Tag Archives: movies

Chapter Seven of Online Memoir; America’s Enthusiastic Edge.

Posted on March 15, 2024 | Leave a comment

The Enthusiastic Edge of America

I am not starting this chapter by posting pictures of American Samoa for many reasons.  What I think  about  when I reflect on our families arrival and life in American Samoa includes learning more wonderful things about the Pacific Ocean. I remember that we learned a great deal more about the Polynesian cultures and peoples by seeing the ways that Tonga and Samoa were similar and the ways they were different. I think that it is a time when I became very much aware of the way the American history in the far reaches of the Pacific had played out over time. .All of this was part of my experience on the island at the center of American Samoa.

It was also to be a place where we became more intimately connected to the faith experience of Christians who were not Catholics than we had been so far. In addition it was a time of gaining skills in living an intentional Christian community among a small group of people. Further, it was s time when my parents began to see life open to more children – it had taken a while for them to get their considering their conversion to the faith.

But all those things are secondary to the fact that I feel that were were really redefining our place in the  culture and society of America. I feel that we were suddenly living our changing ideal not in a foreign land and not in our home environs. We were to travel a new path in this country. To understand that I have to review once more the place we left. It is in the comparison to my grandparent’s house in New Orleans and that perspective on the rest of my life in Louisiana that my American existence prior to Tonga contrasts with my life from American Samoa forward.  

The pictures at the opening of this post are pictures taken of 1812 Palmer Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana in recent years or at least in recent decades. This 8 bedroom home belonged to my father’s parents when we went into the missions. In those days more sumptuous wood paneling was dark and unpainted and it was filled with fine art and fine furniture. Guest of all ages could call at various times.. They came from Abbeville and the Acadiana district that elected my grandfather to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Because it was the state Supreme that sat in New Orleans — while the Governor and Legislature sat in Baton Rouge it was possible to maintain a more courtly presence if one was so inclined. Papau was the Chief Justice only briefly but the Chief Justice really was in a small group of Foreign Consuls, the Mayor and the highest officials in the Federal Customs House and the very powerful Levee Board — these people were the highest class of government officials in a city that seemed much more important then when Oil and Gas, the port on the Mississippi River and trade with Latin America all seemed vital to American interest. The industrial corridor on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge was the second largest in the world in those days. If it is true that I gained delusions of grandeur when I visited the palaces of Britain and continental Europe and the mansions of New York and New England, it was not so hard for a child to make such a mistake. These places seemed like my grandparents house and it was easy to see myself as a scion of an important and entitled family. There was plenty of me that expected life might be an endless hell — but I was equally sure that I an my family would be important in the world I was going to live in and I did not really expect life to present the set of challenges that it actually did offer over time.

Among the feelings of old stories about travels to palaces and old historic sites, visits to land that had been in the family for generations and the stories of the origins and tenure of the Louisiana Supreme Court there was a modernizer in the house. In 1812 Palmer as in most houses in America in the golden age of news we all gathered to watch the evening News on most days when my grandfather got home early enough and we often watched a later edition of the news as well. My grandfather Summers was less of a man to go for new fangled gadgets than my Gremillion grandfather in Abbeville. But in my early years Abbeville had many fewer channels than New Orleans and my grandfather and grandmother had the first remote I ever used in their great living room there. It may have had an earlier version that was even simpler but the first version to last had up and down on volume and the channel select only went one way, you had to cycle through all the channels to get to the one just below yours. The remote could also turn the TV on and off. It was an amazing magical addition to the powerful instrument that could control the home in such a unique way. Later there was another TV on the third floor, but never in regular bedrooms or the kitchen. Family members played the piano or other instruments or professional musicians played a tune more often than I remember the radio playing in the big spaces of the house. Some people listened to the radio or albums on the third floor, in their spacious rooms, on balconies, on the patio or elsewhere. But he common areas of the house were for the people living there without imported entertainment. The TV was watched mostly after supper and there was another thing. When there were no big parties the Summers usually retired to their rooms pretty early. On occasion as a young child I would sneak down the then dark paneled grand staircase to the big living room in front of the house and turn the television on with the volume very low and watch scary movies that played late at night in those days. I never went to school in New Orleans until I attended Law School at Tulane when I was older than most of my classmates, if I was there I was usually living a life of leisure and did not really have to get up early. The late, late shows alone in a vast room, lying close on the carpet to watch television with the volume low when I was supposed to be in bed would leave me alone to traverse the dark and cavernous house. It was truly terrifying going back to my bed at one in the morning with no light but moonlight and a few lights from outside the windows and a few nightlights in electrical sockets. In my child’s imaginative mind, all the monsters, vampires, ghosts and sometimes ordinary murderers that were the characters in the of the film I had just seen seemed to be watching me from the deep shadows all around me. Once I made it through this gauntlet of imaginary terrors and real shadows and long spaces and secrecy I would climb into my bed and often have vivid nightmares. I did this many times.

Whenever I think back about my the life of my mind and any senses I had under very different circumstances I remember those nights of self-induced terror. It keeps me aware and perhaps skeptical of the mental and emotional landscapes that form my life history. But, compared to many people, I have spent a lot of time and energy taking seriously the feelings and thoughts I have in and of themselves. Life goes even when some of our problems may not be as real as others.

But that example is but one of several I could use to illustrate the role of television in my life. For a number of years my parents and I used to go to my mother’s parents home on the day when Mutual of Omaha’s WIld Kingdom aired on a local station. I often had someone to watch it with me but I also was willing to watch it alone. My parents were among the first of my friends parents to get cable .and there were quite a few shows I loved to watch even though I had few people to share them with — on was Speed Racer. When my paternal grandparents took me and their two youngest children to spend some time on Malibu Beach and to see DIsneyland as well as touring the Western United States. I soaked up the sea, painted desert and the great park of the Disney imagination. But I also watched tv and was amazed at all the channels and cartoons that I had never even heard existed. I was deeply interested in television and film. Somehow when I was young I managed to send a letter to Jodie Foster’s agent or fan club or something and to get a reply reputed to come from her. Television and movies would mark a connection between me and the rest of the country. Far in the future would be years when I would watch a huge number of movies but almost no television. But the years that would shape much of my life were the ones in which I watched neither film nor television. I was very much a person who understood that people talked about sports and television. I loved to watch the New Orleans Saints football games on television and often spoke about the games the next day — sometimes those games were the only thing that I could find to talk about with some of my peers.

