Tennessee Coats and the weirdness of Atlantic Magazine

By "Tennessee Coats" of course I really mean "Ta-Nehisi Coates".  I call Mr. Coates "Tennessee Coats" because I always mis-remember  his name.  I always think its "Tanishi Coats" or "Tan Coats"  or "T-something Coats" .  I never remember that  first name Hyphen and extra "H"  in the first name or  that extra "e" in the second.

But I digress. I've started to read "The Atlantic" since Bob Wright, Mr. Bloggingheads, went there and what an odd  place it is.  You got "Tennessee Coats" the token black guy,  Megan Mcardle the token Libertarian & token female (a two-fer),  Jeff Goldberg -the Professional Jew - who yaks about antisemitism and Israel,  and then 4-5 liberal whiter-than-white guys, like Fallow, Wright, Thompson and Crooks, commenting on politics and finance.

It reminds me of Archie Bunkers' definition of a balanced ticket:

Coulter on Gingrich and the Tofflers

From her latest Column: 

"The day after the Republicans' historic takeover of the House of Representatives in the 1994 election, Newt was off and running, giving a series of Fidel Castro-style speeches about "the Third Wave information revolution."

Hadn't Republicans just won on a platform of smaller government? Instead of a Republican victory, the '94 election seemed to be a victory for the Tofflers' cyber-babble about "social wavefront analysis," "anticipatory democracy," "de-massification," "materialismo," "the Third Wave" and "decision loads."

Soon, Gingrich was writing a foreword to a Toffler book -- the same one on the Republicans' reading list –- and spending Christmas with the pro-choice, anti-school prayer, Christian Coalition-hating Tofflers. Yes, there's nothing like having an old-fashioned Christmas with a doddering couple who hate prayer and Christians, love abortion and are afraid of their microwave.

At the end of Gingrich's first year as House speaker, his endless, nutty pronunciamentos -- in addition to his plan to entrust Republicans' legislative agenda to an old couple whose living room VCR continuously flashed "12:00" -- had driven his public approval numbers into the dirt.

Newt Gingrich is the "anti-Establishment" candidate only if "the Establishment" is defined as "anyone who remembers what happened the day before yesterday."

Hemingway - Descriptive Writer

These varying reactions seem to me worth noting because of the indubitable fact that Hemingway has, since his first success, exercised more influence on American fiction than any other contemporary novelist. My own feeling about him has always been that he is one of the best descriptive writers in English, surpassed only by Kipling and a very few others; a master in the evocation of mood--most perfectly displayed in some of the short stories, and in certain situations of the novels. He is not, and never has been, a creator of character in the sense that novelists like Balzac and Tolstoy were, and has never come remotely near the understanding of human life and the values of which it is composed that are essential to great fiction. - J. Donald Adams (1950)

Veterans Day - The Marines at Tarawa

Kipling on sport

Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls  With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.

Little Green Footballs - Dumbest Site on the Web

Here's Charles Johnson's site in a nutshell (note: the same Charles Johnson attitude applies to Fundamentalists and Muslims):

Johnson: "He's a racist !"

Commenter 1: Yeah, and a bigot"

Commenter 2: "I hate racist bigots!"

Commenter 3: "Are you sure he's a racist?"

Johnson: "What the hell?"

Commenter 3: "Uh, well, the charge of bigotry is too often expressed in terms of a sophisticated, liberal-thinking elite trying to rein in the emotional and illogical unwashed masses. I mean, there's not such a simple ideological, racial, or religious divide between a monolithic "us" and "them." It seems we've devolved to the point where promiscuously crying "Bigot!" and "Racist!" only means you've failed to convince people of the merits of an argument."

Johnson: "Get off my site you racist scum!"

Commenter 1: Holy crappola, can you believe that bigot?"

Commenter 2: "I hate racist bigots!"

3 Civil war Book Reviews

1. Extraordinary Circumstances : The Seven days Battle - Brian Burton

Excellent, scholarly retelling of the Seven Days Battle (June 24th to July 2 1862) covering both sides. Burton is more interested in the Command relationships and purely military aspects and he rarely discusses politics, grand strategy or Lincoln or Davis' opinion of the battle. Told from a commanders point of view, with very little human interest & few personal anecdotes. He's also fair to every one - including Stonewall Jackson and McClellan. Most will find it too dry and technical, others (including me) enjoyed the absence of heroes and villains (the Sears approach). Flaws: Like most modern books the maps are poor. Rating ***

2. The Union Soldier in Battle - Earl Hess

A rambling examination of the ordeal of combat from the Union soldiers perspective. Based on original letters, diaries, and memoirs. Fairly short at 240 pages, it feels much longer, and I don't mean that in a good way. I didn't find any new insights and it wasn't particularly well-organized or well written. Those new to the subject may find it more interesting. Rating **

3. Battle Tactics of the Civil war - Paddy Griffith

Written by a senior lecturer at Sandhurst, Griffith focuses on the the battle tactics of the war. His main argument: the Civil War, far from being the 1st Modern war, was in fact, the last Napoleonic one. Although his opinions are sometimes excessive, and his knowledge somewhat shallow, he makes a convincing case. While the rifled musket did increase both casualties and power of the defense, its impact has been overrated. Casualties, after all, were high in the Napoleonic wars and frontal assaults often ineffective. Further, the rifled musket had the same rate of fire as the smoothbore musket and although more accurate and easier to fire was still - compared to a bolt action rifle - complicated to load and fire, and inaccurate. While a skilled marksman could hit a man at 500 yards, its doubtful if an average Civil war soldier could hit anyone at over 100 yards.

