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Of Inglorious Exits… and Entrances… and Stays
(Or “Who Are the Bad Guys?”)

From last post’s homage to Integrity, we turn to the consequences of its absence.

I love my country more than words can say, but why, oh why, can’t we get our exits right? There is nothing sweet about the sorrow with which we part our engagements.

These were the kinds of thoughts washing over me while viewing our exit from Afghanistan last year and the ending of what is dubbed “America’s Longest War”. They have since been supplemented by many other impressions and reflections that demanded a post. And, do I have a book for you to read!

Beyond the Bad Optics

President Biden should have known it would be trouble to comply with the Afghan exit agreement in place. This is especially so since the prior administration had negotiated withdrawal, in typical fashion, only with the forces it was US policy to oppose, to the deliberate and pointed exclusion of the government it was US policy to support. This, you understand, is the Art of the Deal.

That it would be a bad deal was almost a foregone conclusion. Joe Biden should have understood that better than anyone. Most criticism of him is not for leaving, but for not insisting on doing it well, or at least competently. For some reason, he seemed to feel obligated to adhere strictly to a given timetable.

Those thinking our exit from Afghanistan was the worst part of this 20-year misadventure are terribly mistaken, however.

One of the “Must-Read” Books of 2021

Any doubts on that point are obliterated throughout The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock (Simon and Shuster, 2021. Page numbers from the book appear in parentheses below.)

Timely publication of such a book is beneficial. By way of comparison, the Pentagon Papers came out four years after Robert McNamara commissioned the report on America’s involvement in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsberg leaked the top secret report to the New York Times. Their publishing of installments led to litigation of one of the most important prior-restraint First Amendment cases in Supreme Court history. Since the report already existed, the hardest part of informing the public was obtaining the landmark 6-3 decision clearing the Times to resume publishing.

With the precedent of the Pentagon Papers case established, Whitlock’s task was to assemble the vast amount of information under-girding his book. With six years as a foreign correspondent for the Washington Post writing about al-Qaeda and affiliates, followed by seven years as a beat reporter covering the Pentagon, he “knew Afghanistan was a mess.” (xiii) He sought the big picture that was being missed: What went wrong?

The Source Material

Understanding the sources is crucial to grasping the book’s significance. The Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR; there can be no discussion involving federal government without acronyms – hang in there) had undertaken a project called Lessons Learned. They interviewed hundreds of officials and war participants, hoping to identify mistakes for future avoidedance. Those interviewed spoke with remarkable candor, apparently assuming no public access.

SIGAR issued some dull reports from the Lessons Learned interviews, but Whitlock and the Post sued for the source material – notes, audio and transcripts. After a three-year Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) battle, the author hit the jackpot.

His second major source was George W. Bush’s Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, famous for dictating memos so numerous as to be nicknamed “snowflakes”. George Washington University’s National Security Archive sued under FOIA for the snowflakes relating to Afghanistan, which they shared with Whitlock.

A third source was a series of interviews of U.S. Embassy officials who had served in Kabul by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. The Foreign Service officers were also blunt.

Fourth are hundreds of interviews conducted by the US Army for historical research; that stated goal again spurred the troops into raw, straightforward sharing.

Finally, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center undertook an oral-history project on the presidency of George W. Bush. Whitlock obtained transcripts of interviews with military commanders, cabinet members, and other senior officials.

This combination of documents and interviews is what Whitlock calls a secret, but unflinching, history of the war.

Beyond Mere Griping

Now, those who carry out orders often question whether people giving them know what they’re doing – sometimes with good reason. What we have here, however, is very different than any generic complaining. The charges here are specific, detailed, and damning. Further, they are leveled by an extraordinarily wide range of individuals, from famous names atop organizational charts to unnamed eyewitnesses. Some are admissions by those giving the orders.

The accounts spare no one, and it is a rough ride indeed for each of the three administrations prior to Joe Biden’s. Partisan types will find some chapters much more fun than others. Cynics will revel in them all. For the rest of us, it’s eye-opening, infuriating, and heart-breaking.

A mind boggling array of mistakes, wrong-doing and failures was enabled by the nature of the information shared as events unfolded. Reports too often comprised a stream of spin, wishful thinking, exaggeration, omission of bad news, and outright lying. A combination of misfeasance and malfeasance spread over two decades and three administrations. Along with good intentions gone awry, it was born of fear, ignorance, arrogance, hubris, illogic, stubbornness, and dishonesty.

Initial Support

Before delving into a few of the details, it’s worth noting an interesting point made by Whitlock in the Forward:
Unlike the Vietnam War, or what would happen in Iraq in 2003, support for moving against Afghanistan following 9/11 was nearly unanimous. Widespread international sympathy over that day’s carnage brought support from outside America, as well. (Whitlock wryly notes that in Iran, “hardliners stopped shouting ‘Death to America’ at weekly prayers for the first time in twenty-two years”. xii)

We knew who hijacked the planes, and where Osama bin Laden had found safe harbor. This stood in stark contrast to the supposed grounds for the Gulf of Tonkin resolution – or to the lack of tie-in between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

When the bombing of Taliban targets began in October of 2000, it was hardly controversial, then. What unfolded in the ensuing years is hard to comprehend, even in retrospect.

Early “Success”

Initial forays in October met with stiff resistance. With a new war strategy drafted by three men in four hours, however, US officials were surprised when the tide of battle suddenly turned in their favor in November. US and Northern Alliance forces seized major cities in a matter of days. Referring to October’s slow starting phase, Rumsfeld mocked references to Vietnam: “It looked like nothing was happening. Indeed, it looked like we were in a – all together now! – quagmire.” (11)

The US wasn’t sure how to take its unexpectedly quick success. Military brass favored limiting US presence both as to time and scope, given the impression that there was little left to do. Meanwhile, President Bush and his policy advisors found an ambitious program introducing American-style democracy irresistible. As White House security advisor Stephen Hadley put it, “once the Taliban was flushed, we did not want to throw that progress away.” (14) Sloppy practices, wishful thinking, objectives at cross purposes, and self-delusion crept into the mix, never to leave.

Not explicitly stated in the book, but apparent in the narrative, is that the Taliban deftly employed against US and Alliance forces a tactic roughly akin to Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope in boxing. It worked.

Missed Opportunities

Two chances for genuine success were missed in December of 2001. The more famous arose from intelligence placing Osama bin Laden in the caves and tunnels of Tora Bora, 30 miles southeast of Jalalabad. A two-week bombing campaign commenced on December 3. About 100 US commandos and CIA operatives were on the ground, with some militiamen having ties to Afghan warlords.

Why such a small force? Because Central Command had denied urgent requests for more from CIA and Army commanders who feared bin Laden would escape with al Qaeda survivors to Pakistan. Which is exactly what happened. (23-5) It would be another decade before the US would find bin Laden again.

The other opportunity was diplomatic (25-7). The United Nations facilitated a meeting in Bonn in which Afghan factions met with diplomats from the US, Europe, and Central Asia to discuss ending hostilities and Afghanistan’s future. Among the two dozen Afghan delegates were no representatives of the Taliban. That’s right: the group with whom hostilities needed to end weren’t there. This was the opposite of the mistake made nearly two decades later by Trump negotiating only with the Taliban, ending whatever hope remained for the government’s viability.

Exclusion of the Taliban doomed the accord reached in Bonn (naming Hamid Karzai interim leader and providing for a constitution and elections) on December 5 to failure. “A major mistake we made was treating the Taliban the same as al Qaeda,” according to Barnett Rubin, an American expert on Afghanistan serving the UN at Bonn. “Key Taliban leaders were interested in giving the new system a chance, but we didn’t give them a chance.” (26) Whitlock cites other experts who considered the dismissal of Taliban as inconsequential foes, needing simply to be punished, an enormous mistake.

Once the US made its move in Iraq, Afghanistan became a relative afterthought. This made righting the course even less likely. Hours before President Bush’s infamous “mission accomplished” speech about Iraq aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, Rumsfeld publicly claimed major combat had ended in Afghanistan. Even with some hedging about pockets of resistance, his statements were beyond misleading. If only. 95% of eventual casualties hadn’t yet occurred. (43-4)

Happy Talk

As the going in Afghanistan gradually got much tougher in the ensuing months and years, sunny reports of progress flowed. They came from all sides, spokespersons to presidents. Some pronouncements were carefully worded to mislead; others dripped with swagger. At times, setbacks were omitted and data altered. These practices continued unabated, sometimes veering into the absurd.

Even while staying because things got worse, then, we had a steady stream of turning the corner; degrading the insurgency; turning the tide; and being on the right road. One whopper in particular saw repeated use over the years: Heavy resistance and even increased casualties were signs of progress, actually. They were the result of our having the enemy on the run.

The commander of US and NATO forces, Army Gen. David McKiernan, may have been the first general in Afghanistan to admit publicly there were aspects of the war not going well. Defense Secretary Robert Gates sacked him in May of 2009. (114, 145-6)

The “Bad Guys”

Despite multiple significant provocations, like attacks on East African US embassies in 1998 and on the USS Cole in 2000, the US knew virtually nothing about al-Qaeda on 9/11. In a University of Virginia oral-history interview, Gates said “the fact is that we’d just been attacked by a group we didn’t know anything about.” (19) Gates was CIA director in the early ‘90s and replaced Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary in 2006. This permitted a blurring of the lines between al-Qaeda and the Taliban from the outset.

Lumping the two groups together as “bad guys” would typify a simplistic approach that plagued the American effort for its duration. (20)

Perhaps the most striking document reproduced in the book follows page 108. It’s a snowflake memo from Rumsfeld dated September 3, 2003. Its entire contents:
“I have no visibility into who the bad guys are in Afghanistan or Iraq. I read all the intel from the community and it sounds as though we know a great deal but in fact, when you push at it, you find out we haven’t got anything that is actionable.
We are woefully deficient in human intelligence.
Let’s discuss it.”
So, after four months of hostilities in Iraq and nearly two full years in Afghanistan, the US Secretary of Defense was distressed to realize he didn’t even know who the bad guys were. Let’s discuss it?

The Taliban were Afghans with local objectives. Al Qaeda, on the other hand, was an international terrorist group of Arabs whose leader, bin Laden, was in Afghanistan because he’d been expelled elsewhere. There were some similarities in extremist religious beliefs, and bin Laden’s permitted presence justified action against the Taliban, but the two groups’ goals otherwise varied. The Taliban had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, for example.

Considering the Taliban a homogeneous group was also a mistake. When Brig. Gen, James Terry asked an Afghan general to tell him about the Taliban, the reply was “Which Taliban?” Puzzled, Terry asked to learn about all types. There were three: (1) “radical terrorists”; (2) those “in it just for themselves”; and (3) “the poor and ignorant, who are simply influenced by the other two groups”. (101-2)

All along, we remained deficient in something at least as important as knowing who the enemy was: what motivated them to fight.

Oh, Whatever

The simplistic approach went well beyond conflating al Qaeda with the Taliban. It seems almost no one deployed to Afghanistan had even a basic introduction to the culture, language, norms or practices of the people.

