Tag Archives: review

THE FALL – First Episode

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Northern Ireland BBC Production, Gillian Anderson

When I bought this worthwhile production, the clerk looked at the cover and said, “Scully.” I never got into the X-Files so I have never associated Anderson with that program. Anderson was born in Chicago, Illinois, and has made Great Britain her home.

In The Fall Anderson plays an experienced police investigator from somewhere who goes to Belfast, Northern Ireland to solve a string of murders. Everything appears authentic and quite British.

However, there are two scenes where Anderson is eating food. The first is a hamburger that looks like it came fresh from the stockyards of Chicago: Hey, I guess it’s easier to take the girl out of America rather than take America out of the girl, right Scully?

In the second scene Anderson eats a salad, the sort of condiment one finds in Beverly Hills, the Palisades, Melrose, Frisco and now in Belfast. British filmmakers are inventive. I didn’t see the full plate, so it may be a meat salad and the protein is haggis.

The remaining episodes of Part One of The Fall are engaging, but somewhat elongated. Season Two of five more episodes, not available in the United States, have been shot. To see the end one can either buy Season Two, $55.00 on Amazon for a Region 2 DVD, or preferably wait until it’s on cable, the internet or the DVDs cost $15.00.

CORRESPONDING WITH CARLOS – Charles Barber

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This engaging, funny, instructive, artistic book is part biography of the late twentieth century Austrian conductor, Carlos Kleiber; the other part of the volume is epistolary, letters from the conductor to the author. Kleiber is recognized as one of the best conductors of his times. He did not record much; he did not pursue fame. He took extreme care in performance (mostly opera) and on recordings to get the best music, performed and presented.

Art and perfection in its presentation are the most difficult feats for any person to achieve in performance. Kleiber has no set process. No conductor and no artist should. If one writes a book review, a novel or a biography, the writer should be conscious of different processes required from each product. It is true with a painter – self-portrait, landscape or city scene; a composer – a piano piece, a symphony or an opera. Each work of art should have its own forces, thoughts and games by the originator.

A conductor takes each piece of music, sets it into its style, regionally and historically, and brings out the voices, rhythms and sensations. Corresponding describes this process incompletely because Carlos Kleiber was always unsure of himself: He had great talent, devotion, energy, discipline and imagination, and although he had an ego and it seems colossal and unerring at times, doubts arose. He knew his knowledge, understanding and abilities had limits. He always wanted to know whether Verdi composed an opera while eating a boatload of bad calamari; it was useful to know the inflammatory patterns of Wagner’s hemorrhoids while he composed Tristan and Isolde. But in doubt about other stuff and getting an orchestra to perform to the conductor’s interpretation festered uncertainty.

Learning to conduct involves all the musicianship taught at conservatories, plus experiences of a lifetime, conducting orchestras and ensembles plus seeing and hearing other conductors, preferably in person. While big named conductors, including Kleiber, rehearsed with orchestras other big named conductors liked to sit unobtrusively in the seats and listen. Security sweeps of the house would remove the uninvited guests That degree of intimacy by the rehearsing conductor, the product soon to become public, did not protect trade secrets – nobody stole ideas because any decent conductor would have an understanding of music apart from the jumble in rehearsal. Kleiber himself had no students except the author, Charles Barber, a graduate student from Stanford 7,000 miles from Munich. The American figured how to get instruction – deliver VHS tapes of other conductors to Kleiber and await his reactions. It is true in the arts that the best instruction is sometimes delivered briefly, 35-40 words, and that is what Kleiber does.

In the biographical potion of the books (60 percent of the pages) may of the conductors were European. Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony came up and Kleiber (two recordings) gives his impressions. On and on Kleiber went, and the text didn’t mention Pierre Monteux, primary a symphony (not operatic) conductor. Monteux has many recordings including dynamic presentations of Beethoven’s Seventh and Dvorak’s Seventh. There is very little of him on film. In the epistolary section I was relieved that Kleiber liked and admired “the walrus” (Monteux had a big white mustache).

