Walking the Berkshires

Waterloo Remembered

The 18th of June, 1815 was a very bloody Sunday.  Captain John Kincaid, a Scottish Captain in the (95th) Rifle Brigade, would later recall; “I had never thought there would be a battle where everyone was killed. This seemed to be it.”   The Battle of Waterloo was fought on this date. 

Napoleon had an army of 74,000 Frenchmen, marching on Brussels and dreaming of resurgent Empire after his escape from exile.  Allied against him on that day were those forces nearest to hand - 22,000 British and 45,000 Dutch and German troops under the Duke of Wellington, the Prince of Orange and Prussian Marshall Blücher.  At the end of the day, 47,000 of these combatants (33%) would be casualties - the price of putting down the threat of Napoleon for a second and final time.  The impact of Waterloo rippled across the next century, its myths and lessons profoundly influencing European and American concepts of war and tactics and belief in what heroic leadership and masses of troops could accomplish.  The Guns of 1914 and the hyper-industrialization of warfare would ultimately shatter those assumptions, but the modern memory of Waterloo is still steeped in the old romantic ideal, with the name of the Battle itself synonymous with a decisive and final defeat.

The 100 Days campaign that culminated at Waterloo lends itself to viewing through the classic tropes of heroic myth, a tradition familiar to many of its participants and early chroniclers.  The old enemy rises from defeat and catches the war-weary victors unprepared.  The thin red line of the British squares breaks the thundering cavalry just as English longbows and sharpened stakes brought down the flower of the French nobility 400 years earlier at Agincourt.  Lord Uxbridge's stoic remark; "My God, sir, I've lost my leg" was the epitome of the English stiff upper lip, and the destruction of the French Old Guard the belle ideal of the loyal imperial bodyguard.  The forlorn hope, the outnumbered defenders of the doomed outpost, the imperial eagle standards touched by the Emperor's own hand: all were part of the narrative.

The uniforms of the soldiers themselves were the pinnacle of form over function, as exaggerated as stag horn or peacock's tail.  French historian Henry Houssaye describes the parade of the French cavalry on the march before Waterloo:

"It was a kaleidoscope of vivid hues and metallic flashes.  After the chasseurs, wearing bright green jackets, with facings of purple, yellow or scarlet, came the hussars, with dolmans, pelisses, breeches a la hongroise, plumes upon their shakos, all varying in color with each regiment...Then passed the dragoons with brass casques over turban-helmets of tiger skin, white shoulder belts crossed over a green coat with facings of red or yellow, long guns at their saddle bows and bumping against their stiff boots; the cuirassiers wearing short coats with imperial blue collars, white breeches, top boots, steel cuirasses and helmets, with crests of copper and floating horse hair manes; the carabiniers, giants of six feet and clad in white, with breastplates of gold and tall helmets with red cords - like those worn by the heroes of antiquity."     - quoted In D. Horwarth: Waterloo: Day of Battle (1968) pg 48.

All this romantic dash and glory belies the reality of the scale of butchery and waste of life wrought by the Napoleonic Wars.  The massed columns of the French - their drummers beating the relentless advance and their throats raised with "Vive L'Empereur'" - were human battering rams designed to break the enemy by overwhelming concentrated force but vulnerable to massed fire themselves.  Napoleon was a gunner and his use of smooth bore artillery was devastating.  Not only combatants but civilians suffered the ravages of war; the Peninsular War in particular makes Sherman's march through Georgia look like a holiday outing.  Between 1799-1815, the most conservative estimate of casualties lists 2,500,000 military dead and missing, with at least 1,000,000 civilians killed in Europe and in French overseas colonies.  The number of wounded could easily be four times these numbers.  There would not be a comparable lost of life in a European War for 100 years.

Napoleonic tactics held sway long into the 19th century and their influence on the conduct of the American Civil War in particular was profound.  Some of Napoleon's innovations - concentration, maneuverability, organization in divisions - were highly applicable to this conflict, but the minié ball and rifled barrels had disastrous results for massed infantry in the Napoleonic mold.  Civil War casualties were so high in large part because tactics had not caught up with the technology of the battlefield.  The same was true of the Great War, which began with mounted cavalry and red legged French and ended with the horror of trenches, gas, tanks and long range artillery.  Napoleonic concepts died hard.

Lord Wellington demurred at his Prussian ally's suggestion that their great, costly victory be called La Belle Alliance after the name of the inn that had served as Napoleon's headquarters during the battle.  The little Belgian village to the north of the British defensive position had a vaguely English-sounding name and Wellington had well-honed political instincts and a nose for the historic record. A study of the battle by Clausewitz, chief of staff of the III corps under Blucher, was published posthumously in 1835 under the title Der Feldzug von 1815 in Frankreich but an English translation was suppressed by the Duke of Wellington because some of its revelations were embarrassing to him and the accepted British version of the campaign.  The English-speaking world remembers Waterloo as England's victory, even though British forces made up just a third of the alliance that defeated Napoleon on that bloody day in June.  Still, for tourists and residents alike, the battlefield is all about Napoleon.

