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The making of Inside the Meltdown by Frontline Producer, Michael Kirk of WGBH, Boston.
Sample Postings: 6 of the most recent entries ordered by date
[ Tuesday, August 25, 2009 10:23 PDT ]
Legacy Journal:Tuesday Update
Section:
Alerts
Summary:
* New News:
The newest boy toy is a Toshiba NB 205 with Skype, FireFox 3.5.x, XP , WiFi, Atom CPU,and a Webcam.
The Ducks are preping for the BSU Broncos in Boise, Idaho. The nytimes has both teams in the top 25.
Meanwhile, Obama is on the Cape with the wife, the kids, the dog, and of course the press.
Main:
The economy, the bailouts, and public policy has put the Federal deficit into a tailspin to the tune of 1.5 Trillion $.
It is time for some WiFi mojo at the local libraries, bookstores, JCC, RIT/Osher, and the Summit Dr. Clearwire setup. It is time some serious journaling.
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[ Thursday, August 20, 2009 10:33 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Thursday Follow Up
Section:
Book Reviews
Summary:
Daniel Morgan and the Battles of Saratoga
Joshua Fattal: Update from Iran and CBS News.
Fattal spent three years recently living with a group dedicated to sustainable farming near Cottage Grove, Oregon. He lived with about nine others and worked as the group’s intern coordinator before leaving about eight months ago, according to Jason Brown, who now holds Fattal’s job.
From January to June, Fattal traveled overseas as a teaching assistant with the International Honors Program, visiting Switzerland, India, South Africa and China on a global ecology program. Fattal had been a student in the program during college, president Joan Tiffany said.
“He’s a very thoughtful, caring person, soft-spoken, smart, bright. Has lots of travel experience, and is someone that I would expect to be an experienced camper,” Tiffany said.
Main:
As a followup to the posting on Daniel Morgan, is is only fair and fitting to note that his troop of snipers at the first and second battles at Saratoga were from Tennessee and Kentucky and that they supplied their own rifles. One of their kills was the Canadian general, Simon Fraser who was single out, shot out of his saddle, died and was buried before nightfall. Later, he had a university named for him. Frazer, a Scot in the service of the the Army and the King, was never known to have been in British Columbia.
Meanwhile, the families of the three young American explorers who are being held by Iranian authorities have been informed that by are in custody. Their location and status remains unknown. According to the U.S. State Department, the Swiss embassy in Tehran is representing US interests in the case.
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[ Tuesday, August 18, 2009 07:36 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Daniel Morgan resources
Section:
Coming Attractions
Summary:
Main:
Brigadier General Daniel Morgan
By V.G. Fowler, Park Ranger
D Morgan
Charles Willson Peale portrait of Daniel Morgan courtesy of Independence National Historical Park
Daniel Morgan was born of Welsh parents in 1736. Because he rarely spoke of his early life, much of it remains a mystery. Therefore, his contemporaries assumed that his younger years must have been painful. Most authorities agree that Morgan was born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. After having an argument with his father when he was about seventeen years old, he left home without his parents’ knowledge or permission and moved to Virginia.
When Morgan arrived in Virginia, he could barely read and write. His manners were rude, and he enjoyed fist fighting. He eventually became adept at card games and enjoyed Strong drink. His first job was to prepare land for planting. Young Daniel was a hard worker and soon moved to another position as superintendent of a sawmill. After that he became a wagoner, a person who drove a wagonload of supplies across the mountains to the settlers.
He served as a wagoner for the British Army during the French and Indian War. It was during this period that he got his nickname, “The Old Wagoner.” In the spring of 1756, as Morgan was taking a load of supplies to Fort Chiswell, he somehow irritated a British Lieutenant who struck Morgan with the flat of his sword. Morgan characteristically knocked out the officer with a single blow of his fist. As a result, he was court-martialed and sentenced to 500 lashes. In later years, Morgan delighted in telling that the drummer who was counting the lashes miscounted, and he only received 499. Morgan always maintained that the British owed him one more lash. In 1757, Morgan joined the British army, and several influential men recommended to the governor that Morgan be made a captain, but the only rank available was that of ensign. Morgan accepted the commission. As Ensign Morgan and two escorts were taking a dispatch to the commanding officer at Winchester, Virginia, Indians ambushed them at Hanging Rock. They killed the escorts and seriously wounded Morgan. The bullet, which struck him in the back of his neck, knocked out the teeth on his left jaw, and exited his cheek. Morgan carried the scar the rest of his life.
