Featured Articles — April 22, 2009

April 22, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Obama’s Foreign Policy Challenge By Henry A. Kissinger, The Washington Post
The vast diplomatic agenda that the Obama administration has adopted will test its ability to harmonize national priorities such as relations with Iran and North Korea with global and multilateral concerns. President Obama has come into office at a moment of unique opportunity. The economic crisis absorbs the energies of all the major powers; whatever their differences, all need a respite from international confrontation.

Slow Roll Time At Langley By David Ignatius, The Washington Post
At the Central Intelligence Agency, it’s known as “slow rolling.” That’s what agency officers sometimes do on politically sensitive assignments. They go through the motions; they pass cables back and forth; they take other jobs out of the danger zone; they cover their backsides.

Diplomacy isn’t what we see By Robert Dallek, USA Today
Is Obama ushering in a benign American approach to the world or emulating FDR, whose public benevolence masked a self-serving agenda?

Do the Palestinians Really Want a State? By Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic
The statelessness of Palestinian Arabs has been a principal feature of world politics for more than half a century. It is the signature issue of our time. The inability of Israelis and Palestinians to reach an accord of mutual recognition and land-for-peace has helped infect the globe with violence and radicalism—and has long been a bane of American foreign policy.

Why Iran Won’t Stop Loving the Bomb By Thomas P.M. Barnett, Esquire
Even if voters walk out on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June’s election like delegates did at yesterday’s U.N. conference on racism, don’t expect the new government to forgo nuclear pursuits — not at this crossroads. A preview of Tehran’s battle ahead.

Race to the Top By Jeffrey Rosen, The New Republic
The Supreme Court this month is hearing two potentially landmark cases on race. The first challenges Congress’s extension of the Voting Rights Act; the second, a controversial affirmative action program in New Haven. In both cases, the Court may force Barack Obama to do what he has the unique skills but not the political incentive to do at the moment: carve out a third way in the race debate, one that rejects the extremes of conservative color-blindness and liberal racialism.

A land without guarantees By Trudy Rubin, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Nuclear-armed Pakistan is drifting toward disaster. Ever larger chunks of the country are being taken over by radical Islamists, with a government and army that seem to lack the will, or the ability, to push back.

Michael Barone Reviews Nixonland

April 21, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Book Review, Democratic Party, International Affairs, Nixon Administration, Nixonland Nitpicks, Political Philosophy, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Vietnam | 2 Comments 

Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland came out in paperback last week, a month after his study of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign, Before The Storm, was reissued by Nation Books. And, as it happens, the Claremont Institute’s website has just put up the review of Nixonland by columnist Michael Barone that appeared in the Winter 2008 issue of the Claremont Review of Books.

Barone has often written perceptively about RN – one thinks in particular of his long article about the Nixon years which US News and World Report published some years ago – and this review continues that tradition, with a very insightful comparison of FDR and RN’s political styles. Its concluding sentences raise an important point about the Nixon presidency that escaped many of the book’s reviewers:

[I]n policy terms Nixon had his successes. His China policy, denounced by every successful presidential candidate but one since his day, remains in place, a more important part of American policy than ever. Some of his leftward domestic policies do, too. But the major difference, perhaps, between Roosevelt and Nixon was that the people Roosevelt professed to hate were still willing to serve with him because they wanted America to win a war. The people Nixon sincerely hated wanted America to lose a war. And, as we have seen in the past few years, the descendants of the people Nixon sincerely despised still want America to lose a war. Rick Perlstein’s indictment of Nixon is an even harsher indictment of the people who cheered when he was brought down.

Gates Is Right To End The Raptor Program

April 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Afghanistan, Iraq War, National Security | Leave a Comment 

Two weeks ago I was in Torrance, California home to a division of Honeywell International, a multinational supplier of engineering and defense related products. One of their main partners, Lockheed Martin, sent representatives to talk with employees in a rally for the F-22 Raptor, the most sophisticated fighter in the U.S. Air Force and currently on the chopping block for the 2010 Pentagon budget. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been aiming for a year now to roll back future combat systems (FCS) in order to fight “today’s wars,” marking the first time COIN (Counter-Insurgency) experts “will have a seat at the table” proportional to 10 percent of total spending.  Hence, only 4 more of the $350 million dollar jets will be earmarked for fiscal 2010 with the program completely phased out by 2011.

I don’t believe for a moment that Secretary Gates discounts the capabilities of the F-22. the Raptor is nothing short of a marvel in modern aviation. Sitting in the virtual demo at Honeywell, it was plain to see that U.S. Air Force pilots – in the Raptor — possess unparalleled maneuverability and a field of vision that extends beyond the cockpit window.  In the fifth generation fighter pilots can effectively manage the airfield in a single battlefield display, allowing them to communicate information and grasp the position of wingmen, while absorbing the intent of enemies on the air and ground. It can be armed with internal weapons systems for air to air and air to ground roles, including: two 1,000 pound-class Joint Direct Attack Munitions for “smart” precision guided bombs, six medium range AIM-120C missiles, and two short-range AIM-9 missiles, the close-range M61A2 20mm rotary cannon and a globally positioned GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb for ground threats.  While frustrating and defeating enemies, the Raptor avoids detection with its reduced sound, heat, turbulence, and radar signatures.

Despite its unsurpassed capacity, air dominance, and the currently volatile global context, Secretary Gates is right when he says the Raptor has got to go. For the United States, “today’s wars” are primarily irregular, and therefore the military needs to meet its objectives with lower cost weapons systems and a population-centric approach.

Critics of the newly proposed Pentagon budget overlook that at $534 billion it is 4 percent more than the $513.3 billion earmarked for 2009. Critics also overlook the fact that the United States still dominates global defense spending. David Kilcullen from The Center For A New American Security (CNAS) notes that total U.S. defense spending comprised 54.5 percent of all nations in 2007 (70 percent including Iraq War funding). It stands to reason that, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, any rational enemy won’t engage American forces with conventional weapons, nonetheless dogfight against a F-22 in open air. It’s no wonder why the F-22 has proven useless in both countries.

