Walking the Berkshires

A Well Regulated (Private) Militia

Connecticut, "The Land of Steady Habits", is not known for being particularly radical when it comes to governance.  It is decentralized into 169 towns without regional government.  Traditionally they have been united in their devotion to home rule and the conviction that they are unique communities, distinctly different from their neighbors.  Even within towns there are semi-autonomous boroughs, postal districts and villages with which residents more closely identify than the parent community. 

I, for example, live in Canaan within the Town of North Canaan (locally known as Canaan) and distinct from East Canaan, also in North Canaan.  The Town of Canaan is locally known as Falls Village and contains South Canaan which only appears on maps and does not rate a post office address.  There is no West Canaan in either Canaan, but there is a Sodom.  I hope that is clear.

Connecticut is, for New England, a more conservative State than most of the others: at any rate a lighter shade of blue. It also has legislation within its regulations that I would think would be the envy of any number of deep red states elsewhere in this great country of ours.  Connecticut allows groups of five people or more to establish private military units.

CGS § 27-101 allows for the creation of private militias  “for the purpose of drilling or maneuvering with firearms or other dangerous weapons…or for the purpose of giving or acquiring military training or experience."  Given that this is Connecticut and not Idaho, those organizations taking advantage of this opportunity have tended to be black powder artillery units.  The 1st Litchfield Artillery Regiment has been active since the 1960s and while it does not have a web site it has been a fixture at artillery shoots and town parades.  According to the State's records;

This company first filed with the secretary of the state on July 23, 1964.  It is based in Litchfield.  Its membership is limited to veterans (mostly wartime veterans but they can vote to admit nonwartime veterans).  Members must also be U. S.  citizens, have a good knowledge of Connecticut history and appreciate its ancient traditions, and be deemed worthy of admission by members.

The stated objectives of the company are to:

1.  preserve the tradition of horse drawn artillery by instructing young men in its history and in the operation of field guns and to become proficient in the maneuvering and firing of horse-drawn artillery by drills and training;

2.  participate in state functions, such as those on Memorial, Veterans, and Independence Days;

3.  act as an escort to the governor at inaugural parades or other times he requests;

4.  help the governor uphold the laws;  and

5.  participate in ceremonies at the request of the Connecticut Historical Commission.

The company is headed by a commanding officer (colonel).  Other officers include lieutenants and majors.  In its 1996-97 statement, the company reported 13 members.

It is worth noting that this regiment is more than a reenactment unit.  It can be called into service to defend the State, presumeably against a foe that would be intimidated by smoothbore muzzleloading artillery (and who wouldn't be?).  They also provide a wicked starting gun salvo for the local road race. 

At Litchfield's recent 4th of July celebration, the regiment appeared in summer campaign dress  from the Indian Wars of the 1870s-1880s.  I remember watching them fire cement-filled beer cans at targets in an old gravel pit in South Amenia, NY when I was a lad, and ever since, have wanted my own brass 12 pounder.  Now all I need is four friends with the same dream (and considerable start up capital) and the Cannon Company of the Canaan Home Guard will proudly preserve our town and traditions from any of our neighbors with irridentist tendencies.

Obama on Gates: Black Humor

Here is an excerpt of President Obama speaking extemporaneously last night about the arrest of Henry Louis "Skip" Gates in his own home -

"There was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place. so far so good. Right? I mean, if I was trying to jigger in -- well, I guess this is my house now so it probably wouldn't happen. Let's say my old house in Chicago. Here I'd get shot."

The transcript doesn't do the delivery justice.  It was a jaw dropping moment at the end of a press conference in which the President responded at great length to questions about his Health Care reform effort. Obama is a skilled communicator but he does not give terse, scripted replies typical of politicians, and this violates a fundamental tenet of media communications: the more you say, the more opportunity your words have to come back to get you.  No doubt his handlers cringed, and indeed his subsequent remarks that the Cambridge police acted stupidly have been picked up and flogged in the electronic media.   It is also part of what makes him such an engaging speaker and, for many, a sympathetic figure.