 The pictures at the opening of this post are pictures taken of 1812 Palmer Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana in recent years or at least in recent decades. This 8 bedroom home belonged to my father’s parents when we went into the missions. In those days more sumptuous wood paneling was dark and unpainted and it was filled with fine art and fine furniture. Guest of all ages could call at various times.. They came from Abbeville and the Acadiana district that elected my grandfather to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Because it was the state Supreme that sat in New Orleans — while the Governor and Legislature sat in Baton Rouge it was possible to maintain a more courtly presence if one was so inclined. Papau was the Chief Justice only briefly but the Chief Justice really was in a small group of Foreign Consuls, the Mayor and the highest officials in the Federal Customs House and the very powerful Levee Board — these people were the highest class of government officials in a city that seemed much more important then when Oil and Gas, the port on the Mississippi River and trade with Latin America all seemed vital to American interest. The industrial corridor on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge was the second largest in the world in those days. If it is true that I gained delusions of grandeur when I visited the palaces of Britain and continental Europe and the mansions of New York and New England, it was not so hard for a child to make such a mistake. These places seemed like my grandparents house and it was easy to see myself as a scion of an important and entitled family. There was plenty of me that expected life might be an endless hell — but I was equally sure that I an my family would be important in the world I was going to live in and I did not really expect life to present the set of challenges that it actually did offer over time.

Among the feelings of old stories about travels to palaces and old historic sites, visits to land that had been in the family for generations and the stories of the origins and tenure of the Louisiana Supreme Court there was a modernizer in the house. In 1812 Palmer as in most houses in America in the golden age of news we all gathered to watch the evening News on most days when my grandfather got home early enough and we often watched a later edition of the news as well. My grandfather Summers was less of a man to go for new fangled gadgets than my Gremillion grandfather in Abbeville. But in my early years Abbeville had many fewer channels than New Orleans and my grandfather and grandmother had the first remote I ever used in their great living room there. It may have had an earlier version that was even simpler but the first version to last had up and down on volume and the channel select only went one way, you had to cycle through all the channels to get to the one just below yours. The remote could also turn the TV on and off. It was an amazing magical addition to the powerful instrument that could control the home in such a unique way. Later there was another TV on the third floor, but never in regular bedrooms or the kitchen. Family members played the piano or other instruments or professional musicians played a tune more often than I remember the radio playing in the big spaces of the house. Some people listened to the radio or albums on the third floor, in their spacious rooms, on balconies, on the patio or elsewhere. But he common areas of the house were for the people living there without imported entertainment. The TV was watched mostly after supper and there was another thing. When there were no big parties the Summers usually retired to their rooms pretty early. On occasion as a young child I would sneak down the then dark paneled grand staircase to the big living room in front of the house and turn the television on with the volume very low and watch scary movies that played late at night in those days. I never went to school in New Orleans until I attended Law School at Tulane when I was older than most of my classmates, if I was there I was usually living a life of leisure and did not really have to get up early. The late, late shows alone in a vast room, lying close on the carpet to watch television with the volume low when I was supposed to be in bed would leave me alone to traverse the dark and cavernous house. It was truly terrifying going back to my bed at one in the morning with no light but moonlight and a few lights from outside the windows and a few nightlights in electrical sockets. In my child’s imaginative mind, all the monsters, vampires, ghosts and sometimes ordinary murderers that were the characters in the of the film I had just seen seemed to be watching me from the deep shadows all around me. Once I made it through this gauntlet of imaginary terrors and real shadows and long spaces and secrecy I would climb into my bed and often have vivid nightmares. I did this many times.

Whenever I think back about my the life of my mind and any senses I had under very different circumstances I remember those nights of self-induced terror. It keeps me aware and perhaps skeptical of the mental and emotional landscapes that form my life history. But, compared to many people, I have spent a lot of time and energy taking seriously the feelings and thoughts I have in and of themselves. Life goes even when some of our problems may not be as real as others.

But that example is but one of several I could use to illustrate the role of television in my life. For a number of years my parents and I used to go to my mother’s parents home on the day when Mutual of Omaha’s WIld Kingdom aired on a local station. I often had someone to watch it with me but I also was willing to watch it alone. My parents were among the first of my friends parents to get cable .and there were quite a few shows I loved to watch even though I had few people to share them with — on was Speed Racer. When my paternal grandparents took me and their two youngest children to spend some time on Malibu Beach and to see DIsneyland as well as touring the Western United States. I soaked up the sea, painted desert and the great park of the Disney imagination. But I also watched tv and was amazed at all the channels and cartoons that I had never even heard existed. I was deeply interested in television and film. Somehow when I was young I managed to send a letter to Jodie Foster’s agent or fan club or something and to get a reply reputed to come from her. Television and movies would mark a connection between me and the rest of the country. Far in the future would be years when I would watch a huge number of movies but almost no television. But the years that would shape much of my life were the ones in which I watched neither film nor television. I was very much a person who understood that people talked about sports and television. I loved to watch the New Orleans Saints football games on television and often spoke about the games the next day — sometimes those games were the only thing that I could find to talk about with some of my peers.  

I will be looping back over the early years of my life, when much of my sense of self and personality were formed. As future chapters develop certain themes of my life I will revisit the early years for the early measures and parameters by which I would judge future developments of a particular kind in my life.  This is one such theme. In Tonga we had no television, although Tonga today does, I have heard of many changes since I lived there, although like many places I have been I never got back there. In Tonga I went to the movies twice and both films were not films I would have been let into in Louisiana. That was about the limit of screen entertainment there and I found both films pretty disturbing at the time. Sex and violence were  pretty over the top compared to what I was used to watching back home or the conservative family oriented lives of the Tongan friends I went to the movies with at the time.  In  American Samoa I remember the newspaper and American Magazines and the radio but if there was television available I don’t remember seeing it .During the time we were there I went quite a few times to the Rainmaker Hotel to use the pool (somehow this arrangement could be paid for cheaply enough) and I walked past lobbies and bars that I could see inside of but I don’t remember any television – I could be blocking it out but that would be hard to understand.This Lent my wife and I  have given up watching TV between 8 and 4 on all regular days of Lent (not including Sunday).  I also think that Television was just a small part of the transitions going on in our family. WE did not have TV out on the farm  in the camp where we lived for a number of months before we left for Tonga. But the years right before our conversion saw ever increasing television viewing in our lives.   . 

I have discussed my great-grandmother’s painting, fishing and hunting, sight-seeing across Europe and New York,I am now admitting that my Dad played albums of Gregorian Chant and Native American ritual and ceremonial music. That was before streaming platforms made exotic music accessible to everyone. I have discussed the parties and the shrine to Saint Jude and the cattle drives and round ups. All of those stories are true. Traveling through national parks and State Parks was very important to me. My mother’s play and newspaper articles formed part of the fabric of my life and thought. However, while all of that and lots of reading took up lots of those early years I also was very much a child of one of the early American television generations. Movies were a huge thing we went to once in a while but television was the main thing that could eat up everything else if I let it. If there were enough bad things happening and I had access to a television then I could get to the place where watching television consumed most of my time that was not otherwise scheduled. Because I did no live on a working farm with lots of chores, have siblings or neighborhood kids to demand a great deal of me or belong to any sports leagues on an average day the amount of time that could be spent watching TV could be huge. Thus one of the big contradictions to people who try to figure my life out would be all that I did when I wasn’t watching TV and all the memories I have of watching TV. My parents were among the early subscribers to cable when it became available in Abbeville. I remember when      .    

