GOING HOME

Jerry Harkins

God does not create a longing or a hope without having a fulfilling reality ready for them. But our longing is our pledge, and blessed are the homesick, for they shall come home.

- Isak Dinesen

As it turned out, Moville was nothing like the town I had carried around in my imagination all these years. My father talked about it endlessly when I was a child but, of course, he had never been closer to it than Montauk Point. I’d read everything ever written about the town and seen hundreds of early pictures. I’ve known its gross anatomy since I was old enough to sing “Danny Boy,” the harbor, the main street, the country churchyards, the farms. I knew it was a small town—once called Bonafobble—on the West Bank of Lough Foyle about half way up the east side of the remote but storied Inishowen Peninsula, home to the O’Neills, the O’Dougherties, Saints Finian and Finnian, and to the famous school founded in the fifth century by the former who educated a whole choir of Irish saints and scholars. Home also to us. We were from Moville.

We are the Harkin (O’hearcáin) family, minor kings in Ireland, descendents of Saints Erc and Finnian. Moville looms large in our history and mythology. My grandfather, Big Hugh Jerome, left there under mysterious circumstances sometime in the 1870’s. His blood makes up only a quarter of my own which includes, in equal proportion, contributions from the counties Mayo, Roscommon and Cork. But if I am from anywhere—anywhere save Brooklyn—I am from Moville. This reality was imprinted on my self-awareness at an early age by a father who obviously thought it important. There are twenty-six of us second generation descendents of Hugh Jerome but I believe I am the only one with this sense of the home place.

I finally arrived in Moville three weeks before my seventy-first birthday. What I found was a prosperous, attractive town that looked, in some ways, like a neat American suburb. The houses are mostly newish, smaller than their counterparts in Westport or Yorktown Heights but clean, modern, well maintained and attractively landscaped. They sit in small developmentally related clusters. There are a few small coops repurposed from old forts and factories. There is still a commercial fishing fleet but it has moved to the satellite town of Greencastle. The dock from which so many emigrants left after the famine is still there although now used mostly for laying up slightly derelict work boats.

The district surrounding the town proper contains two “parishes” and fifty-five “townlands” or neighborhoods and, until recently, was smaller than before the famine. Both town and district are much larger than I have always imagined. All those new houses are on land that used to be small farms, not nearly as small as the pathetic tenant holdings of Mayo or Galway, but no larger than necessary to provide food and wool for a large family and barter for the few things you did not make yourself. Now, ten years after the Good Friday Agreement, many people commute to work across the border in Derry. There is prosperity even in a recession year.

The Moville of my heart is very different. It is a place where for generations things kept happening whose effects rippled out and came to rest against me. I will never know what they were or whether they were even noticed by those to whom they happened. Who knows which turn in the road changed everything utterly? But one of them caused Big Hugh to migrate to Brooklyn where he met Ellen Howard lately of County Cork. As Francis Thompson taught us, “Thou canst not stir a flower / Without troubling of a star.”

In 1837, the townships were home to 10,687 souls It was a remote, windswept landscape with an economy based on fishing and shipping. Almost every family farmed. They were culturally isolated but cultured nonetheless. The tradition of educating their children pre-dated Christianity and, in the early part of the nineteenth century there were a half dozen schools. After the Great Hunger, there were no schools, very few priests and no form of representative government at any level. Still, almost everybody could read and write English. Except for praying and singing, they spoke no Irish. The music of Inishowen, however, was noticeably different from the rest of Ireland. It consisted of three or four unique and antique Celtic styles whose scales contain bent notes and microtones not unlike those of the Delta blues. These derive from the most ancient of instruments and, until the advent of the electric guitar, were most easily realized on modern fiddles. Not surprisingly, Inishowen has given us some of the greatest fiddlers and fiddle music. The men of old included immortals like Neilly Boyle, Francie Byrne, Con Cassidy, Frank Cassidy, and James Byrne. Still playing are such notables as Vincent Campbell, John Gallagher, Paddy Glackin, Danny O'Donnell, and Tommy Peoples. Dozens of internationally known singers have come from Donegal including, currently, Enya and the two bands Clannad and Altan. Oh, yes, the music. Even as a child, I understood William Irwin Thompson’s claim that, “For a Celt, the world is made of music.”

The people I imagined were individualistic, enduring, phlegmatic. They were simultaneously generous, charming and welcoming. Most of all, they had a strong sense of the absurd and could laugh at their tormentors and themselves. Penal times persisted in Inishowen for decades after Dan O’Connell achieved emancipation in 1838 but the English had little presence and the Church of Ireland folks, as isolated as their neighbors, tended to be less sectarian than their Protestant, mostly Presbyterian brethren in the rest of Ulster. The isolation protected everyone against the Catholic bishops and their Roman masters who contributed so generously to British imperialism. Priests assigned to Donegal from Maynooth or reassigned from other places were being punished for some sin or other. Most easily accommodated themselves to the prevailing Pelagian heresy and those that resisted it were, often as not, dealt with. Some were merely ignored. Others were actively shunned. It is said that in 1873 one of the O’Neill boys actually killed a priest who was seen consorting with a local Cruelty Man and then killed the Cruelty Man himself by hanging him upside down and shooting him in the testicles.

One cannot imagine such a thing happening in modern Moville. Indeed, one cannot look at the town today and see the way it must have been 130 or 140 years ago when Big Hugh left. The thought that first comes to mind is the Old Fella wouldn’t recognize the place. But on reflection I realize he certainly would feel right at home. I know this because I felt the same way. For one thing, I had never been in a place where there were so many Harkinses—three and a half columns in the phone book, dozens of them in the old cemeteries. Main Street stores and offices: Harkin’s Gifts, Harkin Beauty, Harkin Solicitor and so forth. In all my life, I’d met only one other Harkins who was not closely related to me. But the connection was more than that. It seemed that the soul of the place resonated with my own soul.

Places, you know, do have souls. I have experienced a similar sense of presence standing in front of the Cathedral of Our Lady in Chartres, at the shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York, and in the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy. In Moville, though, I had the immediate visceral sense that I belonged. It is not easy to explain.

Although I never thought about it, it was not surprising that the town would have changed dramatically between the 1870’s and the Good Friday Agreement. It did surprise me that it has changed even more since. Remote, beautiful, wind-swept Donegal is still a physical fact. Moville still rises from the shore of Lough Foyle. But remoteness no longer imposes isolation. The global village has arrived. The information revolution has linked the town to the emerging planetary uberculture. When the Troubles receded in 1999, citizens on both sides of the border understood that the political resolution might be temporary and even fragile but they decided to act as though it was now safe to ignore the politicians and other crazies. In 2002, I wrote, “If the Accord lasts 20 years, it may last 100 and that might be time enough to do some good.” Good in that sentence meant peaceful reunification which I believe will ultimately materialize even though I now realize that it is irrelevant to virtually everyone living there now. Back and forth they go every day and no one seems to remember where the checkpoints used to be. Not forgotten exactly, but like everything else in Ireland—the Flight of the Earls, the Wild Geese, the Penal Laws, the Transportation, the Ascendency, the Great Hunger, the War of Independence and the Civil War—the harsh history has done its work and acquired a soft edge. The Celtic Tiger brought prosperity and, with it, the business cycle. At the moment, Ireland is suffering from a terrible recession induced by the same forces that have wreaked havoc everywhere. Things are somewhat better in Derry due to a successful development plan undertaken in the late 1990’s and, as Derry goes, so go the communities of nearby Inishowen including Moville.

Things change but the soul of a place is cumulative. Nothing important is ever lost. A town retains its history and the repercussions—emotional and spiritual—of that history, its genius loci. In “The Gift Outright,” Robert Frost argues that people and their places belong naturally to each other. If we deny the connection, we diminish ourselves. “Something we were withholding made us weak / 
Until we found out that it was ourselves 
/ We were withholding…” Standing for the first time in Market Square, I was not the tourist, the stranger, the other. I was part of Moville’s history, part of the story, a small offstage part and more important to me than to Moville, but still both a giver and a receiver.

“THE HOWARDS, THE HOWARDS, THE ANCIENT, GLORIOUS HOWARDS!”

Jerry Harkins

I am a Howard on my paternal grandmother’s side and the title of this essay is a toast often raised in my family. My father was Howard Edward Harkins [1] and I have a brother, John Howard Harkins. My granduncle was Judge John Howard, and I inherited the Howard silverplate from his sisters, my maiden grandaunts, the teachers Jane and Annie Howard. I had a cousin Howard Harkins of fond if not sainted memory, and have a cousin, Paul Howard Landau, a gentleman, the son of a gentleman and a truly gentle lady.

Two generations ago, two Irish families of the Brooklyn diaspora joined fortunes through the marriages of two Harkins brothers to two Howard sisters. The former were scions of the O’hEarcáin clan of Moville, County Donegal,[2] descendents in the direct male line of Saint Finian of Moville.[3] The Howards were the Anglo-Norman-Irish branch of one of Perfidious Albion’s most distinguished families. The nameplate that graces the family townhouse hard by St. Stephen’s Green reads O’hOurahan which is a backward rendering of the name into Irish—perhaps a reverse snobbery.