Solo Dad, And the Livin' is Easy

I've spent this Father's Day alone, and it has been wonderful.  That's not an easy thing for a family man to say, and I miss the rest of my clan off in Vermont visiting Viv's family, but a weekend at home left to my own devices has been a real gift.  I have mulched the gardens, picked salad greens, gone skinny dipping in a mountain pond, and made a Father's Day feast for one featuring the fiery foods that only I enjoy.  Tonight's menu includes center cut pork chops marinaded in adobe and chipoltle peppers; roasted corn, Spanish onion and poblano pepper; garden greens and frozen Margaritas.  There's Bob Marley, Ali Farka Toure and Lightnin' Hopkins on the stereo, and later I plan to lie in the backyard hammock and watch the fireflies dancing in their hundreds in the tall grass of the meadow beyond the garden gate.  I meant to bake a cherry pie, read a book in the shade of the sugar maple, and  respond to some genealogical queries on-line. All in good time.  Tomorrow is another day alone, and after work perhaps I'll tackle one of these projects. Probably the pie.  The kids will be home soon.

Happy Father's day to Dad's everywhere.

Top Ten Lawsuits I'd Like to See Inspired by Judge Roy Pearson Suing the Pants Off His Dry Cleaner

There has been a lot of hot air expended over Judge Roy Pearson's $54 million lawsuit against his dry cleaners who lost a pair of pants. Now I know a lot of you are thinking;"This is insane!  What reasonable person would bring such a frivolous lawsuit for such a minor inconvenience?"  Ah, but the good judge has been far from intemperate.  He has already reduced the amount he is seeking for damages by $11 million dollars, and bases his potentially precedent-setting case on a close, personal  reading of the Consumer Protection Act and Common Law, surely a model of jurisprudence of which our fine legal system can be justly proud.  It's not about the pants - thank goodness - but rather "that the shop managers committed fraud and misled consumers with signs that claimed Satisfaction Guaranteed and 'Same Day Service.'"

I think this is great.  I've suffered more than a few indignities in my time as a loyal consumer of what American enterprise so conveniently purveys.  Now that Burger King® has retrofitted its old slogan "Have It Your Way®" for modern fast food consumers, I'm going to be seeking satisfaction of a decidedly legal nature if I don't, in fact, get it my way.  And BK, be advised that my way is fine, aged Angus on a silver platter with a slice of truffle and a glass of Mike Ditka's Kick Ass Red.  And Mikey, if that wine doesn't kick ass as advertised I'll be suing the pigskin off of you, too. 

But I work for a non-profit and am a "share the wealth" kind of guy, so here, without any implied endorsement or representation of legality, product liability, or odds of success in court, is my TOP TEN LIST OF POTENTIAL LAWSUITS INSPIRED BY A PEARSON V. POOR WORKING STIFF DRY CLEANER PRECEDENT.

10.  Roadsigns warning "SLOW CHILDREN" disparage kids who are aren't as quick as their peers.  The psychic wounds alone from this kind of publicly sanctioned discrimination ought to garner millions of highway department dollars in punitive damages for families of such children living on streets with these signs.

9.  Anyone who tells me to "Have a Nice Day" and doesn't appear sincerely interested in the prospect of my future happiness after leaving their place of employment is making false representations of caring and sensitivity and thanks to Roy Pearson, I can now open up a can of legal whoop-ass on them.

8.  Nothing is forever, not even diamonds.  DeBeers is loaded, so thanks to entropy and the absolute certainty that all things must pass, I expect to get a boatload of ice from these charlatans.

7.  Although it closed in the 1970s, I bet there are still legal grounds for taking on the former owners of Schaeffer Brewery for their jingle "Schaeffer is the one beer to have where you're having more than one!"  If I have more than one beer and then wrap my car around a tree, you can bet I'll be pointing my finger at the pervasive influence of this jingle on my impressionable young mind listening to it on AM radio during family trips to the shore in the early 1970s.

6.  The United States Army has been telling me to BE ALL THAT I CAN BE for a long while now, and although I am fully capable of being a decent guitarist if only I learned how to play and practiced regularly, this has not happened and I blame the military for this shortcoming.

5. Anyone who says "There's nothing like it" is denying that the thing itself exists.  I know I can prove they are wrong in court, so all that's left to do is find a really well off company that uses an ad agency without a single pedantic English Major on its staff to catch this error and I'm in the money, baby.

