Category Archives: publishing

by | 17 April 2009 · 7:09 am

Scott Meredith Manuscript Rejection Letter, 1952

My maternal grandmother received the following 4-page, single-spaced, detailed rejection letter in response to a novel-length manuscript she submitted between short stints of teaching in various rural schools in West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia during the 1950s after abandoning her husband, who was 27 years older than her. She got her teaching certificate in 1915, after attending Harrisonburg State Normal and Industrial School, then did further coursework at Radford College (1915-18). From 1919 to 1951, she married and raised 4 children, my mother being her youngest. She wanted to be a writer, but only really succeeded at publishing short devotional pieces for magazines like The Upper Room, which never paid a living wage. So she taught school. Perhaps I’ll post more about her teaching career later on, since my wife is a teacher, my daughter is now a teacher, and I’ve been offering this free, online extension course (no grades!) in Obscure History Studies since 2003.

SCOTT MEREDITH
Literary Agency

580 Fifth Avenue
New York 36, N. Y.
PLaza 7-8795-6
Cable Address: Scottmere

April 24, 1952

Mrs. Janie S. Clay [not her real surname—J.],
Jones Spring
West Virginia

Dear Mrs. Clay,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read your novel, THE DOORMAT. Your previous writing experience has contributed to the formulation of a first rate style, end this is even more noticeable here than it was in your short story. It proves that you can keep your standards up to as high a mark in a long piece as in a short one–a sure proof of your basic writing ability. Your style has a clarity and straightforwardness that would be an asset to any writer, and you have a remarkable talent for colorful description. Narration, dialogue, and action are all handled with the ease and confidence of a born story-teller. Also, you have a grasp of character and situation that stands as a solid achievement in any appraisal of the whole work. However, all these qualities on the credit side of the ledger are not quite enough to make your novel marketable. In addition, it should have a strong, closely-knit plot, which moves along to a logical and satisfying conclusion. Since THE DOORMAT falls short in this respect. I am forced to return the manuscript to you as unsalable.

Plotting is definitely your weak point. and I will therefore devote the greater part of my report to an analysis of your story-structure. in the hope that it will help you when you begin work on your next story. You are already acquainted with the plot skeleton–lead character, central problem, complications, crisis, and solution–and I will again take it as a useful device for pointing out the structural flaws in your story, showing just why and how it fails to engage the reader’s interest.

In a novel, the familiar pattern is there even as it is in short stories. Of course. the “bones” of the skeleton won’t be immediately visible if you only give the work a casual glance, because there is always a great deal of “flesh” on them, in the way of dialogue, description, etc.;–in short, all the many striking and beautiful things that a talented writer can do with words. The pattern is there, but much expanded so that it covers a wider territory. A novel has plenty of room for development of character, sketching in background, and making the story full and rounded in all its parts; also, there is space for many exciting actions, many persons, and many problems. Nevertheless, one central problem or theme must predominate over all the others; they must stand in some relation to it, and it must give them their place and relevance in the narrative. The novel thus presents the author with an opportunity to examine one idea or problem in all its ramifications, and with a consequent chance for great variety and richness of subject matter. But the variety must be ordered and regulated by some strong line of narrative; it cannot exist in its own right, but must contribute to some oentral problem, issue, or impression, the nature of which is both clear end urgent in the reader’s mind. The reader must have an active and vital interest in the outcome of the whole story rather than a casual interest in its diverse parts. But he cannot do this if the problem doesn’t grip him from the very start, and your novel fails to meet this demand. You felt this, of course, for you mention it in your letter. It hits the nail on the head to note that the story lacks problem and suspense. The skill with which you write is not enough to compensate, and the problem remains too weak to support the plot structure which depends upon it. As a lead charaoter gives the story a point of view, so does the problem give it a purpose. I suspect that your sense of purpose in writing the book has been too-general a one to serve as a gathering-point for a strong narrative. David finally attains kind of character suggested by the title, but this is not the drama that holds the center of the stage most of the time.

