Soul and Spirit

William Faulkner’s Great Speech
by Charlie Leck

Yesterday I heard someone refer to what he thought were the three finest speeches in the English language. The common trait among all three was their brevity. Lincoln’s extraordinary speech at Gettysburg was one of them. Another was Churchill’s remarkable speech about challenging the Nazi Reich in the air and on land and on the seas. Surprisingly the third was William Faulkner’s acceptance in 1950 when he was presented the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature. Naturally, I rushed to find the speech. Thanks to the wonderful Internet, it was a snap to find. I read it and feel it is both powerful and significant. Those who love to write should certainly not fail to read it.

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work--a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

Until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

London Bridges

“Iron and Steel will Bend and Bow”
by Charlie Leck

I remember, as a wee one, being terribly frightened by the nursery rhyme about London’s bridges falling down. Growing up where I did, and in our family circumstances, I often made the trip in my dad’s old Model-A, and looked in wonder as we crossed the spectacular George Washington Bridge. As a small kid, it was some experience. So, when I heard the ditty about “bridges falling down” it always brought to my little mind the picture of the massive GW (as it is called now) crashing into the water below. I would have nightmares about it.

Now it has happened and I haven't slept well since it did. The image of that massive interstate highway bridge in Minneapolis, much, much younger in age that the old GW, filled with traffic, crashing into the mighty Mississippi, is more frightening in reality than anything I ever imagined.

There are people in our town who want to avoid the most crucial question. Why?

What went wrong? What caused the bridge to tumble? Oh, there will be scientific answers as the National Safety Board finishes its examination and study, but will we get the truth about the regular examinations of that bridge and why repair was put off. Did it have anything to do with expenditures?

The other day, in a press conference, our state’s Secretary of Transportation, who also happens to be an elected Lieutenant Governor with political promises to keep, got very irritated when one of our city’s best reporters asked her if budgetary concerns played a part in the delaying necessary repairs. She was insulted at the “implications” in the question.

Well, here’s the way it is. As the grief wears off, people are going to want to know why the reports about significant cracks and wear on bolts and shifting of the structure were ignored. The public are going to want all those bridge reports released for a “fine tooth comb” examination of the facts. We are going to want to hear testimony, likely under oath, about what was said in meetings within the Transportation Department about those reports.

My Fair Lady! We do not want to hear again about how your daughter drives over that bridge so regularly. We want to see the reports. We want facts about your department’s reaction to the reports. Finally, we want you to know that we do not think it so wise that you are both a political figure in the governor’s office and a department head who is supposed to advocate on behalf of your department. Not wise at all.

Let’s Talk This Over

Maybe the President is finally growing up!
by Charlie Leck

Forgive me for not writing during this last week.
It's just gotten to be one of those really busy times
of the year. I'm working on an exciting book and,
as it moves closer and closer to its conclusion, I
get more and more involved in it.

Remember the loud cries of “foul!” They came out of the President’s oval office about a year ago when Democrats were starting to feel their oats and were campaigning on the principle that we should have negotiated a peace settlement in Iraq. They were also saying we should be involving Iran and Syria in talks about that region.

The President scoffed at the idea and there were even words like “unpatriotic” and “disloyal” being thrown around. Certainly, the GOP was saying that the Dems were nuts. Funny how an election loss will change things for the GOP!

Now we read that there is actually progress in the talk with Iran about their involvement in Iraq. Iran is making suggestions about how to get this thing over with. Syria is too! Naturally they’re asking for some favors. That’s the way international negotiations work. Some favors for Iran, years ago, would have been extremely cheap when considered in relation to what this war has cost us. Do you think that we don’t ask for favors when we’re negotiating with Poland?

Executive Administrations in Federal Government, in whichever party, have got to think harder about building strong teams with negotiation skills, teams that understand International Relations. We need stronger, wiser State Departments. There are a couple of remarkable small colleges that have programs specializing in this field and government should look to those schools for skilled help. They’re nearly unheard of, but they’re really outstanding in these areas: The University of Richmond and Washington and Lee University, both in Virginia.