My particular branch of this vast and complex family settled in County Cork shortly after Strongbow defeated the ragtag Corkmen of Dermot McCarty in 1174. Dermot had been the first Irishman to cast his lot with Henry II, thinking the monarch had come to settle scores with Strongbow and not taking into account the capacity of the English to renege on mere treaties. The early Howards left few traces. It wasn’t until the English branch of the family came into prominence that the record becomes richer. Not in Ireland, of course, at least not until Elizabeth I began to exile upper crust Howards there. There was a Jane Howard of Cork who got herself listed as a landowner in Pender’s Census of 1659. Since this was at the height of the Cromwellian genocide, Jane had to have been some sort of Protestant. There was also a John Howard of Cork whose will was probated in 1741. With an estate large enough to require probate, he too was probably a Protestant.

The first well-documented Howard was Robert of Norfolk (1336-1388), a Norman [4] landowner who married Margaret Scales (1339-1416). They had one child, a son, the first John Howard (1365-1436), who married Margaret Plaiz (b. 1368). Their son Robert (1385-1437) married Margaret Mowbray, the daughter of Thomas Mowbray who was the first Duke of Norfolk but who was banished by Richard II in the aftermath of the Bolingbroke affair, the bloody feud that forms the heart of Shakespeare’s play about that accursed monarch (take your pick; I meant Henry but Richard was an equally obnoxious pervert). While these famous events were transpiring, Robert and Margaret had a son, the second John Howard (1430-1489), who became the second [5] Duke of Norfolk and the Earl Marshall of England in 1483.

The third Duke was Thomas Howard (1473-1554) who was the uncle of Anne Boleyn. [6] Thomas himself was condemned to death for treason but, unlike his niece, he managed to survive when Henry VIII died the evening before the scheduled decapitation. One of Tom’s sons had been named Henry [7] for obvious sucking-up reasons. Henry became a third rate poet and the Earl of Surrey but led a star-crossed life. He was the foster brother and brother-in-law of another Henry, Henry Fitzroy, who, as the name implies, was one of the tribe of bastard sons of Henry VIII. He, the Earl, ended up beheaded for treason on the testimony of his sister, Mary Howard Fitzroy, wife of the bastard and no mean bastard in her own right. His brother George Howard, Viscount of Rochford (through his wife Jane) was beheaded along with his sister Anne Boleyn for alleged incest between them. It wasn’t true, of course, but His Majesty had to blame someone for the stillbirth of Anne’s son. His own manhood was unquestionable. When he arrived at the block, George said, "Masters all, I am come hither not to preach a sermon but to die, as the law hath found me, and to the law I submit me." His cousin, Catherine Howard, also married the King and, in keeping with family tradition, was the only other wife he beheaded. [8] For Anne whom he actually seems to have liked, he had provided an expert swordsman imported from France for the occasion. No such niceties attended Catherine’s date with the axman. It should be admitted that various of the Howards (as well as George’s wife Jane) had testified against George, Anne and, later, Catherine but almost all of them lost their heads also. Hopefully for perjury.

The fourth Duke was Henry’s son Thomas (1538-1572) who turned out to be a supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots. It was suggested that he marry the lady but he declined. Instead, he plotted with the Spanish court to overthrow Elizabeth I which was a fatal error in judgment. Thomas’ son and heir, Philip Howard, “enjoyed the favor of the queen” for a time but was later twice tried for treason, the first time for reconciling with Rome, the second for allegedly praying for the success of the Spanish Armada. While the court ruled that prayer could not be treason, Philip was condemned anyway. British justice is famous for making subtle distinctions that leave the rest of us breathless. In the event, Philip evaded the headsman by dying in prison. Nevertheless, he was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as one of the 40 British “martyrs.” Don’t ask. [9] Philip’s brother, Lord William Howard, Lord High Admiral of Britain, was another one who married well, to the lovely Elizabeth Dacre whose inheritance included the vast estate upon which the family would establish Castle Howard. The castle was actually built several generations later by Charles Howard, the third Earl of Carlisle and Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber. Again, don’t ask. Meanwhile, Lord William’s son, Charles, Earl of Nottingham and Baron of Effingham, followed his father’s footsteps, becoming Lord High Admiral of Her Majesty’s fleet just in time to become the victor over the Spanish Armada in the late summer of 1588. [10] Charles’ brother, William, Jr., is presently awaiting canonization in Rome. The seventh earl was a fellow named George who was something of a dandy and who was twice named Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Charles Howard was an 18th Century Earl of Suffolk who is best known for marrying the Lady Henrietta who served also as mistress to King George II. She was by all accounts an attractive and witty woman but, like so many of the Hanoverians, George was an ingrate. On one occasion he described her as an “…old, dull, deaf, peevish beast.”

Not all members of the family died ignominiously but that was the general drift of things for several centuries. Elizabeth I exiled several Howards to Ireland where, following local tradition, they bred prolifically and managed to survive in what passed for high style with castles and townhouses aplenty. For the most part, the family in England, Ireland and Australia, remained true to its Catholic traditions, often at considerable cost. Through the centuries, it kept turning out notable sons and daughters. Elizabeth Howard, for one, was the wife of John Dryden and a decent poet in her own right. The third John Howard was High Sheriff of Bedfordshire and a noted prison reformer. He was the first warden not to charge prisoners for their meals. Luke Howard (1772-1864) is generally regarded as the father of meteorology and the godfather of clouds. General Tilghman A. Howard was a U.S. Senator from Indiana and American Charge d’Affaires to the Republic of Texas. Sir Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928) was a pioneer Nebraskan [11] who returned to London and started the city garden movement. The Comtesse de Beauregard was originally the English courtesan Lizzie Howard who in 1851 lent 800,000 francs to the Emperor Napoleon which he used to bribe key members of the military thereby assuring the success of his coup d’ etat. The grateful Emperor bestowed the title to recognize the lady’s contributions. [12] Sylvia Howard was the paternal grandmother of William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States and, later, the tenth Chief Justice. [13] Roy W. Howard (1883-1964) was the editorial head of the Scripps-Howard newspapers and, for many years, President of the United Press and its successor, UPI. John Winston Howard is the former Prime Minister of Australia. Even the late Lady Diana Frances Spencer [14], daughter of the eighth Earl Spencer, has a collateral and perhaps legitimate connection to the family through the first Visount Althorp, another ill-fated supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots.

It is a quirk of history that the only English word that rhymes with Howard may be the only pejorative that does not fairly describe one or another of the members of the family. Indeed, they were and remain a swashbuckling bunch. Two of England’s most famous regiments are the Green Howards and the Buff Howards, both named after Eighteenth Century Regimental Commanders, Charles of the Greens, Thomas and George of the Buffs. The Greens fought on the wrong side in the Battle of the Boyne, (1690) and the American Revolution but redeemed themselves on June 6, 1944 at Gold Beach in Normandy. [15] The Buffs were an important part of Marlborough’s forces at Blenheim (1704) and Wellington’s at Waterloo (1815) and played a notably heroic role at the bloody Battle of Anzio in 1944. [16]

John Eager Howard was a hero of the American Revolution who later served as Governor of Maryland and a United States Senator. It is his “warlike thrust” that is commemorated in the state song of Maryland. [17] His son George served as a General in the War of 1812 and his other son, Benjamin, was Governor of Maryland and a member of the House of Representatives. His great grandson, also John Eager, was the father of endocrinology. Oliver Otis Howard (1830-1909) was the commanding general of the Army of Tennessee and led Sherman’s right flank in the famous march through Georgia. He lost his right arm at the Battle of Fair Oaks. He received the Medal of Honor and went on to become the founding President of the great university that bears our name. He also wrote biographies of Zachary Taylor and Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Nation. Major John Howard led a vanguard of 150 volunteers from the British 6th Airborne Glider Infantry in the first battle of D-day. At 12:20 AM, they landed deep behind the Normandy beaches and seized two vital bridges over the Caen Canal and the Orne River. John’s cousin, Mark Howard, was killed in the invasion later that day and his brother Christopher died flying with the famous 617th Squadron, the Dambusters [18]. Major General Miles Howard, the 17th Duke of Norfolk [19], fought throughout North Africa and Europe. He was awarded the Military Cross for bravery under enemy fire. His 2002 obituary in The Times quoted him as saying "Anyone can be the Duke of Norfolk, but I'm rather proud of that medal." The American General James Howell Howard was the only World War II pilot in Europe to win the Medal of Honor. He was the only ace in both the European and Pacific theaters and in one engagement he single-handedly fought off 30 German fighters attacking an American bomber squadron. Earlier, he had flown 56 missions over the hump as a member of the Flying Tigers. [20] There was another James H. Howard, an American Admiral, who was awarded the Silver Star for saving the lives of sailors under fire in the Battle of the Solomon Islands.[21]

Finally, our own era has been graced by the life and death of George Howard, a Port Authority cop who raced into work on an off day when he heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. It was the second time he had done something like this. During the first bombing in 1993, he had rescued an elevator full of children by rappelling his way down the shaft and taking them out the top. Afterward he told an incredulous reporter, “That’s what they pay us for.” But his luck ran out the second time and he became one of the 400 rescue workers who died on September 11, 2001. In his eulogy, his brother Pat Howard, a New York City police sergeant, quoted a poem George had written about a colleague who had died in the line of duty. “He died a quiet hero, there really is no debate / He saved the lives of others, snatching victory from defeat” His mother, Arlene, a Navy veteran of World War II, gave his badge, Number 1012, to President Bush who said he would keep it with him always.
All these Howards are related to each other and to me. The family tree is many-branched and, at this late date, none of us carries more than a tiny genetic inheritance from Robert of Norfolk. Even as an Irish person with a considerable amount of Celtic blood, however, chances are I have as much Howard blood by percentage as the current Duke. I’m happy to say.