But first, before we come to grips with the problem–or problems–let’s have a look at your lead character, Lucy Turner. She is a young girl, seventeen years of age, returning home from college because of her mother’s illness. This is a bit young for a lead, because the reader is more likely to identify with an adult facing adult problems. But you overcome this handicap by presenting Lucy at precisely the point of assuming the duties of an adult, and your further development of her character is both just and consistent. She, and your other characters, do have a liveness and naturalness in all ways that makes them attractive: you need have no fear on that point. However, she is not an exciting character, and her problems–central and otherwise–do not grip the reader’s imagination. Interest in the love between David and Lucy is aroused early, and remains the predominant theme of the narrative. The heroine at first has much to worry her though, what with her mother’s illness and her father’s drinking. Both these are out of the way before long, end something else pops up, a small example of the color question. One thing I want to emphasize here is that all these small early problems are just that–small! Yet they serve to take away interest in the Lucy-David relation, which operates independently of them. In other words, you have not used the materials of the narrative to develop anything; the events remain separate entities, and do not add up to any total impression. The story does not seem to be going anywhere, and is rather accounting for the day to day existence of Lucy, her family, and her friends. The problem of getting the young people together is there, but is not a pressing one. The reader thus has nothing to sustain his interest, nothing to hang on to. Minor problems are raised and dropped, sometimes solved, sometimes forgotten, and the question of what is going to happen between David and Lucy is apparently one that can be postponed indefinitely. As Lucy herself realizes, she can do little but wait and hope for David’s love: she cannot chase him. The fact that she cannot take a more active part in solving her problem automatically deprives her problem of reader interest. The possibility of an active solution has to be there: she cannot merely wait until the time and the circumstances come and grab her. Thus the problem at the heart of the story fails in its essential function of arousing and sustaining reader interest. What about the other problems?

Of the smaller ones, perhaps the most interesting is the race-relations theme. The new Baptist preacher, old Mr. Allen, goes out to preach before a colored congregation–a thing unheard-of in this part of the country. But this only looks as if it is going to be a problem, and it never develops into anything. There is talk, people gossip, there are objections in private conversations, but the controversy never comes into the open, and the threats soon vanish as if nothing had ever happened. The theme returns again in the last chapter, but it is no more than a promise of better things and more help for the colored people. The issue never comes to a head, and the problem fails to become pressing and vital. Mind you, there are a great many fine and telling points made by the wayside: your characters are always dropping wise and witty comments here and there, as for instance Mr. Allen’s reason explaining why so many Negroes are Baptists; and another good one that I remember is when some one observes that the Primitive Baptists are so narrow they can sleep five in a bed! These are right in tone, and this kind of color goes a long way towards making your book a pleasure to read. But of course, no amount of this kind of thing can make up for the lack of problem and plot.

The other major issue in the book is David’s attitude to the ministerial service, and this is the source of your title. But this, too, lacks vitality. The fact that he is not your lead character deprives it of a certain amount of interest for the reader. It does not come vigorously into the open until the fifteenth chapter (p. 148), then goes underground again, to be finally resolved only by the ministrations and good advice of Jim Peterson. I realize that it is not quite the same thing in its later form, but it is still the problem of how to serve adequately. The solution is brought about by a minor character, which is also a weak point, since reader’s like to see a character get out of his jam through his own exertions and by his own ingenuity.

As for the complications to the central problem, most of them are provided by David, who finds that he cannot play the part Lucy would have him play. They are separated by the circumstance of his having to go off to college while she stays at home and teaches school. But the reader will feel that the problem of getting David to marry Lucy is not really pressing enough to worry about. You give her other interests that will keep her from taking his loss too hard. This is already evident by Chapter Twelve in which Lucy is made unhappy by David’s distance at the service. What happens here is that the religious interest overshadows the personal angle, and she seems so happy in the primary joy of religion that the reader will feel this is bound to be ample compensation no matter what becomes of her relation to David. Her thoughts about him at the baptizing are merely passing notions when compared to her pleasure she takes in the proceedings. It is all too obvious that if worst comes to worst, the problem of David’s reluctance and distance will not sweep her completely off her feet. This is a paradox at the very heart of your story, because the reader understands from the start that this is precisely what Christianity is supposed to do: we almost presume it when we see it in a story. This is bound to take away suspense, no matter how you try to get around it. David is at college for three years, then goes off to the war. Soon after he returns, he marries enother girl, leaving Lucy heartbroken. The loss makes her doubt, turns her listless, and almost changes her character. However, she is brought back to herself by Elizabeth’s efforts, and by the end of Chapter Twenty-two has attained inner peace and happiness. But this, of course, she could not do by herself; again, the minor character makes all the difference in the world, and moves the story in the direction you want it to go.

