490

Then came Peter to him and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me , and I forgive him, till seven times? 
Jesus saith unto him, I say not to thee, unto seven times; but, Until seventy times seven. Matthew 18: 21-22.

Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; Take honor from me, and my life is done.  Richard II, Act 1.

Broncos

A friend of mine who is into hockey brought me back a momento when she visited Lake Placid, a Miracle On Ice mini-hockey stick, because I had told her about the US Olympic hockey team winning the gold medal there in 1980, a team made up of rank amateurs who improbably beat the powerful professional national Soviet hockey team in the semifinals, an event which occurred before she was born.  It's the only hockey stick I own.

We are all Humboldt Broncos this week.  I placed it on my porch.

Cherry Blossoms 2018 continued

The cherry blossoms in DC are still at their peak glory.  There's still time this year to see the glorious flowering of these special trees throughout the District, for a few more days.

Today's blossom-viewing trip took me and a friend to the Japanese American Memorial which is down the street a few blocks from Union Station towards the Capitol.  In this tiny, tranquil island of serenity and repose along busy Louisiana Avenue, two tethered cranes (by barbed wire, symbolizing the enclosures around the camps in hitherto uninhabited interior regions of the western states where Japanese American citizens from the west coast were interned during most of World War II) struggle to attain their former freedom.

The cherry blossom blooms on the trees surrounding the park, like all flowering petals, are very fragile, just like our democracy could be unless we are wise and ever-vigilant.  Never again, the country said in Reaganesque proclamations in the 1980s, or maybe going forward we should say, It couldn't happen here.  Right?

Many parts of DC are always noteworthy, often striking and sometimes beautiful.

50 years ago humanity lost a towering giant

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.”

“When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

“Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like any man, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

The Bedford Boys

(The National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia.  The archway is the symbol of Project Overlord, codename for the Allied landings in Normandy during World War II.  For the 70th anniversary of D-Day next year the memorial administrators will erect on the pathway leading into the memorial a statue of a grieving G.I., in full combat gear, helmet less, one of a mere eight Bedford Boys out of thirty who went ashore who survived the invasion.)

Bedford, Virginia is where the National D-Day Memorial is.  It's out of the way in south-central Virginia but it is worth the trip to visit this beautiful tribute to all the Allies who successfully assaulted Fortress Europa on June 6, 1944, the longest day, and struck the death-knell of Nazi Germany thereby.

(At the Bedford Courthouse downtown, next to the Confederate Memorial and across from the Revolutionary War Memorial is this tribute to the Bedford Boys in World War II.)

The memorial is in Bedford because so many Bedford lads were slaughtered on Omaha Beach in so short a time.  This tiny town of 3,200 lost 22 of its sons during the Normandy invasion, 19 in the first hour or so of combat on the beach when the landing forces were raked with murderous fire by the Germans commanding the heights behind the beach.

(The assault.)

We know how that came out ultimately, the day was won by the courage of the individual American soldiers (and the Canadians and the British on other Normandy assault sites) and the Germans were ultimately defeated.  If you want to know how hard a slog it was for the nineteen and twenty-year old boys who carried the brunt of the fighting for the next ten months, you would do well to start with Stephen Ambrose's book Citizen Soldiers.

(The triumph.)

After I left my rafting and minor league baseball games behind during my driving vacation in West Virginia in August I visited Bedford, to honor the sacrifice of The Greatest Generation.  The memorial is a poignant reminder of the ultimate price of freedom.

(The price.)

Tricoteuse

I went to a school in the South which has an honor code. No lying, cheating or stealing. It's an honor code violation not to turn in anyone committing an honor violation. The single sanction is discharge from school.

I am against honor codes. They institute great uncertainty into the mores of practical folks, and institute a reign of terror, in my estimation, because they set the bar at the personal standard of the most stringent interpretation of "honor" by its most zealous advocate. Lost in this is the notion of "prosecutorial discretion."

In the realm of ordinary affairs, offenses pass a number of preliminary barriers before they appear before the ultimate arbiter, a court of law, where they become fully vetted. First, though, a policeman, or injured consumer, decide if the "offense" (jaywalking, or a dinged car door) is worth pursuing. Only then is it passed up the food chain. We all have a sliding scale of values for this--a tiny pock on the bumper earns the culprit a glare, a dent in the quarter panel elicits an exchange of insurance information (the "referral"). But no one lives in fear that their de minimis standard in ignoring a "violation" will earn them a trip before the tribunal and ultimate ejection from the system.

In honor code environments, cheaters go on cheating but take greater care not to get caught. They can actually thrive in the atmosphere of elevated, but not necessarily warrantedly so, sense of trust. Practical folks maintain a low level of anxiety that their common sense attitudes in how they go about their business, either through omissions or commissions, could come to the attention of zealots with stringent, rigid or tortured idealism, who would feel duty-bound to turn them in to the honor board for potential application of the ultimate (and only) sanction.