Southern Bookman

Stone Mountain carving should fall to nature, Ryan Gravel says

Let natural vegetation cover the Stone Mountain monument.

That's one of several proposals made by Atlanta Beltline progenitor Ryan Gravel and historian Scott Morris to diminish the power of the gigantic sculpture of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis.

Gravel and Morris in an opinion article in the British-based The Guardian say they want the 150-foot carving removed altogether, but admit that it's too large for that to happen. Instead, they call for immediate actions that would obstruct public viewing.

"The sculpture is an irreparable scar on an ancient mountain with a long history of habitation and use by indigenous people," according to the article written by Gravel with historical information from Morris.

The article points out that although the carving originated in the early 20th century, it was not completed until 1970, a symbol of Georgia's defiance to federal civil rights legislation and Supreme Court decisions. The carving was completed as Atlanta built a national reputation as "the city too busy to hate."

Without periodic maintenance, trees and plants would grow from the carving's mountain crevices, Gravel says. He even wants the state to blast soil into the carving to enhance the vegetation's growth. The monument overgrown with vegetation would symbolize the collapse of the Confederacy, he says

He also wants to stop mowing of the Memorial Lawn, the gathering spot for viewing of the park's laser show, cast upon the monument. With the lawn eventually turning into a forest, the laser show would cease.

I doubt that Gravel's proposals will ever be adapted, but I'd love to see trees and brush growing from the hateful sculpture of the three Confederate leaders on horseback.

One of Gravel's proposals should be carried out with little opposition: Removing all references to the Confederacy in the park, such as renaming Robert E. Lee Boulevard and Stonewall Jackson Drive.

The article concludes with a call for long-range planning so that the park represents all of the state's citizens. Gravel points out that demographic changes will give Georgia a majority non-white population in a few years.

That Gravel published his article in the American edition of a British publication raises the question of why The Atlanta Journal-Constitution didn't print it instead of its usual banal opinion pieces. Did the AJC think Gravel's proposals too controversial for conservative suburban readers, if any remain?

Perhaps our fine local newspaper is doing a major article on Stone Mountain's future and why Georgia glorifies the Confederacy at its major state park.

 

 

 

 

AJC's Bill Torpy links Atlanta shooting spree to police backing off from "proactive" enforcement

Atlanta has turned into a war zone because police fear doing their jobs, according to AJC columnist Bill Torpy.

Torpy in his Monday column disclosed a spike in shootings and deaths recently following charges against police officers in the Rayshard Brooks killing and a Taser attack against college students during a protest downtown.

"Violence is off the chain in Atlanta," concluded Torpy, taking on the duties once filled by AJC police reporters.

From May 31 to June 20, 75 people have been shot in Atlanta, with 11 killed, he found. Last year during the same period, 35 shootings resulted in five deaths, he said.

While Torpy didn't mention race, most of the incidents were likely blacks shooting other blacks.

The crime surge coincides with a big falloff in police making traffic stops, Torpy reported. In the third week of June, 50 car stops by police were reported, compared with an astounding 3,000 over the same period last year, he found.

He reported that Atlanta officers are backing off from "proactive policing" because of the criminal indictments and fatigue from dealing with the recent protests of the George Floyd killing.

"Being proactive will probably get you indicted under the current state of affairs," Jason Segura, head of the city police union, told Torpy in castigating Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms for calling for arrests and sanctions against police. "She's going to listen to the mob," Segura said.

Torpy asked "where's the outrage?"over the crime wave. What about the outrage over police not carrying out their duties to the fullest?

 

 

 

 

 

Stone Mountain's impregnable Confederate memorial

As the Georgia Legislative session comes to a merciful end, no calls have risen to sandblast the Confederate monument at Stone Mountain.

The massive sculpture of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis carved into the mountain will remain, rising above the kitschy state park now closed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Stacey Abrams in her unsuccessful gubernatorial race against Brian "Pandemic, What Pandemic?" Kemp called for the removal of the monument, completed after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision to demonstrate Georgia's resistance to integration. Work on the monument began with the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century.