It is helpful and perhaps essential to have a rudimentary understanding of music and recognizing pieces like is done in music appreciation classes. The book is written to a general audience – 70 percent of everyone will pick up and follow the artist themes. The remainder are embellishments, the knowledgable reader understanding the next 15-20 percent, and the final ten percent is understood by musicians who know or who have played the music being discussed.

In a score I know how to find a passage and understand some of the discussion in the last ten percent, but that is no longer important to me and does not yield a greater understanding of the book. [It would provide a greater understanding of the music and how Kleiber heard and did it.] Sometimes knowing everything is ludicrous; the readers sees moods, manias and childnesses: Tutti in a score means all instruments of one kind (flutes, trombones, etc) play. During a bad rehearsal Kleiber was dissatisfied and unhappy; he began to pick on various players. He told the first-cellist to change tables with the tutti-cellist (a grave, life-lingeirng insult) because the tutti cellist had been playing with more enthusiasm.

These sorts of nasty, artistic outbursts are common in the artistic word. Writers want to murder everyone, including the characters on the pages before them while they, themselves, butcher the language. Michelangelo painted Jesus Christ on Judgment Day throwing a cardinal the artist detested into Hell. This temperament is part of artistic lives and impulses also extant in Corresponding. Anyone seeking that experience, influence and stimulation would benefit from a thorough reading of this volume.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT – Carleton Putnam

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This is the best and most complete biography of Theodore Roosevelt (TR) 1858-1886. It is a life and times book, the times include New York politics in the early 1880s (who knew they could be interesting), academic life at Harvard and the life of a mid-continent (Bad Lands) rancher. In the end TR’s energy seems inexhaustible. He has written three non-fiction books; he has been in the New York legislature fighting for reform and immersing himself in local and state politics; he has begun friendships with prominent men in other states. He is no bully himself, but he takes no gruff from anyone, fellow legislators, other ranchers and outlaws.

None of these activities are told in isolation. The book is chronological and detailed, much more so than later-published prize-winning TR biographies. Take one activity – hunting. He would travel 500-1000 miles, and each step seems conveyed to the reader in the grind of stalking and chase. TR always had an experienced man with him who was a dead shot; he himself always carried hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Tales of TR and Man of Experience (written 40 years later) make for informative, comparative reading. It is easy to imagine TR being a poor shot, shooting and missing, chasing and reloading and repaying the process while the experienced man accompanies. They go after grizzlies. TR presents his stories; the experienced man others. The biographer favors TR, but there is enough in the biography to judge the experienced man is correct.

[It turns out that hunting stories are like fishing stories, especially the size of the fish and the fight involved.]

Through out the activities, TR marries. He is in the New York legislature getting multiple pieces of legislation passed. He succeeds on most, but TR’s work is interrupted by a telegraph. He rushes from Albany to New York City. His wife has just given birth to his daughter but is in bad shape. Hs mother is also ill. TR arrives home, sees his wife but must rush to his mother who dies in his presence.  He returns to his wife who dies in his presence the next day. The short chapter of seven pages telling of the trip from Albany, of the deaths and of the funerals is the finest piece of fiction or non-fiction on this subject I have read: Emotions, grief, loss, despair, absence emerge forcefully.

In the 1880s Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, publicly supported a candidate. Roosevelt went after both the candidate and Davis, who took offense. Davis was an old man ready to die. He had never regretted anything he had done: Slaveholder, promoter and defender of slavery, being part of the Southern Civil War leadership, The biographer explains and jumps in taking the side of Jefferson Davis. Davis had no qualities except hate, bigotry and resentment.

In the end the biographer took those traits from Davis. The book was published in 1958 near the beginning of the well-known Civil Rights Movement activities. The biographer was a founder-executive of Delta Airlines in Atlanta. He sided with the country club set, Southern Ladies and Gentlemen trying to preserve Anglo-Saxon society. That society had already been polluted and degraded mostly by Irish and Scots-Irish, all born enemies of the Anglo-Saxons. But blacks were anathema to whites in the South. The author spoke against the Civil Rights movement.

