Quote of the Day (Tony Campolo, on the U.S. Budget as a “Moral Document”)

“The budget of the United States is a moral document, and yet we spend 40 percent on the military while we are cutting education, aid to the poor, Medicare and Medicaid. Oil companies have made the largest profits in the history of corporations, and they are going to Congress asking for more tax breaks. We give to the rich and take from the poor. CEOs are earning 300 times more than workers….Jesus was neither a Republican nor a Democrat. Jesus called all of us to righteousness. Did you know that 40 percent of the new members of Congress cite Ayn Rand and her gospel of selfishness as their primary guiding force, rather than the Sermon on the Mount?”—Rev. Tony Campolo, Sunday sermon at the Chautauquan Institution, July 10, 2011, quoted in Mary Lee Talbot, “Morning Worship,” The Chautauquan Daily, July 11, 2011

Chautauqua Journal: Day Two—Monday

Chautauqua Journal: Day Two—Monday

For me, at least, the hardest part about spending a day of vacation at the Chautauqua Institution is deciding what I simply don’t have time for. The events in the Amphitheater—the morning lecture and evening entertainment—are carved out, and very little competes against it. Most people make it a point not to miss either (particularly since their gate passes entitle them to attend these).

But many people don’t take advantage of courses offered in the Special Studies program. I’m not sure if it’s because these involve additional fees or simply because they’re not better promoted, but they’re a fascinating variety of items, for all different kinds of tastes: recreation (swimming), hobbies (bridge for beginners), personal finance, music—you name it.

And so, early this morning, as I stood at the Main Gate to sign up for classes, I wearily considered my options. I was pretty sure, unless I was closed out, that I would take morning classes on the American intelligence system offered in conjunction with Chautauqua’s program partner for the week, the International Spy Museum. After that, the choices became far tougher.

I thought for awhile about a short story class, but some of the authors for the week (e.g., Mary Gaitskill, Ethan Canin) didn’t especially interest me. A more serious contender was an early afternoon class on sonnets. But then I ran smack dab into one of the quandaries Chautauqua puts in the way of the curious: there were competing simultaneous events—lectures by spiritual authors, or bestselling writers (Erik Larson).

I also thought fleetingly aboutclasses on codebreaking and on identifying different plants and trees (an increasing interest of mine as I post more nature pictures on this blog).

Then, finally, I bowed to the inevitable: It wasn’t only a matter of being unable to be in two places at once, or even of spending even more money than intended on classes. I simply needed time to breathe—to write, and even to take advantage of a simple architectural device everywhere in this Victorian Era village but increasingly missing elsewhere in America: the front porch, a place where you can see and chat. Even now, in the age of digital communications, Chautauquans give all signs of wanting to slow the pace of life down. A good thing, too—how else would you learn to appreciate the gardens everywhere you turn here if you didn’t take the time to stop and look?

Masters at Telling Spy Stories

If Chautauqua hoped to kick this week off with a bang, it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams this morning. Both the morning class I signed up for, “Master Class: Espionage 101: Five Days of Spy,” and the 10:45 a.m. lecture at the Amphitheatre featured vivid stories galore.

I’ll admit to some trepidation about the “Master Class.” I could manage the 8:30 starting time all right in terms of waking up. It just seemed like a lot to rush over from breakfast and anything else you needed to do in the morning that early, then hope that the two hours for the class wouldn’t be too excessive.

As it happened, that starting time proved providential. Temperatures today were forecast to hit 87 degrees, and the humidity seemed to be matching it. Better to start the class that early than later, when the heat and humidity would become unbearable.

In the six or seven years I’ve visited Chautauqua, this morning’s “Master Class” might have been the most heavily attended Special Studies class I’ve ever taken. The coursebook indicated that the maximum enrollment was 200, and my best guess, in looking around the Hurlbut Church Sanctuary, the site of the class, was that we were approaching this.

This morning’s class was taught by Tony and Jonna Mendez, a married couple who, a decade apart, served as CIA Chiefs of Disguise. Now both retired, they can speak with more candor than before (though still not entirely unrestricted) about their work. The CIA’s Office of Technical Services, at least as the two described it, could easily rival the executive devices given to James Bond by British’s “Q.”