What has been proven useful is the agility and the manpower which corresponds with combating the lawlessness of the unconventional battlefield. A reality that many conservative hawks haven’t come to terms with (and one that many liberals won’t stomach). John Nagl, President of CNAS and author of Learning To Eat Soup With Knife: Counter-Insurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, notes that it’s the industrial will and capacity of the American Army that developed its proclivity towards total annihilation of enemy fighters. Lesser Armies lacking the alternative of overwhelming the enemy such as the British force that successfully fought in Malaya in the mid-20th Century was forced into a more population-centric approach when the “kinetic” approach proved futile. Nagl notes that in 1956 – just as the Vietcong insurgency was beginning in the South of the country – the United States Army devoted none of its study to combating insurgencies or gaining knowledge of irregular warfare. The successful British – in contrast – spent just 51 (albeit well used) out of 1042 hours for the study of combating insurgency. Accordingly, the U.S. Army’s initial strategy – counter-productive and hampered by heavy losses — was based disproportionately on indiscriminate use of firepower: heavy artillery, close air support, and B-52 strikes that ultimately didn’t provide the capacity for overwhelming a very fluid and rational enemy.

It was under General Creighton Abrams (who eventually replaced General William Westmoreland as commander in Vietnam) that Vietnam Strategy began to change.  Commissioned in 1965 to lead The Program for the Pacification and Long Term Development of South Vietnam (POVN), Abrams concluded that the continuation of “search and destroy” operations would not meet the coalitions’ objectives instead favoring a localized low intensity – secure, hold, and rebuild — approach that could win the population to the government’s side.

According to Vietnam War historian Lewis Sorley, the population-centric strategy proved fruitful. American units maintained a persistent presence with the Vietnamese Army and local authorities to secure populations and provide developmental aid at the village level.  By 1968, the Vietcong insurgency was defeated, the numbers of American troops killed in action declined precipitously, and by 1973 the South was ready to defend itself if not for Congress’s decision to cut off operational funding.

Granted, a key element of the Nixon’s Vietnamization strategy was tactical air support for the Southern army against northern invasion. But even if air support were critical to “best efforts” in Afghanistan, Iraq, potentially Iran and more “conventional” enemies (China, and Russia are too prone to asymmetrical behavior), the United States armed forces already demonstrates air dominance with its current fleet. Secretary Gates also plans to increase the amount of F-35s, the capable Joint-Strike Fighter by purchasing 513 over a 5-year plan.

The Vietnam narrative is applicable for obvious reasons. The population-centric strategy led by General Petraeus in Iraq reflected “lessons learned.” Similar to Vietnamization, tribal leaders in 2007 were emboldened to re-take their country when supported by improved U.S. counter-insurgency measures. Especially Baghdad and the once blood-soaked al-Anbar province experienced a precipitous decline in civilian deaths. There has also been a steep drop in U.S. military deaths since 2008.

Afghanistan remains to be seen. But regional developments such as the 2006 Kunar Province road project have shown enormous promise in providing economic progress, unity with Kabul, and security from Taliban and al-Qaeda forces.  Ultimately, $500 million in additional funding to assist foreign militaries for similar stability measures and a 5 percent increase for special operations are a foregone conclusion when compared to what yields from the most sophisticated – in this case futile – aircraft.

Noon Open

April 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Noon Open | Leave a Comment 

In crises the most daring course is often safest. –Henry Kissinger

All The Archdioceses’ Men

April 21, 2009 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Nixon Administration figures, education | Leave a Comment 

Two former Nixon aides are on the front lines in the battle to save America’s Catholic schools.

Take “Das Kapital” And Shove It, Nikita

April 21, 2009 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Barack Obama, Cold War, Richard Nixon, Russia | Leave a Comment 

Jeffrey Lord on the contrast between Obama vs. Chavez in Trinidad and Nixon vs. Khrushchev in Moscow 50 years ago.

Featured Articles — April 21, 2009

April 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Leadership, Petraeus style By Paula D. Broadwell, The Boston Globe
WITH A FALTERING economy, soaring unemployment, and overseas military commitments consuming more each day than the gross domestic product of many small nations, the United States urgently needs adaptive and transformational leaders. In paying tribute to Harvard veterans at a Kennedy School Forum tonight, General David H. Petraeus will underline the importance of adaptive leaders in today’s complex national security environment.

Ankara Shows Its Hand By Christopher Hitchens, Slate
The most underreported story of the month must surely be the announcement by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner that he no longer supports the accession of Turkey as a full member of the European Union. His reasoning was very simple and intelligible, and it has huge implications for the Barack Obama “make nice” school of diplomacy.

Cuba central to better Latin America relations By DeWayne Wickham, USA Today
President Obama went to the Summit of the Americas last week hoping to revive America’s prestige in this hemisphere by promising to forge a new relationship between the United States and Latin
America.

Big-Spending Conservative By David Brooks, The New York Times
We’ve all heard liberal speeches on the economy. The central concern is inequality. Power and wealth tend to concentrate at the top of society, so government must stand as a countervailing power. It must defend the people against the powerful to ensure fairness and opportunity for all.

The Phillips’ Rescue

April 20, 2009 by Jim Gallen | Filed Under International Affairs | 5 Comments 

The recent rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips brings to mind similar events of past administrations. Even those who find little of President Obama’s actions to praise must give credit for his strong actions against the Somali pirates. Some of us probably feared that President Obama would not defend the rights of Americans, preferring instead to “get along” or “open dialogue” with Moslems who hold merchant sailors hostage for ransom.

The challenge presented to President Obama brings to mind the Mayaguez incident which confronted President Ford and the Iranian hostage crisis of the Carter years. Going back further one draws on the example of President Jefferson’s handling of the Barbary Pirates and Theodore Roosevelt’s demand for “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!”