Notes

1. HEH was the twelfth of twelve children, born on May 26, 1908. On the eighth day they took him up to Our Lady of Perpetual Help to be baptized. It was in the middle of a blistering heat wave and powerful thirsts had been potently slaked. The priest allowed as to how there had never been a Saint Howard, so Daddy acquired Edward as a middle name. In the general alcoholic miasma, he was named after the English king who by rights should be remembered as Edward II but is called Saint Edward the Confessor (1003-1066). The Harkins side never caught on to the Anglo-Irish pretensions involved here. But the connections are rich.

King Eddie was, arguably, the least effective of all English monarchs, a class of Neanderthals genetically predisposed to ineffectuality. He enjoyed a companionate marriage to Edith, but he was not a priest. I wish I could enlighten you as to why he was called Confessor, but can only speculate that he had much to confess, including his share of the blame for losing England to the Normans. Granted he was six months dead at the time but he had done much to set the stage, following the course laid out by his father, Æthelred the Unready. As death neared, Edward named Edith’s brother as his successor. This, of course, was Harold II, the Hapless. But Edward had previously promised the throne to another cousin, William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, and it was this duplicity that led to the unpleasantness at Hastings on the only memorable date in English history, October 14, 1066. Anyway, you see the theme that emerges from all this. What’s in a name, indeed! Poor daddy!

2. The Brits always get this wrong. You will find Moville situated in County Down in English publications, even engraved in the stones of Westminster Abbey. On maps and on the ground, however, you will find it on the west bank of Lough Foyle, comfortably within the boundaries of Donegal and the Irish Free State. The Inishowen Peninsula was anciently part of Tyrconnell (the Land of Connell, the second son of Niall of the Nine Hostages) which was, in turn, part of Ulster. The eastern part of Down was also part of Tyrconnell which is probably the source of the confusion.

3. Actually, the second Finian of Moville, he of the Tenth Century. The first was Finnian, a Sixth Century teacher and scholar.

4. The name appears to be of Scandinavian origin, a combination of ha meaning high and ward meaning guardian or warden. In English, a warden is a guardian while a ward is a person guarded. Thomas himself was many generations removed from his barbarian forebears.

5. You often see him referred to as the first duke because he was the first Howard to hold the title which, of course, he got because his father had married well. This became a defining characteristic of the whole family.

6 . Anne’s mother was his sister, Elizabeth Howard who had married Thomas Boleyn.

7. This was the first in an intimidating number of Henry’s and Harry’s on the family tree. In 1857, Harry Howard was elected Fire Engineer for New York through the patronage of his good friend and former fire fighter, Boss Tweed. In our own time, Harry Howard married the heiress to the Butterick Pattern Company which he promptly sold to American Can of which he became Vice Chairman. He ran the whole thing into the ground and sold the corpse to Gerry Tsai who chopped it up into dog food and sold the empty shell to Sandy Weill who turned it into today’s CitiGroup.

8. Catherine was convicted on a bill of attainder that Henry sought and obtained from Parliament about 14 months into the marriage. The act declared that it was treason for an unchaste woman to marry the king. Catherine had been a lusty young lady, a fact that was well known to His Majesty who was one of the suitors who had enjoyed her favors. She was beheaded two days after the verdict. She was seventeen. Anne, on the other hand, was convicted on completely trumped up charges of adultery and incest with her brother George, Viscount Rochford.

9. It is not clear how one who dies of natural causes, even in prison, can be said to be a martyr but, then again, the Pope has special insights. Among the 40 chosen for sainthood in 1970 was Edmund Campion, S.J., who returned to England to minister to the Catholics in hiding. He wrote Campion’s Brag which I haven’t read but for which he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn.

10. Howard’s Number 2 was Sir Francis Drake, the famous pirate who also occasionally enjoyed the favor of the queen. His Number 3 was Sir John Hawkins, another pirate and slave trader. Hawkins made the key contribution to the victory by designing the faster, lighter but more heavily armed warships that did the Spanish in.

11. Howard County is located about 150 miles due west of Omaha. There are also Howard Counties, named in honor of various other members of the family, in Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Texas and, of course, Maryland.

12. Who says Emperors don’t have nuanced senses of humor? Beauregard, of course, means beautiful and Napoleon III like his illustrious uncle was certainly a connoisseur of feminine beauty.

13. Taft’s father, Alfonso, had been Secretary of War under Grant and his mother was Louisa Torrey, an 1845 graduate of Mount Holyoke. His son was Mr. Republican, Senator Bob Taft of Ohio from 1939 to 1953.

14. The women in the family never married as well as their brothers and, of course, Lady Di was no exception. I mean, Charles Phillip Arthur George Windsor may be a Prince but he is also a first class ass. See my essay, “Things His Father Never Taught Him.” By the way, Lady Di’s brother, also Charles (the Queen is his Godmother), is the current Lord Althorp and a perfect ass in his own right.

15. The Battle of the Boyne was fought before the Howards became associated with the regiment. It should also be noted that since the early Twentieth Century, the Colonel-in-Chief has been a member of the royal family of Norway, currently King Harald V.

16. Buff, in this case, refers to the buffalo’s dark tan coat not to a regiment accustomed to fighting in the nude. Anzio was the brainchild of Winston Churchill and turned out to be almost as disastrous as a similar plan he promoted in World War I. That, of course, was the Battle of Gallipoli in which the casualties were primarily troops of Australia and New Zealand.

17. The “warlike thrust” refers to a brilliant maneuver he commanded that won the day at the Battle of Cows Pen, South Carolina on January 17, 1781. Or maybe it had something to do with needing a phrase to rhyme with “Carroll’s sacred trust.” (With deep subjects like geneaology, you have to learn to take the bad with the good. The state song of Maryland is based on a poem written in 1861 by one James Ryder Randall. It complains about the Unionist sympathies of some traitors and looks forward to the day when Noble Maryland, “spurns the Northern scum.” It is sung to the tune of “O Christmas Tree.”

18. Christopher did not join the squadron until after its most famous exploit, Operation Chastise, the bombing of strategic German dams on the night of May 16-17, 1943. During the mission, 8 of the squadron’s 19 planes were lost and 53 of its 133 members were killed. These were indeed brave lads who specialized in low level skip bombing. After two years of trying to destroy the formidable battleship DKM Tirpitz, sister ship of the Bismark, the allies sent in the Dambusters. Weathering an absolute blizzard of anti-aircraft fire, they sank the behemoth with two 12,000-pound bombs on November 12, 1944.

19. Properly styled, “His Grace, The Most Noble Miles Francis Stapleton Fitzalan Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Premier Duke and Earl of England, Baron Beaumont, Baron Howard of Glossop, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, Companion of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Earl Marshal, and Hereditary Marshal of England.” His Grace was born in 1915 and married Anne Mary Maxwell in 1949. He succeeded to the Beaumont and Glossop baronies in 1975 on the death of his formidable mother, Lady Ethel. He and Lady Anne had five children among whom the eldest son, Edward William Howard is the current Duke. The family remains staunchly Roman Catholic.

20. General Howard died on March 18, 1995 at the age of 81. He published his memoirs, Roar of the Tiger, in 1991.

21. Howard was an officer on the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans which participated in a record 15 battles in the Pacific. It survived Pearl Harbor and played a leading role in the Battle of the Coral Sea. When the aircraft carrier USS Lexington was mortally wounded, the New Orleans stood hard by her burning decks at great danger to itself and was able to rescue a good part of her crew. The New Orleans was hit often and hard and twice had to be drydocked for major repairs. She returned to action each time.

GREENHORNS AND NARROWBACKS

Jerry Harkins

Some years ago, I wrote a short treatise called Narrowback’s History of Ireland. As I explained at the time, it represented, “…a pale shadow of the unstarted book length project to which the late Howard E. Harkins devoted the last 30 years of his life.” As it turned out, the market for such an effort was not exuberant. I now realize that it might have helped had I been a bit more forthcoming about the word “narrowback.” I did say it refers to a “…certain habit of mind characteristic of the American children and grandchildren of the Irish immigrants…a kind of intellectual hubris that assures one that knowledge is important only when it is certain to be on the test.” In other words, Irish history happened a long time ago, some of it even before people had television, and it is just not compelling to a generation brought up on Blackberries and American Idol.