At this point, there is a gap in time, and the next chapter takes up three and a half years later with a remarkable accident that sets the stage for the reunion between David and Lucy: the reader hears that David has killed his wife in a tragic hunting accident, and is almost crazed with grief. This, however, is not quite fair, even as the background of a solution. Coincidence should not play a part in the construction of a story, especially insofar as complication and solution are concerned. Stories can start from a coincidence, but it is not proper to make them end there. Chance and accident can solve any problem, and should therefore not be used. The reader doesn’t want to find that the lead character is being brought to his goal by means of luck. Of course, the problem was solved when the accident took place, and reopens the possibility of David and Lucy coming together again. The accident raises another problem–getting David back into the world of men–which is solved by his summer with Jim Peterson (mentioned earlier). Gradually, you bring the lovers together, until they finally decide to get married. It was the natural thing to do, seeing that his wife was dead. But the story moves exceptionally slowly in this part, because the obstacles to their marriage no longer exist, and it is only a matter of time. You have a tender love scene between them at the time of the proposal, but it cannot seem to bring the narrative to life. (There is a slip of names, by the way on p. 242, when Lucy becomes “Mary”; guess you got excited!) The story still carries on for two more chapters, showing something of Lucy’s and David’s life together after they are married, but this does not do more than settle a few minor difficulties raised in the past and give a promise of a useful future for the two main characters. Both have learned exactly how to serve, and they are able to help each other in the work. I’m afraid the everyday-ness of much of the rest of the story is even more apparent here, and that the reader’s interest cannot possibly be sustained.

I’m sure you can see by now why I am unable to recommend a revision of your novel. Its flaws are structural, and are too basic to be “patched up.” The weakness of central problem and solution are insurmountable obstacles inherent in the whole work. However, I think you do have the talent to write a salable novel–and one with a real message–if you put a bit more thought into your plotting. By all means keep up the good work! Best wishes.

Sincerely,

/s/Scott Meredith
SCOTT MEREDITH

SM:tr

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Filed under Appalachia, education, family, literature, publishing, religion

by | 26 March 2009 · 4:51 pm

Wordcatcher Tales: Kara-e/Kōmō-e Mekiki

I came across a few interesting terms, two of them new to me, while browsing through a beautiful and fascinating book: Japan Envisions the West: 16th–19th Century Japanese Art from Kobe City Museum edited by Yukiko Shirahara (Seattle Art Museum, 2007).

唐絵目利き kara-e mekiki ‘Chinese art inspectors’ – When Japan was keeping the outside world at arm’s length during the Tokugawa era, the Shogun employed inspectors to appraise, catalog, and often copy samples of all goods coming from China and the West, perhaps as much to make sure the Shogun got the best goods as to keep harmful influences out. The characters that make up mekiki are 目 me ‘eye’ and 利 ki(ki) ‘efficacy, expertise’. But the latter also occurs in other contexts: ri ‘advantage, profit’; ki(ku) ‘to take effect, operate’; ki(kasu) ‘to use (one’s head), exert (influence)’; ki(keru) ‘be influential’; and ki(kaseru) ‘to season’.

唐絵 kara-e ‘Chinese painting’ – Kara is written with the character for the Tang dynasty, otherwise read tō (< Tang), as in 唐画 tōga ‘Chinese painting’, a synonym of kara-e. However, 唐 means not just ‘Tang’ or even ‘Chinese’, but ‘foreign’, especially when pronounced kara- in native Japanese compounds, as in 唐行き karayuki ‘going abroad’ (lit. ‘Tang-going’), 唐草 karakusa ‘arabesque’ (lit. ‘Tang grass=flowing style’), and 唐黍 karakibi/tōmorokoshi ‘maize, Indian corn’ (lit. ‘Tang millet/sorghum’).

Compare the wal- (cognate with Welsh) on English walnut (once ‘foreign nut’); or the 胡 hu (once ‘barbarian’) on Chinese 胡桃 hutao ‘walnut’ (‘foreign peach’) or 胡椒 hujiao ‘black pepper’ (‘foreign pepper’ vs. 辣椒 lajiao ‘hot pepper’), or 胡麻 huma ‘sesame’ (‘foreign hemp’).

