OUT OF A CLEAR BLUE SKY

I have long believed that the world can be divided into two groups; those who believe that the world is screwed up because a secret cabal is running things for their own advantage, and those who believe the world is so screwed up that obviously nobody is in charge. In the former category are those who are still convinced that somehow President Roosevelt was in some way responsible for the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. To quote one neo-conspiracy theorist, “Interestingly, that ‘surprise attack’ was preceded by an astonishing number of unheeded warnings and missed signals…” This neo-knowledgeable speaker was then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, in a speech at West Point, on June 2, 2001, some three months before 9/11.At 7:48 a.m. on December 7, 1941, out of a clear blue sky, 353 Japanese bombers, torpedoe planes and fighters of the first wave began their attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States Pacific fleet was caught flat footed, unprepared, with our war planes on the ground. How could we have been caught so unprepared if not by a conspiracy?

But at the exact moment that Japanese bombs were exploding amongst American planes on Ford Island, it was 3:00 a.m. at the US Army Air Force base at Clark Field in the Philippines. The Japanese had planned a dawn attack here as well, but fog kept their planes on Formosa on the ground. The Japanese attack on Clark Field did not begin until 12:30 p.m. local time, nine long hours after the radio alert from Hawaii had warned American commanders (including General Douglas MacArthur) that the war had already started. And yet the Japanese were able to destroy half of all United States war planes in the Philippines on the first day of the war. How was this possible? Was the conspiracy that betrayed America so large it included the anti-New Dealer General MacArthur?

At 9:15 a.m. on February 19, 1942 – 74 days after the Pearl Harbor attack – a Coastwatcher on Melville Island, just off the North coast of Australia, looked up into a clear blue sky and reported a large number of planes heading for the harbor at Darwin, Australia. The report was dismissed, as was a report at 9:37 a.m. from Father John McGrath on tiny Bathhurst Island of “An unusually large air formation bearing down on us from the Northwest”. The commander of the attacking Japanese forces would later write, “…No planes were in the air. A few attempted to take off as we came over but were quickly shot down, and the rest were destroyed where they stood.”Just an hour later, as the first wave of Japanese planes banked to return to their carriers, they left behind 8 ships sunk in Darwin harbor. They had damaged a dozen other ships (including a hospital ship), destroyed the limited harbor facilities, as well as destroying 10 P-40 fighters, one B-24 bomber, 3 C-45 transports, 3 PBY flying boats and 6 Lockheed Hudson Australian Bombers, as well as knocking out Darwin’s electricity and fresh water systems, and killing at least 243 military personnel and civilians and wounding 200 more. The Darwin raid has been called “Australia’s Pearl Harbor”. How were the Japanese able to achieve another surprise attack after so many warnings?At 6:20 a.m. on the morning of April 18, 1942 (now 102 days since the Pearl Harbor attack) Japanese Vice Admiral Boshiro Hosogaya, commander of the Japanese Fifth Fleet aboard the heavy cruiser Kiso, was awakened to read an urgent message from picket boat Number 23, the Nitto Maru. The message read; “Three enemy carriers sighted -Position 650 nautical miles east of Inubo Saki.” The Nitto Maru failed to respond to calls for further information. The vice-admiral alerted the command of the Combined Fleet headquarters. He advised them that with the known range of American carrier based bombers, the Americans would not be within range to attack the home islands for another 24 hours. The combined fleet immediately sent the following message to all commands; “Tactical Method 3 against United States Fleet.” In response elements of the First and Second Fleets sortie-ed out of their bases at Yokosuka and Hiroshima and began searching for the American carriers. Japanese aircraft carriers as far away as the Indian Ocean began to steam at all possible speed toward home waters. They would not be in time.