Irish Americans are perfectly prepared to strut and fret their shamrocks, leprechauns and green beer on March 17—loudly, pugnaciously even, and always generously informed by “the creature taken.” Fortunately, however, celebration does not require actual knowledge of what is being celebrated. It is sufficient to drink, dance and be merry. The spirituality of a fifth century saint is simply less riveting than all the other things that compete for the attention of the hyperactive, multitasking Irish American community. Now that I think on it, even explaining the term probably will not increase sales of the book. Nevertheless.

Irish Americans tend to come in two flavors: those who know and care little about the heritage and those who possess vast amounts of misinformation to which they are ready to swear. The old community storyteller—the Seanchaí—is no longer the central feature of every circle of friends. Thus, the student interested in Irish American culture is forced to seek it in the surviving Irish fraternal organizations which are almost universally embarrassing. Exhibit A is the 80,000-member Ancient Order of Hibernians, a society whose original mission was to protect Catholic churches against the ravages of Protestant intellectuals intent on burning them down. They (I mean, of course, the AOH stalwarts but if you want to to think it was the Protestant intellectuals, well no one will fault you.) performed this much-needed and often heroic service in Ireland in the aftermath of the Lord Protector Cromwell’s depredations and in nineteenth century New York in defense against the Know Nothings and other defenders of Jeffersonian democracy. Today, however, they are reduced to campaigning against abortion, agitating for a united Ireland and protecting the purity of the St. Patrick’s Day parade by keeping the gays out. For years, they resisted having a woman named Grand Marshall of the parade so as not to offend the hierarchy. These are, of course, worthy causes even if they are a bit down market. However successful, assimilated and intermarried they become, Irish Americans still present a hang dog face to the world. Defeat and depression rise miasma-like from the prose of our writers. Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill, the McCourt brothers, and the others are merely following in the footsteps of the master, Eugene O’Neill. Do you remember Con Melody? “I have not loved the World, nor the World me.” He wants you to know (a) he is miserable and (b) he has read Lord Byron. “I’m done — finished — no future but the past.” Back to Pete. The first sentence of the biography on his official website is this: “Pete Hamill is a novelist, essayist and journalist whose career has endured for more than forty years.” Endured! You could look it up. It means to suffer. Like Jesus endured the cross only a lot longer.

Look at our periodicals. You’ll have to do it by yourself as I get bored looking at the vacant mug of the local bishop at yet another affair honoring some nondescript real estate speculator and, of course, “the lovely Mrs. Speculator.” Number One among the Top Hundred Irish-American Real Estate Speculators Of 2009. The Irish Roots Of Barack O’bama. At present we are being told that he is only 3% Irish (2 of his 64 great-great-great-great-grandparents) but the number is sure to rise over the next eight years. (If the morons who run the church had succeeded in banning him from speaking at the Notre Dame commencement exercises, we might have been spared this speculation.) Listen to Tommy Michael Smyth, perennial co-host of NBC’s parade coverage, as he extols the virtues of one obscure marcher after another. The people are interchangeable, it’s their achievements you have to pay attention to. Congratulations, Timmy, on the new job. Timmy is the new assistant deputy sewer commissioner. Hello, there, Mike, how are the marvelous grandchildren? The nine-year-old has just earned a girl scout badge for macramé. And here’s Father John Pat just back from six months rest cure in Arizona. Sobriety and two strokes off the handicap. Nice going, Father.

Nearly a half century after Jack Kennedy, we are desperate to protect whatever acceptance we might have gained. In part of course it is history, in part geography. For a thousand years and more we were sorely oppressed by the English and the holy Roman church, thralls to the former, pawns to the latter. And we were not like other Europeans. We lived at the end of the world far removed from the history of our nearest neighbors and speaking a language that was neither Latinate nor Teutonic. As European artists struggled through the centuries to create ever more accurate representations of their world, we were dealing in abstract symbols. Until the British came, ours was the most egalitarian and humane society the world had ever seen.

But Ireland fell on hard times. The song is true: the idiot Brits made it a capital offense to wear green clothes. The Flight of the Earls, the Wild Geese, the Penal Laws, the Ascendency, the Transportation, Cromwell and don’t forget the Famine. The Great Hunger, An Gorta Mor. The Troubles. That kind of experience leaves a scar on the soul of a people. It never heals and it takes generations to be rid of the nightmares.

At last though Ireland is changing. The English are gone, the clergy exorcised and, since the 1990’s, there have been years when the Irish have posted the highest standard of living in the EU. The Celtic Tiger attracted immigrants from all over the world. It took unspeakable sex scandals to throw off the yoke of the Roman church. The Irish have a long way to go but they have outlawed discrimination against gays and are about to enact the Civil Partnerships Act. Despite the bitter opposition of the hierarchy, Irish men and women, married and otherwise, can now buy condoms without a doctor’s prescription. And they seem to be doing it. The birth rate is still the highest in the EU but it has been declining every year since 2003. Ireland now has the 150th highest birth rate in the world. The United States is Number 151.

It is too soon to deplore or celebrate these changes or even to predict what Ireland will be like in ten years or a hundred and, anyway, that’s not the point. Ireland has changed already but hard-core Irish Americans have not. The total community is divided roughly 90 to 10, indifferent to hard core. The latter live in myth instead of history while the former are innocent of both. There are tens of thousands of the latter who refer to the government in Dublin as traitors and puppets for being heirs to the 1921 treaty. Among the former, neither they nor their parents know anything of the principals of that time, of O’Higgins or Collins. Indeed, they don’t recognize de Valera or Rossa as Irish names never mind someone called Barú. Names like Wolfe Tone, Napper Tandy and Daniel O’Connell are simply words in songs their parents used to sing. On Saint Paddy’s Day, you’ll hear The Minstrel Boy a hundred times but you won’t find one Irish American in a million who knows anything about Thomas Moore.

The fault, dear friends, is not in our stars but in our institutions. The church and the fraternal organizations have found it profitable to keep us beholden to them and to their surrealistic vision of the mother country. Only a dying minority keep even that faith today and they abide in ignorance and despair. The rest are embarrassed and have tried to rid themselves and their children of the myth and the history both. They have succeeded and so have abandoned the glorious heritage.

MAESTRO:
Celebrity, Obscurity and Serge Koussevitzky

Jerry Harkins

Serge Alexandrovich Koussevitzky (1874 – 1951) was arguably the most influential classical musician of the twentieth century. Not the best, not the most popular, not the most knowledgeable, just the most influential. Born into an impoverished family of klezmer musicians in the town of Vyshny-Volochok just outside the Russian Pale, he learned to play a variety of instruments at home and then studied the double bass at the then-new Moscow Conservatory. His second wife, Natalie, was a talented daughter of the Ushkov family whose great wealth derived from a tea monopoly granted by Tsar Nicholas I in the hope of reducing vodka consumption. Her money allowed him to become an important patron of the great Russian modernists, Scriabin, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. He commissioned, published and performed some of their most important works and, for several years, he was Scriabin’s financial mainstay.

He became the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in 1924 and immediately set about promoting the first generation of explicitly American composers—Copland, Harris, Hanson, Barber, Schuman, Piston and his most important protégé Leonard “Lenuska” Bernstein. He commissioned and premiered hundreds of important works from them and their European counterparts—Ravel, Hindemith, Bartok, Britten, Honegger, Milhaud, Messiaen and Schoenberg. The numbers are impressive. During his tenure, the BSO gave the world premiers of 149 compositions. He or his foundation commissioned nearly a thousand works and the foundation, now housed in the Library of Congress, is still at it. He imagined a summer music festival and school in 1914 and created it at Tanglewood, Massachusetts in 1940. For eight weeks each year, it is still the spiritual center of American classical music.

Koussevitzky’s contributions were widely recognized throughout his life. With Toscanini and Stokowski, he was one of the first brand name conductors on the strength of recordings he made beginning in 1925. He was a celebrity. His comings and goings were chronicled in the social pages of all the leading newspapers. He received ten honorary doctorates. Today, however, he is all but forgotten. There is no heroic bust on the banks of the Charles River as there is of Arthur Fiedler. There is no monument anywhere save for a modest stele placed near his grave by the Israel Philharmonic. Thirty-six years after his death, the Boston Symphony got around to naming the music shed at Tanglewood in his honor but it neglected to put up a sign saying so. There has been no posthumous biography.