In 1759 Morgan bought a two-story house (which he named Soldier’s Rest) in Winchester, and by 1763 he had set up housekeeping with Abigail Curry. They were officially married in 1773. In the meantime, she had a positive influence on his manners and morals. Daniel and Abigail Morgan had two daughters. (One, Nancy, married Presley Neville, a Revolutionary War veteran. Their other daughter, Betsy, married James Heard, also a Revolutionary War veteran.) In addition, Morgan had an illegitimate son, Willoughby,* who grew up in South Carolina.
Having no love lost for the British, Daniel Morgan joined the American army and accepted a commission of captain of a rifle company when the Revolutionary War began. The British captured Morgan and his riflemen along with Benedict Arnold at Quebec in December 1775. They paroled them eight months later on the promise that the parolees would not fight against the British until they were exchanged for British prisoners. Morgan distinguished himself at both Battles of Saratoga in 1777, and many historians believe that he did not get the credit that he deserved for his actions.
In 1779, having been passed over for promotion to Brigadier General, Morgan resigned from the Army. In June 1780, Congress offered Morgan command of the Southern Theatre of the war. Since Congress had not offered him a promotion to go with the new command, Morgan declined and remained a civilian. After Gates’ disastrous defeat at Camden, SC, Morgan put aside his personal feelings for the good of the country and rejoined the army in the Southern Campaign. In October of 1780, Congress finally gave him a promotion to Brigadier General.
Perhaps Morgan’s most memorable moment came on January 17, 1781. It was at the Cow Pens, a well-known pasturing area for cattle in the upcountry of South Carolina, that Morgan with his experienced, but untrained, militia and 300 Continentals defeated the better-trained British army under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton. Morgan knew his men and his opponent, knew how they would react in certain situations, and used this knowledge and the terrain to his advantage. The Americans camped on the battlefield the night before the battle. Morgan went amongst the men: encouraging them, telling them what he expected of them, and showing them his back, complete with the scars from his flogging.
On the morning of January 17, Morgan deployed his men in three main lines of defense. He knew that the militia had a tendency to run. Therefore he divided them into two groups and placed his sharpshooters on the top of a gentle rise and ordered them to fire twice and then retreat behind the second line. The second line of militia were positioned just behind the crest of the hill and were to fire twice and then retreat behind the Continentals who were about 150 yards behind them. Morgan knew he could count on the Continentals to take the hardest part of the fighting and that they would not run. He prepared them for the militia’s retreat. He placed his reserves, Washington’s cavalry, in a swale that hid them from the British view. He knew that Tarleton’s aggressive nature would lead him to drive straight into the Americans.
The British arrived about dawn, and Tarleton sent them into battle before they were fully deployed. The militia fired as ordered and retreated. The British pressed on valiantly, engaging the Continentals and fighting hard. Tarleton ordered the 71st Highlanders to advance. They threatened the American right side, and Lieutenant Colonel John Eager Howard ordered the men on the right to turn to face the new threat. The order was mistaken, and the entire line began an orderly retreat. Morgan used the mistaken order to his advantage. He ordered the 3rd line to retreat to a place which he chose and then to fire. Meanwhile, thinking that they had won the battle, the British broke ranks and charged forward. The Patriots surrounded the British. The Americans won.
Because he had sciatica so bad that it was too painful for him to sit on a horse, Morgan retired to his home in Virginia after the Battle of Cowpens. He later built another house which he named Saratoga for the famous battles in New York at which he had distinguished himself. On March 25, 1790 he finally received a gold medal which Congress had struck to honor him for his victory at Cowpens. Following the Revolution, Morgan organized and led a group of militia against the protesters during the Whiskey Rebellion. In 1797 he was elected and served one term in the House of Representatives. He died on July 6, 1802.
Daniel Morgan is a prime example of what one can accomplish with one’s life if one works hard and plans well. As his biographer James Graham stated, “His strength and spirit, his frank and manly bearing, his intelligence and good-humor, set off by a rich fund of natural wit, which he kept in constant exercise, rendered him a favorite among the people, and contributed to give him a great influence over his associates.”
*See Daniel Morgan: Revolutionary Rifleman by Don Higginbotham.
To learn more about Daniel Morgan, read the following books:
*
Life of General Daniel Morgan of the Virginia Line of the Army of the United States by James Graham
*
Daniel Morgan Revolutionary Rifleman by Don Higginbotham
*
“Downright Fighting”: The Story of Cowpens (Official National Park Handbook) by Thomas J. Fleming
*
A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens by Lawrence E. Babits
*
Encyclopedia of the American Revolution by Mark M. Boatner III
*
Battle of Cowpens: A Documented Narrative and Troop Movement Maps by Edwin C. Bearss
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[ Sunday, August 16, 2009 10:00 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Sunday Shots
Section:
Commentary
Summary:
During the Dog Day’s of August it is standard practice for the media to feature themselves. This Sunday is was all about media coverage of the Health Care Reform debate, and Medical Insurance malfeasance.
