Flying diplomats, Religion, and Horse Dung: Or, A Matter of Perspective

A priest walks into a bar and says ouch. Well, Not quite like that, but not far off, either.

A discussion in class today resulted in a fellow classmate made the argument that Catholicism is fundamentally anti-democratic.  I was a little shocked by this statement, considering this was in a masters level teacher training course where one would hope prejudice would not rear up. I am not a catholic and have no great desire to defend their beliefs from slander, but still… Really? Anti-democratic? Are we still in the 17th century?

The key to unlocking this debate lies in perspective.

To demonstrate this, lets go back to the city of Prague in 1618.  The protestant reformation was in full swing, and the powers of Europe were aligning themselves for a massive showdown to determine who would be the new power brokers in central Europe.  Central to this struggle was the election of a new Holy Roman Emperor, and a key player in this was the King of Bohemia, who held a seat as an elector. Bohemia had long been a hotbed of resistance towards Catholicism, producing heretics and reformers in droves. as the reformation in Europe took hold, many bohemian nobles had officially switched their allegiance from the catholic Church and the Holy Roman Emperor to the protestant cause. These nobles had enjoyed a great deal of freedom thanks to an edict of tolerance from a past emperor, but tensions were bound to erupt, as  they did in 1618. The new emperor had sent his regent, Count Martinitz, to oversee the city of Prague and assert hard-line Catholicism as the religion of the region.

On May 23rd, 1618, four bohemian knights bribed their way into the castle, stormed up to the tower where Martinitz and his secretary were staying, and tossed them out of the tower window. This “defenestration of Prague”, as it became known, was one of the major sparking points for the 30 Years War. Despite the 30 meter fall from the window into a dry and rocky moat, both Marinitz and his secretary survived! This is where perspective comes into play. Catholic reports of this event paint a scene where a godly man is nabbed by rude villains who, when Martinitz asks to confess before death, state, “We will (throw out) a villainous Jesuit after you!” They do not allow poor Martinitz to even put on his hat before being ejected from the tower! How rude!  The witnesses take it from here:

“As he fell, he called out the names of Jesus and Mary, and he landed so gently on the ground that it was as if he were merely sitting down so that his plea to the Virgin Mary and the protection of God during this terrible fall saved him from all harm despite his corpulent body.  Several devout and trustworthy people have also affirmed that whilst going with the procession over the bridge they saw the most serene Virgin Mary catch the gentleman in the air with her cloak and carry him to earth.  Count Martinitz did not see this himself but during the fall he had a vision that heaven was opening and that God wished to take him up to everlasting happiness.”

Lovely, isn’t it? I really, really want to believe that actually happened. As witnesses reported it, perhaps I should? But wait, there’s more! Protestants claim that the Count was saved from injury due to A: his corpulence, and B: the large pile of horse manure that he landed in. Typical protestant skepticism, right ? Where’s the magic, mystery and wonder? It’s not like the protestants lack their own share of dubious miracles.  It’s all a matter of perspective.

I grew up in a Seventh-day Adventist community. SDAs are protestants of the puritan tradition, and as such, very skeptical people. Despite this,  their church is founded on the writings of a lady who got hit on the head with a rock and started having visions! I don’t mean to criticize Adventists any more than I mean to poke fun of Catholics. Well, perhaps poke a little fun, but I do respect both belief systems, although for totally different reasons.  One person’s head injury is another person’s divine inspiration. Another person’s rescue by angelic beings is another person’s pile of horse dung. Literally.

There are two lessons I want to draw from this:

First, let’s not take our beliefs so seriously that we cannot poke a little fun at ourselves now and then. This goes for political beliefs as well. Being able to see the absurd in what we believe does not diminish it’s value. We all believe absurd things, as many absurd things that are true are merely a reflection of the absurd world in which we live.

Second, let’s not paste labels on others, such as “fundamentally opposed to democracy” because our belief system puts us in conflict with that of another. It’s easy to set up straw man arguments for those who believe differently than you. Don’t.  It makes us look foolish when we do.

Perspective is a wonderful thing. Lets try to see the humor in it instead of taking offense at it.

FYI, the defenestration of Prague has its own facebook page. Just thought you might like to know.

What Can Six Men do with 25,000 Pounds of Beer?

