The Charlotte News

Friday, September 5, 1941

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The first piece on the missed Nazi torpedo attack on the U.S.S. Greer, again presents a contrast in readiness to go to war in full measure when drawn between the approach to Pearl Harbor and the Gulf of Tonkin incidents of August, 1964 leading to the full commitment of combat troops to Vietnam. But again we ask the question historically, given that the decision-makers and their key military advisors had all been in responsible positions at the outset of American involvement in World War II, whether history directed them to that end on the thought of avoidance of broader conflict, one that in hindsight we know was not going to happen. For the North Vietnamese were as suspicious of Red China as they were of the United States or of France in the 1950's. They wanted to rid their country of empire interests, not ingratiate themselves to another empire. The form of government they chose to supplant the existing one was little of our business. The mistake, as we have suggested before, was made in 1956 when the promised elections, in the wake of the defeat and ouster of the French in 1954 by the Vietminh, were canceled largely at the behest of the Eisenhower Administration because it was feared that the Communist Ho Chi Minh would win. The country split between north and south remained, to its historically predictable degradation.

That the elections were not held made little difference except in loss of life when, nineteen years later, the Communists overran the south anyway, and without the falling of the dominoes theretofore promulgated as the rationale for American involvement. But no one knew that to be the case in 1956 or in 1964; they are only lessons for the learning.

"In Review" might be sub-titled "Let's Get Small". Excuse us.

"Tiring Heilers" tells of the stamping out of humor by the Nazis wherever it appeared, as the vaunted salute began to lower its stiff arm.

We have to wonder if the same is true of the State of Alaska these days. It appears to be true of the lower 48, anyway.

Excuse us.

The Raymond Clapper piece, stressing the role and necessity of the women's fire brigades servicing the bombing relief in Great Britain, tells of the many and varied walks of life from which the volunteers came. But whether the trap drummer mentioned by way of example was a forerunner of the Mersey Beat or someone who sold traps for a living, we can't tell.

And the short letter to the editor from the fifth grader reminds us that we were taken on a field trip to our local newspaper to see the mighty presses rolling somewhere along about the same grade, though we think it might have been actually the seventh in our case. In most places today, including the place where our field trip took place, the mighty rolling presses have been supplanted by boring computers humming, and thus probably wouldn't be worth much of a field trip in large that you couldn't take in little at home. Perhaps, the smaller newspapers retain some of the old mechanical whiz-bang these days worthy of one. In any event, it's not a bad roll-up off the mystery bus. Ours was called the "Blue Goose".

But, maybe you'd rather have the little kiddies get drunk, smoke a cigarette, and Drill Now! the way they apparently do it out there in Palin Country.

Hey, Bulldog.

There's something always of which to be wary from those who promote a little too hard themselves in the process of seeking "government reform", that is, that all too often the only reform they really want is to supplant the insider trading of others with their own. Just a thought that comes to mind as we peruse the various prints today. We have to wonder how much oil stock there is in the family's portfolio. Perhaps, none.

And The Wave is back again, this time to counsel reading the Bible parable of the ten virgins so as to come a-homer to Hitler, leaving the British behind in their perfidious ways. He seems in his application of the story to have confused the position of the British with that of the Japanese with respect to U.S. trade in oil--unless The Wave equated oil somehow with ships, shoes, and sealing wax to sea. But, in any event, the oil-lit bridegroom appears to have made quite a night of it sometime in December. Candidly, we prefer reading the fifth grader. We do have to wonder though what Fundamentalists who believe in the literal word of the Bible might take this passage to mean. If taken literally, we should say that there would be cause to observe but a fine line between a bordel and this particular occasion depicted, and therefore undoubtedly this book ought be banned as obscene and stimulative of pwuwient thoughts--oh so vewy pwuwient. This perhaps is what the Lindberghs meant by the Wave of the Future.

If you would like another journey into the lopointu which fits even unto the quote from today's page, try the note we wrote in September, 2004 in association with the pieces of September 11, 1940, four years before reading the rest of the page which we only did early this very morning, September 12, 2008. It's a gas.

And if you lean toward attribution to subconscious retention by our glancing at it as it passed our eyes briefly when we rolled off a copy of only the editorial column sometime in 2001-02, bear in mind that coincidence of the Sad and Lonely Day. There was no subconscious retention possible to explain that one. How do you explain it?

Lopointu. Try it sometime, if you haven't already.

You can't buy it though. Don't go looking for it on the corner. Whatever they will sell you is not that to which we are referring.

There's only one genuine lopointu. But it does sometimes come packaged in different colors.

And, don't shoot the piano player again. We're tired of it.