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NOTE: This article was originally published on December 7, 2011, on the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Some changes have taken place in Second Life, and so I have revised the article where needed to avoid confusion.

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USS Arizona sinking following explosion of her magazine, 7 Dec 1941; photo from U. S. Navy History and Heritage Command collection

“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan….”— President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, December 8, 1941, speaking to a joint session of Congress.

The world changed — massively — for Americans on that December day.  While most of us were going about our Sunday routines — perhaps sitting in church for the day’s sermon or Sunday school, or getting out for brunch with friends — a squadron of Japanese aircraft carriers were turning into the wind and launching attack bombers.  Japan was stymied in its plans for expansion of its “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” by an American embargo on oil, machine parts and other needed goods, and afraid that the U. S. would respond if it attacked British interests in Southeast Asia, and planned a preventive strike against the American Pacific Fleet in Hawaii to forestall any action against it.  The Japanese had planned to shave its “notification” to the U. S. government of hostile intent as closely as possible to keep a warning from being sent to the American bases in and around Pearl Harbor; but clerical problems in decoding and typing the message eliminated any validity to their weak attempt to observe the niceties.

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Harper put up an excellent pair of pieces for her Veterans Day writing this week, but I decided to do something of my own.  In Canada, we call this Remembrance Day, and it’s more specifically to honour the soldiers and sailors who have fallen, like America’s Memorial Day, since the day’s origin lies in the end of what was then called the Great War, now World War I.  The Flanders poppy in my lapel derives from the poppies that dotted the northern European landscape, thus the inspiration for Canadian army doctor John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields.”

Je me souviens….

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This would have been a good article to republish under any circumstances.  In light of recent events, though, it’s even more important that we remember this thing, and that we swear, solemnly and before all that we all hold holy in this world, that it will never happen again, to any people on this planet.

I’ve checked the Map, and Israel Island is still there.  Spare a moment, I beg ye, whoever ye may be and whatever be thy creed and faith, and visit this place, and pray for the souls of the dead, for the Righteous Gentiles, and for all who died as the result of a madman’s insanity.

“Rest quietly, for we will not repeat the evil….”

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While we’re remembering our veterans today, both alive and dead, it’s appropriate that we remember others as well, who died for no reason other than the desires of a madman. I will tell you right now that this isn’t a light article, a happy fashion piece or a visit to some beautiful vista, and I pull no punches in my subject or my choice of language. If you find this a hard thing, my sorrow for you, and you should move on to another blog for now. But an evil this great must be remembered; must be kept alive in the history of the world, so that we may see the signs and take steps to stop it before it grabs hold of us again.

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Jem, Conan (who couldn’t be present) and I all salute our country, our veteran relations and ancestors, and our democratic process.

In part, Veterans Day and Election Day are close enough together this year that I decided to combine the two together into one post. This isn’t normally my practice, but the theme I’m going to talk about here links into both, as it’s a matter that links the two days together.  As I’ve done before, I’m writing for all three of us, and adding their signatures to this article with my friends’ review and permission, for which I thank them most gratefully.

We at Around the Grid all have a father or grandfather who served in the U. S. armed forces at some point — as well, doubtless, as any number of ancestors we have never known — and we were raised “traditionally” enough to have a reasonably strong sense of patriotism, along with belief in our country and its inherent good and decency.  Our ancestors fought on behalf of the United States in any number of wars, going back to the Revolutionary War, because they believed in those facts.  They desired the right of a man — and now of a person — to be free, to determine their own destiny with the least imposition of rule by the government over them, and only by their own consent when the government did institute a law of some kind.  Jem and Conan haven’t mentioned any specifics about their fathers; but I can tell you that my own, as I think I’ve mentioned in the past, fought and bled for those ideals in France in World War II.  (This is the reason I wear the purple duster I have on above, for Dad’s Purple Heart; and the purple strip in Jemmy’s dress is suggestive.)  Many more since have fought, or simply served and stood ready to defend this country against its perceived enemies.  Again, as this blog tries to do every year, we salute those men and women — not always understood, never enough appreciated, often wounded in spirit as well as body, but willing to lay their lives down if called upon for the greater good.

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Remembering this day fifteen years ago, when the world changed forever for all of us.

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Well, I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, Tell where are you going?
This he told me
Said, I’m going down to Yasgur’s Farm,
Gonna join in a rock and roll band.
Got to get back to the land and set my soul free….

