Okay, I am back to ignoring the election that is coming up in 10 days. The Democrats are certain to do very well, everyone says. So what could go wrong? I am assuming that the Republicans are ready to do anything to keep the Democrats out of power, and I assume that they will cause chaos, and that, once again (seems like a mantra) our democracy will be at stake.
I heard a pundit say the other day that even if the Democrats win the presidency in 2028, it will take 20 years to right our now wrong ship. Maybe that’s correct, I don’t know, but my fear is a bit different. I fear that things are so out of kilter that even if the Democrats elect the perfect president, that perfect president will not be able to make much visible change over a four year period, and that his or her inability to do so, will lead to a backlash, resulting in the election in 2032 of another right wing wannabe autocrat who will turn the clock of progress back even further.
But I am going to ignore all of that right now. It has been a while since I have talked about my extensive collection of books (know anyone who wants to buy an extensive collection of books?), so I took a pile of books and set it down here beside me, and we can look at what makes up this pile and see what you think.
As you can see, the first item is in Russian, published in 1960. I know most of you don’t read Russian, so I will tell you what it is: it is the official Soviet government transcript of the trial of Francis Gary Powers, the American U-2 pilot who was shot down over Russia in 1960. He was 70,000 feet in the air, when a Soviet missile shot his plane down. Powers parachuted to safety, but was caught and, of course, arrested. His mission was a secret one, one of a number of U-2 flights over the Soviet Union, flights that President Eisenhower had long denied were happening. Power was tried (no one suggested, I don’t think, that this was only a show trial), found guilty and sentenced to 10 years of a combination of hard labor and imprisonment, but was released after only 21 months, as part of a prisoner exchange for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. To make matters worse, he was accused of failing to act properly after he was shot down – acting properly would have included committing suicide so that he could not be questioned by the Russians. But he was finally exonerated at home, decorated, and permitted to go his merry way. His merry way included becoming a test pilot for Lockheed, and then a helicopter pilot for a Los Angeles television weather reporting team. When he was only 47, a helicopter he was piloting crashed, and he was killed. The crash occurred after the plane, which had been surveying brush fires, ran out of fuel, was landing safely in a field, but had to divert to make sure that no one on the ground would be hurt. It was apparently because of the sudden diversion that Powers died. Part of my Russia collection.
The second book, not in Russian, but in French was published in Paris in 1914, in the aftermath of the Dreyfus trial. Written by Leon Daudet. Daudet was a French right wing figure, a monarchist who was against the French Republic and against democratic governments in general. The book, an antisemitic and anti-German screed, claimed that Germany and its Jews had infiltrated in the French government in the wake of the Dreyfus scandal, to spy on and weaken the government of France. Part of my antisemitism collection.
The third books is Frost’s Original Letter Writer, published in New York in 1867. For example, do you have a friend who lost his left arm in an accident? “I cannot find words to express to you how deeply I was shocked and pained to hear of your sad accident. [Your brother] writes me that you are recovering strength, and your spirits are buoyant as ever, so we may thank God it is not worse……I am thankful that your right arm was spared, as that is undoubtedly the more reliable and useful.”
The fourth is Watson on Cod-Liver Oil/Chapman on Phosphate of Iron, published in 1868. It gives a full history of the use of cod-liver oil, and recommended doses and the like. As to whether or not it is better to use pale or dark cod-liver oil, it appears that pale oil is superior, as the dark version “is apt to turn the stomach, irritate the bowels, and if long continued, destroy the appetite and seriously impair the digestive powers.” We sure don’t need that.
The fifth book is a 1912 publication of the Library of Congress, titled “Select List of References on Impeachment”. Federal impeachments, state impeachments, even foreign impeachments. One example is the impeachment of Senator William Blount. I know none of us know anything about that, but Blount was one of North Carolina’s signers of the U.S. Constitution and one of the first two Senators from the then new state of Tennessee. He got involved in a plot to conspire with British and Native American forces to attack Spanish territory (in what became ten years later the Louisiana Purchase) including the Mississippi River and land west of it, and to turn it over to the British, in the hope that the British would then open the Mississippi to American commerce. The House of Representatives decided this was treason and impeached Blount, but he was not convicted by the Senate, who decided that Senators were not subject to impeachment under the Constitution. Who knew? The year was 1797.
Finally, I have a copy of the libretto to Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. Big deal, you say, they are a dime a dozen. True, but this is the the 1885 edition, when The Mikado was “An entirely New and Original Japanese Opera”. The Mikado premiered in March 1885 in London at the Savoy, and ran for 672 performances. It opened in the United States later that year.
Can you see why I have fun doing this?
