Cleveland's Marvelous Public Library

After the American Century

I had the pleasure of spending one day in the Cleveland Public Library. The librarians were knowledgeable, courteous, and efficient. The two buildings were handsome places to work, but the real test of a public library or an archive for a historian is what one finds. Sometimes an entire day yields almost nothing, perhaps due to poor luck, but often due to poorly organized materials, finding aids that are inadequate, or staff who make only a minimal effort. Sometimes, I get what I hoped to find, and go away satisfied, which was my experience on a similar mission at the Boston Public Library a year ago. But once in a great while I find much more than I had dared expect, and if this happens it almost always is because the librarians and archivists are real professionals. 

Cleveland Public Library, the new building holds the photographic collections

In this particularly happy research expedition, I spent almost all my time in the photographic collection, housed in the newer of the two library buildings and located on the fourth floor. All the images that I requested seemed to be near at hand, not buried in a vault or stored off-site. Moreover, the staff, led by the extremely capable Margaret Baughman, took a real interest in my project, and suggested places to look that I had no way of knowing about.

In the space of a single day, I reviewed hundreds and hundreds of images, selecting 14 in the end for reproduction. These images were scanned and ready for me as digital files the following day. Moreover, the price was extremely fair, in an age when every archive routinely demands $100 or more for each image. I have paid as much as $500 for a single image from a well-known magazine, whose name you might guess but I will not specify here. Such high prices force historians to make compromises or omit images, unless they are fortunate enough to find an oasis like the Cleveland Public Library.

Below, I reproduce one of the images I found there, but to fit it within this blog it is a mere jpeg file, not the wonderful TIFF scan provided to me. This is too large for easy use on this blog.

This image shows part of the Ford Motor Company's Model T assembly line. This is how it looked in c. 1915, when the method of manufacturing had just being invented. It was so new it did not yet have a widely used name. Originally, this photograph was used in one of the Cleveland newspapers, now defunct, whose images were donated to the Cleveland Public Library. I amusing it in America's Assembly Line, to be published by MIT Press in 2013, a centennial history of the assembly line in American culture.

Many of the best things in life are unexpected. The efficiency, intelligence and helpfulness of this library staff make Cleveland an attractive place to do research, and I very much expect to return for help with a quite different project, dealing with a young man who grew up in Ohio and edited a newspaper there for some years before the Civil War.

Halloween in Boston

After the American Century

In the Halloween streets of Boston costumes. Dracula in the subway, a cowboy in the diner, and a gypsy in the bookstore. Free candy at almost every cash register, and even in a serious office a bit of playful clothing, an odd hat, flashing electric earrings or a wild orange tie.

Whatever may be wrong with the US economy, whatever fears may clutch at the heart (or the wallet), Americans still know how to be playful and a little crazy. There is an edge, and it is not getting dull.

This playfulness should not suggest frivolity, for it is the flip-side of the energy and drive that Americans pass down through the generations. Yes, there are problems, and I write about them here in this space often enough. But there is no lack of enthusiasm and shared good humor nevertheless.

OK, this is just Halloween, but the levity is a sign of good mental health, despite the bitterness about the banks, despite the partisan politics, despite the 9% unemployment, and despite the weight of individual difficulties. Walking around the city today was a reminder that the country is far more than the sum of its problems.

Solving the problem of global warming. Could consumers lead better than nations?

After the American Century

It seems that governments are not going to solve the problem of global warming as quickly as it needs to be ddealt with. Yet it need not be tackled by legislation. It could also be a consumer-led change.

1. Create a system that ranks countries into four groups (A, B, C. D), depending on to what degree they contribute to global warming. The rankings might be produced by the World Wildlife Fund or Greenpeace, or perhaps a consortium of environmental groups. The rankings would have to rely on information that is already publicly available, at least at first, but if the movement were successful it might have resources to develop its own data banks,

2. Once a year, a month before Christmas, consumers worldwide would hear via Facebook and other social media where each nation ranks, so that they have the chance to choose intelligently and buy products from nations with better ratings. The hope would be that consumers would be more willing to buy from nations that are trying to solve the problem of global warming rather from those that are making matters worse.

