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Long Ago and Far Away

For some reason, HBO’s series Rome did not feature the music of Jerome Kern.  (Showtime would have; as Rome burned, imagine Nero singing “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”.)  But The Roaring Twenties epoch Boardwalk Empire does feature Kern’s melodies.  And so did the World War II saga The Pacific.  His career spanned thirty years; how many of today’s composers will last that long?  Will Green Day make it to Gray?

Kern’s work even was considered suitable by the Third Reich.  His surname was Irish and so passed the German racial requirements.  Of course, the composer would have gleefully told Josef Goebbels that Kern was a recent acquisition; the family’s original name was considerably less Celtic and Aryan back in Austria-Hungary.  Nor did Kern feel very appreciative of his German fans.  Hearing the news of France’s fall to the Nazis, Kern and his friend Oscar Hammerstein wrote in one afternoon “The Last Time I Saw Paris”.  “No matter how they change her, I’ll remember her that way.”

By 1944, we could anticipate victory and the homecoming of our veterans.  This was how Kern–and Ira Gershwin–expressed the public’s hopes and expectations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1bwhGNeUuc

And I think that it still expresses our pride and gratitude to all our veterans.

And from the archives: https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/11/11/veterans-day-at-the-movies/

October 20, 460:  Charisma Has Its Limits

The Byzantine Empress Eudocia may well have been Arianna Huffington in a previous life.  A classical scholar originally named Athenais, in 420 she converted herself into a Christian in order to marry the dull-minded Emperor Theodosius II. The marriage and crown did not give her complete control of the empire, however.  Athenais/Eudocia had to contend with her belligerent sister-in-law Pulcheria.  The older sister of Theodosius, Pulcheria was a very political nun and resented the secular, dubiously Christian empress.

You could count on the two women to be on opposite sides of every issues.  Since Pulcheria had one view of the Trinity, Eudocia felt obliged to disagree.  If the Imperial Nun wanted to persecute Jews and heretics, guess who protected them.  In this duel, Eudocia might have had an amatory advantage with the Emperor, except that she was only producing healthy daughters.  (No one thought of blaming the Emperor.)  Torn between two domineering women, Theodosius actually arrived at a Solomonic decision.  After two decades of this girl gang warfare, he let an eunuch run the Empire, and the eunuch expelled both women from court.  Pulcheria retired to a convent near Constantinople where she brooded and plotted.  Eudocia went on a grand tour, charmed them in the provinces, and awaited her comeback.

Now having only to worry about the Huns and the Persians, Theodosius should have enjoyed the respite.  One day in 450 while out riding, he apparently decided to land on his spine.  In the succession sweepstakes, Eudocia may have had  charisma but Pulcheria had proximity.  She was back at court and quickly allied to a general; the two even got married, giving a dynastic advantage to the general’s claim to the throne.  (The general, now emperor, deferred to Pulcheria’s continued vow of chastity; but since she was 51, he couldn’t have felt that deprived.)

As for the eunuch who had exiled Pulcheria, he did not enjoy a peaceful or long retirement.  And for some reason, Eudocia decided to stay in the provinces, devoting herself to writing and charitable works.  The contemplative life proved healthy; she outlived Pulcheria by seven years and died this day in 460.

However, the dynasty and the turmoil did not end with her.  Eudocia’s daughter, Eudoxia, took after her mother: a wily, political creature. Unfortunately, Eudoxia was in a far-less stable environment. Her husband, Valentian III of the Western Empire, was mercurial rather than docile; in a tantrum, he killed his best general (at a time when Rome had a real need for any competence.) Valentian was soon dead and Eudoxia was coerced into marrying the usurper. The historians and gossips of the time claimed that Eudoxia invited the Vandals to liberate her. If Genseric even needed an excuse to sack Rome, he certainly would have accepted Eudoxia’s offer.

Eudoxia and her daughter Eudocia (originality was not a trait in that family) were part of the Vandals’ plunder. The dowager Empress was allowed to return to the Eastern Empire. Her daughter, however, was obliged to marry the son of Genseric, Hunneric. In time, the resulting offspring became king of the Vandals.

It certainly was not quite the throne that Athenais had in mind.

Today is the anniversary of the Worst Day in the Stock Market.  At the time, I was a speechwriter at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and so a witness to a surreal day in the markets. From TheStreet.com, here are my recollections of that dramatic day and its ridiculous aftermath.