4.  When you get caught with your hand in the till in the mall at Foot Locker, be sure to claim that Nike told you to "Just Do It", presumably so you could afford their sneakers.  What's a misdemeanor larceny charge and loss of minimum wage employment against the tens of millions you could get from a false advertising lawsuit?  Just sayin'.

3.  When some entertainment hack endorses a film I can't even remember as "unforgettable", that miscreant is gonna have to pay up.  The same goes for lame sequels plugged as "even better than the first" and "performances of a lifetime" by still-living actors. 

2.  Folks whose homes were washed away by Hurricane Katrina and found their insurance claims would  not be honored because their policies only covered wind damage should challenge the claim that "Nationwide is on your side®."

1.  "Virginia is for Lovers", which by inference means Virginia is not for virgins.  I'm not having that, and likewise I expect to find no haters, curmudgeons or lovelorn types in the Old Dominion or there will be me to pay.  I'd challenge the notion that New Jersey and I are "Perfect Together" too, but I can only take on one state motto at a time.

Caveat Vendor, baby!  Let the games begin.

Oh Say Can You See / Francis Scott Key's / Homestead in DC?

Sadly, this is no longer possible.  The author of The Star Spangled Banner lived in this brick Georgetown residence in the District of Columbia from 1804 to about 1833, and it was his home during the period when he wrote what would one day become our national anthem. The site is now a small memorial park on M street near the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge, but the building itself no longer survives.  It was demolished in 1947 after years of neglect.

We have lost countless national treasures to the ravages of time and many have passed with barely a notice.  The Key home might have have had a future like the Betsy Ross House, or that of Mary Young Pickersgill, the Baltimore seamstress who made the flag that flew above Fort McHenry and inspired Key's stirring verse.  There actually was an effort made to save Key's Georgetown home, but it happened in the early days of the 20th century, thirty years before the old house was finally torn down.  Everything I know about it is contained in this certificate, presented to my gr-great Grandmother Rebecca (Osterhout) Johnson in recognition of her 1908 contribution to the Francis Scott Key Memorial Association to save the old Key home.

The certificate is unusual for several reasons.  It contains the only image I have been able to find of the old Key home, and a strikingly military portrait of the poet peering through a spyglass at "the rockets' red glare."  In fact, Key had a very brief military service - 30 days in the Georgetown Light Field Artillery company in 1813 and then the following year as an aide to General Winder at the Battle of Bladensburg.  He was not, as far as I am aware, in uniform when he went to the British to secure the release of his friend Dr. William Beanes, an American captive of the British, and was himself detained until operations against Baltimore were concluded.

More intriguing still is the text "'The Star Spangled Banner', our National Anthem." America did not have an official National Anthem until March 3, 1931 (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 USC §301) when Congress adopted Key's song.  There was, however, a concerted effort to have the Star Spangled Banner declared our National Anthem underway long before Herbert Hoover signed the bill into law:

"During the 19^th century, “The Star-Spangled Banner” became one of the nation’s best-loved patriotic songs. It gained special significance during the Civil War, a time when many Americans turned to music to express their feelings for the flag and the ideals and values it represented. By the 1890s, the military had adopted the song for ceremonial purposes, requiring it to be played at the raising and lowering of the colors. In 1917, both the army and the navy designated the song the “national anthem” for ceremonial purposes. Meanwhile, patriotic organizations had launched a campaign to have Congress recognize “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the U.S. national anthem."

Supporters of the Francis Scott Key Memorial Foundation clearly sided with those calling for the Star Spangled Banner as our National Anthem, a bit of "sympathetic magic", perhaps, as if stating the desire as fact would make it reality.  Though ultimately the effort to save the Key homestead was unsuccessful, the Star Spangled Banner is Key's most enduring legacy.

"Heavens to Betsy!": A Flag Day Legend Revisited

June 14, 1777 - "Resolved: that the flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation."

The legend of Betsy Ross and her association with the first American Flag has endured since her grandson first claimed in 1870 that she was its creator.  The painting at left predates it by 20 years and shows a women's sewing circle making a "Betsy Ross Pattern" American Flag. The emergence of Betsy Ross as a "Founding Mother" reflects a great deal about our country nearly a century after its establishment and especially in those years immediately following the American Civil War, a symbol of unity for a wounded nation for it involves both Washington and feminine virtues, two icons embraced by both North and South.

Elizabeth Griscom was a child of Philadelphia Quaker parents. In 1773 she married outside the faith to an Anglican named John Ross - the nephew of my ancestor Margaret Ross.  The marriage was brief, for she was widowed in January, 1776 when her husband was killed by exploding munitions being unloaded at the Philadelphia waterfront.  Betsy continued to support herself running the upholstery business she and her husband had started together.  This much of her history has been confirmed.  What follows is widely accepted as fact but is shrouded in myth and may never have happened at all.