3. Once the rating system has been developed for nations, next allow corporations to be rated as well, so that an environmentally responsible company can get a high ranking even if  the nation where it is located cannot.

4. The third step would be to give ratings to cities, so that if Seattle or Munich or Oslo or Rio wanted to they could achieve a rating higher than that within their home nation.

5. Concurrent with these developments, encourage nations to give foreign aid for conversion to clean energy technologies focusing on those developing nations where the military budget is less than 2% of GNP. It is absurd to pour money into a nation that is investing in tanks rather than insulation, bombs rather than solar panels, or jet fighters rather than wind mills. If poor nations are not focusing their resources on the problem, why should anyone else?

6. Give annual awards to successful projects that are actually completed (not just proposals) that both improve the quality of life and reduce global warming. Make the awards as glamorous as the Academy Awards. Governments whose nations are in the A category would also be put in the limelight at these events and part of the ceremony would be to welcome any new members of the "A" club and to congratulate those who had moved up a category. Nations in the D category would not be allowed to have a presenter at the awards, but they would be welcome to attend.

7. After these ideas have been implemented, go after the trading system. nstead of considering all trade  to be a good thing, no matter what is traded, nations would be encouraged to revise their import taxes and tax codes to favor products whose production and use have the least environmental impact. This sort of taxation would encourage corporations to manufacture in an environmentally responsible way. I do not suggest that such taxes be punitive. Rather, they could be a restructuring of current VAT, and be applied to c. 25 consumer goods that are particularly large consumers of energy, such as automobiles, air conditioning, stoves, televisions, and so forth.

I realize this is only a sketch, but hope such ideas can be expanded and implemented. An umbrella organization would be needed. Ideally, someone with deep pockets might support it, or perhaps the Norwegians, who have a large budget surplus and a history of environmental awareness, could take the role as a lead nation. But as I said at the beginning, the best thing would be a consumer movement that is not a hostage to politics.

100 Danish Poems, From the Medieval Period to the Present Day - Bilingual Edition

After the American Century

This is the 300th entry in this blog, and a book came to hand that serves nicely to celebrate this milestone. 

100 Danish Poems: From the Medieval Period to the Present Day  are not just any 100 poems but a careful selection of the best in Danish literature. They present a complex translation problem, as it simply would not do to have all the poems sound as if they were written in 2011, nor would it be a good idea to write in a modern idiom and then sprinkle in a few old words here and there from the appropriate time periods. 

Fortunately, John Irons, who is British, has more than 25 years experience as a translator. He has lived in Scandinavia for more than 40 years, and frequently translates from Norwegian into English as well. He holds a PhD in Modern and Medieval Languages from Cambridge University and is a published poet himself. Irons is sensitive to the language and the rhythms of the poems and to the changes in literature that occurred from the medieval period onwards. In addition, he was able to work closely with both the Danish poet Klaus Høeck and the editors of the volume, Thomas Bredsdorff and Professor Anne-Marie Mai, who selected and edited the poems. She has also written a 43 page introduction that provides the historical and literary context many English readers will require. The poems themselves are presented without headnotes or footnotes that might distract.

Readers who know both Danish and English can decide for themselves whether they like the translations in this beautifully produced, bilingual edition. The original and the translation face each other on every page. Here is a sample, from pages 182-183, the first lines from a poem by Hans Christian Andersen:

Det gamle Træ, o lad det staa

Det gamle Træ, o lad det staa
Indtil det døer af Ælde;
Saamange Ting det husker paa.
Hvad kan det ikke melde.


Irons renders these lines as:

That ancient tree, don't let it fall
Until old age is knelling;
So many things it can recall
What tales it could be telling.

Note that he has retained not only the sense of these lines but also their rhyme and rhythm. He makes it look easy, but it is not.

Here is a second example, the lovely last verse of Jeppe Aakjær's "Maynat" (May Night), 1916 (pp. 200-201).

Saa ensomt bræger det spæde Lam
paa Bakken langt i det fjærne,
og Frøerne kvækker fra Pyt og Dam,
som sang det fra Stjærne til Stjærne.

The lonely young lamb on the hill beyond
can be heard with its plaintive small baa,
and the frogs all croak from puddle and pond,
as if star now were singing to star.