The cleric, statesman and rogue Abbe Sieyes was once asked what he did during the French Revolution. He succinctly replied, “I survived.” In the aftermath of Oct. 19, 1987, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange could have expressed the same grim satisfaction.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, or 22%, that day. A panic-stricken market literally could not sell stocks fast enough; the New York Stock Exchange lacked both the technology and the nerves for the onslaught. Its stocks opened late, and throughout the day, NYSE stock quotes were either old or wishful thinking.

Yet, at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the S&P 500 futures pit opened on time. Its traders braved the deluge of sell orders and maintained a market for stock index futures. Trading volume set a record; it was twice the daily average. Frantic investors short-sold the futures, trying to protect their stock holdings against further declines. Aggressive investors also short-sold the futures; they hoped to make a profit in a collapsing market. The CME staff worked 19-hour shifts to process the transactions. By the end of that tumultuous week, a relieved CME was planning a self-congratulatory T-shirt for its traders and staff. But, while the worst was over, the absurd was just beginning.

Someone had to be blamed for the stock market crash. The media demanded it. Of course, the obvious suspect was the NYSE. Elderly Democrats still blamed the New York exchange for the Depression. So, in a wily pre-emptive strike against its detractors, Wall Street proclaimed itself the unsuspecting victim of the ruthless Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

The NYSE had a rather apocalyptic interpretation of the CME action in futures that fateful week. To its mind, Henry James had been mugged by Al Capone: the selling of the futures created a cascade of plunging stock prices. Machiavellian investors shorted the futures and then sold their stocks, pressuring more investors to dump their portfolios, panicking the rest of mankind to sell everything at any price. In this way, the NYSE compared its wholesome, time-honored stocks to Chicago’s venal, reckless futures. The trust funds of innocent orphans were ruined while the brutish traders of Chicago chortled.

The media pandered to this narrative of the refined old New York market bludgeoned by a neanderthal CME. Television’s stock footage always showed the front of the NYSE, its facade of a classical temple. The public imagined the exchange as an elegant private club; amid its Edwardian decor, an Astor and a Vanderbilt might negotiate a stock price when not reminiscing about hangovers at Yale.

In contrast, the CME had a vulgar image. Stock footage depicted a pit of frenzied traders, lunging at the camera as if they could reach through the television and assault viewers. Those flailing hand signals might be amusing, but wary onlookers inferred obscene or satanic meanings. In the wake of the ’87 crash, the integrity and purpose of stock index futures were attacked. The Wall Street Journal sneered at “Chicago’s ‘Shadow Markets,’ ” a blunt aspersion of the exchange’s integrity. The public did not understand futures or options, but it knew one thing for certain: If those markets were respectable, they would have been in New York.

The CME was not an obliging scapegoat. It held a series of press conferences and seminars to justify the value and efficiency of the futures market. Free food was provided to entice media attendance. Confronted with the CME’s detailed explanation and ponderous evidence, the reporters were bored stiff. Imagine the exchange’s predicament: Trying to teach the Black-Scholes formula for financial derivatives to an audience of English majors. The CME was asking to be hated.

Having made no favorable impression on the media, the CME was driven to irrational desperation: It hired a public relations firm. The exchange thus entrusted its reputation to flacks: people who lack the stamina for journalism, the creativity for advertising and the coordination for three-card monte. The CME chose Hill & Knowlton, a firm famous for “crisis management.” In other words, Hill & Knowlton assisted the notorious, including the Teamsters and the Church of Scientology. (As corporate luck would have it, the NYSE was also a client of the New York office of H&K. Of course, the Chicago office of H&K dismissed any possible conflict of interest.)

According to the official history of the CME (Bob Tamarkin’s The Merc: The Emergence of a Global Financial Powerhouse), H&K advised its hapless client to play the repentant sinner — namely, by confessing to an unintentional role in the crash and making an earnest plea for more federal regulation of the futures markets. Being traders, the CME leaders knew how to cut their losses in the market; however, they were not prepared to misrepresent themselves and grovel, even if that strategy would gratify the media’s prejudice.

