From time to time, questions come along that make me wonder if anyone else has similar questions and whether any solutions really exist. The questions are so persistent that they must be acknowledged even though there may be no answers at all. Try some of these.
Verse 1: Poor Health, Men’s Division
The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court has been afflicted with cancer. To see him try to walk is a disheartening experience. His cancer treatments kept him home bound for much of the 2004-2005 Supreme Court term. In recent weeks, he has required hospitalization for fever. The Chief Justice, William Rehnquist is now past 80 years of age.
He claims that he is keeping up with his work while at home by reading briefs and the minutes of court proceedings. In spite of his myriad of difficulties, he seems intent upon remaining as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
If he retired, it is likely he would receive a substantial pension along with health care. But he elects to shuffle along with his cap pulled down tightly on his head and tries to go to work. If Rehnquist worked for me, there would be a small personnel conference, at which time he would be told that between his ailments and his age, he should attend his own going away party as promptly as possible.
The business of the U.S. is too important that it not be left to aged invalids. This old essayist has never enjoyed the spiritual comfort that some derive from Catholicism. None-the-less, for several years it struck me that the Polish Pope, John Paul II should have retired for the same reasons that apply to Rehnquist. He was well past 80 years and had suffered from Parkinson’s disease. His mobility was seriously compromised. His voice was often inaudible. Yet he went through the motions of being Pope of the Roman Catholic Church until death claimed him.
Is this a matter of male vanity? In my own family, my father was basically blind from age 65 onward. Yet he found a used car salesman who sold him a big Buick that would barely fit in the garage. And the used car salesman had to drive the Buick home as my father could not see.
Women have face lifts. Some men have vanity in such proportions that it tends to blind and to kill them. This is one question that needs an answer.
Verse 2: Senator Frist’s Pre-Born Again Conversion
Bill Frist is a heart surgeon from Tennessee who is now the majority leader in the U.S. Senate. For a time now, he has been running hard to convince Right Wing Conservatives that he is a Bible believing Southern Baptist who would make a good president. In many respects, his campaign has come at the expense of his legislative duties.
For unknown reasons, Frist and other politicians have adopted the positions of the Catholic Church. For example, no Protestant church that is known to me, has decreed that life begins at conception. For all the years that preachers have tortured me with their prolix sermons, no Protestant preacher has ever preached on conception being the original key to life. They may think so, but Protestants have never made a point of it being a matter of infallibility.
Even the far out sects such as the Nazarenes, the Pentecostals, the Southern Baptists and the Free Will Baptists have preached that their adherents must be born again. That is a matter of infallibility.
Yet Frist, a Baptist, who will apparently do anything or say anything or adopt any religious precept, has announced that life begins at conception. How does that square with being born again? It isn’t a matter of being conceived again; Protestants believe in being born again.
That raises substantial questions. In dozens of cases such as enlisting in the U.S. Army, one of the major questions has been “Date of Birth” and “Place of Birth.” Now if we are going to take Frist and the other politicians seriously, we are going to have to change countless forms and applications.
How could a person state the date when she or he had been conceived? Hard to say. Can anyone imagine the embarrassment when the proper amount of time had not elapsed between the DOC and the DOB? Why bring up skeletons from the basement?
Now what are we going to do about where the conception took place? When a live baby appears, hospital personnel fill out a birth certificate saying that the birth took place in this hospital in a specific city and county. So we know where the DOB took place. But what are we going to do about the DOC’s? Are we all to be Paris Hiltons whose parents contend that she was conceived there within a few meters of the Eiffel Tower? What are we to do with people who travel a lot, such as traveling salespersons? They would have no idea as to whether the DOC took place in Chicago, Des Moines or Crawford, Texas.
Obviously, Protestant Frist has not thought through his adoption of the Roman position on conception. But if this is the wave of the future, all of us must prepare ourselves with some rational answers. There are questions here that need to be answered as long as politicians embrace the precepts of the Roman church. Perhaps the Roman Church might blaze new trails by holding that as a condition of entering heaven, everyone must be conceived again. That will keep this Roman Church a full stride ahead of Martin Luther’s Protestants.
Verse 3: The Dullest Speakers Wear Eagles and Stars
For more than 63 years, that is the summer of 1942, it has been my sad duty to attempt to figure out what Colonels, Generals and Admirals are attempting to say. When it comes to sheer absolute dullness, high level military people compete with preachers and politicians in the World Series of uninspiring discourse.
There is a reason for this, of course. Early in my career as an Army private, a situation arose where it seemed appropriate to offer a solution. The sergeant informed me in thunderous tones that “You, Private Carr, don’t get paid to think.” For quite a while, it became my practice to think, but not to announce the results of my cerebral activity. Like Galileo Galilei who muttered to church authorities that regardless of what they thought, it was the earth that turned. And so this Private also muttered about less consequential things.