The state would have to pay millions to blast away the sculpture, an even more unlikely expenditure in the wake of massive budget cuts following the pandemic shutdown. With schools and hospitals losing funding, the Confederate memorial appears invulnerable.

As other racist icons tumble, Georgia's monument to white supremacy will last forever.

 

Baseball finds something exciting: a 60-game season

Perhaps a 60-game season is what baseball needed all along.

That foreshortened season will begin in late July, after baseball players capitulated to an order by Commissioner Rob Manfred. Why Manfred didn't take such action weeks before was not reported.

Baseball never got interesting until August or September anyway. Good clubs often coasted for the first half of the season, with mediocre teams pretending to have a shot before fading. After the excitement of opening day, baseball sunk into a tedious schedule. Many casual fans didn't follow the season until late summer.

The 60-game run promises to generate interest among fans desperate for sports during the coronavirus pandemic. The top clubs will have to play in earnest from the get-go. Bad teams will have more of a chance to make the playoffs. With more clubs in contention, there will be fewer of those dreadful, meaningless dog-day series between teams without hope.

Teams will play in empty stadiums, with more interleague regional games to reduce travel as the pandemic surges. League structures will remain intact, with the same playoff schedule as before. All teams will use the designated hitter. Farewell, National League baseball.

In another innovation despised by baseball traditionalists, a runner will start on second base in extra inning games. How that will be scored remains unclear. Designated runner?

Players will report for "summer training" July 1, with opening day July 23 or 24. The abbreviated training likely will have an effect, with starting pitchers going even fewer innings.

The resurgent pandemic can still derail baseball's plans. Several teams have closed training facilities after covid-19 breakouts. A few players in quarantine could cause teams to cancel their seasons.

As the owners-players dispute threatened to scrap the pandemic-disrupted season, I was among disgusted fans who no longer cared if the game ever came back.

But, hey, that Braves-Rays rivalry could be something.

 

John Keats lovers mark bicentenary of book in which great odes appeared

John Keats began coughing up blood in February 1820, five months before the publication of the last book of poems that appeared in his lifetime.

This week marks the 200th anniversary of that collection, "Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and Other Poems," now recognized as one of the greatest books of poetry.

The young poet's previous book, "Endymion," a romantic epic, had been mercilessly ripped by critics.

But Fleet Street publishers Taylor and Hessey agreed to publish Keats' new collection, which received better reviews. Despite the warmer welcome, the book quickly disappeared from public attention.

Mortally ill with tuberculosis and despondent over his doomed love for Fanny Brawne and what he perceived as his failed poetry career, Keats sailed to Italy in September 1820 with his friend Joseph Severn, hoping to regain his health in Rome.

But the disease worsened, and he died in February 1821 in a small apartment overlooking the Spanish Steps. His friend Severn, who had nursed him until the end, drew his deathbed portrait.

Nearly forgotten at the time of his death, Keats received posthumous recognition as one of the Romantic era's major poets. "Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and Other Poems" contained his most celebrated work, the six great odes he wrote in a bust of genius beginning in the spring of 1819.

While the title poems "Lamia and Isabella" are not considered among his best poems now, "The Eve of St. Agnes" is one of his masterpieces. The collection also includes the ambitious, unfinished epic "Hyperion."

But the appearance of "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode to a Grecian Urn," "To Autumn" and three other magnificent odes makes the book a hallmark of Romanticism.

Keats' gravestone in Rome's Protestant Cemetery contains the inscription, "here lies one who's name is writ in water," as he requested. Those words bring a deep sadness to those who love his work 200 years later.

 

 

 

 

John Bolton's stinkbomb explodes

John Bolton's "The Room Where It Happened" has landed.

It seemed pointless to read reviews by Jennifer Szalai in The New York Times and Barton Swaim in The Wall Street Journal. Revelations in the book about Donald Trump's corruption, mental instability and cozying up to dictators had already appeared in The Times and WSJ's news columns. Why waste any time reading the book?