 Sarah is the  next oldest of my parents’ mutual children. She is almost 12 years younger than I but is my oldest full sibling or living sibling.I lived a life before the mission and in early missions before she was born but we also lived together  in missions and then she continued in missions with my parents after I moved on and then she returned to serve in their mission company in its later stages in a way that I never did. One day we had a long conversation about cross-culture and thor culture kids and all that makes an adult a product of such things as one might call cross-culture or third culture experience.

I am not sure the exact day, month or even year of this conversation but it happened about 2016 or 2017 in Abbeville, Louisiana  with my adult sister Sarah Anthea Summers, Spiehler Granger – who is really Sarah Granger. I used to take her and her kids out for breakfast at McDonalds in Abbeville before they were all in school whenever I had a Monday morning that I was not working and they were available. It actually started as a tradition with her inviting me for coffee and then it evolved into something else. And it gave some meaning to my life for a number of years to do this thing.  Below  this discussion are some resources but not necessarily the books I read inspired by her suggestion.

 The discussion started as many others have over the course of these meetings for Monday breakfasts. I was very busy and also underemployed.

“Hey Sarah.” I asked as I sat down with the things I had bought at  the counter of our Abbeville Mc Donald’s restaurant. We had both helped the kids get to the Playland, while their shoes were stacked beside the equipment I asked about her older children. We had done similar things with those three Alyse, Anika and Soren. “They are all doing well. I think Anika is pretty excited about passing her travel guide licensing exam in New York CIty.”

“That is a nice distinction for her. Of course she traveled so much with you.” I spoke feeling the absence of the little girl who was my godchild and with whom I spent so much time, so gladly over the years.”Is she going to be working with Jason’s company. I follow the Walks companies online.”

“She might later, but right now  I think she is going to work with Get a Guide.” Sarah nodded and then we talked a bit about all the older kids as we assembled Isaac, Isabel and  Jonah for the snacks and drinks at the table.

“Have you been reading anything?” I asked as I finished my coffee and the kids went back for another round on the playground equipment. I continued “I don’t always get to reading them as quickly as I would like but I take your reading and viewing lists seriously. I learn some great things..”

“Well, thanks.” Sarah said, ” I have been reading about adults who were third and cross-culture kids. The book really has a lot to say about growing up abroad.”

“That sounds compelling. I suppose there is a good bit about missionary kids.” I said to Sarah solemnly. 

‘Yes, there is a a good bit about it. They show some layers of differences  and some kids stay in th home country and other live in compounds and go to schools based in their home culture. Only a small percentage go to the kinds of schools I and the others went to in General Cepda or elsewhere.”

“I really will read that and  buy the book. Please send  me the information.” I could see Sarah was happy to share. We talked about how Obama had brought cross-cultural childhoods into the forefront of American life.

She did send the information and for a while I studied the subject with interest.    She had a lot of knowledge she was bringing together for the subject. 

(Cross-Cultural Connections: Stepping Out and Fitting In Around the World Paperback – August 29, 2002, by Duane Elmer (Author); Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds (Revised Edition) Ruth E. Van Reken.How to Raise Confident Multicultural Children: Ideas and practical advice from diverse professionals for even greater success raising a bilingual and multicultural child… Books – Fostering Creativity in Kids) Kindle Edition, by Elisavet Arkolaki (Author), Dr. Ute Limacher-Riebold (Author), Vivian Chiona (Author), & 7 more  Format: Kindle Edition)

I have a set of  memories of the United States of America  before the Roe v. Wade decision in January of 1973. But when I got to American Samoa, the new America that had been evolving was enshrined in a set of laws that would endure until a few years ago. The Supreme Court had found a constitutional right to abortion at the federal level and all of the basic structure of the constitution and its underlying philosophies had been thrown out the window in favor of the real transformation of the brave new world I would grow up in ….I was also coming back into that country as more of an outsider than I had ever been. Everything about the course of our civilization was making me an alienated outsider. I had lived with the varied sides of my mother’s feminism as I grew up and she worked on newspaper jobs, with documentary film crews and in government programs where she tried to bring a feminist sensibility to the content and the ay of working. Now they were committed to finding a way of life that publicly incorporated traditional Christian roles for marriage as they understood them from their new commitment to scripture  as well as to other literature and community influences. Tongas had exposed to a series of social norms where the oldest males in the royal family and the aristocracy inherited most titles and privileges of nobility and men had specific roles in choirs, lands, war dances and all these things were unapologetic. But Tonga also had a system whereby the oldest sister in each family could obtain and redistribute most of the portale wealth of all of her brothers within the family. FUrther women had many taboos which favored their rights over males in rooms, entrances and many other things. To add to the sexual mores that were influenced by my time in Tonga were the modesty laws that had replaced the ancient Polynesian folkways of topless and sexually charged female dancing at feasts. The other values that fit into this strangely transformed Christian expression of Polynesian culture was the preservation of the cultural institutions of trans culture, predominantly the Faka Laiti who were an.expression of the transgender types that exist throughout almost all of Polynesian history and cultural and national diversity. They were the Tongan expression of the time. I had already been exposed to a great deal of sexual role tension and conflict as a child in the United States. There were things that related to my specific personal family and personal connections and issues that related to growing up during the sexual revolution.

My mother continued to wear the Tongan themed and inspired modest garments and in time regularly wore a head cover of the same fabric. We wore crosses around our necks and were drifting to the edge of American society in appearance. Society was moving in a set of directions and we were in many ways moving in opposite directions. It was in this context that I no longer went to school as we got established in American Samoa.  I did take a few advanced swimming lessons  and a few lessons in a water survival class. I did  not take all of these classes and I never started SCUBA class although that was the second of many times I had been in a position to think that might happen. I have never taken a SCUBA class even as I type the first main draft of this chapter of my memoir.  I did enroll in a fairly formal  Bible class. I also was able to persuade a family who was educating their son with a correspondence course who were willing to let me have a few excess workbooks and loaned me a reader. I am not sure what would have happened if we had stayed in American Samoa for longer.  I am not sure what the compulsory education laws were or were not – but I was not in school. For the most part I was anxious about what it might mean for my future but relieved not to be adjusting to a new school.

I was however aware that I liked the beaches and the super markets. I was deliriously happy when a man we met who conducted fisheries studies invited us to go deep sea fishing a few time and catch fish he measured, weighed, photographed. This scientist also examined the scales and intestines of the fish. But none of those things diminished that we caught the fish, cleaned them and got to keep the flesh. It was a wonderful  time that mattered to and reminded me of deep sea fishing in the Gulf of Mexico with my mother’s parents and their friends.

In American Samoa, I met a few High Chiefs and Talking Chiefs and grilled them as much as I could about how their culture worked within the American political system. We were to end up living with a group of singles in Youth WIth A Mission who were open minded enough to invite my Catholic parents to be their group’s Houseparents. YWAM would enhance the intensity .of my spiritual quest and the sense I had of drawing close to Jesus. It was very much something  I willingly sought. Every day I spent time alone in prayer and Bible reading. I worried about my sins and repenting of them and whether or not  my repentance was real enough.In prayers, in communion at mass and in conversation with others talking about their faith I drew close to the Spirit that God had showered on his people. At least, I truly believed that I was on a spiritual adventure and was helping to create the Kingdom of God on Earth. I am not sure of every part of it being authentic now – but I do know that the experience was not all false and that the spiritual life was somehow real, deep and powerful. But that is a lot less definite than how I would have described my beliefs and pursuits back then. I often said,”I feel like the Lord said this to me when I had my prayer time.”