Just after noon Tokyo time, that same morning, Argentinean attaché Ramon Lavelle thought he heard explosions and ran onto the roof of his embassy. “I…saw four American bombers flying over the rooftops. They couldn’t have been more than 100 feet off the ground….All Tokyo seemed to be in a panic…I could see fires starting near the port…” One of the attackers would later write, “...the Japanese apparently were entirely unprepared for the attack…farmers in the field looked up and went back to work undisturbed; villagers waved from the streets; a baseball game continued its play; and in the distance training planes took off and landed apparently unaware of any danger present." Ten targets were struck in Tokyo by the B-25 meidum range land based bombers, and one each in four other Japanese cities. A carrier under construction was hit by a single bomb. One bomb even landed inside the grounds of the Imperial Palace. Of the attackers, one B-25 received some minor damage from anti-aircraft fire, and another had to dump its load into the sea when it was attacked by fighters. The two American carriers that had launched The Doolittle Raid, and all escorting ships, escaped unharmed. It would be weeks before the American public was informed of the attack, but the Japanese responded immediately by diverting fighter squadrons and anti-aircraft units back to the home islands, and with more extreme measures. Long before another American bomb landed on Japan, 10% of Tokyo had been plowed under to form fire brakes across the city, which proved ineffectual in the B-29 fire raids of 1945. The common thread connecting these three nations from December 1941 to April 1942 was the assumption that war could be restrained by the plans of politics or strategy. But all wars appear out of a clear blue sky, even to those who start them. And no strategy survives the first contact with the enemy. So all wars are a form of compulsory education for those foolish enough to think they have nothing to learn. And the three lesson that war teaches are always the same. The only sin in war is losing. The only assurance of losing is arrogance. And arrogance always leads to war.

There are no vast, grand conspiracies that produce wars. There is only common human arrogance, and usually a surplus of that.

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THE NIGHT I PLAYED MACBETH

"…full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Macbeth; Act V, scene v
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I wonder if there has ever been a good reason for a riot? The dictionary says a riot is “a violent disturbance of the peace by three or more persons”, but that definition doesn’t seem to really define the subject fully. The “Zip to Zap” riot of 1969 remains the only public disorder in North Dakota history, but the primary violation of public order there seems to have been ‘group vomiting in public’. The Sydney Cricket riot of 1879 consisted of 2,000 outraged Aussies rushing the “pitch” and stripping the shirts off two English players; the entire “riot” took less than 20 minutes. And the English “Calendar Riots” of 1751 are the answer to the question, “What if they held a riot and nobody came?” But of all the stupid reasons to have a riot, the stupidest, the dumbest and the single silliest reason has to be because you found an actor’s rendition of Macbeth was “too English”.

"I bear a charmed life". Macbeth: Act V, scene viii

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This stupidity began in 1836 with a then 20 year old athletic stone-headed ego maniac from Philadelphia named Edwin Forrest. He was a sort of full-back version of the “Lord of the Dance”, Michael Flatley. Humbly, Forrest described himself as “…a Hercules.” As an actor, “…baring his well-oiled chest and brawny thighs…” Forrest milked every ounce of histrionics out of “Henry V” and every pound of pathos out of “King Lear”, bounding about the stage to liven up the "slow" parts of Shakespeare. By the time he was twenty, Forrest was earning $200 at day (today’s equivalent would be $4,000). Then Forrest decided to conquer the London stage, and parenthetically to study at the foot of the giant of Victorian Shakespearean over- actors, Edward Kean.“If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak” Macbeth; Act I, scene iii
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Forrest was a minor hit in London playing supporting roles. While in town he wined and dinned the other giants of the English stage, Charles Kemble and William Charles Macready, and paid them homage. And as a memento of his trip, Forrest took home an English wife, the lovely and wise Catherine Norton Sinclair. Forrest's return to America was greeted with packed houses and raves by most reviewers. There were some voices of dissent, such as William Winter, who wrote for the New York Tribune that Forrest behaved on stage like a maddened animal “bewildered by a grain of genius”. But such discontent was drowned out in the applause from Boston to Denver. American audiences liked their actors larger than life in those days, and Forrest was just about as large as he could get. In fact, everything would have been perfect but for two small details. First, Edwin could not resist sharing himself with every woman who swooned at his manly thighs (the vast numbers of whom Catherine had a little trouble dealing with), and second, Edwin decided to make a triumphal return tour of England in 1845."Fair is foul, and foul is fair". Macbeth: Act I, scene i.
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Forrest opened at the Princess’s Theatre in London, where he billed himself as “The Great American Shakespearean Actor”. That was his first mistake. Importing leading Shakespearean actors to England is like bringing coals to Newcastle; they don’t really need any more. When Forrest performed his Macbeth, the audience had the audacity to “boo”. Forrest then made his second mistake when he decided that the negative reaction was a conspiracy hatched by William Macready."What 's done is done" Macbeth: Act III, scene ii
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Oddly enough Macready (above) respected Forrest, even though their acting styles were diametrically opposed. Macready even thought of them as friends. Which only made Macready all the more shocked when, during his “to be or not to be” speech in Edinburg, he discovered that the foulmouthed baboon hissing at him from a private box adjacent to the stage was none other than his erstwhile friend, Edwin Forrest. Forrest even wrote to the “London Times” to justify his gauche behavior as every audience members’ right to critique a performer on the spot. That lit up the press from Leadville, Colorado to Inverness, Scotland. Every yahoo had an opinion as to who was the more objectionable, the vulgar American, or the stuck up Limey.“Let not light see my black and deep desires” Macbeth; Act I scene iv

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In 1849, when Macready, “The Eminent Tragedian”, began what he intended as his farewell tour of America, he found that Forest (above) had sown salt ahead of him. At every major city he played, from New Orleans to Cleveland, Forest was headlining in another local theatre, performing the same plays.

