There’s No Such Thing as Ancient History

History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.
  - Edward Gibbon

Now, that may sound like a provocative statement, but it’s true.  History affects individuals, families, tribes, groups, countries and the world.  Every act of the past has had some effect on the present.  Don’t believe me?  Let’s take one example to illustrate.

This year marks the centennial of the beginning of the First World War.  It was a war that had its causes going back as far as you want to look.  But its effects are very much with us today.  

At the individual level, a soldier died who might have had a child or children.  They won’t be now.  Or he might have done great things in art or politics or science.

Families had their lives changed because a husband or son was killed, or was seriously injured so that he had to be cared for for the rest of his life. A woman met a soldier from another country and married him – someone who she would never have met otherwise.  Families were uprooted, some who would never return, in the war torn areas such as France or Serbia or Russia. 

Tribes or ethnic groups were uprooted, torn apart, displaced or put under new government as a result of the war and particularly because of the peace treaties that followed.  As a result of Woodrow Wilson’s insistence on self-determination, the political face of Europe was significantly changed.  As a result of competition between France and Britain, the middle-east was divided up with no thought of self-determination. 

Countries were, of course, changed.  New ones created such as Czechoslovakia and Iraq.  Others were changed, such as Germany and Austria-Hungary.  Not only were there changed boundaries but changed forms of government.    And of course Russia underwent the largest transformation from Czarist to Communist. In Africa, colonies changed hands or were redefined, for better or for worse. The only countries that were left alone in that war were in Latin America and China. As I have said before, at least one belligerent in a war goes in to protect the status quo; they never succeed. They certainly didn’t succeed in the First World War.

And for the world, that war led to a new world order.  The United States became a world player, a role it had never undertaken before.  Europe as a whole was inexorably changed and those changes are largely with us today.  The Ottoman Empire was gone and we still suffer from the tensions built up in the middle-east created by the artificial borders set up by the winning powers.  

But the First World War was itself a product of the history that had gone before.  It was influenced by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 which was influenced by the Napoleonic Wars and the changes the French Revolution wrought in France.  Go away back and the differences between France and Germany can be traced to the Roman Empire and its triumph over the tribes of Gaul and its failure to conquer the Germanic tribes beyond the Rhine.  And how did those tribes arrive in their respective locations in Europe?  And so history goes.  The first act of what we now call human beings is a part of our history.

History is constantly changing.  Everything we do every day contributes in some small or large way to the changing history.  

So when you children or grandchildren ask you why they have to study history at school, or why you are always reading history book, remind them of what I have just said.  And for who believe in the words of Henry Ford, history is not bunk.

The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.
  - William Gibson

Lee Daniels’: The Butler

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
  - Bertrand Russell

My wife and I watched this movie the other day.  I’m not in the habit of critiquing movies, so I won’t even try to rate the movie’s artistic merit, acting prowess or music.  It is the message that I want to comment on.

Just to clarify, Lee Daniels is not the name of the butler in question; it is the name of the producer and director.  So the title does come across as a bit of an ego trip.  

The main part of the story covers the presidential periods of Eisenhower to Reagan.  Those who weren’t old enough to remember that era need to see this movie as a history lesson.  Those who do remember need to see it as a reminder.  It pretty well covers the entire period of the civil rights movement in the U.S.  It also introduces the introduction of sanctions against apartheid.  It is a good reminder of the travails that blacks have had to endure to get equal rights in the U.S. and South Africa.

I witnessed some of the things that happened on the journey to civil rights when I spent two years as an exchange officer with the US Navy in the early to mid-1970s.  Among other things, I was under the command of the first black admiral in the US Navy, Rear-Admiral (later Vice-Admiral) Samuel L. Gravely.  He was a good officer who deserved his rank and who had a good sense of humour about his situation.  I spent the first year in Newport, Rhode Island, the heart of northern liberalism.  I spent the second year in Charleston, South Carolina, the heart of Confederate sympathy.  What was interesting was the reaction to our command’s move to Charleston from some of the black members of our staff.  When I asked one of them, a senior Petty Officer, about what he thought of the move, he said that at least in Charleston, he and his family knew what to expect.  The message was that there was discrimination in both parts of the country, but it was more overt, more “honest” in the south. 

It was a time of considerable tension in the US.  The Viet Nam War was just finishing.  President Nixon was under considerable pressure over the Watergate cover-up.  He eventually resigned just as we were leaving.  And racial tension was high.  One of the US Navy’s aircraft carriers had to be brought into port because of what amounted to race riot in the lower decks.  The ship was met in San Diego by a cordon of US Marines.  After that, the Navy instituted a series of racial sensitivity sessions called Upward Seminars.  They were run by outside facilitators and lasted two or three days.  When it came to our command, I was asked to attend.  I found it both disturbing and interesting.  To have one of the black facilitators call me a bigot was pretty upsetting.  But I could see how having the tables turned on you could cause high emotions.  I don’t think that I am racially bigoted; I try to treat everyone equally and fairly.  But it does make you wonder.

In my time in Charleston, I was asked to join a panel of three officers who were tasked with selecting the most suitable candidate Petty Officer for promotion to Warrant Officer (the commissioned rank for officers promoted from the ranks).  This same Petty Officer was one of the two candidates, the other being white.  Since both were outstanding sailors, it seemed a Hobson’s choice. One was afraid that whatever the choice, racial issues would crop up. After looking at every criterion that we could think of, and avoiding discussion on the racial considerations, we finally found grounds to select one over the other.  I’ll let you guess which one.

