THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
07/25/14 -- Vol. 33, No. 4, Whole Number 1816
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
The Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE
SF on TV (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
Lectures, etc. (NJ)
My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for August (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
AFTERMATH (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE by Daryl Gregory (book review
by Joe Karpierz)
WHAT IS RELATIVITY? by Jeffrey Bennett (book review
by Gregory Frederick)
Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentations (letter of comment
by Dan Kimmel)
"Men into Space" (letter of comment by Neil Ostrove)
21 Jokes (letter of comment by Peter Rubinstein)
This Week's Reading (FEARING THE DARK, THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,
and CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: The Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE
A $10 million prize for a "portable, wireless device in the palm of
your hand that monitors and diagnoses your health conditions":
http://www.qualcommtricorderxprize.org/
==================================================================
TOPIC: SF on TV (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I just finished watching the first season of ORPHAN BLACK. I tell
you, science fiction and fantasy on television is better than ever.
A lot of the stories used to be simplistic even in "Star Trek".
Right now everybody tells me that not one but the two best genre TV
series are running right now. Unfortunately, there is no consensus
on which two series they are. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
Lectures, etc. (NJ)
August 7: THE JOURNEY OF NATTY GANN, Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library
August 14: DR. STRANGELOVE (film) and RED ALERT by Peter George
(a.k.a. Peter Bryant) (book), Middletown (NJ) Public Library,
5:30PM
August 28: THERE'S MORE TO NEW JERSEY THAN THE SOPRANOS by Marc
Mappan, Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library, 7PM
September 11: OBLIVION (film) and ? (book), Middletown (NJ) Public
Library, 5:30PM
September 25: IN THE OCEAN OF NIGHT by Gregory Benford, Old Bridge
(NJ) Public Library, 7PM
October 9: PI (film) and ? (book), Middletown (NJ) Public Library,
5:30PM
October 23: THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE AND NATURE WRITING 2012,
edited by Dan Ariely (selected articles), Old Bridge (NJ)
Public Library, 7PM
November 13: TIME AFTER TIME (film) and TIME AFTER TIME by
Karl Alexander (book), Middletown (NJ) Public Library, 5:30PM
November 20: ROADSIDE PICNIC by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky,
Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library, 7PM
December 11: MIMIC (film) and "Mimic" by Donald Wollheim (story),
Middletown (NJ) Public Library, 5:30PM
December 18: TBD, Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library, 7PM
Speculative Fiction Lectures (subject to change):
September 6: David Mack, Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library, 12N
Northern New Jersey events are listed at:
http://www.sfsnnj.com/news.html
==================================================================
TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for August (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
Turner seems to have set up a streaming facility so that you can
stream any film more than a day but less than a week after it
showed up on TCM. Actually I would have preferred they set it up
with completely different movies. But it could be a useful
feature.
Anyway, another month is coming. It is time to pick the films I
recommend on Turner Classic Movies. TCM is showing half of what I
think would be an ideal double feature. I am not sure what is
going on in their minds that they did not take an evening and have
the complete THREE MUSKETEERS and FOUR MUSKETEERS, particularly in
this day of binge watching. All times are Eastern Daylight Saving
Time.
THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1973)
The IMDB lists ten screen versions of Alexandre Dumas's THE THREE
MUSKETEERS. I know of nobody who seriously contests that the best
version is the 1973 version directed by Richard Lester and
starring--get this--Michael York, Richard Chamberlain, Oliver Reed,
Faye Dunaway, Charlton Heston, Raquel Welch, Frank Finlay,
Geraldine Chaplin, Christopher Lee, Simon Ward, Spike Milligan, and
Sybil Danning. The tone is lighthearted and frequently very funny.
Charleton Heston had some problems with his role as Cardinal
Richelieu. Heston, at 6'2", was used to towering over the other
actors in his scenes. Christopher Lee was three inches taller and
had to walk in a trench in his scenes with Heston so Heston would
not look too short. Apparently being too short for his scenes was
a new experience for Heston. Heston also had problems working with
Spike Milligan, who had honed his spontaneous humor on the radio
program "The Goon Show". Milligan ad-libbed hilariously in every
scene he was with Heston, and Heston could not get through a scene
with Milligan without breaking up laughing. The script is by
George MacDonald Fraser, author of the "Flashman" series about a
total cad and coward at many of the major English battles between
1839 and 1894. The swordplay is considered very authentic to the
period. The actors had to be trained on the proper style of
swordsmanship. William Hobbs, probably the most respected name in
screen sword fighting, choreographed the scenes of fighting with
great attention to detail.