When field artillery officer Maj. Daniel Lovett reported for Afghan training in 2005, an instructor (in cultural awareness, no less) started by saying “When you get to Iraq…” When Lovett corrected him, the reply was “Oh, Iraq, Afghanistan. It’s the same thing.” (70)

By way of unconventional warfare, the US military sometimes seeks to influence the thinking and emotions of people where the action is, by employing psychological operations, or “psy-ops”. Maj. Louis Frias deployed to Afghanistan in 2003 to lead the psy-ops effort, and prepared by reading Islam For Dummies on the plane ride.

One of the projects Frias led was to develop a comic book to convey the concept of voting. The project bogged down when diplomats at the US Embassy and military commanders all insisted on having their say on the content. Frias’s six-month tour of duty was over before anything was produced. He heard that something went into production, but had no idea about any effect. (67-8)

A couple years later, another psy-ops crew widely distributed soccer balls adorned with several images, including a verse from the Koran. Since placing holy words on a ball to be struck by foot was a sacrilegious insult, the military found itself publicly apologizing. (69)

Futile Attempts to Maintain an Army and Police

Any hope America had of ever extricating itself from Afghanistan in a manner considered successful depended on leaving behind a country that could defend itself and maintain reasonable order. This required establishment of both an army and police.

All attempts failed, with gory details of how and why throughout the book. That they would collapse at the first sign of America leaving was such a foregone conclusion that Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson demanded of Biden’s critics a detailed explanation of how the exit could have been managed without chaos and confusion.

“Please be specific”, he wrote on 8/26/21. “Did you see the Taliban waiting patiently while the US-trained Afghan army escorted U.S. citizens, other NATO nationals and our Afghan collaborators to the airport for evacuation?”

Pakistan

Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan is 1500 miles of mostly rough, mountainous terrain. Controlling it was undoable. Add to that the Pakistanis’ remarkable skill in playing both sides, and you had a puzzle the US never solved in two decades.

Most dramatically, it was Pakistan where Osama bin Laden fled upon escaping Tora Bora, and where the US found and killed him years later. But fighters and the supplies they needed were back and forth in ways reminiscent of Cambodia and Vietnam, only more so.

Pakistan military ruler Pervez Musharraf appeared to cut ties with the Taliban at the behest of the US after 9/11, and positioned himself as an ally. Pakistan not only allowed America to use their land, airspace and seaports, but also turned over a number of al Qaeda figures. Some were as significant as 9/11 plotters Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. (82)

US opinion differed on whether Pakistan could not, or rather would not, help similarly to stem the Taliban’s cross-border insurgency. A discussion recounted in the book sheds some light. US ambassador to Pakistan Ryan Crocker one day got Ashfaq Kayani (the head of Pakistan’s spy agency, ISI) to explain: “one day you’ll be gone again…you’ll be done with us, but we’re still going to be here, because we can’t actually move our country. And the last thing we want with all of our other problems is to have turned the Taliban into a mortal enemy, so, yes, we’re hedging our bets.” (86-7)

Among the “Good Guys”

The only actors who may have been worse than the Bad Guys were some of the supposed Good Guys. Chapter ten of The Afghanistan Papers is The Warlords. In renewing relationships begun as far back as CIA assistance to mujahedin fighting the Soviets in the ‘80s, the US found itself aligned with warlords so despicable as to be almost cartoonish. The stories of Addul Rashid Dostum, Sher Mohammad Akhundzada (“SMA”), and Fahim Khan, among others, must be read to be believed. (115-127)

Despite their brutality, corruption, opium production and trafficking, murder, and other mayhem, such individuals played key roles in the battle against the Taliban. So vile were they, however, that many Afghans regarded the cruel and oppressive Taliban as the lesser of two evils.

Creeps

Many kinds of creep are featured in The Afghanistan Papers. One of the most damaging is “mission creep”. Every chapter highlights another instance in a repeating cycle over the 20 years of three administrations drifting from one ill-defined objective of sorts to another.

The mission had little choice but to creep, though, because it was never adequately defined. A chapter in the book is “An Incoherent Strategy”. The quotes, relating to the later Bush years, are among the most trenchant in the book, but apply to every phase of the 20-year operation.

Indeed, we were there so long that wrong-headed policies and tactical mistakes were recycled more than once, often by officials oblivious to the prior failures.

British Lt. Gen. David Richards, who led NATO forces in 2006, said flatly in a Lessons Learned interview, “There was no coherent long-term strategy…instead we got a lot of tactics.” (105) His successor, US Army Gen. Dan McNeill also found no plan in 2007. His instructions? Kill terrorists, build the Afghan army, and don’t fracture the alliance. “I tried to get someone to define for me what winning meant, even before I went over, and nobody could,” he related to Lessons Learned. (109)

In an effort to coordinate policy and strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush appointed Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute his “war czar”. His Lessons Learned interview yielded this: “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan – we didn’t know what we were doing. What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.” (110)

Those who served bravely and well, and who paid for it with their lives, their limbs, or other aspects of their physical or mental health, deserved far better. At every phase of the conflict, straight and sensible answers to questions about what they were doing, and why, were lacking. It was a frustration they shared with the superiors they asked.

The Obama Years – Showing Them the Money

A recently-elected President Obama announced a large Increase in troops to carry out counter-insurgency, but with an odd twist. There would be a strict timetable for the mission of 18 months. This attempt to appease critics of the quagmire was seen widely as an obvious mistake, benefiting the Taliban.

Accompanying the troop surge was a massive effort to strengthen the Afghan economy and government. Even while denying nation-building, the administration sent unimaginable scads of money for any conceivable kind of project, whether wanted by Afghans or not. There were so many projects, and so much money, officials struggled to keep track. Even among projects completed, many were useless for being in areas our forces could not, or would not, secure.  

Anyone looking for the stereotypical “throwing money at a problem” could hardly do better than this. The harm here goes beyond just waste. The main impact was to ratchet up Afghanistan’s already-pervasive corruption by orders of magnitude.

Among the many mind-boggling stories (unused new schools becoming Taliban bomb-making factories, etc.), one in particular lingers long after reading. After the Taliban destroyed a bridge in Laghman, eager US officials hired a local construction firm to replace it. That firm’s owner had a brother in the Taliban. “Together, they had built a thriving business: the Taliban brother blew up US projects and then unwitting Americans paid his sibling to rebuild them.” (165)

Joseph Heller had to employ creative genius in Catch 22 to satirize the insanity that can occur during war; Whitlock achieves similar effect here simply presenting what actually happened.

Amid it all, reports to the press and public remained a steady stream of happy talk, deception, flawed data, and misleading statistics. There was even a bizarre ceremony in Kabul celebrating the “end” of the war on December 28, 2014. Not only was the war not over; it wasn’t going well at all. In truth, the perfect opportunity to end it had occurred over three years earlier, when bin Laden was eliminated on May 1, 2011.

Then There Was Trump – Bombs Away

After Donald Trump took the reins, he said some things that sounded familiar – the country’s weariness with the war, a resolve to win – but he did make some changes. Most dramatic was rescinding Obama’s restrictions on airstrikes in Afghanistan. With that, the amount of munitions dropped more than tripled and the number of airstrikes doubled.

Civilian deaths had resulted from awful mistakes during prior administrations, and we’d been slow at times to acknowledge the truth and express suitable remorse. Many analyses, not just in this book, identify these episodes as a major impediment to winning Afghan hearts and minds. Trump’s barrage was at a whole new level, however. According to Brown University’s Cost of War project, Trump’s first three years doubled average annual civilian deaths from airstrikes. (246)

This approach was the greatest recruitment tool ever handed to the Taliban; their fighting numbers swelled accordingly. (247) At that point, many Afghans now considered the Taliban the least of three evils – warlords, Taliban, and Americans (and the US-supported Afghan government).

Lessons Learned?

Is there a more painful irony than the title for the interviews conducted to prevent future mistakes? Anyone old enough had to recall desperate people clinging to US helicopters leaving Vietnam. We better learn some lessons this time.

The takeaway is not the wisdom of isolationism. Ever wonder what might have happened had the Japanese not attacked Pearl Harbor? No, the world is a worse and more dangerous place when America abdicates its leadership role, especially to bad actors. Somewhere between isolationism and running helter-skelter into conflicts we don’t understand, with no idea what to do, there is plenty of room for a properly engaged United States.

An even worse takeaway would be “Whatever you do, don’t speak candidly about your public service!” Security has its place, and appropriate use of classification can protect vital interests . A recurring theme of Other Aspects, however, is this: Any public policy needing to be defended with dishonesty is fatally flawed. Any public servant lying to the public without hesitation is no public servant, and needs to find another line of work. America works best when officials behave knowing that informed citizens are interested and paying attention.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of comprehensive, high quality intelligence. Success in a complex, dangerous world demands nothing short of excellence in the field. An anti-intelligence stance, like that of the last administration, must disqualify anyone seeking the presidency.

A Stab at Some Specifics

If we are going to send soldiers off to war, or any facsimile of it where life and limb are in jeopardy, at the very least we must be willing and able to:
– identify the bad guys
– be on the side of the good guys (which requires that there be good guys, and enough of them to have any chance of sustaining after we’ve left)
– articulate a coherent objective
– set benchmarks
– have some idea what will constitute victory
– think enough of our position and conduct as to permit honest appraisal and reporting
– know what we are doing
– know enough about the people, the region, and the cultures to understand what the conflict is about
– notice, and successfully adapt to, changing conditions

A Misadventure… and Yet…

There is a generation of Afghan girls who became young women having experienced some level of education. They know they deserved it, hopefully, and yearn to put that education to good use.

Similarly, it’s too soon to say that attempts to plant seeds among Afghans aspiring to another way of life – of whatever age, gender, or background – were futile.

This brings us to the dread topic of nation building. The twenty years saw frenzies of nation-building denial interspersed with frenzies of attempted nation building. Sometimes, they overlapped. It’s easy to see a toxic mix of hubris, arrogance and ignorance in the many, sometimes spectacular failures. To be sure, all three were involved.

Yet, there was something else, too. In the face of grinding poverty and relentless hardship, there is a desire based in human decency to share what we cherish of our American lifestyle. For that, we need not apologize. Yet, all is for naught unless we are effective. If we care as much as we’d like to think we do, it’s worth investing the time, energy and resources to understand people whose life experiences differ so drastically from our own.

Never Easy

None of this is to suggest that Afghanistan should have been easy. The place and its people are as different from the US and Americans as any on the planet. Climate and terrain are harsh and unyielding. The society is still largely tribal, with the very notion of a central government (or voting, or taxes, or anything other than local authority and tribal customs) utterly foreign to most. (38-9) In many areas, warlords rule. Anywhere but in the (relatively) sizable cities, life is a hardscrabble struggle to survive. Agrarian practices can be centuries old, and poppies are the leading crop. Poverty abounds.

Even the concept of time is different in Afghanistan compared to impatient Westerners. In 2006, US Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann reported on a Taliban leader warning “You have all the clocks, but we have all the time.” (95) As the headline of a piece by Karen DeYoung in the 9/4/21 Washington Post put it, “As in the battlefield, the Taliban outlasted the U.S. at the negotiating table.”

Such striking differences made it more vital, not less, to carefully study the situation, to confront and convey reality, to respect the task at hand, and to proceed with thoughtful, strategic care. Reassess, think, and if nothing else, say “Hold it! What the hell are we doing here?” if we can’t even tell who the bad guys are.

All Americans, regardless of political inclination, have much to gain from pondering the issues raised in The Afghanistan Papers – and much to lose from ignoring them. Lessons learned? We owe it to ourselves and each other, even as Vladimir Putin now prepares to do what thuggish dictators so often do to divert attention from their failures.

