The Bookworm

My Dad recently expressed some amazement at the number of books I have read lately.  He is right that I have stepped up my book-reading efforts in the last couple years since I was hired at Fort Larned.  Working in two new parks necessitated building a library of knowledge to help me do my job, which put a strain on my library shelf itself.  Since the advent of the Kindle I've been able to continue devouring books without having to find a place for them.  As for the rest of the books, I have started selling some of them off on Amazon just because I have no place to keep them.  Some have commented to me, joking they don't know how to judge someone unless they can see what kind of books are on their shelf.  Since downsizing and getting rid of old stuff in Kansas, I have tried to avail myself of the need to keep trophies.

So what have I been reading this year?  Maybe some of these will sound interesting to you.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

American Sphinx by Joseph Ellis

FDR by Jean Edward Smith

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin


The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam


Washington Burning: How a Frenchman's Vision for Our Nation's Capital Suvived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Army by Les Standiford

The Killing of Crazy Horse by Thomas Powers

Martin Luther King, Jr. by Adam Fairclough

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr edited by Clayborne Carson


Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power by Garry Wills

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent

Lee by Douglas Southall Freeman

The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Black Cavalry in the West by William Leckie

In Search of the Racial Frontier by Quintard Taylor

Ratification by Pauline Maier

I'm currently reading Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard.

"But wait!" you say, "You haven't read any books on World War II!  Don't you work at the World War II Memorial?"  Yes, but I took two semesters' worth of WW2 history in college.  Never fear, I bought a copy of Hitler by Ian Kershaw at the Holocaust Museum.  It's still in the shrink wrap for now.

The only books I would not recommend would be Buffalo Soldiers, Negro President, and Washington Burning.  Buffalo Soldiers focused way too much on military movements and completely ignored the social and cultural implications of the Buffalo Soldiers to the modern day.  Negro President started off strong, polemic though it is, but petered out halfway through.  Washington Burning wasn't particularly well-organized or captivating, and rather glossed over the War of 1812.

The best books in the bunch, for me, were Alexander Hamilton, Colonel Roosevelt, FDR, Washington, and Destiny of the Republic.

The best book I read in 2010, not included on this list, was The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick.

I Was a Drum Major

There has been a lot of editorializing about the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial's inclusion of a paraphrased quote on the side of the Stone of Hope, "I was a drum major for justice, peace, and righteousness."

Source: usembassy.gov

The controversy started with Maya Angelou, who said the paraphrase made King sound like an "arrogant twit."  This weekend, another editorial came out, this time from a major proponent of changing the FDR Memorial saying that they "fixed" FDR and they can "fix" MLK too.

I disagree.  Here's why.

1.  It's art.  You don't have to like it.  It is an artist's, or more particularly, a whole design team's vision for how to represent an idea.  Just because you don't like it doesn't make it wrong.  You don't hear people crying out to "fix" the Mona Lisa because the background is crooked and uneven, do you?

 

Holy crap, the background is crooked!  Fix it!

The people are too distorted!  Fix it! Fix it!

 She's too naked!  Fix it! Fix it! Fix it!

That's more appropriate.

2.  Martin Luther King specified that this was how he wanted to be remembered.  In his "Drum Major Instinct" speech on February 4, 1968, just two months before he was killed, King closed the speech with a list of many things that he wanted to be remembered for after he was gone.  If you click the video below, I've got it programmed to start right at the quote in question.

And here is a transcript of the Drum Major Instinct speech.  It doesn't take an English major to pick up on a situation where a hypothetical isn't really a hypothetical.

Without knowing the mind of the designers, I think they felt that enough time had elapsed and history had borne out King's "hypothetical" to be the truth.  Yes, he was a drum major for justice. Yes, he was a drum major for justice.  Yes, he was a drum major for righteousness.  The memorial captures exactly what Dr. King said he wanted to be remembered for succinctly, directly, economically.

3.  How would you even go about changing it?   In case you hadn't noticed, the quote is carved in stone.  The rest of the stone around it is all carved, textured to a fine detail.  You would wreck the whole thing if you started blasting away at it with a chisel.

4.  This isn't the first time a figure has been paraphrased on the National Mall.  Just look at the mess that is the Jefferson Memorial.  You don't hear people screaming about that one, and Jefferson is in many ways an architect of American society.  Pretty important.  You'd think that of all men, a man of letters would want to be quoted warmly and accurately.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is hugely popular.  It is the one people ask about no matter where you are in the park.  The reaction from the public is overwhelmingly positive.

The rain date for the dedication is October 16.  No word yet whether they intend to address this issue at the ceremony.  The architect on the project has said since the opening of the memorial that the quote will not be changed.

Washington Monument Earthquake Damage

I've kept quiet on this blog regarding the Washington Monument and its earthquake damage, but now there is plenty in the news media so I'm not breaking any news here.

The NPS has released several videos and photos related to the earthquake and the inspection, and they're really the best resource for firsthand information.  One of the common misconceptions is that the ranger you see in the video is abandoning ship before the visitors.  In actuality, she leads everyone to the emergency exit, then comes back up to make sure everyone is out.  It took a minute to get the man in the hat to get started down the emergency stairs because he was understandably looking for his child that was already out.  I want to reaffirm that the ranger in the video was the last person out of the building.  Personally, I find the video hard to watch.  I don't find it amusing to see people in a state of emergency like that.  Nikki was on the Today Show among other news networks as the crews prepared to do an inspection of the monument's exterior.

NPS Photo by WJE

 

NPS Photo

In the past week, a team of engineers has been working to assess the condition of the monument's exterior.  It makes for a dramatic photo, and the news media was really swarming the first day of the operation.  At the end of the first day, I asked Dave Megerle back in our office, "How is the most-photographed man in America today?"  The Washington Post got an interview with one of the female engineers.  The Washington Post put together some nice photos in this photo album.  Ranger Ed is holding up the chunk of stone that was recovered from the interior of the monument in the first picture of the album.  This is a picture of me with the same chunk.

I commonly get asked when the monument will get fixed.  The answer is that we don't know, and we won't know until we know exactly what the problems are.  Luckily, every stone in the monument was cataloged during the 1999-2000 restoration of the Washington Monument, so each stone is known, numbered, and in a database already.

It will be interesting to see how things develop.