The buck (and doe) stop here!

Has anyone noticed how many suburban communities and subdivisions are named for the exact species that were eradicated in order to build them? There’s no ivy remaining in “Ivy Ridge”, our National Bird no longer nests at “Eagles’ Cove”, neither grapes grow nor sheep safely graze in “Shepherd’s Vineyard”, and foxes may not enter “Foxcroft”; it’s now a gated community.

The graceful Queen of the Belgians, and an evil king

The former Spanish princess Fabiola Fernanda Maria de las Victorias Antonia Adélaïda de Mora y Aragon, better known as Queen Fabiola of Belgium, passed away last month. I knew her mostly as a recurring image on Belgian stamps from my childhood collection, and occasionally on television or in magazines covering some European royal event. Deeply beloved by her people who, after the 1993 passing of her husband King Baudouin and her taking the title of Queen Dowager, elevated her to a popular status similar to that of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, AKA the “Queen Mum” of England. A warm and elegant lady, Queen Fabiola was famous for having essentially the same haircut for 56 years, yet always looking fabulous in it. Interestingly, while her funeral was attended by royalty from all around the globe, including Japan’s Empress Michiko, no representative of the British royal family was present, and no serious explanation offered. In a certain way, her passing closes the door on one of the most shameful eras in the history of Belgium, her husband’s great-great-uncle Leopold II’s exploitation of the Congo and massacre of its people.

In 1885 King Leopold II, not content with his small European kingdom and constrained by the rules of the constitutional monarchy, decided to get into the Colonial business, albeit not on behalf of Belgium but as a private person. Emboldened by the explorations and public-relations of journalist Henry Morton Stanley (he of the “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” fame) Leopold went about “acquiring” massive lands in central Africa, inaugurating the “Congo Free State”, which was neither a state nor free. Under the guise of battling slavery Leopold created a private mercenary militia, the Force Publique, which was comprised of white officers and native African soldiers, most of which were forcibly conscripted into service. The purpose of this this militia was singular: to ensure maximum productivity in collecting ivory and harvesting rubber from native rubber vines, which was the key cash crop of the Congo. To this end millions of natives were enslaved and given quotas of rubber. Those who failed to meet quota were killed, and their hand amputated by the soldiers as proof to their officers that the work was well-policed by them. Often times women and children were kept as hostages while the men were forced to harvest almost unattainable amounts of rubber, for which there was an ever-increasing demand for in Europe and America. The rape of the land and the brutality towards the natives were incomprehensible. Entire villages were systematically wiped out, workers tied together and tossed into rivers to drown, and innumerable unspeakable atrocities committed against the local population. Leopold created an astonishingly effective PR machine, portraying himself as a progressive, benevolent ruler whose mission was to save the Congo from slave-traders (none bigger than him…) and bring civilization to the continent. Early on he enjoyed the support of many governments, including ours under president Chester Arthur. Only when international criticism and relentless inquiries and publications by activists such as E.D. Morel and Roger Casement finally woke up the world to the genocide in the Congo did Leopold “relent” and transferred “ownership” of the Congo Free State to the Belgian Government in 1908. By this point in time Leopold had plundered untold riches from the land, and left over ten million Congolese dead. For many years these horrific events were conveniently “forgotten” by the Belgians, who chose to honor King Leopold II as the great builder of Belgium, given his penchant for construction of opulent palaces and other needless, luxurious public works.

Colonization continued under the name “Belgian Congo” for 52 additional years. Only in 1960 did Fabiola’s husband, King Baudouin, preside over the events which eventually led to the establishment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where violence, strife, and political upheaval continue unabated to this day, with millions dead from the various conflicts and civil war, and an estimated 400,000 women are raped annually.

In Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece novella “Heart of Darkness” we are told, in vivid detail, about the savagery of those times, through the eyes of Marlow, the river-boat captain. Although written about events in 1885, Mr. Kurtz’ dying words sadly still reflect the current reality of Central Africa: “The horror! The horror!”

Southern Strategists

In 1964, when signing the landmark Civil Rights Act, president Lyndon Johnson famously quipped: “we may have lost the South for a generation” referring, of course, to the Democratic party’s traditional stronghold on Southern politics, dating back to Reconstruction. Southern conservatives who took a dim view of the emerging Civil Rights movement flocked to the Republican party in droves. Southern Democratic stalwarts such as South Carolina’s legendary senator Strom Thurmond never looked back as they switched party allegiances, entirely due to the Civil Rights Act impact on the South. The late Senator still holds the record for the longest filibuster, 25 hours and 18 minutes, attempting to block the 1957 Civil Rights Act (amongst other things he read into the Congressional record his grandmother’s biscuit recipe, which was thus preserved for posterity).

Four years later, in what has to have been the greatest political comeback in American history, Richard Nixon and his advisors designed the Republican’s party “Southern Strategy”, pushing issues such as “States’ Rights” and “Law and Order”, terms that today are recognized as “Dog-Whistle Politics”, a technique by which the message means one thing to the general population, but another thing altogether to the targeted group.