(In fact, Tony Mendez’s involvement in rescuing six U.S. diplomats from Iran at the height of the 1979-81 hostage crisis has now led Hollywood to his doorstep. George Clooney and Ben Affleck are producing the film, with Affleck starring as Mendez.)

Among the hairy (sometimes literally) stories told by the Mendezes:

• “Lipstick guns” were invented for female agents in a jam. They only had one bullet and you had to get up close to use it, but they still worked in a pinch;
• The technology used for today’s hearing aids was developed to set up bugging devices.
• Miniature cameras were invented to conceal special technology needed to take pictures.
• In a special spy-catching exercise in which the Mendezes were involved, they were able to take advantage of the old-school, male orientation of the FBI to deceive the latter agency.
• At the time of the daring rescue of the American diplomat-hostages, the CIA was trying to recover from its own major intelligence failure. The agency totally underestimated popular support for the Ayatollah Khomeini, believing that the Shah of Iran would remain in power for another 25 years.
• In creating disguises, it’s easier for a woman to pass as a man than visa versa.
* Simple wigs can be quite effective. (Put a wig on a bald man and not even his wife would notice the difference, Jonna quipped.
• At one point, fearing that the Soviets might get there first, the CIA conducted experiments in parapsychology. Most such attempts ended badly, but at least a few such events demonstrated surprising success.

Almost immediately after the end of that class, Peter Earnest, executive director of the International Spy Museum, put the upcoming week’s events in an historical perspective. Intelligence, he noted, “began in a tall tree, probably somewhere in Mesopotamia,” as one neighbor plotted how to get another’s nuts and berries. (To destroy the neighbor’s nuts and berries, he chuckled, was an early instance of covert action.)

Besides being considered the father of his country, he noted, George Washington is also thought of as the father of American intelligence. The Spy Museum has a copy of a letter in which the general commissioned an operative to set up a spy network in Tory-dominated New York City.

After briefly considering the use of intelligence in the Civil War and World War II, Earnest dealt with the lead-up to World War II. After the war, he noted, the United States discovered that the Soviet Union had, the decade before, recruited 500 agents for work in the U.S. (In fact, they had so many in Henry Morgenthau’s Treasury Department that the KBG sent a secret message not to send any more operatives, lest U.S. law enforcement grow suspicious.) The number of U.S. agents in Moscow at the time: zero.

Earnest also likened Pearl Harbor and 9/11 as “failures of imagination”—the inability of intelligence professionals as well as career politicians even to think of a nightmare scenario.

Two actions taken at the behest of the 9/11 Commission have produced mixed results till now, he observed: the office of Director of National Intelligence, he noted, was still “trying to find a role,” while things “hadn’t gone smoothly” with the Department of Homeland Security, either.

Theater Enrichment and Evening Entertainment

I won’t see the Chautauqua Theater Company’s version of Anton Chekhov’s tragicomedy Three Sisters until tomorrow night, but this afternoon I couldn’t resist the opportunity to hear the company’s backstage staff tell about their work. Listening to the organization’s “fellows” for scenic, lighting and costume design, it was clear to me that tomorrow night’s show will be extremely daring and avant-garde—not your parents’ tradition of the genteel Chekhov.

I wrapped matters up tonight by listening to the Music School’s Festival Orchestra concert in the amphitheater. Sandwiched between such traditional classical fare as Robert Schumann (Piano Concerto in A Minor) and Richard Wagner (e.g., “The Ride of the Valkyries”) was John Adams’ The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra.).Perhaps it was simply a function of prolonged exposure to this week’s theme, but it struck me in listening to the Adams music that it could have easily served as an excellent film thriller about China, if Alfred Hitchcock were still alive to make it.

(I did miss one entertainment event: a concert at Lenna Hall late this afternoon. As you can see from the accompanying image, my chances of landing seats were slim to none.)

Quote of the Day (John le Carre, on Film Adaptations)

"Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bullion cubes."—Attributed to novelist John le Carre

Given that the theme week at the Chautauqua Institution, where I’m vacationing right now, is the American intelligence system, the temptation was irresistible to use this quote by one of the premiere—perhaps the premiere—practitioner of the espionage novel.

(Incidentally, at a class I took this morning, two retired CIA case officers said that two novelists generally favored by those in the bureau were le Carre and Graham Greene, both of whom worked in the British intelligence service before they wrote their spy thrillers. (Tom Clancy, on the other hand, got a thumbs’ down from the couple.)