Of course conductors tend to have short shelf lives. As fashions change, they also make tempting targets for critics, musicians and other malcontents. Koussevitzky was, by far, the wealthiest musician of his era which made him the object of more than his fair share of envy. [1] By all accounts, he was also a difficult, mercurial, overbearing autocrat, an elitist who insisted that his musicians live only to serve Art. Part of his problem was an almost pathological insecurity. He was always worried about being found out as a fraud. Enemies quickly exploited this Achilles’ heel and even friends could easily feed into it. Arthur Fiedler for one understandably feared and despised him. Fiedler was a BSO violinist as well as the conductor of the world famous Boston Pops. Koussevitzky did not approve of his musicians moonlighting, playing anything other than classical music or, worst of all sins, competing with himself even if the competition was imaginary. He made Fiedler’s life miserable with unpleasant comments and capricious decisions for nearly twenty years. [2] In the 1920’s, Koussevitzky hired Nicholas Slonimsky as his secretary. [3] He was awed by Slonimsky’s knowledge, musical memory and absolute pitch. But these talents also threatened him and their relationship ended when Koussevitzky misunderstood a comment he mistakenly attributed to Slonimsky.

If his long tenure with the Boston Symphony was not untroubled, his departure from it was even more unhappy. In essence, after 25 years, he was fired. He was exhausted after the 1948 season and wanted an assistant conductor, specifically the 30-year old Leonard Bernstein. The trustees disliked Lenny for reasons that have been speculated and gossiped about but never resolved. Maybe it was as simple as the fact he was a local boy, a prophet without honor in his hometown. For whatever reasons, the trustees refused and Koussevitzky tendered his resignation which, to his great surprise, was instantly accepted. It turned out the trustees were already well along in their negotiations with Charles Munch, so much so it may well be they had deliberately provoked Koussevitzky to get rid of him.

In spite of his troubles, Koussevitzky was generous with his students and with musicians in need. He was devoted to the composers of his time including not a few whose work he did not like and sometimes could not conduct. Even if a piece was poorly received, he would program it again and again. He said, "I will keep playing this music until you hear it." This loyalty was not always reciprocated. Some of his beneficiaries—Stravinsky and Samuel Barber among them—often spoke disparagingly about him. Stravinsky especially was vitriolic—in private, of course—for reasons that are best left to psychoanalysis. Although obviously offended by the disdain, Koussevitzky never let it influence his artistic judgment or his support for his detractors. He was once asked why Stravinsky never talked about him while he “bowed and scraped” before other conductors. Koussevitzky merely replied, “I have done so much for him that he has no words to express his gratitude.” [4]

He was often accused of poor preparation, vague direction and deficiency in technical skills. But as Erich Leinsdorf said, unlike some more gifted technicians, Koussevitzky did not merely direct traffic, he made music. On rare occasions he gave concerts that turned out disastrously and, lacking a sense of humor, he invariably blamed his musicians. On other occasions, he would decide himself that he was not sympathetic with a new piece and would pass the baton to his concertmaster Richard Burgin. Burgin was a Russian-speaking Pole who filled that position with distinction from 1920 to 1962. He was also a sensitive observer of Koussevitzky and frequently ran interference for him with the orchestra.

It may be that the basic problem was that Koussevitzky believed a score is a document requiring interpretation rather than a road map to be slavishly followed, not a view likely to endear him to composers. In a paper he wrote in connection with the honorary doctorate he received from Harvard, he claimed that such interpretation was an art in itself, on as high a plain as other forms of creativity. Moses Smith ridiculed this notion arguing, “”We do not change the architecture the better to appreciate it. We change ourselves.” Koussevitzky’s conducting scores are filled with revisions, “corrections” and annotations proving that at least the argument was well joined but also belying any notion that he did not prepare carefully. The argument itself, however, is bootless. Styles change and emotionalism in conducting did not come back into favor until the emergence of his great pupil, Leonard Bernstein.

It must be counted in his favor that he married three exceptional women who seem to have worshiped him. He divorced his first wife, Nadezhda Galat, a young ballerina, to marry the tea heiress Natalie Ushkov, who was also an accomplished sculptor. For their wedding, she gave him an orchestra that quickly became highly successful. It is thought that she made a settlement on Nadezhda who later named her first daughter Natalie. When Natalie died, he married her niece Olga, a brilliant woman, a fine writer and a talented caricaturist.

It was sometimes said that Koussevitzky converted to Russian Orthodoxy and promptly forgot his Jewish heritage at the time he married into the aristocratic Ushkov family. He may have; such conversions of convenience were not uncommon in Tsarist Russia and were generally meaningless gestures. He certainly made the transition from poor Jewish boy to wealthy Russian aristocrat in record time. The Ushkovs themselves were only a generation or two removed from their own Jewish roots. But Olga didn’t believe he had been converted and had him baptized on his deathbed. Actually, Koussevitzky always thought of himself as a Jew. At the prompting of his friend, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, he managed to bring some 200 Jewish and other endangered musicians out of Hitler’s Europe beginning in 1933. Still, his funeral service was a combination of Russian Orthodox and Episcopal rites and he was buried in the cemetery of the Congregational church in Lenox. [5]

There is a rich mythology surrounding the great man and it is difficult to discover or even guess which parts of what stories might be true. It is said, for example, that Mary Aspinwall Tappan gave or thought she gave her Tanglewood estate not to the Boston Symphony Orchestra but to Koussevitzky personally. It is believed by some that Olga transferred the deed to the Orchestra but there does not seem to be any public record of such a transaction. Scholars in Boston believe he meant to leave his papers to the Boston Public Library which has a large collection of his scores. It is rumored that the day after his death, a truck rolled up to his estate in Lenox and some 600 cartons were “removed” to the Library of Congress. When Olga died in 1978, she left all the material she still had to the Boston Library. His estranged nephew, the conductor Fabien Sevitzky, unsuccessfully challenged his will. The enmity between them became a catalyst for a great deal of speculation about his youth and his relationships with his parents and siblings. Many of the anecdotes recounted by Moses Smith in his 1946 biography, are questionable if only because Smith had no access to anyone, including Sevitzky, with first hand knowledge of events he reports as fact. [6] Some of Smith’s stories are demonstrably false.

None of this will surprise anyone familiar with the lives of great artists or conversant with the problems of interviewing people who knew them. Artists do not generally live their lives in sound bites and oral history is always at the mercy of memory and motive. Also, our culture does not always place a high value on dead artists. We make strange distinctions. There are popular songs known by millions of people who have no idea who composed them, songs that truly are part of the soundtrack of our lives like “Amazing Grace” and “White Christmas.” “Over the Rainbow” was named by the Recording Industry Association of America as the greatest popular song of the twentieth century. Millions of people associate it with Judy Garland but few remember the composer or the lyricist. Even well educated Americans would be hard pressed to name the sculptors of such iconic works as the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial, Mount Rushmore or even the Pieta in St. Peter’s. Every American instantly identifies with the farming couple of “American Gothic” but not many can say who painted it. Who built the Brooklyn Bridge or designed the Vietnam Wall? Who wrote “A Visit From Saint Nicholas” or “Paul Revere’s Ride?” Of course, these are all simple questions simply answered with a few clicks of a computer mouse. A few more clicks will provide enough information to alleviate the curiosity of almost anyone.

But a data base is no substitute for living memory. One of the most melancholy poems in English is Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” with its mocking questions:
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Of course not, and that is not the point of a memorial or of a biography.  Job (19:23-34) laments, “Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in rock forever.” He is not seeking justification of self but a record of his achievement. He knows he has played a small role in our understanding of the divine plan but, only when his story is embedded in the collective memory, will it and he become part of the cultural heritage and the social contract. Like Koussevitzky, his life marked a watershed of intellectual attainment. Unlike Koussevitzky, he had a good biographer.

Notes

1. Leopold Stokowski also married well, twice. His second wife was Evangeline Johnson, a Johnson and Johnson heiress. His third wife was Gloria Vanderbilt. He probably earned considerably more than Koussevitzky from his recording and film activities but the Ushkovs were a small family with a vast fortune to which Natalie was a principal heir.

2. Interestingly, Fiedler’s public image was as a charming, debonair man about town. He was a talented musician and a marketing genius. As described, however, by his daughter, Johanna, he was also misanthropic, an alcoholic and a womanizer. He seems to have been every bit as insecure as Koussevitzky. He too felt abused by the BSO trustees and the critics. See: Johanna Fiedler, Papa, the Pops and Me, Doubleday, 1994.

3. Nicolas Slonimsky (1894 - 1995) was a musical genius. He was a composer, conductor, pianist, accompanist, historian, critic and a prolific writer and editor. He was also a bon vivant and an extraordinary raconteur. His stories about Koussevitzky are humorous, often pointed but never really unkind. The only problem is they are not always accurate. Readers can only be certain that something like what he describes happened. See his autobiography, Perfect Pitch, Oxford University Press, 1988.

4. The quote appears as the epigraph to “Chronicle of a Non-Friendship: Letters of Stravinsky and Koussevitzky” by Victor Yuzefovich, The Musical Quarterly, Winter 2002, pp. 750-885. Neither principal was a model of maturity or even sanity.  Robert Craft who knew Stranvinsky better than anyone, wrote that he was, “…a man who was extremely anal, exhibitionistic, narcissistic, hypochondriacal, compulsive, and deeply superstitious. He was also quarrelsome and vindictive, which is stated not as moral judgment but merely as description of behavior.” See: “My Life With Stravinsky,” New York Review of Books, June 10, 1982.