    . 

The time passed with meals and prayer meeting and ministering to people who came in on the fishing fleet from Asia while many of us dreamed of bringing the Gospel to countries in Asia where there were few Christians. I was into that idea and read about Catholic and Protestant missionaries to East Asia across the centuries. But we were not in American Samoa for very long. Soon we were praying about and discussing moving on.  We flew back to Hawaii, then back to the West Coast and then got off a plane in Albuquerque. We were going to spend some time with the Bordelons, the missionary family who were now working among the Navajo after having taught me to ride a bike competently and having hunted and fished a bit with me on the farm. We were in tropical clothes, we had nothing else. It was literally below freezing and there was a bit of snow here and there. We were given blankets and loose or wrong-sized jackets. We rode in their Volkswagen bus in inferior condition. I was happy to see our old friends but I knew that somehow not fitting in at all in America had come to define my life for the future.

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Riding Off Into the Sunset

Posted on April 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

This is a troubling time for the people and institutions who will endure but for many parts of society and many people it is farewell to the world of the living. Farewell to continuing existence in this reality. Musicians like Ellis Marsalis, Bill Withers, John Prine, Joe Diffie and the others we have been losing cannot be replaced. In American popular culture we have the concept  and film trope of heroes and cowboys riding off into the sunset. Many icons here and in other countries will be doing that here and now. There is too much of this kind of loss going on in the USA for me to even attempt to keep track of the same kinds of losses elsewhere.

Photo by Kelly Lacy from Pexels

I am sitting on my couch typing on this Easter Tuesday morning my arm is in a sling from hurting myself in me sleep. That happens about once a year and that is why I own a sling. Despite all the physical work I  do in a typical year it is usually a sleeping injury that puts me in this condition. I hope that you all are doing alright who are reading this. I am starting to show some signs of wear and tear. I am also aware of all of those who are leaving us in this pandemic. The losses of important influences seem to pile up more each day. But we also know that some of our world will stay the same and all of us have some ties to traditions and institutions forged in tough times.

 

This is a time for dealing with the fact that life is not ever likely to be quite the same after the pandemic.  My life has been about moving beyond  various phases for a long time. It has not been a wasted life but it has not been a life that has led to much solid success. But it does seem that familiar virtues lie the heroic dedication of health care workers facing disease and the generosity of people to charities are on view, I personally am grateful for the largess of the government of my country to the millions including me whose lives have been upended. I am grateful to President Donald Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for finding the way to work together. Today, I hurt my shoulder and have all the stress of the pandemic accentuated by my physical injury but I am not facing financial crisis yet because of Unemployment Insurance benefit expansion and the Economic Impact Payment. I am grateful to have this relief. There are many other people getting other benefits as employers, spouses and employers for which I am not eligible. But I am getting old and tired and am grateful to get my piece of the pie. Maybe I can survive this crisis with a semblance of having my life intact.

Earlier in this blog I spent a lot of pages on grandiose plans and proposals for reform and radical change. I am too tired and run down to think much about those failures. I just think mostly about my life as a series of moments, days and experiences that might make up a life’s work and journey that I am not ashamed to have traveled.

The images in mt mind may be a review of life just before it ends…

or a pause before the journey and the work resume,

Tonight I am noting but not yet reacting to the fact that the United States has stopped funding the WHO. I am noting but not yet reacting to the fact there are real breaks in the supply chain. I am noting but not yet reacting to the fact that I am struggling to deal with the prospect of extended isolation. I am noting but not yet reacting to the cost some errors a few people in my set of connections made just before the crisis that are now amplified by these events, I have not gotten around to thinking about what all these disparate thoughts mean when they are called into the same context.

I do have to say goodbye to the resumption of my school schedule, The Governor of Louisiana has indicated that the school year will not open in the normal sense again for this academic year. I am trying to figure out all the ins and outs of the pandemic for myself. Substitute teaching for the Vermilion Parish School Board has been part of my life and income for 8 of the last 20 years.

The journey of a person through the years of life is not ever all that simple. I have been remembering the low lights and  highlights of my life. In my own case, the world today is very interesting but also not much my concern. I am not so much looking to change anything as I a looking to set my house in order on the way off the stage. I am not even at all confident that I can do that effectively.

 

I still find the need to comment on the great events of the day, I still believe what I believe and surmise what I surmise.  I have never  been so incredibly sure that my time for the shaping of larger events has come largely to an end, For me the focus must be on my personal final chapter or two for the remainder of my time on this earth.

This sense of how a crisis could come suddenly was in my lecture at the LHA  annual meeting when I spoke about the Cajun response to 1930. A sense of sudden sweeping crisis  was present in  what I wrote in this blog  just before the election of Donald Trump. I wrote this as part of one of my last posts before I started letting this blog go without  even trying to keep it going.

Back in 1860 few if any Americans expected the cataclysm which was about to engulf the nation. Even once they conceded that war was a formal likely hood on paper and maybe probable on the field most Americans believed that if started it would end quickly with their side victorious. James Chestnut, South Carolina’s senator and the famous Confederate diarist Mary’s husband, offered to personally drink all the blood shed in the struggle. What happened was an all out clash of millions and an ordeal of years. William J. Cooper Jr.’s book, We Have the War Upon Us does a good job of capturing the sense of that precipice on which America stood. Perhaps the most important lesson to learn from the last year or so before the actual shooting started is how unexpected it seemed to so many.

There is no way to reach any really clear assessment of the Obama Presidency just yet. He may have saved us from a Great Depression, maybe not. He may have done much better in the War on Terror than his predecessor who allowed the attacks on 9/11 which changed us so much. Or he may be responsible for disasters which have engulfed Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Iran, Israel, Libya and Tunisia and other countries in a struggle which will endure for generations. He may have solved the fundamental problems of our healthcare crisis or he may have plunged us deeper into a new healthcare crisis. Certainly there will be no answers that satisfy those who are the most demanding observers and analysts right now. But the election is not in fifty or a hundred years. The election of the next President of the United States is Tuesday. There were fewer prominent Democrats on my ballot than I ever remember seeing in so many races and I usually vote for at least a few Democrats but this time I voted almost entirely for Republicans. However, I did vote for Chris Keniston for President of the United States. His Veterans Party will not take the White House however. So who will take it? Either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will almost certainly take the Presidency. I am not happy with who we leave behind nor either option to which we now proceed. But I do hope that we will have a peaceful transition to a new administration.

Tonight, I am responsive to who I always was but I want arrange record and prepare for my relatively near exit. I do not want to jump much into the fray that matters, I am tired and the sky shows many signs of sunset.

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Cops, Women, Movies and What I might blog about more if I were really a celebrity….