I came across this delicious quote in, of all things, a Roman Catholic weekly church bulletin. Perhaps it’s not so bizarre a find, on second glance. After all, it requires a real act of faith for an author to trust that his material will be treated sensitively in a different medium often more guided by the dollar than by aesthetics.

The closest source I could find for this quote traces it to the author’s feelings after watching how his The Tailor of Panama was translated to the big screen. I’m not sure if le Carre’s feelings about that adaptation were as ambivalent as this quote suggests (the film wasn’t that bad, after all). Actually, the novelist has been far better served than most writers by the entertainment industry. (See especially The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.)

When I went to le Carre’s official Web site, I discovered news that sure seems to validate his faith. It seems that a new film adaptation is going to be made of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. For the life of me, I can’t imagine how Hollywood could improve on the 1970s version of the first third of his Quest for Karla trilogy. For one thing, the first pass at his book was turned into a mini-series, allowing for greater opportunity to dwell on character and plot points. Additionally—perhaps even more crucially—it had Sir Alec Guinness in a tremendous career-capping role, as quietly dogged (yet troubled) spycatcher George Smiley.

But le Carre appears very, very high on this remake, this time produced for the big screen. That’s what having Gary Oldman (taking over the Smiley role) can do in boosting an author’s faith in the men who make the movies.

Chautauqua Journal: Day 1—Sunday

Past attempts of mine to write in real time on vacation have been haphazard—I’m so busy from day to day that I end up falling behind by the end of the week. But hope springs eternal, so here we go again…

Veteran readers of this blog might remember—vaguely—that I wrote several posts three years ago (starting with this link) about the place where I’m staying now. But the universe contains far more people who have never heard of the Chautauqua Institution, an upstate New York historic landmark that is one of the least-known but most important places in the U.S.

This lakeside village began in the 1870s as an attempt to educate Protestant ministers about all aspects of their faith, but over the years it broadened, creating an entire circuit of forums across the country in which famous people spoke about public affairs. William Jennings Bryan, for instance, lectured on this circuit in the first decades of the 20th century, and FDR delivered his famous 1937 “I Hate War” address right at the amphitheater just down the street from where I’m staying now.

The Depression wiped out nearly all of this circuit, but the progenitor of it all, here in upstate New York, managed to survive with a vigorous summer-long program of public affairs, entertainment, the arts, recreation, and—a nod to its original reason for being—spirituality. Chautauqua is one of the only places where I have visited repeatedly and still discovered something new each and every time.

I managed to reach my accommodation here, the Carey Cottage Inn, in time for a 5 pm reception for guests such as myself. The other guests came from places such as Michigan; northern Virginia; Pittsburgh; Dayton, Ohio; Texas; even Burma. Except for a couple in their 30s or early 40s, all the guests are older than myself. Some of these people have been coming here for decades; others, now that their academic duties are behind them, finally have the opportunity to visit.

Each of the nine weeks of the Chautauqua season is devoted to a particular theme. The week with the most appeal to me was Week 9, on the Civil War, but circumstances prevented me from attending then, in late August.

The theme for this week, though, has its own fascination: the American intelligence system. The events of the last 70 years—from Pearl Harbor through the killing of Osama bin Laden—underscore just how critical that system is to our nation’s foreign policy.

After the reception I walked by the lake, where, at 7 pm, a guide was lecturing on places and events in the Bible, illustrating his points by pointing to spots on Chautauqua's "Palestine Park." The latter a scale topographic model of the Holy Land, including cities and mountains.

At one point, the very lively and enlightening lecturer (he's in the accompanying image on the far left, with a beard, a white shirt, and a staff in hand) had me pass around to the rest of the group a small, anatomically correct likeness of the ancient Semitic god Baal who constantly angered the Israelites. “Did you go baal-istic?” an older listener in the group whispered to me later.

I’d done quite a bit of driving this weekend (including to Pittsburgh, where I enjoyed the great hospitality of my brother and his family), and the heat and humidity seemed to be rising tonight, so I thought it the better part of valor to catch my breath for the rest of the night and plan out what will be a full itinerary for the remainder of what promises to be an unbelievably busy but fascinating week.

