All posts by Steve Stern

Mathew Brady’s picture of General U. S. Grant and the new American Hero

Americana, War, What's a man?

This is a very much modified copy of a post I made in 2009. I am reposting it now because, 150 years ago, the Army of The Potomac was in the middle of what is now known as The Overland Campaign. Grant  and Lee had battled to a draw in The Wilderness on May 5th through the 7th, 1864. This is where the Army of The Potomac learned that Grant was a different kind of general and they were going to become a different kind of Army.

Up until now, the Army of The Potomac would move south, fight the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, and win lose or draw – sadly, it was often lose – retreat to rebuild and re-provision for the next battle. This time, when Grant pulled his troops out of the battle-line, it was not to retreat, but to move further south to attack again at Spotsylvania Court House (May 8–21), then again and again. This was total war. Grant had said I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer, and he meant it.

Grant had come to do a job and he did it. The picture below shows just that.

This is a new kind of portrait and Grant was a new kind of general. The picture was probably taken during the Overland Campaign just after the battle of Cold Harbor. Grant is not the patrician hero, Grant, like Lincoln, was a mid-westerner. A common man. In this picture, he is tired, his eyes are sad, his boots are muddy. This is probably Matthew Bradley’s most famous photo. Not only because of it’s informality, but because it is so penetrating. I have read that a good portrait is an artifact of a relationship. This is a portrait of a real man, the dynamic new kind of American from the West.

Grant was the new American hero. The quiet man just doing his job. John Wayne. Gary Cooper in High Noon.  No braggadocio flourishes, just quietly getting the job done.

 

 

PG&E and Government

Americana, Around home

PG&E

I resaw Erin Brockovich – the movie, not the real person – the other day. I had forgotten how good the movie is and how bad it paints PG&E. I have alot of experience with PG&E and they are every bit as bad as the movie depicts. They are, by far, the worst organization I have ever worked with.

In my experience, PG&E is way more difficult to work with than any state organization, worse than any water department or city. It is much harder to do business with than the Federal Government.  Without going off to far on a Libertarian rant, I think that a huge number of laws and codes are just there to protect some vested interest; a rich vested interest. However, governments are – to a greater or lesser degree – accountable to the people. The less accountable they are, the worse they are. The United States – Federal – government is not as accountable as I would like, nonetheless, it is still accountable. But PG&E isn’t. It may pretend to be but, in almost every area, it isn’t.

The PG&E entrenched bureaucracy with its unknown – to the outside world – table of organization and power centers, does what it thinks is best for itself. The picture above is a scan of a mailer that PG&E sent out telling us what a good job they are doing. The mailer neglects to tell us that a 30″ gas pipeline blew up in September of 2010 because of neglect and eight people were killed and alot more were injured. They do tell us that they replaced nearly 15 miles of gas transmission lines in the Bay Area and pressure tested an additional 50 miles but they neglect to tell us that this is out of 48,579 miles of natural gas distribution and transportation pipelines in Northern and Central California.

The second worse organization was a railroad, Union Pacific (I think). We were building a soundwall next to their tracks and wanted to get permission to encroach on their right-of-way with our cranes. The request had to go to engineering and a right-of-way committee and I would call week after week for a schedule without getting one. Finally, I told our guys to just do the work and try to stay away from their right-of-way as much as they could. We had been finished with the work for about six months before the permission to do the work came through . When people say that the government should be run more like a business, I wonder what they are really talking about.

Aside from the obvious, a business is designed to make money and government is supposed to protect Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness, a business that has been around for a hundred years is probably run much worse than any government.

 

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Living like the 1%

Americana, Around home

Table cloth-1664We have a very expensive, heirloom, tablecloth that I wanted to get cleaned. There is a nearby cleaner in Menlo Park that I have gone to in the past, Peninou French Laundry and Cleaners, where I took it this time, figuring I would get a good job. What I hadn’t counted on was how much Menlo Park has changed since the last time I used them. This is at the northern end of Silicon Valley – if you don’t count San Francisco, which is becoming the hip bedroom community for the Valley – and Silicon Valley is becoming the richest place on earth. I heard the other day that Facebook going public created three billionaires and over a thousand millionaires.

Not everybody is in the 1% but alot are and the ones who aren’t, want to be, and consider themselves falling by the wayside if they barely get into the top 10%. Peninou, which is a local chain with a history going back to 1903, has changed with the times. They have really changed with the times, charging us $54.21.

The table-cloth came back folded – wrapped in a suitable, lightweight, cardboard wrapper – and then wrapped in the purple? tissue in the picture. It is lovely and, I suppose, it looks like it should cost more than the $54.21 they charged, but – still – $54.21 to clean a tablecloth?  Almost $55 big ones as Woody Allen used to say.

