Endings

The above image came from Arnaldo Dumindin's online history of the Philippine-American War, 1899-1902. I think of this conflict for several reasons, as the last granules of 2009 and the 21st Century Aughts slip away. The image at left is the unfortunate Chandra Levy.

First, I'm reading historian James Bradley's "The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire."

The book describes Teddy Roosevelt's effort through his Secretary of War William Howard Taft who was dispatched in 1905 on a Pacific cruise. The voyage resulted in secret and unconstitutional treaties that caused our engagement there and laid fuses for what ignited the Pacific Theatre of World War II, an almost every major conflict following, resulting in tens of millions dead.




It was the culmination of the "White Man's Burden" philosophy that guided the U.S. westward, "following the sun."

Quoting the U .S. military commander Gen. Arthur MacArthur (Douglas MacArthur's father), Bradley "pointedly describes a too familiar situation. “General MacArthur described a depressing quagmire where the U.S. Army controlled only 117 miles out of a total of 116,000 square miles, a hostile country where Americans could not venture out alone and a shell-shocked populace whose hatred for their oppressors grew each day,” he writes. “The Imperial Cruise” is all too persuasive in its visions of history repeating itself."

Well, as Mark Twain -- who opposed this imperialist gambit -- observed, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

If you don't believe it, look the recent headlines. It's chilling.

There's a familiar scene at the end of Charlie Wilson's War in which Wilson tries to get Congressional appropriations for building schools in Afghanistan. It's a powerful glimpse into why we're there now -- because of the mess the Soviets left, and how our covert assistance helped dislodge them and ultimately cause the collapse of Communist rule. But an exasperated Wilson, when told he can't get the money, says this is what always happens. We go in and change the world and then we leave. 'We always leave."

That's a bit disingenuous. The U.S. today maintains bases in Germany, Japan and Korea, and we're still in Central Europe following the horrors of Serb-Croat atrocities and civil war.

In fact, and these are 2004 figures, the "Pentagon currently owns or rents 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries and HAS another 6,000 bases in the United States and its territories."

There's a bit more up-to-date information here.

We invaded the Phillippines for little cause, after buying the country for $20 million, and then unsatisfied with Filipino administration and courts, decided to go and slaughter them into our way of doing things.

Of course, we did the same thing to Native Americans, and a photograph reproduced by Bradley in Imperial Cruise of native dead in a trench at Wounded Knee, bears startling resemblance to the one shown above, that also appears in the book. Mark Twain complained of U.S. imperialism, but wouldn't admit that we did the same damn thing to the Indians. And then there's the whole slavery thing. But facing fault there would cause the nation to admit, like the Fonz, that it was w-w-w-r -wr-wrong. There's lately come various apologies for various crimes and errors on our part, but of course, this doesn't help the 600,000 Filipino war dead. Or the millions of Indians wiped away. That we weren't any better than other colonial powers of the period is a difficult view to take.

This is tough reading.

I think of all this, too, because we are at the end of the Aughts. They started with anxiety about The End of the World -- remember Y2K? Then came 9/11 and that wiped away the Chandra Levy Washington D.C. murder mystery and the threat of killer sharks.

Now, at the end of the Aughts, there's still anxiety about the end of the world, with real and imagined fears of nuclear potential in Iran and Korea, and terrorists. Following 9/11, there was supposed to be a new serious to the media, but instead, thanks to TMZ and millions of blogs, no, we're instead distracted by narcissistic party-crashers at the White House and Tiger Woods' peccadilloes.

There's been a whole slew of movies about the world ending in various ways from comets to zombie-causing plagues. Seems like every other program on the History Channel is about decoding Nostradamus or the Bible or some other hidden mystery that indicates the end is nigh.

Conspiracy theory has become a kind of civil religion. The political world is wildly divided and toxic. One side regards the other as some form of alien life form. (Indeed, some people believe they really are from out of space, or inside the Earth)

And the people who believe this stuff breed and vote.

Anyway, the Teens of the 21st century look more and more like the beginning of the 20th.

Happy New Year. I'm going to get a few stiff drinks.

Black Out in Richmond
High winds blow out our power, send us to the movies.

Well, billion-eyed audience, many of you reading this in the Lower 48 are dealing with several feet of snow and icy winds. Here, we are flake-free, and sunny, but yesterda howling gusts clocking in at close to 50 mph overtaxed our power system and put some 43,000 people in the dark.