Perhaps the closest precedent is Ford’s handling of the Mayaguez seizure. Occurring less than two weeks after the Fall of Saigon, America’s prestige was at a low ebb. Besides the obligation to defend American interests, the administration was receptive to an opportunity to, in Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s words, “Give somebody a bloody nose.” President Ford acted decisively, ordering U.S. troops to seize the ship and rescue the crew. The operation was regarded as a success and buoyed American spirits when they needed a lift.
Unsuccessful was the attempted rescue of the U. S. hostages held by the Iranian revolutionaries. President Carter approved the attempt planned by the military, but the exercise had to be abandoned when mechanical failures prevented the rescue of any hostages. This failure contributed to the continued malaise with which the Carter administration was identified, particularly during its last year.

Like President Ford’s actions in the Mayaguez incident, Obama’s response to the seizure of the Maersk Alabama was decisive and successful. Both incidents presented chances for a new president to set a tone for the handling of challenges by international outlaws. Ford, Carter and Obama all acted decisively when confronted with their challenges. Ford and Obama acted when U.S. military power was strong and capable of successfully carrying out the Commander in Chief’s orders. Carter acted after the policies of his Administration had sapped the strength of the U.S. military. Perhaps the test of the Obama Administration will be not what it can accomplish now, but what the military will be capable of after three years of Obama leadership. We will wait and hope.

Afternoon World Review

April 20, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Afternoon World Review | Leave a Comment 

Photo courtesy of The New York Times. During Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s speech at the Durban II “anti-Racism” conference in Geneva, Switzwerland, 23 out of 27 European delegates walk out in protest.

On this Monday, April 20, 2009, the DOW is down 277.34, the NASDAQ down 61.04, and the S&P down 34.64.

THE STATES:

President Barack Obama held his first cabinet meeting today, proposing new spending cuts that amount to $100 million. Though current budget request amount to 3.6 trillion, the government is looking for more symbolic ways to rein in wasteful spending, such as converting judicial forfeiture notices to newspapers to digitial.

The President will also visit CIA headquarters later today.

EUROPE:

In Geneva, Switzerland, 23 of the 27 delegates from European countries walked out of the Durban II Conference on “Racism.” The walk-out occurred during a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in which he said that the United States and Europe helped displace an entire nation in order to “establish a totally racist government in occupied Palestine.” For his words, the Iranian leader was also booed and called a “racist” by protesters. UN Secretary General Ban-Kai Moon criticized Ahmadinejad for using his platform “to accuse, divide and even incite.”

MIDDLE EAST:

In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was at Yad Vashem for the commencement of the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day. Netanyahu criticized Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz who met with Ahmedinejad earlier in the day and praised “important countries” like the United States and Canada for their boycott. He went on to say that “we will not let the Holocaust deniers perpetrate another holocaust on the Jewish people.” This year’s ceremony honors the 1.5 million children who were killed in The Nazi Holocaust.

In Sharia dominated Iraq, a Sunni Eyad al-Samarrai and al-Maliki won the speakership in the nation’s parliament .

AFPAK:

In Northwest Pakistan, U.S. missiles demolished a Taliban compound. In recent months, the brutal group has increased their power in the region. In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai insists there are no compounds in his country.

THE AMERICAS:

Rafael Cedeno Gonzalez, the regional head of “La Familia” and 43 of its members were arrested on Saturday, on the very same weekend a deadly shooting occured when gunmen attacked a prison convoy killing 8 police officers.

AFRICA:

Somali Pirates have released a Togo flagged shipped siezed a week ago. It is reported that they recieved $100,000 ransom for its release.

ASIA:

The Sri Lankan military penetrated the safe haven of the Tamil Tiger separist group. When as much as 30,000 civilians tried to feel what was supposed to be a “no fire zone” dozens were killed by Tamil suicide bombers. The Tamil fight with the government has been occuring for 25 years, killing 75,000 in the cross-fire.

Noon Open

April 20, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Noon Open | Leave a Comment 

A leader who confines his role to his people’s experience dooms himself to stagnation; a leader who outstrips his people’s experience runs the risk of not being understood. — Henry Kissinger

Holbrooke’s Way

April 20, 2009 by Joshua Treviño | Filed Under Afghanistan, International Affairs, Obama administration | Leave a Comment 

Last week’s NYT Week in Review sported an article by Dexter Filkins on the putative reassertion of civilian influence in American foreign policy. It’s a bad bit of work, not least because it uses “civilian” where it means “State Department,” and because it’s a transparent puff piece for President Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke. Filkins is no neophyte to reportage on war and peace in present-day American policy — his book “The Forever War” is well regarded — and so he ought to know better. But then, Holbrooke is vastly more experienced at manipulating his public image than Dexter Filkins ever could be at his own chosen profession.

Filkins’s essay begins with a classic Holbrooke vignette: the canny, craggy, competent Ambassador establishing a constructive rapport with an ex-Taliban imam. “It’s difficult to imagine such a conversation” under the George W. Bush team, gushes Filkins. But it’s not, really: not merely because the reported exchange is actually quite banal, but because George W. Bush himself went to Iraq’s Anbar province and met with sheikhs of the former Sunni insurgency. If you watched what actually happened during the previous Administration, though there was much to criticize, the absence of civilian control and a failure to reach out to former enemies were not among them. If you believe what Richard Holbrooke peddles, on the other hand, and not your lying eyes, what he brings to the foreign-policy scene now is something radical and new. The difference between these two is the difference between writing for the New York Times and not.

The truth is that Holbrooke is well known as a preening egotist in DC circles. This is no rarity within those circles. What sets Holbrooke apart is a remarkable ability to feed his ego via media, and actual substantive accomplishments to his credit. You may guess this easily enough when a careful interviewer asks Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the task of managing a man who “can break a little crockery in the process of doing some very noble things.” And such noble things: chief among them the conclusion of the 1995 Dayton Accords that brought a temporary peace to Bosnia-Hercegovina. Whatever the sort of man Holbrooke is, this is the sort of thing that does him credit in history.