There was no market for a volume two of TR’s biography from this author. Every word he wrote on matters of race had to gag him. [Black Jack Pershing either did or did not lead black troops during the Spanish-American War; they fought well.] The author could not accept TR’s primary position – former slaves and their decedents should advance economically.

These circumstances are unfortunate because this book reveals a talented artist who slid to the dark side and by accepting hate, bigotry and resentment, he lost the ability to be original and creative.

THE LAMP OF EXPERIENCE

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by Trevor Colbourn

This engaging history richly tells of seventeenth and eighteenth century histories read by prominent American Revolutionaries.

Being from a generation of historians of 50 years ago, the book is not widely known but is well worth reading – a simple direct telling of the subject and the books the Revolutionaries were reading, in addition to sufficient recounting of the subject matter. The Americans [John Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Mason, Otis, Wilson] were not reading history to follow tradition and custom in a ghoulish resurrection of mindsets of previous centuries. They were constructing no philosophies; times had changed. They read to learn of previous times, to know the mistakes of the past and better the judge events coming at them.

This argument is well made in the book, but another argument seeps in. To what extent did the American Revolution change and begin the break down the ossification of the British political system?

COLLAPSE OF THE READER – Review

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THE COLLAPSE OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC, William L. Shirer

The Collapse refers to World War Two. The Germans attacked in the West on May 10, 1940. The British finished evacuating Dunkirk by June 2, 1940. During the last third of June 1940 Hitler took his morning tour of Paris.

This is not Shirer’s best book. It is very journalistic. I cannot recommend it. Shirer attempts to tell the structural weaknesses of the Third Republic from its inception in 1871, 69 years before World War Two. And Shirer along with the reader becomes bogged down in sundry and many details, some of which could support stories and characters for an excellent miniseries: Investment and fraud schemes play out over a decade or decades. Witnesses and participants are murdered, one being tied to a railroad track. In all this Shirer’s point is the Third Republic never had a reliable Constitution and accepted legislative procedures in place to give the French people confidence in their government.

In 1936 as the Nazis carefully moved into the Rhineland, remilitarizing it and removing a 30-50 mile buffer between France and Germany, the French were indecisive. France hoped that the British would give them backbone. However, Hitler has moved on a Saturday because the Germans know that members of the British government depart for their country houses on weekends. The British are concerned…

“Eden made it clear to the French Ambassador in London that nothing could be decided in London until the following Monday, when the Prime Minister and his colleagues would be back. That would give the Germans forty-eight hours to consolidate their hold on the Rhineland without interference. Nowhere in his own account nor in the dispatches of the French Ambassador describing the meeting does the British Foreign Secretary seem to have given thought to the consequences of such procrastination. His only thought was to discourage the French from doing anything over the weekend.” (p. 263)

It behooves any country in a dangerous world to have men and women (policymakers) who are up to speed and ready to act at anytime. If someone with authority must be in the office over the weekend – not fly fishing, watching sports, bicycling, golfing – then be there, listen, consider and exercise authority.

The remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936 was Hitler’s first step. Historians and later politicians generally acknowledge had the French Army marched into the Rhineland in response, the German army would have retreated. In fact the consensus among historians is that Hitler would have been finished in Germany, and there would have been NO World War Two.These historians and politicians know what the British and French politicians should have known in March 1936: The Rhineland escapade was a desperate gamble that the West ignored. Immediate decisions and action were necessary, but were put off. The chance for effective, decisive action did not arise without greater costs.

Undoubtedly, Shirer recounts in painful detail each and every poor ignorant decision made by the French, the British and others. I can no longer read of that incompetence and ignorance found in other books (French, English speaking authors). I know it happened.

GULLIGAN’S ISLAND

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I follow the news closely, but on the whole I’d rather watch reruns of Gulligan’s Island than the PBS Newshour. Sometimes it is better to be stuck on an isolated, desert island where everyone has enough space, there is food for everyone, and clean water is plentiful. It is a much cheerier locale without Internet or telephone connections than the dismal, unchanging island and inhabitants advanced in William Goldman’s Lord of the Flies, an episodic novel much like a TV show.