Posted on July 24, 2017 | Leave a comment

When the Aurora  theater shooting was perpetrated there was a whole series of issues in the way the event was handled that I found very upsetting. I wrote some things about police handling of the investigation that were among the angriest and most offensively worded things that I have ever written. It was a desperate attempt to attract more attention to reforming police procedure, reporting on mass shootings, reporting between agencies and public police relations. Of course I got no response from any of the parties I tried to offend — not the police, the mainstream media or the sort of half-breed institutions  that act as part media and part police. No response except some evidence that some isolated elements in both media and police took offense and put me on their enemies list. Fair enough, I have earned lots of enemies but although I hate reading those words I  still think that if I was not so universally ignored it might have prevented some of the horrors of police – public connections and relations that have plagued us ever since. Yes that is egotistical, but if you read this blog regularly you already know that I am fairly egotistical. Insulting the most capable group in society of inflicting harm was not a choice I made lightly even in the heat of anger.

O. J. Simpson’s legal team demonized the police so he could get away with murdering his wife and her associate or lover — his tactic succeeded despite the lack of any relevance to anything. I suggested that the police needed to disprove that a man dressed entirely like a cop, in a place cops were known to work and who shot with skill was not in fact a cop. I suggested that this lack of confronting that issue was inexcusable. I did it in ways that were over the top. But my goal was to start a discussion — I failed to achieve my objective where Simpson’s attorneys did achieve theirs. I never said a cop did it and I laid out the facts that Holmes probably did it and said so clearly to those few who can actually follow an argument they do not like.  But I achieved no discussion whatsoever of how to handle situations when a cop may have run amok. That was around this  time of year in 2012. All of the corrosive events since then may make many people (whose point of view I can’t respect) feel that such criticism contributed to the bad will sense. They are basically fools and self-deluded cowards but many of them hate people like me on sight so this won’t gain me new enemies really — they sense that I dislike the status quo they don’t wan’t criticized  as soon as they see me. Still I would apologize for how angry those words were if I thought it meant anything.
When the Lafayette theater shooting occurred in 2015 and the killer was not dressed like a cop in the view of hundreds of witnesses and the reporting was in my mind sane I said nothing negative about the cops or the cop reportage media industry. I focused on the victims and shared reported links about them such as this and this which emphasized their great human beauty as people. I also shared other links like this. Until this sentence I have never mentioned that Train Wreck is a disturbing movie which many people would find offensive and hard to watch in any of my other treatments of this topic. That is true although as I wrote with empathy in the Charlie Ebdo massacre I never took up the Je Suis Charlie Ebdo tag. I actually think Amy Schumer has some serious things to say in the film and they need to be said. I am not at all sure she says them in a way that deserves major feature film distribution acroos America. But until now I did not mention that and I did focus some attention on the killer and his horrible points of view which led to this crisis. A post or two on that shooting made this blog. So my criticism harsh as it was had a very specific context. Positive posts about police have appeared here , here and here. But that first post which I do not link but which is still here on this blog and elsewhere will haunt me for the rest of my life with a long and more complete line of ghosts than most people have.

The sign that is a feature of the city announcing showtimes is dark
CNN was one of many news organizations around for the longer stretch
Local media has been all over this story.
Grand Theater Shooting police presence days later

So two lovely women who are part of the Acadiana community which I have loved and lived in were killed at a movie about women’s issues that were offensively portrayed by a man whose whole life was devoted to offensive behaviors and thoughts. the cops and media handled it well and that scarcely lessens the tragedy. That is not the kind of writing I would like to do about women, movies are cops but it beats the Aurora piece. I have blogged about the Louisiana Story and the Blob which have been big parts of my life. I have also blogged about other movies such as here  for LA LA Land,  here for a local film and here for the classic Belizaire the Cajun and here for other films. Films are a major interest of mine.

In my brother’s recent foray into feature films I had a chance to shoot the pictures below of an attractive young woman, Dasha Nekrasova a Belarus native who grew up in Las Vegas and lives in Los Angeles and is making a movie in Louisiana. It reminds me of a time when I was able to think of cops, women and movies all in a different and more hopeful way than I can now. It reminds me of a time when my past life was less complex. That being said I was never the kind of person cops look like and say “he is a good citizen and we want to be on his side” with any kind of universality. I have a certain instinct for trouble, am usually unhappy and they usually sense both things pretty quickly.
I have never really known what it is like to move forward in life without feeling that terrible tension between what was going on and what is tolerable in the world but I am trying to understand things better. All the good things in life get more distant to me as I age even when they are present. But I did  feel connected to something better seeing this girl/woman telling an American story.

 

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Posted in 1, Abbeville, Abbeville, Abbeville FIlm and Visitors Commission, Ambrosio and Summers, blogs, documentary film, Emma Stone, Frank W. Summers III's family, John Paul Summers, Louisiana Story, media, movies, The Blob, Vermilion Parish

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Peacework and Wargames: The Visions We Share

Posted on February 25, 2013 | Leave a comment

It may be a sign of megalomania or of a lack of focus. But I do write notes and posts that sort of treat the whole world at a given moment. I am writing this note in that extremely ambitious scope of trying to see roughly where the world is right now. That is of course far too much to do in so few words. In addition to constraints of length it imposes too many demands of other kinds on me and on my readers. Yet I feel drawn and compelled to this attempt to glimpse the current state of the world. Once again I sort of want to set down where the world is just at this moment before Spring in 2013.
This is one of the more shapeless and rambling notes and blog posts which I occasionally write. The unifying theme among the motifs and issues discussed in this Facebook Note and Blog Post is simply that in late February of 2013 there is a relevance to me in each of the things I discuss here. In other words these are the things on my mind which I do not deem too personal, secret or trivial to include in something like this.

I am going to discuss four subjects and also try to interrelate them a little bit. These subjects are:

1. The legacy of Pope Benedict XVI and his role as a retired Pope.
2. The economic future of this country, my state and region and the world as these things relate to a few specific political and social issues.
3. The changing face of military power.
4. The 2013 Academy Awards Presentations and the State of the film industry.

It is perhaps possible to suggest a theme beyond time alone. These questions mostly arise at the same time but I am also looking at all of them from the point of view of awareness of fundamental things. It is not a trivial challenge for any group or institution to keep a correct and vital connection with the real dynamic roots and essential vital energies that keep it alive. I will be looking at how the Catholic Church, Hollywood, the US military and the economy are challenged to remain properly connected to their real energies…

There will be many developments over time which will reveal the real legacy of Pope Benedict XVI more completely than it can be revealed now. However, I think some things can be well understood already. He accomplished something very significant simply by being the second consecutive non-Italian Pope. Alone Pope John Paul II could have been an anomaly but two makes a pattern. There is also the fact that he was able to bring a great deal of experience from a broad sampling of pastoral and doctrinal problems to bear as he sought out the new evangelization and the new ecumenism. However, I think the greatest legacy of the recent pontificate in recent terms will be in the field of liturgy which in turn relates to Christian unity and other matters in a fairly direct way. I think including the Anglican use and the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite of the Mass have made the Church more Catholic and complete in ways that are really significant…
A relevant link to understand the role and significance of the extraordinary form can be found just below.

http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/extraordinary-form/

Benedict XVI has reminded the world’s Catholics of the richness of community which exists in the worship of the church. This are the liturgical Rites of the Catholic Church?