Tom Friedman’s concept of a flat world is a given everywhere today. Nothing is more important than learning how to talk to each other – learning how to find out what our common goals are and working together to achieve those goals.

Suddenly the President has learned about this. Conversations are going strong in North Korea, China, Venezuela, and even in Mexico and Canada. Maybe the President is growing up.

If You Love Someone

If you love someone, tell them
by Charlie Leck

Earlier in the day, yesterday, I passed by the I-35W bridge that crosses the Mississippi River near downtown Minneapolis. I was on my way home from a day of research for something I’m writing. I wanted nothing to do with the bottleneck where I-94 joins up with the traffic coming off that bridge. I thought that I’d prefer dozens of traffic lights to joining that maze. There would be things to look at in the city and I’d observe some of the people along the way. Better stories come that way.

I got home, tired and hot and hungry. I fixed a drink and dug out the rice cooker that the kids gave me for Father’s Day. There was a good looking piece of ham in the frig and a nice loaf of bread. Nothing fancy, but it would do for dinner. I turned on the news and it murmured in the background as I read through the newspaper. I heard the good woman come in the backdoor and plop the mail down. She shouted out a hello just as I heard the guy on CNN say something about Minneapolis and a bridge. I moved closer to the TV and looked down at it. There was image of splayed concrete and steel, tangled and laying in the water and there were mangled cars everywhere. Other automobiles and trucks virtually hung on concrete roads that led only to disaster. People were moving about like ants on the screen. Some dove into the water. Others were climbing out of the river.

It took a moment for the sound and sights on the screen to come together so that I could understand what had happened. I screamed for the wife, telling her to come quickly, to see. The scenes were horrendous. The backdrop was all so familiar, though. How many dozens of times had I crossed that bridge. It is so high up above the river. The TV shots didn’t show the height at all. Down below – way down below – run a couple of roads on either side of the river and there are train tracks and railroad yards and, of course, the mighty river.

We didn’t sleep well. I had a number of strange nightmares. Some family called from Texas and Florida to make sure we were okay. It made us think about things and so we checked on our own kids to make sure they were safely home. We tossed and turned and thought about the families who were waiting to hear about someone who had failed to come home.

On TV this morning they interviewed the Engebretsen girls. They were so lovely and so pretty. They have beautiful, dark skin that doesn’t match their last name. They were adopted as infants and brought here to Minnesota from Columbia. Their mom had taken the bridge. She was missing. The girls were strong and brave and said they were prepared for whatever the outcome. They learned it from their mom. The reporter asked if they had anything to say to people watching.

One of the pretty girls, with very wet eyes, gave us her advice: “If you love someone, tell them, and always tell them!”

Warren Wakefield

Great Grand-Pappy Could Write Okay
by Charlie Leck

There is some news print and ink in my wife’s background. A great grandfather, Warren Wakefield, wrote for newspapers for most of his adult life. That is he, pictured above. He edited the Wayzata newspaper for the last six years of his life (1912-1918). Heading up a weekly newspaper back then was very different than today. They were real newspapers that people counted on and they were content rich. A nephew of Warren, Harry Wakefield, wrote editorials for the Minneapolis Tribune in the early part of the 1900s. A daughter, Lisa, has her Masters Degree in Journalism (I guess they call it Mass Media studies these days.)

One of my very pleasant activities right now is to learn as much as I can about Warren. Thanks to the History Center in Saint Paul, I’ve lately been reading some of the writing he left behind. I thought I would share a few gems with you. These came from either speeches he gave (for he was a frequent speaker at community events) or from some of his editorials over the years.

~

They are so good that I wanted to share them with you. Pass them on to others who also enjoy writing done well.