Main:
The discussions were now all about:
* refining the message in the face of public confusion, anger, and fall poll numbers.
* appropriate end of life care, living wills, directives on the occasion of death, and counseling, funded or otherwise has been removed from pending federal legislation.
* cost shifting, burdens, benefits, mandates, phase in requirements, benefit creep, and the growing nation debt are now squarely on the table.
* former Senator, Tom Daschle, having lost out at HHS and the inner circle on policy in the White House continues to opine as to the poor quality of medical care based on outcomes compared to some of our European friends. He appears to discount the role of research, technology, obesity, consumer choice, patient and family expectations, and defensive medicine as drivers of the cost of care.
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[ Thursday, August 13, 2009 06:48 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: 13 Thursday Trival Pursuit
Section:
Government
Summary:
OK, so it may be the middle of the summer silly season, but it is never too late to poke fun at pretentious Americans in pants in hot pursuit of injustice around the world starting in Africa.
Main:
Speaking of U.S Secretary of Global Women’s Right’s Hillary Rodham Clinton, LLD, we have noted some angst in her messages from Nigeria and the Congo.
For example:
* Recently, she lectured Nigerians from her podium on the lessons of accepting close election result without violent and used the Florida 2000 example to illustrate her point.
* While visiting the Congo Republic, she was off base in angerly and reflexly responding to a mistranslated student question that appeared to demean her status as foreign policy mover, shaker, and spokeswoman”. “My husband is not the secretary of state; I am.” was the undiplomatic Hillary retort.
* Hillary appears to disremember that the ongoing conflict in eastern Congo is the result of inaction by the World, the UN, and the Clinton administration during the Genocide in Rwanda.
* If Holbrooke has the Gulf and Pakistan, and Mitchell has the middle East. One might suppose that Hillary is left with the darkest of sub-Saharan Africa.
* Meanwhile, the VP in charge of administration’s delicate one on one diplomacy, Joe Biden, is on schedule to spend time with his president and the visiting Head of State from Egypt this week.
* Hillary spokeswomen admit that that she may have been stressed by her seven country eleven day expedition.
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[ Tuesday, August 11, 2009 07:01 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Tuesday Tribute from Nepal
Section:
Sons and Daughters
Summary:
The following was sent from Nepal, near the base of the Himalyas, by daughter Tanya (Sugar) Fisk . The occasion is the worrisome detention of three American explorers who recently wandered across the northern Iraqi - Iranian border. Josh is one of her friends from Cottage Grove, Oregon near Eugene. We would all wish that poetry and prose from the heart would carry the day. But, we know that “real politique” is the name of game.
Main:
‘On the seashore of endless worlds, children meet.’
-Rabindranath Tagore
He would get really excited when you’d pull out a map of the waterways. The tea would be moved aside, and the piles of acorns and walnuts we’d gathered, and a dozen open magazines, books, references. To make room in the center of the floor. To give it space, as if the local creeks and rivers were already flowing, in miniature, across the floor, in and out his windows and open door. He was living in small town rural Oregon, southern end of the Willamette Valley and would be leaving in the fall after three years. This was it, last chance Texaco and I know he felt the clock ticking for some time with the twin questions : how can I cherish and deepen my last 9 months in this place and where shall I go from here? He did what he did when he sought focus, direction and felt the intimate press of time’s passing…he made A Plan. This would be the Year of the Local, he would explore local history, grow, eat and teach about local food, join the local radio station as a DJ. And the foundational study, walking the land and learning the watershed.
It wasn’t just Spring and Summer he explored the waters. He adored being in the rainy Autumn woods and walking through the Winter chill until he warmed. He talked about watersheds like he talked about great libraries. He spoke of their sources and confluences like he spoke about the perennial wisdom of the spiritual traditions of the world. For my beloved friend, Josh Fattal, CO-founder of the Free Walkers Society (of which we were the only members, for now), water was source. And tracing it’s footprint, finding it’s origin, knowing what connected to what, was adventure, discovery and history in one silvery wave after the next. All the way to the sea. To him it seemed knowing your watershed was like knowing the streets that would take you back home. There was drive and determination and a boyish joy in the walking that pushed him forward. And there was something very personal in the seeking, as if the water and it’s connections were a thread to his life. That walking through the land was the way to understand where he was.