5. Koussevitzky was not religious but he was certainly Jewish in the cultural sense. He was not political either but he was openly sympathetic to the Zionist cause. He rarely did any guest conducting except for his work with the Israel Philharmonic.

6. I have discussed the Smith biography elsewhere and have posted my first take on it at: jerrysfollies.blogspot.com/2008/03/assassination-by-niggling-curious-case.html. A reconsideration of some of the issues written 15 years later is posted at: jerrysfollies.blogspot.com/2008/05/rethinking-moses-smith-jerry-harkins.html.

The portrait of Serge Koussevitzky was drawn by Olga Koussevitzky.

Subsequently:  In the summer of 2014, Tanglewood unveiled a bust of Leonard Bernstein as part of a new program to honor several of its early leaders.  A statue of Aaron Copland had already been erected on the grounds and it was said Koussevitzky would follow shortly.  All three were commissioned and donated by the composer-conductor John Williams and were sculpted by Penelope Jencks whose works include the remarkable Eleanor Roosevelt in Riverside Park, New York.

THE FLAT EARTH SYNDROME
Jerry Harkins
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
—Daniel Patrick Moynihan

As any five-year old could have told Senator Moynihan it’s a free country and you can believe any damn fool thing you want. Seriously though, who would have thought that anyone born in the Twentieth Century, in the world’s most technologically advanced society and educated at two of its top universities could purport to believe, explicitly or implicitly, that:
• The universe was created ex nihilo on Monday, October 23, 4004 BC;
• In a three-day orgy of creative activity, God made every living creature, plant and animal, exactly in the form we see today—the plants on October 25th, the fish and birds on the 27th, land animals, both wild and domesticated, and Adam on the 28th;
• Evolution is a myth—otherwise known as “only a theory”—and the so-called fossil record is a hoax put here by Satan to confuse God’s children;
• There is no such thing as global warming and, even if there were, (a) it would be too expensive to do anything about, and (b) it will probably turn out to be beneficial;
• Deficit spending is the way to fiscal health, especially if we borrow to give tax breaks to wealthy campaign contributors;
• Clear cutting is the best way to assure “healthy forests;”
• We are winning the war on terrorism.

You may think I’m exaggerating, but in fact there are many Americans who actually do subscribe to all the above ideas or something very close to them. Twenty percent of American adults believe the sun revolves around the earth. Millions upon millions are scientifically illiterate and proud of it. But only one is the President of the United States and a graduate of both Harvard and Yale. George W. Bush is a man who knows no science, does not believe what he is told about science, and does not trust scientists. When necessary, he searches high and low for charlatans who will flog his political agenda without reference to the evidence. It isn’t always easy but eventually he can come up with people willing to tell him that star wars is eminently feasible, that condoms do not prevent pregnancy or AIDS because latex is permeable, that embryonic stem cell research is tantamount to premeditated murder, and that dumping an extra 80 million tons of mercury into the air will not harm anyone or anything. Sometimes the search fails. When it came time to find someone to run FEMA, he had to settle for a horse’s ass. When he was unable to find a respected physician to put in charge of women’s health, he gave the job to a respected veterinarian. He sent a 24-year old campaign worker, one George C. Deutsch, over to NASA to help with their public affairs efforts. Not that he knew anything about science or engineering, just that he worked for the Bush campaign. So this incompetent wrote policy restricting media access to a leading climate scientist (Mr. Bush does not believe in climate science) and directed that all NASA documents use the word “theory” every time they refer to the Big Bang (Theory). Like many of his co-ignoramuses, Mr. Deutsch seems to think that “theory” is a dirty word. No matter. They had to fire him when it developed that he had lied on his resume, claiming a bachelor’s degree from Texas A and M that he didn’t have, much to that institution’s relief.

If they fired everybody in the Bush administration caught lying, we would have achieved the conservative Utopia: no government at all.

But it is the mercury story that best illustrates Mr. Bush’s overall attitude toward science. Mercury is a deadly poison. Power plants emit most of it—about 48 million tons every year. It gets into the air, then into the water, then into fish which people eat. It causes disease and death especially for children and the fetuses so beloved of Republicans. You will not find an independent scientist anywhere who has a kind word for mercury pollution. Forty-five states have issued advisories warning their citizens about dangerous levels of it in their fish. Even the feds have issued regulations requiring a 21% reduction over a five year period. Of course, the EPA’s proposal is de minimis. Two groups of state and local regulators have called it “severely flawed” and have proposed a plan they say will achieve a 95% reduction over the same period. Immediately, power industry trade groups howled like stuck pigs. The technology doesn’t work and is too expensive.  It will hurt consumers living on fixed incomes. The usual off-the-wall lies told by the folks who contributed nearly $500,000 to the Bush re-election campaign. The minimalist EPA mandates would have been cheap at twice the price. It was, however, a sure bet that the influence buyers would not be disappointed.

All this would be of little permanent import except that it gives sanction and a certain kind of respectability to ignorance, an effect I call the flat earth syndrome. Any idea exposed to the light of day will gather momentum in direct proportion to the celebrity of the people who propound it regardless of their credentials or its merit. This is merely a variation on P.T. Barnum’s Law that there’s a sucker born every minute. Thus, Tom Cruise can denounce anyone who takes prescription medication for depression and it matters not that Mr. Cruise is an ignoramus or that his theory is bonkers. Lots of Americans believe him, just as millions of Americans think that alien space ships have crashed in Roswell, New Mexico and that alligators live in the sewers of New York City. According to a recent CBS poll, 65% of Americans think creationism should be taught in the schools instead of evolution. The same people would denounce relativity, electromagnetism and continental drift if they had any idea what these theories are about or even if Mr. Cruise said they were harmful to the prosperity of thetans who seem to be people so endowed with theta that they can function without the inconvenience of a material body. Of course, without his own body, Mr. Cruise would be flipping burgers back in Glen Ridge.

By itself, ignorance rarely does much damage and, of course, error has its rights. The typical American has always been ignorant about science but that hasn’t stopped American scientists from winning Nobel Prizes, sending astronauts to the moon or developing polio vaccines. Thomas Edison survived a brief encounter with American education.   Bill Gates lasted long enough to drop out of Harvard in his junior year. Every single advance in computer technology came from an American scientific mind, educated or not. So what am I worried about?

It is not ignorance, it is ignorance at play in the arena of religio-political ideology. There are millions of African children who have died or will die because George Bush believes condoms are immoral and don’t work anyway. If he thought they did work and could save millions of lives, either he would have to rethink his moral theology or stand guilty of genocide. He is not big on changing his mind; he calls it “flip-flopping.”

Or take the matter of Plan B, the so-called “morning after” pill that prevents a woman from getting pregnant after unprotected intercourse. The manufacturer applied to the FDA for approval to market the pill over the counter—that is, without a prescription. The agency set about its usual scientific review process but while it was on-going, its senior management, political appointees all, pulled the rug out and decided to refuse the request regardless of what the scientists recommended. Their reason was that the pill was thought, incorrectly, to be tantamount to abortion and that it would encourage teenage sex both of which are ideological bug-a-boos to the administration. The Government Accountability Office reviewed FDA’s process and found it deviated from established practice in four ways, the first of which was that, “…the directors of the offices that reviewed the application, who would normally have been responsible for signing the Plan B action letter, disagreed with the decision and did not sign the not-approvable letter for Plan B. The Director of the Office of New Drugs also disagreed and did not sign the letter.” What you really need to know is that it was this bastardization of the process that led also to the resignation of Dr. Susan F. Wood as head of the agency’s Office of Women’s Health. Dr. Wood is the physician whom George Bush replaced with a veterinarian. [1] Science be damned, full speed backwards! Their God created human beings who become sexually mature nine or ten years before the geniuses in Washington think they should be allowed to enjoy it. So the Pat Robertson’s of this world are left to clean up God’s mess. And they think I’m a blasphemer! Wendy Wright, Executive Vice President of the conservative Concerned Women for America allowed as to how ignoring the science was “comforting.”[2] We can be grateful that at least some good—Wendy’s comfort—came out of a truly absurdist situation: something called the Food and Drug Administration using theology instead of science as the basis of its decision making. America is on its way to becoming a theocracy and its theology is the theology of ignorance.