Ken Bossong

© 2022 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Integrity

For painfully obvious reasons, Other Aspects has addressed the topic of Dishonesty often and in some depth. Entering the New Year called for a more aspirational theme.

A reader recently brought to my attention the commencement address of legendary physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard P. Feynman to the Cal Tech class of 1974. I am indebted to both the reader and to Feynman (5/11/18 – 2/15/88).

Crazy Ideas

Feynman starts by mentioning “crazy ideas” from the Middle Ages, then describes history’s gradual discovery of a method for separating ideas: to “try one to see if it worked, and if it didn’t work, to eliminate it.  This method became organized, of course, into science. And it developed very well, so that we are now in the scientific age.”

Despite such progress, Feynman notes, they were still awash in crazy ideas, so many in fact that he finds them overwhelming to contemplate. The speech is fun reading for the wacky examples he gives, ranging from quiet little interactions with strangers to then-famous people and schools of thought. When such movements find many adherents and are said to be scientific, however, Feynman feels the need to “look into theories that don’t work, and science that isn’t science.” These he dubs Cargo Cult Science.

Cargo Cult Science

Feynman’s name for junk science came from the behavior of certain people in the South Seas. Having seen airplanes land during the War loaded with desired provisions, they sought to have that happen again. So they build runways, and burn fires along them for illumination, with a man stationed in a hut wearing a wooden contraption resembling headphones. And they wait for airplanes that never land.

“They’re doing everything right,” Feynman explains. “The form is perfect.  It looks exactly the way it looked before.  But it doesn’t work.  No airplanes land.  So I call these things Cargo Cult Science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.”

The Utter Honesty of Scientific Integrity

So what’s missing? Well, it’s not something like making the supposed headphones look more realistic. What’s missing is the central point he has for the graduates:

“[T]here is one feature I notice that is generally missing in Cargo Cult Science.  It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards.
For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.”

What’s Required

Feynman elaborates on what scientific integrity, his “utter honesty” requires: “Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them.  You must do the best you can—if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong—to explain it.  If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it.”

Also, one who decides to test a theory must publish the results “whichever way it comes out.  If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good.  We must publish both kinds of result.” If you do not publish results considered unexpected by yourself, or unfavorable to someone’s commercial interests, “you’re not giving scientific advice.  You’re being used.”

Finally, “In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.” This is our best shot at getting things right.

An example given of how we tend to fool ourselves is how long it took to discover that Millikan had under-measured the charge on an electron. At least for a while, subsequent studies simply dismissed measurements “too much” higher than Millikan’s, while favoring results closer to his.

Takeaways of Lasting Value

Feynman’s advice to these new scientists: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.  So you have to be very careful about that.  After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists.”

The responsibility is not only to other scientists, by the way. Indeed this “extra type of integrity”, this “bending over backwards” to point out potential weak spots in one’s own approach, is at least as important elsewhere. One’s scientific expertise is not to be abused to fool others less equipped to fend for themselves.

Not Limited to Science

Notwithstanding any number of lawyer jokes, Law is another field that values, in fact insists upon, this sort of integrity. Following the Rules of Professional Conduct (“RPCs”) requires of lawyers conduct well beyond merely not lying.

Thus, RPC 3.3 not only forbids a lawyer from making a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal, but also from:

  1. Failing to correct a false statement of fact or law the lawyer previously made before grasping the falsity
  2. Failing to disclose legal authority known to be directly adverse to that lawyer’s client’s position, even if, and especially when, not cited by the opposition and
  3. Offering evidence (testimony by witnesses or documents) known by the lawyer to be false.

Points 2 and 3 might surprise those unfamiliar with Legal Ethics, given the lawyer’s near-absolute duty of loyalty to the client. While very few considerations outweigh fealty to the client, the integrity of the judicial process is one of them.

There’s More

So, actually, there’s more. Lawyers must:
a) take “reasonable remedial measures” if their witnesses’ testimony is known to be false or if a person is engaging in fraudulent or criminal conduct in the case and
b) withdraw from representing a client who demands illegal or unethical behavior by the lawyer (RPC 1.16).

Meanwhile, under other Rules, lawyers must not:
a) bring a case unless it has some basis in law and fact that is not frivolous
b) obstruct another party’s access to evidence
c) alter, destroy or conceal potential evidence
d) falsify evidence or assist a witness to testify falsely
e) take frivolous positions in the information-sharing process known as “discovery” or
f) make reference in trial to matters that are either irrelevant or not admissible under the law.

Note that these and many other rules require balancing with a host of duties toward the client. Less than honorable clients often place their lawyers in positions of tremendous stress sorting out the right thing to do in difficult circumstances. Unsurprisingly, practicing lawyers suffer depression and substance abuse at rates well above average.

Attention, Cynics

Can scientists keep both the grant money and some of their integrity? Will lawyers retain their clients while doing just enough to avoid disbarment? No, the point here is not to identify the poorest conduct one can employ and nevertheless continue practicing the profession.

Feynman is clearly correct in pointing out the jeopardy. In cutting ethical corners, indeed in any conduct short of scientific integrity, wrongdoers “are destroying—possibly—the value of the experiments themselves, which is the whole purpose of the thing.”

New Jersey’s landmark legal ethics case, In Re Wilson, gets at similar concerns. In disbarring the lawyer, Chief Justice Wilentz considered clients’ willingness to allow lawyers to handle their money in transactions: “[T]he client permits it because he trusts the lawyer. It is a trust built on centuries of honesty and faithfulness. Sometimes it is reinforced by personal knowledge of a particular lawyer’s integrity or a firm’s reputation. The underlying faith, however, is in the legal profession, the bar as an institution. No other explanation can account for clients’ customary willingness to entrust their funds to relative strangers simply because they are lawyers.”

The fundamental building block of our freedoms and democracy is the rule of law, and resulting trust in the independent system of justice. AND much of the progress we’ve made emerging from the primordial ooze has been owing to the utter honesty of science. In each of these realms, all we cherish collapses and disappears if not for the integrity of the practitioners and the processes.

It’s hard not to notice that those who peddle lies for fun and enormous profit despise and fear both real science and the courts. Nothing new, there.

This is no anti-theism rant, by the way. The Eighth Commandment came down on the tablet for a reason. The God to whom I pray in my better moments is pleased when we stumble into shards of comprehension about His creation, and very displeased when phonies foment ignorance, idiocy, and harm in His name.

These Days

If Feynman thought his times, or even the Middle Ages, were fraught with crazy ideas, he should have seen the last several years. Would we have some cults for him! At least people back then had the excuse that they were living in the Middle Ages, even if they had no way of realizing it. What excuse have we?

Well, for one thing, it is no less tempting than ever to fool ourselves. We want, need, to be proven right. When the evidence is to the contrary, there must be something wrong with the evidence. It can’t be we, or our beliefs, that are wrong.

Still. One would expect thinking persons to be not only resistant to, but offended by and furious with, attempts to fool them. Yet, the contrary seems more like what’s happening with astonishing numbers of fellow citizens. They want, sometimes desperately, to be fooled in ways that bring them comfort.

For them, sustaining and promoting error is preferable to “losing” an argument. This is so even where the error does terrible damage. No amount of harm can outweigh the unbearable shame of admitting one was simply wrong about something. I must win; you must lose. My numbers cannot suffer.

Individual Resolve – Shared Benefit

As a people, we’ve been doing the Limbo (“How LOW can you GO?!” See post of 1/25/19) far too long. The result is real, substantial harm. Can we do the hard work of raising the bar back up from near the ground, where the current crazy ideas have placed it?

Poking through various choices to be among this New Year’s resolutions, we could do a lot worse, and could scarcely do better, than this:

Double down on integrity – the kind Feynman was addressing years ago: utter honesty, that bending over backwards – in living our lives. Resist the ever-present temptation to fool ourselves, or to submit to being fooled.

Stopping the outright lying in its tracks is a start; it’s necessary, but not enough. What Feynman championed to young scientists – full disclosure, candid consideration of ideas on the merits, relentless pursuit of truth and discernment – that’s the ticket. Consider again his sentence: “After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists.” He means avoiding the inadvertent misleading of others. It assumes no intent to deceive. This is a world-view, a way of life.

We’ll find that just as dishonesty’s harm begins with the self and always spreads, so does integrity ennoble first from within.

There will always be crazy ideas available, and no one easier to fool than ourselves with lazy or corrupt acceptance of self-serving falsehoods. What we demand of ourselves – and then of each other – determines who we are and what we become.

Happy New Year.

Ken Bossong

© 2022 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Why And When

[ A good friend recently reminded me that I had written this almost exactly twenty years ago, in October, 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11. Given the thoughts and emotions evoked upon re-reading, it seemed worthwhile to reprint here, unchanged.]

Why did it take this to bring us together?

Why did it take this to have us care about strangers;
– see value in all human life;
– proudly proclaim what we believe;
– publicly renounce evil;
– pray?

Recall that African American woman we wept with at a prayer service;
– that Italian teenager and Asian man at the donation center;
– that elderly Hispanic during a moment of silence;
– that Irish girl with the poster of her missing father;
– that Jew, Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Hindu, Presbyterian, Buddhist, Lutheran, and, yes, Muslim we hugged at the interfaith gathering.

Not one of them was any less our brother or sister before September 11 than now.

Why did it take this to bring us together?

Who knows? Who cares?

It just did.

The real question is when.

When – two weeks, two months, two years from now –
do we go back to being self-centered, bigoted, short sighted, disdainful,
and too busy to care, to help, and to pray?

Here’s an idea:
Let’s not.

Ken Bossong

© 2001 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Personal Choice

When asked why they have not been vaccinated against COVID, many people, in all walks of life, from the famous to the person in the street, have been answering “It’s a personal choice.”

The notion that this explains anything is peculiar, to put it nicely.

No Kidding

Everything we do, or don’t do, results from a personal choice.

The choices we make in big decisions and small define who we are and determine the impact we have on all around us. The accumulation of countless personal choices forms the society we become.

Judgment

One implicit argument in the “personal choice” explanation is that a course of action being my choice somehow precludes others from assessing or evaluating my conduct.

Well, no. Given human nature, actually, we can’t help it. We observe, we consider, we judge. If I am such a tough guy that I refuse to wear a seat belt in a car, you are free to consider me foolish.

Not only do we judge our own behavior and each other’s, we should. It’s the only way to learn and to improve. To the extent human beings are at the top of the order of things on the planet, it is largely due to our abilities to observe, to discern what matters, to analyze, to solve problems, and to communicate.

The benefit  of judging depends on doing so properly, however. The judging of others that deserves condemnation is the kind that is flawed in numerous ways: invalid assumptions, baseless “facts”, flawed reasoning, missing context. Among the worst assumptions, of course, is not judging at all, but pre-judging: prejudice based on any of the various, odious “isms”. Our insatiable need for Us vs. Them (post of 2/19/19) so often leads us astray.

There’s another big mistake that gives judging a bad name. Attempting to judge a person’s worth, which is incalculable, is simply beyond us. Contrast that with sound judgment of a person’s behavior (including our own), which is advantageous, and sometimes necessary.

Consequences

Similarly, those invoking “personal choice” as a defense of their behavior are seeking refuge from the consequences of choices they’ve made.