The lack of decisive battles (overwhelming victories) in the Civil war was due to many reasons including (1) the rough and heavily forested terrain (2) the relatively small numbers of Calvary on both sides (3) the poor roads (4) the bad staff work on both sides (5) the almost complete equivalence of both two sides in tactics, lower-level generalship, men, doctrine, and arms (6) the Anglo-Saxon quality of both sides (7) the low offensive value of artillery and (8) the vastness of the Confederacy and lack of one decisive geographical point.

Griffith's book is fairly short, 200 pages, and is directed at those interested in military history. Its full of statistics and charts. I found it interesting but doubt I will re-read. Rating **1/2

The Fountainhead (1943) - Ayn Rand

Plot: On the surface, it is a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of collectivism.

Main Characters: Howard Roark, Peter Keating, Ellsworth Toohey, Dominique Francon, Gail Wynand

Pros: Interesting, bigger-than-life characters, sparse, clear prose, Kinky sex, some memorable and/or witty lines, satirical humor, attack on socialism (including Communism).

Cons: Peter Keating character given too much ink, Some Characters unbelievable and/or act illogically (cf: Dominique,the heroine), lack of Character development, too many repetitive scenes, novel too long for such a simple plot.

Not much I can add about the "Fountainhead". Judging by the Amazon reviews people love the novel or hate it. I was somewhat in-between. I found her philosophy interesting but shallow and didn't really mind the speeches. Nor given that it was a "romance" did the unrealistic nature of the characters bother me that much. The problem wasn't the lack of realism but the lack of consistency and the logic of many of their actions. The heroine Dominique for example, starts out as 'smart and level-headed' then becomes 'stupid & crazy' then 'smart but crazy' and finally ends up back at 'smart and level-headed. She's the main female character yet seems the most implausible. Roark meanwhile does things (like helping Keating) which make no real sense. And his change from a one-syllable Bartleby at the start to silver-tonged philosophizer is somewhat unbelievable.

The book really needed an editor. The first part, describing the rise of Keating and the Roark's initial failure is way too long. The book doesn't became interesting until the villain Toohey and Gail Wynand become the focus.

Some odd things about the novel:

• There are no children
• There are no loving parents in the novel. Most characters either have one live parent (that they dislike) or no parents at all.
• Dominique is described as having a "vicious" and/or "cold" mouth about 25 times.
• Roark has "orange" hair.
• Wynand likes Roark so much he goes off with him on his yacht alone for 3 months - and leaves beautiful Dominique at home.
• Characters don't merely draw or write but "violently slash lines on the drawing" or "savagely write". I didn't realize journalism and architecture was so violent until I read Rand.
• Rand's contempt for the average person and religion is quite noticeable.
• The smart characters are constantly being disappointed that another smart character needs it spelled out for them. "I thought you were smarter than that".
• Conversely, Rand is constantly writing that "words were unnecessary between them, they both understood...."

Conclusion: Very enjoyable in spots and not as bad as expected. Rating **1/2

Americans and the past - Robert E. Lee: Reading the Man

I was going to write a book review of "Reading the Man: A Portrait of Lee" by Elizabeth Pryor - but found that 'William Vallante' at Amazon.com had said everything I wanted to say:

"There is indeed a certain childish willfulness in the American mind that insists on chastising the people of the past for not being like them, or else pretending that they were. Which is a certain way NOT to learn anything from history." ---Dr. Clyde Wilson

"Put it this way - if you are the type of person Dr. Wilson is describing, you're going to love this book! If not, you'll be wishing you had paid for it in Confederate bills instead of U.S. dollars.

The book itself contains roughly 175 pages of footnotes, bibliography and index. There are 50 pages of actual letters, some of which have already been published and others of which are not even by Lee, but by other people. If you're planning on seeing 500 pages of newly discovered letters, forget it. The fewer than 50 pages of new letters by Lee himself will leave you grossly disappointed. Finally, we have 425 pages of Ms. Pryor's perseverative and monotonous interpretations of those letters, which I suppose is the "meat" of the book.

According to Ms. Pryor, Lee did not release the Custis slaves immediately. The terms of the will specified "within 5 years" of the elder Custis' death (in 1857). Lee fulfilled that mandate by manumitting them in 1862. This apparently wasn't satisfactory enough for Ms. Pryor as she repeatedly drones on about Lee's failure to understand how the slaves felt.

Ms. Pryor is also critical of Lee for expecting the slaves to actually work!? Oh horror! Oh horror!

Of course, there is the matter of several slaves being whipped by Lee, something which has never been conclusively proven. Like a second rate shyster, Ms. Brown does her best to drum up the case against him.

According to Ms. Pryor, Lee had no appreciation of other cultures and saw nothing worthwhile in the Mexican culture when he was there during the Mexican war. I'm wondering what Pryor expected Lee, an educated, well-to-do man from one of Virginia's first families, to say when he was in Mexico? "Gee! What lovely mud huts!?" I'm pretty sure that Mexico didn't have Grand Melia and Paradisus or any other resorts at that time, so I can't figure out what Ms. Pryor expected him to see in the place? I suppose to understand her reasoning, or her expectations, one would have to refer back to Dr. Wilson's quote above.

Also, according to Ms. Pryor, Lee had "poor cross cultural communications skills", a term apparently taken from today's lexicon of multicultural drivel. In this case she was referring to his "communication", or lack of it, with the Comanches. I ran this past a native American friend of mine and he almost fell over laughing. I'm not sure there were too many folks at the time who had good cross cultural communication skills with the Comanches of that era, as this particular group wasn't usually given to such things themselves. Would that it were possible to transport Ms. Pryor back in time to the 1850s and observe how her "skills" with the Comanches would fare? I would be taking bets on how long she kept her pretty blond hair.

In sum, this book, touted though it is by most "contemporary" historians, is one more example of the sham that has become what we used to call, "the field of history".