The story goes that sometime in late May, 1776, Betsy Ross received three visitors in her home.  Two  were members of the 2nd Continental Congress - Robert Morris and her deceased husband's Uncle George Ross. The third was General Washington, who when in Philadelphia worshiped at the same church as Betsy Ross in a pew next to her own.  According to what she reputedly told family members later in life, Washington told her that this "committee of three" wished her to make a flag based on a rough design provided by Washington.  She said that the original pattern had six-pointed stars, which she convinced them to modify because she could make stars with five points with a single snip.  The flag was delivered shortly thereafter, and a year later its basic design was the one resolved by Congress as the official National Flag.

It is an appealing tale, but very hard to confirm.

"The Betsy Ross Story" is based solely on oral affidavits from her daughter and other relatives, which were made public in 1870 by her grandson, William J. Canby, in a paper read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. No primary sources of the time—letters, journals, diaries, newspaper articles, official records, or business records—have surfaced since 1870 confirming or disproving the story. The only further supporting documentation that Betsy Ross was involved in federal flag design is the Pennsylvania State Navy Board commissioning her for work in making "ships colors & c." in May 1777."

Washington was with the Continental Army in Cambridge until early April, 1776 and was in New York by April 14th.  Martha Washington was inoculated against smallpox on May 23rd in Philadelphia and she and her husband were in the City from that date until their return to new York on June 7th. Washington's letters make no mention of a committee of three or of bringing a flag design to Betsy Ross.

William Canby's claim was published in the July, 1873 edition of  Harper's Monthly in a lengthy article about the history of national standards and emblems from the time of the Romans down through the ages to the symbols of the American Republic.  Images of the Betsy Ross home and the "flag committee" feature prominently in the article, firmly establishing the widow Ross within the pantheon of American myth and legend.  Her image was heavily used in advertising and effectively became part of the American "brand." 

Ironically, the first anti-flag desecration laws in this country date from the same period, as states responded to what many felt was excessive and inappropriate use of the national flag for advertising and political purposes.

As for Flag Day, its origins appropriately enough lie in in our public school system, where "Flag Birthday" was first proposed in 1885 by a Wisconsin school district.  Other schools, organizations and states followed suit in subsequent years until Flag Day was officially established by President Wilson in 1916 and June 14th was formally designated as National Flag Day by an Act of Congress and signed into law by President Truman in 1949.  My daughter's grade school held its Flag Day celebration today by singing patriotic songs and talking about good citizenship.  Betsy Ross was not mentioned, but I have no doubt the kids still learn the legend.  National myth-making, after all, is not the same as history, though certainly part of the fabric of the American story.

 

Rebel in Faux Leopard Skin

"Well, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Yes, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, you must tell me, baby
How your head feels under somethin' like that
Under your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat."

Bob Dylan was poking fun at the overly fashion conscious with these lyrics.  So what would he make of this ensemble?  This is one of my favorite confederate photographs: the outlandish and resplendent Captain Samuel J. Richardson, commander of Company F, 2nd Texas Cavalry (2nd Mounted Rifles).  Captain Richardson's photograph is housed in the collections of the Museum of the Confederacy and was reproduced in The South Besieged; The Image of War 1861-1865 by the National Historical Society (1983). 

As with an earlier post, the caption that accompanied this photograph doesn't quite ring true.  It asserts that Richardson was "probably the only confederate of the war outfitted in leopardskin."  I will grant that a pair of spotted fur trousers with matching holsters was probably singular attire for a combatant in the Civil War, but I am confident that the big cat in question was not a leopard.

Let's start with the basics.  Captain Richardson was evidently a man of means, appearing in this image superbly armed with a Sharps carbine [or perhaps it is a Merrill: hat tip reader Chris Hubbard 6/20/2007] and a brace of revolvers.  His trousers with the buttons up the seams are in the fancy Spanish style.  There is the remotest of chances that Captain Richardson had the wherewithal and opportunity to acquire leopard hide for this outfit, but a much more likely possibility is that it came from a local source.

I believe the good Captain is decked out in trousers made from the hide of Panthera onca, the largest cat in the western hemisphere, described as a leopard on steroids: the Jaguar.  The founder of Texas, Sam Houston, had a favorite vest made of this material which he wore in the 1840s and 1850s so there is clear precedent. 

The spots of the leopard (Panthera pardus) are similar to those of the  Jaguar, but the rosettes the form are hollow while those of the Jaguar sometimes contain dark spots like the ones visible on General Houston's waistcoat.  A close-up of Captain Richardson's trouser leg reveals the same spotted rosette pattern that distinguishes Jaguar skin from other hides.

Jaguars ranged north of the border during the American Civil War era.  They were present in from Texas to Southern California.  Richardson very likely shot the Jaguar himself (those round eyeglasses he wears would aid his marksmanship), or may have been presented with the fancy dress by one of his admirers.