Anyone choosing to sky dive without a parachute has made a disastrous personal decision; once outside the plane, the laws of physics determine the consequences.

Stop signs and red lights are impingements on our freedom. Running them is a personal choice. The consequences of doing so are too often tragic. Trying to prevent those tragedies by enforcing stop signs and red lights is a public policy choice.

Whether to order chocolate, vanilla or mocha chip ice cream is a personal choice with consequences that are benign and limited to the person doing the choosing.

Those refusing to be vaccinated (a) put themselves at much greater risk of catching COVID; (b) make severe illness, hospitalization and even death much more likely if they do catch it; (c) put everyone they contact, from strangers to loved ones, at greater risk; and (d) do their part to keep the virus going, and make the desired herd immunity ever more elusive.

As bad choices go, better someone run a red light than refuse the vaccine. Sky diving without a parachute is worse than skipping the vaccine – at least for them, maybe not so much for the rest of us.

As hospital beds and critical care units fill yet again, this time with obviously preventable cases, exhausted health care workers are beside themselves with the most justifiable fury imaginable. Here we go again, and for what? How many patients must they see suffer and die, victims of a supposed hoax? When we finally get out of this, our next health crisis will be PTSD for our health care workers.

Talk about “unfair”.

“Freedom” Only to the Misguided

If vaccine hostility seems reminiscent of people refusing to socially distance themselves or wear face coverings as resisting infringement of personal freedoms, that’s because it is.

So, let me get this straight: The signers of the Declaration of Independence mostly died young so you could have the freedom to deliberately spread a pandemic? You have a Constitutional right to keep a deadly virus going while it develops variants – perhaps one day, a strain for which we have no answer and no defense whatever? Note that former CDC Director Robert Redfield is predicting a worse variant by the fall.

So, yeah, we can do it; we can exercise our freedoms to make things even worse. Too many are. But why?

The Delta is more than bad enough, by the way. Critically ill unvaccinated adults are joined in this new wave of patients by children, lots of them, who have no vaccine to take yet and are getting very sick. Not only is Delta the most contagious virus in memory; it picks on our kids. It’s also producing more severe illness than prior variants.

Leave it to freedom-loving legislators and governors like those in Florida, to pass and sign statutes telling cruise companies that they may not conduct their business in a way that protects their customers. No word on whether sky-dive operators are allowed to require parachutes in Florida. US District Court Judge Kathleen Williams recently issued a preliminary ruling allowing Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings to enforce vaccination requirements when they resume port operations in Miami on August 15.

A Special Case of Hesitance

There is a particular source of vaccine hesitance worth mentioning. Black Americans harkening back to awful healthcare betrayals in the past – the most infamous being the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis – may well have lingering mistrust of any initiative in the realm of health.

At this point – with hundreds of millions successfully protected and virtually everyone in ICU unvaccinated – one can only hope sufficient evidence is in. It’s neither the federal government nor the doctors or health officials doing all the current lying. They’re busy trying to save lives. This post mourns people quoting the current lies with their dying breaths. There’s no need to be among them.

A Moment of Clarity

We can and should have robust discussions, including disagreements, about which personal choices are good ones and bad, and what public policy to adopt in response to various behaviors.

Amid current debate on what should be mandated for our own good, however, certain facts are clear:

This is the deadliest pandemic in a century. It spreads by people breathing on each other.

The outrage here is that we seemingly do need government officials to tell us to keep a safe distance, wear a face covering, and take the vaccine. Why? How is that possible? It should be insulting to our intelligence that they even have to mention such measures. Doing them should be a given for nearly everyone. Yet leaders who “get it” must beg, plead, and bribe, often to no avail? What the hell is wrong with us?

A good friend (who happens to be a staunch conservative) told me a disheartening story about a friend of his. This fellow flatly refused to wear a mask when he learned its main purpose was to protect others, rather than himself. “I don’t care about others,” he said matter-of-factly.

It was a stunning revelation from someone my friend thought he knew fairly well. This man had manifested symptoms of the one ailment ravaging us that is more dangerous than the coronavirus. His self-diagnosis was spot-on.

Ken Bossong

© 2021 Kenneth J. Bossong

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There’s Much to Discover in Latest Lawsuit

Papers and newscasts mentioned that former President Donald Trump filed class action lawsuits Wednesday against Facebook, Twitter and Google over their suspensions of his accounts.

Three thoughts immediately came to mind; one in particular persists.

Thought #1: The First Amendment

The first, the suit’s lack of merit, has been mentioned widely elsewhere, citing various experts. As Paul Barrett, deputy director of NYU’s Center for Business and Human Rights was quoted in the Washington Post, Trump has the First Amendment “exactly wrong”. Facebook and Twitter have a First Amendment right to “determine which speech their platforms project and amplify – and that includes excluding speakers who incite violence…”

Indeed, the interesting question is whether, as many argue, such platforms have a duty to exclude such speech as crossing the line from speech into harmful conduct.

Thought #2: Irony

This was an offshoot of the first: the obvious irony of this purported conservative beseeching the Judicial Branch of the Federal Government to tell private companies how to run their businesses. (They must provide him accounts?) At least these defendants are large, powerful entities that can take care of themselves, compared to the countless individuals and small businesses ruined by dealings with him over decades.

As pointed out in prior posts, the Donald is “conservative” only when – and to the extent – it serves his immediate, personal interests. Any notion of his being a champion of the First Amendment is simply laughable.

Thought #3: Imagine the Discovery

But, most of all, the overriding thought was: Oh, how I would love to do discovery in defending these lawsuits! Lawyers for the defendants must be salivating at the prospect. They, along with prosecutors and investigators waiting in the wings, might almost hope the cases aren’t summarily tossed like the 60+ frivolous election cases. After all, this could be fun.

A Little Background

Before they go to trial, parties in legal cases both reveal and seek information reasonably available about the case they’re in. That applies to both the facts and legal arguments. The process for doing so is called “discovery”. Robust discovery is encouraged and often required.

It’s good for TV and movies to have last-minute “OMG!” surprises at trial. (Hey there, fans of Perry Mason.) It’s good public policy, however, to have parties better understand their opponents’ cases – and their own – earlier. Among the advantages of clarifying legal and factual issues up front are increasing the chances of (a) settling the case and (b) having a focused trial result in justice when the suit can’t settle.

Important point: We value discovery so highly that its scope is very broad. Generally, you don’t have to prove information would be admissible at trial in order to obtain it in discovery, for example.

Typically, all three methods of pre-trial discovery are under oath: interrogatories – where parties answer each other’s sets of questions; depositions – where witnesses testify; and (my favorite) requests for admissions – where parties must either admit or deny assertions made by the other party.

So…

It follows that anything arguably relevant is fair game for development via discovery. There are some very interesting items of relevance to the suspending of these accounts, given the events of January 6. Surrounding, but not necessarily limited to, January 6.

An obvious defense – perhaps the obvious defense – available in these lawsuits is that the plaintiff and his followers were misusing the defendants’ platforms to engage in dangerous, criminal, even seditious, conduct. The insurrection, horrendous in itself, is also both culmination of prior activity and precursor to future threats. (What exactly is to happen, by the way, when DT is NOT restored to the presidency in August?)

So, prepare those interrogatories, draft requests for admissions, and by all means schedule multiple depositions. And remind everyone that perjury is still a crime worth prosecuting.

Why’d He Do It?

This plaintiff has employed diversionary tactics often in the past. When something negative is brewing, outrageous statements and actions meant to distract are automatic. With various state and federal prosecutors poring over records, the organization being indicted, and Rudy Giuliani’s law license being suspended in New York, the seriously negative is just beginning to percolate. Perhaps he thought a pre-emptive strike in which he portrays himself as a victim might help.

On the other hand, maybe he just wanted his bullhorn back. He isn’t the lead story much anymore. It’s awful.

Finally, it may just be his latest fund raising scam.

Regardless, he may have been better off this time staying away from courtrooms and litigation. He’s going to be seeing more of each than he’d like, some on the criminal side, soon enough.

Ken Bossong

© 2021 Kenneth J. Bossong

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March 11, and Since (We Abide)

Emerging With Perspective and Resolve

Reflection seems a natural reaction to the process of emerging, however fitfully, from the pandemic. Two areas of reflection persist because they produce sheer wonder – the appalling and the cherished. The first shouldn’t matter, but unfortunately does; the second is what matters most, but can be elusive.

I thought closing the country was a bit of an over-reaction to my 68th birthday. It is fair to say, though, that no one will ever forget my 69th year. I certainly won’t.

Yes, the country shut down on March 11, 2020. That’s the date the NBA halted operations – in at least one instance, in the middle of a game. When billionaire owners tell millionaire employees (players) to stop generating income, the response is “Whoa! This has to be serious.” In that sense, the NBA did us all a favor.

What a Year!

As crazy as the last few years leading up to my 68th birthday were, I still did not foresee some of what I saw, heard, and experienced between then and my 69th this past March 11. Among the dozens of things I may never get over are these sentiments, in no particular order, some COVID-related and some not, whether actually articulated or inherent in behavior:

COVID-19 is just another flu, if it exists at all.

I don’t care what anyone says; I’m going to do whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want. The whole thing is a hoax and an excuse to take away our freedoms. I won’t keep my distance and it’s un-American to wear a mask.

Hang Mike Pence!

[At times when infection rates and deaths were down] Distancing, delaying large gatherings, and mask wearing seem to be working. Let’s stop doing them.

The election was stolen.

COVID doesn’t worry me at all – but the vaccine, now that scares the hell out of me.

Black lives matter?! How dare you!

The “Chinese virus”, etc.

Wait. What?

Let’s pause for a moment on that last one. Isn’t “Kung flu” just a lame attempt at humor? Wish it were so, but the problem is where racist tropes inevitably lead. (And, by the way, we all know where they lead. As is well documented, it’s nothing new.) Consider: Because COVID 19 is believed (but not definitively known, mind you) to have originated in Wuhan, China, neighbors of Asian descent – any Asian descent – deserve to be not just vilified but physically attacked, even murdered? Yeah, it’s a shame people just can’t take a joke when they’re pummeled senseless, or bleeding out in the street or the ER.

Meanwhile, for all the attackers know, the attackees’ families have been making positive contributions to America far longer than their own families have even been here.

The big picture is a seemingly insatiable need for Us vs. Them (see post of 2/19/19). Any excuse to divide people will do. But no divider works as well as race.

When the UK variant was established as the most contagious and the most deadly strain, did random, vicious attacks start on people of Anglo descent? (“Are you Geoffrey Smythe?” “Yes I am. Why?” POW!)

Then There’s the Scope and Scale of It All

It’s bad enough to contemplate the sheer idiocy of what some believe. I’ve always consoled myself with the thought that the truly crazy, or genuinely evil, stuff is confined to relatively small lunatic fringes. The worst part of my 69th year – what I really can’t get over – is the dawning realization that I’ve been deluding myself.

The stunning, undeniable truth is that various groupings of millions of people believe all of the above, and more. No matter how far-fetched the story, how despicable the lie, or how obvious the falsehood, millions are willing, indeed eager, to embrace it.

The tossing aside of common sense, basic principles and core values this readily and on this scale reveals something ugly and leaves us in dangerous territory. It’s not a majority of us, but it is well beyond satirically amusing. What are people lacking in their lives? Do they need a twenty-first century “Il Duce” to tell them what to think and feel? To create, and then “solve” their problems?