As an aside, there is no sales tax because a sales tax is only added to things rather than services. When the sales tax was introduced in California during the 30s, most people bought alot more things than services (except for the rich). Having to raise money, the Legislature passed a tax that looks fair at first glance – after all, the more you spend, the more tax you pay – and is really regressive because the rich pay a smaller percentage, so everybody was happy. End aside.

Since we were taking the table-cloth in any way, I added three sweaters. That cost $75! The really troublesome part is that they were sale sweaters and originally cost less than $25 each (without the required sales tax of course).

More odds and ends

Uncategorized

Karzai is only out for himself….uh, yeah.

Korea-0011

A couple of days ago, I heard some Congressman – I don’t remember who – complain that Karzai is a crook and only out for himself.  Aside from the obvious projection on the Congressman’s part, of course Karsai is a crook and out for himself, that’s why he sucked up to the Americans. If someone is an ambitious guy who is a crook and only out for himself and they live in a country occupied by the Americans, the road to success is to suck up to them to get into power.

That’s what Syngman Rhee in Korea did, that’s what Diem and Thieu in Vietnam did, and Maliki in Iraq. Rhee assumed dictatorial powers, under our protection, even before the Korean War broke out in 1950 and the war just gave him more power. Diem was a Catholic elitist running an Asian country through nepotism and corruption. Thieu gained power by a military junta we supported and then, after winning a fraudulent election, consolidated his authoritarian and corrupt rule over South Vietnam.

Maliki is still there, still trying to hold on to power, as his country spins down into sectarian violence.

So far, none of our handpicked guys have gone well.

American exceptionalism

Exceptionalism-0847

To misquote the Tappet Brothers, Whenever I hear Sara Palin say it, I want to scream,  but I do think there is an  American exceptionalism. That belief is reinforced when I see the guest list for Obama’s White House State Dinner for the Chinese premier.

There were two Chinese-American White House aides, Christopher P. Lu and Christina M. Tchen. There were two Cabinet level Secretaries, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Energy Secretary Steven Chu. In no particular order, there was The Honorable Elaine Chao with her husband Dr. James Chao, John A. Chen from New York and The Great Jackie Chan from California, Mrs. Sherrie Chen, The Honorable Judy Chu, Representative from California, with Ms. Chiling Tong, and Mrs. Jean Chu. The ice skater Michelle Kwan and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the architect Maya Lin and the fashion designer Vera Wang, were all there.

There were powerful African-Americans like The Honorable Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement and The Honorable Susan Rice, United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and his wife Samara were there with Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Lisa Nutter. The Rev. Al Sharpton and Aisha McShaw, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Kent Blake were there.

In the California mayor division, there was Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and his wife, Michelle Rhee – a twofer – along with Ms. Jean Quan, Mayor of Oakland, and The Honorable Edwin M. Lee, Mayor of San Francisco.

Of course there were the usual suspects like Ms. Christiane Amanpour of ABC News, The Honorable Dr. Zbigniew Brezezinski and Mrs. Emilie A. Brzezinski, and The Honorable Jon Huntsman, U.S. Ambassador to China, with his wife.

No other country on earth, can put this many powerful people of different races in the same room.On second thought, maybe this is not the kind of exceptionalism that Sarah Palin talks about.

 

 

The plight of the Siskins

Birds-7659

I have no idea where the following quote came from although I am fairly sure that I didn’t write it. As an aside, the siskins reference in the title is about the siskinds at our bird feeder. Over a period of five years, the siskins increased almost exponentially until we had to fill the birdfeeder every day. The following year, there were no siskins. The population had increased until it was unsustainable and then it crashed. It just crashed, they just disappeared. End aside.

In the name of nature, we are asking human beings to do something deeply unnatural, something no other species has ever done or could ever do: constrain its own growth (at least in some ways). Zebra mussels in the Great Lakes, brown tree snakes in Guam, water hyacinth in African rivers, gypsy moths in the northeastern U.S., rabbits in Australia, Burmese pythons in Florida—all these successful species have overrun their environments, heedlessly wiping out other creatures. Like Gause’s protozoans, they are racing to find the edges of their petri dish. Not one has voluntarily turned back. Now we are asking Homo sapiens to fence itself in.

