The anti-death league

If you live in one of the following cities you can celebrate today:

Arcata CA, Atlanta GA, Austin TX, Berkeley CA, Cincinnati OH, Covington KY, Davis CA, East Palo Alto CA, Richmond CA, Santa Cruz CA, Santa Monica CA, Sebastapol CA and West Hollywood CA.

Young Leopold, left, with his brother Emperor Joseph. Painting by Pompeo Batoni.

These – and a dozen Catholic dioceses in Texas – are Cities for Life and today is an annual day of celebration.  They all, along with another 1,600 cities and towns around the world, are committed to ending the death penalty.

Very trendy, very SoCal, right? (And mid and northern Cal too.)

Not really.  Actually very Habsburg, very Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, very 1786.

The first head of state to abolish the death penalty was Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany and eventual emperor.  He was the youngest son of Emperor Francis I (and brother of Marie Antoinette) and wouldn’t have been in charge of anything, except that second son Charles died and Leopold got Tuscany by default.

For the first few years as Duke, he was under the control of counsellors appointed by his mother.  He went all the way to Vienna to complain and when he got back he was really in charge.

For the next 20 years, he devoted himself to the administration of his duchy, ridding it of the many rules and restrictions imposed by the previous rulers – the Medici – and spending money on public works and infrastructure.  He was not very popular, considered by his subjects to be cold and withdrawn.  But the duchy prospered.  Smallpox vaccinations were generally available, he created a facility for juvenile criminals, ended the inhumane  treatment of the insane, and worked on a constitution for his people.

And in 1786, he banned torture and abolished the death penalty, the first modern ruler to do so.  In 2000, Tuscany began Cities of Life Day in honor of his action.

Sadly, he and his siblings were remarkably short-lived.  He became Holy Roman Emperor when his brother died in 1790 at the age of 50.  But Leopold himself died two years later at the age of 45. Still, he left quite a legacy.

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Omg – another one of those cosmic days:  Andrea Palladio, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain,Winston Churchill, LM Montgomery, Clyfford Still, Jacques Barzun, Gordon Parks, Brownie McGhee, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Virginia Mayo, Allan Sherman, Shirley Chisholm, Richard Crenna, Robert Guillaume, Dick Clark, G.Gordon Liddy, Abbie Hoffman, Ridley Scott, David Mamet, Mandy Patinkin, Billy Idol and Ben Stiller – all born today. Here’s a little something palladian:

 

Palladio's Villa Rotunda

 

Hermit kingdom

When Koreans celebrated the 600th anniversary of the founding of Seoul on this date in 1994, it wasn’t really the founding of the city they were celebrating – it was the designation of Seoul as the capital of the Joseon empire. There had, after all, been inhabitants of that particular location for more than two thousand years.  Seoul has existed since before the birth of Christ.

Taejo, first Joseon ruler.

But the Joseon dynasty was the last imperial dynasty and the longest based on Confucian principles.

At the end of the Joseon, two centuries of peace, combined with its withdrawal from the world  – it was called the Hermit Kingdom – gave Korea a flourishing culture which the Japanese adopted.  The source of Japan’s ceramic and visual art was Chinese, but it was often Chinese  translated by Korea.  Immigration from China to Korea after the fall of the Ming dynasty resulted in a transfer of pottery-making skills to Koreans;  through trade – and the occasional kidnapping of potters – the same skills were transferred to Japan.

The Korean potters, while enthusiastically adopting new glazes, shapes and decorative elements, rejected the bright color palette of the Chinese, as well as the use of enamels.  Embracing the Confucian goals of purity and simplicity,  Korean potters produced pure white pots that prefigured the aesthetics of Zen.

If geography is destiny, then Korea’s history is all about its location between China and Japan.  And when the Joseon ended, it was because Japan defeated China, Korea’s long-time protector and ally. Korea became a Japanese protectorate, then finally annexed against its will.

