|
||||
|
The website of the No on E Committee is up and running. Take some time to peruse it. Particularly informative is the page that allows you to decode the amendment. It has hyperlinks for various language in J.A.I.L. that lead you to analysis, explanations and ramificatins. The site also mentions several items that are on my list of upcoming, lengthier posts. Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open. James Dewar If there’s one thing more difficult than making history interesting to a general audience, it’s writing a history of scientific achievement. While Deborah Cadbury’s Space Race is not a perfect work, it does a worthy job of telling the history of the race between the United States and the Soviet Union to achieve supremacy in space. Cadbury makes this more than dry scientific history by looking at the two programs from the standpoint of the two men leading the projects. Space Race is a companion to a television series of the same name that aired on the BBC last year and is scheduled to air on the National Geographic Channel next month. Cadbury tells the story by alternating in each chapter between Wernher von Braun and the American program and the Soviet program during roughly the same time period with a focus on von Braun’s Soviet counterpart, Sergei Korolev. While von Braun was appearing before television cameras and gracing magazine covers, Korolev was unknown even in his own country. The Soviet obsession with secrecy meant that he was known only as the “Chief Designer.” In fact, when Yuri Gagarian was honored in Red Square for being the first man in space, Korolev was not on the balcony or at the head table for the celebratory events. In fact, he never even made it to Red Square because his car broke down. Cadbury uses this approach to take us from Korolev’s imprisonment in the Soviet gulag during the Stalinist purges and the race to find Nazi rocket scientists as World War II came to a close to Korolev’s death in 1966 and the ultimate success of America’s lunar program. Where Cadbury excels is in taking us inside Korolev’s life, work and struggles. Using some of Korolev’s personal archives, Cadbury helps us learn not only about the successes and failures in the Soviet program but also in the life of the man who directed it. On the other hand, von Braun’s history is an area in which Space Race seems to suffer. The work often refers to von Braun’s Nazi ties and details the conditions of the slave and concentration camp labor used in the Nazi rocket program. At the same time, there is little definitive about the extent of von Braun’s involvement. Similarly, while Cadbury tells a compelling tale of the search for the Nazi rocket scientists at the close of the war, there is little on the deals that were struck or the records that may have been destroyed as part of Project Paperclip, the name for the operation that brought Nazi rocket scientists to the United States. Perhaps no one really knows those details. If that is the case, Cadbury needed to be more clear, rather than throwing out sentences like, “Von Braun’s own secrets have only recently been unraveled.” The fact Space Race is a companion to a television series also works against it at times. Television series episodes occasionally require repetition to remind viewers of what they saw in a prior installment or to educate new viewers. In the written word, though, material stays in memory or it is easy to look back. Thus, for example, in discussing the ongoing difficulties faced in building larger rockets, it may not be necessary to tell the reader numerous times how the failure of fuel components to adequately mix can cause explosions in the fuel chamber and disastrous consequences. In the greater scheme of things, however, these problems are minor compared to the way Cadbury personalizes this Cold War-fueled rivalry. While educating the reader on the technological and political problems facing these space programs, von Braun and Korolev serve to exemplify the struggle between their nations and the real people behind the programs. Particularly with Korolev, we see the single-mindedness and personal price exacted in this race and a perspective with which very few in the west are aware. It will be the most expensive funeral a man ever had. An Eisenhower advisor on the Mercury space program As the blog shows, I am getting caught up on my book reviews. In fact, the last two were also being picked up by advance.net. Anyway, with at least two more on the front burner, here’s some accumulated material for the weekend. First a couple minor rhetorical rants:
With that out of my system, some more routine linkage:
And if you don’t know where you’re going Any road will take you there “Any Road,” George Harrison, Brainwashed Sometimes a title says it all. Mike Sharpe’s Requiem for New Orleans is a lament for a New Orleans that no longer exists. At the same time, the title reflects the stylistic approach Sharpe takes to the subject. The work is intended to emulate a symphony based on the concept of a requiem mass. Sharpe takes this approach because he believes it is appropriate for a disaster in which the “biblical proportions are manifest. Thus, Sharpe combines more traditional poetry and prose with not only excerpts from a requiem mass and the Bible but also blues and popular music and even the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, that is also the work’s downfall. Sharpe tries to pack too many stylistic elements into too few pages. While mourning New Orleans, Sharpe retains the political edge of his first work of poetry, Thou Shalt Not Kill Unless Otherwise Instructed. Sharpe is highly critical of the president and his administration for their failures. And even those pieces with an overt political tone are explicit in portraying the devastation. For example, while the theme of “Katrina” is how the storm revealed the president’s failures, Sharpe also writes:
Yet while the political angle is predominant, it is not the sole focus. Sharpe also raises more philosophical questions, such as in “Where Are You, God?”