Several years (and one Georgian Democratic president) later, House Majority leader Dick Armey spearheaded significant gerrymandering efforts in the South, further cementing a long-term Republican lock on the majority of congressional districts in the South. So what is the current picture?

In the past presidential elections Barack Obama carried two southern states, as opposed to the nine won by LBJ in 1964. There are only two Democratic senators left in the South. One, Mark Warner of Virginia, was re-elected by a razor-thin 0.8% margin. The other, Bill Nelson of Florida, is a former Astronaut. How can you vote against an Astronaut? Eleven southern states have Republican governors, and the Republican South has an overwhelming super-majority in the US House of Representatives. Virtually all southern states now have Republican majorities or super-majorities in their state legislatures.It took fifty years, but the old Democratic reliable “Solid South” is now one massive red block, from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Rio Grande to the Appalachians. Some say that demographic changes and an increase in the Hispanic voting population may soon cause some shifts, but I believe that this will be the political landscape for many years to come, primarily  a result of the significant redistricting, which may take decades to modify.

What remains to be seen is if the Southern Republicans can emerge as a bloc, using their political power to deliver meaningful improvements to our entire region, which for most part is still plagued by poverty, racism, crumbling infrastructure, poor health, sub-par public education, and sluggish economic growth. Republicans: You’ve won. The South is yours. Now, can you make it rise again?

The Last Jewish Werewolf?

There is a South American superstition, based on ancient Guarani folklore, that a seventh-born boy, on the first Friday following his thirteenth birthday, will become a Lobison, a nocturnal werewolf-like creature who, at the full Moon, feasts on the flesh of the dead, unbaptized babies, and assorted excrement, resuming its human form at dawn. I’m sure we’ve all seen the movies.

In Argentina just over a hundred years ago this was serious business, with families at times murdering a seventh-born boy to prevent this from happening. Then, back in 1907, a family of Russian immigrants appealed to el presidente José Figueroa Alcorta to adopt the Russian Czar’s tradition of being a godfather to all seventh-born boys, and become godparent to their son. Presumably a smart politician, Alcorta saw a serendipitous opportunity to do good, and explained to the masses that since a seventh son who was thus blessed was effectively shielded from becoming said Lobison, henceforth the president of Argentina will adopt all seventh sons, protecting the newborns from the real danger of being hurt by their families. This practice has been going on, uninterrupted, for over a hundred years. In 1974 no less of a populist persona than president Isabel Peron (not Juan Peron’s wife of the Evita fame; the third one) formalized the practice, and added seventh-born girls to the game. While this used to apply exclusively to Catholic children, as of 2009 these presidential adoptions transverse all religions. There is a ceremony, a gold medal, and an educational scholarship is awarded.

And so last week history was made when President Christina Fernández de Kirchner formally adopted Yair Tawil, making him the first Jewish boy to be so honored, and saving him from the horrific outcome of becoming a Lobison. The president and the Tawil’s celebrated by lighting together a Hanukkah lamp and, as the candles slowly burnt down and extinguished, with them did our last chance of witnessing a potential Jewish werewolf.

Curse-ive

Full disclosure: I can’t write cursive to save my life, and it’s not my fault. Born in the US, by the time my family returned to Israel I was fluent in English, and thus was always placed in the “English Speakers” classes in Israel, where prior knowledge of cursive was assumed. When we would come back to the US on my father’s scientific sabbaticals I was invariably placed in “ESOL” classes where pretty much nothing was taught, so it is with great interest that I follow the ongoing debate regarding the value of learning cursive writing. Many people blame cursive’s demise in elementary schools on the Common Core educational standards, which do not include cursive instruction. Opponents of Common Core fault it for excessive testing, a too-hard curriculum, and fostering inner-city gang wars. Proponents claim that it will increase knowledge, reduce Global Warming, and bring balance to the Force. Obviously, the jury is still out on the value of what is, essentially, a re-ordering of subject matter sequences, reducing rote learning, and curricular standardization. My own opinion is that cursive has been stabbed by the QWERTY keyboard, eviscerated by email, and completely done-in by text messaging.

The problem is that no one writes anymore. Longhand manuscripts, handwritten diaries, droll postcards, all but gone from our society. There is no longer an ongoing daily need to write-out our communications with others. Birthday wishes are expressed via social media, notes through text-messaging, and love letters have been replaced by Snapchat. Even one’s signature isn’t what it used to be: checks are rapidly disappearing, and unless you’re a big-league player signing baseballs (when he was ten years old my son used to practice his signature followed by the letters “HOF”) you’re probably going to be able to sign everything digitally soon. I, for one, have not physically signed my income tax return in over eleven years, as I file electronically. And celebrities, beware: your autographs are no longer in demand; they’ve been replaced by the more coveted selfie (which is deemed more valuable than an autograph as it has built-in provenance). A time-traveling John Hancock would have been astonished by both the lack of well-designed signatures and the indecent number of citizens chasing him with cell phones… Another disclosure: this newsletter is created using an Apple Macbook Pro notebook; no pen or paper harmed in the production process (I can almost hear Harry Golden sneering in my ear Truman Capote’s snarky comment, made when he learned that Jack Kerouac banged-out “On the Road” in a three-day burst of creativity: “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”)