It is important and improbable to appreciate Gulligan’s Island. On the week before Christmas who would have thought that Mary Ann’s photograph wold be printed on the first page of Not Born Yesterday – News for Smart & Savvy Adults. Mary Ann looks terrific. Anyone who is eighteen years or older should stand and salute.

The interview with Dawn Wells aka Mary Ann (have you ever noticed no woman is named Dusk) gives some personal details. Dawn Wells was athletic but had bad knees (not evident on the show). Her youthful activities were jettisoned except canoeing and archery (neither evident on the show or she alone would have rowed to other islands and gotten help). When growing up she wanted to be a pediatric surgeon (not useful on the show). She went to college and onto the University of Washington where she became a theatre major (which is what a lot of people in Hollywood do).

Dawn Wells has now co-authored a book What Would Mary Ann Do? A Life Guide. I hope its tales and advice comes from the real life experiences of Dawn Wells, and not from the TV show. In the interview Dawn Wells is frank about the show: “If you’re a ten year old kid watching…, there’s not much to date it ‘ a desert island is a desert island.'”

I’m happy to learn that the rivalry between Ginger (Tina Louise) and Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) was only fable; Natalie Schaffer, Lovey Howell, was a real human being. Dawn Wells has credits in 150 TV shows and films and 60 theatrical productions since her Mary Ann role.

It is a Hollywood storied career with a book along the way – be positive, have friends, keep and generate new interests. That is good advice for every member of the human race. And for Dawn Wells, Mary Ann could have done much worse.

Dawn

I’LL COME RUNNING (AWAY)

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I watched 40 minutes of this movie, I’ll Come Running. The script is on par with TV teleplay writing, low level incidents and ordinary dialogue in bad need of canned laughter.

Three Danish men, early twenties, travel in Texas. They eat in a restaurant, where they are loud and boisterous while speaking Danish. No one understands their rudenesses. That is a point Danes should understand – being rude works only if the words are understood by everyone. But no one in the world speaks Danish. They are so obnoxious they offend the Latina waitress.

One Dane, the protagonist (mostly English speaking now), decides to go home. His friends drive off leaving him in Austin. He has flight reservations in a few days. He can’t find the hostel – he sits around outside the restaurant doing nothing. Latina waitress leaves work and invites him to a party. One thing leads to another, episodically – the story is weak or nonexistent. Dane and Latina end up in bed; I don’t know why e.g. she doesn’t like his 10-day growth; the next day she insists he shave, a mistake!. He looks much better when he hides his face.

She cuts work to spend the day with him (She’s a working stiff – that all the film shows.) although the job is important to her. What do they do? Very little. She wants to go out; he wants sex. A local parade passes her house. He takes out his camera and films as people pass by. A Texan doesn’t want pictures being taken, grabs the Dane and moves him 20 feet into a fountain, pushing him in.

A writing point making for a better story: Texan grabs Dane who begins speaking Danish. Texans realize this guy isn’t speaking my language. Texan lets go. DANE (in English) “Pictures for Copenhagen!”

However, the fountain dunking puts the Dane in the shower, where Latina begins taking film of him. They get to film and touch each other, etc., etc., look at various and sundry sites on the Internet.

The next morning he leaves to return to Denmark. No tears, but many hugs and much smug satisfaction. Taxi drives off. Going down the highway Dane decides to turn around and go back. Why? The movie has to be longer than 40 minutes.

I realized the movie was over. For these two characters as the old saying goes, “We’ll always have Austin.” I don’t need to see more of their adventures in Texas and going to Denmark, is not like being in Austin.

THE SLEEPWALKERS

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This spectacular diplomatic history by Christopher Clark is about European foreign relations and history before World War One. It is an essential source to understand the years before the War.