The director had one surprise in the film that even the actors did
not know about. In fact, especially the actors did not know about
until they saw a preview showing of the film. The film ended with
the villains losing out and virtue being rewarded, just like the
other versions. Then the closing credits included a note that the
story would continue in THE FOUR MUSKETEERS (1974). And in fact
the entire rounded story of the novel is told over two films. The
actors had performed in one film and were paid for one film,
arduous as it was. They did not know until the preview showing
that they had made two films. This was the basis of a lawsuit that
ended in a compromise that made neither side very happy. They
actors were paid more, but not enough that it would have covered
two films. Still, one of my friends said that the highpoint of the
movie was the announcement in the credits that the story would
continue with THE FOUR MUSKETEERS.
Sadly, TCM is not showing the second film this month. This will be
their first showing of THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1973) and they have
never shown THE FOUR MUSKETEERS. We can hope that TCM will show
the two films in the future, hopefully back-to-back. [Friday,
August 15, 8:00 PM]
SCARFACE (1932)
Brian DePalma's controversial gangster film SCARFACE (1983) has
caused a stir for its bloody violence and for Al Pacino's portrayal
of a totally ruthless criminal. Some may be unaware that this film
is a remake of one of the great gangster films of the 1930s. The
film was co-produced by Howard Hawkes and Howard Hughes. Hawkes
also co-directed with Robert Rosson. Ben Hecht based the story of
Tony Cremonte (played by Paul Muni) on the rise to power of
"Scarface" Al Capone. But then Hecht vigorously denied that fact
when two of Capone's henchmen unexpectedly turned up on his
doorstep. Hecht lied claiming there was no connection between this
screen gangster and Capone.
The film took almost two years to be released. In that time one of
the supporting actors became famous enough to be listed on the new
poster as "Boris *Frankenstein* Karloff". Paul Muni was one of the
best gangster actors like Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney,
though not as well remembered these days. Probably he is best
remembered for I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932).
[Wednesday, August 6, 9:30 PM]
Best of the Month:
I do not have a whole lot of choice for the best film of the month.
I would be drummed out of the Film Critic Society if I did not
choose Orson Welles's CITIZEN KANE. That is the film most often
chosen as being the best film ever made. In recent years VERTIGO
has been giving it some competition, but it still generally holds
first place. [Saturday, August 30, 2:15 AM]
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: AFTERMATH (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Nine survivors of an international nuclear war make their
way to a cellar where they hope they can be relatively safe.
Luckily a doctor among them is able to give them the basic
instructions of what to do to stay alive. But there are other
survivors outside who are willing to fight their way into the
shelter of the basement. It is clear there is only one realistic
place that this film can be going. Having a viewer know that is a
severe handicap for director Peter Engert from a script by
Christian McDonald. A more experienced director would have been
needed to make this a film that worked really well, but still
Engert beats expectation. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
After a nuclear attack, if you survive, what do you do next? You
try to find shelter from the radiation. Once you find that you sit
around and wait. You may fight to defend your shelter, and you
wait to die. Perhaps you watch others die. That is not a hard
story to put on film, but it does not make for a very good
narrative. If one is making that story it is easy to make it
realistic, but it is hard to make it engaging. I cannot say that
AFTERMATH is entertaining. It does raise some curiosity about what
some people will do with the last days of their lives before they
die of radiation, but most of what you can do with the plot has
been done before.
AFTERMATH begins one month after a nuclear holocaust and we see
Hunter (C. J. Thomason) stumbling around against a Texas landscape
that is a little worse for wear, but not greatly so. Nature seems
to be getting along in the post-nuke-attack world. We flash back
one month and a much healthier Hunter is listening to radio reports
of Benjamin Netanyahu having been assassinated, and in short order
there are nuclear bombs going off around the world. A pick-up
truck approaches him on the road but as it is doing so we see a
bright flash in the distance and a mushroom cloud. He and the two
pickup passengers, once they have their wits about them, go off
looking for food, supplies and shelter. Eventually we have nine
people in the basement of a farmhouse trying to work out what are
the best ways to stay alive.