The problem with Richard Holbrooke is that he is quite ready to remind you of the things that do him credit in history — and he is utterly convinced that more credit will be due him if, and only if, he is allowed to speak. I saw the ugly side of this conviction firsthand in late 2003, when I helped advance and then administer HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson’s 100-person delegation to Africa. Holbrooke participated in his capacity as the president of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, which we took as his prestigious-office-in-waiting till he became a Democratic President’s Secretary of State in January 2005.

When the delegation hit Rwanda, the security detail received information on a terrorist threat in Kenya, which was to be its next stop. After much discussion, the Secretary gathered the hundred or so persons together in a Kigali hotel ballroom to announce that we’d be skipping Kenya. I was in favor of simply presenting it as a fait accompli — preferably by announcing the new destination of Uganda while in the air — and my preference was justified when one of the business leaders present took the opportunity to announce that he was not afraid of Osama bin Laden. He would fly on his own private jet to Kenya! Predictably, several other persons present seized the moment to declare their own fearlessness, and to attempt to bum a ride off the brave corporate honcho.

Richard Holbrooke asked for an opportunity to address the group, and the Secretary — who had no real choice — agreed. The Ambassador was in fine form. He regaled all present with a harrowing tale involving an overturned armored vehicle, a Serbian minefield, and Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. Suffice it to say that the first was saved in some manner by the third from the second. Holbrooke then called the American chief of security on the carpet before everyone, and demanded details of the terror threat. These details were, quite sensibly, classified, and so the security chief merely affirmed what the Secretary had already said — that the threat was credible, and a change of plans was strongly urged. Here, Holbrooke lost his marbles, and berated the security chief in a thoroughly shameful fashion for his refusal to divulge classified information to a non-governmental civilian in public view. Holbrooke questioned the validity of the information (which he knew nothing about); Holbrooke questioned the professional judgment of the security detail (which he also knew nothing about); and Holbrooke affirmed his own willingness to go in harm’s way (which he knew a great deal about, and was willing to share thereof). The chief, a man whom I knew back in DC as having long experience with blustering civilians, took it with equanimity.

When Richard Holbrooke was done, some few persons rallied to him, and they bravely went to Kenya together — where nothing whatsoever happened to them — and the vast majority spent a few unplanned days unwinding as a lackluster hotel near Entebbe.

Filkins’s hagiographic essay concludes with a strange and revealing anecdote: the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff tells a group of Afghan clerics that he’s “come to the region nine or ten times,” at which Holbrooke quips, “And each time, things have gotten worse.” Filkins writes, “Admiral Mullen, Mr. Holbroooke, and all the clerics laughed,” and it is a ridiculous thing to write, especially as he offers the incident as an example of “the new cooperation between the uniforms and the suits.” This is no more an example of Richard Holbrooke’s new “civilianized” way forward than the earlier vignette was an example of his new touch with former enemies. Instead, it’s just another example of a very old story with the Ambassador: the willingness to ridicule and deride someone unable to fight back, for the benefit of Richard Holbrooke — and journalistic credulity in reporting it Holbrooke’s way.

Featured Articles — April 20, 2009

April 20, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

The Wail of the 1% By Gabriel Sherman, New York Magazine
As the privileged class loses its privileges, a collective moan rises from the canyons of Wall Street.

The Memos Prove We Didn’t Torture By David Rivkin and Lee Casey, The Wall Street Journal
The Red Cross was completely wrong about ‘walling.’

Why Obama Needs to Reveal Even More on Torture By Robert Baer, Time
Despite the outcry it has prompted, the Administration was absolutely right to declassify the Department of Justice-CIA interrogation memos. The argument that the letters compromise national security does not hold water. As noted in the memos, the interrogations techniques are taken from the military’s escape and evasion training manuals, known as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) — which in turn were taken from Chinese abusive interrogations used on our troops during the Korean War.

Nudge-ocracy By Franklin Foer and Noam Scheiber, The New Republic
Barack Obama has the type of mind–orderly, analytical, well-read–that takes naturally to the study of ideas. But he’s always been uncomfortable describing himself in ideological terms.

Bound to Burn By Peter Huber, City Journal
Like medieval priests, today’s carbon brokers will sell you an indulgence that forgives your carbon sins. It will run you about $500 for 5 tons of forgiveness—about how much the typical American needs every year.

Americas Summit: Missed Opportunity By Mary Anastasia O’Grady, The Wall Street Journal
If President Barack Obama’s goal at the fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago this weekend was to be better liked by the region’s dictators and left-wing populists than his predecessor George W. Bush, the White House can chalk up a win.

The Revenge of Geography By Robert D. Kaplan, Foreign Policy
People and ideas influence events, but geography largely determines them, now more than ever. To understand the coming struggles, it’s time to dust off the Victorian thinkers who knew the physical world best. A journalist who has covered the ends of the Earth offers a guide to the relief map—and a primer on the next phase of conflict.

In 1971, Nixon Denounced “Eco-Crusaders”

April 19, 2009 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Environmental issues, Nixon Administration, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Almost.

Good Sense Will Hunting

April 19, 2009 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under International Affairs, Obama administration, Richard Nixon, Russia | Leave a Comment 

To bash President Obama, George Will exhumes an anti-arms control column from his Nixon-bashing days only to end up proving why Obama’s on exactly the right track.

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

April 19, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Soundtrack Of Our Lives | 1 Comment 

 The Soundtrack of Our Lives looks back at some of the music that was popular, and the performers who were influential, around the time Richard Nixon became President in 1969.

EVERYBODY’S TALKIN’ (FRED NEIL) performed by NILSSON 

Nilsson sings Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’” on the German TV program Beat-Club in October 1968. The song was on Nilsson’s 1968 album Aeriel Ballet, but it only became a major hit in 1969 after it was used on the soundtrack of John Schlesinger’s Academy Award-winning movie Midnight Cowboy.  