Not too long ago, the voters of Dover, Pennsylvania threw out all the members of their school board because it insisted on telling high school students about “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution.[3] The Reverend Robertson went on television to proclaim that they had “voted God out of your city” and they should get ready for divine retribution. The inescapable image being evoked was the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone. This is the same bozo who preached that the destruction of the World Trade Center was God’s punishment for homosexuality and feminism. “Bozo” of course is a bias word but anyone who says Tinky Winky Teletubby is a gay plot to destroy America is exposing himself to being thought of as a clown. Like George Bush, Pat Robertson had an influential father and a good education.[4] As anyone who has paid any attention to his career knows, he has said some amazingly stupid things over the years. For example, he once proclaimed on national television, “You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.” A truly moronic comment but he is simply not stupid. Why then do he and so many other people who should know better reject science and all it stands for? More importantly, why do so many Americans believe the kind of obvious claptrap being foisted off on them by Bush and Robertson? The answer, of course, is a view of religion which always trumps science, experience and common sense. It also trumps God who, in addition to the screw-up about adolescence, erred in making mouthy women and needy gays. Throughout history, one understanding of religion or another has been responsible for a dazzling array of horrific sins: the slaughter of innocents, slavery, persecution, terrorism and even mass suicide. Not all religion encourages such evils, only the most blatantly orthodox.[5] These are religionists—Jews, Christians and Muslims mainly—who profess to be holier than thou. A lot holier. If, then, these people are not inherently stupider than the rest of us, why do they take what the rest of us see as absurdist, nihilistic positions? There are, I think, three factors at work.

First, of course, they really are convinced that sacred-text-based knowledge is inherently superior to any other kind including science. In the words of the 1978 Chicago Conference of Biblical Inerrancy, they believe:

Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives.

There is an obsessive reliance on authority and “tradition” among conservatives of every stripe. Tradition, of course, should carry high value in human affairs but it is at odds with the curiosity that has motivated people to challenge superstition and ignorance and has led them to speculative philosophy, experimental science and democratic governance. The tension between the two is one of the great themes of history. It lies at the heart of the story of Adam’s disobedience. It manifested itself in the struggle between Galileo and the Holy Inquisition. Cardinal Bellarmine was a great scholar and intellectual who suspected that Galileo might be right. He did what he could to avoid looking foolish but when Galileo remained obdurate, he opted to retreat to the comfort of biblical authority. It is hard to know his mind but, between the Bible and the scientist, it was easier and safer for him to choose the former which he believed to be the word of God. Galileo was by no means an atheist. On the contrary, he believed that God would not deceive him by putting false images in his telescope. It was a titanic clash of two very basic sets of values, a clash that remains largely unresolved.[6]

The second reason is that conservatives (and many other people) fear uncertainty which is the stock in trade of the scientist. Science rejects certainty and deals only in probabilities. As soon as Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson explained the origin of the background radiation of the universe, virtually every astronomer gave up the cherished “steady state” theory in favor of the “big bang.”[7] If American astronauts had brought back samples of green cheese from the moon instead of rocks, scientists would have gladly re-written their textbooks. Orthodox religion, on the other hand, fears and rejects uncertainty. Inerrancy is attractive specifically because it offers people an anchor—a set of eternal verities by which they can lead their lives and through which they can overcome the fear of death. As St. Paul teaches, “O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory”[8]

But certainty can be a cruel mistress. King Solomon in his old age laments:
"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless." [9]

Why? Because nothing ever changes. Everything is bedrock certain. Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. All things are wearisome more than one can bear. What has been will be again. There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who follow will not be remembered by those who follow.

Solomon may be the only person in history to complain that things never change and he is surely wrong that there is no remembrance of men of old. But the point he is making is valid. Uncertainty is the spice of life. It embraces change. This can be frightening. The hymn says, “Change and decay in all around I see. O thou who changest not, abide with me.” For some Christians, the existential dilemma lies in the choice between challenge and boredom.  Just possibly, though, the most potent reason some Christians react so negatively to science is their perception that scientists and other “elitists” denigrate religion and people of faith. There is, sadly, some truth in that perception. Consider the treatment meted out to William Jennings Bryan during and after the famous Scopes trial. H. L. Mencken covered the trial for the Baltimore Sun. At one point, he wrote:

…the old mountebank, Bryan, sat tight-lipped and unmoved. There is, of course, no reason why it should have shaken him. He has these hillbillies locked up in his pen and he knows it. His brand is on them. He is at home among them. Since his earliest days, indeed, his chief strength has been among the folk of remote hills and forlorn and lonely farms. Now with his political aspirations all gone to pot, he turns to them for religious consolations. They understand his peculiar imbecilities. His nonsense is their ideal of sense. When he deluges them with his theologic bilge they rejoice like pilgrims disporting in the river Jordan....

Strong stuff, that. Not a word of it gives a fair or accurate picture of either Bryan or his supporters. Take out the name-calling and there is nothing left in the paragraph. Now all of us engage in the same sort of thing occasionally. Tom Cruise, for example, is not literally an “ignoramus” even if he drives me crazy with his uninformed pontificating. But at least Cruise truly is ignorant about pharmacology and depression. I do not believe anyone should engage in the kind of invective Mencken reveled in but it is certainly true that people like me find no common ground with people we think of as willing to reject what we see as obvious. There are two things that trouble me. The first has been called the “will to believe” which means belief based mainly on the need or desire to believe. The second is what I perceive as a priori logic, the penchant to reason to conclusions from first principles or eternal truths.

I can’t argue with the will to believe except to say I don’t share it. To me it risks grasping at straws which I see as intellectually futile. A person driven to belief is, in my view, gullible. But I can understand that to others uncompromising belief offers the solace of a port, any port, in a storm, any storm.

A priori logic is more of a problem. It is, of course, the heart of every syllogism, a tool explicated primarily by Aristotle. All men are mortal. John is a man. Therefore John is mortal. This is fine just so long as one can be confident in the validity of the major premise to the effect that all men are mortal (and of course as long as the rules regarding the minor premise and conclusion are scrupulously observed). If, for example, you proceed from the premise that all pine trees speak French, you’re going to be in serious trouble.

Now as it turns out, the idea that all men are mortal is as close as we can come to a certainty. The evidence is our experience that all men we know about have actually died. But even such a sure bet is based on an assumption. At this moment, John himself is among the living (John is) and the living constitute the majority of all men who have ever lived. And not a single one of them has died yet. So the idea that John is mortal is a prediction, not a fact. You don’t want to bet against that prediction but you must recognize it for what it is. It is not a fact.

Most major premises are even less certain. “The Bible is inerrant” is an example. On its face, it contradicts your experience of everything else. Nothing in this world is perfect. There is no evidence for inerrancy unless you are willing to interpret some biblical passages as evidence.[10] It could be so but it bears a heavy burden of proof before you should trust any conclusion derived from it. Why do people think homosexuality is an abomination? Why do people believe Mary was a virgin? Well, the Bible is inerrant. Mary’s virginity is contained in the Bible. Therefore Mary was a virgin. If you think the Bible must be inerrant because Pat Robertson says so…ah, well, I’ll let that go with a prayer for your salvation. But this sort of logic does have consequences. Take for example God’s statement in Genesis 2:18, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." A helper. An inferior. The King James Version has it “help meet,” one fitted to be a helper or assistant.[11] James Dobson concludes from this, “…a family must have a leader whose decisions prevail in times of differing opinions. If I understand the Scriptures, that role has been assigned to the man of the house.”[12] You may agree with Dr. Dobson but please understand that he is stating a conclusion based ultimately on an unprovable premise. It is merely an opinion and I am entitled to think it is illogical and immoral. That entitlement is important especially if you think God gave me a mind. What good is such a gift without license to use it?

All kinds of people believe all sorts of things. Catholics believe that the priest turns bread and wine literally into the body and blood of Christ. The Mormons are certain Jesus left his tomb to come and preach the gospel to New World Indians. The French think they have a glorious military history and I know I am descended from the kings of Donegal. The problem with George Bush is he thinks his opinions, which I find fantastical, are uniquely true and virtuous. He has never made a mistake and has never changed his mind—at least if you believe what he says. It should go without saying that I don’t believe a word of what he says. I believe the truth is not in him.

Notes

1. The vet was Dr. Norris E Alderson. When the appointment caused a firestorm of protest, the agency denied ever having made it and the administration appointed instead Dr. Theresa A. Toigo, a respected pharmacist.

2. The New York Times, November 15, 2005, p. 1.

3. The Dover case is an interesting example of the flat earth syndrome. The Board of Education wanted to make its notification as part of the science curriculum, a decision later characterized by a federal judge as one of “breathtaking inanity.” The town itself was not happy being regarded as another Dayton, Tennessee and it voted the School Board out of office at the first opportunity. But a small minority was convinced that, as one mother told a reporter for The New York Times, “Children should not be taught that we came from monkeys when that’s flat-out not true.” This of course is the same idea that drove the people of Dayton in 1925. Indeed, the trial was and still is referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial.

4. Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson was the son of Absalom Willis Robertson who represented Virginia in Congress for 35 years and his wife Adelia Elmer Robertson. Pat got his B.A., magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Washington and Lee University, a Master of Divinity from New York Theological Seminary and a J.D. from, where else, Yale Law School.

5. “Orthodox” is not a perfect word but neither is any other word commonly used. “Fundamentalist” is too narrow, “Evangelical” is unfair, “conservative” is a euphemism. Like too many other writers, I use these terms imprecisely and interchangeably.