At bottom, that is also an underlying theme of the work. How do we restore what we have lost both physically and psychologically? Can we atone for the failures and errors that contributed to the disaster? Can we redeem the people and spirit of New Orleans? While Sharpe’s blending of diverse styles is not wholly successful, the political and spiritual questions he raises are well worth contemplating. I want to know Where are my children Where are my friends Where is my house Where is my man Mike Sharpe, Requiem for New Orleans Both at No on Amendment E and on our own blogs, PP and I have repeatedly invited proponents of J.A.I.L. to explain exactly why South Dakota needs the initiated measure and to point to the judicial misconduct of which they always complain. Not surprisingly, it seems that’s the last thing they want to do. They’d much rather keep diverting attention by moving around shells that don’t have much to do with anything. One of the latest examples appears in a recent addition to the website South Dakota’s J.A.I.L.ers proclaim exists “to educate the public and the media about the largely unaddressed problem of judges operating above the law.” And as so often is the case, it is a view from through a California prism. In that site’s “Upcoming Events” section, they write:
Setting aside the fact this doesn’t seem to have much to do with any events or the merits (or lack thereof) of J.A.I.L., let’s do a little accuracy screen on this bit of commentary. Evidently, J.A.I.L. thinks whether a blogger is a journalist or vice versa has something to do with J.A.I.L. But guess what? Not only is the guy who was suspended from his job a journalist employed by the L.A. Times, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in 1999. Maybe J.A.I.L.’s greater minds have some explanation of how a guy working fulltime as a reporter for a major metropolitan daily is relevant or comparable to a few South Dakota bloggers who don’t work in the news media. I anticipate, though, that the explanation is as nonsensical as the premise. J.A.I.L. also refers to the L.A. Times shutting down “the blog site of one of their own.” Sorry, twasn’t the guy’s blog site. It was a blog appearing on the Times’ own site. It appears the L.A. Times has corporate policies governing the blogs on its web site and the activities of its reporters. This is not a case where the paper was shutting down an employee’s personal blog because of untruths. It is about an employer taking disciplinary action against an employee for violating company policy in the use of company property and resources. J.A.I.L.’s publicist says this event is relevant to bloggers “posting inaccurate to out-right lies.” But what did the L.A. Times actually say? “[A]n internal inquiry found no inaccurate reporting in [the reporter’s] postings in his blog or on the Web.” Instead, the reporter was suspended for violating company policy against using pseudonyms to post comments. Maybe the fact there was “no inaccurate reporting” is really the ultimate relevance of this story. The repeated offers PP and I have made for J.A.I.L. to point out what it now describes as “inaccurate to out-right lies” are still being met with resounding silence. J.A.I.L. likes to generate all sorts of smoke in attacking opponents. Once you peer through the smoke or take the time to look under the shells, you’ll find, as usual, just more flimflam that has nothing to do with the issues or merits. That’s why close attention must be paid to the statements made by J.A.I.L. at its upcoming “town hall meetings” and each must be run through an accuracy screen. Extremists often attack the character or reputation of an opponent rather than deal with the more concrete issues and views they present. Laird Wilcox, Nazis, Communists, Klansmen, and Others on the Fringe |
        |
|||
|
Copyright © 2026 A Progressive on the Prairie - All Rights Reserved Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
||||