I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
  - Mahatma Gandhi

“We’re Holding an Internal Investigation”

“It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem.”  - Malcolm Forbes

Have you ever noticed that whenever something happens, some group, enterprise, agency or government department immediately declares that they are going to hold an internal investigation?  The police do it.  Professional organizations do it.  Our governments do it.

Their argument seems to that “ordinary” people would not understand the intricacies of what they do.  The fact that juries of “ordinary” people preside at trials, both criminal and civil, some of which can be quite complex, does not seem to shake their resolve that only “their” people can preside in these cases.  In most cases, this is the last you will ever hear of the issue in question.  Oh, there are cases where the results must be revealed for legal reasons, but this seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

What got me thinking about this issue was a recent incident in Ottawa wherein a city transit driver drove her bus through a red light and collided with a passenger car.  The transit driver was given a ticket for running a red light, but the reasons why she might have done such a thing was immediately blanketed by an internal investigation.  Of course as soon as this happens there can be no further talk of the incident because of “privacy” rules and because “we are holding an internal investigation”.  

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
  - George Orwell

But it is the type of thing we see all the time.  Now, I’m not accusing any of these agencies of any wrongdoing, but you really have to wonder if the whole truth really comes out of these inquiries.  Are things withheld because of a perception that the public would not understand the nuances of a position or decision?  Are the internal investigations held so that outsiders with legitimate questions that could embarrass the inquirers can be kept out? Are they held so that the truth can be “manipulated” to protect the organization or some individual? I, of course, don’t know the answers to these questions, but the fact that I have to ask them indicates the suspicion that arises from these investigations.  In most cases, these investigations are held behind closed doors so the public has no way of knowing the process, or in many cases, the outcome.  In some cases the report comes out with a set of recommendations, but with no analysis of what actually happened during the incident itself. 

Now this may sound like the old saw, “I’m not paranoid, but everyone is out to get me”, but I just think that a lot of these investigations could be carried out in a more transparent manner.  After all, we are supposed to live in an open society.  That’s what our secretive federal government tells us, anyhow.

“The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.”
  - Edith Sitwell

Travel Woes

This season has brought forth a great deal of travel problems throughout North America.  Weather, of course, has been the main culprit.  Airports have been closed, flights cancelled and destinations unreachable in most of eastern Canada and north-eastern United States since before Christmas.  It is not an easy thing to cope with for most travelers.  People get frustrated, tired, confused and, in some cases, seriously neglected.  It can make a pleasant trip a disaster.  So, how do you cope with it all?

I have done my fair share of traveling throughout my career; mostly business travel and mostly by air.  Despite being a naval officer, I probably traveled much farther by air than by sea, including more than one hundred flights across the Atlantic.  And during that time, I have had many problems with airlines, military transportation, airplanes and weather.  In fact, there was one seven year period that, whenever I left the country (and I did it frequently), I never once returned home on time.  And during all this travel, I learned a few things about how to deal with travel delays and cancellations.  When I see pictures on the news about the chaos at airports, I think it is time to pass on a few tips to potential travelers.

The first thing to remember is not to get upset with the airline employees.  They did not cause the bad weather, the shut-down airport or the mechanical problem on the plane.  Treat them in a respectful and friendly manner and chances are they will remember you and give you a break when they can.  Yelling and screaming at them will do you absolutely no good whatsoever. And don’t make any threats (“I’m going to call me lawyer.”) you can’t or won’t keep, and then only as a last resort.  However, once you’ve done that, it is unlikely any of the airline staff will talk to you again, but will turn the threat over to management.

Never, ever settle for a split ticket.  A spit ticket is where you have one ticket to one city and a separate ticket to your final destination.  For example, you book an excursion flight from Toronto to your sunny destination, but you have to get to Toronto, so you book a cheap round trip fare to Toronto and return.  You have one ticket to Toronto and back, and a totally separate ticket for you excursion flight.  Why is this a bad thing? After all, you’ve saved yourself a few bucks.  It’s bad because your carrier from home to Toronto is only responsible for getting you to Toronto and back, and has no responsibility to get you to your excursion flight or your final destination.  And you excursion carrier has no responsibility if you miss your flight; after all they didn’t delay your arrival from your home airport.  This happened to me once and I had to rely on four stand-by flights out of the seven I was booked on to get to my destination and return home.

This brings me to my next point.  Even if you have a single ticket and your flight is delayed or cancelled, never insist that the carrier get you to someplace so you can catch your connecting flight.  You want to get to your final destination.  It does not really matter whether you catch a particular connecting flight or get to your destination some other way.  You objective is your final destination and it is up to the carrier to get you there.  As chaos reigns, when you get a chance to talk to an airline agent calmly explain where you need to end up and what your timeframe is.  This advice paid dividends more than once, such as when I was herding a group of eight colleagues from Charleston, South Carolina to Naples, Italy.  The first leg of four on our trip was delayed, but we had to be in Naples the next day.  I explained this to the airline representative and he worked feverishly for half an hour to try and accommodate us.  He finally came up with a routing that took us through Washington (instead of New York) to London, UK (instead of Rome) and thence to Naples.  Despite leaving Charleston more than an hour late, we ended up in Naples only half an hour after our scheduled arrival. 

But the real secret to the whole thing is keep calm, be patient, dress comfortably (airline travel is not a fashion show and standing in line with those six inch heels can be very uncomfortable), bring a good book (the battery on your smartphone, tablet or laptop will only last so long), and never pass up an opportunity to go to the bathroom.

Happy traveling!