The English language is the cornerstone of our culture. Expressing oneself in writing should be aesthetic, decipherable, rapid, universally understandable, and without being bound to any technology. Last year the NC legislature voted into law a requirement to teach cursive (and the multiplication table) in all elementary schools. I wholeheartedly support this law, and hope that the next generation will be fully capable of penning a love sonnet, inscribing a book, writing a sympathy letter or thank-you note and, for the chosen few, signing their well-crafted autographs on soon-to-be-valuable bats and balls.

Il Papa

The first thing that Cardinal Jorge Maria Bergoglio did after he ascended to the Papacy and brilliantly took the name Francis was to walk over to the Vatican hotel where he stayed during the conclave to personally settle his bill. Next thing you know he’s demoting cardinals and upending the ossified curia, which is the church’s legendary bureaucracy, coercing it towards modernization. His wonderful comment about gay people (“who am I to judge?”) sent shockwaves around the world. His BFF is the Chief Rabbi of Buenos Aires. The Pope writes “since the Second Vatican Council we have rediscovered that the Jewish People are still for us the holy root that produced Jesus” and the Chief Rabbi of Rome responds “This Pontiff does not cease to surprise.” I guess rabbis are, by definition, masters of understatement.

Pope Francis shuns the fancy attire of his predecessors and tools around the Vatican in a 1984 Renault 4 which, in my mind, validates him as a man of great faith, as that particular automobile is a veritable death-trap. He takes selfies with teenagers! He tweets! He dials his own phone and cold-calls people!

Yes, it’s a breath of fresh air. Yes, he’s uber cool. And yes, the church could certainly use a shake-up from those dogmatic Benedict XVI years. But what truly impresses me is the focus of his lifelong ministry on poverty and his understanding that it is the single greatest social issue worldwide. When no less of an authority on faith than Rush Limbaugh accused the Pope of being a Marxist, he beautifully responded: “Marxist ideology is wrong. But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don’t feel offended”. Pope Francis is funny, self-deprecating, humble, yet tough-as-nails and focused like a laser beam on the changes he seeks to implement, and I suspect that he’s already spent many years pondering and planning how to improve the church. More recently he acted as a broker between the US and Cuba, helping bring about the normalization of relations between the countries and possibly an end to the decades-long US embargo on Cuba. He’s a true mensch, and he arrived on the global scene at precisely the right moment in time. Indeed, Habemus Papam!

Dis-order?

While Kentucky has its eponymous colonels, us Tar Heels grant our most respected and deserving luminaries membership in the “Order of the Long Leaf Pine”. Established in 1963, this honor has been bestowed upon countless public servants, contributors to the community, long-term state employees and assorted legends ranging from Maya Angelou and Dale Earnhardt to Billy Graham and Michael Jordan. I say “countless” because apparently no-one is exactly sure of how many members are in the esteemed order; estimates hover around 15,000. Recently there seems to have been a glut of such awards, with Governor Pat McCrory handing out about 500 of these in the past year. But hey, that’s not nearly the record, what with with former Governor Mike Easley responsible for over 4,000 honors. That’s a lot of pine tar. And there’s the rub: while anyone can nominate a person for membership in the order, only the Governor gets to decide if they’re worthy, leading to all sorts of uproars over awards to perceived political cronies or downright crooks. To make matters more intriguing, a new award has been implemented, “The Cardinal Award”, possibly to relieve some of the pent-up demand for the Order of the Long Leaf Pine. It’s entirely unclear which award trumps the other, and whether the Cardinals are expected to bow to the Pines, or vice versa. Due to the lack of standard criteria and a structured awarding process, these honors are left solely to the whim of our Chief Executives, who are popping them like Pez, with some people unintentionally receiving them more than once, just like the Grammys.

Us Americans typically don’t have a high regard for chivalrous orders and noble titles. However, members of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine have a very distinct privilege and responsibility: only members of the order are permitted to propose the official state toast in “select company anywhere in the World”. As ours is the land of moonshine, county-run ABC liquor stores, and Beer City USA (AKA Asheville), this is serious business. Therefore I call upon the Governor’s Office to clean house, establish a nonpartisan screening committee, and stanch the current gusher of awards. After all, we must make sure that only the most deserving among us may rise at an event, tap a glass with the salad fork or politely clear our throats, and thus proclaim:

“Here’s to the land
of the long leaf pine,
The summer land
where the sun doth shine,
Where the weak grow strong
and the strong grow great,
Here’s to “down home”,
the Old North State!”

L’Chaim.