It has been no mystery to the Church leadership that three major groupings of Rites exist in the Catholic Church with one of them divided into what constitutes almost two major groupings. All the Cardinals in the Conclave are likely aware that from these four parent rites over twenty liturgical Rites (Western and Eastern) have developed which are in union with the Holy See. But for a large percentage of the majority of Roman Catholics these realites are remote enough. Many have little or no knowledge of worship beyond the Roman Rite. Practical fellowship in the many rites which in turn constitute the Antiochian Rite (Syria) and the Alexandrian Rite (Egypt) rarely occurs for most of them. The Byzantine Rite is only slightly better known and few know it derived derived as a major Rite from the Antiochian, under the influence of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom. More freedom and harmony with these rites and with the Orthodox Christians to which they often relate in many ways was one of the goals of the Second Vatican Council. Things have improved in that regard over the last fifty years and Benedict XVI has made a contribution in that regard but his main effect on these matters has been indirect.

In much of the world the use of particular words in the Catholic mass may not seem very important and even the gathering of 115 men in red hats to elect a Pope may not seem significant. But the ritual is important, the voice is often heard and people know that the Pope is a leader of opinion and ideals for many with whom they currently share the planet. In a bit I will turn to the Academy Awards which also are a compelling ritual and also symbolize a powerful voice in the world and also are very much of interest to many people who would not have to be interested in them. It is easy for certain people to believe that political and economic news is more compelling than it is. Modern people tend to think that all the pageants of royalty and tribal politics were superfluous extras and that the modern era has got it right. But there is quite a bit of evidence that such rituals were vital to maintaining even a minimum of the healthier kind of interest in government. That same general area of evidence leads us to believe huge numbers of the wrong people are alienated and disconnected as regards much of the political and macroeconomic world. There are many among America’s strongest allies and worst enemies who see in the current and concurrently running second terms for Obama in the White House and for Ban Ki-Moon at the UN a season for steady progress for world peace and prosperity as well as opportunity for their own country’s progress. Russia is able to undertake key social and economic reforms as it grows into a new position, China builds up its military, North Korea is perfecting the atomic warhead and the ICBM and Brazil is flexing its regional economic muscle. In the United Kingdom there has emerged strong support from all major political parties for increased funding towards and the official establishment of the External Advisory Service in the EU as well as other initiatives by Europe to act as a single power able to make real progress on promoting peace and development in conflict-affected zones and fragile states.
The efforts of various powers around the world comes out in a context of enthusiasm by Europeans and Asia’s little dragons (the relatively small trading powers for foundations of a better world order. There is a context for such efforts which all nations have agreed to and in which famous Americans of means have played a major role. Ted Turner, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet among others have really made an impact in the efforts to give effect to the agreements which were reached under the term Millennium Development Goals. The millennium is well under way now and 2015 was a benchmark year in this plan so little discussed and reported in this country. About a billion of Earth’s people live in countries where the social, political and economic order is largely defined by repeated cycles of political and criminal violence. The Millennium Development Goals such as halving extreme poverty, providing universal primary (or elementary) school education and stopping the spread of AIDS have proven very difficult to achieve where multiple low grade civil wars are shaping the live of the poor and those seeking to interact with them. Largely because of violence which often has global dimensions the many millions in conflict are making little progress and no fragile state or conflict-affected region is likely to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal. The United Nations, the European Union and many other institutions clearly indicate that for these millions to progress their states must undergo structural change. Many countries with little chance of positive reform must develop more capable civic and state institutions, transform their security and justice sectors and be in a position to deal with various parties and factions long at war of one kind or another to bring about demobilization and reconciliation. These reforms would be necessary before the current world order would breathe life into weak economies and foster new relationships between the citizen and the state in each of these countries and nations. One cannot help but wonder if all the distance between these Goals and reality is just an accident or whether perhaps the order we currently live in does not support these goals at all.

However, the same powers that have sought these reforms sense that they are not succeeding as well as could be hoped. Britain’s Conservative political leaders and Prime Minister can smell and taste the geopolitical winds enough to feel the need for security and will consider spending considerable monies made available by this move for a stabilizing internationalism and an expansion of the UK’s aid budget to be used on more old fashioned kinds of military peacekeeping and even more purely conventional defense-related projects.
The UK which has quite a bit of experience building Empires is both really interested in a better world and really aware it must remain engaged in a world where China, Russia, new organizations and international Islamism or very much engaged. For each of these powers armed humanitarianism is part of the total world strategy Britain will not be left out and is allocating 30% of the UK aid budget to fragile and conflict-affected states. This development will involve some defense profile as well. The Brits have declared that their world strategies and interest are enhanced and their engagement effectiveness is improved when the Ministry of Defense, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development work together, “sharing expertise while co-ordinating policy and strategy.”
In this complex world America has a government that does not draw up budgets, does not understand how to compare debt. Our public indebtedness is about one hundred trillion and not sixteen trillion dollars. It does not understand the international networks that can fuse and separate and has not really allocated sufficient resources to countering the kind of weapons postulated in the film Red Dawn which would take the whole internet off line, fry CPUs and jam communications simultaneously. We see the world adjusting to new patterns of reliance, we know carrier killer missiles with small warheads on mobile launchers can be rained down from space with amazing speed and we see that a new generation of projectiles hunt conventional rocketry more effectively than ever before but largely we do not adjust to these challenges but instead focus only on the lessons of recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. We see that our own social cohesion is under strain but really keep increasing the strain and not really securing the future and not thinking of what an American solution ought to be in deep terms.

I believe our models for economics and military projections are flawed badly. If we do not do a lot better soon there will be consequences. The solution does involve being alarmed but does not involve seeing the whole world as made up of full-fledged enemies. That approach would be one of many that would produce the same bad result. The result would be what?

The United States of America is moving towards a series of catastrophic military disasters. The country will awaken sooner or later to a future of having been entirely overrun by its enemies. The time for reform and appropriate action is quickly coming to an end.

Things are going to get a lot rougher than most people are prepared to deal with I fear. There is little else to say about the situation’s overall status and stature. There is a lot to say about what exactly I mean by that. However, for this note the short paragraphs above will have to do…

I now want to discuss the Oscars which I watched with interest on Sunday, February 24, 2013. The struggle for any kind of recognition this year was very intense. The year saw a lot of films that were at least of decent quality and many that had some ideas to work with as well.

I have not posted or written as much about the movies this year as I sometimes do. I did post a status after Dad and I went to see The Impossible in Abbeville one night. I also posted a review of Blood on the Bayou. I indicated similar things about both very different movies. I thought they were (on somewhat different scales) very good, solid picture and sound and well acted throughout. I also thought this was a great year for movies. The films seemed varied & excellent and on a year when I was able to go to more movies than I have in most recent years. It was also a year when I saw more movies than most but not all years of my life.

