolving Trilogy – A Poem
Cycle published in 2000 by Hudson Owen

 

The Yankees Are Back

On Wednesday, November 3rd, the New York Yankees won the World Series four games to two over the Philadelphia Phillies, their 27th World Championship. The Phillies, defending their 2008 crown, were overwhelmed by the Bronx Bombers in pitching and hitting. On Friday, the Imperial City gave the home team a parade up Broadway, ending with music and speeches at City Hall. I checked out the scene in the immediate aftermath, knowing in advance how difficult it would be to get my face on Broadway. I counted 14 satellite dishes along Park Row next to Broadway. The streets and sidewalks were still thick with Yankee fans, chanting “Let’s Go Yankees!” and sporting newly minted world champions tee shirts and sweatshirts. I’d say there was less paper discharged from offices than in previous parades down the Canyon of Heroes.

Interestingly, one computer group ran 10,001 simulations on their system and accurately predicted the outcome. And I must say, 4 to 2 sounded about right to me, as well. Other computer simulations picked the Dodgers to win. And one can question whether the American competition is still truly a world championship. The U.S. team, containing many premier players, lost to South Korea in the semi-finals of the 2009 World Baseball Classic, played in the pre-season. Japan went on to defeat South Korea for the title.

No matter, the Yankees are back on top. The American truism that money can by anything has once again played out in our sports culture. That same week, Michael Bloomberg won a third term as mayor of Gotham, spending 85 million dollars of his own money to win reelection by a narrower margin than expected over his opponent. Since their 2000 win over the Mets, my team, the Yankees have floundered with their underachieving big payroll players. The sun is again in its rightful place and the lesser planets revolve around it.

Being a Mets fan, I was secretly rooting for the Phillies. I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and the Phillies were the local team. My father drove us to Philadelphia to watch games, sometimes a Sunday double header. When was the last time you did that? I saw Sandy Koufax pitch a no-hitter against the Phils in 1964, and Frank Howard hit one of the hardest shots ever. At six-seven and 275 lbs., Hodo, as he was called, was one of the biggest men ever to play the game. When he connected with a baseball, it went a long, long way. One night, while playing for the Dodgers, hit a moon shot that sucked the air out of old Connie Mack Stadium. On the roof in left-center there was a red Coca Cola sign. Howard batted right handed, and he crushed a ball that bounced off the sign on the rise. I kid you not. On TV I watched Don Larsen’s and Jim Bunning’s perfect games.

Phillies and Yankees were the most valuable baseball cards I collected. The Yankees, because they owned baseball in the 1950s. A Robin Roberts card was about as valuable as a Whitey Ford card, to us. I had some black-and-white cards, some of Mickey Mantle, possibly from his rookie year with the Yankees. The Topps cards came five to a pack with a flat piece of bubble bum included. We traded them and flipped them for possession. I had a cigar box jam packed with them sitting in our attic for years. One day, after I had left home, as happened to so many of us kid card collectors, my mother threw my treasures out—a collection worth hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. Oh, well.

I played genuine sandlot baseball. We usually went nine innings, even on hot summer days. I pitched mostly, and could strike out older boys. I threw a no-hitter in Little League and only lost one game as a pitcher, when my team did not score a run. I threw right and batted left. I learned the left-hander’s trick of swinging late, thus sending the ball over the shortstop’s head into left field. I hit over .300 some years; I never hit a home run.

Baseball was a simple game back then. In Little League we wore spikes and those wrap-around batting helmets and swung wood bats. Nobody got seriously hurt playing organized ball, that I can remember. We did not have a victim mentality in those days. I had no ambitions of being a ball player, and let the game go after high school.

I like to watch the game during the summer. It’s something I understand, and it connects me to my youth. It has given me a topic of conversation in my day jobs. The pro season runs on too long, finishing in November now. You shouldn’t have to play in near freezing conditions at night. They should go back to 154 games to compensate for the longer post-season nowadays. I doubt that will happen, though the day will come when an early blizzard will wreck havoc on the post-season. This year, the Colorado Rockies had to reschedule a playoff game because of snow.