While (according to Tamarkin) “Merc officials had lost faith in the outside public relations effort,” the exchange still hoped to make itself presentable to the doubting public. CME’s traders generally appeared as howling slobs, but the exchange’s chairman, Jack Sandner, was articulate and dapper. Taking over where H&K left off, CME’s media department booked Sandner on national television, where he could beam a congenial image of the CME across the land. This strategy was sound, but the scheduling was indiscriminate. Jack Sandner thought that he would be appearing on ABC’s Nightline. There was a significant change in format, however, and Sandner found himself on a show with the Muppets.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange gave up on public relations and resigned itself to being ugly and misunderstood. It would never be as popular or as pampered as the New York Stock Exchange.

But at least the CME stopped being the scapegoat for the October ’87 crash. A presidential task force released the Brady Commission Report in January, 1988, and its harshest criticism was leveled at the New York Stock Exchange. The elegant old club had succumbed to panic: “As with people in a theater when someone yells ‘Fire!’ these sellers all ran for the exit in October, but it was large enough to accommodate only a few,” the report mused. Yet, the media never pilloried the NYSE. And one can see why: With such grandeur, who needs competence?

copyrighted: TheStreet.com

p.s.  And if you prefer ancient history and elephants, today offers another anniversary:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/10/19/bc-comics-2/

October 17, 1346:  The Battle of Neville’s Cross

King David II of Scotland thought that he was being clever. Imagining that the English army would be spending the next hundred years fighting in France, the sneaky Scotsman invaded his presumably defenseless neighbor. On this day in 1346, at the battle of Neville’s Cross, the English Home Guard could only amass 3500 retirees and 4-Fs to face 12,000 of Scotland’s stoutest lads. However, the English hobby of archery evidently proved more useful than the Scots’ caber toss. (You really could not expect the English to await patiently for a log to fall on them.)

The Scots were routed and King David II was captured. He would spend the next 11 years as an English prisoner, while the Scots and the English negotiated over his ransom. The Scottish opening bid likely was 8 sheep and a gallon of oatmeal. Scotland finally acceded to the sum of 16,000,000 pence. (The Scots refused to think in terms of paying pounds.) Of course, it hardly mattered because the Scots reneged anyway.

King David was actually rather lucky. Most of his successors died fighting the English: James II, James IV and James V. Mary Queen of Scots did not exactly fight the English but she ended up just as dead. James III had the originally to be killed in a civil war with his son, who evidently was in a hurry to be James IV.

October 6, 1891:  The proper thing to do

Charles Parnell (1846-1891), the leader of the Irish representatives in Parliament, was a veritable kingmaker. Shifting his bloc to the Tories or the Liberals, he could determine who would be Prime Minister. However, Parnell was not quite so adroit in his personal affairs. A Captain O’Shea noticed that his wife’s younger children seemed to resemble Mr. Parnell, and the indignant husband began divorce proceedings. Mr. Parnell’s name was conspicuous in the accusations.

One can’t be monogamous with someone else’s wife.  Of course, Parnell attempted to do the “proper thing” but a certain Church prominent in Ireland does not approve of divorce. He only outraged the Church further when he married his divorced mistress. From pulpits and in the Irish press, Parnell was condemned.  With his status as a pariah, he was abandoned by the Irish members of Parliament. Under the strain, Parnell died soon after of a heart attack.  It was on this day in 1891.

“The Uncrowned King of Ireland“, Parnell had been a proponent of Home Rule for this country. He alone seemed capable of controlling the sectarian rifts between the Ulster and Catholic Irish members of Parliament. Prime Minister Gladstone needed that solid Irish bloc to support his bill for Irish Home Rule. Without Parnell’s leadership, the Ulster members joined with the Tories and blocked the passage of Home Rule. The majority of Ireland’s population would remain unwelcome guests in their own country.  The best chance for a peaceful integration of Ireland into the United Kingdoms was lost, and the consequence was to be rebellion and civil war.

Parnell might have been consoled to know that he would be portrayed by Clark Gable in a Hollywood saga.  Unfortunately, it also was Gable’s worst role.

September 24, 1143:  Pope Innocent II Dies and Henceforth Lives Up To His Name

At one time, picking a Pope was simple.  The congregation convened in a catacomb and elected whoever wanted his name on the top of the to-be martyred list.  In the fourth century Constantine at least prolonged the Pope’s lifespan if not his  job security.  Until the 8th century, the Pope was a third-string bureaucrat subject to the whims of Constantinople; some Popes “retired” to Byzantine prisons–although they probably were more comfortable than anything still in standing in Rome.  But Pepin the Short, his boy Charlie, and a surprisingly efficient French army improved the status of the Papacy, making the Pope the biggest landholder in Rome.