Fred Neil wrote “Everybody’s Talkin’” in 1967 in about twenty minutes in order to complete the album he was recording in New York and get back to his home in Florida.  He had started out as a songwriter in Broadway’s famous Brill Building.  Two of his 1965 songs became hits (“Candy Man” for Roy Orbison and “The Other Side of This Life” for several groups, as well as for Jefferson Airplane in 1969).  

His shift to a more folk sound was reflected in “Everybody’s Talkin’” which was recorded in one take and appeared on his second LP, Fred Neil.  The young Neil —he was thirty-one when the album appeared— was a brilliant, troubled, reclusive man for whom the lyrics were largely autobiographical.

Clothes to suit cold weather: Fred Neil at the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal Streets in Greenwich Village — the iconic carrefour that gave the title to his 1965 LP. The photo was part of a shoot by Mort Schuman that also provided a night-time image for the album’s cover art.

Harry Nilsson covered the song on his 1968 album Aeriel Ballet, and it was also released as a single.  But neither the album nor the single, while critically well-received, managed to chart.  

Nilsson, who had primarily been known as a songwriter up to this time, was invited to contribute a song to the soundtrack of the film Midnight Cowboy.  James Leo Herlihy’s 1965 novel told the rather sordid story of Joe Buck, a young Texan who is handsome, innocent, and dense in about equal measures, who goes to New York City with the goal of becoming a hustler.  

Nilsson wrote “I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City” — a song whose melody conveyed the story’s sense of movement and whose lyrics expressed the protagonist’s restless naivete.

I’ll say goodbye to all my sorrows
And by tomorrow, I’ll be on my way
I guess the Lord must be in New York City
I’m so tired of gettin’ nowhere
Seein’ my prayers go unanswered
I guess the Lord must be in New York City
Well, here I am, Lord, knockin’ at your backdoor
Ain’t it wonderful to be,
Where I’ve always wanted to be
For the first time I’ll be free here in New York City

The film’s director John Schlesinger used “I Guess The Lord” on the film’s soundtrack but preferred Nilsson’s cover of Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’” as the film’s theme.  From its first hearing under the movie’s memorable opening credits, the singer and the song attracted attention.  Within weeks it was in Billboard’s Top 10.  It won Nilsson the 1969 Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

The Neil version was also re-released as a single, but by that time the Nilsson cover had become nothing less than iconic, and the composer’s original was mainly interesting for purposes of comparison.

 

Everybody’s talkin’ at me
I don’t hear a word they’re saying
Only the echoes of my mind

People stopping staring
I can’t see their faces
Only the shadows of their eyes

I’m going where the sun keeps shining
Thru’ the pouring rain
Going where the weather suits my clothes
Banking off of the North East wind
Sailing on a summer breeze
Skipping over the ocean like a stone
 

Thanks to the millions of dollars of royalties from Nilsson’s cover, Fred Neil was able to retire to Florida and write and record at his own pace.  He released only a few completed albums (his debut was 1964’s Tear Down These Walls, followed by Bleecker and MacDougal in 1965), but there are also various compilations, and rumors of archive sessions left behind.  There is a very comprehensive and informative Neil website; and a complete discography. His catalog is available (as on Amazon).

His influence on the beginnings and development of folk rock was great — and greatly disproportionate to his limited output.  He was a few years older than some of the other young musicians he nurtured in Greenwich Village (he invited the newly-arrived Bob Dylan to sit on on harmonica at the Cafe Wha?), and his melodic and lyrical skills were widely admired and imitated.  He died at his home on Summerland Key, Florida, in 2001.

 

Harry Nilsson was born in Brooklyn in 1941.  He was raised by his mother after his father deserted the family.  He processed these events in his song “1941″.

Well in 1941 a happy father had a son
And by 1944 the father walked right out the door
And in ‘45 the mom and son were still alive
But who could tell in ‘46 if the two were to survive

Well the years went passing quickly
But not fast enough for him
So he closed his eyes till ‘55
Then he opened them up again
When he looked around he saw a clown
And the clown seemed very gay
And he set that night to join that circus clown and run away

Well he followed every railroad track
An every highway sign
And he had a girl in each new town
And the towns he left behind
And the open road
Was the only road he knew
But the color of his dreams
Was slowly turning into blue

The he met a girl the kind of girl
He wanted all his life
She was soft and kind and good to him
So he took her for his wife
And they got a house not far from town
And in a little while
The girl had seen the doctor
And she came home with a smile

Now in 1961 a happy father had a son
And by 1964 the father walked right out the door
And in ‘65 the mom and son were still around
But what will happen to the boy
When the circus comes to town
 

Circuses figured prominently in Nilsson’s writing.  His Swedish grandparents had been trapeze artists, and the freedom and fantasy of the imagined life stayed with him.

His most successful song was “One” — the song that introduced the phrase “one is the loneliest number” to the language.  The original —a track on Aeriel Ballet— was pure Nilsson and vastly superior to  Three Dog Night’s cover that reached the Top Ten in April 1969.  

One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do
two can be as bad as one
it’s the loneliest number since the number one

No is the saddest experience you’ll ever know
yes it’s the saddest experience you’ll ever know
because one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do
one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever know

It’s just no good anymore since you went away
now I spend my time
just making rhymes of yesterday

Because one is the loneliest number
that you’ll ever do
one is the loneliest number
that you’ll ever know

Nilsson had a penchant for novelty songs, and one of them —”Coconut”— was his personal bestseller.  He produced a video hommage to Ernie Kovacs’ Nairobi Trio; it was rumored that the other monkey suits were filled by John Lennon and German artist, musician, and Beatles producer Klaus Voorman.

Although deceptively simple —and maddeningly catchy— “Coconut” is a complicated contrapuntal triologue —a conversation between a girl, her brother, and her doctor— for which Nilsson provides all the voices.