Harmful lunacy wasn’t confined to the year between my birthdays, of course. Recently, an Ohio physician testified to the effect that (a) people receiving vaccine shots have been “magnetized”; (b) “there is some sort of interface…between what’s being injected and all of the 5G towers”; and (c) the vaccines have caused thousands of deaths. Rather than suggesting the doctor get the help she needs and apologizing for the hearing, an Ohio state representative gushingly thanked this Dr. Tenpenny for such expert testimony before the Ohio House Health Committee.

And Yet, Even Amid Infuriating Insanity…

I abide. We abide, as does the precious legacy of everyone we’ve lost. And we have all lost people who matter a lot. (It hasn’t all been COVID, of course. The pandemic did not supplant the normal hazards and perils of life; it piled on. Heart disease, cancer, mental illness, and accidents did not get the memo that only coronavirus could take our loved ones.)

Amid the heartbreak and pain of loss, it dawns on us: the more the person lost meant to us, the more we miss them – and the luckier we were to have had them in the first place. This is one of the inevitable, inescapable ironies of life. It may not be that the good always die young, but they do always die too young.

Perspective

A card from a good friend this year included a reprint of “For Your Birthday” by John O’Donohue. While recommended in its entirety, these lines particularly resonate:

Praised be your father and mother,
Who loved you before you were,
And trusted to call you here
With no idea who you would be.

Blessed be those who have loved you
Into becoming who you were meant to be,
Blessed be those who have crossed your life
With dark gifts of hurt and loss
That have helped to school your mind
In the art of disappointment.

When desolation surrounded you,
Blessed be those who looked for you
And found you, their kind hands
Urgent to open a blue window
In the grey wall formed around you.

Blessed be the gifts you never notice…

Consider how we love a great view. It’s as humbling as it is thrilling to gaze out upon an ocean, the Grand Canyon, a snow-capped mountain, or a shimmering lake. Awe at such beauty, the forces of nature, and the scope of it all provides the gift of perspective. We are but a speck in the world; our earth a speck in the galaxy; and our galaxy a speck in the universe. Inflated self-importance quickly fades in that context.

Then consider: Empathy, selflessness, courage, understanding, relentless effort despite adversity, a kind word or gesture – to experience these is to have one’s breath taken away as surely as by the most spectacular view. These too provide perspective – of our true significance. To care, to serve, to cherish, to love and be loved: this is to matter, to be truly human.

In this crazy year-plus, the goodness within us also surged to the surface in countless examples large and small.

Happy Birthday, Baby

Yes, we abide, but we’ve been pounded with constant reminders of our frailty and mortality. The impossible-to-comprehend number of atoms that comprise our body, along with whatever the “stuff” that forms our mind, character, conscience and soul, remain magically intertwined. It’s hard not to notice, though, that a fair amount of the hodge-podge called me doesn’t work quite as efficiently or crisply as it once did. A quick, mundane story illustrates.

Not long ago I was shooting baskets on an outdoor neighborhood court I hadn’t used before. Apparently someone had installed new nets that were still tight. After a shot actually went in, the ball got caught in the bottom of the net. Unbelievably, two or three jumps to retrieve the ball were unsuccessful. Understand that the ball was caught not between the rim and the backboard, but in the bottom of the net. Ruefully recalling a time when I could grab the rim any time I pleased, I fetched a stick. I’d love to tell you it was a short stick.

Looking Back, Assessing, Resolving, Pursuing

On March 14, 2020, three days after the country shut down on my 68th birthday, I published the post “Opening Up While Shutting Down”. So, did I take my own advice and use the time afforded by the shut down for introspection and self-improvement? Well, [clearing my throat] – let’s call it a mixed bag.

One of my frustrating quirks/faults is inefficiency with time, ironically enough. I underestimate the time required to do things, I lavish time on items unworthy of the attention, and so forth. (This is where anyone knowing me gets to smirk at the understatement employed here.) I am too slow doing things, like publishing posts.

Thinking about wonderful people gone too young and too soon, though, it’s finally occurring to me: I have a hell of a nerve. As one blessed to still be here and capable of doing some good, I owe it to them and to myself to do the best I can with what I can control, in whatever time is allotted me. We’ll see how that goes.

One of my favorite law professors, David J. K. Granfield, O.S.B., liked to say that every person has a dignity and a destiny. His point was that the Rule of Law, wisely used, both recognizes such dignity and fosters each person’s quest to fulfill their destiny. His wisdom applies to not just how we govern ourselves, but how we live.

Yes there are lies to confront, but while we’re at it, there are truth and beauty to embrace. The trick is not merely to survive the year in question. The trick’s in remaining truly alive. Genuine thriving is in the striving, even after mistakes. Especially after mistakes, lapses and failings.

If I have any sense at all, I will take none of the good for granted, seek chances to contribute, and resist temptations to do harm. Love and be grateful to be loved – by all I’ve been blessed to have and to have known in my life.

Oh, and revel in the pleasure of shooting baskets, rather than bemoan the missing vertical leap.

We matter, alright; every one of us, all the time. What we believe, what we think, what we say, what we do.

Ken Bossong

© 2021 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Reflections on a JAM – and the Jam We’re In

Art tends to both reflect and affect the cultural milieu in which it’s created. That seems especially so in the case of Jazz music.

April is designated Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM). Reflecting on that during this April revealed few aspects of Jazz history more worthy of appreciation than its significant role in Civil Rights. This is in homage to just a few of the most notable highlights – out of countless works worthy of mention.

Billie Holiday – “Strange Fruit”

It has been argued that the recording on April 30, 1939 and subsequent release of this song was the first act of America’s Civil Rights movement. Indeed, an entire book was written to make the point – Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and the Biography of a Song by David Margolick. (Echo Press, 2001. It is also found as Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights. Running Press, 2000.)

The details vary with who’s telling the story, but one account of the song’s creation is that the incomparable Lady Day was accompanied by Frankie Newton’s band at Café Society in Greenwich Village when a fan approached her with a poem he had written excoriating lynchings. The song is credited to a “Lewis Allan”; his real name was Abel Meeropol, an English teacher from the Bronx. Holiday and Newton’s pianist, Sonny White, worked out a melody and the rest is history.

It’s better, though, to read the book. It presents as more likely that Meeropol created the melody as well, and had it performed publicly a few times before it found its way to Billie. Sonny White did create the recording’s piano intro. Milt Gabler’s Commodore recorded the song when Columbia found it too hot to handle.

If you have ever heard Billie Holiday’s original rendition, you’ve likely never forgotten it. If you haven’t, as with any piece mentioned here, you owe it to yourself. She uses understatement (soft, even tones and precise diction) for one of the most effective presentations of smoldering rage ever captured. One can only imagine experiencing it live. Most accounts speak of stunned, total silence following the song’s harrowing conclusion – giving way eventually to a groundswell of applause.  It was Time Magazine’s Song of the Century.

Yusef Lateef – “Juba Juba”

The album The Blue Yusef Lateef (Atlantic 1508) contains this striking piece that manages to capture a vast swath of American music in 4:20. Based on the field holler/work song format and inspired by a prison song, the performance features wailing blues harmonica and Lateef’s masterful jazz flute. Cissy Houston’s Sweet Inspirations frame the proceedings with a gorgeous spiritual-infused vocal background. The only actual word they sing is “freedom”.

Lateef’s liner notes dedicate the piece to nineteenth-century dancer William Henry Lane, known as Juba. The art of Pattin’ Juba (also called Hambone) involved clapping hands or slapping them on thighs, knees, or ribs for complex rhythmic patterns to accompany dance. Juba was an ingenious African-American form utilizing the human body as percussive instrument.

For the listener, though, the piece needs no explanation.

Duke Ellington – “Come Sunday”

The centerpiece of Ellington’s momentous suite Black, Brown and Beige is this beloved hymn-like ballad that was the forerunner to Duke’s celebrated “sacred concerts”. Apart from rehearsal performance, the premiere was in Carnegie Hall on January 23, 1943. While words weren’t necessary to convey the meaning, Duke added lyrics later. The refrain: “Ooh Lord, dear Lord above/ God almighty, God of love/ Please look down, and see my people through.”  

The February 1958 version featuring Mahalia Jackson on Columbia (CK65566) is especially recommended.

Nina Simone – “Mississippi Goddam”

For the gifted, classically-trained pianist Eunice Kathleen Waymon, a career as a concert pianist was foreclosed before having a chance to commence. (Need we say why?) This gave the world the one-and-only singer/pianist Nina Simone. Any number of her recordings could be mentioned here, of course, but no such list would be complete without “Mississippi Goddam”. (The song’s title is usually spelled without the “n”.)

Simone recorded it often and was incapable of a poor performance. A special treat is available, however: you can watch her perform it live in Holland in 1965 on her Jazz Icons DVD. Whatever version is available, though, the most striking aspect is one of contrast.

If one were to listen casually, paying no attention to the lyrics, the impression would be of an irresistibly jaunty, even catchy, pop tune. Just reading the lyrics, however, leaves the unmistakable impression of exasperated fury. Paying attention to the integrated performance rewards the careful listener with the compelling experience of art.

Charles Mingus – “Fables of Faubus” and “Meditations on Integration”

Composer, arranger and bassist extraordinaire, Mingus is another artist for whom many brilliant works could be cited. Let’s do two.

The trauma surrounding the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957 inspired “Fables of Faubus”. It is available as an instrumental, as on the Columbia album Mingus, Ah, Um. The version you definitely want to hear, however, is from 1960 on Barnaby Candid Series Z 30561, Charles Mingus Presents the Charles Mingus Quartet. Here you get the benefit of the “vocals” between Mingus and drummer Danny Richmond as they heap invective on Arkansas governor Orval Faubus and other deserving targets. Eric Dolphy’s scathing alto sax puts finishing touches on a classic satirical put-down.

It is said Mingus considered the band he took on tour to Europe in 1964 his greatest ever. You’ll get no argument here. Even considering the formidable competition other groups present, Eric Dolphy (as, bc, and f), Clifford Jordan (ts), Jaki Byard (p), and the ever-present Dannie Richmond (d) created astounding fireworks with Mingus’s bass, apparently every night. (Johnny Coles (t) was sidelined by illness not long into the tour.) Luckily, this group was both recorded (Prestige 34001) and filmed (Jazz Icons DVD).

From this tour emerged one of Mingus’s masterpieces, the complex and beautiful “Meditations on Integration”. The DVD has three different versions. With improvisers of this caliber, each version has much to commend it. The tour-de-force recorded in Belgium, however, is astounding. Dolphy is at his incomparable best on both bass clarinet and flute; Byard takes us on a tour of 20th Century piano form Harlem stride to swing to bebop and beyond; and Jordan does some serious testifying on tenor. The band is telepathic in response to each other’s inventions; seeing creativity on this level with such skill and passion is a thrill.

John Coltrane – “Alabama” (Live at Birdland and Jazz Casual)

Musicians and fans alike eagerly awaited each recording of Coltrane’s Classic Quartet (McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones); Live At Birdland (Impulse A-50) was no different. The incendiary “Afro-Blue” was thrilling, but the haunting “Alabama” was the perfect example of no-lyrics-necessary.