When Macready opened on May 7th in “Macbeth” at the Astor Place Opera House in Manhattan, Forrest was opening in “Macbeth” at another theatre just a mile away. And the instant that Macready stepped from the wings that first night it was, in the words of a modern critic, “Groundlings, garb your tomatoes!” The audience began to boo, and then to throw things. After a chair just missed beheading Macready, he took a quick bow and ran for the wings.

“...When the battle 's lost and won". Macbeth: Act I, Scene i
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If the troubles had ended there it would have been a mere footnote in theatrical history. But the next morning Washington Irving and Herman Melville stuck their gigantic egos into the mess. They circulated and published a petition signed by 47 ‘distinguished’ New Yorkers begging Macready to stay for just one more performance. Against his own better judgment, and facing threats of lawsuits if he quit early, Macready agreed to one more show.

“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me.” Macbeth; Act I, scene iii
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Overnight handbills blossomed on every lamppost in the Bowery; “Workingmen! Shall Americans or English rule this city?” The question was posed by something called “The American Committee”, obviously not a bulwark of artistic objectivity. But I still wonder who really paid for those posters? The city fathers ordered up 325 policemen, and called up 200 members of the 7th regiment, New York Volunteers, to guard the Opera House. And they needed them. On Thursday, May 10, 1849 the troublemakers were kept out of the theatre, but perhaps 10,000 future New York Yankee fans gathered across Astor Place hurling first insults at the cops, and then moving on to rocks and bricks. Eventually the shower of stone shattered the plywood that protected the theatre’s windows and audience members inside were dodging missiles bouncing between their seats. “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” Macbeth; Act II, scene i
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Then the crowd charged the cops. The cops beat them back: twice. A handful of “Bowery Boys” tried to set the Opera House on fire. And the next time the crowd charged the police, the 200 members of the 7th let loose a volley. When the smoke cleared, some 22 to 30 people were dead and more than 100 wounded, including some police officers. As at Kent State a century and a half later, many of those shot were innocent bystanders. But enough of the troublemakers had been scared enough to leave Astor Place. The Shakespeare Riot was over."All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” Macbeth Act V, Scene i.
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It would be comforting to say that Edwin Forrest suffered for his egomaniacal gambling with other people’s lives. But he didn’t. He just got more famous and more popular. And in 1850 Edwin even had the gall to sue Catherine for divorce, charging her with adultery.

Yes, the biggest horn dog in America was claiming his English wife had been unfaithful to him. She hadn’t. But the press - on both sides of the Atlantic - published every nasty innuendo and allegation. In the end, Justice Thomas J. Oakley awarded Catherine her freedom and required Edwin Forrest to pay her $3,750 (the equivalent of $92,000 today) every year for the rest of her life. It doesn’t appear as if Edwin really missed the money because he never paid it. True to his character he simply avoided New York State and kept his fortune. And when he died in 1876, alone in his Philadelphia mansion, most of his estate went to Catherine because of unpaid alimony. At least she outlived the old jerk.

“Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.” Macbeth: Act I, scene iv.

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It all brings to mind the old English music hall ditty, “…They jeered me; they queered me, and half of them stoned me to death. They threw nuts and sultanas, fired eggs and bananas, the night I appeared as Macbeth.”

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MERRY CHRISTMAS, YOU JERK

I once despised Bill O’Reilly. It was exhausting. Nowadays repetition has reduced Bill (in my mind at least) to a boring Muzak for imbeciles. As an example, there was his November 18th program where he hosted "Faux News” "anchor” John Gibson in their joint return to the ancient happy ratings hunting grounds of his “The War On Christmas”. First O’Reilly read a list of those store chains he claims are no longer telling their customers, “Merry Christmas”, including "Toys R Us", but only because they are, “…simply not going to answer our questions, so we assume that means they’re not using “Merry Christmas” – as opposed to "Toys are Us" not being willing to engage in any of Bill’s reindeer games. Mr. Gibson parroted O'Reilly, “We don’t call it the Christmas break. It’s the winter break, as if people worship winter.” Sigh. Okay, once more into the breach, dear friends.

