Review: A Year and a Day On Just a Few Acres Farm by Peter Larson

I have been addicted to a YouTube channel (Just a Few Acres Farm) created by Peter Larson that documents his return to the farm of his childhood. He left his successful architectural firm after twenty some years to do what he always wanted, make a living in a sustainable way from farming.  He had several advantages.  They owned the farm, had already remodeled the house, and had a nest egg to get started.  Another advantage, most such aspirants do not have, and that's a thriving farmer's market and large college educated community that loves the concept of buying locally.  I have a friend doing something similar in about 10 miles away, but they have to sell their organic chickens, eggs, and livestock in Rockford, a 15 miles drive for them.

A little background.  When I was growing up, I would work for one of my uncles in either Missouri  (when I was younger) and then in Wisconsin (as I got older) during the summers through college.  They both had dairy farms, the first more of a hobby farm, the second a real working dairy farm where we milked about 50 cows along with field work. I loved it. While in college I devoured the Malabar Farm books by Louis Bromfield who was promoting sustainable agriculture and organic farming. His farm still exists as a historic landmark in Ohio. They were wonderful books and fueled my nostalgic and Jeffersonian (he had slaves to do his work, though) mythic view of farming. It didn't hurt that Bromfield had a substantial income from the novels he had written in the twenties and thirties.

After I got married, and graduated from college, my wife and I bought a 200 acre farm in northern Minnesota with the idea of dairying full-time.  She taught, and I worked as an EMT in a local hospital while we got started. I then worked a couple of years as a herdsman on a dairy farm milking about 100 cows twice a day. Realizing we would need health insurance for her impending heart surgery and realizing to get started on my own would require mountains of debt (and in the seventies interest rates approached 17%), I went back to grad school, a decision I never regretted, but I still have fond memories of farm life -- well perhaps not the ticks, heat, dust, long hours, and mosquitoes (the Minnesota state bird.)

Back to the book.  Larson suffered from similar nostalgic anamnesis and, realizing that not all of the partners and staff at his architectural firm, were buying into his vision for sustainable building, he took a six-month leave and gradually decided (the book is part philosophical meditation on his gradual self-awareness) to build a self-sustaining farm on his forty acres. He had several advantages most don't.  He's very smart, has a good business sense, is mechanically talented (he restored several old tractors during the winter) and has a wife who is incredibly supportive and willing to do back-breaking manual labor (read how they collected, husked, and sold black walnuts.)

It's important to remember that small farms and others like Joel Salatin's, whom Larson quotes, and whom I've read, too, rely on the infrastructure created by others: the roads, suppliers, manufacturers, buyers, and utilities supplied by others who can't afford or have no ability to follow their dreams. It's a dream that few but the privileged can achieve.

As an example of the nostalgia and its synchronistic impact on the community, Larson discusses the wonderful trips he had to the feed mill with his grandfather.  I had similar experiences with my uncle loading up the truck with ear corn from the corn crib (usually finding a nest of rattlers,) driving to Zenda, and returning with bagged feed (which we would reuse) for the cows. It was great; we'd always stop at the local store for a Popsicle, visit at the local IH dealership -- to this day I love tractors and get several tractor magazines -- and chat to and from the town. That's all gone; victim to urbanization and larger farms. The same thing happened to Larson's local mill.  Yet ironically, it's the urbanization, that makes his small farm a viable enterprise by creating a ready market for his products. Without those buyers he couldn't survive. Farmers don't buy at farmers' markets; they don't need to.

I admire and respect what Larson has accomplished and hope he and his family will achieve what they desire.  It's a wonderful book, although I found some of the philosophical musings bordering on narcissistic. I hope he tells his wife what a saint she is on a regular basis.

Review: Blue Water Sailor: The Memoirs of a Destroyer Officer by Don Sheppard

 Bluewater  Sailor is  the final in a trilogy describing  Don Sheppard’s rise through  the ranks from seaman to destroyer  captain. The others  ([book:Destroyer Skipper] and [book:Riverine]  are somewhat different , but  equally fascinating.) Throughout  all three, Sheppard, a mustang,  describes learning — often  the hard way— about leadership  Nima washi is a Japanese concept  of management. Nima  washi is a horticultural term that  translated loosely means  “binding the roots.” If the roots  on a tree are well bound before  transplanting, growth is assured.  As a management style,  it means getting general consensus  before proposing a  plan, then by the time the plan  is put forth, so much has been  said about it, that everyone  feels a part of the decision making  process and easily accepts  it. Another more basic  concept of leadership that  Sheppard clearly subscribes to is  that the team leader not be perceived  as benefiting or profiting at  the expense or exclusion of the  group. 