It tells how Serbian goofballs and nuts, backed blindly by the Russians and supported by the indifferent French, were able to start the War. The British, flat on their asses, joined the French.

Oddly, the Germans were late to the party. Germany began mobilizing on August 1, 1914 two weeks after the Russians with French encouragement began mobilizing and putting a million soldiers on their Western borders. Historian Clark mentions that the Germans have been blamed for heightening tensions and starting the War. Blame is much better placed on the Russians and French. Clark refers to an excellent history by Fritz Fischer, but Clark does not discuss policy during the War, whereas Fischer does.

The Sleepwalkers is an appropriate title. The diplomats and rulers read, discussed, pushed papers and harrumphed. In Britain the Foreign Minister, Edward Grey (of Earl Grey tea fame), was aloof, spoke only English, disliked foreigners, preferred long country jaunts and liked fly fishing. And in 1914 Grey had the on-coming disability of going blind. Everyone in the government knew it but left him in place.

The Sleepwalkers is well presented and well-written. It raises a question: If the men who decided to go to war in 1914 had read this book before deciding, would they chose War? Clark gives the impression that the men were so impossibly devious and utterly stupid, that despite knowing all the facts the would chose War.

SUBVERSIVE WRITING

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REVIEW OF SUBVERSIVES by Seth Rosenfeld

I’m Michael Ulin Edwards, author of Bitch. (iBookstore). I am completely familiar with events in Berkeley, 1968-1974. I am familiar with earlier events and its literature and many other documents (1962-1967).

Much of Seth Rosenfeld’s book, Subversives, is set in a foundation of quicksand. I will touch on a few prominent disappointments. Reading this book it is obvious that the author did not live during the Sixties; he made no attempt to learn much about the people living in Berkeley during the Sixties; he failed to submerse himself into student life, actives and thoughts of the Sixties. Writing about students and events from 1963-1965 is much different from students and events in 1966-1968, or in 1971. Rosenfeld writes a top-down recounting of events – a writing from the perspective of the documents in his possession. He ignores documents that disagree with his views and fails to balance and weight their relative importance.

In this book every major impression about events after September 1968 is wrong, mistaken or falsified.

I read the text and what supposedly serves as notes. The notes are frequently summaries of documents. There is very rarely a quote in the text and a source, date, page number in the note. This book thereby becomes a perilous piece of history, sociology or journalism.

Rosenfeld misstates the scene. What is the background of students, activities and organizations? In the sources on the Free Speech Movement, people emerged from their corners and began leafleting and proselytizing. The Free Speech Movement [Goldwater Republicans to the far Left] by and through Savio had to beat these people and organizations off to present limited demands. By the late Sixties there were no controls, no discipline and no common goals. Every leader, person and group wanted every other person and group to follow it.

What is both funny and ridiculous is the FBI’s believing it could surveil and influence the groups with informants. A remarkable book was written at the time (1970) by William Divale, I Lived Inside the Campus Revolution. He describes how he was recruited, how he had to form political groups and eventually whom he met. His political indoctrination eventually made him a leftist; he testified in one trial. Divale tells of the disorder within the greater Left and student groups. There were no controls and no leaders. Rosenfeld likes to disparage persons whose experience and writing disproves his theses. He calls Divale “a self-described sex ‘swinger.’”(485) In the Sixties swingers weren’t considered worthy of demerits.

Rosenfeld suggests that one or two informants influenced and pushed people and organizations into wrong, unpopular actions. It ain’t so. Students, especially at Berkeley, were in charge. The Free Speech Movement leaders knew they had rolled the administration on constitutional issues. Given that standing students pushed more toward extreme positions.

Who were the FBI informants? Petty criminals, drug users, sexual perverts, hippies, morons and Democrats. A worry had to be, will my informant disappear to a commune in Marin, or Sonoma, or Mendocino, or Humboldt? What’s the quality of the information he just gave the Bureau? All information produced had to be culled and carefully checked. It was known among University students that people who appeared to live on the streets, lived on more than air. At best they were part-time informants, or squealing to get a felony lowered to a misdemeanor or to get a few bucks for the next joint or tab.

