Mark Twain on the Flag and Foreign Wars

Twain had declared the American Flag polluted by the new imperial adventures in the Philippines, and had come in for a load of criticism. Here was his response.

The Flag Is Not Polluted [1901]

I am not finding fault with this use of our flag; for in order not to seem eccentric I have swung around, now, and joined the nation in the conviction that nothing can sully a flag. I was not properly reared, and had the illusion that a flag was a thing which must be sacredly guarded against shameful uses and unclean contacts, lest it suffer pollution; and so when it was sent out to the Philippines to float over a wanton war and a robbing expedition I supposed it was polluted, and in an ignorant moment I said so. But I stand corrected. I concede and acknowledge that it was only the government that sent it on such an errand that was polluted. Let us compromise on that. I am glad to have it that way. For our flag could not well stand pollution, never having been used to it, but it is different with the administration.

Straight, no cheaters.

I found my six-disc set of Miles Davis and John Coltrane and ripped the first three discs today. I hadn’t been listening to much jazz in the last three months and now I’ve dived back into it. This is exactly the kind of jazz I love.

When I listen to this music it does the same thing as the classical music I grew up with; it completely sucks me in. I don’t want to do anything but listen and follow the melodic line, the rhythm, everything, as closely as possible. I find myself smiling at little musical jokes and getting shivers when something unexpected happens.

Music geeks my age or younger are all about post-rock music. If they’re enthusing about an innovative artist, chances are it’s Four Middle Class Kids Making Somewhat Dissonant Noises to a Pop Beat. There are probably at least two electric guitars involved, and if they don’t exactly make rock and roll music, that’s their background. If they do a cover song, it’s likely to be a post-Beatles pop number.

And then I put on a CD like this and think: The most sophisticated and subtle music America produced is here. It’s from the late fifties and early sixties. And it was made by largely uneducated people from poor families, most of them from a mistreated and disadvantaged ethnic group, working under tremendous commercial pressure. The music these people made still feels new today. And there’s more innovation and exploration in one of these songs than a hundred faux naive indie pop albums can muster.

I still like pop music. I can’t be one of those “Well now that I’ve heard jazz I can’t be bothered with pop music” elitists. But the armies of college kids with guitars and Pavement CDs have some catching up to do.

My Hitler

My father once had a dream in which he was staying in a Swiss pension. There was a boarding house group from several countries, and as typical in these places meals were communal, all at one table. Shortly after his arrival he discovered that the elderly German gentleman with the mustache was, in fact, Adolf Hitler. Since dream logic was in effect, the problem was not how to kill Hitler, or call the police or the army, or even berate him for his crimes. The question was: how to address him at dinner?
He couldn’t just be “Mr. Hitler”; the guy was a former head of state. “Herr Führer”, though, would imply approval of the Third Reich and his dictatorship, which can’t be done even at dinner. Finally he figured it out: “Herr Reichskanzler Hitler” [sp?]. Since that was his official elected office, it was the best choice for being introduced or asking the guy to pass the salt.
I once saw a lecture by a psychologist whose field of expertise was the psychology of contagion. This was just a few years into the AIDS epidemic, so it was a topic of current interest. He pointed out that how people think and behave about infection and contagion is related to scientific knowledge, but separate and different. And way stupider. For example, physically handicapped people are treated the way we treat people with an infectious transmittable disease: stay away, don’t touch. The mentally handicapped, too. NIMBY arguments against group homes sometimes boil down to “I’m afraid to have this near me”, as though one could catch mental retardation or multiple sclerosis from the water supply or at the mall.
The most fascinating part of the lecture was the discussion of the contagion of clothing. People were asked a series of questions about clothing that had been worn by others. No one wanted to wear clothing that an AIDS patient had worn, even if it had been thoroughly cleaned. Many people didn’t want to wear clothing that a handicapped person had worn. And finally, the contagion of evil enters the picture when we’re talking about clothing. If some beloved figure like Mother Theresa has worn a sweater, most people responded they’d love to wear it. However, if Adolf Hitler had worn the sweater, no one wanted to wear it. And if the sweater had been worn by Adolf Hitler and then by the Dalai Lama, they still wouldn’t wear it. Some kinds of contagion can’t be purified.

So anyway that’s how I learned that you can turn into Hitler if you sit on the wrong toilet seat, and that you don’t want to stay in a hotel with the guy.