 Many of the episodes are humorous  and self-effacing. While in San Francisco, as captain of the  destroyer Cambridge, he took dependents  and members of the  Navy Club on PR cruises. On one special occasion they hit a whale,  which became grossly lodged, partially  split, on the knife-like bow. He attempted numerous maneuvers to  disentangle the creature, to the dismay  and horror of his esteemed  passengers, many of whom became  quite seasick during the high  speed twists and turns. Finally the  whale broke in two and slid toward  the rear of the ship. Sheppard realized only too late what would  happen when tons of blubber meet  a propeller turning at high speed  just as the guests were leaning  over the side to watch. It was not  pretty.  And then there was the time purple undershorts saved a man’s career in the navy.  

Sheppard writes well. His description of leaving harbor for the  safety of open ocean just as a vicious  storm hit will have you holding  the chair white-knuckled.

Review: Battleship Sailor by Theodore C. Mason

 

I really enjoyed listening to this book. Perhaps it's because I have held a ham license for more than sixty years (WB9VEG) or because I like minutiae.  

 

Mason joined the Navy in 1940 as a radioman. He describes the training to be a radioman in detail (they were expected to send and copy Morse at upwards of 35 words per minute (the best I could ever achieve was 13). His assignment to the California instead of the Arizona was a matter of luck and his survival during the attack on Pearl Harbor was fortuitous as well as his battle station assignment was above decks on the maintop where he had a Birdseye view of the attack and was able to jump overboard when the "abandon ship" order came. Most radio operators were sealed into the radio room deep in the bowels of the ship and had little chance of getting out during an attack.

Mason was a product of the depression. An honor student at his high school, no one in his small high school was offered any kind of scholarship, so the future looked bleak, pumping gas, or driving for a local physician. His girl had just dumped him for someone else, so he was susceptible to the entreaties of the local Navy recruiter and enlisted for a one year tour of duty as a radioman. This was in mid-1940. Despite constant warnings of war, the press and those seemingly in the know were sure the "slant-eyed Japs" would be quickly overcome; after all, there was no way they could construct any kind of weaponry that could challenge the mighty United States Navy.

Clearly, Mason was not impressed with the level of preparedness, or lack thereof, of his battleship. They seemed to spend more time working on spit and polish to keep the brass happy than in drill, and comments made by a British sailor from the warship Warsprit which docked alongside of them briefly on its way to being repaired at Mare Island, did nothing to assuage his concern. The Brit, after being shown around the California, Mason's ship was dismayed at the inadequacy of the anti-aircraft guns. He thought they were short half the number they should have, much to the surprise of Mason who thought the California fairly bristled with antiaircraft capability.

Late that summer, he was given a promotion and new duties that probably saved his life. He was moved to the maintop, on the mast high above the decks, to act as relay for information from the spotter planes who would radio back how accurate the gunners were in hitting their targets. Most of the radiomen were sealed (quite literally) in the radio room and most died during the bombing. He escaped by not being there, but at his assigned post high above the decks. It was an interesting duty, although watching the huge shells leave the barrels of the guns could inspire awe. As flames licked high above the turrets, the shells raced toward their targets at 2500 ft/sec sounding like closely-passing freight trains, the ship being pushed sideways in the water from the recoil. It inspired thoughts of Armageddon.

Mason was on the California during the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was sent to his station at the maintop to be able to handle radio messages. It was an order that saved his life. Forced to abandon ship three times — he had been sent back after each command to leave, in order to work some of the radios — he finally had to leave permanently when the battleship was close to capsizing. Most of his friends were killed. Given that several of his shipmates had been in the brig for failure to maintain a watch or being late for duty, he justifiably wondered what the punishment might be for the admirals and captains, if not the president, for their failure to maintain a good watch and prevent the destruction of most of the fleet.

Mason doesn't spare us the details of a sailor's life before Pearl Harbor: the infamous short arm inspection, the inspections for venereal disease after leave, nor the medical officer who "enjoyed' doing circumcisions and insisted on performing them on those who hadn't been so already blessed.

His description of the attack on Pearl Harbor is vivid and frightening.  Forced to abandon ship three times following vacillating orders and horrific circumstances, he and the surviving shipmates had little positive to say about the officers who had risen to command during peacetime and failed dramatically when put to the test, with some exceptions. The book concludes with the end of 1941.  His wartime service continued in two lesser known works: "We Will Stand By You," and "Rendezvous with Destiny - A Sailor's War."  Mason died in 2008.

One fascinating tidbit concerned the writer Walter Davenport, an editor at Colliers, who visited the California. Mason, an aspiring writer himself, was anxious to see the famous writer, was disappointed by the story that resulted: "The Impregnable Pearl Harbor" that came out in June, 1941.*

Out of curiosity, I looked it up. See https://www.unz.com/print/Colliers-1941jun14-00011/
Wonderful thing, the Internet.

If you are interested in the ship itself, Wikipedia has an excellent entry at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_California_(BB-44)

Another book that might be of interest is Stephen Bower's https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1689965.Trapped_at_Pearl_Harbor?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=QfQ6ZQvo6g&rank=1

Trump 2nd Impeachment

Trump’s lawyers, along with his acolytes in the House and Senate, would have us believe his second impeachment trial raises issues of constitutional proportion. Balderdash. They would have us believe that public officials cannot be impeached after leaving office. Balderdash.  Aside from the fact that Trump was impeached while still in office (even while hiding in the White House) on January 13th, before Biden was sworn in, and thus was still in office, there are numerous examples of officials who were impeached after being out of office.  