~

“The man who opens a farm on a frontier is building a home for himself and his family and his impulse is to surround that habitation with an atmosphere of morality that will safeguard the character of his posterity. His log cabin, mean in appearance and cramped in dimension, is to him but the foundation of a commodious dwelling which time and energy will evolve. His stumpy and stubborn patch of corn ground is but the prelude to the broad cultivated fields of the future…” [from a speech to a church celebrating its 50th anniversary]

“The legislature is in session, but who cares!”

“The state legislature has assembled in extraordinary session. All session of the legislature are extraordinary in their depleting effect upon the resources of the taxpayer.”

“Some children were badly frightened by a cow last week, when brave Mrs. Eddy came to the rescue with her parasol. The beauty of the parasol attracted the attention of the cow and the children got by unmolested. Our advice to ladies traveling unprotected is “always carry a parasol.”

“Great wealth makes a hog of its average possessor, while “Culture” removes its devotee from all genuinely human association. All real humanity is jammed between the High brows and the hogs.”

“My first work away from home was done for Mr. Dudley. I plowed what has recently become known as “Bald Hill” with the blacksmith’s famous horse, “Old Tom,” and a queer apology for a plow forged by my employer. I worked for five days for a wage of seventy-five cents per day and my dinner and when the job was completed I spent another week in an attempt to collect my pay. The old gentleman was quite deaf, but his infirmity never prevented his hearing an agreeable communication, and it was a matter of public knowledge that he was quick to hear a proffer to pay money and invariably deaf to a demand for settlement. After completion of my job I haunted the man’s stone shop for days and frequently interrupted the industry of its occupant with a loudly shouted demand for my pay. I would jerk his leather apron to claim his attention; he would incline his head, place his hand behind his ear and I would yell, “Mr. Dudley I want my dollar and a quarter.” He would regard me with astonishment and seizing his hammer would respond, “No, No, I never let boys take my horse.” I would repeat my demand to be told, “If you want a boat, take the red one.” Finally, I was obliged to appeal to Mrs. Dudley, who gave me five shiny silver quarters, the first money I ever earned.” [from the unpublished memoirs of Warren Wakefield]

~

Visit the web site of Native Oaks Farm!

Stick to What You Know

Everyone's a critic!
by Charlie Leck

I received the following note right after posting my last blog about Dick Cheney. I thought it only fair to share it with all of you. You might want to comment on what Jonathan has to say.

Chas:
I need to complain. I go to your blog 3 or 4 times each week because I enjoy your writing. That is, I enjoy it when you stay away from all that stuff that is best left to editorial writers at the Star-Tribune or the NY Times. Your material is really great when you are writing personally, about your own experiences and about your family and your own activities. It breaks down when you try to comment on Vice President Cheney or national politics. Stick to what you know best. That always makes for better writing.
Your friend,
Jonathan

I don’t want to get defensive and protest a great deal; however, I sometimes get very riled up about national affairs and the direction our nation has taken in the last 6 years. It’s difficult to keep it all bottled up and it comes spilling out. I try to write it well and say it clearly.

Jonathan, I do stick to more personal material most of the time – subjects that are based on personal experience. And, I agree with you, that makes for better writing. However, partner, I sometimes need to take on these guys who I feel are fully, fiercely and frighteningly f’n me over.

I’ll try to do less of it, but you will occasionally just have to put up with some of it.

To Impeach or to Not Impeach

The absolutely incredible Vice Presidency
of Dick Cheney
by Charlie Leck

Constant emails are getting through to me from every possible kind of organization – substantial and thrown-together – urging me to join the movement to impeach Dick Cheney (you know, the weird guy who plays our Vice President in that movie that is just so wildly insane that no one really believes it as possibility). When one looks closely at the actions of Cheney over the last six years, one is tempted to join ranks with Dennis Kucinich in his “rabid” attack on the Vice President.

Hendrick Hertzberg, in the 9 July 2007 issue of The New Yorker, says a Broadway play about Cheney/Bush would be “irresistible.” He says it would be the “story of the scowling, scheming, domineering, silently sinister Vice-President and the spoiled, petted prince who becomes his play thing… -- …set in a pristine White House, played against an ominous unseen background of violence and catastrophe, like distant thunder, and packed with drama, palace intrigue and black comedy.”