On a rainy spring afternoon, after his work at Apro was done, he’d call up and declare, “I think the Free Walkers need to go find where Silk Creek starts.” We’d be soaked when we returned to town after dark and he’d be full of questions. Not that there weren’t answers, he was brilliant at research, it’s just that under the scope of his fierce curiosity, the answers would generate five times their weight in questions. We walked through the spring and summer along creeks and streams and rivers that ran through the town and fields and forests, in the woods behind the school where he worked. We swam in the cold river on the edge of town and talked about the big reservoir just upstream, how it affected the local waterways, how up from there it became a river again, joined with Brice Creek and had it’s source somewhere in the snows of the Cascades. It was always a tracing back and had the intimate element of tracing his past and memories.
He’d been dreaming, I knew, of an epic Source-to-Sea boat journey that would take him from below the DAM of Lake Dorena(our source)to where Row River joined the Coast Fork of the Willamette, outside our village. Through Eugene, where it merged with the impressive Middle Fork and flowed heroically on through the state until it passed the docks, bridges and waterfront of central Portland, joined the oceanic Columbia, with her dramatic history and finally out to sea! When the beautiful boater’s map of the Willamette River Keepers arrived in the mail, he read it like a history book, which he loved. He wanted to go all the way. That’s a month in a boat, I thought, with visions of rain and pre-planning drudgery. But I didn’t say it because Josh had that look he gets after listening to Dylan. It’s the same with a Great Plan. He decided stages was a good idea. It was mid-summer and we had borrowed a friend’s boat. It would be Bottom-of-the-DAM to Behind-the-Lumber mill outside the next town: Stage One.
By mid morning, we were lifting the boat off the van and walking it through the forest’s edge. It was a short unknown stretch to us and we’d asked around but didn’t get much. Josh never minded going in with some unknowns, honored it as the larger nature of the journey, but on the river he was watchful and could be serious. It was a gorgeous morning, the river running Strong and sweet. Josh was excited, he rowed like crazing. He was steering in back when, no more than fifteen minutes into our maiden voyage, the boat cantilevered over a precipice of water. I looked down into a huge sinkhole and we got swallowed whole. We were flung from the boat, turned in circles underwater like flimsy laundry, (this is the part you don’t tell your mother) and spat out at the surface gasping. Everything was soaked, our water bottles had floated away and we dragged ourselves exhausted onto shore and lay splayed on the warm gravel road. We agreed later, the only possible action after seeing that hole was to take the biggest breath of you life and head in. By the end of the day we had flipped, gone under, been sent flying three times in one dramatic rapid after the next. We had seen water life and aspects of the river and land we had never imagined. Tired and happy, Josh suggested next week for Stage Two.
Speaking to his family outside Philadelphia, he had heard that a family friend, in his retirement, had taken to methodically walking the streets of his native Philly. Josh was fascinated and taken by this notion. I suggested he get in touch and they collaborate on a book, a city mouse/country mouse account of their relative discoveries of their environments on opposite ends of the country. He liked the idea, enjoyed collecting subjects for the books he should write. Near Philadelphia later that fall, just before he would go abroad, he took me to follow the streams near his childhood house through yards of neighbors, parks, an old school, a boyhood friend’s house. He told the stories of his youth. It was the same seeking of the water’s path, source and connections he was doing in Oregon and here, I could see it was exhilarating and empowering. I watched him making a bridge along the long stretch of waters from his past to the present and into the visions for his future.
That summer in Oregon we completed Stage One, Two and an epic 35 mile(in a single day)final Stage three that had all the makings of a great adventure… danger, Strong winds, big vistas, dark gathering clouds, unknown rapids ahead, a big fight in the middle of the river, wondering if we could make it before dark, before the rain. And beauty, stunning and complex on the water. And ultimately a breathtaking brilliant success. I don’t remember if we vowed to finish the plan and go all the way to the sea someday or just silently held that desire. On reflection we agreed the vantage from the river had completely changed our perspective of the land, gave us new ways of seeing our place. Like seeing a garden through an insects eyes, from ground level, inside things. I knew this was Josh’s vision for himself and for the world: to be continually opening to new ways of seeing and experiencing the world more authentically, more truly. Of changing and growing from this place of clearer sight and deeper insight. And I knew that for him this journey of seeking source and it’s completion would continue. On to the seas and beyond.
And so it not only makes sense but is a Strong and clean poetry that Josh would be found seeking the most beautiful waterfall in the land of his ancestors. In war and in peace may he continue.
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