I have seen quite a few memorable movies in the last twelve months. The biggest one I missed was Amour. Other movies I have enjoyed were: Lincoln, Les Miserables, Zero Dark Thirty, Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild (on DVD), Anna Karenina, Parental Guidance, The Cirque de Soleil Movie, Jack Reacher, The Hobbit, Blood on the Bayou, Django Unchained, Dark Knight Rises, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Atlas Shrugged Part Two, Skyfall, Hunger Games and Red Dawn. Then on DVD for previous years I saw for the first time Hugo and My Week with Marilyn. Movies besides Amour which I missed were Flight, The Master, Brave, Wreck-it Ralph and Moonrise Kingdom. However, I did see Moonrise Kingdom on DVD. I also thought the Twilight : Breaking Dawn Part Two did not deserve the Razzies but it was not the best even of that franchise. I was happy to see that Kristen Stewart held her head up at the Oscars and made a stunning presentation of herself after her Razzy as worst actress. The truth is I like The Avengers and the Hobbit and I did really like the Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron work as well as most of the film titles Snow White and the Huntsman. The Twilight film joined with these films in selling a great deal of the popcorn and soda which along with the kids movies sales provide a place for all of us to watch the big screen filled with light.

Hollywood is a huge industry in America and it is our best claim to the kind of influence other people have a hard time stealing in a very competitive world. I support the movies by subscribing to Netflix, going to films and discussing them partly out of patriotic concern for a great American institution. But we all have our limits, I still chose not to see most of the movies that came out and I go to discount day matinees whenever possible. We live in a dangerous and intense world but sometimes the way we spend our leisure matters more than we might think. I thought this was a good year for a film with themes like those of Argo to be featured. I am glad it won best picture and hope we will use it and the other three political nominees Les Miserables, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty to remember that we cannot pretend governance doesn’t matter – it always does in the end.

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Gala Event at the Lafitte Cinema was Hugely Successful

Posted on November 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

Abbeville is a small town. It is not as small as the hometowns of Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Saint Benedict or many others who come from very small towns and remind us that Abbeville is a city and not a village in official classification.  Abbeville is more in the size class of Neil Armstrong’s Ohio hometown but it is substantially bigger. Wapakoneta, Ohio has a museum honoring the First Man to walk on the Moon and his great adventures. Abbeville last night had a crowded and busy reception and Gala showing of the 1988 film The Blob with Shawnee Smith and Kevin Dillon. I had worked on the film as did many of my friends and there are lots and lots of frames of great Abbeville locations that looked beautiful on the big screen.

We had a good evening and it would have been difficult to fit twenty more bodies into the reception-friendly areas of the Lafitte Cinema prior to the showings themselves. Of course, musicians and caterers took up some of the room.  Really a good time was surely had by most and possibly by all.

Note: Chris Rosa wrote a piece on this event and I am the one he quotes as Frank Summers Jr. This appears in the Abbeville Meridional Friday, November 19,2010 issue and starts on the front page.

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Posted in Abbeville, Frank W. Summers, Kevin Dillon, movies, Shawnee Smith

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The Blob: A Gala Fundraiser at the Lafitte Cinema

Posted on November 17, 2010 | 1 comment

My mother and I will be going to a gala fundraiser showing of the Blob tonight in Abbeville. I recently went with my sister and her children to the Cafe du Monde for cafe au lait and beignets, walked around Jackson Square, went to the Aquarium of the Americas and to the New Orleans City Park as well as a ferry trip to Gretna and back across the Father of Rivers from the French Quarter. That day was a new experience that was full of reminders of old experiences. I treasured the time Sarah, Alyse, Anika, Soren and I spent doing those things.

Tonight will be an experience closer to home and celebrating things that are closer to home. The funds raised will be to the benefit of a scoirty preserving the Frank’s Theater which is where a key scene in The Blob was made. This historic cinema also premiered the Flaherty classic Louisiana Story which among other credits has a Pulitzer Prize  winning score and soundtrack. The Blob was made in Abbeville ( in large part) in 1988 and I worked on the production as a gun-toting white-suited extra. Watching it now almost 23 years later in this context will be fun I hope.
Despite my often dismal point of view there is a pattern of recycling and enhancing patterns of past joys which has stood me in good stead in life.

I don’t know if there are tickets still available but anyone wishing to get tickets for tonight November 17, 2010 at 7:30 may be able to get them online by going to the Lafitte website, clicking on Showtimes, clicking onthe Buy Tickets button next to The  Blob and then following directions: http://www.abbevillemovies.com/index.asp

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The Mental Ferment for Men (and Women) who Might Foment an American Revolution: Part One

Posted on March 6, 2010 | 6 comments

In the United States today well over ten percent and something less than a quarter of likely voters currently identify themselves when asked about party membership as members of the Tea (or TEA, i.e. “Taxed Enough Already”) Party.  These people include some decently high number of folks who are willing to speak about an American Revolution such as the one we had two hundred years ago. There are tours going across the country as the Tea Party Express. There are rallies, conventions and town hall meetings. While many discount the potential of this movement in this country they represent the largest and most potent movement of their kind in a long time. I am doing a four part posting on the potential American Revolution as it might be abd as I would like to see it.

Revolutionary Iconography is part of the TEA Party experience...

There are not two constitutional transitions or transformations which are or ought to be about the same things.  Whatever the greivances and causes may be which are to lead to a real set of basic changes they should both honor the heritage of  the eighteenth century and recognize the differences between the current situation and the situation that confronted the revolutionary generation, the strivers for American Independence and the founding fathers framing the Constitution.  I do not think many of hthink the British Monarchy is on the top of our target list as foes of our development now whereas that is how things ended up in those days.  America will have and does have it troubles with the UK but that is a relationship worth trying to improve at this point. The same analysis would have been entirely defeatist in the first revolution.

The Current Queen of England and Scotland's United Kingdom with Eisenhower

I don't think any two constitutional changes are the same. The British Monarchy is not our target here.

 There are  in addition to these people I think of Americans like my old college buddy Andy who ran for governor of a state other than mine in 2008 as a Libertarian. His principal slogan was “reboot the government”  I believe.  Andy is of course a computer guy — one of the real ones.  Glen Beck is featuring a regular segment in his show called “Refounding America”.  Mr. Beck’s show is really quite popular and successfull. Of course President Obama himself was elected on the slogan of  “Change You Can Believe In!” There is the fact that Massachussettes elected its first Republican Senator in a very long time. It might be the case that America is ready to look at real change as a possibility.  It is always at least  a little scary when a large and powerful country reaches the point where real change is perceived as necessary. That is even more true when the geopolitical order and social order of the times is such as ours is today.   Sometimes it is very scary indeed.

I am also aware of the huge crowds of Hispanics who not so long ago marched in the streets protesting imigration policy and the sense of persecution growing among Mexican Americans as they perceive the policies of the United States.   If one factors in our vast national debt, huge production of waste, decaying infrastructure,  rates of incaceration, porous borders, fiscal crises in so many places and many other woes it seems clear that we are in a place of real crisis and that some sort of revolutionary transformation may well be necessary.  I think that this change will have to come from other places than what is the mainstream of our current social order or else it will only make things much worse.