There is not that much that can be done in the post-nuke-apocalypse
film that has not been done in a lot of other. There is not nearly
the time to do the plotting of a story like TV's JERICHO. Where
AFTERMATH is different is use as a threat people wanting to get
into the shelter for it food and protection. These raiders are
visualized in the best traditions of zombie films, even if they are
a more believable foe than cinematic zombies.
Is director Peter Engert good enough to hold his viewers'
attention? Well, sort of yes and sort of no. It could have been a
lot worse. At least for the most part the AFTERMATH is generally
realistic and credible. Acting is not really attention getting,
but it does the job. Probably the most interesting character is
Edward Furlong as the cynical Brad. The plot is a little
contrived. The survivors we see have a doctor, a nurse, and a
Geiger counter. How many shelters would be so blessed? One of the
characters has seen five nuclear blasts in one day and is still
walking and talking. I am not enough of an expert to say that is
impossible, but it seems to me really unlikely.
Christian McDonald's script is overall just as dour as one might
expect. There is one single joke when a character realizes in one
way he is better off being in Texas rather than some other state.
Hunter's advice on how to survive the situation at least sounds
valid and could be useful if ever you find yourself in the same
position (God forbid). This is not a fun film and there is not
enough action to call it a good action film. It does much of what
it is supposed to do, but there is little in this film you have not
seen before in other post-holocaust films. I rate AFTERMATH a +1
on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1564368/combined
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/aftermath_2014/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE by Daryl Gregory (copyright 2014,
Tachyon, $14.95, 190pp, ISBN 978-1-61696-171-8) (excerpt from the
Duel Fish Codices: a book review by Joe Karpierz)
After some heavy duty Hugo reading I decided it was time to launch
into something lighter, something that I could grab off my to-read
stack--that's the physical to-read stack, as opposed to the to-read
*list*, which contains all my e-books--and whip through in
something of a relative hurry. Relative, of course, because I'm a
notoriously slow reader. I knew I had a couple novella-length
books on the stack, so I reached for the one on top, Daryl
Gregory's WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE.
The only way that this book met my criteria for something that I
wanted to read was that I was able to whip through it in a relative
hurry, and that's because it was difficult to put down. Light
reading this isn't. This is disturbing, dark, and at times,
downright scary.
The story chronicles the existence of a support group put together
by a psychotherapist named Jan Sayer. While this is in and of
itself unremarkable, what *is* remarkable is the makeup of this
group. Each of the five individuals has some sort of horrific, and
sometimes supernatural, trauma in their past which has emotionally
scarred them. Stan has survived being partially eaten by
cannibals. Barbara has been attacked by an entity called the
Scrimshander, which has etched some sort of message onto her bones.
Martin wears what appear to be sunglasses, but which are actually
so much more than sunglasses and which allow him to see far more
than meets the eye. Harrison is a former monster detective and
hunter who has survived more than a few supernatural creatures in
his day. And Greta--well, Greta has a very dark past, a past which
contains a link to something very sinister and nasty indeed. And
holding the group all together is Dr. Sayer herself, who puts
together this support group in the hopes that she can help them get
past the horrific events in their lives and start them on the road
to having a normal life. She does sometimes wonder what she's
gotten herself into, and with good reason.
The book tells the story of the support group from start to finish-
-from its first meeting until the very last, when the group
disbands after the climax of the story. From the perspective of
someone who has no experience with support groups, it seems evident
that Gregory did his research with regard to how support groups
work, how they grow, and how they survive when the group dynamics
change, especially as the group finds out more and more about its
individual members. Gregory does a masterful storytelling job
here, giving the reader the backstory of each of the characters,
and making us think that maybe the members of the group are not
necessarily just a bit out of left field, or that their stories are
not truly supernatural in nature, but are just things that are
going on in their heads. I certainly had my doubts at points
throughout the early portions of the book about the group members
and their individual stories; Gregory kept me wondering for quite a
while until I was at last the characters finally convinced me that
they were who they said they were and experienced what they said
they experienced.