One of the most heinous acts of the 1960s was the bombing by Klan cowards of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on September 15, 1963. Set to maximize harm on a Sunday morning, the bomb injured many and killed four little girls – Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley.

Even on first listening, there can be no doubt what “Alabama” is, and what it means.

Luckily, this too has a version to be viewed. On December 7, 1963, ‘Trane’s Quartet appeared on Jazz critic Ralph Gleason’s TV show, Jazz Casual. The DVD features “Afro-Blue”, “Alabama”, and “Impressions”.

Max Roach – “The Dream/It’s Time”, “Mendacity”; and We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (entire album)

Chattahoochee Red (Columbia FC 37376) is not one of master drummer Max Roach’s most famous albums, but it features the two-part “The Dream/It’s Time”. The piece opens with an amazing duet of sorts: Max drumming accompaniment to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. It then morphs into “It’s Time”, the title track from a marvelous Roach record on Impulse (A-16).

Another Impulse album (A-8), and one of his best, Percussion Bitter Sweet, gives us Max’s celebrated tribute to Marcus Garvey, “Garvey’s Ghost” and “Mendacity”, a send-up of the dishonesty that is inevitably built into systemic racism. Each cut highlights the remarkable vocalist Abbey Lincoln, who had rejected record producers’ attempts to rely on her physical beauty to sell comfortably popular music.

Then there is We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, originally recorded on Candid in 1960 and re-released by Columbia (JC 36390) twenty years later. Abbey Lincoln is featured throughout an album that took all-in commitment from the leader and each musician to achieve.

Start with “Driva’ Man” as it invokes history’s harsh realities, then the elegant and hopeful “Freedom Day”, before proceeding (if you dare) to “Tryptich: Prayer/Protest/Peace”. On the latter’s challenging journey, Lincoln’s wordless vocals pair with Roach’s drums. How challenging is it? The middle section is the primal scream of these works; it’s hard to imagine Abbey did not harm her vocal chords conveying such rage. She is back to chant the names of African tribes in “All Africa”, which transitions into “Tears for Johannesburg”, and the close.

Conclusion: What a JAM!

About a century after passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, it took real courage in addition to unmatched skill to record the works mentioned here. Such music (and much else like it) clearly made inroads. Thus the unforgivable Jim Crow era was interrupted by occasional, sporadic events encompassing or resembling progress, like Brown v. Board of Education, and passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

I have marked anniversaries of the Supreme Court decision in Brown with presentations that use these and other musical triumphs. The presentation is called “With All Deliberate Speed”, which was how the Court directed that Brown be implemented in the 1955 follow-up case Brown II. Since there is still de facto segregation in many areas’ schools, despite some progress, we can see how that’s gone. It’s been deliberate, alright.

Yet, another half century has passed and we are relieved (!) that a murder committed in plain view, and recorded for all to see, actually results in a conviction. A political party loses the Presidency and the Senate, and concludes the lesson to be learned is not the need to earn back the voters’ trust and support, but the need to suppress votes.

We’ve been in a major “jam” of our own making for decades, indeed for centuries. It is the sheer, destructive insanity of racism.

Jazz Appreciation Month 2021 provided a perfect opportunity to reflect on all this. I kept coming back to perhaps my favorite song of all from this period, “Retribution “, from one of Abbey Lincoln’s two greatest albums as a leader, Straight Ahead. (The title track is almost as good, by the way: “Straight ahead, the road keeps winding…”)

Nothing replaces hearing it, of course – “Give me…NOTHING” – but Abbey’s “Retribution” lyrics perfectly capture the proper perspective:

Never was a child
Living life since I was ten
Heard every story told
Been everywhere but in
And I ain’t disillusioned
Always knew confusion’s story

Don’t want no silver spoon
Ain’t asking for the moon
Give me nothing
Don’t want no favors done
Just let the retribution
Match the contribution, baby

No street that’s paved with gold
Don’t need no hand to hold
Hand me nothing
Don’t want no sad song sung
Just let the retribution
Match the contribution, baby

Suggesting “It’s Time!” branded Max Roach a daring radical in 1962. In truth, it was ridiculously, appallingly past time even then – and that was 59 years ago.

For God’s sake.

Ken Bossong

© 2021 Kenneth J. Bossong

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After a Glimpse Into the Abyss, It’s Truth or Bust

If I had written seven to ten years ago a satire depicting what has actually happened in the last five years, it would have been universally dismissed as too outlandish, and too dark to be funny. That could never happen here.

Now that it has happened, and threatens to continue, we the people have work to do.

Of all the assaults on societal norms in the last four years, the worst (and that’s saying something) is probably the assault on truth. We have been awash in a never-ending torrent of every kind of dishonesty.

This is no accident, or unfortunate byproduct of carelessness. It is a deliberate and appallingly effective strategy. Even worse than the volume and the outrageousness of the lies is the liars’ desired outcome: convincing people – lots of people, as many as possible – that square is round if they say so.

It’s not just about fooling people, then; it’s getting them to submit to the notion that the difference between true and false either doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist.

That’s where we are teetering, it seems, with millions of Americans. That matters, tremendously. So much does it matter that (other than combating the pandemic) our top priority as a nation should be committing to truthfulness – all the time, every one of us, even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts. In big things and in small.

What To Do Right Now on a National Level

Address Compellingly the Most Destructive Lies Circulating

At the top of the list is the apparent belief of millions of Americans in various ways that “the election was stolen.” It’s not enough to just call these beliefs “debunked” or “discredited”, though they certainly are both. Such blithe and passing characterizations assume that the facts are self-evident. That assumption is not serving us well as a nation.

For one thing, it’s condescending. For another, those holding such beliefs assume the “other side” is lying. People willing to steal an election would be willing to lie about it, they might suppose. It behooves us to have inarguable facts available to every American of good faith interested in the truth. Those too far gone to care what’s true are not the target audience here.

There seem to be five or six of these myths that are particularly widespread. Let’s consider two examples.

More Votes than Voters

One we keep hearing is that 200,000 more people voted in Pennsylvania than were registered to vote. Donald Trump’s tweeted version was that there were “205,000 more votes than voters.” I gather this is not only demonstrably false, but a misrepresentation of the original falsehood.

It seems Pennsylvania State Rep. Frank Ryan issued a release saying the Department of State have 202,377 more people voting at all (including 170,830 more voting for President) than a system called SURE had reported from voting in all the counties combined. The PA Department of State pointed out that Ryan had accessed incomplete information from SURE, before a number of counties had entered final data. That’s all there is to it, apparently.

In saner times, such an embarrassing misrepresentation would be withdrawn with a sheepish apology. That it hasn’t and continues to be repeated means we need a respected, non-partisan entity to destroy this lie in clear, unmistakable detail. Then publish and widely disseminate the analysis with similarly undeniable truth on other 2020-election-stolen whoppers.

The Old “Dead People Voted” Thing

Another widespread myth is the notion that tens of thousands of dead people voted. No, they didn’t. It still seems there is precisely one known case where a man had his long-dead mother vote in Pennsylvania (and he had her vote for Trump, no less). From Trump’s infamous January 2 phone call to Georgia’s (Republican) Secretary of State we know he was told directly that the number of dead people voting cases there was two. Yes, two.

There is no reason to believe any appreciable number of “dead people voted” in this election anywhere. So, we need that apolitical entity to gather all the information for each of the swing states.

Explain Clearly the Significance of the Dismissed Lawsuits

How Courts Work

Start with a reminder on how the courts work. The Judiciary is the branch of government that interprets the law, and then applies it to the facts found in deciding specific disputes. A party must prove a case in order to win it. Courts are where rumors, lies, and unsupported assertions go to die. Lawsuits seeking to overturn an election understandably have a significant burden to present compelling proof.

To grasp these election cases’ results, it helps to consider stages at which a case might fail. One can lose at trial, whether by judge or jury. Before that, there is summary judgment where one side convinces a judge that even if every allegation of the other side were believed, they still cannot win. Even before that, there is simple dismissal in many jurisdictions, where the court just throws out the case because there’s nothing there.

As might be expected, judges do not enjoy being reversed on appeal. If there’s any chance a case has merit, they’ll deny summary judgment to allow the finders of fact to figure it out at trial, with the rules of evidence in effect. Judges are even more reluctant to simply dismiss.

What Happened to the 60+ Cases

Of the over 60 cases filed contesting 2020 election results, it seems one motion was won. It involved the interpretation of a technical aspect of a law in Pennsylvania. The result had no practical effect on the outcome in Pennsylvania. Every other case lost.

Important to note: these cases did not just lose. Exasperated and incredulous judges summarily tossed them out as frivolous. THERE IS, LITERALLY, NO REASON TO BELIEVE THE 2020 ELECTION WAS STOLEN. NONE.

Again, a reputable entity with no axe to grind would help here. Get into details on some of the cases. That might include: how there weren’t even sensible allegations, much less any proof, in some cases; when supposed witnesses refused to come forth under oath; whether anyone is facing charges of perjury;  and if lawyers are facing ethics charges for filing frivolous pleadings, false affidavits, or anything in bad faith. Even if neither disciplined nor sanctioned, by the way, lawyers ruin their reputations filing rubbish in court.

Donald Trump was outraged that his appointing of judges did not make them his stooges. What we’ve been through should end any doubt about the critical importance of a truly independent judiciary.

What to Do Right Now on a Personal Level

In short: (1) hold ourselves to the highest standards of scrupulousness; and (2) refuse, however nicely, to accept known falsehoods from others.

Sending Information

Be scrupulous in what each of us says or sends. That includes care with important details, checking before forwarding or repeating; being skeptical of facts that don’t sound right; avoiding spin and exaggeration of facts either positive to one’s position or negative to others’; and exploring and admitting facts counter to our position.

That last one is interesting. Thomas Aquinas urged advocates to build up the opponent’s position before taking it apart, rather than denying any merit. It was good advice. Meanwhile, finding ourselves tempted to bend the truth in support of our position dictates considering what’s wrong with our position.

Receiving Information

Even as we hold ourselves accountable for telling the truth, so must we hold others, however nicely. The receiving end of false information has its own important challenges. Experience makes one a big fan of diplomacy, even while admitting it’s sometimes hard not to feel exasperation. As hard as it can be, a tactful, respectful, calm presentation of fact and perspective works best.

The question here is whether we’re engaging with another to get something off our chest, or to persuade. It is generally not effective to yell “That’s [expletive], you [expletive]ing [expletive]!!!” So if we’re looking to actually accomplish something, it’s take a deep breath and think about what we know that makes the information false, or where we can find a trustworthy, compelling answer.

To be clear, the approach suggested here is toward people of good will who have been conned. Those in high places who’ve been knowingly spreading such destructive lies are entirely different. Hold them to account, call them any name they deserve, and vote them out.

Humility’s Role

Unless you’re very different than I, you’ve been wrong more than a couple of times. And you’ve been “had” a few times as well. (See post of November 19, 2020.) It is neither fun nor easy to admit; sometimes it takes a while. The process of getting over being conned is somewhat similar to grieving, especially when we trusted, cared about, or held in high esteem the person or group who misled us. The stages can include slow realization, denial, anger, and embarrassment bordering on shame.

A dose of humility can help summon the patience it takes to give folks we care about the space they need to get over being conned. As essential as it is to counter falsehoods, it’s just as important to do so effectively – respectfully and with the truth.