Quote of the Day (Jonathan Edwards, on “The Wrath to Come”)

"And let every one that is yet out of Christ, and hanging over the pit of hell, whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or young people, or little children, now hearken to the loud calls of God's word and providence. This acceptable year of the Lord, a day of such great favour to some, will doubtless be a day of as remarkable vengeance to others. Men's hearts harden, and their guilt increases apace at such a day as this, if they neglect their souls; and never was there so great danger of such persons being given up to hardness of heart and blindness of mind. God seems now to be hastily gathering in his elect in all parts of the land; and probably the greater part of adult persons that ever shall be saved, will be brought in now in a little time, and that it will be as it was on the great out-pouring of the Spirit upon the Jews in the apostles' days; the election will obtain, and the rest will be blinded. If this should be the case with you, you will eternally curse this day, and will curse the day that ever you was born, to see such a season of the pouring out of God's Spirit, and will wish that you had died and gone to hell before you had seen it. Now undoubtedly it is, as it was in the days of John the Baptist, the axe is in an extraordinary manner laid at the root of the trees, that every tree which brings not forth good fruit, may be hewn down and cast into the fire.

"Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom: 'Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed.'"—Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741)

This past Friday was the 270th anniversary of one of the most influential sermons of American history. Minute after minute in this unrelenting appeal to his audience in the neighboring parish of Enfield, Conn., to mend their ways, Congregationalist minister Jonathan Edwards (who was invited to come here) spoke in even tones decidedly at odds with the fire-and-brimstone rhetoric you’ve just read.

No matter. By the conclusion of this speech, many in the audience were trembling; others cried out; still others fainted dead away.

All in all, as a college professor of mine remarked wryly, “That meant it was a roaring success.” (Indeed, as many as 500 listening that day are said to have converted.)

Edwards was a contemporary of Benjamin Franklin, born within a few years of the great patriot and also a native of New England. Indeed, in his early teens, Edwards wrote an essay on spiders that one could easily imagine Franklin producing or, for that matter, someone else who would, a century later, also show extraordinarily keen insight into the natural world: Henry David Thoreau.

The difference, of course, is that Edwards, in Sinners, approaches nature with a metaphorical (let alone religious) consciousness that would have been quite beyond Franklin. In his view, the spider becomes man, except that this creature is now viewed with a baleful eye by a consciouness quite beyond its own:

"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours."

As hard as it is to imagine a connection between Edwards and Franklin, it's even more astounding to think of a link between Edwards and his grandson: Aaron Burr, man of action (a colonel in the American Revolution), libertine (sued for divorce in his 70s on grounds of adultery!), slippery politician (force behind the formation of Tammany Hall) and the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

Yet another aspect of their lives make it hard to conceive of Burr as a descendant of Edwards. The minister left after him copious sermons and other writings. Yet, unique among the men who founded the American Republic (and especially one who survived into old age), Burr left comparatively little documentation behind.

It is true that part of this resulted from a disaster at sea in which not only a number of his papers were lost but also the dear daughter daughter he had raised with an education the equal of any man's of the time. But another significant reason for the lack of surviving papers derived from a simple and frequent bit of advice that Burr gave to anyone reading his legal or political messages: "Burn this." He did not trust the kindness of his enemies (and, perhaps, historians) in putting a benign construct on his intentions.

Edwards served as assistant pastor to his grandfather, the New England clergyman Solomon Stoddard. But it's hard to imagine Burr serving his grandfather in any capacity. In fact, it would be much easier to conceive of Edwards (who died only three years after Burr's birth) warning his grandson that hell's fires (mentioned 17 times in this sermon) awaited him.

Song Lyric of the Day (The Who, on the Joys of “Going Mobile”)

“Out in the woods
Or in the city
It's all the same to me
When I'm driving free, the world's my home
When I'm mobile.”—“Going Mobile,” written and composed by Pete Townshend, performed by The Who from their Who’s Next LP (1971)

Photo of the Day: Ain’t She Sweet?

Midtown Manhattan just seems flooded by the Disney Empire this summer. The other day, it was Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. This morning it was Mickey’s better half, Minnie.

I’ve already run Donald’s picture here. Now, I took a shot of Mickey, too, the other day, but it just didn’t seem to come out well.

Besides, the male readers of this blog have expressed a strong preference for the female of the species. In this case, one presumes they would mean the female of any species, even if non-human.