And what did the FBI do with the information once it verified it? After August 1963 the FBI learned Martin Luther King had a dream. The preacher had said so publicly. The raging question within the Bureau was “what was the dream about?”
It is more probable to conclude that the FBI was not playing with a full deck, and that Rosenfeld’s book gives the Bureau much more credit than it deserves.

The subtitle to Rosenfeld’s book includes “and Reagan’s Rise to Power.” Ronald Reagan is a villain in Berkeley. Too bad. “Prologue at the Governor’s Mansion January 1967,” happened two years, four months after the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley began, September 1964. Apparently the FBI met Reagan, and Rosenfeld cites this meeting a representing the close collaboration between them. It is misleading. Anyone who lived in the Sixties and watched Reagan’s rise to knew the FBI had nothing to do with his election victory in 1966 or the Governor’s popularity. Reagan represented one side of “anxiety triggers,” and the students represented the other side of the triggers:

“The campaign was supposed to be about big government, welfare and high taxation but, as Reagan recalled: ‘After several weeks of the campaign I had to come back and say, ‘Look, I don’t care if I’m in the mountains, the desert, the biggest cities of the state, the first question is, What are you going to do about Berkeley? and each time the question itself would get applause.’”DeGroot, Gerald J., The Sixties Unplugged, Cambridge, Harvard, 2008, p. 403.

Running against Reagan and that question, Pat Brown had no response. Brown was tied to an unpopular President. He lost badly. Or course, Rosenfeld presents none of this, how extremely unpopular Berkeley and the University of California were becoming. It is also distorting for Rosenfeld to suggest Reagan was an FBI stooge or got FBI help, rather than analyze Reagan as the effective, successful politician he was.

Much of Rosenfeld’s book discusses the FBI files and the Black Panthers who are mostly irrelevant to the University and University students during the Sixties. The Panthers began in Oakland in 1966; they had excellent speakers – Cleaver, Seale and Newton – but their activities were confined to activities in Black communities. Many of these leaders were in prison during the late Sixties. [Stokely Carmichael, not a Panther, spoke in Berkeley during the fall of 1967 to a large student crowd.]

In 1968 I believe Berkeley had fewer than 800 Black undergraduates of 28,000 total. Social Analysis 139X, Eldridge Cleaver’s course, Fall 1968, brought Cleaver onto the campus. It was not a Black Panther course. Its failure to get credit, and demonstrations and destruction of offices, stopped after Cleaver lost appeals for a parole violation and fled the USA. The Third World College, Winter 1968, involved many black-run organizations and included veterans from the San Francisco State protests and riots (Fall 1968). As riots that quarter continued, there were many fewer black rioters. After Winter 1969 Black organizations separated from many student protests in Berkeley.
It is unfortunate that Rosenfeld combines too much, student events with the Panthers. The Panther experience, incompletely written, is not serviced by mushing it with student/street people/hippie activities in Berkeley. NOTE, HOWEVER, if the FBI believed or considered that the student and Panther activities were directed by or coming from the same source, it reflects poorly on FBI analysis and indicates why the FBI was extraordinarily incapable to understanding anything. Ironically, Rosenfeld glosses over this point. The author of Subversives may have made the same mistake as the Bureau.

One gross problem, Rosenfeld misstates dates and facts. The Moses Hall, Social Analysis 193X arrests, did not involve 1,500 students.(425) Arrested were two bus loads rolling out to the University of California campus at Santa Rita. January 30 is on page 434. On page 435 comes the sentence, “Dissatisfied, Sheriff Frank Madigan sent an angry letter to Reagan…accusing the chancellor of failing to control the protests.” What Rosenfeld deliberate fails to tell readers is that for four days from February 1 was the worst street rioting on campus and around Southside that had yet to be seen in Berkeley. Note, these were not “protests” as Rosenfeld euphemistically calls them. They were full-scale riots.
Today, in southeastern Nevada Cliven Bundy, a rancher has used against all government regulations, land owned by the United States government. Bundy was supposed to pay rent for grazing rights; those haven’t been paid for 20 years. In essence Bundy is ripping off public land for his private use.