Sadly, the modern history of Korea leaves it at war with itself.  As often happens, it was the result of foreigners drawing a line on a map.  For all the details see  this Wikipedia entry, which explains how the US and USSR divided Korea.

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This is Louisa May Alcott’s birthday – she may not have meant to, but she created a great early-model feminist.  Many happy returns also to Diane Ladd and Garry Shandling.

Movers and shakers

A simply amazing list of birthdays today – there must be some kind of cosmic harmonics at work.  Here are just a few:  John Bunyan, William Blake, Friedrich Engels, Stefan Zweig, Victory Jory, Nancy Mitford, Ted Stevens, Berry Gordy, Gary Hart, Paul Warfield, Randy Newman, Rita Mae Brown, Alexander Godounov, Paul Shaeffer, S. Epatha Merkerson, Ed Harris, Judd Nelson and Jon Stewart.

John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress, was a huge cultural influence.  William Blake, poet and artist, was the same, but posthumously, influencing artists who came after him.  Engels, with or without Marx, helped shape the political philosophy of his time.  Everyone on the list has influenced the culture to one degree or another, but is there any contribution greater than making someone laugh out loud?

Historyland

On November 27, 1926, John D. Rockefeller and his friend Dr. W.R. Goodwin were finally in business. They had spent almost two years buying property in the area, quietly, often using go-betweens so prices would stay low, but now the parcel they had coveted was complete.  In came the architects and landscapers – and a lot of demolition crews – and things began to change overnight.

Williamsburg in 1943. Photo from PPD of the LOC.

All of this was not in aid of a skyscraper or an office park – what they were building was 18th century, pre-Revolutionary America.  They were recreating the Williamsburg, Virginia, of the late 1700s.

A lot of people don’t think much of Colonial Williamsburg.  Critic Ada Louise Huxtable called it “an extraordinary, conscientious and expensive exercise in historical playacting in which real and imitation treasures and modern copies are carelessly confused in everyone’s mind. Partly because it is so well done, the end effect has been to devalue authenticity…’

And more to the point, an actual resident spoke up at a meeting in the 20′s.  Major S. D. Freeman warned his neighbors, ‘No consideration has been given to the broader aspects of this transfer. If you give up your land, it will no longer be your city. Will you feel the same pride in it that you now feel as you walk across the Greens, or down the broad streets? Have you all been hypnotized by five million dollars dangled before your eyes? Can anyone of you talk back to five million dollars?’

Well, no, they couldn’t.  So buildings that had disappeared were reconstructed, impressive 19th century Gothic and Italianate homes were demolished and locals were put into mob caps and perukes for the edification of tourists – voluntarily, of course.

Dr. Goodwin's church, Bruton Parish, was begun in 1711. It is the biggest Episcopal parish in Virginia. Photo, Wikimedia.

US Highway 63, which ran right through town on Duke of Gloucester Street was re-routed.  You can do that if you’re a Rockefeller.

Williamsburg is run by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, non-profit and privately funded.  It’s fallen on hard times occasionally as tourist revenues declined (visitors peaked at 1.1 million in 1985).  The extensive land holdings the foundation acquired to keep a nice green buffer around the historic district have been broken up.  Kingsmill Plantation was sold as far back as the 1970′s – Win Rockefeller and Gussie Busch had a long talk and it became an Anheuser-Busch asset, with a brewery, Busch Gardens Europe  and an office park.

In 2007, they had to sell Carter’s Grove, an important example of a James River plantation, but it was sold with heavy restrictions on development.  The founder of CNET bought it to raise horses.

FYI, if you go to Williamsburg, keep in mind that of the 500 or so buildings you can see, only 88 are original.

Tomb raiders

Tutankhamun's funerary mask. Photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen.

Howard Carter discovered King Tut’s tomb on November 4, 1922, but he heroically refrained from unsealing the entrance.