The big climax of the story is completely satisfying and follows
naturally from what we've learned throughout the book. In my
opinion, Gregory never forecast that climax; after reading in the
genre for something like 45 years, I feel like I've seen most
everything. And while the climax wasn't wholly unexpected, the
storytelling was superb enough that I wasn't really sure and I
really wanted to get to the end so I could find out because, well,
I didn't *know*. And I really wanted to know. I don't experience
that feeling very often these days. And the additional reveal,
which was quite surprising to me and I *really* didn't see coming,
was a nice touch and didn't feel forced or out of place--in fact,
it made sense, given the rest of the story.
WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY fine is not something I would normally pick
up, but I'm glad I took the time to read it. I think you should
give it a shot. I think you'll be glad you did. [-jak]
==================================================================
TOPIC: WHAT IS RELATIVITY? by Jeffrey Bennett (book review by
Gregory Frederick)
In 2015, it will be a hundred years since Einstein's General Theory
of Relativity was published. This book is an intuitive
introduction to those ideas and to the theory of Special Relativity
also. The foundation of Special Relativity rests on two
statements: that the laws of physics are the same for everyone and
that the speed of light is the same for everyone. The first
statement is an idea that goes back to the time of Galileo and does
not sound surprising. But the second does not fit with our
everyday common sense. If you roll a ball on a plane traveling at
500 MPH an observer on the ground sees the ball moving at its
rolling speed plus the plane's speed of 500 MPH. But if you
instead turn on a flashlight an observer on the plane or one on the
ground would say the flashlight beam is traveling at the same
300,000 kilometers per hour. Light speed is always the same for
both observers; you do not add the plane's speed to the light beam
speed.
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity explains something that
Newton could not explain. Though Newton had produced a universal
law of gravity which works well in many cases he could not explain
how one body like the Sun could reach across space and effect the
Earth's movement for example. There was no cable connecting the
two bodies. Einstein's theory tells us how this happens due to the
curving of the 4 dimensional space-time continuum. The huge mass
of the Sun curves the space-time continuum around it and the
planets orbit because they are forced to follow this curvature. An
analogy which is often used is that of a bowling ball representing
the Sun which is sitting at the center of a stretched rubber sheet
(space-time continuum) and the depression caused by the bowling
ball causes marbles (the planets) to circle around or orbit the
depression.
In the hundred-plus years' time since Special Relativity was
published and the almost hundred-year history since General
Relativity was published every observation or experiment used to
test these theories has proven them to be correct. A spacecraft
launched by NASA to measure the curvature of the space-time
continuum around the Earth caused by Earth's mass has matched the
theoretical predictions to a high degree of accuracy. Measuring
the location of a star when the Sun is in total eclipses verses
when the Sun is not near that star (at night) demonstrates that
even light is forced to follow the curvature of the space-time
continuum caused by the Sun. If astronomers do this measurement
during an eclipse of the Sun verses when the Sun is not near the
star (at night) as we view it from the Earth, they see the star at
different locations.
This book is one of the best introductions to Einstein's
revolutionary theories of Relativity; it is clear, concise and has
very good explanations for the causal science book reader. [-gf]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentations (letter of comment by
Dan Kimmel)
In response to Dale Skran's comments on the Hugo for Best Dramatic
Presentations in the 07/18/14 issue of the MT VOID, Dan Kimmel
writes:
I agree with Dale Skran on the Best Dramatic Hugo--Short Form. The
category is irretrievably broken. It never should have been a
"best episode" award, but one for best television series (which
would also end the confusion about nominating entire seasons in
Long Form). Many good shows, such as "Orphan Black" which I
recently was turned onto, get stiffed as a result.
As for Long Form much as I like FROZEN--it made my ten best list--
there is really only one good choice for best SF film (i.e., Long
Form) of the year, and that is GRAVITY. The other choices are
okay, although to me the weakest one was PACIFIC RIM, which was
incoherent and so darkly shot that most of the time I couldn't even
tell what was going on. Were those pieces flying by part of the
robots, the monsters, or the city being destroyed? I thought it
was a major disappointment from a director (Guillermo del Toro) I
usually like. [-dk]
==================================================================
TOPIC: "Men into Space" (letter of comment by Neil Ostrove)
In response to Mark's comments on "Men into Space" in the 07/18/14
issue of the MT VOID, Neil Ostrove writes:
I loved that show. At ten I had a Colonel McCauley space helmet.