First, I am sorry to inform Mr. Gibson, but the facts are that first we celebrated winter, and later Christmas was grafted on. Passing over (pun intended) the pagan celebrations of Saturnalia, Juvenalia and the birth of Mithra, because all three of those gods predate Jesus by hundreds if not thousands of years, it must be noted that the birth day of all three of those gods was celebrated on December 25th., long before any angels had been harkened to Bethlehem. And besides, for the first 300 years after the crucifixion, the birth of Christ was not celebrated at all. The Christian writer Origen of Alexandria pointed out that only sinners like Herod and the Pharaohs of Egypt celebrated their birthdays. And Arnobius the Elder of Sicca, argued around 300 A.D., that it was foolish to even think of any god, let alone "The God", as having a “birth” day at all. After all, the implication of birth, is death.But are Bill et al discussing a war on the birth of Christ or war on the birth of Christmas? Ah, there’s the rub. According to some, such as the De Pasch Comutus, c. 243 A.D., Christ was born on the 19th or 20th of April, or perhaps as early as March 28th or as late as September 29 (Rosh Hashannah?) sometime about 5 B.C. The interpolations of New Testament passages supporting all of these dates is supported by Luke, Chapter two verse eight: “Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night”. No shepherd in their right mind is going to be sleeping outside in December, not even in Palestine where it is common for the nighttime December temperatures to fall below freezing.On the other hand we actually know the day and year that the Christ’s Mass was first celebrated: January 6, 354 A.D. This date was not the birth date but the circumcision date of Jesus, relabeled as either the Epiphany or the “Adoration of the Magi”, to avoid reminding Christians that Jesus started out life as a nice Jewish boy. (In the Catholic calendar the circumcision is now assumed to have been on New Year’s Day.) Any way, you back up 12 days from the circumcision, as is Jewish custom, to give any newborn ample opportunity to die after the birth, and you arrive at December 25th, God's birthday. Merry Christmas, Bill, you self centered popinjay.Now, given Mr. Gibson’s level of alleged ignorance, perhaps we should start his education with the late December Norse celebration of Yule, or the mid-winter games celebrating the birth of the god Oden, or the hanging of Holy to celebrate the birth of the god Saturn, or the gift giving to children that celebrated the midwinter birth of the god Jove. Or maybe we should celebrate a Pilgrim Christmas, when to repeat the phrase Mr. Gibson professes to love so much would have earned him an arrest and a fine of 5 shillings, or about a weeks’ earnings. Now that was a real war against Christmas, Bill.

Our Pilgrim forefathers considered Christmas a display of “popish” extravagance inspired by Satan, and not without some justification. Until the 19th century Christmas was usually celebrated by drunken riots. The city council of New York finally voted to pay for a special uniformed Christmas day police force after a particularly deadly Christmas evening riot in 1828. But that didn’t stop a repeat in 1851 when the New York Tribune noted the “…musketry and firecrackers, the bacchanal songs and noisy revels, which for two hours after midnight made sleep not a thing to be dreamed of.”

And, if you really needed any more of an excuse to riot on Christmas day there was always religion. In 1853, on Christmas day, a largely Irish Catholic police force for Cincinnati did battle with a largely German (Protestant) mob that had started out marching to celebrate the purity of the Protestant view of Christmas over the Catholic view of Christmas. So, by all means, Bill and John, let us rabble rouse another riot between religions. It ought to be great for your ratings. Or maybe you ratings- tramps already knew that little piece of American religous history and were counting on it, the way a pyromanic counts on gasoline.You see, this is why I no longer take Bill O’Reilly seriously. Either he is an idiot, which make his idiotic pontifications infuriating because they are so widely spread, or he is well educated enough to know his pontifications are idiotic, which makes him all the more infuriating because his hypocrisy is so widely repeated as faith. It doesn’t matter which line of logic you follow about Bill O’Reilly, because they both lead nowhere. It is important to remember that Bill O’Reilly is just the latest in an endless line of rabble rousers selling nothing more substantial than their own egos. When a statue of a great man or woman erodes it at least leaves behind pebbles, which become soil which can support new life. When Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson erode (and they will) they leave behind nothing that can support life. They are both of them, intellectually, morally and figuratively, dead ends

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