紅毛絵 kōmō-e ‘Dutch painting’ – By Tokugawa times, the Japanese had to deal with a new kind of foreigner very different from the Asians lumped together as kara. The character abbreviation for the Dutch is 蘭 ran (lit. ‘orchid’), short for Oranda ‘Holland’, as in 蘭学 Rangaku, ‘Dutch learning’, but by extension ‘Western learning’ more generally. So Western-style paintings can be called 蘭画 ranga, just as Chinese-style paintings can be called 唐画 tōga. But this book refers to the more specifically Dutch-style paintings from Nagasaki as 紅毛絵 kōmō-e ‘Red Hair painting’—a term I found especially engaging, as a former redhead myself (now mostly white), married to another former redhead (now more brunette with strands of gray), and the parent of a red-haired daughter.

By the way, Katsumori Noriko, whose chapter on “The Influence of Ransho [‘Western books’] on Western-style Painting” compares Japanese paintings copied from originals in European books imported through Nagasaki, starts by correcting the conventional history that Dutch-language books were banned between 1630 (the beginning of sakoku) and 1720 (during the reign of Yoshimune). She says (p. 99):

In fact, these policies applied only to Chinese translations of Western books. Books in Dutch, presented as gifts from foreign visitors, had been preserved over the decades in the shogunal library but were largely disregarded. When the bibliophile shogun Yoshimune opened his library in 1720, Japanese scholars had the opportunity to reencounter and study ransho firsthand.

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Filed under art, China, Japan, language, Netherlands, publishing

by | 15 November 2008 · 7:32 am

On the Vital Role of Hermits

The latest volume (#28) of Buddhist-Christian Studies, which has just gone online at Project MUSE (subscription required) contains a couple of anniversary memorials to Thomas Merton, who died in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1968. (It also contains several papers from a panel on the notable contributions of Masao Abe to Buddhist-Christian interfaith dialogue.)

Buddhist-Christian dialogue seems awfully passé to me in an era when positive dialogue seems all too scarce among Muslims, Christians, and Jews, on the one hand, and between crusading atheists and theists of all stripes, on the other. But I do appreciate Thomas Merton’s appreciation of the hermit life—the need to get away from it all—even though he may have been one of the most outspoken Trappists who ever lived (as my father is one of the more talkative Quakers I’ve ever met). The editor of Buddhist-Christian Studies, however, thinks Merton ignored one vital class of hermits (p. viii, n. 5):

Merton’s model of the hermit life does not exhaust the phenomenon within Western Christianity. Historically speaking, the hermit life was embraced by far more people than the limited number of professed monks whose spiritual growth had taken them beyond the life of the coenobium. For example, hermit shrine keepers were numerous throughout Christian cultures for centuries; most of these were simple laity without whom many pilgrimage sites would simply not have existed, and their identity has not yet found a modern voice. The massively popular pilgrimage churches of traditional Catholicism had at their heart the hermit-sacristan who tended the lamps and swept the floors. The professed hermit monk, the monastic hermit order, and the shrine hermit all found expression in the legal and the architectural boundaries of medieval and early modern societies.

Perhaps lay bloggers, photographers, and Wikipedists can be considered the hermit-sacristans of this information age, quietly tending our quirky little shrines that attract pilgrims who seek to escape the self-referential obsessions of the cloistered academies and the hourly tolling of alarm bells from the cathedrals of the major media.

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Filed under blogging, publishing, religion

by | 10 November 2008 · 9:08 pm

Gen. MacArthur: 30 Years of Ass Kissing

From: The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, by David Halberstam (Hyperion, 2007), pp. 103-104:

The [NY] Times, center-liberal in its editorial page, enthusiastic as its homage to MacArthur seemed, was not nearly as fulsome in its praise of the general as Time magazine. Given the passion of its founder and editor, Henry Luce, for China and Chiang Kai-shek, Time was already closely connected to what was coming to be known as the China Lobby, those Americans who saw China and Chiang Kai-shek as one and the same, and believed the administration was sending inadequate amounts of aid to Chiang. Time, at the height of its political and social influence in the late 1940s and 1950s, was far more Asia First in its vision of the world than most other American periodicals of that era, in no small part because Luce himself was a mish-kid; that is, the son of a missionary who had proselytized in China. Chiang, perhaps other than Winston Churchill, was Luce’s favorite world leader, while Douglas MacArthur was probably his favorite general, because of their shared belief in the primacy of Asia and their parallel feeling that other internationalists paid too little attention to it. When Time put MacArthur on the cover on July 10, 1950, right after the North Koreans struck—and appearing on its cover was extremely important in those years—it was his seventh time, placing him in a dead heat with Chiang himself. The copy for the piece, even for a much favored general, set a new standard in journalistic hagiography: “Inside the Dai Ichi building, once the heart of a Japanese insurance empire, bleary-eyed staff officers looked up from stacks of paper, whispered proudly, ‘God, the man is great.’ General Almond, his chief of staff, said straight out, ‘He’s the greatest man alive.’ And reverent Air Force General George Stratemeyer put it as strongly as it could be put … ‘He’s the greatest man in history.'”

Not everyone agreed, of course. If he was successful in his courtship of publishers and editors, working reporters were often put off by MacArthur’s grandiosity and vainglory, and many of them came to despise the sycophantic ambiance of his staff. A meeting with him was not just a briefing—it was likely to be a performance as well, the energy and care put into it geared to the importance of the visitor. The problem with MacArthur, General Joseph Stilwell told Frank Dorn, one of his top aides, was that he had been “a general too long.” Stilwell was speaking in 1944, before MacArthur became the American-approved emperor of an occupied Japan. “He got his first star in 1918 and that means he’s had almost thirty years as a general.” Stilwell said, “thirty years of people playing to him and kissing his ass, and doing what he wants. That’s not good for anyone.”

Longtime U.S. senators have the same problem. At least it’s good to see that the behavior of the press hasn’t changed much—except for which cheeks they choose to kiss.

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Filed under China, Japan, military, publishing, U.S., war

by | 21 October 2008 · 6:25 am

India’s Vibrant Vernacular Press

From India: The Rise of an Asian Giant, by Dietmar Rothermund (Yale U. Press, 2008), pp. 223-224:

The rise of the vernacular press would have pleased Mahatma Gandhi. He disapproved of advertising and printed no ads in his papers. But perhaps he would have relented if he had realized that advertising revenue is the lifeblood of the vernacular press. When Gandhi reorganized the Provincial Congress Committees along linguistic lines in 1920, he did so because he was convinced that people must conduct their political debates in their mother tongue. The thriving vernacular press proves this point. Gandhi would also have been pleased by the national orientation of the vernacular press: none of the papers mentioned back any kind of secessionism. This is also due to the fact that the ‘print capitalists’ who control the papers are very much aware of the benefits of an integrated national market. Another encouraging feature is that none of these papers are ‘party papers’ to the extent of being owned and operated by a political party. The private owners of the papers may sometimes back a particular party, as Ramoji Rao backed the TDP, but such alliances are temporary with the party depending on the ‘print capitalist’, not the other way round. In earlier times parties controlling the government could exercise considerable influence on newspapers by placing advertisements or withholding them. Nowadays revenue from commercial ads is far more important than that derived from government advertising and this has greatly enhanced the freedom of the press.

India’s lively and free press is of great importance to the country’s democracy. It is significant that the first big spurt in growth of the vernacular press was witnessed after Indira Gandhi’s ‘Emergency’ had been terminated in 1977; her attempt at gagging the press by means of her emergency powers led to a pent-up demand for information. Many people became avid readers when they had access to a free press once more. There is, of course, the more subtle method of influencing the press by co-opting journalists: giving them official importance or letting them know that their careers may depend on adopting certain political views fits in with this method. By now journalists earn good salaries and enjoy many perks, so the threat of forfeiting them might influence their views. But the large number of journalists would make it difficult to co-opt all of them: in 1950 there were only about 2,000 in India but by 1993 there were 13,000 officially registered journalists and there may have been many unregistered ones. At present there are probably more than 26,000. As there are no powerful unions for journalists in India Indian journalism has no collective voice; but the large number and the great variety of journalists are in themselves guarantees of the freedom of the press.