Simply put, the military services put a premium on acceptance of authority even if that authority is completely wrong. Men, and now some women, rise in the ranks by keeping their mouths shut. There is no such thing as a maverick general or an admiral who demonstrates a better way. The mantra is to get along by going along. Even on a disastrous course.
An example may be helpful. General Shinseki was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff which is the top U.S. military job. When the Iraq invasion took place, General Shinseki offered the thought that to occupy and pacify Iraq, something like 400,000 to 500,000 troops would be needed.
That viewpoint flew in the face of the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who had persuaded his boss that Iraq could be conquered on the cheap. The Assistant Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, was caustic in criticizing General Shinsiki. In a matter of months, Shinseki was, in effect, fired. Remember, you don’t get paid for thinking. That seems to apply to Privates as well as to Four Star Generals.
In point of fact, ever since the disastrous Iraq invasion has taken place, there have been calls for more troops to make our occupation succeed. But no General in the field wishes to have the Shinseki treatment visited upon him, so we struggle with a grossly undersized force.
The military doctrine of not being paid to think shows up when our military brass tries to explain things. To prevent criticism from Congress, the press or other military officers, they invariably read from a script which makes for utter dullness. When they agree to answer questions, they lapse into military jargon using initials for names and say virtually nothing.
Even the sainted Colin Powell had trouble speaking effectively. His major speech to the United Nations Security Council shortly before our Commander in Chief launched his ill fated invasion of Iraq, was shortly shown to be false. This was the speech where he guaranteed the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.
The blunt fact is that the U.S. military abhors innovation as much as they protest to the contrary. This is a get along by going along outfit. To make an interesting statement or an interesting speech requires thought and the willingness to advocate something other than saying something absolutely without controversy.
The question that must be posed to our readers is how must dullness be considered a virtue in military matters? It appears that dullness in our military will be with us as long as the generals and admirals insist that soldiers and sailors don’t get paid for thinking.
Verse 4: Monuments
In the civilized world, there must be several million monuments. Maybe many more. Of all these edifices, only one involves me. That is the World War II Monument in Washington, D.C. which honors the military men and women who took part in that war.
Unfortunately, that is indeed an enormous monument which pleases politicians, but it doesn’t say much for the soldiers and sailors who were involved in World War II.
This overwhelming monument was built with no input from any old soldier known to me. It was built largely because there were memorials for the Korean War and the War in Vietnam. Bob Dole, the Senator from Kansas, was the moving force to build the monument which is why some of us say it was built to please politicians.
Aside from being antiseptic, it is overblown. It is a loud military brass band backing the National Symphony with a chorus of 10,000 voices. It would be better to have a single guitar player or a cello to memorialize that war.
The Korean War memorial is a stark reminder of what soldiers encounter in dealing with an enemy. It is a magnificent memorial.
The wall with the 58,000 names of the dead from the Vietnam War carries a moving message. More than anything else, it is an antiwar statement and it is a magnificent memorial to the fallen.
It seems to me that the World War II monument would have profited from simplicity. There is a wall in that monument that honors the 400,000 military people lost in that war. That might just be enough of an understatement to make an impression. But in addition to that wall, there are 50 or 52 tall stone obelisks for each state. But understatement has never been a characteristic of American politicians.
So the question that remains is whether it is worth seeing. Absolutely – provided you see it together with the Korean and Vietnamese memorials. The key here is that World War II is marked by a monument. The other two are marked by memorials. Memorials are better.
Verse 5: Envelopes and Screw Top Bottles
Companies that send me bills often include an envelope that requires me to be certain that the addressees name shows through the plastic window. This is a hassle that no one needs. Is there anything wrong with sending a return envelope that does not require such dexterity?
Now about screw top containers that require that the lid be forced down before it may be unscrewed. Allegedly, this is a device to protect our children. In this house, there are no children. When a bottle of 100 tablets is purchased, for example, for each of those one hundred attempts to extract one pill, the cap must be pushed down with which it becomes cross threaded. People become heathens for less provocation than the push down caps.
There has to be a better way of dealing with envelopes and bottles. Your suggestions will be welcome. And while we are at it, the fastening devices at the top of cereal boxes are often deplorable. There are those of us who believe the alleged most advanced country in the world ought to be able to design cereal boxes that shut without a degree in industrial engineering.
These are a few of the questions that give me pause. Perhaps future Meditations will provide some answers. But in all likelihood, as age creeps up on me, there will only be more unanswered questions and fewer answers.
E. E. CARR
August 13, 2005
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I wonder — I think Pop’s blindness set in in 2005 sometime, but this essay doesn’t reference it in the fifth section. You’d think that would be the reason why everything else mentioned was particularly inconvenient, but maybe that’s implied.
Meanwhile I think the bit about male vanity towards the top of the essay was pretty spot-on. Pride can definitely drive people to make some pretty obvious mistakes. The best thing Joseph Ratzinger ever did was to recognize when it was time to retire from the papacy.