The Yankees are back for awhile. I predict they will be in the post-season next year. I think the Mets will continue to struggle. Spring training is ever the season for hope.

By Hudson Owen. All Rights Reserved.

 

Who Is Major Hasan?

What do we make of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist, who went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood on Thursday, killing 13 soldiers and wounding 30?

He was certainly a man of contradictions, polite to his neighbors, giving away food and personal items, including a Quran, to friends and neighbors before he left for his deployment to Afghanastan, and thanking them for their friendship. He had also cold-bloodly plotted his horrific deeds in advance, with the legal purchase of two powerful handguns: one a .357 revolver and the other a FN 5.7mm automatic pistol that can carry a 30-round clip of high velocity ammunition capable of penetrating bullet-proof vests, so-called “cop killer bullets.” He allegedly purchased the handguns and ammunition in a Texas gun shop in August. Major Hasan, born of Palestinian parents in America, graduated from Virginia Tech, and might have armed himself in the manner of the Tech killer who likewise toted two hand guns.

Major Hasan walked into a base medical facility where some 300 unarmed soldiers were lined up for eye exams and vaccines in preparation to being shipping out to Afghanistan, and opened fire. According to one soldier interviewed by ABC News Nightline Friday night, he shouted “Allah Akbar! (God is great!), or words to that effect.” He reloaded and killed and wounded more victims until he was tracked down by a air pf local cops, Sergeant Kimberly Munley and Sergeant Mark Todd, who confronted him at a range of approximately 20 feet and exchanged pistol fire with the Major until Munley and Hasan went down. Hasan got the worst of it.

Relatives say Hasan reported to them that fellow soldiers teased or ridiculed him for being a Muslim, and that he had grave doubts about the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, where he was to go the next day to counsel combat victims, the same sort of professional treatment he had performed as a psychiatrist stateside for returning veterans. Apparently, Major Hasan considered the War on Terror to be a war against Islam itself.

So it would appear, from what we know, that when the major made his decision to take action, he reached for two things: his guns and jihad.

If major Hasan survives his wounds, he might shed further light on his actions. Maybe not. He will be talking through a lawyer, and what is unique about him will be buried in legal code. We will be hearing: “No comment.” In his 39 years, Nidal Malik Hasan has said and done enough to make him an enigma. He was polite on the outside, steaming on the inside toward the end. We have seen that before in our killers. On official Army papers he stated “no religious preference.” Yet to others he stated more recently that Islam took precedence in his life. The last person seen to enter his apartment near the Ft. Hood base was dressed in Islamic clerical clothes, according to one witness.

There are presently small numbers of Muslims in the U.S. military, less than 4,000, about the same number as there are Jews. The Army values them for their language and cultural skills. The Army spent many thousands of dollars to educate Major Hasan. According to his aunt, Noel Hasan, the Major wanted to leave the army because of harassment after 9/ll and offered to repay the cost of his medical training, but the Army would not let him go. He sent up red flags on his way to the slaughter. But as so often happens in these terrible incidents, the red flags went unnoticed or unheeded. He was a loner, something else we have seen all to often in mass murderers.

He purchased the guns, and heard to call to jihad, one of the most unfortunate words in any language. Whereas some disaffected youths will throw rocks through the windows of abandoned buildings or roll a drunk, Muslim youths might well say: “Let’s do jihad.” And they are off and planning. It comes easily to their lips, jihad, with devastating consequences when they are successful.

American Muslims have served their country with valor. Colin Powell reported staring for an hour at the photograph of a Muslim woman grieving at the tombstone of a Muslim loved one in uniform. Today there are the images of fellow soldiers and family lighting candles and grieving together at Fort Hood. Today there is the enigmatic smile of Major Hasan in uniform everywhere on the Web.