It's probably rose-colored glasses but I still remember that show
as having more sophisticated plots than anything even years later.
For example, a group of astronauts stranded on the moon too far
from base for their suit oxygen. They have a spare bottle, but not
the special tool needed to activate the flow. They could
"MacGyver" a solution with a can opener and one member actually had
one, in his pants pocket inside his space suit. [-no]
==================================================================
TOPIC: 21 Jokes (letter of comment by Peter Rubinstein)
In response to Mark's comments on 21 jokes in the 07/18/14 issue of
the MT VOID, Peter Rubinstein writes:
I got all of them, but I have to admit that sixteen sodium atoms
required several minutes of thought before it came to me. [-pr]
Evelyn replies:
For what it's worth, that seems to be the one that people have the
most trouble with. [-ecl]
Mark adds:
The reason I missed it is that just after seeing it I told Evelyn
about the 21 jokes and she got it before I had a chance to. I got
all but that one. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
FEARING THE DARK: THE VAL LEWTON CAREER by Edmund G. Bansak (ISBN
978-0-78641-709-4) is a very thorough look at the career and legacy
of Val Lewton. It combines biography with film criticism, and
spends over a hundred pages discussing the later careers of the
three directors Lewton worked with during his RKO period, and also
of the influence Lewton's work had on the 1950s science fiction and
horror cycle and later. (The book is almost 600 pages long, so
this does not mean that Lewton himself gets short shrift.) The
main drawback, of course, is the price--McFarland books are not
cheap. But luckily McFarland publishes trade paperbacks of most of
their popular culture books, so it will end up costing about the
same as the "Val Lewton Horror Collection" on DVD.
One note that sums up Lewton's attitude:
George Waggner was an important producer and director at Universal
Studios, and his "rules" for horror films as listed by Richard G.
Hubler in "Scare 'Em to Death--and Cash In" ("The Saturday Evening
Post", May 23,1942) were:
1) They must be once-upon-a-time tales.
2) They must be believable in characterization.
3) They must have unusual technical effects.
4) Besides the major monster, there must be a secondary character
of weird appearance, such as Igor.
5) They must confess right off that the show is a horror film.
6) They must include a pish-tush character to express the normal
skepticism of the audience.
7) They must be based on some pseudoscientific premise.
Val Lewton seemed determined to break them all.
[Coincidentally, TCM seems to be having a Val Lewton film festival
this Sunday, with CAT PEOPLE, CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, and VAL
LEWTON: THE MAN IN THE SHADOWS.]
I have read THE INNOCENTS ABROAD by Mark Twain (ISBN 978-1-840-
22636-2) before, of course, but some recent reference to it led me
to re-read it, and it is just as good as previously. What is worth
noting is the wide range of styles one finds in it--for example in
the section on Pompeii.
There is the poetic, of course:
"The most exquisite bronzes we have seen in Europe, came from the
exhumed cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and also the finest
cameos and the most delicate engravings on precious stones; their
pictures, eighteen or nineteen centuries old, are often much more
pleasing than the celebrated rubbish of the old masters of three
centuries ago. They were well up in art. From the creation of
these works of the first, clear up to the eleventh century, art
seems hardly to have existed at all--at least no remnants of it are
left--and it was curious to see how far (in some things, at any
rate,) these old time pagans excelled the remote generations of
masters that came after them. The pride of the world in sculptures
seem to be the Laocoon and the Dying Gladiator, in Rome. They are
as old as Pompeii, were dug from the earth like Pompeii; but their
exact age or who made them can only be conjectured. But worn, and
cracked, without a history, and with the blemishing stains of
numberless centuries upon them, they still mutely mock at all
efforts to rival their perfections."
