Holding onto Pearl Harbor

Well, I don't know what to be more mad about -- Pearl Harbor or the fact that Japan has upstaged Scottish whiskys as the new number one? If this is true, this is a "Peat Harbor." I have always been partial to the lslay whiskys myself. I even own two square feet of land at the Laphroaig distillery, thanks to a promotional a few years back, although I haven't gotten a chance to plant my flag there yet. Next thing you know the Japanese will be trying to shape a Bourbon into their own. Not my Maker's Mark!

It seems that after more than 70 years there isn't much in the way of hard feelings left. Japan is now one of our closest allies, despite having usurped us in everything from electronics to whiskys. Can anyone remember the last television made in America? I'll give you a hint.

Yet, no trip to Hawaii is complete without a visit to the site of the USS Arizona. There have been all kinds of speculation surrounding the tragic event. The most popular is that FDR was warned and didn't say anything because he needed a reason for the US to enter the war. Congress had yet to give him that authority, despite two years of pitched battle in Europe. This is similar to the conspiracy theories surrounding the 911 attack, which indicates a lack of imagination on the part of conspiracy buffs. Whatever the reason, Japan paid a heavy price for that act, losing the war and being the testing ground for two nuclear warheads, which for many Japanese is a similar date that has lived in infamy.

My personal feeling is that it is better not to remember these dates as it only evokes bad memories, like the time the US rounded up Japanese-Americans and placed them in internment camps, presumably for their own safety. This is odd, because there were not similar German or Italian-American camps, although similar bad feelings emerged in the wake of the war. Conversely, there were all those awful Japanese prisoner of war camps, and the ethnic cleansing that the Japanese carried out in China, as if they could ever wipe the Chinese from the face of the map. Such memories end up leaving a pretty bad taste in the mouth.

Anyway, I will have to try this Yamazaki whisky and get back to you on it.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

Dispatches from Vilnius

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