My third and final example, is the opening four lines of a work by Tove Ditlevsen,  from 1947  (pp. 250-251).

Blinkende Lygter

I Barndommens lange og dunkle Nat
brænder smaa blinkende Lygter
som Spor, af Erindringen efterladt,
mens Hjertet fryser og flugter.

In childhood's long night, both dim and dark
there are small twinkling lights that burn bright
like traces memory's left there as sparks
while the heart freezes so and takes flight.

The reader may be tempted to try revising this example, but in doing so will find how difficult it is to preserve simultaneously the rhyme, the meaning, and the rhythm. John Irons retains the rhyme and the meaning, but to do so must sacrifice the original rhythm. I spent some time trying to improve it, but found I could not. Yet the effort helped me to see the Danish original more clearly, which is one of the pleasures of a book that presents both the original and the translation on facing pages.

The book is available in both Denmark (from Museum Tusculanum Press) and the United States (from the University of Washington Press).

This posting is #300 on After the American Century

Obama Correct to Leave Iraq

After the American Century

After months of negotiations, the US and Iraq were unable to agree on how many troops might be left behind to help train and support the coalition government. Reportedly, the US suggested a level of 10,000, but the Iraqis wanted only half that, or even less. President Obama then decided, after repeated attempts to get a clear agreement, to pull the plug.

This seems the right decision, and probably the only option. Would a few thousand American troops really make much of a difference to the country's security? Keeping a symbolic force in the country might well have been a continued provocation to the opposition. Much better to give Iraq a clear message: the US is leaving. Iraq, you are now on your own, as a sovereign nation, to succeed or fail.

Nine years is a long time to intervene in any country, and the United States at some point must have higher priorities than continuing to keep 42,000 troops in Iraq. There were once four times that many, plus troops from the "coalition of the willing."

I was never a supporter of the invasion of Iraq, which was justified by the false claim that it harbored weapons of mass destruction. The country was ruled by a terrible regime, but removal of that regime has cost 700+  billion dollars and an enormous loss of life. The war itself was not difficult to win, but the Bush Administration disgracefully showered huge contracts on its political allies to rebuild the country and treated prisoners disgracefully, angering the entire Arab world against the abuses, displayed in photographs for all to see on the Internet.  An on-line poll conducted by MSNBC has found, as of this writing, that 87% of the respondents do not think the Iraq war was worth it. Many commentators share this view, including the Center for American Progress.

This nine years in Iraq offers quite a contrast with Libya, where the cost was far lower, the time required shorter, and American troops never entered the country. This difference strongly suggests the difference between Bush and Obama, Republicans and Democrats.

The arts of peace are more nuanced and difficult than the arts of war. Let us hope that Iraq will do better governing itself than it has under the occupation. But for the US, it is time to spend its scarce resources elsewhere. Think what that $700 billion might have been used for.

The Politics of Energy Efficiency: Blue States Lead the Red States

After the American Century

What a surprise. These are the states that are the most energy efficient: Massachusetts (1), California (2), followed by New York, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Connecticut, and Maryland. This information comes from The American Council for Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). To give a sense of what this means, in Maryland, number 10 on the list, "Marylanders have already saved over 700,000 MWh of electricity and over $91 million dollars since 2009." These are savings that can be spent or saved, every year.

Not a single state in the American South is in the top ten.  Was this an accident? Consider the bottom group, states with the highest per capia use of energy:  North Dakota, Wyoming, Mississippi, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, West Virginia, Missouri, Alabama, and South Dakota.  These are all in the South and trans-Mississippi West. The citizens of these states are spending more on gasoline and heat and air conditioning than the efficient states, which are investing in alternative energies, giving tax incentives to improve insulation, and investing in energy efficiency projects. Illinois alone has invested $600 million, creating jobs and saving energy at the same time.

The ACEEE study shows that Republican-dominated states have a poor record. Look at the Presidential election of 2008.

 

All ten of the most energy-efficient states voted Democratic.

All ten of the least energy-efficient states voted Republican.

This is not a coincidence. It tracks the repeated Republican denials of global warming and their heavy financial support from the oil, gas, and coal industries.