Mr O'Connor tore a strip off the card and, lighting it, lit his cigarette. As he did so the flame lit up a leaf
of dark glossy ivy in the lapel of his coat. The old man watched him attentively and then, taking up the
piece of cardboard again, began to fan the fire slowly while his companion smoked.
`Ah, yes,' he said, continuing, `it's hard to know what way to bring up children. Now who'd think he'd turn
out like that! I sent him to the Christian Brothers and I done what I could for him, and there he goes
boozing about. I tried to make him somewhat decent.'
He replaced the cardboard wearily.
`Only I'm an old man now I'd change his tune for him. I'd take the stick to his back and beat him while I
could stand over him - as I done many a time before. The mother you know, she cocks him up with this
and that... '
`That's what ruins children,' said Mr O'Connor.
- Ivy Day in the Committee Room, Dubliners by James Joyce
This is a 1955 recording of T.S. Eliot reading 'Ash Wednesday' - strangely, it sounds much older, like an old phonograph cylinder recording, some bit of ancient audio cultural pre-history. That's probably what the words and their delivery convey. I almost always read this poem on this day, so I thought I'd share:
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces After the frosty silence in the gardens After the agony in stony places The shouting and the crying Prison and place and reverberation Of thunder of spring over distant mountains He who was living is now dead We who were living are now dying With a little patience
There have been only ten national election cycles since Lyndon Johnson stood before a special joint session of congress on March 15, 1965 and gave the greatest presidential speech of my lifetime. And LBJ has had only seven successors in the office soon to be occupied by the first African-American president. The history is so near, and the voices of that era still echo.
The other night, I walked over to the Paley Center and listened to some of those voices - civil rights leaders Diane Nash, John Lewis, and Andy Young along with veteran newsmen Dan Rather, Richard Valeriani and Haynes Johnson - discuss the events that led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The audience included LBJ's daughter Luci Baines Johnson and the voices on the stage paid tribute to her father for his leadership on civil rights - colorful tribute, to be sure. Video from the Paley's incomparable collection punctuated the discussion, which was ably facilitated by Pat Mitchell; the footage from the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma police riot was particularly compelling, no matter how many times you may have seen it.
It was a night to consider the passing of four decades and just how much change we've witnessed - in 1965, blacks were routinely turned away from the offices of poll registrars across the south. Now those same states and cities and towns generally welcome an army of grassroots volunteers for a black presidential candidate.
No matter who wins in two weeks - and I think I know who will - that is change. Throw in the final sputtering death throes of the over-used southern strategy of American conservatism, and LBJ's political promise looks more like a prophecy. We have overcome.
What struck me in listening to Diane Nash, Congressman Lewis and Ambassador Young was their simple matter-of-fact tone. We did this. They did that. I went to jail. Their lack of anger, and the absence of any bitterness in their tone was incredibly moving. Like most Americans, I've heard the closing coda to LBJ's famed '65 speech - but the whole thing is worth reading (I haven't found a full video file - the clip above has the first five minutes). The video shows how deeply Johnson believed in his words, and how strongly he sold them in the House chamber. The contained anger, the singularity of purpose, the sheer all-in wagering of ever bit of his political capital remains compelling. But the words were elegant, and the speech brilliantly composed - like in this middle section:
There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our Democracy in what is happening here tonight. For the cries of pain and the hymns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation all the majesty of this great government--the government of the greatest nation on earth.
Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country--to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man. In our time we have come to live with the moments of great crises. Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues, issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression.
But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, or our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved nation. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, and should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation. For, with a country as with a person, "what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.
So often, we tend to throw around the word "leadership" with the same alacrity for dumbing down linguistic superlatives that we reserve for "legendary" and "star." On that night in 1965 when Johnson called the Congress into a rare joint session, he laid it all on the line without knowing the political outcome.
I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of
the party say, and it is permitted to be said such things as: "Well,
you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is:
he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian. He's always been a Christian.
But the really right answer is: What if he is? Is there something
wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is: No, that's
not America. Is there something wrong with some 7 year old
Muslim-American kid believing he or she can be President?
Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop
the suggestion: he's a Muslim, and he might be associated with
terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
The ghosts of American soldiers wander the streets of Balad by night, unsure of their way home, exhausted, the desert wind blowing trash down the narrow alleys as a voice sounds from the minaret, a soulful call reminding them how alone they are, how lost. And the Iraqi dead, they watch in silence from rooftops as date palms line the shore in silhouette, leaning toward Mecca when the dawn wind blows.
- From Here, Bullet, a collection of poems written by Brian Turner, who served for seven years in the U.S.
Army. Beginning in November 2003, he was an infantry team leader in
Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.
Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place And what is actual is actual only for one time And only for one place I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessèd face And renounce the voice Because I cannot hope to turn again Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something Upon which to rejoice
from Amazon.
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