I wasn’t alive, of course, when the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair happened — I’m slightly younger than the Mother of Bloggers I work with here, LOL.  But I do understand what a watershed moment Woodstock was.  Harper was telling me about a friend from her childhood who had been invited to go with some friends…and he turned them down.  He kicked himself later, and made a trip to Max Yasgur’s Farm with a friend this year to see the site.

It’s unimaginable in some ways what went on there, when compared with what society is today.  Three days that rolled over into a fourth accidentally, with thousands of people living in pretty rugged conditions — and there were no violent incidents.  It was all about the music and the movement.  At least one baby was born on site, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a whole bunch of them were conceived there at one point or another.  It’s something that can only be imitated anymore, never duplicated, though I understand people have tried; it captured a moment of innocence that we’re probably too crabbed and jaded to seize again.

But one can hope….

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By the time we got to Woodstock,
We were half a million strong
And everywhere was a song and a celebration.
And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes
Riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation….

 

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Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
L’étendard sanglant est levé, (bis)
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes!

Aux armes, citoyens,
Formez vos bataillons,
Marchons, marchons!
Qu’un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

— “La Marseillaise,” first verse

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We seem to be marking national holidays this month, so I figure I’d better do something for the home of great fashion, great food, great bicycling, and a whole lot of other greats.  There was a lot of struggle before all that, though.

By Jean-Pierre Houël – Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=106405

July 14 is known in France as Bastille Day, and is considered their “Independence Day.”  In short, in 1789, the people of Paris got sick of King Louis XVI’s rule of them, and began trying to take matters into their own hands.  The whole history is a lot more complex than just that one-line piece of glibness, and I’d suggest you read it if you don’t remember your world-history classes.  But, as part of it, afraid that Louis would send in the army against them, the Parisians stormed the Bastille, the huge fortress-prison in the city, and took the arms and gunpowder held there.  It was their Lexington and Concord, and essentially sparked the beginning of the French Revolution.  That led in the long run to freedom, the right to vote, regicide, and eventually Napoleon.  France has actually gone through five republics since then, but this fifth one seems to be holding.

The national colors are blue, white and red (Thank you, Captain Picard), and so I’ve tried to use those colors in my outfit and makeup.  The sundress is from, fittingly, Petit Chat.  I did manage to pull of all three colors in my shoes from KC Couture, since they came with a left and right shoe; I put both on and selected blue metal, then took one off and selected red metal, and put the off one back on.  Voilà.

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I’m wearing:

• Skin: Amacci Tyne (Cream – 01 Natural)
• Eyes: Poetic Colors classic (cosmic dawn (l) bright)
• Hair: rezology Butterfly 069
• Attachments: SLink Avatar Enhancement Feet Deluxe and Casual Hands
• Dress: Petit Chat Gleam (blue)
• Shoes: KC Couture Stefy wedges
• Jewelry: Kunglers Elizabeta necklace (Silver / blue topaz) and Shani earrings (Blue Opal)
• Makeup: SlackGirl Naja (01); MONS Showy lipstick (rose); Arte Glamorous Eyebrows (ash blonde)

Photographed in Costa Nero region

(Harper will get the links added later when she has a chance; I have to scoot for work — a different deadline! Check back tomorrow, if not tonight.)

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You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.

I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.

Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.

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Malcolm X was born on May 19, 1925; he would have been 91 this year if not for his assassination in 1965, when he was reaching the heights of his power and speaking ability.  His words, just a few of which I quote above, say more about him than I ever could.

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The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy….

Gordon Lightfoot, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

Do you remember I showed you a few weeks ago what Lake Superior could look like on a peaceful pre-fall day?

This is the other face of Lake Superior — Duluth Harbor in Minnesota, when the Gitche Manitou, the Great Spirit of the Lake-region tribes, is restless and angry.  This, however, is nothing compared to Superior forty years ago, on November 10, 1975.    On that day, the wind was whipping so hard across Superior that the tops of the waves were getting sheared off and blown into cold, cold mist before they could curl and foam and make what old Great Lakes hands call “Christmas trees.”  When that happens, it’s better that a ship stays in port, and that any ships carrying on their work find someplace to drop anchor and shelter until it blows over.

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I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda, One Hundred Love Sonnets, XVII