Despite Trump's lawsuit against release of his former national security adviser's White House expose, the WSJ published an excerpt in its Saturday Review section. Although the WSJ's editorial page frequently defends Trump, albeit turning against him more and more recently, Rupert Murdoch's newspaper disclosed some of Bolton's most damaging accusations about Trump's dealings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Trump responded to the book's arrival with his usual fulminations, claiming that Bolton is one more enemy who should be thrown into Trump's fantasy jail.

Slate's Fred Kaplan said that Bolton's own foolhardy views disclosed in the book are as disturbing as the Trump vignettes. Bolton shows himself as more extreme than Trump on Iran and North Korea, Kaplan said.

Kaplan cites a passage from the book that pictures Trump  as having the attention span of a 2-year-old. Trump's unable to focus on one subject, continually veering off to pursue bizarre associations in his mind.

Kaplan's piece made me wonder if Lin-Manuel Miranda can take action against Bolton for appropriating the"room where it happens" lyric from Miranda's smash musical "Hamilton."

It sounds like Bolton's memoir should have been called "the room where it didn't happen."

 

 

Charleston makes new reckoning with past in removing Calhoun statue

Charleston has taken major strides to atone for its slavery legacy, but I never thought the city would remove the John C. Calhoun statue.

Mayor John Tecklenburg and the Charleston City Council decided last week to take down the 115-foot-tall Calhoun monument, which towers above Marion Square about three blocks away from Mother Emanuel A.M.E. church, where a white supremacist slaughtered nine church members five years ago.

Vice president during two presidential administrations, a cabinet member and a prominent U.S. senator, Calhoun was a leading spokesman for the South and slavery as conflicts with the North deepened in the 19th century. A series of congressional compromises failed to prevent the Civil War.

Although Calhoun died 10 years before the Civil War began, he was revered across the South as one of the fathers of the Confederacy for his theory of nullification, which held that a state could reject federal law.

Erected in 1896 when Confederate monuments were placed throughout the South following the end of reconstruction, the Calhoun statue standing upon a massive Doric column was a symbol of the Confederate "lost cause" and the return of white supremacy.

The statue's site is one of Charleston's many history-drenched spots. The Citadel military school was located at the square from 1842 to 1922. Its barracks is now an Embassy Suites Hotel.

Once the parade ground for Citadel cadets, the grassy square is now a gathering spot for  tourists and College of Charleston students. A Saturday morning farmers market is a pleasant ritual.

Named for Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion, the square is owned by two exemplars of the city's military tradition dating back to the early 19th century, the Washington Light Infantry and the Sumter Guards. In the 1950s, the grand old military companies stopped plans to turn the square into a parking lot. The bastions of old-time Charleston oppose the Calhoun statue's removal, as does the Charleston Post-Courier, which published an editorial calling for a historical interpretive plaque.

Under Tecklenburg and the council's plan, the monument will be moved to a museum, if any can be found to take it. The statue will be toppled first, and then the column taken down in stages rather than having another statue placed upon it.

Perhaps the Daughters of the Confederacy's Confederate Museum will take the statue, although it would probably have to be placed outside, again giving Calhoun a prominent spot.

If protests against dismantling the statue falter, it will likely molder in a landfill or warehouse somewhere along with other Confederate monuments.

 

 

Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard blasted for hasty judgment in Rayshard Brooks investigation

Leave it to District Attorney Paul Howard to shift public sympathy to the police officers charged in the Rayshard Brooks slaying.

Howard's swift investigation led to 11 charges, including felony murder, against former Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe, who shot a fleeing Brooks in the back after an altercation in a Wendy's parking lot. Officer Devin Brosnan was charged with aggravated assault and lesser charges. Rolfe was fired and Brosnan placed on administrative leave.

The district attorney's rash news conference announcing the charges prompted The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's editorial board, whoever they may be, to issue a stern editorial accusing Howard of political motivation. That was the second recent awakening of the board, which castigated governmental officials following the June 9 primary election fiasco. In recent years, the AJC has rarely issued editorials.

Following that blast from the newspaper's anonymous editorial board, AJC columnist Bill Torpy pummeled Howard even harder, accusing him of stirring up the public in an effort to win re-election.