Well, heroically might be the wrong word – sensibly is more accurate.  The man who had paid for Carter’s seasons in the Valley of the Kings for about seven years – the Earl of Carnarvon – really deserved to be present for the great occasion.

So Carter wired the earl and waited.  Carnarvon arrived three weeks later and witnessed the first breach of the entrance.  Using a candle, Carter cast a tiny light into the dark and later wrote that he saw ‘Many wonderful things….and gold, everywhere, the glint of gold.’

It was the greatest tomb discovery of all time – there were so many artifacts that it took ten years for Carter to catalogue them all and see them transported to the Cairo Museum. At that point, he retired from archeology and became a dealer and consultant to museums.

Ironically, the most celebrated tomb discovery of modern times was of a king who ascended the throne at the age of nine and then died nine years later, a reign so short and basically uneventful, that he was quickly forgotten in his own time.  The sands shifted, burying the entrance. Eventually the location of his tomb was forgotten; workmen’s huts were built over the site, further discouraging tomb raiders.

Tut's tomb, Valley of the Kings. Photo by Peter J. Bubenik.

Once discovered. however, Tut became a very important figure.  It was thought initially, because of evidence of a head wound, that he had been assassinated, but modern CT scans and DNA evidence show that he suffered from spina bifida and a recent leg injury that had become infected.

We also know that his name – Tutankhamun – was his second name.  First, he was called Tutankhaten.  Aten was the sun disc that his father the monotheist – Akenaten – had worshiped, much to the dismay of the priestly class that surrounded the deity Amun.  When Tut became king, the priests of Amun reasserted their authority and changed his name.

Although his sarcophagus has been removed, Tut has been allowed to remain in his final resting place, in a climate-controlled glass case.

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Many happy returns to the inimitable Tina Turner, turning 72 today.

To whatever gods may be

. . .I would like to convey thanks for all the good things, etc.  But since it is a time for feasting, I beg you, gods, to enlighten our government and media overlords regarding this obesity epidemic thing.  Obesity is for the most part actually a symptom of malnutrition.  Americans are not avoiding those legendary fruits and vegetables out of perversity.  They can’t afford them.

Fruits and vegetables – unlike sugar and corn – are not subsidized by the government and organic farmers are rarely able to take advantage of the farm subsidies available to agribusiness.  Soda and corn-syrup laced, artificially-flavored ‘fruit’ drinks are much cheaper than milk or real fruit juice.

It’s not rocket science.  As more and more families slip below the poverty line, the quality of their food declines and so does their health, both mental and physical.

And much as I love the participants, I’ll pass on any more photo ops in the First organic garden, adrift in its emerald sea.  Millions of Americans have no lawns to dig up, no professional staff to create and maintain a garden and – no surprise here – quality plants and organic seed are expensive. Usually you have to send away for them.

The truth is that we don’t so much have an epidemic of obesity as we have an epidemic of poverty.  This is not a view that the mainstream media is likely to embrace. We are, after all, Americans, masters of our own fates.

Happy t-day to all.  Back on Friday.

The epic of American civilization

Orozco, self-portrait.

Today is the birthdate of Mexican muralist Jose Orozco, born in 1883 and died in 1949.

In 1932, Orozco was invited by Dartmouth College to be an artist in residence and to paint a mural in Baker Library.  Orozco painted a 21-panel work called the ‘The Epic of American Civilization – and by American he meant the New World, not the United States.  There are other Orozco works in the US, but nothing on this scale.  More views of his work in Guadalajara here.

Below, ‘Gods of the Modern World,’ panel 21 of The Epic of American Civilization by Jose Orozco, Baker Library, Dartmouth College.  Photo by Daderot.

November 22, 1963

This is the day John Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Texas, forty-seven years ago.

LBJ takes the oath as president. Photo by White House photographer Cecil W. Stoughton.

The events which took place in Dealey Plaza have been recorded, analyzed, chewed over and dissected until there is not a second of the time which has gone unexamined.  Probably everybody has heard every explanation and every conspiracy theory.