I never met Harry Nilsson but I shared an elevator ride with him in Beverly Hills in 1973.  I was looking at apartments with a real estate agent, and when we entered the elevator —which had come up from the basement garage— Harry Nilsson was there with two of the most spectacular looking women (and this was Los Angeles in 1973 so the standard was very high) I had ever seen.  He had pressed the button for “PH” and when we left them a couple of floors below I said, excitedly, “Do you know who that was?”  The agent said, “No.”  I said, “That was Nilsson.”  She said, “Who?”

In the end, I rented  —but never occupied— an apartment on the beach in Santa Monica in a building named —prophetically— the San Clemente.

OK, I know it’s not a great anecdote but it’s a great memory for someone who was, and remains, a major Nilsson fan.

Nilsson’s life was filled with many personal and professional problems.  His bad luck may have been reflected in the fact that two people (and two people no less than Cass Elliot in 1974 and Keith Moon of The Who in 1978) died in his London flat while they were his tenants.

Harry Nilsson’s health deteriorated in the early 1990s.  He suffered a heart attack in 1993 and died on 15 January 1994, several hours after having completed the vocal tracks for a new (and as yet unreleased) album.

Nilsson’s extensive catalog is in print and easily available (as on Amazon).

 

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

Jon Voight’s auspicious film debut was in 1969’s Midnight Cowboy.  The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and John Schlesinger for Best Director.  Both Voight and his co-star Dustin Hoffman were nominated for Best Actor, but John Wayne won for True Grit.  Waldo Salt also won for Cowboy’s screenplay adapted from the Herlihy novel.

Stark raving Starkwood: Jon Voight as Jonas Hodges in this season of 24.  He appeared to be the uber-villain but, based on the events in recent episodes, he may end up having only been an arch villain.  After several years of TV work in the early and mid-’60s, Voight made his big screen debut as Joe Buck in 1969’s Best Picture Midnight Cowboy.

Midnight Cowboy represented a significant cultural moment in America.  It was the first (and, to date, still the only) X-rated film to win the Oscar for Best Picture.  In 1969 the X rating wasn’t yet popularly associated with porn films, and the resulting controversy dealt more with the debauched lifestyle that was presented.

Today the film seems mannered and ponderous — with its messages telegraphed in advance and hammered home.  But at the time the quirky pace and distorted angles, all propelled by an integral soundtrack, had all the shock of the new.

Most critics were bowled over — not least because, of all people, it was the genteel Englishman who directed Darling who had exposed ”the banality and ugliness of America and American life in the age of Vietnam.”  But some —including The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael, who was every bit as anti-Vietnam as the next liberal— weren’t buying it:

Jon Voight as Joe Buck, a dishwasher from a small town in Texas, who hopes to make a living in New York by servicing rich women, and Dustin Hoffman as Ratso Rizzo, the crippled petty thief and con man he meets. The director, John Schlesinger, uses fast cutting and tricky camerawork to provide a satirical background as enrichment of the story, but the satire is offensively inaccurate–it cheapens the story and gives it a veneer of almost hysterical cleverness. The point of the movie must be to offer us some insight into the two derelicts–two of the many kinds of dreamers and failures in the city. But Schlesinger keeps pounding away at America, determined to expose how horrible the people are–he dehumanizes the people Joe Buck and Ratso are part of. If he could extend the same sympathy to the other Americans that he extends to them, the picture might make better sense. His spray of venom is just about overpowering, yet the two actors and the simple Of Mice and Men kind of relationship at the heart of the story save the picture. Hoffman’s raspy voice and jumpy walk and Jon Voight’s pallor and blue eyes and hurt, bewildered stare provide a core of feeling. 

Featured Articles — April 19, 2009

April 19, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Capitalism After the Fall By Richard Stevenson, The New York Times
HE recession will end. No one is marking the calendar, least of all President Obama, but the president is hinting at an audacious ambition as he waits for that inevitable if distant day: a redefining of American capitalism.

The Truths Behind the Tea Parties By Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune
The banking collapse and the economic meltdown have prompted many Americans to turn to the federal government as indispensable savior, telling Congress and the president: We hope you can fix it; we want you to do whatever is necessary to fix it; and we don’t care what it costs.

The Lawyer and The Caterpillar By Michael Isikoff, Newsweek
Torture is a complicated business, and the real world is never as neat as the imagined one.

How to Raise the Standard in America’s Schools By Walter Isaacson, Time
National standards have long been the third rail of education politics. The right chokes on the word national, with its implication that the feds will trample on the states’ traditional authority over public schools. And the left chokes on the word standards, with the intimations of assessments and testing that accompany it.

Signs of Spring: U.S.-Latin America Relations Thaw By Tim Padgett, Time
When I started covering Latin America 20 years ago, a leftist source asked what books I’d read to help myself understand the region’s manera de pensar, or psyche. I fidgeted and mentioned Octavio Paz’s Labyrinth of Solitude. He shrugged. José Martí’s Our America?

The Crafty Superpower By Mac Margolis, Newsweek
By turns charming and cagey, cool to America and close to Obama, Lula is building a unique regional giant.

Le Président is petulant and out of his depth By Joan Smith, The Independent
Barack Obama is very tall. Nicolas Sarkozy isn’t. The French President is used to having the hottest political spouse in the world, and suddenly he hasn’t. Right now, Michelle upstages Carla, and she didn’t even have to organise a photo-shoot on the roof of the White House to do it. What is a man with a bruised ego to do in such circumstances? Evidently still smarting from his G20 experience, the French President hosted a “private” lunch last week and made disparaging observations about his American rival which were bound to reach a wider audience.