What a peculiar thing to ask! Economists like to talk about the “discount rate,” which is their term for preferring a bird in hand today over two in the bush tomorrow. The term sums up part of our human nature as well. Evolving in small, constantly moving bands, we are as hard-wired to focus on the immediate and local over the long-term and faraway as we are to prefer parklike savannas to deep dark forests. Thus, we care more about the broken stoplight up the street today than conditions next year in Croatia, Cambodia, or the Congo. Rightly so, evolutionists point out: Americans are far more likely to be killed at that stoplight today than in the Congo next year. Yet here we are asking governments to focus on potential planetary boundaries that may not be reached for decades. Given the discount rate, nothing could be more understandable than the U.S. Congress’s failure to grapple with, say, climate change. From this perspective, is there any reason to imagine that Homo sapiens, unlike…

Somehow, this New York Times headline is just wrong

The headline – giving the location at Phnom Penh, Cambodia – is One of the worst stampedes in recent years killed at least 378 people at a holiday celebration Monday night. 

Ball-6102

I like this

Samuel Beckett: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
Le-Terrible-S619

Countries are like high school students….immature high school students

Maybe once a month – and I am not kidding about this – I wonder why India doesn’t just say Fuck it, lets have a election to settle Kashmir. They have been in a low grade civil war and occupation government for years. It is costly, it hurts India on the international stage, and is hypocritical. Sure, India might lose Kashmir, they probably will lose Kashmir, but so what? They don’t really have it, all they have is a problem.

But countries don’t do that.

Now I read that the French are trying to make sure that the British continue to buy US nuclear weapons systems. Apparently, they are concerned that, if the Brits give up their nukes, there will pressure for the French to follow suit. Obviously this would be better for the world, but the French don’t want to give up their nukes. Sure, they have no real reason for them, but they want them it makes them feel good.

A bunch of stuff I keep wanting to finish

Uncategorized

Road-3255

For the last week, or so, I have been stalled out. It is not that I haven’t started all sorts of Blog Posts, it is just that they have faded out. I would have such a great thought or insight and then it would just sit there, like a duck hit on the head with a mallet, or scamper away, hiding under the closest cliche (would you prefer cliché). Going back to China, I have about 200 false starts, so I thought I would just post a couple of starts to get them out of my hair.

Hong Kong-9414

….a bill that would require a kill switch on all smartphones sold in California has stalled in the State Legislature amid opposition from the telecommunications industry. New York Times May 3, 2014

I wonder why the telecommunications industry is against something that would make their product safer. Reading that, it sounds sarcastic, but I’m not. It can’t cost very much money, it would obviously cut down on smartphone theft which is now a big part of all theft, and it would make customers happier. It certainly doesn’t make them happier to know that the telecoms are fighting this.

Is it a knee jack reaction to more government control? That doesn’t seem likely, this is an industry that has government control everywhere and, as this bill illustrates, the industry knows how to control the controllers. Or, at least, influence the controller’s. This industry knows how to work with and around the government.

It is not just the telecom industry. I see it in the fight over the minimum wage. Last Christmas Season, WalMart – among others – report declining sales and attributed it to – among other things – people’s declining income. However, that did not stop WalMart – among others – from fighting an increase in the minimum wage.

On a much bigger scale, I wonder why – even – oil companies are fighting the very idea of Global Climate Change, after all alot of oil company CEOs have grandchildren. What are they going to tell them?

Names

A Jonathan Chait quote I was going to do something with but I have no idea what. It is an interesting idea, though, I wonder if Barack Obama hurt or helped the president get elected.

Democrats will run Jack Conway against Rand Paul. This puts the Kentucky Senate seat in play — Rand is the favorite but Conway has a shot. I have a pet theory that a politician’s name is a major factor — I’d guess being named “Jack Conway” is worth several points more than being named “Daniel Mongiardo.”

Hathaway and Lawrence

I thought that this was an interesting article about archetypes. I really had no idea that anybody didn’t like Anne Hathaway until I read it but I certainly can see Jennifer Lawrence as the Cool Girl. It would not surprise me to read that she had a pickup truck.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/the-happy-girl-vs-the-cool-girl-why-people-dont-like-anne-hathaway

Kodak and Microsoft

SJA--2

I read an opinion piece the other day that opined that Microsoft would be gone in ten or fifteen years. My first thought was That is impossible. and then  I started thinking about Kodak. When the picture above was taken, Kodak was a colossus and now they are almost gone.

As an aside, the woman, above, is named Maria. I had met Maria in Najab, Guatemala  – I know her name is Maria and it was in Guatemala, I am less sure about Najab – and I then saw her hawking hupils to tourists in Antigua several days later. I gave her my backup camera and a roll of film as asked her to take some pictures. At first she didn’t want to because her husband would think I was hitting on her. I still think that is charming. Look at how she is holding the camera, she looks like a pro; it made me realize how smart she was and how much more she knew about us than we knew about her. End aside.