Summary

It’s hard to believe we must exhort each other this way, but the saying is true: Honesty really is the best policy. And it’s anything but naiveté. We’ve seen where it brings us when we slip from spin to less than the whole truth, to little lies, to constant lies, to big lies, to constant Big Lies.

We can’t have it. None of it is acceptable, especially from persons in positions of trust, and from media outlets presenting themselves as “News”.

The Election of 2020 was actually a triumph of American democracy. In the midst of the worst pandemic in 100 years, more Americans than ever voted in the cleanest election it is possible to conduct in the real world. Voter suppression may have had an impact on the margins of the outcome, but it didn’t work regarding the outcome. Even the farcical hindering of the Post Office didn’t work. Extraordinary.

Yet, a series of endlessly repeated lies by the election’s loser, and his supporters, created an opening for our country’s enemies to dismiss our way of life as a pitiful sham. The culmination, at least so far, was on January 6, of course. Talk about un-American activity! It was planned and calculated to do us the most harm possible. It was also the last thing a new President needed.

As previously posted (again, post of November 19), Joe Biden, the Congress, federal and state prosecutors, ethics officials, and we citizens all must do our jobs.

After a glimpse into the abyss, it’s Truth or Bust. Demanding truth is not a luxury. Real patriotism requires nothing less.

Ken Bossong

© 2021 Kenneth J. Bossong

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This Should Be Interesting

Is You Is or Is you Ain’t?

For four years, most congressional Republicans have enabled and abetted Donald Trump’s criminal enterprise in the White House. Presumably, many of them were hoping to seek plausible deniability with “What was I to do? He was a President from my party!” after Trump was gone.

Thanks to the Mo Brooks, the Josh Hawleys, and the Ted Cruzes of the world, slipping quietly back into the ooze is no longer an option. (Oh, there’s a swamp in Washington, alright, but it consists not of talented, hardworking career public servants.) These guys seek to turn Wednesday’s joint-session formality of certifying Electoral College votes into the election reversal that it cannot be. Just when you thought nothing could be more embarrassing than all those utterly frivolous lawsuits…

This forces Republicans to take a stand, with the world watching. Mitch McConnell tried to stave this off, since it is a nightmare for the likes of him.

All will, in effect, declare whether they are members of the Republican Party or of the apparently newly-minted Trump Fascist Party. (Thank you, author Dick Hermann.) So, GOP or TFP? Will you begin the daunting process of reclaiming and restoring the party of Lincoln? Or will you try to vitiate the votes of millions of Americans, based on nothing, in a fruitless attempt to curry favor with a nihilist?

Treachery and Foolishness and Hypocrisy – Oh, My!

Members of Congress all know that Biden won the election, since there is literally no reason to believe otherwise. They know this was the cleanest election that can be had in the real world. Last I heard, there was precisely one case of a “dead person voting” actually proven. Some doofus in Pennsylvania acted to have his long-dead mother vote. For Trump.

The ones still trying to have it both ways must be incapable of shame for saying “It’s not ME, but all the people who believe this election was stolen. I’ve gotta represent them.” This is a weird combination of transparent hypocrisy and a boast about convincing many people of Trump’s stolen election lie. Feigning concern over non-existent voter fraud in order to attempt negating real votes is a special kind of treachery.

Another of Trump’s favorite Big Lies (the tactic itself a fascist favorite) is that a free press is “the enemy of the people”. He thus manages to emulate both Stalin and Goebbels, among others of history’s worst actors. On Wednesday, January 6, 2021, some real enemies of the people get to self-identify and join their hero in his march to infamy.

That act is absolutely disqualifying for future public service of any kind, at any level.

Meanwhile, one is left to hope the two-hour debates in each house of Congress will include a few true patriots rising to defend our country and its Constitution in words that resonate for years to come.

Tens of millions of us are watching. We will not forget and we will use our votes accordingly – for years to come.

Ken Bossong

© 2021 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Earl Hooker (1929-1970)

Other Aspects Names First Winner of its Zebedee Award: the Greatest Guitarist All Should Know

Some artists are so far ahead of their time that the world isn’t ready for their genius. Some are their own worst enemies. Others are simply unlucky. Racism can raise its ugly head. Sometimes it’s a combination of factors. Whatever the cause, though, too many truly great musicians live, create, and die in relative obscurity.

One goal of this blog is to shine a light on musicians who are not as known or appreciated as they should be. There are at least two reasons. (1) The musicians deserve wider recognition, usually both for their brilliance and their importance as artists. (2) Listeners deserve to have their lives enriched by hearing them.

Henceforth, Other Aspects will recognize special, underappreciated musicians with its soon-to-be-coveted Zebedee Award (the “Zeb”, for short).

The first Zeb goes to the blues guitarist after whom it is named: Earl Zebedee Hooker. If you’ve never heard of him, do yourself a favor and dig in. If you play the guitar, or love listening to someone who really can, you are in for a treat.

Guitar Wizard

Virtuosity

Whatever one’s favorite manifestation of virtuosity on the guitar – sheer speed, tone, swing, timing, taste, or inventive improvisation – it’s in ample supply with Hooker. From exhilarating single-note runs to impeccable accompaniment, delights come at the listener from all angles, no matter the setting or the song.

That taste element is worth emphasizing. With his chops, it must have been tempting to use everything in his arsenal to just blister any musician around him. That never happens. Whether leader or sideman on a given date, Earl made everything being played and everyone around him better – even as he dazzled. He also made it seem easy.

Versatility

Hooker was a bluesman through and through, but there seems nothing he couldn’t play, and well. On the list of the great Blues guitarists, no one can match Earl’s amazing versatility. Jazz, rock, country and western –all could be featured in improvised bursts or sustained throughout a piece. That last genre is neither a misprint nor just thrown onto the list, by the way. If the Blues scene were slow, Earl Hooker would just gig with a band playing (as the joke goes) country OR western.

Bottleneck/Slide

Like all other guitarists, Earl was influenced by T-Bone Walker and B.B. King. Unlike many of his generation, though, B.B. was not his principal mentor. That distinction goes to the much less famous Robert Nighthawk, especially with regard to bottlenecking. As country blues morphed into urban, the technique of bottlenecking wasn’t dropped, but changed.

Metal slides replaced broken or sawed off necks of glass bottles on the finger, but the big change was the eerie sustain possible with electrical amplification. Muddy Waters and Elmore James created unmistakably personal sounds with the slide, even while bringing the essence of masters like Blind Willie Johnson, Son House, and Robert Johnson to the city.

Nighthawk, an interesting character in his own right, seems to have created a lithe approach more out of Tampa Red’s influence. He certainly took the young Earl Hooker under his wing; Hooker’s talent and skill would take Nighthawk’s approach to unimagined heights. One key was the use of a smaller slide to allow rapid alternating between it and regular fretting – even within the same note. While Elmore often created his majestic sound by sliding chords, Earl was just as inclined to use it on individual notes.

Other Devices

No purist he, Hooker was on the cutting edge of technical advances as they became available. Echo, delay, and especially the wah-wah pedal were eagerly embraced. As much as Earl loved his gizmos, though, he insisted they be musical instruments- not just gimmicks. He demanded of himself both mastery and integration of the toys into his approach to music before subjecting the public to the new sound. Once mastered, though, each tool was instantly available to Hooker.

Vocalist

Earl Hooker as a singer is an oddly complicated topic. The easy facts to relate are that he didn’t sing much, and the lack of vocals almost certainly were an impediment to stardom. Some say he couldn’t sing, yet there are recorded examples that range from effective to rather good.

So, is it that Earl couldn’t, or simply didn’t, sing much? The topic is addressed in Danchin’s biography, and it does seem that Hooker both did not like to sing and simply loved to play guitar – his real voice. Interestingly, Hooker was remarkably adept at making his guitar sound like a human voice, even to the point of simulating words.

In an interview with the founder of Arhoolie records, Chris Strachwitz, Earl uses the word “ashamed” in reference to his singing. He seems to be referring to a lack of strength and wind, which would result from his lifelong battle with tuberculosis. Another possible factor is a trait he shared with his cousin John Lee Hooker – a fairly pronounced stutter when speaking. Though not evident in Earl’s recorded vocals, it may have contributed to his reluctance to sing.

In any event, there was no telling who besides Earl might be handling the vocal on an Earl Hooker record – from A. C. Reed, Lillian Offitt, Harold Tidwell, and Junior Wells in the earlier years to Andrew “Voice” Odom, Johnny “Big Moose” Walker. Toward the end, as we’ll see, ABC Bluesway had the good sense to have Earl play lead guitar on a series of great albums featuring well-known singers. While Earl was a better singer than he thought he was, finding singers willing to work with a guitarist of Hooker’s ability was not a problem.

Relative Obscurity

Earl Hooker’s too-short life is packed with contradictions and unique aspects; even his obscurity is unique. While true that, during his life as now, few music fans could tell you who he is, there were many small pockets of devoted fans all over the country. Those who got to see this itinerant bluesman perform live in small clubs and juke joints wouldn’t forget his electrifying performances and couldn’t wait until he got back to their town.

Earl was a superstar mainly to other musicians. Their regard for Hooker’s artistry was the impetus for a full-fledged biography, Earl Hooker, Blues Master, by Sebastian Danchin (2001, University Press of Mississippi). The Blues Music Hall of Fame named the book its 2020 Classic of Blues Literature – and deservedly so, for the exhaustive research, documentation, insights, and quality writing. The book’s subject was a 2016 HOF inductee.

If you haven’t heard Earl, but his last name sounds familiar, that is probably because of his much more famous second cousin, the iconic John Lee Hooker. One doesn’t have to be a Blues aficionado to know who he is. Before moving on from John Lee, however, let’s say this: If you know him just for his guitar boogies, you’ve missed the best parts. Go back to earlier stuff, where he was one of the essential bridges between rural and urban blues, and one of the most moving primal forces ever to sing the Blues.

Born near Clarksdale, Mississippi probably (though not certainly) on January 15, 1929, Earl Hooker moved with his parents to Chicago sometime in 1930. Thus, he was born into Jim Crow America and was part of the great migration from the Delta to the urban North.

He started playing guitar as a kid. Spectacularly disinterested in schooling, an eleven to twelve year old Earl would dodge truant officers while playing for change with his buddies on Southside street corners. One of those friends was Ellas McDaniel, later known as rock pioneer Bo Diddley. By later in his teens, he was traveling and playing all over the South and Midwest. Except as limited by the tuberculosis that eventually would take him, Earl Hooker was the urban version of the itinerant bluesman for the rest of his life.

Character-and-a-Half

Playing For the Door

Those who knew Earl loved him, except when they wanted to kill him. Hooker was a piece of work, alright, and in several different, exasperating ways. While very few could stay mad at him indefinitely, there can be little doubt that Hooker’s eccentricities and flaws hurt him over the long haul.

Of course, the life of an itinerant musician, especially a Black blues man in the ‘50s and ‘60s, was no walk in the park under the best circumstances. A favorite story in Danchin’s biography involves the common practice of a traveling band “playing for the door”. This meant the club made what it could on food and drink, while the band got paid what was collected at the entrance door in cover charges. In the Social-Darwinism world of the music circuit, club owners had every incentive to understate the cover charges collected.