The 2nd Texas Mounted Rifles was organized in 1861 and its companies recruited in a number of counties.  Here is an account of the formation of Company F, which was Captain Richardson's Company:

"A typical example of the mechanics of forming a unit took place at Marshall in April, 1861, when the organization of the W.P. Lane Rangers Company was announced. Volunteers were expected to supply their own mounts while the state agreed to furnish arms. On the appointed day the young men were massed in the center of the town, had their horses examined for serviceability, ( Note, the Confederate Congress authorized the sum of  $ .40 cents per day for men that used their own horses.) elected their officers, and were given an oath of allegiance to Texas by a local judge. The rest of the day was spent in preparing the unit's roll of members and in attending a special church service. The next morning saw the company reassembled in the town square, awaiting the presentation of a flag that had been made by the young ladies of Marshall. After a long and flowery presentation speech, the banner, reported to have measured six by fifteen feet, was accepted by the unit. Then, at noon, amidst tears and kisses, the company took up the march to its destiny. A few miles down the road, however, destiny was delayed while the men were feasted at a local college. By dusk the badly scattered soldiers straggled to a camping site and dined on delicacies that had been brought from home. The Rangers were feted, lauded, and blessed in almost every town through which they passed. Late in May they arrived in San Antonio where they were armed, mustered into Confederate service as Company "F" of the Second Texas Mounted Rifles, and assigned to patrol duty on the state's frontier. "

In 1862 it was reconstituted as the 2nd Texas Cavalry.  The unit served along the frontier fighting Indians and Unionists as well as in Louisiana.  The men fought dismounted for a lengthy period, then remounted later in the war.  One suspects that Captain Richardson is pictured in an early-war photograph before the rigors of campaign and garrison life took their toll on his jaguar skin.

Horns of a Dilemma

Should a globally rare and endangered species ever be subject to legally permitted trophy hunting?  I'm not talking about commercial whaling thinly veiled as scientific research, or the taking of a handful of elephants from robustly growing populations to provide for the conservation of the rest.  No, what has set my teeth on edge are the continuation of fully sanctioned trophy hunting quotas established for southern African black rhino populations by The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Namibia and South Africa in 2004.  Lifting the ban allowed both southern African countries to cull 5 rhinos each annually, and was upheld last week at the CITES meeting in The Hague.

I have made my peace with this practice for elephants, though the death of an elephant is a powerful thing and there are stories I could relate of elephant hunts that might put you off the whole idea.  There was a trophy hunt in our area when I was working in Northwest Namibia in 1997 involving an old male elephant, injured and running, with another bull physically placing itself between his wounded companion and the hunter for 20 miles through the desert thorn veld before a final shot brought the old one down.  The people ate meat, the ivory was stockpiled, the European tourist paid $35,000 for the privilege, and all the elephants for 60 miles around fled to the commercial farming areas and tore up fences in their haste to get away from the threat. 

Elephants across Africa number 625,000, a 50% decline since 1970; in three terrible years in the late 1980s before the ivory ban an estimated 300,000 elephants were killed in Africa. Namibia's elephant population, however, grows at 5-10% annually.  In 2004 it was estimated at more than 16,000 animals, up by 10,000 since 1984 when poaching was rampant. There may be as many as 20,000 elephants in the country today.  A few elephants culled will not threaten the survival of the remainder, however traumatic it can be for nearby herds.  So what about Rhinos?

The justification for rhino hunting voiced by Namibia and South Africa is the same as that used for their elephant populations; good management and conservation efforts have allowed the species to rebound to the point where permitted lucrative trophy hunting for older, male rhinos can be done sustainably and help provide for the future of the species and provide benefits to community-based conservation efforts as viable alternatives to poaching.  Throughout Africa, the remaining sub-species of Black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) now total an estimated 3,600 individuals, perilously close to extinction in many parts of its range.  In South Africa and Namibia, however, the black rhino population has doubled since the 1970s.

This looks promising, until you realize that in 1970 there were 65,000 black rhinoceros across Africa.  They persist at a mere fraction of these numbers today and except for the free ranging population of desert adapted black rhinos in Northwest Namibia, the remainder are confined to private game preserves and national parks.  Trophy hunting would benefit the owners of the game preserves or the government which might use the proceeds to fund community-based conservation efforts, but does not address the same impacts that local communities experience from problem elephants.  I am unaware of any situation in Northwest Namibia where there are conflicts between rural people and rhinos over shared resources.  There are just too few rhinos.  In Zimbabwe they are dehorning all of their rhinos to reduce their value to poachers.

Namibia had 1,134 black rhinos in 2004 and South Africa had about 1,200.  Together these two countries hold almost 2/3 of the total population of this endangered species. Assuming for illustrative purposes that that the rate of increase of Black Rhinos in southern Africa has been steady since 1970, that's an increase of 3.4% a year until the aggregate population doubled in 2004.  That would have meant an increase of 76 individuals in 2005, decreased by 10 by trophy culls to 66.  Is that sustainable for a species that is widely dispersed in isolated populations and with such low overall numbers? 