Of all the insane activities humans participate in on a regular basis, war is up there among the strangest. What would possess a perfectly intelligent and normal young man to pick up a rifle and travel to the other side of the world to shoot at someone he never met? The answer, of course, is beer. 25,000 pounds of it, to be precise, delivered to a small company of men near the Laotian border in 1968. Considering that these men were in a small jungle outpost, under enemy mortar and sniper fire, this may not have been the best place to send all this beer. Furthermore, there was not refrigeration. The beer just sat there on pallets, sweltering in the steamy jungle heat. One could argue that in a combat situation, boiling hot beer may not be the  very best way to keep the men fighting, but the military powers that be deemed it necessary. Consider too, the pilot who dropped off his boozy cargo landed under heavy fire, only to return a few days later to pick it back up. In the meanwhile, the company would have to  content themselves with chucking hot cans of lager at the enemy. The pilot who flew this beer delivery mission was just following orders: That’s what you do in the military. This is not just a made up story: This really happened. The pilot’s name was Burden. After the war, he stayed in the Air Force and achieved the rank of Major. Joseph Heller, eat your heart out.

There was much more to Vietnam than the funny stories of warm beer and mishaps with rations. According to Sgt. Jess Bowman, who served three tours of duty in the bush, survival came down to one thing: staying ice cold under  pressure. What do you do when  your squad is literally getting thrown out of the ground by .50 caliber fire from a well hidden and fortified position? You take aim, and take out the gun. One cannot stop and think about the 20+ young men who just lost their lives. One must press on. What do you do when you encounter the VC while having a drink in the bar? An OK corral style shootout of course! What happens when you are on patrol and literally bump into a VC on the same patrol for the other side? Whoever can use their knife quickest survives. I cannot see how one can survive such a life, with death constantly around on all sides, and not lose a bit of what it means to be human. Perhaps Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a misdiagnosis: Perhaps it is just being human. Perhaps the ones who come out OK are the ones we should worry about.

In order to make sense of all this madness, we can turn to religion. One soldier told the story of hitching a ride on a transport plane from base to his outpost. As he sat down, he heard a voice clearly telling him to get up and move to the seat across from him. He looked around, but none of the other soldiers on board had spoken. He closed his eyes, and settled in for his flight. Again, he heard the voice repeat the order to get up and move to the seat across the aisle. This time, he did. Within two minutes, a round fired from a hidden VC position smashed up through the body of the plane, straight through the seat he had previously occupied, and out through the top, but not before severely damaging the hydraulic cables. The plane was able to turn around and return to base, where it skidded safely down the runway with no injuries. Why did this soldier experience a divine intervention in his favor? Does it make sense that he should live while others were gunned down all around him?  Clearly, religion cannot help us untangle the insanity of warfare: it merely adds another dimension to it.

In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut comments about the process of writing an anti-war book. “Do you know what I say to people when I hear they are writing an anti-war book? I Say, ‘why don’t you write an anti-glacier book instead’”? War is insane, yet it is inevitable: It has always happened, and always will. If one believes christian mythology, or any other mythology for that matter, it starts off with a war in heaven, or a war between gods and titans, or what have you. War predates us. It is older than us, and as it is our big brother, it doesn’t have to make sense, and we’re just going to have to deal with it.

As we near veterans day, it is important to separate the idea of war from the people who participate in it. Soldiers do what soldiers are trained to do: Largely, to follow orders based on political agendas they have no influence on and no control over. As a self-proclaimed peacemongering liberal, it is easy to see soldiers as the face of the war. We must remember, wars are started by politicians and fought by soldiers. If one is truely anti-war, complain to the politicians, not the soldiers. We also need to remember that the freedom and prosperity we enjoy were not free: They were paid for with the blood of our soldiers and veterans. Memorial day is the one day of the year set aside for the remembrance of all those who sacrificed their lives for our nation, and also for those who served our nation honorably and were able to return home.  We should also remember those who are currently serving: even if we don’t agree with the politics of the war, we should thank our soldiers for bravely doing their duty. Perhaps 25,000 pounds of beer might make a welcome thank you gift?

-The Joseph Heller comment is in reference to the novel Catch 22. Go read it.

-The Vonnegut Quote comes from the opening chapter of Slaughterhouse Five. Go read it.

-The stories here are real, as told on May 14th, 2010, by the people who experienced them during a “Lest We Forget” videoconference program hosted by Janine Lim and Berrien RESA, and moderated by me.

-To get an idea of Sgt. Jess Bowman’s ordeals in Vietnam, he recommends watching Hamburger Hill and Full Metal Jacket. He states that the film Hamburger Hill is about 95% accurate. He was there and experienced Hamburger Hill first hand.

As always, some little nuggets of wisdom:

-Vietnam is now a prosperous and beautiful country,after near continuous warfare in the 20th century.

-The U.S. death toll in Vietnam was 58,193. (archives.gov)

-At one point, nearly 700,000 US troops were active in Vietnam.

Human Dissection: From Jerry Cruncher toTelevised Autopsies

I have always had somewhat of a fascination with tales of body-snatchers and unscrupulous medical students performing basement dissections on some recently deceased villain. Popular culture is full of tales of this nature, from b-rated horror movies to Jerry Cruncher, the “resurrection man” in Charles Dickens “A Tale of Two Cities”.  What about human dissection and grave robbing is so fascinating to us? Is it the idiom of the dark and stormy night in the cemetery, or the unease at which looking at a deceased human being creates in us as we realize that we are at any moment liable to be transformed from a living soul into a sack of meat?