The target of a GBI investigation into charges he pillowed his salary with city funds intended for a youth program, Howard is battling to remain in office. He and former assisstant D.A. Fani Willis are headed to a runoff election Aug. 11. Willis finished ahead of Howard in the June 9 primary and leads him in fund-raising.

Along with the Howard probe, the GBI is also investigating the Brooks slaying. Because of the GBI ethics investigation against Howard, he shouldn't be involved in the Brooks case, critics say.

Howard issued his charges without waiting for the GBI to finish its investigation into the Brooks slaying and didn't even notify the GBI about his news conference, the AJC reported.

U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, running for the U.S. Senate, called for Howard to recuse himself from the Brooks case and for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr to appoint an independent prosecutor.

That would make two district attorneys removed from investigating killings of young black men in their counties. Glynn County District Attorney Jackie Johnson recused herself from the Ahmaud Arbery slaying in Brunswick because one of the accused killers worked as an investigator in her office.

Cobb County District Attorney Joyette Holmes' office was appointed by Carr to take over the Arbery case, and presumably wouldn't also be given the Brooks slaying. DeKalb District Attorney Sherry Boston, another black woman, would be a good bet to handle the Brooks investigation.

The Atlanta police department is suffering low morale from the stress of controlling the George Floyd killing protests and the fallout from the Brooks slaying, which led to Police Chief Erika Fields' resignation, the AJC reported. A number of police officers called in sick to protest the charges against Rolfe and Brosnan, according to reports. 

The public's morale isn't too strong either. Most of us are already home, so we can't call in sick.

 

 

Globe has six-month opportunity to reduce carbon emissions, IEA chief says

Pandemic recovery plans give the world a last chance to build a green economy, according to the International Energy Agency chief.

Nations must take action to reduce carbon emissions in the next six months or climate change devastation will be unavoidable, IEA Chief Executive Fatih Birol told The Guardian.

Global emissions are rising again with the haphazard reopening from the coronavirus shutdown. In April, emissions fell an average of 17 percent over last year's totals, according to media reports. But in June, CO2 emissions were just 5 percent less than in 2019.

An IEA report said that the world will spend $9 trillion in economic stimulus plans in the next few months. That money should be spent on green jobs to make buildings more energy efficient and on solar and wind power projects, the IEA said.

Spending decisions for the six-month period will determine the economy's structure for the next three years, Birol said. Without major programs now, emissions will keep rising, making climate change inescapable.

 

New York Times' A.O. Scott blends film, book criticism

New York Times film critic A.O. Scott on Wednesday explained his recent move to literary criticism.

In an "Inside the Times" essay, Scott points out that he was a book critic before his hiring as the Times' movie reviewer. His series for the Sunday Book Review on forgotten American writers returns him to literary criticism.

Scott in the article supports the universality of cultural criticism over specialization. He quotes the late Los Angles Times food critic Jonathan Gold, who started out as a music critic. "Criticism is criticism," Gold said, as cited by Scott.  "An aria is like a well-cooked potato."

Following Gold, Scott claims that "any product of human creativity, however humble or highfalutin', exists to be appreciated, interpreted and judged. Whenever we take the time to listen, taste, watch or read, criticism is what comes naturally."

Cultural purists would argue that distinctions are vital, that a Beethoven symphony differs from a gourmet meal. Those traditional elitist views have been challenged by the rise of film and other popular arts. That a jazz composition by Duke Ellington displays artistic refinement comparable with a Mozart concerto is no longer disputed.

In supporting the primacy of criticism, Scott makes an appealing call for an aesthetic approach to life. Following Robert M. Pirsig's philosophy of quality in "The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," I've sought to bring such an appreciation to daily life. An Arby's can satisfy while a fine restaurant falls short. Yet, sometimes a potato is just a potato.

Scott began his series, which will appear in the Sunday Book Review, with an appreciation of the Western writer Wallace Stegner. While I found Scott's defense of Stegner's work unconvincing, I will look forward to his subsequent installments.

As Scott points out in his Inside the Times article, books and film are perceived differently yet share affinities. His broader focus is a gift to Times readers.