Perhaps, if there is the enforcement will to prevent poaching and if management decisions are made  based on ecological goals rather than revenue generation.  There is a lottery for awarding trophy hunting permits for elephants in Namibia with quotas determined by what the individual elephant populations can sustain.  The problem with delisting species that are doing better in one place and in grave peril elsewhere is that poaching may increase where the species can least afford to take further losses.  Black market ivory in China reported sells for US$560-750 per kilo. In 1990, just two horns from a black rhino fetched $50,000, and the horns of all five remaining rhino species are part of the black market trade.

"Today, all five species of rhinos are perilously close to extinction. The rate of their decline is truly astounding: in the decade of the 1970s alone, half the world's rhino population disappeared. Today, less than 15 per cent of the 1970 population remains, an estimated 10,000 to 11,000 worldwide.

The Javan and Sumatran rhinos are near extinction."

Namibia and South Africa contend that the modest hunting quotas they have received and continue to seek would have minimal, if any impact on their populations.  This puts them at odds with East African nations that tried in vain last week at the CITES conference in The Hague to repeal the rhino quotas:

"South Africa and Namibia won with 65 votes against Kenya's 15 with 11 abstentions.

Offers by Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo to pay for the excess male black rhinos in South Africa and Namibia as well as meet their translocation costs were ignored.

Benson Okita, who presented Kenya's proposal, expressed disappointment with emerging voting patterns at the CITES meeting, where he said regional blocs and political interests take center stage while animals or species that are truly endangered suffer."

I remain unconvinced that it is in the best interest of the black rhinoceros as a species for Namibia and South Africa to proceed with trophy culls when the species is still under grave threat across the rest of its range and the overall population numbers are so low.    At current rates of population growth and without hunting, it will take black rhinoceros populations in Namibia and South Africa nearly a decade to add 1,000 individuals to their combined populations.  They can certainly sustain that increase, but just as surely the species cannot sustain a reversal.  Now is not the time for rhino hunting. 

Don't Fence Me In

Nature may abhor a vacuum, but it just as surely loathes a fence.  Hundreds of miles of new, double layer pedestrian fences - authorized by Congress and signed into law last October by the President - are planned along the US southern border with Mexico.  The Border Security Act has yet to see meaningful funds appropriated for the fence - its key provision - although this year's budget session is still ongoing. 

The border has a hodgepodge of existing fencing, as well as large areas that are without a fence.  Attention and discussion has focused largely on the public policy implications of erecting up to 700 miles of security fence and infrastructure along about a third of the border with Mexico.  The national security and immigration control objectives of this barrier have significant environmental implications as well, for what bars human passage may impede the migration of many other species. 

The Houston Press states:

"Last year, the U.S. Congress endorsed a plan to put 700 miles of fencing along the border states. This month, it continues debating the subject, this time with Senate language calling for 370 miles of fencing — although this may not all be "physical" fencing — and 200 miles of pylons that would let people and animals through but stop vehicles.

The proposed fences are said to be ten feet tall; plans call for clearing out a path maybe 50 to 150 feet wide alongside them. No one knows anything for sure. According to a map leaked to South Texas officials a few weeks ago, a fence would go right through this countryside, right along the river through Father Roy's youth camp and right through many of the wildlife refuges that are a chief focus for tourism here."

Yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle highlights concerns about the environmental impacts of a proposed 3.5 mile stretch of border fence in the Tijuana estuary reserve, while Reuters reported last Fall last fall:

"The proposal under consideration by Congress would replace a patchy, chest-high barbed wire fence that cuts across the wilderness areas of the southwest with large sweeps of continuous double barrier fencing topped with bright lights.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wardens in Arizona say the planned barrier would impact the fragile desert ecosystem, and could also harm migratory birds such as Gray and Swainson hawks and Rufous hummingbirds that soar over it.

'The fence would have a negative effect on everything from the insects that would now be flying around the lights instead of pollinating the cactuses, to the birds that eat them, right up to the large predators like the jaguars,' said William Radke, the manager of the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge, east of Douglas, Arizona.

Radke said the fence would prevent snakes and turtles, as well as wild turkeys and road runners from crossing. In addition, the bright lights at the top of the tall fence would interfere with birds' ability to navigate by the stars.