A Look Back At RN’s 1969 European Visit

April 18, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, China, Europe, History, International Affairs, News media, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Obama administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Russia, U.S. History, UK Politics | Leave a Comment 

Roger Morris, who was a National Security Council staffer in 1969 and 1970, and who later published a massive study of Richard Nixon’s career up to 1952, made two more contributions this week to “100 Days,” the group blog in which historians compare events that took place in the first hundred days of other presidencies to those of the Obama Administration.

Morris’s posts – which don’t mention President Obama’s European trip last month at all – concern RN’s visit to Europe in early 1969. They focus on his memorable meeting with France’s President Charles de Gaulle (who was, at that point, less than a year away from retiring from politics, though no one could have anticipated it at the time) and on his amiable talk with Britain’s Prime Minister Harold Wilson after the latter had named John Freeman, a frequent and bilious critic of RN, as Ambassador to the United States. (Thanks to RN’s offer to let bygones be bygones, Wilson became a great fan of the 37th President and was one of the first to welcome him to the UK when he visited in the late 1970s.)

But even as Morris’s account of RN’s first Presidential trip overseas demonstrates how effectively he ushered in a new era of engagement with Europe after Lyndon B. Johnson’s comparative neglect of that continent, the historian draws some rather suspect conclusions. He notes that RN listened to De Gaulle’s advice concerning Vietnam but did not follow it (but doesn’t add that Nixon paid keen attention to De Gaulle’s recommendations about extending the hand of friendship to China). This leads Morris to claim that RN’s trips overseas throughout his Presidency -including the groundbreaking PRC and USSR visits – were “fleeting exercise[s] in politics and public relations, rather than the statesmanship he sought to prove,” and that they did no more than reinforce policies that had alreadly been decided.

This claim is hardly supported by the historical record. While it’s true that the agreements between the PRC and the US that constituted the Shanghai Communique were carefully negotiated before RN traveled to that city, it made an enormous difference to Sino-American relations that he was there to sign it. The handshake with Zhou Enlai at the airport was a milestone that went far beyond public relations. Many other examples from RN’s 5 1/2 years in the White House could be mentioned.

However, it’s good to see that in the more than 50 comments appended to Morris’s posts, there are many expressing their appreciation of RN’s achievements during his trips abroad.

Featured Articles — April 18, 2009

April 18, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Obama’s Savvy Cuba Move By John Lee Anderson, The New Yorker
President Obama’s moves on Cuba, which he announced on Monday, have been cleverly thought out. By removing existing restrictions on Cuban-Americans seeking to visit the island or send money to help their relatives, he satisfies several political constituencies.

Tea Party animals not boiling over By Mark Steyn, OC Register
Media portrayals of protesters as right-wing kooks are overheated.

Why Middle East sheikhs are running amok. By Neil MacFarquhar, Foreign Policy
Whenever I mention the word “fatwa’’ to friends in the West, they usually equate it with a death sentence. This stems from what I expect is the most famous fatwa of modern times, the one the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran leveled against the author Salman Rushdie in 1989, accusing him of blaspheming Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses and sentencing him to death.

Christopher Hill No Good For Iraq By Joshua Stanton, The New Ledger
Of the many things that will be written about North Korea this week, the least likely of these is, “Now there’s the kind of diplomacy we need more of.” Consider just the events of the last few days: the missile test itself, which may have hit closer to home than originally thought; the failure of the United Nations to enforce two of its violated resolutions; the broader failure of deterrence and counter-proliferation; and North Korea’s final repudiation of a February 2007 agreement in which it had agreed to verifiably dismantle all of its nuclear programs.

TNN Weekly Weekend Reward

April 17, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Weekly Weekend Reward | Leave a Comment 

It if hasn’t already happened, within the next few hours every person on the planet will have seen the YouTube video of Scottish spinster Susan Bloom’s surprising triumph earlier this week on Britain’s Got Talent.

So far the official website has received going on 23 million hits; and others showing the same clip have received several million more.

For the benighted few who actually may not have seen or heard about it, here it is:

 

Oops, sorry.  Boy is my face red.  That’s the video of the first time —all the way back on 2007— that Britain’s Got Talent exploited the Ugly Duckling scenario and pulled off the “hard as it may be to believe, some unattractive people can actually do some of the same things that beautiful people can do” ploy.

In fact, it turns out that all embeds of the Susan Boyle video are forbidden — so if you want to see it you have two options.  You can either replay the Paul Potts video and imagine him with better teeth and wearing a pageboy wig and singing “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Miserables  — because everything else in the two videos is the same (from the audience cutaways to  Simon’s quick conversion to Amanda Holden’s teary rapture).   Or you can click here.  

 

From 1931’s Silly Symphonies, Walt Disney’s version of Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Ugly Duckling.”  The story was first published in 1843 in Andersen’s New Fairy Tales.

Simon Cowell has started a worldwide and wildly lucrative cottage industry based on Dr. Johnson’s insight into the appeal of a Quaker woman preacher: ”Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

The formula is simple and endlessly replicable.

First, find some shapeless, gormless, nerdish loser —the kind of person to whom even every shapeless, gormless, nerdish audience member can feel superior.

Second, allow that individual to demonstrate some limited but actually human ability.

Third, cash in on the tsunami of populist pride and turned-worm comeuppance that results.  (Mr. Cowell owns the record label that releases the CDs of the diamonds in the rough that his shows discover.  Mr. Potts has just issued his second recording; Ms. Boyle’s will soon be available.)

Is it any wonder that Simon Cowell has such contempt for people — when so many of them jump so eagerly and cluelessly through his hoops on Britain’s Got Talent and its American Cousin American Idol and its American namesake America’s Got Talent, etc., etc., etc., etc., even unto the ends of the earth?

Although I know that everything about these shows is planned and programmed and all but (if not, in fact) actually cast, there was still something moving about the Potts gambit — if only because it was so well done and cast.

But once moved, twice wary, and I find this Susan Boyle business frankly embarrassing.

Embarrassing not only for Ms. Boyle for having been chosen precisely because of how unattractive and unprepossessing she is; but embarrassing for us —because, like Mr. Potts, she isn’t, in fact, that good.  They are talented amateurs, but no more; their voices are star quality for karaoke, but hardly for the concert stage or the West End.