It is good to see that Seth Rosenfeld believes Cliven Bundy is correct. I didn’t believe anyone sane would support Cliven’s position. In 1969 disparate persons in Berkeley took land owned by the University and called it Peoples Park. Reagan opposed that taking. Of course there were huge riots periodically over four years including one instigated by the student newspaper, The Daily Californian (May 1971). During the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong (April 1972) rioters ripped down the fence surrounding the property and ever since [45 years] that large vacant lost, now with a restroom, is a good cradle for street-level crime activities.

Rosenfeld lends support to Peoples Park supporters and the peoples take-ver by looking at that event in Berkeley like it is isolated from everywhere else in the United States. It’s a world of magic and drugs, of the people and love, of the community and hope, of tranquility and peace. The angels are singing all the way along the road to Hell.

Rosenfeld hypes with no specific examples the FBI-Black Panther feuds while discussing Peoples Park:                        “Reagan linked Rector’s death to those of a janitor killed by a bomb blast at UC Santa Barbara and two men shot on the UCLA campus in the feud between the Black Panthers and the United States. It was unknown that the FBI was in the midst of a counterintelligence operation using false letters, offensive cartoons, and informers that was intended to foment violence between the rival Black Power groups – or, as one FBI official put it ‘to grant nature the opportunity to take her due course.’”

This is wrong. Rosenfeld fails to identify and print one “offensive” cartoon, or print one “false letter,” or any other FBI generated or influenced document. I know that the cartoon may exist; the lack of one is appalling. Letters, whether truthful or false, have to be read and understood. Rosenfeld’s failure to present one letter destroys his argument and the book. [Note that Dan Rather’s charge and production of a questionable photo-copied letter, destroyed his career. Rosenfeld has taken Rather’s action a step further, produced nothing and said in words understood in Berkeley: the FBI, a counterintelligence operation, Ronald Reagan…The Boogie man is out there.]

In Subversives Rosenfeld tells of his long, brave fight to get lots of FBI documents. What Rosenfeld does not do is piece together specificities from all the pages and present a smoking gun: These documents show (A) An FBI plan, (B) reliable persons were contacted and (C) these documents show preparations: X riots, Y violence and Z injuries happened. Conclusion: FBI benefits as a result of A, B and C.

Instead, in a note for page 468, Rosefeld cites:
“On the FBI’s COINTELPRO involving the Black Panthers and the United States, see Church, book III, 189-195. The report says, “Because of the milieu of violence in which members of the Panthers often moved we have been unable to establish
a direct link between any of the FBI’s specific efforts to promote violence and particular acts of violence that occurred. We have been able to establish beyond doubt, however, that high officials of the FBI desired to promote violent confrontations between BPP members and members of other groups, and that those officials condoned tactics calculated to achieve that end.” ibid, 189.”

There is no evidence. The note is empty. The FBI may have desired anything: Eternal life to J. Edgar Hoover. But that is not a fact; it is not evidence; it is not logically supported; no reason stands with it. This note would not be permitted as support in any discipline: Not in law, not in sociology, not in history, not in journalism.

That desire establishes the foundation for myth, religion, superstition and much of the thinking that goes on and lingers in Berkeley today: What happened to the glorious Sixties? Don’t look at facts, evidence, reason or logic. Berkeley has myths, superstition, boogiemen, devil evil-doers, Ronald Reagan and like-minded persons who caused the downfall of Berkeley as a university and as a town.

In Berkeley at War (1989) William Rorabaugh tells that Berkeley professors felt uneasy leaving work, papers, research and writing in their offices. They knew what had happened at Columbia – wholesale distribution of University files and destruction of others. Berkeley professors saw disclosure and destruction of files at Moses Hall (October 1968). They observed rioters on several occasions trying to overturn card catalogues in the Main Library, and knew of the one arson attempt on the library in March 1970. They observed great violence hitting university buildings in the Winter/Spring 1969 and Spring 1970. Academia was under fire. How many professors did not come to Berkeley? Rosenfeld’s Subversives discusses none of these issues.