And with that extra incentive, every robber baron in the vicinity now wanted to be Pope.  A Pope was chosen by the people of Rome; in other words, who ever had the toughest mob.  Criminal gangs were establishing dynasties of Popes.  In response to the chronic scandal, German Emperors would periodically march into Rome, oust the Italian scoundrel and replace him with a (surprise) German bureaucrat who, by no coincidence, was the Emperor’s relative.  Of course,when the German Army left, the ousted Italian scoundrel usually returned and drove out his German replacement.  This frequently left the Church with two Popes.

In the mid-11th century, with a German army in the vicinity, the reformers in Church established new rules for the election of the Pope.  The Pontiff would no longer be the choice of the Roman gangs but elected by a group of Church prelates, establishing specifically for this responsibility.  They would be known as Cardinals.  In the original rules, the Cardinals’ choice would require the approval of the Holy Roman Emperor.  (Remember that nearby German army; as soon as it left, that specific rule was forgotten.)  Oh, yes, the Pope had to be dead for three days before the Cardinals could elect his successor.

But in 1130, the papal election did not quite observe that waiting period.  It had been obvious that Pope Honorius II was dying.  It was also obvious that the majority of Cardinals would elect the rich, charming, reputable Pier Pierleoni the next Pope.  However, his chief rival Gregorio Papareschi had a very effective campaign strategy.  His allies kidnapped the dying Pope.  Since they would be the first to know when Honorius became the late Pope, the Papareschi Party would also be the first to have a Papal election.  They did, and guess who won?  Papareschi now was, however ironically, Pope Innocent II.

Of course, Pierleoni and his allies did not recognize Papareschi’s usurpation.  They had their own Papal election and Pierleoni became, at least to a majority of the Cardinals, Pope Anacletus II.  (Pierleoni evidently did not use a focus group for that name.)  Rome’s populace sided with Pope Anacletus, and Innocent was driven from the city.  In fact, he left Italy, going first to France to plead his cause with the most powerful man in the realm.

Bernard of Clairvaux would have had a deceivingly simple resume:  Oh, he was just a simple monk.  In fact, he was the type of person who would join a committee and within 30 minutes be running it.    And Bernard liked to join lots of committees, especially royal counsels and church councils.  Mesmerizing and manipulating, Bernard ran France and much of the Church.  He definitely was the man whom Innocent had to win over.

And Innocent had one very persuasive argument.  Pierleoni was half-Jewish.  True, the Pierleonis were not only nouveau riche but nouveau Christian.  Grandpa had been the most successful usurer in Rome; even the Popes owed him.  Pope Leo IX (really Bruno von Eguisheim-Dagsburg, cousin of Emperor Conrad II)  coaxed his favorite creditor into becoming a Christian noble.  Now, the grandson of the usurer was claiming to be Pope.  Bernard of Clairvaux wouldn’t stand for that:  “It is an injury to Christ that the offspring of a Jew should have seized for himself the throne of St. Peter.”

Of course, Christ was the offspring of a Jew and so was St. Peter,  but you didn’t try contradicting Bernard with logic.  Pierre Abelard had and was condemned for heresy.  Bernard declared his support for Pope Innocent, which then determined the decisions of French and German church councils, and their respective monarchs went along.  The German Emperor led an army into Italy in 1132 (a now familiar itinerary) to establish Innocent in Rome.  Anacletus was relegated to the quaint category of Anti-Pope, but he was still more popular in Rome than Innocent.  The Pope was only safe there in the company of a German garrison.  In 1139, Innocent did become the uncontested Pope by outliving Anacletus.

On this day in 1143, Innocent II died.  He was never made a saint…but Bernard of Clairvaux was.

September 23, 63 B.C.:  Happy Birthday Octavius.

The Emperor Augustus commands our respect.  His teenage self was more deserving of a good slap.  You could imagine this short, puny, overbearing 18 year-old at the University of Chicago but not the inheritor of the Roman Empire.  Yet, that was exactly what the teenager demanded when he showed up, unannounced, at the home of Marc Antony in May, 44 B.C.