My wife called my attention to the Hertzberg commentary. She regularly downloads articles from the New Yorker to her IPod. “This is crazy! You won’t believe this,” she said. Funny, though, because I believed every word.

The Hertzberg condemnation of Richard Cheney is magnificent, funny, powerful and surgical. Don’t miss it if you’re interested in this question about whether or not Cheney should be impeached. http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/07/09/070709taco_talk_hertzberg

The only thing good about this administration is this palace intrigue. It is certainly better than the finest thriller fiction and it pushes the reader to the edges of credibility. One puts down the book occasionally and breathlessly asks: “Is it possible?”

In my lifetime, no occupants of the main offices in the White House and Executive Mansion have been so zany. It’s like the craziness of the Adams Family without the slapstick comedy! It would be totally laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous. Hertzberg refers to Cheney as Elmer Fudd. Think of Cheney in his duck blind and the appellation fits.

It has been the so-called War on Terror that has given Cheney excuse for such looseness (as in “loose cannon” or as in “monster on the loose.”) Again, as Hertzberg says, Dick Cheney, more than anyone else is the man who, through his actions and policies, has “…inflicted unprecedented disgrace on our country’s moral and political standing.”

The indictment, more than any other, that drives the organizations that want to impeach Dick Cheney is that he has been responsible for launching this war (Iraq) under false pretenses. In is not an indictment against the President mind you, because, again, he is seen only as a palace prince.

Dick Cheney lives in disgrace even in the eyes of real conservatives – I’m not talking here of those Bible thumping idiots who can’t see beyond some easily quotable words of scripture that they aren’t even capable of fully understanding. They love Cheney.

Cheney’s roll call of dishonor surpasses anything I know about in history.

Cheney was the force behind the firing of those U.S. Attorneys for fully political reasons.

Cheney was responsible for the tax cuts for the rich that went even far beyond anything the President thought wise and politically safe.

Cheney has built for this administration an environmental policy that is an absolute disgrace in the eyes of nearly the entire world. These policies have resulted in a breath-taking disregard for the safety of our air and water and invited a level of pollution into our environmental infrastructure such as we never dreamed could happen.

It was Cheney who single-handedly invented the EPA rule that allowed refurbished power plants to NOT install modern controls against pollution. This action, it turns out, is what caused Christy Todd Whitman to resign as EPA administrator.

And, it was Cheney who convinced his palace prince to ignore calls for national action and global cooperation in the battle against greenhouse gases.

The new Supreme Court Justices, Samuel Alito and John Roberts, were hand-picked by Dick Cheney. We now have a majority that will do this nation great harm for many years to come. It is the Court that recently ruled that conscious racial integration and conscious racial segregation were moral equivalents.

Now here is the scary part. Dick Cheney still has 18 months of control over this nation yet to go.
I’ve printed out for myself the four-part series in the Washington Post that Hertzberg refers to in his New Yorker Magazine piece: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/ …it runs for over 40 pages in very small type. It is an extremely cautious bit of reporting that documents every single accusation, charge or claim it makes. If you’re sitting on the fence about this impeachment movement, this series of articles may push you into the Kucinich camp. This magnificent piece of journalism is done by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker. They will receive some major awards for this remarkable work. It drew on interviews with more than 200 men and women who worked closely with Cheney or in opposition to him.

Cheney’s most remarkable achievement, which will stand as his legacy – whether you regard it positively or negatively – is that he has vastly expanded the war making authority of the President. This is a power that congress, especially over the last 60 years, has allowed the Executive Branch to slowly and conclusively steal from them. Cheney/Bush finished the deal!
Though it is not likely to be permanent, Cheney has also reshaped the roll of the Vice President in Executive Branch policy making. Clearly, Cheney is the most influential and powerful V.P. in the history of the nation. No Vice President has made decisions that had the force of changing history until Dick Cheney came along. Former Vice President Dan Quayle speaks of Cheney as a “surrogate chief of staff.” This is the first time I have ever said this, or dreamed I would say it, but Quayle’s words ring wise and true. George W. Bush is not a strong enough person to handle such a Vice President and is unable to keep Cheney in his historic place; that is, out of the decision making loop. To many, it is the Vice President, and not the President, who is “the Decider” on many, many issues.