Most Indian journalists are urban people who only occasionally show up in the countryside. But they have rural counterparts who are really behind the newspaper revolution which has swept India in recent years. These rural stringers are often graduates engaged in various activities in their locality. They may own some land or a repair shop and also serve as distributors of newspapers, as advertising agents and as part-time correspondents. They usually are not paid by the editors but send in their news items free of charge. If their contributions are printed, this enhances their reputation in the village and helps to increase the circulation of the paper which they distribute. In their own way, these people support the freedom of the press and it is mainly down to them that huge numbers of newspapers are sold in India every day.

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Filed under democracy, India, language, publishing

by | 30 September 2008 · 9:36 pm

Why Darfur and Not …?

Black Star Journal recently linked to a long and thought-provoking post back in July by Ethan Zuckerman at My Heart’s in Accra about why the West seems much more concerned about Darfur than about a number of even more horrible conflicts in Africa.

Because you may or may not be an Africa-based journalist, let me unpack the question for a moment. There are a number of international conflicts that have claimed more lives and displaced more people than the conflict in Darfur. The Second Congo War and its ongoing aftermath is believed to have killed more than 5.4 million people, mostly due to “excess mortality” connected to disease and starvation. Other conflicts compare to Darfur in terms of brutality and displacement, but have received far less attention. War between Ugandan forces and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda has displaced more than a million people from their homes, and one in three boys in the region have been abducted, for periods of time or permanently, by LRA forces. The war between Ethiopia and Islamist forces in Somalia – supported by the US military – has created 1 million internally displaced persons and 450,000 international refugees.

It’s admirable that activists have been able to draw so much attention to Darfur. I’m interested in the phenomenon not to criticize focus on Darfur over other conflicts, but because I’d like to help people working on other conflicts gather attention and resources. I see Darfur as a rare example of an international crisis that’s gotten huge attention in the US despite the fact that most Americans have no direct, personal connection to the region. (I’m not the only one trying to do this – John Prendergrast, who’s focused on Darfur for the International Crisis Group, is one of several Africanists who’s started a new organization, Enough, designed to harness some of the attention around Darfur and call attention to situations in DRC, Uganda, Somalia and elsewhere.)

Agreeing with the analysis that attention paid to Darfur is unprecedented, my friend offers a two-part analysis, which I’ve modified to a three part analysis:

– The time was right. Guilt over the failure to intervene in Rwanda, especially on the part of North American and European nations, offered an opportunity to demand intervention in another African conflict.

– In the US, there was already close attention paid to Sudan by human rights and by evangelical Christian communities, based on a perception of the Sudanese civil war as a religious conflict between the Muslim north and Christian (and animist) south. (My contribution to the analysis, based on my experience talking to evangelical friends about their anti-Khartoum activism as early as 2000.)

– The conflict in Darfur has been reducible to a fairly simple media narrative, with good guys and bad guys… even thought this narrative doesn’t accurately reflect the reality on the ground.

It’s this last point my friend and I focused most of our discussion on. The process of covering the conflict in Darfur has convinced my friend that a narrative centered on a merciless proxy army raping, chasing and killing innovent civilians in an attempt to ethnically cleanse a region isn’t wholly accurate. “This isn’t good guys versus bad guys. This is bad guys versus bad guys.”

The rest of the post then provides supporting examples, and faults aid agencies like Save Darfur and reporters like Nicholas Kristof for sacrificing accuracy for advocacy.

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Filed under Africa, Darfur, Europe, NGOs, publishing, Somalia, Sudan, U.S., Uganda, war

by | 18 September 2008 · 9:22 pm

Underwater Pyramids in Okinawa?

Somebody who is trying to market an underwater diving business in Okinawa has been interviewed on video about a new discovery of “10,000 year old pyramids” in the offshore waters near Yonaguni, no doubt within easy reach of their embarkation point.

“One of the greatest discoveries in the history of archaeology was made last summer, off Japan There, spread over an amazing 311 miles on the ocean floor, are the well-preserved remains of an ancient city. Or at the very least, a number of closely related sites.