But for me, the most astonishing part of his remarks is contained in the above excerpt.  Whenever the President talks about race, he is very careful to make it a broader matter than the stark dichotomy of black and white.  He appears at pains to ensure that this most uncomfortable aspect of American life and society is approached as part of our national experience rather than the special interests of one group or another.  

"...what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. And that's just a fact..."

He does this both to be disarming and to traverse a path strewn with ancient minefields, and this was the one part of his remarks where he turned to humor to find a way forward.  In fact, it was the only humorous moment in the entire evening, and yet it was humor with an edge.  When he said that "this is my house now so it probably wouldn't happen", everyone in the room laughed at the recognition that they were, in fact,  in the White House and Mr. Obama lives a life unlike any other citizen, let alone any other African American.  The idea of him somehow breaking into the White House because he forgot his keys was absurdly funny, and had the effect of making the most powerful man on Earth seem more like the rest of us.  When the President's remarks become self-referential, it reveals something of the man behind the office.

And in the very next breathe he upped the ante.

"Let's say my old house in Chicago.  Here I'd get shot." 

People didn't know whether they should gasp or laugh and so they squirmed and did both.  The idea of the secret service shooting the first African American president for breaking into the White House takes racial profiling to a chilling level of absurdity.  As with all quick witted humor it may also be unintentionally revealing.  The threat of presidential assassination is something all of our chief executives live with every day but with this president it is also the fear that cannot be named: that the better angels of our nature that elected the first African American to our highest national office will be cast down by our darkest demons. 

The White House is not the only place where a black man with every right to be where he is could be shot as a result of racial profiling.  Obama probably wasn't thinking about Amadou Diallo when he made that quip, but it occurred to Lawrence Bobo when writing in The Root about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates that:

"I think (he) could have been physically injured by this police officer (if not worse) had he, in fact, stepped out of his home before showing his ID. Black Americans recall all too well that Amadou Diallo reached for his identification in a public space when confronted by police and, 42 gun shots later, became the textbook case of deadly race-infected police bias."

The rest of his response to the Gates controversy acknowledged that "...race remains a factor in this society. That doesn't lessen the incredible progress that has been made. I am standing here as testimony to the progress that's been made. And yet, the fact of the matter is that, you know, this still haunts us."   Even if it hurts too much to laugh at the joke, it is refreshing to hear these words said from that podium.

How do You Solve a Problem Like That, Maria?

The hills are alive with the sound of lawsuits.  An Italian novice nun is suing her ex-boyfriend over topless images of her he posted on Facebook.

The 31-year-old woman who lives in Turin said she was devastated when she saw the pictures, taken in summer 2006 during a holiday in Sicily, on the social networking site.

The man who said he wanted to stop her becoming a nun has refused to remove the pictures despite the woman's requests.

The fellow is a cad, to be sure, and given her calling to the veil one can appreciate how mortifying this unwanted exposure must be for the young woman in question.  This is why I limit my skinny dipping to the hours after sundown.  I do not want someone with an ax to grind sabotaging my future run for the Senate by plastering YouTube with me au natural. 

I sincerely hope that she had the good sense to take some suitably unflattering insurance photographs of this clown, preferably in a shrunken state.  Nothing short of some tit for tat is called for.  This is yet another very good lesson to avoid creating any compromising record of your private life if you do not want it to become public and go viral. 

 

 

Status Quo Ante

One of the bloggers at my cousin's Tigerhawk proposes that as with poker there should be an ante in war:

"If the country of Freedonia (with apologies to Groucho Marx) is attacked by the neighboring country of Youristan and several of its allies, and Freedonia successfully repels the attack, and pushes back the attackers deep into their own territory, and captures and holds some of the key strategic ground from which the attack was launched, why is it a bad thing that Freedonia maintains control over a small segment of that ground? Shouldn't there be some kind of ante in war, such that the leaders of Youristan know that if their aggression is ultimately unsuccessful, that some physical ground will be lost? It seems to me that an ante acts as somewhat of a reality check on planned aggression -- if the Youristani leaders understand that their payoff matrix is a little more negative, they might be less inclined to attack in the first place."