!Is there any issue omitted from Rosenfeld’s book, that should be there? YES. It was important to every male older than eighteen. The Draft. Berkeley and Stanford cooperated making one of the best Draft Resistant organizations in the United States. It is surprising and lubricious that Rosenfeld would overlook an issue, an organization and its activities on a National Security issue, War, which involved student groups. Options:

If the FBI made no investigations of the Draft Resistant movement and had no files, that demonstrates again that the FBI did not know what it was doing, it had no ability to analyze, and its collection of paper was stupid and fruitless. Rosenfeld should have mentioned that. Or,

If Rosenfeld fell upon many Draft Resistant documents and decided to omit any discussion of the issue, what else is omitted from the text of Subversives? Or,

If the FBI were successful sabotaging Draft Resistance (doing everything Rosenfeld claimed the Bureau did), Rosenfeld may have had facts, evidence, proof demonstrating in this issue that the FBI was successful. However,
Perhaps Rosenfeld realized, cynically, when it came to politics, the FBI was a failure. He omitted giving examples on the Draft issue, and decided to pander to the superstitions, speculations, myths, boogiemen and the feelings and sensitivities of people in Berkeley.

If the FBI were successful sabotaging Draft Resistance (doing everything Rosenfeld claimed the Bureau did), Rosenfeld may have had facts, evidence, proof demonstrating in this issue that the FBI was successful. However,
Perhaps Rosenfeld realized, cynically when it came to politics, the FBI was a failure. Hence, Rosenfeld panders to the superstitions, speculations, myths, boogiemen and the feelings and sensitivities of people in Berkeley.

DOWNTON FORELORN

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For three seasons I’ve enjoyed Downton Abbey. Characters have ebbed and flowed, matured and changed. Characters had resilience. But I didn’t watch the series when it was broadcast last winter. I DVRed it to watch it all at once. I began peeking earlier this month. It was disappointing, and it was difficult to watch (3 1/2 programs).

The immediate problem were character, development during and after an incident and consistency with that prior character. I’ve watched these persons for three seasons, and bought those DVD discs. In the development of any character are experiences which guide (control) and influence future actions. That can be anticipated, unless actions are out of character. Now those characters are using training wheels.

The audience never saw the after-marriage story of Lady Mary and Matthew, complete devotion and final love. They saw mostly, the social and business transactions surrounding that marriage. Mary had told Matthew she is neither powder-puff nor pure, unlike his previous flu-ridden finance. The audience should expect experiences in Seasons 1-3 to make Mary tougher and mature.

But Lady Mary mourning for six months, reclusive and shunning people. Lady Mary loved Matthew, but she has suffered loss before: The cousin on the Titanic, the Turkish gentleman, and the newspaper publisher. Remember also, Matthew was almost lost in the war, to wounds and to another woman.  Loss or near loss are not new to Mary.

Rape of Anna: That is an attack on the institution of Downton Abbey. No other person better than Anna should appreciate that. The Bates experience with its connivings and near execution of Bates has taught her the power and influence of that institution. Mrs. Hughes as head housekeeper should know that, and not follow the spontaneous reaction of a woman so traumatized. This was a very poor story point to raise this issue.

Tom and and Lady Grantham’s maid. We have learned that Tom has a good, progressive business mind. He can change things in this area of England. In Season Three he purports to love his daughter, but in Season Four? He seems to toss it away for quick convenience, sullying his own name and marring the memory of his wife. It is hard to believe.

Lady Edith: She has had no character development. She is the same pathetic Edith. Hanging out with the card-shark newspaper man who will become a German citizen so he can divorce and marry Edith, she is the most consistent character in the series, but she is not worth watching.

So Downton Abbey,  I can no longer watch further episodes. I’ll let the people drift inexpertly toward another war with Germany without me.