In the two months since the murder of Julius Caesar, Antony had demonstrated genuine brilliance as a politician.  The very fact that he was alive is proof.  On the Ides of March,  Caesar’s family, friends and partisans were also at the mercy of the conspirators–the self-proclaimed Liberatores.   Any resistance or the least misstep would have led to a purge, with Antony’s name on the top of the list.

The majority in the Roman Senate had not been involved in the assassination, but it certainly seemed acquiescent.  The august patricians were a pliant lot, as obliging to the Liberatores as they had been to Caesar.  The Liberatores demanded that Caesar be declared a tyrant whose murder was a patriotic and justifiable act.  Most of Caesar’s senatorial allies were understandably absent from the Senate, but Marc Antony had not fled or was even quiet.  He did not question the justification for Caesar’s death but he did raise the most interesting technical objection to declaring Caesar a tyrant.

If Caesar were indeed a tyrant, then all his laws and his actions were invalid.  That would include every appointment which Caesar had made.  Unfortunately, Antony noted, many of the Senators and their relatives were filling those posts as of that moment.  It would be a administrative nightmare and a personal tragedy if so many people were immediately stripped of their honorable and often very lucrative posts.

Now the question before the Senators was not liberty versus tyranny, but liberty versus their families’ net worth.  Yet, the Senate hoped to avert a civil war and so, until he was ready, did Marc Antony.  He offered this compromise:  Caesar was no tyrant but his murderers were fully pardoned.  Furthermore, their leaders were to be appointed to important posts far from Rome.  Brutus and Cassius may have realized that they were tactfully exiled, but in control of the rich provinces of the East they could raise an army to challenge their enemies in Rome.  Antony knew that as well, but he was playing for time.  With friends in Gallia and Iberia and being in Italia, he could raise an army, too.

As the executor of Caesar’s will, he began spending large sums on the recruitment of friendly legions.  Unfortunately, the chief heir to that will, Caesar’s great-nephew Octavius did not appreciate the expenditures.  Furthermore, he objected to the compromises with Caesar’s murderers.  Octavian, now styling himself as Caesar, showed up at Antony’s home and demanded an explanation.  The obnoxious youngster was kept waiting, but Antony eventually saw him.

According to the historian Appian, Antony offered two answers to young Caesar’s objections.   The first was a detailed account of the political situation that faced Antony and Caesar’s family and friends, and how his compromises and expenses were protecting them until the day that they could exact their revenge.  Antony’s second explanation was more personal: he really didn’t need to explain his actions to a presumptuous brat, so Octavius should never bother him again.

Well, as we know, Octavius did.  But if Antony dismissed the annoying kid, the Roman Senate adopted him.  The Senators saw in him a rival claimant to the Caesar faction, someone to undermine the growing power of Marc Antony.  Young Caesar was a senator at 19, and a general with consular powers when he was 20. Of course, the Senators just knew that they could control him.  As Cicero said of Octavius, “He is an admirable youth who should be praised and ignored.”

After all, he was just a short, puny, overbearing kid.

Of course, I get my share of spam.  Some are prurient offers:  “Would you like people to think that you are shoplifting a flagpole?”  (No, I wouldn’t.)  Then, there are barely incoherent scams:  “Very brilliant writing you make.  Please link to sweatshopsareus.com.”  However, I was intrigued by this intrusion.

Hello, just to let you know that a superb estate is now for
sale in St-Nicolas, Québec, Canada. The 1,888 sq.ft. house
is build on a 45,000 sq.ft. woodland next to the chaudière
river and offer a magnific natural waterfall. It’s a must
see !

I wonder what I wrote that somehow sent a gullibility alert to this realtor.  Was it my essay on Captain Dreyfus? 

“Who cares about your disgrace and vilification when you can be imprisoned in beautiful St-Nicholas?  None of the heat and inconvenience of a dark cell on Devil’s Island.  Here you’ll wish that really were guilty, and would that Emile Zola stop all the annoying exoneration!”

Perhaps it was my discussion of the Hundred Years War and an obviously unbalanced shepherdess…;

“Is there that special someone in your family who hears voices and makes all sorts of psychotic pronouncements?  We all have a niece like that.  Why have her humiliate you in public when you can stow her in rural Quebec.  Beautiful, and all so conveniently isolated St-Nicholas is the perfect site for indefinite confinement.  And if you’ve any other solution, we won’t notice or just assume that you are burning leaves.”

And now I have to wonder what type of spam this musing will incite.

p.s.  Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/08/07/profiles-in-futility-2/