In 1797, Senator William Blount was named as a conspirator in assisting Great Britain to gain control of territory in Louisiana and Florida. Had the territories been ceded to France as part of Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase the value of his land holdings there would have been severely diminished. He tried to leave town but finally complied with the Senate’s order to appear for questioning.  The House, meanwhile voted to impeach him.  Before a trial could begin, Blount was expelled from the Senate and he absconded to Tennessee.  Even though he was no longer a Senator or “public official” the House began impeachment proceedings and sent articles to the Senate for trial. Blount was sent a summons in December of 1798, almost 18 months after being expelled from the Senate.  He refused to appear and sent his attorneys instead. Ironically, he was not convicted and the Senate’s narrowly passed resolution on jurisdictional grounds has been interpreted that a Senator could not be impeached, not that he was no longer a public official.  

Now you could argue, fine, but Blount’s impeachment is not relevant because it related to his status as a Senator.  So let’s look at two more case I think are relevant: William Belknap and Walter Nixon.   

Belknap was Grant’s Secretary of War who was accused of corruption.  Before articles of impeachment could be voted on in the House, Belknap quickly resigned and left office.  The House impeachment managers argued that departing from the office doesn’t excuse prior bad behavior and the Senate voted to accept that reasoning. However, perhaps in parallel to Trump’s situation, the Senate could not marshal enough Senators to vote for a conviction because even though high crimes and misdemeanors had been committed while  in office, convicting him would be essentially meaningless and it would be pointless to convict.  

The case of Walter NIxon also bears on the current issue. Nixon  was the senior federal district court judge for the Southern District of Mississippi. In 1986, he was convicted of perjury and sentenced to five years in prison for lying in testimony before a federal grand jury. He was sentenced to prison, but refused to resign his office to which, as a federal judge, he had life tenure.  He continued to collect his salary.  The House impeached Nixon in 1989 on the corruption charges sending three articles to the Senate for trial.  In the Senate, the case was reviewed by a special trial committee empaneled under Rule XI. Nixon sued claiming that as the trial was conducted by the special committee rather than the full Senate (the full Senate did vote to convict). Nixon sued and their decision is what makes the case pertinent.  They ruled that impeachment proceedings and trials are the “sole” responsibility of the House and Senate and therefore non-justiciable. In other words, the House and Senate were the sole arbiters of what was or was not correct when it comes to impeachment.  They make the rules and implement them. 

One could argue that the House made a mistake in focusing on the criminal aspects of sedition and insurrection. Impeachment is not a criminal trial; it's a political one, a mechanism used to address malfeasance or the abuse of power.  I wish they had added failure to perform his duties to the list.  The picture of a president hunkering down and hiding in the White House while the Capitol was being stormed and vandalized threatening members of the House and Senate surely will go down as one of the greatest derelictions of duty by any President and Commander in Chief. That malfeasance alone would suggest conspiracy with the rioters if not just approval of their actions.  Either would certainly warrant prevention from ever again serving in public office. As Trump is no longer in office the only other remedial option is disqualification from further office holding.  (“Article I, section 3, clause 7 provides further that “judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.””) 

 

Resources:  https://guides.loc.gov/federal-impeachment/william-belknap  This is a terrific resource with links to the original documents from the proceedings. 

 Proceedings of the Senate Sitting for the Trial of William W. Belknap, Late Secretary of War... , https://ia800709.us.archive.org/30/items/proceedingssena00housgoog/proceedingssena00housgoog.pdf Original record of the House hearings and Senate Trial. Alternately interesting and soporific. 

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/506/224  The full Supreme Court’s discussion and reasoning behind their decision with considerable historical background.  Enlightening. 

 

 

Review: The Innocent by Ian McEwan

My first impression on starting this book was, "oh, goody, a semi historical novel with lots of detail on building the tunnel under Berlin to tap the Russian communication cables. " And so it begins, but then morphs into  a much darker tale about guilt and innocence. (I should have known, having read other McEwan books.)

 

I will spare you what happens to avoid spoilers; most of that is available elsewhere anyway. McEwan's genius his his ability to dig into the subconscious of his characters and root around. What's found is not always pleasant.

 

To give you a flavor of his ability to use language, I give you this quote from The Guardian on the election of Donald Trump in 2016.

 

"Charles Darwin could not believe that a kindly God would create a parasitic wasp that injects its eggs into the body of a caterpillar so that the larva may consume the host alive. The ichneumon wasp was a challenge to Darwin’s already diminishing faith. We may share his bewilderment as we contemplate the American body politic and what vile thing now squats within it, waiting to be hatched and begin its meal." *

 

Brilliant.

 

*https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/12/ian-mcewan-only-hope-is-that-trump-was-lying-all-along