Amie needed wifi to tend to some bid'ness, so I was sent out to find some, and lucked out at Karsen's where I've wanted to go since the place opened. We were accommodated at the bar, plugged in, and drank fulfilling draught Guinness and ate on gourmet mac and cheese and spinach appetizers. Amie was reminded of the time we spent her birthday stranded in a London airport trying to return to Paris.

Then we went to the Byrd Theater see the much touted Charlie Wilson's War, written by my fave Aaron Sorkin, and featuring Tom Hanks and a Texas accent. And there was Julia Roberts, too, who betrayed her big guffaw laugh just once. Problem when Stars try to become Characters. Somehow I can believe her better as Erin Brockovich; a past and quite successful role which made Roberts, playing an ultra-conservative Texas socialite sneering, "Sluts!" at Charlie's partying entourage even more...textured.

Hanks, at certain angles, through no fault of his own, resembles Amie's brother Mark and that pulled us out of the movie's convention. Still, I found him agreeable company. However, a scene of Amy Adams marching in high heels up a corridor, auburn pony tail swishing, was worth seeing and put me in another kind of convention.


I also got a little West Wing rush, with Sorkin's Restoration comedy in- one-door-and-out-the other scene wherein Charlie Wilson is both trying to get weapons to Afghanis battling the Soviets through CIA operative Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and determining with his staff how he can get himself out of a scandal involving a stripper and cocaine charges.

Wilson's office is run by a Greek chorus of muses that careen through the film like Charlie's quadriga -- the point, I think. They include Amy Adams (center, in the image from allmoviephoto.com) This scene was excellent and demonstrated Sorkin's live theater roots.

There's also Sorkin classic walking-and-talking while in the corridors of power scenes. The great Mike Nichols directed; but, I left the theater feeling Charlie Wilson was a bit perfunctory. The brisk, tight scenes just didn't add up for me as a pleasing whole. The film looked a bit and felt like a 1980s made-for-television movie, and seeing a dark-haired Dan Rather and newscast clips of the time completed the sense.

The ending of the film, where Wilson tries then to gin up funds for repairing Afghan infrastructure, and a quote from him saying how the U.S. "fucked up the end game" leaves the audience thinking: oh, that's why there was Osama bin Laden. The movie has gotten critiqued from both political sides as propaganda. Fact is, with a character like Wilson, nuance and ambiguity was part of his political life and personality. Of course, as Amie pointed out to me, at about the same time, Oliver North was running a secret government out of the White House basement to combat the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

Sigh. Much work to be done here on Colonial Avenue. Later, dudes.

Hey Y'aa-aalll: It's First Friday


Yes, billion-eyed audience, if you've visited here often, you know what this image means: these two ladies, of opposing expressions but exuberant attitudes, shown here during a long ago opening at the defunct Three Miles Gallery which is now Tarrant's restaurant -- it's First Friday in Richmond.

The Weather Channel says' "Soon It's Gonna Rain" so, ladies, carry a bumbershoot and slip on a pair of cute but functional galoshes.

The printmakers (Southern Graphics Council) are coming to town, thus there's a number of galleries dedicated to one of the oldest, and newest, art forms. Check out Transmission's exhibition of the Women of Studio 23, and visit the gallery with the most appropriate name this month, Ghostprint.

Now, further uptown, actually in Uptown, as this strip of Ruchmun' styles itself, at the Red Door Gallery is work by five artists, including Amie Oliver, my partner-in-art, in an exhibition called Sugar and Spice. You have until the end of the month to see the work of these unique makers and creators.

Another Oliver, Rebecca Goldberg Oliver, has new paintings up at Gallery6. She's an Art Cheerleader, you know, and they won a Muse award last night at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Gooooo- Art!


Another friend of the Blue Racccoon was celebrated in the Marble Hall; developer Tom Robinson, whose Vacant Spaces = Artful Spaces program makes waiting for the bus in midtown even more of an an aesthetic experience, and also provides attention for empty and neglected interwar storefronts. He's a caution, that Tom, as they used to say.


By the way, for those of you who've anxious about the second printing of True Richmond Stories, it'll be in the finer regional book shops as of March 28. If your Little Shop Around The Corner doesn't carry it by April, demand that the slender volume be stocked. Or -- you can go to Amazon.com.

Last night I spoke with a book group hosted by Katie at the "Dooley Mansion" and had a splended time. They didn't mind my three-cornered hat.

In other unrelated news, Charlie
Wilson's War has arrived at the
Byrd Theatre. We're going.