The rest of the post segues into the real world case of Israeli settlement of occupied territory, and rather than follow down that mine-strewn path I got thinking about the original premise, and in particular about the idea of an ante in war.  In fact, there is a strong historic precedent for resolution of conflicts to the status quo ante bellum.  Our War of 1812 was one such, and it is worth considering that this war commensed with a US Declaration of War followed by a failed invasion of Canada.  The British promptly repulsed our bungled incursion and went on to seize Detroit.  By the logic of the case made at Tigerhawk regarding Freedonia and Youristan, the British would have been justified in keeping Detroit and other occupied territory as a deterrant against US aggression (yes, I know from our perspective it was all about the British impressing seamen, restricting trade and supporting hostile Indians on our frontier, but there are other ways to spin it). 

British negotiators at the Treaty of Ghent did make a strong case for just such an outcome based on the principle of uti possidetis: namely, that each side would keep whatever teritory it had gained.  US success on Lake Champlain gave America a stronger hand to negotiate peace based on the status quo ante (with the Battle of New Orleans happening in any case after the fact). The point is that one can always come up with a causus belli that casts aggression as defense or vice versa. 

There is no simple formula for deterrance of aggression based on the possible costs of failure.  All this kind of ante really amounts to is the certainty that it is better to negotiate from a position of strength than weakness and better to win to lose.   And in practice, this is really no different than the threat of massive retaliation by a stronger adversary to deter a weaker.  "Peace through strength" has been resoundingly challenged since the end of the Cold War by the reality of asymetrical warefare by non-state actors who have less skin in the game and the potential to achieve disproportionate effects.

The true ante in war is its cost in life and health and capital and frequently territory, but also less tangible things like personal and group identity and self determination. 

Hogweed Hiding in Plain Sight

I saw one of America's Most Wanted while driving to work today. It was unmistakable, though I had to stop the car to be sure.  There by the roadside growing halfway down the embankment but still high above the guardrail, were the enormous stalk, leaves and flowers of Heracleum mantegazzianum: the notorious Giant hogweed.

I must have driven passed this plant all growing season without noticing it, which might seem remarkable for a species that can grow a dozen feet high or more.  This one was about 5' above the roadgrade, and about the same amount of plant downslope in a tangle of poison ivy that discourgaed closer inspection.  The thing that cause my eye were the massive inflorescences: huge platters of flowers that looked a bit like Queen Anne's Lace on steroids.  If it had not been in bloom, it might have escaped detection.

That's the challenge with new incursions by invasive / exotic species.  There is often a delay between the time when they take hold in a new place and when they are observed and recognized for what they are.  The mantra of invasive species control is early detection and rapid respponse, because for many of these organisms it becomes exponentially more difficult to eradicate or contrain them with the passage of time.

Heracleum mantegazzianium has been around for a long time.  It was introduced horticulturally, as so many of these species were before their invasive attributes were recognized, with the first record of its planting back in 1917.  The shady, moist areas in which it particularly thrives have not been especially overrun with Hogweed run amok, at least in where it is just gaining a toehold, but the plant I observed clearly had escaped from cultivation.  There is a known population of the plants in Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut, a mile or so from where this one was observed, and utility wires above probably provided the perch for the bird which was the vector for the spread of their seed.

Hogweed, however, has one additional attribute which has made it a top priority for State and Federal noxious weed eradication efforts.  The plant contains the toxin furocoumarin, which can make skin highly photosensitive, causing weeping blisters and permanent scarring.  Contact with the eyes can cause blindness.  For these reasons, authorites consider a threat to public health.

The plant superficially resembles cow parsnip and Queen Anne's Lace, but its size at maturity is a dead giveaway, especially when in bloom.  I did my part for early detection and reported this finding, along with photographs and detailed information about its location, to Donna Ellis of the Connectticut Invasive Plant Working Group; Elizabeth Corrigan, who is responsible for coordinating rapid response efforts for this plant in our region [email protected]; and Les Mehrhoff at the Invasive Plant Atlas of New England.  It turns out that Corrigan drove by the same site on the same day and by her account "nearly drove off the road" when she saw the plant. 

It is fortunate that I have lots of connections in the New England Invasive Species world, and that we have the chance to get this plant before all those seeds rain down.  Who knows where else it may be lurking, unnoticed, out there in the wild?