One night, after playing to a packed house all night in Lake Charles, Louisiana, the owner told Earl he didn’t have much coming. When Earl told him he had seen the SRO crowd in the club, the owner dismissed him with “You were playing for the door, and this is all we got at the door.” So, Hooker and others in the band took the club’s door off its hinges and put it in their bus. “Hey, what you all doin’?!” “We just played for the door”, Hooker replied, “and now it’s mine.” More appropriate negotiations ensued.

Other Misadventures

As funny as the story is, it is no less dismaying to learn that Earl would turn around and do exactly the same thing to his sidemen. He was notorious for underpaying his band. Earl owned the band’s limo or bus and did all the driving, which made it difficult for band members to quit in the middle of a road trip. Some quit anyway and used what was left of their money (or earned some if there wasn’t enough) for bus fare home.  Apart from a few mainstays in the band who did better, there was constant turnover. Earl just recruited talented but less experienced and more naïve young talent.

Yet, Earl Hooker was also renowned for generously sharing his time and expertise with young musicians, including tips on how to play and how to cope. Earl may have brought more good young talent to Chicago, and into the Blues, than anyone.

When he recruited singers who sounded like someone with hit records, Earl encouraged them to call themselves a name reminiscent of the more famous singer. His tenor sax man Aaron Corthen sounded a lot like Jimmy Reed (dozens of hits for Vee-Jay records) when he sang. So Earl had him change his name to A. C. Reed, suggesting without saying that he was Jimmy’s younger brother. Soon there were Little [Famous Singer]s or [Famous Singer] Juniors all over the place.

Sometimes Earl had his newfound talents pretend to actually be the star. Once singer Ricky Allen, who had had a few hits with Earl, booked a gig only to learn he was competing with himself. Hooker was playing right down the street featuring singer “Ricky Allen”.

The book mentions another bad habit, previously unknown to me, that undoubtedly hurt Hooker over time: helping himself to stuff, including equipment. If a club owner notices a microphone missing after you’ve played, how likely is he to book you in the future?

As for the women and children in his life: Let’s just say Earl’s funeral was chaotic, adding to the distress of Bertha, Earl’s wife of seven years. Bertha, whose favorable portrayal in Danchin’s bio rings true, maintained her Catron home in southern Missouri. It was Earl’s other home base, but his legal residence remained his mother’s place in Chicago. Yet, whatever his ramblings had been, Earl was a loving, caring and generous husband to Bertha and her two children from a previous marriage – when he was there.

Recordings

The quantity is not what it should have been, but Earl took care of the quality. It’s helpful to divide Hooker’s recording career into three segments.

The first, consisting of most of his career from the Fifties into the early Sixties, saw sporadic recording of singles on small labels like King, Argo, States, Bea & Baby, Chief, Age, and Mel-Lon. The last three of these labels were owned and run by Mel London.

Acting on a tip from Buddy Guy that Hooker was the Chicago guitarist to record next, Chris Strachwitz signed Earl on the spot for his Arhoolie label after seeing him at the White Rose in Chicago on November 9, 1968. The resulting records are the second segment.

A third phase of Hooker’s recording career came about when cousin John Lee used Earl’s group as his band for a few engagements in California and then a recording session for ABC Bluesway. Producer Ed Michel quickly signed Earl for future recordings.

Early Stuff/Mel London

Most of Earl’s best early stuff was done for Mel London. He was a musician and talented song-writer (Junior Wells’ first two hits “Little By Little” and “Messin’ With the Kid”). That, combined with decency and attention to detail, allowed Earl to flourish. Classic instrumentals like “Blue Guitar”, “Universal Rock”, “Blues in D Natural” and “Rockin’ Wild” will be featured in any compilation of this material one can find.

Then there’s the soaring “Calling All Blues”, one of the masterpieces of instrumental blues. Earl’s slide guitar and Junior Wells’ chromatic harmonica push each other to astounding heights. (Yes, Junior did go from one of the all-time great guitarists, Earl, to another, Buddy Guy. See the 5/10/20 post “Dynamic Musical Duos”.)

Some of the singles feature fine vocals by saxophonist A. C. Reed (“This Little Voice”, “Lotta Lovin’”), drummer Harold Tidwell (“Swear to Tell the Truth” also featuring Big Moose Walker’s early electric piano), and Lillian Offitt (“Oh Mama”, “Will My Man Be Home Tonight”). That last is notable for two things: (1) Offitt’s vocal includes an ill-advised (to these  ears) crying sequence that manages not to ruin a good song; and (2) The tune’s melody became a favorite warm-up instrumental, called “I Wonder Why”, for other great guitarists like Otis Rush.

The instrumental “Blue Guitar” later became a vocal when Muddy Waters took the entire performance and dubbed a vocal, “You Shook Me”, over it. There are a few oddities in the early stuff, like” Apache War Dance” and “Galloping Horses, A Lazy Mule”, but even these are salvaged somewhat by Earl’s guitar.

Arhoolie

There were three LPs – Two Bugs and a Roach, Hooker And Steve, and Earl Hooker, His First and Last Recordings. They more-or-less became two CDs – Two Bugs and a Roach, with some of his first recordings added and The Moon Is Rising, which is the Hooker And Steve LP, with some of his last recordings. The recommendation here is for both CDs.

The first Arhoolie, Two Bugs and a Roach, is essential, the album to get if you’re only getting one. The CD features three (!) very good vocals by Earl: his superb redo of Robert Blackhawk’s “Anna Lee”, “You Don’t Want Me”, and an early “I’m Going Down the Line” from 1953. Other highlights include the title track (discussed below), harmonica great Carey Bell’s first appearance on record, a vocal by Andrew Odom, and the steel guitar of Fred Roulette, (blending beautifully with Earl’s guitar stylings).

Then there’s “Wah Wah Blues” – masterful almost beyond description, it is the epitome of turning what could be a gimmick into beautiful music. Jimi Hendrix took the pedal in a different direction to enormous success, but there can be little doubt where his inspiration arose.

The second Arhoolie starts with another lengthy cover of a Blackhawk number that gives the CD its name; it’s nearly as good as “Anna Lee”. While still mostly quite good, the LP is no match for Two Bugs and a Roach, but the CD The Moon Is Rising is hugely enhanced by the add-ons. These consist of four improvisations by Earl recorded live by Hooker’s friend Dick Shurman in Chicago clubs – “Dust My Broom”, “Frosty”, “Can’t Hold Out Much Longer”, and “Swingin’ at Theresa’s”. This is the closest we will ever come to experiencing Earl Hooker in the setting he loved best: just playing for the people in a club he liked. It’s tempting to put these cuts on continuous loop and listen indefinitely.

The ABC Bluesway Series

Thank goodness John Lee Hooker brought Earl and his guys to the recording session. Understandably delighted with the album featuring the Hooker cousins, If You Miss ‘Im…I Got ‘Im, producer Ed Michel signed Earl and the band. It turned into a marvelous series of six more albums featuring Earl:

  1. Earl Hooker, Don’t Have To Worry (recorded same day as John Lee’s album, 5/29/69)
  2. Andrew “Voice” Odom, Farther On Down The Road (6/4/69)
  3. Johnny Big Moose Walker, Rambling Woman (6/9/69)
  4. Jimmy Witherspoon, Hunh! (9/15/69)
  5. Charles Brown, Legend (9/16/69)
  6. Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry with Earl Hooker, I Couldn’t Believe My Eyes (9/24/69)

So, the first three headlined Earl and two of his band members, who were also two of his best friends and collaborators over the years. The last three had Earl playing lead guitar for world-famous Blues singers with good supporting casts. Earl is superb on all. Any fan of Witherspoon, Brown, or Sonny & Brownie must hear albums 4, 5, and 6 respectively. They, along with albums 1 and 2 and the John Lee are recommended without reservation.

There are two aspects of Walker’s album #3 worth mentioning. Terrific over the years on both piano and organ, Big Moose’s vocals are, to me, uneven. With the right vehicle (“Would You Baby”), he’s effective. Otherwise, it seems a reach.  The record’s other acquired taste is Otis Hale’s tenor sax. It is electrified, with a wah-wah pedal that is used incessantly. Though fun in spots, sublime it is not.

Here are a few thoughts on the other albums. #1 would be another good place to start exploring Earl Hooker, with two good vocals by Earl, three by Odom, and great instrumentals, including a “Universal Rock” even better than the original. #5’s critical acclaim was richly deserved. Re-creations of Charles Brown’s classics “Drifting Blues”, Black Night”, and “Merry Christmas Baby” are the highlights. Andrew Odom was nobody’s junior as a fine blues singer, as #2 attests, even if Hooker called him “B.B. King, Jr.”  Earl is incredible supporting his favorite singer, including one of the best versions ever of T-Bone Walker’s anthem, “Stormy Monday”.

Finally, there’s #6, Earl’s last studio recording. From the bio, Ed Michel and Danchin apparently both considered the pairing of Terry and McGhee with urban bluesmen disappointing – “the mixing of these various ingredients sounds pointless because the musicians fail to adjust themselves to the situation” (p. 300). I couldn’t disagree more. It’s a wonderful album, well worthy of anyone’s attention. The playing, the singing, and the songs themselves are all top-notch. A few of the songs, including the title track and “Tell Me Why”, are sadly and startlingly relevant to this day.

Video

There is very little video of Earl Hooker, unfortunately. What little exists all seems to come from the American Folk Blues Festival tour in 1969. This is Volume 2 of a DVD series, all of which is priceless for capturing blues legends performing for appreciative European audiences in the ‘60s. Earl’s individual on-stage performances are limited to two instrumentals. Backstage snippets, including him entertaining the entourage with Ernest Tubbs’ “Walking The Floor Over You”, give a glimpse of Earl’s persona.

That TB Bug

One should not have to die of TB in 1970, but Earl Hooker did. Whether he simply wouldn’t or just couldn’t, Earl Hooker certainly didn’t take care of himself. He traveled, worked, and played himself to exhaustion – stopping only when he had to be admitted to the hospital. Then he’d leave medical care too soon and start the cycle all over again.

In addition to Earl’s typically stellar playing, the title track from Two Bugs and a Roach features a spoken interplay between Hooker and Andrew “Voice” Odom. Odom opens, asking Earl where he’s been so long. 1919 West Taylor, Hooker replies, giving the State TB Hospital’s address where he’d been confined for months. He’d been messing around with Dr. Newhouse; he had to get rid of that TB Bug. How’d he do that? By hittin’ it something like this! Then Earl launches into a rip roaring guitar solo.

The humor in this exchange is more literally of a “whistling past the graveyard” nature than anyone would have wanted for Earl. He played, and lived, like someone well aware of how finite one’s life is. It was recorded on November 16, 1968; TB took Earl Hooker on April 21, 1970. He did indeed attack life’s difficulties by hitting it on his guitar.

Coda

Without Mel London, Chris Strachwitz, and Ed Michel, we’d have little but stories to celebrate. Thanks to them, we get to revel in a singular man’s gifts. At one time or another, a very long list of the greatest guitarists has called Earl Hooker the best electric guitarist of his generation, or ever. Enjoy!

In a season for the blessings of Hope and aspirations for Peace that is darker than usual, there’s this: Amid our faults, limitations and idiosyncrasies, the glory is in the striving. Whatever unique gifts and flaws are ours, how special what’s possible can be.

Ken Bossong

© 2020 Kenneth J. Bossong