'A lot of migratory birds actually migrate at night, using stellar navigation and the moon to navigate. Suddenly lighting them up may disrupt a bird's ability to feed and rest and it may impact its survivability later on,'he added. "

A number of critical cross-border corridors for wildlife were identified in a 2006 Border Ecological Workshop held in Tuscan, Arizona, as well as a list of indicator species that could be impacted by immigration control barriers.  These species include Jaguars, an endangered species that historically ranged on both sides of the border but is near its extreme northern limit here today.  Sonoran Pronghorn are also potentially threatened by fencing, and as someone who has seen firsthand the devastation that double fencing can inflict on migrating antelope in Africa I know the effects of extreme dehydration on animals entrapped in desert fences.  There are critical wildlife corridors between Namibia and Botswana where fences maintained as a veterinary cordon to control livestock diseases deny access to herds moving to find scarce resources in a harsh environment.  Fenced nature preserves worldwide have become impoverished islands of diminished resources without free passage outside the parks for wide-ranging species.  Mind you, folks ranching beyond the park lands have some real concerns about the impacts of expanding wildlife on their livelihoods.  Either way, though, the result is almost unilaterally that fences favor livestock over wildlife.

There are other potential impacts from border control fencing and the activities of both those enforcing the law and immigrants seeking entry. They are remarkably like those threats posed to areas of conservation value far from the border: habitat fragmentation, spread of invasive species, disturbance outside that natural range of variation, direct wildlife mortality, erosion and alteration of hydrological processes.  The substantial infrastructure involved in border control fencing and interdiction activities affects the environment much as a subdivision or six lane highway might compromise habitat elsewhere.

So by now some of you may be asking; "What is more important to you; the needs of wildlife or national security?"  It is an understandable response but sets up a false dichotomy of choosing between the welfare of humans (who vote and pay taxes) and critters (who don't).  Whenever the choice is narrowly defined as either people or wildlife, nature loses.  Ratchet up the tension around the immigration issue -racial, economic, homeland security tension- and the environment generally gets short shrift.  This tendency is also at work in moves by the corn lobby to relax environmental restrictions to boost ethanol production on lands voluntarily placed by farmers in the USDA's Conservation Reserve Program: a move that poses a simplistic solution to a complex problem, and to some smells more than a little like a boondoggle.

There may be solutions to the security of our southern border that can accommodate the needs of wildlife in sensitive areas and critical migration corridors.  A local news station in Charlotte, North Carolina reports:

"Even the secretary of homeland security says in many border areas he'd prefer cameras, sensors, and so-called virtual fencing to real fencing.

"One size does not fit all. The lay of the land is different. The solution has to vary location to location,” said Michael Chertoff, United States Secretary of Homeland Security."

That is all well and good, but as long as we settle for all-or-nothing policies in our national debate, and view minimizing environmental impacts as an impediment rather than part of the policy agenda, we diminish the the very homeland we hope to secure. We also cannot rely on the government to keep the the environment on the table with the other policy concerns around policing our border.  We've got to keep them focused on that ourselves.

Le Roi de Coeur Rides Again

The marque of the newly restored Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington caught my eye as I was driving through town on Saturday night.  Barrington - locals consider the "Great" pretentious - is a thriving, dare I say happening place in the southern Berkshires, with half a dozen eateries alone that serve sushi.  Bistros and art galleries sprout where not so very long ago stood shabby storefronts and venerable Mom and Pop stores.  The town has always been a little funky, a place where for many years the neighborhood lunch spot featured sandwiches named for favorite son Arlo Guthrie and Doonesbury character Zonker Harris, and its renaissance has brought with it a faster, urban pace and upscale sensibilities that do not always go easily with rural values and attitudes. 

Yesterday, though, I might have been driving through town as it was in the sixties, before commercial space on Main Street started to command New York rents, for I noted on the Mahaiwe's marque with pleasure that the Monday night film this coming week will be King of Hearts (Philippe de Broca's classic film Le Roi de Coeur).

King of Hearts was a cult classic for the generation before mine, famous for running for 5 years straight at the Central Square Cinemas in Cambridge, Massachusetts during the 1970s.  It has often been paired with Harold and Maude as two of the great absurd films of that era, and both movies were introduced to me by one of my High School history teachers as part of a memorable 20th century history class in 1985.

The film is set in a small French village in the waning days of the Great War, and begins as the Germans are evacuating the town and placing explosives in a bunker wired to the antique clock in a bell tower where a mechanical knight that chimes the hour at midnight will detonate the charge after the British have marched in.  The villagers flee and a garbled message from the French Underground prompts the Scottish troops to send poor Private Plumpick (played by Alan Bates) and his two carrier pigeons to investigate.  He enters the village on one side as the last of the Germans are leaving the other, and is knocked unconscious by a falling telegraph pole.  When he awakes he discovers that the world has turned upside down.  Circus animals wander placidly beyond their open cages, a self-styled "duke of clubs" and his "duchess" promenade in cape and gown, and a beautiful young courtesan played by captivating ingenue Genevieve Bujold walks a tightrope.   It is lunacy, but a very benign and whimsical sort, for no one in their hurry to leave the town remembered the inmates of the asylum, and they have emerged in child-like wonder to make the doomed village their own.