Cheney has access to every meeting and every important discussion that takes place within the White House. He may voice his opinion about any matter, at any time. And, he usually has the President’s ear last in all controversial discussions. Most importantly, Gellman and Becker point out in their Washington Post series, the Vice President also intervenes in discussion at the sub-cabinet level when the President is absent from those discussions. In those meetings, Cheney speaks with the force of the Presidency.

What are the issues that Cheney keeps on his plate and works on regularly? How important do you think the following list is? (1) Economic Issues; (2) Security Concerns; (3) Energy Policy; (4) White House Legislative Agenda; (5) Nominations and Appointments.

The Washington Post Series has not drawn significant criticism from the Vice President’s office or from the Republican Party. In many ways it draws a very positive picture of Dick Cheney. His is far more intelligent than the President. He understands the working of the Executive Branch as well as anyone in government (remember, he served as Chief of Staff to President Gerald R. Ford). He routinely works harder than the President, beginning his reading before 5 A.M. on most mornings. He is more familiar with the relationship between the Executive and Legislative branches of government and, as President of the Senate, moves freely and easily between both. So familiar is he with the workings and inter-workings of these two worlds that I doubt he has one shred of worry about his possible impeachment.

If Dick Cheney were on the side of liberals, fighting for their issues, I don’t believe they would have one problem with him. We all like tough guys when they’re on our side. None of us are afraid of bullies who are our buddies.

Even with that in mind, one has to remember that any reading of current history points to Chaney as the author and enforcer of the policy regarding terrorist prisoners that carefully circumvented the intentions of the Geneva Convention regarding torture. It appears he was also the chief author of the evidence that pointed to Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Was he fully aware that the evidence did not exist and that the carefully constructed reasons for war were false? Likely. These two issues provoke the possibility of impeachment.

I can imagine how forceful Dick Cheney was in convincing a gullible President of the importance of these two matters. In impeachment hearings on Capitol Hill that would be very difficult to prove as fact.

What I find totally curious about Dick Cheney is his absolute indifference to public opinion. Most politicians have a constant thermometer stuck up the rear of the public, checking the heat constantly. Cheney doesn’t mind the heat. He’s told countless people to get out of the kitchen if they couldn’t take it. Cheney’s attitude may have led the Administration directly into the problem that strangles it today – polls that show no confidence on the part of the American people.

Read, if you will, Gellman and Becker’s remarkable description of Cheney roll in economic and tax issues and his leadership in the legislative fight for multiple tax cuts for the very wealthy – cuts that went even far beyond what the President thought economically and politically wise. The third and fourth sections of their series deal with these subjects and with Cheney’s impact on environmental matters.

The so-called environmental left, the tree-huggers, are hard on the impeachment band wagon. No one else in history has taken such a hard line on issues that do serious damage to the environment than Dick Cheney. It infuriates me and I wonder if we can endure 18 more months of such harmful policies. The impeachment band-wagon looks inviting, but I still conclude that it will do more damage politically to the Democratic Party than it can stand.

Between the war in Iraq and our absurd policy regarding the world’s environmental health, the image of the United States of America is at its lowest ebb in all of history. We are held in disdain by most other nations of the world. The tough guy, Dick Cheney, doesn’t care. I wonder if he ever wonders if the rest of the world might be correct on this matter and that he might be wrong. I doubt it.

Your homework, class, if you wish to continue in this course, is to go to the Washington Post web site to read these four extraordinary documented essays about Dick Cheney and his amazing influence on life in America. This is not elective. It is required. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/