There will be a full investigation of the matter. Millions of words of wondering and condemnation will be generated. The Army might well institute a new round of sensitivity training regarding conduct toward Muslim soldiers. The American Muslim community has already denounced the shootings as despicable. Hasan’s family has declared its love for America.

We often speak about the cultural diversity of this country. In good times it is a strength. It is also a witch’s brew when something like the Ft. Hood massacre takes place. Who is to blame? How do we prevent it from happening again? Who is “we” anymore? There are so many factors, so many variables, so many “if’s.” Was Hasan principally a psycho, or a jihadi?

The short answer is: The gunman is to blame. The 2007 Virginia Tech gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, wrote a long confession that he mailed the day of his wrath, saying that “this didn’t have to happen.” Yes. He could have thrown his guns away. He could have demanded attention with lesser acts of violence for his grievances. He could have turned his rage inward and killed himself—at the beginning rather than at the end. He could have gone public rather than going postal. Major Hasan could have done the same.

What is it about Virginia Tech?

Despite futuristic movies like Minority Report, in which a Washington D.C. policeman tracks down potential criminals before they can commit a crime, there are too many places in American society for dangerous individuals to hide for any such scenario to work effectively. We can be thankful for the inspired efforts of trained professionals and ordinary citizens who nip these mass murderers in the bud. The Columbine Massacre has given students, parents and faculty a profile of student misfits that has occasionally proved useful in preventing repeat performances of that type of violence.

Major Hasan was not the first American Muslim soldier to commit lethal violence against fellow soldiers; I doubt that he will be the last. He has sent up a huge red flag that cannot be ignored. The scanners and lasers are turned on this man’s life. One thing we know: Nidal Malik Hasan was born an American, with all the rights and complexities we bestow upon our citizens. Despite his deep alienation from mainstream America, Major Hasan is one of our own and joins the rogue’s gallery of mass murderers: jihadi and psycho.

Update: 11-17-09: According to the New York Post, Major Hasan visited a strip club in Killeen, Texas, near the Fort Hood Army base days before his shooting rampage. He purchased several lap dances, took a personal interest in the strippers’ personal lives, preferred blondes, drank moderately, was a good tipper.

By Hudson Owen. All Rights Reserved.

 

Why I Don’t Like Politics

I voted today. I voted for candidate Y over candidate X and other candidates on the far end of the ballot. I chose Y because of his experience and because I thought he might do a better job than X. But I confess I have no great confidence in either X or Y to solve the serious problems facing us. I vote because it is my civic duty.

One thing is for sure, the incessant TV ads will stop for this election cycle. That is a great relief. They practically ruin television in their prolonged season. The more money the candidate has to spend, the more ads I am bombarded with, one after the other. If there is a commercial for X on Channel 7, and I switch to Channel 9, I will be hit by a commercial for Y, or the same spot for X on 9. Bam bam. The same commercial, or one out of a repertory of two or three, if I am lucky.

It’s such poor theater, these attack ads. They all follow the same format: show the other candidate in an unflattering pose and expression and show text of four or five bullet points why you should not vote for him or her. Show a flattering pose of yourself with endorsements and bullet points and citizens smiling and shaking your hand, for your own commercials. Bad guy, good guy. The same ad, over and over. It’s Punch & Judy theater except that Punch and Judy was funnier. Your average TV commercial for butter is more entertaining. And why shouldn’t attack ads be entertaining? You need laughter to get through life. During last year’s presidential primaries and election, the candidates endorsed their commercials. “I’m Hillary Clinton, and I heartily endorsed this message,” she said with a smile. That told me she was having moments of fun along the Via Dolorosa.

The television stations should be required by law to limit the number of appearances of the same political ad per hour per channel, no matter how many millions the candidate or political party has to spend. But who would pass such a law? This is one reason why I do not like politics and politicians.