As the film proceeds, the question of sanity and which is more rational - the delusional inmate who intentionally retreats into this fantastic pageant or the soldier mired in a war of attrition that cannot be stopped and where the individual has no value.   There is a moment when comedy gives way to parable when Private Plumpick, now the "King of Hearts", tries to lead his subjects the inmates out of the doomed village but they know better than he what madness lies beyond the walls and retreat back to their world.  After all, the King of Hearts is also called the Suicide King.

The film was released in the United States overdubbed in English, but is also available in French with subtitles.  If we can get a sitter, we'll spend tomorrow night taking it all in once again on the big screen at the Mahaiwe.

Homecoming: Millbrook Honors its 5th Headmaster

Yesterday on a sweltering afternoon within an ivied hall of Georgian brick, there was a ceremony to unveil this portrait of Millbrook School's 5th headmaster: my Dad, Don Abbott.  The event was part of the School's 75th anniversary celebration and one that my father approached with some trepidation.  Although he had been Millbrook's headmaster for 14 years (1976-1990), a graduate of the school himself and the son of one of its longest serving and highly respected faculty members, institutions and individuals have lives of their own and sometimes one takes a direction where the other cannot follow.  Millbrook the place and the school is right at the core of our family, and yet it has been 17 years since we lived there and it is no longer home, nor my Father's place now to lead.   

Dad is not someone who puts great stock in appearances or the trappings of success.  His real gift as the leader of the School community was inclusion, and an ability to value and relate to the individual no matter whether she taught AP calculus or drove the snowplow.  The idea of a gallery of headmasters,  from "The Boss" - Ed Pulling, the Founder of the School - down through his successors, is a relatively new one for Millbrook and not entirely comfortable for Dad.  Portraits are loaded with meaning but what meant more to my parents about their tenure at the School was the spirit of the place and the difference that this learning community made in the lives of those it touched.  Dad spoke about that spirit yesterday and grounded it in gratitude to Ed Pulling, who told him as a young man whom he had known from boyhood, now returning to the school as Headmaster:

"that we must look ahead and move forward without undue loyalty to the past.  He gave us our roots, but then he granted us the gracious freedom, as only the best teacher can, to go on ahead and join others in trying to articulate the meaning of those roots for the next generation."

Dad put in words what he had 30 years ago felt empowered to articulate:

"(T)he cornerstone of Millbrook's comprehensive curriculum became the intellectual conjoining of three moral concerns - community service and social responsibility, active concern for the natural environment, and the development of a global perspective.  We believed it was our responsibility to teach and learn what non sibi sed cunctis* means for the complex, interdependent and threatened world we now have fully entered."

* the motto of the school, suggested by my grandfather Nat Abbott and translated: "Not for oneself, but for the benefit of all"

For a person with this outward focus and so much of himself dedicated to being the kind of educator who  emphasizes the awakened curiosity and growth of others, the honor of a formal portrait prompted conflicting emotions.  One hopes to be recognized for what one values about oneself and feels to have been significant contributions, and it would take a particularly sensitive and skillful portrait-artist to capture those qualities for my father.

He was extremely fortunate to be able to work with an exceptional artist and a fine human being who understood that to portray the spirit of his subject meant taking time with the person whose likeness he would captured in oil. Chas Fagan is a gifted sculptor as well as a nationally renowned landscape and portrait artist,  and each of these forms of artistic expression seem to animate the shape and form of my Dad's thoughts and personality in his portrait. It is a skillfully rendered painting, but those who know my father well find that what brings the image to life is his signature upraised eyebrow as he looks up from his reading  to give the viewer his complete attention and interest.

A scanned image can only suggest the technical elements of the painting itself, but as an insider I find myself drawn to its composition as well.  Dad is seated in one of the Shaker chairs of my parents' dining room set, but it has been moved to a corner of their living room.  On the shelf behind him is a picture of my Mom from the late 1980s - and throughout their marriage of 41 years they have been an inseparable team.  I can also see some of the clay African figures we brought back to Mom from Zimbabwe, and the painting on the wall in the upper right hand corner is a Woldemar Neufeld painting of the culvert and bridge over the wetlands at the entrance to the School.  Dad tells me the book he was reading was Wendell Berry.

The real blessing yesterday was not the honor of this portrait, as humbled and gratified as I know my parents feel, but a reconnection with people and with the school that affirmed in unmistakable terms that there is a place for them in Millbrook School today. The entrance hall to the Schoolhouse was packed with current and former faculty, staff, parents, students, friends and trustees.  It was good to see my parents among so many members of the school community who value what they gave to Millbrook, and I smiled to see them at peace in a place that was central in their lives for many years and a time that continues to shape the outward focus of their lives.