But here’s a question I never thought to ask: Why was Lee Harvey Oswald in the custody of the Dallas PD and not the FBI when he was shot on November 24?

Incredibly, because the assassination of a president was not a federal crime.  There was a law making it a federal crime to threaten to harm a president, but none if you succeeded.  So Oswald had committed the Texas crime of murder.

One of the recommendations of the Warren Commission was such a law, because “the absence of clear Federal jurisdiction over the assassination of President Kennedy led to embarrassment and confusion in the subsequent investigation by Federal and local authorities.

“[226] In addition, the proposed legislation will insure that any suspects who are arrested will be Federal prisoners, subject to Federal protection from vigilante justice and other threats.”

That recommendation at least was acted on by August of 1965.

The triumph of reason

Okay, pop quiz – what was the Age of Enlightenment and when was it?

Voltaire, 1694-1778.

Granted, it is certainly not a complete answer, but it takes us a very long way towards understanding the changes going on in Western Europe and America in the 18th century.

Today is Voltaire’s birthday and really – what a guy.  He took on the church, the monarchy, Leibniz and right off the bat, his parents.  His real name, btw, was Francois Marie Arouet, but he made up the name Voltaire for himself and insisted on being addressd that way.  Eventually, he would use more than 150 pen names, mostly to avoid unpleasantness – like being thrown into jail or being exiled.

Voltaire by Houdon. Photo by Elizabeth Roy.

His father wanted him to be a notary, like a proper bourgeois, but Francois said no thanks and kept writing poetry. Very early on, he was sent to the Bastille for writing a satire actually written  by someone else – when he was finally released after a year, he changed his name, avoided his family and got serious.

In 1719, he insulted a young aristocrat who had  Louis XV issue a warrant and Voltaire was on his way to prison again.  He talked the authorities into exiling him to England instead.  When he returned three years later, he was more vicious and more clever than ever in his criticism of the king, the church and the aristocracy.  He published Philosophical Letters on the English. in which he pointed out how much better constitutional monarchy was than absolute monarchy, how civilized the English were when it came to religious tolerance and the judicial system and a number of other points that caused a huge furor.  The book was burned and Voltaire was forced to flee.

That was pretty much the pattern of his life .  He got in trouble with Frederick the Great, escaped to Switzerland and finally crossed back into France to live for the rest of his life in the border town of Ferney.

What Voltaire was doing – like other Enlightment types – was rending what Professor Peter Gay calls ‘the Sacred Ciircle’ – that cosy arrangement whereby the clergy interpreted the Bible to bless the divine right of kings and the kings in turn protected and enriched the clergy.

But I think he had a good time doing it –  it’s all there in his face in a wonderful bust by Jean-Antoine Houdon.

Finally,  some Voltaire to brighten your day:

• All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one is born with a knowledge of God.
• Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
• The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.
• The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.

Together at last

Happy anniversary to Buda and Pest today.  They are celebrating 137 years of a unified Budapest.

It sounds like a lot, but it represents just a small part of the cities’ history.  They began as Celtic settlements – literally from the year one a.d. -  spent a half century under Roman rule, another few centuries occupied by Huns, two centuries under the Habsburgs and almost a century as part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.   It was the empire that united the two cities and built the Chain Bridge across the Danube to unite them.

Before union, Buda had a large German population, while Pest – on the east side of the river – was mostly Magyar.  Modern Budapest is primarily Magyar, a word whose origin is theoretical for a people about whom little is known.  But it is notable that Hungarian belongs to the Finno-Ugric language group and has more in common with Finnish and Estonian and other Baltic dialects than it does with any Middle European language.

Budapest has made herculean efforts to recover from the damage to its beautiful buildings in two world wars and an occupation – to see all of it,  spend a few minutes here.

Buda Castle overlooking the Danube, completed in 1265. Photo by karelj.