We read Dickens’ character Jerry Cruncher as being an unfortunate who merely uses body-snatching as a way to supplement his meager earnings as a bank porter. Jerry Cruncher is a somewhat comical character, who amuses us despite his grisly work due to antagonistic relationship to both his wife and religion.  Somewhat more sinister are the tales of Burke and Hare, two Irishmen who developed a clever moneymaking scheme in Edinburgh during the 1830′s. “Why wait for a person to die and deteriorate,” they pondered, “when physicians will pay much more for the very freshest bodies”. Instead of robbing graves, they turned to murder; targeting the vulnerable in order to get top dollar for bodies bound for the knife. Other grave robbers were somewhat less devious than Burke and Hare, although no less clever. The Lancet reported a method in which grave robbers would dig up a small piece of turf around 20 feet away from a fresh grave, tunnel to the coffin, remove the body, drag it out, and replace the turf; leaving the grave undisturbed to appearances.

The comical “resurrections” of Jerry Cruncher, the murders committed of Burke and Hare, and all the other body-snatchers were all part of a grisly economy based on science and education. Today, I also had the opportunity to participate in this economy. Berrien RESA hosted a videoconference between a high school class and a forensic pathologist presenting an autopsy in Columbus, OH (through COSI) We were able to watch the first examination of the corpse, checking for external clues for the cause of death, and then watch the scalpel make the first Y incision. As the chest cavity was opened and the organs removed, I could not help but think back to the legacy of Burke and Hare: they were providing, through the means of murder, the same educational experience that we can now broadcast live into classrooms around the world.

The grisly nature of the work has not diminished over the years. This was demonstrated by an anecdote told by the presenter of the most unusual autopsy he preformed. A lady had been feeding her pigs in the winter and slipped on the ice. As she went down, the pigs, caught up in a feeding frenzy, attacked and began to eat the lady feeding them. One wonders if those pigs eventually made it to market and ended up as sausage and bacon. A fitting end, I suppose. Despite the obvious scientific gains made by human dissection and its modern legacy, it still has not shed the stigma of Burke and Hare. As a culture, we continue to be fascinated by our own mortality, and as such, as we look into the empty chest cavity of the cadaver, we stare straight into the place where our own heart and lungs used to be.

Some little nuggets of wisdom regarding body-snatching

-Body snatching was a major underground economy in Victorian England, as was vivisection.

-In New Zealand, body-snatching is not illegal, as proved by a court case in March 2008

-Body parts are frequently looted as souvenirs  by tourists from the catacombs under Paris

-Body-snatching makes an appearance quite frequently in  popular culture: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is an outstanding example of this.

The broadside of Burke and Hare is from the National Library of Scotland. It can be found at http://www.nls.uk/broadsides/broadside.cfm/id/15228

The story about the grave robbing tunnel is from The Lancet.

The anecdote about the Pig Lady is from the COSI presenter.

The Forgotten War

I was able to participate in an interview of four Korean War veterans at work last week. We hooked them up to three high school classrooms in different parts of the country and had a question and answer time. One of the most clear things that I got out of this interview was the constant reference to “The Forgotten War”.  Each of these veterans had participated in a major war that is hardly talked about in classrooms or textbooks. Having studied history for roughly seven years now, I suppose I should have had more background to this, but apart from some brief overview about what the war was about, I was largely ignorant.

All four veterans had joined the military during the few post- WWII years before the outbreak of the Korean war, and none of them had anticipated it. Shortly after training, they found themselves on the other side of the world, in a country that many of them had previously been unable to locate on a map. In a far corner of the world, they were required to fight and sacrifice while back home most people were a little vague on what the war was really about.  The country was still reeling from the exhaustion of WWII, and as a result, the media paid little attention to what was going on overseas. The Vietnam War later came to eclipse Korea, as it was heavily televised and tied up in so much controversy.

Here are some little nuggets of wisdom about the war that everybody forgot.

- The war has not actually ended. A cease fire was agreed on, but North Korea and South Korea are still technically at war.

-The 38th parallel, which has become the dividing line between north and south, is the most heavily militarized border in the world today.

-The Korean war was actually a proxy war between the United States and China. In the words of Patrick O’Mally, one of the veterans interviewed,  “We were not at war with China, but they sure as hell were at war with us.”

–Roughly 10% of the population of Korea lost their lives in the conflict

-The latest clash of the Korean War occurred on March 26th, 2010, with the sinking of a South Korean Naval vessel, allegedly by a North Korean Submarine.

Lots of memoirs and other good information is available fro the Library of Congress at loc.gov.