6. This is an inadequate summary of the debate between Galileo and the Inquisition which really came down to different systems of epistemology. Galileo believed that the book of nature is written in mathematical terms. Bellarmine believed mathematics was a human artifact, often useful but essentially self-contained and self-referential. In this, at least, Bellamine probably had the better argument.

7. Not all. There were dissenters most notably Sir Fred Hoyle, one of the 20th century’s most distinguished scientists. Hoyle promoted several versions of what was called the "steady state" or “continuous creation” theory. His dissent, however, is of little comfort to fundamentalists in that it claims that the universe is infinitely old and will endure infinitely. In other words, no creator was ever needed. Some contemporary inflation theory cosmologists are working toward a model which might reduce big bangs (plural) to events within an infinite number of island universes. Continuous creation might return in a somewhat different form than that imagined by Hoyle.

8. 1 Corinthians 15:55. In various translations the two subjects, death and grave, and the two predicate nominatives, victory and sting, are mixed in every possible way. This is the version familiar to hearers of Handel’s Messiah. The next verse is obscure in many translations but the New Living Translation often used by Fundamentalists is exceptionally clear: “For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power.” This is a recurrent theme in Saint Paul’s writings and should give pause to anyone who is overly impressed with biblical legalisms. See also Galatians 5, especially Verses 22 and 23. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

9. Ecclesiastes 1:2-11. This and other Biblical citations not otherwise attributed are from the New International Version, International Bible Society, 1973. Some of King Solomon’s science is fine, some of it not so fine. The sun, for example, does not hurry back to where it rises. Galileo was right. The sun is stationary with respect to the earth.

10. The 1974 Lausanne Covenant offers ten Biblical references in support of inerrancy. They are: II Tim. 3:16; II Pet. 1:21; John 10:35; Isa. 55:11; 1 Cor. 1:21; Rom. 1:16, Matt. 5:17,18; Jude 3; Eph. 1:17,18; 3:10,18. To my eyes, all are extremely ambiguous and I have no idea what is meant by Jude 3.

11. “Helpmate” seems to be a politically correct version of the same word.

12. “Dr. Dobson Answers Your Questions: Marriage and Sexuality,” Tyndale House (Reprint Edition) 1992.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO TONYA HARDING?

Jerry Harkins

Just prior to the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, I wrote a short technical note commenting on some potential sources of systematic error in the judging of figure skating. In the process, I had occasion to make sympathetic mention of Tonya Harding, the lady who ultimately finished eighth and in tears. Since I have so little time for matters outside moral theology, I naturally assumed that those who supervise such things would take my insights to heart and that reform quickly would ensue. I missed the 1998 edition in Nagano and caught up with the sport during the 2002 games in Salt Lake City. I was, needless to say, disappointed.

While I was otherwise occupied, a fellow named Ottavio Cinquanta had been sent down from Central Casting to be the head Pooh-bah of the International (Ice) Skating Union. Imperial, dictatorial, condescending, arrogant, capricious and, of course, slightly stupid, he turned out to be a perfect choice for a sport that still keeps score with a system invented by the Red Queen. On his watch, we have been beset by one scandal after another, usually involving the judges or the judging. The most recent flap was caused by one Marie-Reine Le Gougne, a French judge who allegedly conspired to trade votes with the Russians. Maybe she also conspired with her French colleagues. Maybe she was merely pressured by the French, the Russians, the Mafia or the Vatican for all I know. No matter, the Canadian pair won pure and simple. That should have been obvious to everyone. Thus, the fact that the two conspirators were joined by three other judges from China, Poland and Ukraine to give the gold to the Russians is as revealing as the cheating itself. Le Gougne says, pressure or no pressure, the Russians were better and, naturally, the Russian judge agreed. So what we had was a majority of the judges reaching an obviously wrong but preordained conclusion. This happens regularly in the Supreme Court but, at least the justices explain their opinions, however wrongheaded, in writing.

Those of you old enough to remember Tonya Maxine Harding will recall that she placed fourth in the 1992 Olympics and was the U.S. National Figure Skating Champion in 1991 and 1994. But in the run-up to the 1994 games in Lillehammer, two of her hangers-on swatted her opponent, Nancy Kerrigan, on the kneecap with what was always referred to as a “black baton.” She was allowed to compete in the Olympics anyway where a hyped-up showdown between the two ladies—class versus trash—was sure to give the TV ratings a much-needed boost. She appeared in a purple polyester costume while Nancy wore white silk. There was never any thought that the judges would let Tonya take home a medal, and they did not disappoint. She finished eighth, skating her last program with a broken shoe lace. Nancy won the silver. Ironically, she, too, was screwed by a panel of judges who, with blithe disregard for reality, awarded the gold to Oksana Baiul of Ukraine.

But the Tonya story did not die after her fifteen minutes of exposure. As I wrote at the time, prosecutors in three jurisdictions could not wait to get their redemptive hands on her, believing she was fully complicit in the assault. Ultimately, Multnomah County, Oregon won the prize but had to settle for getting her to cop a plea to hindering their investigation of the whacking incident. It is not exactly clear why she was prosecuted in Oregon for a crime committed in Detroit, although it may have had something to do with the political ambitions of the Portland DA. She was given three years supervised probation, two fines totaling $150,000, 500 hours of community service, and $10,000 court costs. On top of that, the U.S. Figure Skating Association “stripped” her of her 1994 National Championship and banned her for life. As time went on, she accumulated a further share of life’s bitter pills — a miserable marriage to a beer-swilling, blood-sucking lout, the repossession of her pick-up truck, the need to auction off one of her skating costumes on e-bay and its failure to meet the reserve, an eviction from one apartment, and the depredations of late night comedians who turned her into an icon of white trash. In February 2000, she punched her boyfriend in the face and threw some rocks at his truck. She pleaded guilty to these sins and got two years probation, two 90-day sentences which were suspended except for three days in jail and 10 days on a work crew. Given this went down in Washington State, the work crew was probably not a chain gang. Part of the probation deal was the stipulation that she was not to drive or drink the whole time. Fourteen months later, though, she crashed her pickup truck into a ditch near a town called Battle Ground and failed a breathalyzer test. The Judge in the case, one Darvin Zimmerman, came under considerable local pressure to collect Columbia County’s pound of flesh which, in this case, comes to 167 more days in jail. While all this was transpiring, Tonya may have hit bottom when the Fox Network arranged a boxing match between her and Paula Jones. Paula, you may remember, was one of the blithe spirits of Bill Clinton’s springtime, and was a last minute substitute for Amy Fisher, the Long Island Lolita, whose parole board thought the whole affair an unseemly television spectacle. At least Tonya won—by a TKO in the third round. I did not watch the event but have been assured that the judging was scrupulously fair. A second bout, this time against one Samantha Browning, was fought in February 2003 on the same card as another ex-con, Mike Tyson. She lost a split decision. I take no position on the seemliness of having ex-cons slug it out on national television.

No one ever promised Ms. Harding a rose garden. Still, things might have been different. Tonya’s story might have—and at one time certainly would have—been read as a female Horatio Alger text: poor kid from an abusive background overcomes every obstacle and through grit and hard work emerges, if not triumphant, then well enough. A bit sappy, perhaps, but a lot closer to the mark than the Tonya-as-Tramp scenario. Sadly, the media are in the business of selling advertising space, not truth. And in the process of adding sizzle to the truth, they keep digging and picking and embellishing until the image they create becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tonya is no saint but listening to Shawn MacPhearson, the Assistant City Attorney of the great city of Camas, Washington excoriate her or Judge Zimmerman sternly threaten her, one recalls the trial of Joan of Arc and the tender mercies of an Inquisitor named Cauchon which, appropriately, means pig in French. One cannot help but wonder what Mr. McPhearson sees in his mirror each morning. Perhaps a future occupant of the oval office who saved the world from the wicked witch?

Tonya is a metaphor for life’s unfairness in a nation without effective or decent libel laws or without even a basic sense of decency. Like many athletes, she is poorly educated but by no means stupid, a distinction lost on our thought leaders. It goes without saying that she is talented, focused and not averse to hard work. In the face of adversity, she remains plucky and optimistic. It does not hurt that she looks good in a skimpy costume. But, by dint of fate, hers played out as the story of a woman abused by her parents, her husband, her state, the press and the governing body of her sport. We have created a sort of reverse Pygmalion—the other side of Eliza Doolittle—to fill a void in our tribal mythology.

Subsequent Events

Nine years after this was posted and twenty-four years after the notorious knee-capping incident, what passes for American thought leadership has revisited the Tonya Harding story and come to the conclusion that its previous judgement was perhaps too harsh and possibly even unfair.  The change of heart was brought about mainly by a well-received movie, I, Tonya, which has done well in the 2018 award season and confirmed by a lengthy and mostly sympathetic article in the New York Times of January 14, 2018 (Taffy Brodesser-Aknew, “Still Nowhere to Run").  Over the years, there have been other revisionist opinions but the combination of a feature film and the newspaper of record is likely to bring some semblance of justice to the much-maligned and very unlucky Ms. Harding.