There is a connection between American political campaigns and revival meetings. Evangelists come to town during summer, when small churches without central air conditoning open the windows and the congregation reaches for those rattan fans donated to the church by funeral homes, and fan themselves silly. The evangelist comes to save the lost and get the faithful to rededicate their lives to Christ. The organist plays hymns like “Almost Persuaded” and “Revive Us Again,” while the Holy Spirit does its work, and penitents walk down the aisle.

The politician comes to town to save America. The sitting administration has done a terrible job and now it’s time for change. You could set it to music. You see, I did not get swept up in Obama mania. I have been through enough of these elections, listened to the sermons, watched as the red, white and blue balloons came cascading down on the convention floor as the band played “Happy Days Are Here Again,” and the conventioneers rocked.

Candidate Obama, named The One by Oprah, was something new, all right. He came in white raiment trailing clouds of glory, hands outstretched, beseeching us. He was right up there, only a bit lower than the angels, for black America. Lord, what a revelation! Barack Obama fused the political dog and pony show with the tent meeting. He came not just to solve our problems, but to heal us as well and deliver unto us “teachable moments.” Elmer Gantry and his ilk were banished from the revival tent. Barack blessed the little children and walked among friendly creatures of the wood. He was change personified. Change We Could Believe In. How can the man possibly succeed? For awhile, Sarah Palin was a fresh face for Republicans and Independents. For a moment, I almost believed myself. But then she got sketchy on facts and turned into Tina Fey. Even lower than politicians are political humorists. Poking holes in politicians is easy in inverse proportion to the difficulty of running the country.

Barack Obama was a Chicago politician before he became anointed The One. It might turn out that his linen is clean, but he has certainly shaken filthy hands in what little time he had to warm up before the Big Dance. I’ll not get into cases; it’s an old story. Bringing Jesus to the convention, now that was something. Nine months into office, President Obama is coming to resemble his predecessor on issues of war and security. One wonders if W and O are having secret meetings at night behind the Lincoln Memorial. Anyway, they both know the script.

No, they are not all crooks, and we elect them to do the people’s business. It’s just that once they get to Washington, they become transformed, not by the Holy Spirit, but by the Lord of Pork. Our money becomes their money, and lord, how they love to spend it. There’s no stopping them. There was a time when billions was a big thing. Now, we’re talking trillions. That’s ten to the twelfth power, folks. They will go on and on until we become bankrupt, take a breather, and get started on spending the new currency.

I do solemnly swear…

Some of them can’t save themselves. Senators and Congressmen drop by the wayside, the weight of the Cross too heavy to bear. They reach for gold and pleasure. Reagan took a bullet. Clinton was saved by one lucky turn of phrase. His crime did not rise to the level of impeachment. What about sink, instead?

The Promise, the Rumors, the Images, the Denial, the Scandal, the Repeated Denial, the Press Conference, the Stepping Down, the Talk Show Circuit, the Burial and the Resurrection. These people crave attention. No matter how shameful the deed, they have that iron from their spine that seeps into their smile and propels them forward again in public life.

I once had a flash of how it must have been in ancient times, by, of all things, watching mild mannered Mark Green walking along Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, running for local office. It was a street fair and everyone was out enjoying the weather. Politicians show on these days. They eat foods they wouldn’t normally eat and look inordinately happy. Mark Green wasn’t pressing the flesh or gorging on Italian sausage and onions. He was marching straight ahead in his suit and tie on that warm summer afternoon. In front, walking backwards, was a photographer. Behind him was a staffer carrying a banner of the candidate’s name and the office he was running for. I swear someone was beating a drum, but it was years ago and I can’t be certain. He had the look of gravitas on his handsome face, a Roman word meaning substance, seriousness, duty. Minus the photographer, he could have been plying the back streets of Rome, Marcus Crudus. Maybe he was low in the polls, or something was not right at home. He was soldering ahead, a man true to his breed, trying to make a difference. You have to give them credit for something.

By Hudson Owen. All Rights Reserved.