There is the keen observation:
"It was a quaint and curious pastime, wandering through this old
silent city of the dead--lounging through utterly deserted streets
where thousands and thousands of human beings once bought and sold,
and walked and rode, and made the place resound with the noise and
confusion of traffic and pleasure. They were not lazy. They
hurried in those days. We had evidence of that. There was a temple
on one corner, and it was a shorter cut to go between the columns
of that temple from one street to the other than to go around--and
behold that pathway had been worn deep into the heavy flagstone
floor of the building by generations of time-saving feet! They
would not go around when it was quicker to go through. We do that
way in our cities. "
There is the humorous, often of the sort that suddenly jumps out at
you when you least expect it:
"But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has yielded to modern
research, was that grand figure of a Roman soldier, clad in
complete armor; who, true to his duty, true to his proud name of a
soldier of Rome, and full of the stern courage which had given to
that name its glory, stood to his post by the city gate, erect and
unflinching, till the hell that raged around him burned out the
dauntless spirit it could not conquer. We never read of Pompeii
but we think of that soldier; we can not write of Pompeii without
the natural impulse to grant to him the mention he so well
deserves. Let us remember that he was a soldier--not a policeman--
and so, praise him. Being a soldier, he staid,--because the
warrior instinct forbade him to fly. Had he been a policeman he
would have staid, also--because he would have been asleep. "
There is even science fiction, as in this suggested excerpt from
the "Encyclopedia for A.D. 5868":
"URIAH S. (or Z.) GRAUNT--popular poet of ancient times in the
Aztec provinces of the United States of British America. Some
authors say flourished about A. D. 742; but the learned Ah-ah Foo-
foo states that he was a cotemporary of Scharkspyre, the English
poet, and flourished about A. D. 1328, some three centuries after
the Trojan war instead of before it. He wrote 'Rock me to Sleep,
Mother.'"
CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC by Tony Horwitz (ISBN 978-0-679-75833-X)
is Horwitz's travelogue of a journey through the South to see how
the Civil War impacts today. There are a variety of manifestations
Horwitz looks into: re-enactors, historical societies, groups such
as the Daughters of the Confederacy, and the attitudes of "average"
Southerners, both black and white.
He met people who fit every stereotype of redneck Southerners, who
said things like, "I'm here to defend my race against the
government and the Jewish-controlled media." (In this, there seems
to be a rare point of agreement between the whites and the blacks--
one black veteran of the Selma-to-Montgomery march told Horwitz,
"It's true what [Farrakhan] says about the Jews. They used to be
on our side. But now a lot of them are blood-suckers.")
He met (Southern) re-enactors who portrayed Confederates one
weekend and Yankees the next (as the circumstances demanded), more
interested in the struggle than in promoting the politics of either
side. He met members of organizations who were entirely wrapped up
in remembering the past, and other members (often the next
generation) who were members mostly to please their families.
Shelby Foote has what Horwitz described as a "nuanced" view of the
Ku Klux Klan, the Confederate battle flag, and (one presumes) most
of the controversial elements of the Civil War image. Foote sees
the original Ku Klux Klan as "[Combating] the cruel excesses of
Reconstruction." But that Klan disbanded around 1870; the Klan of
today originated after the film BIRTH OF A NATION, and was just
"anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-black." Similarly, "the
[Confederate] battle flag was a combat standard, not a political.
... [It] had become 'a banner of shame and disgrace and hate.'
But [Foote] pinned the blame for this on educated Southerners who
allowed white supremacists to misuse the flag during the civil
rights struggle."
The only problem with this, and most other Southern apologists'
views of the Civil War is that they all seem to be based on the
claim that the Civil War was about states rights and the Southern
way of life. But the "Southern way of life" was possible only
because of slavery, and several of the declarations of secession
(South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas) explicitly name
slavery as the main cause (or indeed, the only cause) of their
secession. Most of the other seceding states did not explicitly
list the causes of their decision.
What Horwitz also found was that a hundred and fifty years after
the Civil War, blacks and whites had separate museums, separate
Memorial Day ceremonies, separate parades, and separate views of
history. Re-enactors--on both Union and Confederate sides--are
overwhelmingly white. Classrooms and school cafeterias may be
integrated, but when they seat themselves, the black students sit
on one side and the white students on the other.
Horvitz sums up the situation thusly: "The issues at stake in the
Civil War--race in particular--remained raw and unresolved, as did
the broad question the conflict posed: Would America remain one
nation? In 1861, this was a regional dilemma. which it wasn't
anymore. But socially and culturally, there were ample signs of
separatism and disunion along class, race, ethnic and gender lines.
The whole notion of a common people united by common principles--
even by a common language--seemed more open to question than at any
period in my lifetime." [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
I was sleeping the other night, alone,
thanks to the exterminator.
--Emo Philips