When I see the natural world it looks like an Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) painting:
While Bierstadt is long out of favor for purportedly being overly gaudy, romanticized work, I like the magical impressionism in it. The world I see looks like the world Bierstadt saw.
According to the Bierstadt website, he “was a German-American painter best known for his large landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion. Though not the first artist to record these sites, Bierstadt was the foremost painter of these scenes for the remainder of the 19th century.”
Colorado’s 14,065-foot Mt. Bierstadt, near Denver, is named in his honor. I climbed many Colorado mountains nearby but unfortunately, school called me away to New York before I got to this one.
You can see a wondrous display of his complete works here.
Malcolm R. Campbell is a former mountain climber whose western novels include “Mountain Song,” “Sarabande,” and “The Sun Singer.”
I won’t be taking ale or even moonshine from door to door while singing:
When General Billy Mitchell wrote a report in 1924 that not only predicted the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor but how they would do it, it was rejected out of hand.
Those who've seen documentaries and feature films such as "Tora! Tora! Tora!" know before they pick up Jeff Shaara's accurate and well written "To Wake the Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor" that military commanders and diplomats in the late 1930s and early 1940s continued to reject a Japanese attack out of hand.
Having read all of Jeff Shaara's historical novels, often about subjects I've studied, I'm accustomed to his impeccable research as well as the fact he makes history so human and readable that by the end of each novel, one feels like s/he was there. Unfortunately, some early Amazon reader reviews said Shaara's research on "To Wake the Giant" was sloppy. Subsequently, those reviews were shown to be inaccurate.
Unlike battles that last for days or weeks or months, the attack itself was short. So this book had to be a little different, focusing for many pages on the events leading up to 8 a.m. (25 minutes later than Mitchell's prediction) on the morning of December 7th, 1941. The events prior to the attack not only demonstrate the viewpoints of the major political and military players but show the attitudes of men serving onboard the Arizona and other ships in Pearl Harbor. Shaara shows the attitudes and emotions of those involved months in advance but while the attack is underway.
The human factor looms large in this novel and that's one of its major strengths. Once again, Shaara has put us into the action in a way we'll never forget.
I take comfort in this old song, perhaps from my Scots heritage, perhaps from the sweet sentiments set down by Rabbie Burns in 1788. When I think of him, I am saddened by the fact he was only with us for 37 years. But what a great influence he was.
Commission Chairperson Julian Gregorian explained to reporters that bad years are retired in the same manner that the names of bad hurricanes are retired.
When people ignore the lockdowns, as they did at Thanksgiving and Christmas, more people end up sick. And yet, when people stay inside their homes, more businesses go bankrupt and more people lose their jobs. Will the vaccines rescue us? Time will tell. Some say we’ll be fighting COVID for years. I’m not surprised at that assessment.