Mr. Potts chose a fail safe warhorse — “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot  — for his song.  Ms. Boyle chose no less of a chestnut with Fantine’s power ballad “I Dreamed A Dream.”   It’s a guaranteed showstopper full of soaring heights and thrilling swoops and a shamelessly manipulative key change just in time for the bravura finale.  

But, I hear you asking: Frank, so far you’ve only been yelling at us.  When does this week’s Reward begin?  

It begins here, with “I Dreamed A Dream” sung as it should be by an artist who performed it in the West End and on Broadway — Patti Lupone.  (Unless you like or have a very high tolerance for Broadway anecdotes, you will want to forward to the beginning of the song at 3:00.  Trust me on this.)

 

There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he’ll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

For purists and/or the literal-minded, here is Ruthie Henshall, a later London Fantine, in an orchestrated and costumed version of the song from the Les Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1998.

“I Dreamed A Dream” might seem to have great potential as a political theme song.  The title alone indicate an expression of hope and inspiration.  Unfortunately the lyrics point it in the opposite direction, and it’s a bitter expression betrayal and despair.   Judy Kuhn stuck to the lyrics as they lay when she sang it for the Reagans at the White House in 1988. (Here’s another Broadway anecdote alert: You may want to forward to :50 where the song begins.  What is it about “I Dreamed A Dream” that requires these alerts?)

So Aretha Franklin made some judicious changes in the lyrics when she sang “I Dreamed A Dream” at Bill Clinton’s 1993 Inaugural concert.  

What About Bob?

April 17, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Domestic issues, Political Philosophy, economy | 3 Comments 

In the aftermath of the horrific events of September 11, 2001, our government, in its infinite wisdom, formed a new entity. It would be an agency designed to protect us all – The Department of Homeland Security. I happen to know many wonderful people who work under its aegis, and I think it by and large serves a necessary purpose in these perilous times. But in the wrong hands, even good things can become bad.

The phrase “know your enemy” hearkens back to Sun Tzu’s classic work The Art of War, and represents self-evident wisdom. Everyone has enemies, as does every nation. You can tell a lot about people and peoples by their enemies. You can also tell a lot about them by those they describe and define as enemies.

The presidential oath, taken twice by President Obama due to a miscue from Chief Justice Roberts on Inauguration Day, simply talks about preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States. All other similar oaths affirmed by members of Congress, the Cabinet, or even the Military, include the meatier phrase, “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

“Against all enemies…”

Every culture contains a measure of “us” versus “them.” But what happens when the lines between “us” and “them” is blurred. Or worse – what about when “us” morphs into “them?”

My father in law passed away a little over a year ago after a long fight with cancer at the end of his valiant 81-year life. He was a good man – a decent man – someone who loved his family and paid his bills and went to church and owned a gun or two or three.

After I had the audacity to marry his daughter in May of 1976, Bob Holland and I settled quickly into to an awkward relationship with occasional tense moments. I was the Young Turk, he the sage advisor, though I did not always welcome his advice.

OK, in fairness, I never welcomed it.

We actually had similar values, even common faith. It was just in how we articulated things that the sparks sometimes flew. I was never a liberal in any sense of the word, but there was a way the old man had – an attitude about him – deep seated cultural and political opinions, that made me at times want to argue the “other view” even if absurd and not actually believed.

Think Archie Bunker and Meathead.

Now, this is not to say that my father in law was in any way really like the Bunker caricature – not at all. Archie was an ignorant man. Bob was, though not well educated formally, a well-read autodidact. It was actually hard to win when arguing with him, though the good Lord knows I sure tried. Oh, and I never lost my hair like Meathead/Rob Reiner did (nor my mind).

I have been thinking a lot about Bob recently, not just in the “I sure miss our animated conversations” sense, but wondering how I would be able to conjure up the requisite humility to admit to my favorite forensic foe that, well…er…uh… – he was right all along!

You see, he used to say that one day “they” would mark “us” as dangerous. He always talked about the virtue of gun ownership. His long-time membership in the NRA was one of his badges of honor. He decried illegal immigration – though he had a real heart for all people. He was fiercely anti-abortion, and would tell his family that one-day holding this opinion would become dangerous.

A year before he died, he begged my wife and I to sell our house and downsize before the market crashed. Bad times were coming, he was sure of it. And when the rough times came, other bad things would start to happen.

He didn’t live to see the real estate market collapse, the stock market tank, and covers of mainstream magazines proudly proclaiming “We are All Socialists Now,” one week, and “Christianity is Dying,” another. He didn’t live to see historic things happen politically, nor was he – thankfully – around to see us bowing before a dangerous world full of actual enemies.

I guess I am glad he didn’t, but I wonder what he’d say?

What would he make of reading a memo from The Department of Homeland Security talking about the potential danger from “radical right wing extremists” – only to instantly recognize many of his precious values being stigmatized as extreme?

Words like: “may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”

Or: “ the consequences of a prolonged economic downturn—including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit—could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists…”

Or the always popular in these days as “us” becomes “them”: “Historically, domestic rightwing extremists have feared, predicted, and anticipated a cataclysmic economic collapse in the United States. Prominent antigovernment conspiracy theorists have incorporated aspects of an impending economic collapse to intensify fear and paranoia among like-minded individuals and to attract recruits during times of economic uncertainty.”

One thing for sure, he would probably turn to me, his head shaking from the effects of Parkinson’s syndrome, and say: “Well, Dave, I guess you have to admit I was right after all – huh?” Then, because he had opinions without malice and never lost sight of his core contentment and faith-driven peace of mind, he’d probably add, “Let’s have a sandwich!”

I’d reply, “Sure, but first would you help me pick out my first gun?”

He’d smile and with pride remark: “Dave, you’re sure getting smarter.”

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