Above all there cannot simply be a struggle between shrinking government  and more entitlements of all residents to all kinds of government services. America is soul-sick and not on a path that can lead to the places America needs to reach to have a real chance of socio-political survival and the level of progress needed to support the survival of its people over the moderately long term. With a society such as hours there is a bloating and softening of the social fabric before the really big shocks to the state and the national structure take place.

I thin that America has begun to take notice of its social decay in movies like “The Blind Side” and “Precious, Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire” which have attracted an audience and will be discussed at the Academy Awards tomorrow night. It is possible  for America top address many of its problems while still honoring its traditions and not tearing itself apart. But the time to act keeps running out and the chances of choosing the path we need to choose is not a very likely chance.

What will not work is the color blind, impersonal, nondiscriminating, cowardly and crime-loving concept of justice which our courts have imposed on the nation and the States over the last several decades. I believe that relatively radical action very soon can produce a real chance of justice.  This reconstitution of America should create family associations with many privileges asssured by law. Such  associations will take over some of the responsibilities of a federal budget with greater austerity measures than have been seen for a long time. These associations will also support autonomy and wellbeing for women who want to support and build the strong families that make society strong.  There shall also be a transfer of lands into new jurisdictions and a reworking of the system of apportionment and representation. We can stop pretending that Guam and American Samoa and Puerto Rico have representative governance when they don’t. We can stop pretending that millions of ilegal aliens are not both unfairly treated and a grave threat to this society. They need not be our enemies for us to make that admission.  We also need to create compacts between groups of States and other jurisdictions which are similar to the the Tennessee Valley Authority in some ways but are larger and are able to do more to promote regional welfare and interests. Then there some facts about military reservations and the District of Columbia which need to be addressed. We will need to rework the Congress and redraw the map a little bit. That will include a viable and vital constitutional future for existing American Indian nations.   All of this will be made much harder by years and ecades of pushing a destructive and poisoonous obsession with calculator democracy in its simplest form on to a world that has often suffered from it. The military in the US is not perfect but it is one of our greatest assets. We have to find more of a constitutional role for this social institution in our socio-political regime. WE HAVE TO ADDRESS MANY VERY SERIOUS PROBLEMS.

Right now we still have resources to deal with these problems. That will not always be the case. Soon there will be no chance to solve them. Part Two of this posting will deal withhow we have to try to understand our constitutional and revolutionary heritage more clearly and effectively. Part Three of this posting (should I get to it) will discuss how we might make those changes which can at least address all of our major problems and preserve the best of our revolutionary heritage.

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Posted in Frank W. Summers, Geopolitics, Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics, United Nations, USA--UK Relationship, Western civilization

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Entertainment and Childhood

Posted on September 26, 2009 | 2 comments

I took my nieces and nephew to see the three dimensional version of the movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs it was a cleverly written adaptation of  a popular children’s  book and had both a well written screenplay and excellent voice actors. The quality of the 3D experience was really excellent.  I really enjoyed the visit with my homeschooled (for this year) nieces and nephew who could go to a matinee. The film was a first for me. I had seen 3D I-Max (or imitators I am unsure now) films, 3D films at World’s fairs and have looked at 3D films in correlation with scientific seminars but had never seen a major commercial feature entertainment film in three dimensions at a theater or movie house. I enjoyed that experience .

We drove back to our place in the country where they live in a different house than I do on the same property. I know they enjoy the dogs, horses and fish here at Big Woods. They are also very well traveled.

However, today I remembered my own childhood which had its own joys and sorrows. I went to the wake of the grandfather of one of my closest early childhood friends. I remember riding minibikes at that family’s ranch, going out on their boat The  Escape for deep sea fishing and listening to the man I knew as Mr. Revis tell an occasional war story. My buddy and I did not always get along in those days and we have drifted apart over the years. Our grandfathers were in business together, Dannon and I went to school together and our mothers were good friends.

I was an avid freshwater fisherman as well as an occasional deep sea fisherman when I was a kid. I remember on time I was out at the back of my Dad’s family’s Lac Misere Farm fishing and my grandfather and Mr. Revis flew by in a light plane. They dropped me a shake and a cheeseburger as they flew by. It would be a better story if I could say the packages arrived perfectly in good order but in that living experience of food falling from the sky it was rather like the 3D movie. There was some damage although I did catch the food and drink more or less. It is remarkable enough that I got some eating and drinking out of the expereience. That was certainly an unusual experience. However, it was in keeping with the personality of the men who served in the military during World War II. Revis Greene Sirmon was the “Scatterbrain Kid” as was his plane when he was a fighter pilot. His zest for life and willingness to take chances were telltale signs of his years as a fighter pilot in combat. Whatever else he was he could take the time to bring some magic to a kid’s life. I hope he rests in peace and that the country and world he leaves behind becomes a better and not a worse place.

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Posted in Childhood Fun, Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics

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Healthcare Lessons from FDR

Posted on September 19, 2009 | 1 comment

I just watched the wonderful HBO film on DVD titled Warm Springs  with my parents on a quiet Friday night. Joseph Sargent’s direction of witing by Margaret Nagle is joined by very fine acting by Kenneth Branagh as Franklin Delanoe Roosevelt and Cynthi Nixon’ fine portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt. Numerous other good performances make it an exceptional piece of work and that includes the Kathy Bates portrayal of the full-time pgysical therapist at Warm Springs. This film is titled for the hotel and spa in Georgia which FDR visited on the recommendation of a friend and then ended up buying and converting into a full service regular facility for providing warm water therapy to those stricken by polio.

I was impressed by this movie’s excellent and humane treatment of a period and aspect of FDR’s life which was largely hidden while he was president and has been slow to emerge. I knew many of the broad facts and the movie was consistent with those brad facts and therefore I felt the odds were the wrting was farily historical. His experience as Secretary of the Navy and in other fields of endeavor had already shaped him. But to a significant degree his struggle in this healthcare question shaped his later behavior in the Presidency and the character he brought to those issues,

While a graduate student at Louisiana State University Iwas privileged to write a review of Pare Lorentz’s posthumously published memoirs FDR’s Moviemaker: Memoirs and Scripts and to read carefully and write about the life of the man who made documentary films for FDR. This man did make films about healthcare and the issues of healthcare reform. However he never made a film about Warm Springs even though FDR died there. I think that the shame of illness, deformity or disease cannot just be lightly dismissed. We must prefer health to sickness in oder to remain sane. But I looked at the movie this evening and simply felt more convinced than ever that the autonomy and empowerment of the struggle were just as important as anything else about the Warm Spring stories. We need a healthcare plan that enrgizes and allows all people to struggle and work hard for their health and wellness. We certainly cannot afford to make it easy to do everything anyone would like to do. But we can help the brave to struggle and be enlightened by the fires of their courage. We must not allow human beings to be reduced on ly to file numbers and entries on actuarial tables when we are trying to understand all of what  human health means and how we are to care about promoting that health and wellness.

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