In the waters around Okinawa and beyond to the small island of Yonaguni, divers located eight separate locations beginning in March 1995. That first sighting was equivocal – a provocative, squared structure, so encrusted with coral that its manmade identity was uncertain. Then, as recently as the summer of 1996, a sports diver accidentally discovered a huge, angular platform about 40 feet below the surface, off the southwestern shore of Okinawa. The feature’s artificial provenance was beyond question. Widening their search, teams of more divers found another, different monument nearby. Then another, and another. They beheld long streets, grand boulevards, majestic staircases, magnificent archways, enormous blocks of perfectly cut and fitted stone – all harmoniously welded together in a linear architecture unlike anything they had ever seen before….

One would imagine that such a mind-boggling find would be the most exciting piece of news an archaeologist could possibly hope to learn. Even so, outside of the “Ancient American” and CNN’s single report, the pall of silence covering all the facts about Okinawa’s structures screens them from view more effectively then their location at the bottom of the sea. Why? How can this appalling neglect persist in the face of a discovery of such unparalleled magnitude? At the risk of accusations of paranoia, one might conclude that a real conspiracy of managed information dominates America’s well-springs of public knowledge.”

Indeed! Why trust “managed information” when you can so easily find the mismanaged variety, which is way more interesting? Ancient American is obviously a very rigorous and reputable source. In their own words:

Our task is to translate often complex research into accessible, attractive language in a visually appealing format ordinary readers can understand and enjoy. Ancient American writers and artists appeal as much to the imagination as to the intellect in the conviction that mankind’s past belongs to all inhabitants of the Earth; it is not the exclusive property of establishment academics. Each issue features articles submitted by the world’s leading authorities on prehistory in clear, non-technical language, and illustrated by a wealth of original color photographs and artwork published nowhere else.

Features include reports of Scottish mariners who sculpted the images of New Mexican cactus in a Highland church nearly a century before Columbus was born, and Vikings who left evidence of their visits behind in Minnesota and Oklahoma. Our research traces influences from 4th Millennium BC Japan in Ecuador, and prehistoric African themes throughout the earliest Mexican civilizations. We describe Semitic visitors, whose trek across ancient South Dakota is commemorated by native American Indians in four bluffs still referred to as “the Hebrew Brothers”. Our writers examine a huge stone wall underwater 55 miles east of Miami, Florida, together with a Phoenician altar for human sacrifice found in Chicago, Illinois. These are only some of the puzzling enigmas showcased in every issue of Ancient American magazine.

CNN’s Worldview coverage in 2000 (surprisingly!) includes a good bit more skepticism about the age of the structures and the extent to which they are manmade.

Masaaki Kimura has a different story, based on the theory that the Japanese archipelago was once part of continental Asia. He says the most likely reason it and other similar sites nearby are now underwater is because they suddenly sank after an event like an earthquake.

MASAAKI KIMURA, RYUKYU UNIVERSITY (through translator): From our investigations of surrounding organisms, such as coral, we estimate this ruin was made approximately 2,000 to 3,000 years ago.

KAMIMURA: A geologist by training, Kimura says he’s found evidence of chiseling, even a stone instrument.

(on camera): Kimura’s findings already have locals excited about the opportunities. Okinawa’s governor says if there’s more conclusive evidence, he’d like to propose the ruins for designation as a world heritage site…

(voice-over): … a finding that would be a boon for local tourism.

World-renowned dive enthusiast Jacques Mayol is already convinced.

JACQUES MAYOL, DIVER: My impression is that it’s a natural sight, of course, it’s a natural sight but that has been improved, enhanced, embellished, if you want, by man. We don’t know who did it, what kind of men did it, how long ago they did that.

KAMIMURA: Questions that only seem to add to the rock’s intrigue for those that believe it’s more than just a natural phenomenon.

Marina Kamimura, CNN, Okinawa, Japan.

via Japundit‘s Japan News Junkie

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Filed under Japan, Pacific, publishing, scholarship

by | 8 September 2008 · 9:42 pm

The Jackie Robinson of 1905?

Ten years ago in Harvard Magazine, Karl Lindholm briefly profiled Harvard graduate William Clarence Matthews, who some people at the time thought might be capable of breaking the color barrier in professional baseball by playing with the Boston Nationals.

Born in Selma, Alabama, and trained at Tuskegee Institute from 1893 to 1897, Matthews was a promising student and outstanding athlete who was sent north for further education, first to Phillips Andover and then to Harvard. From 1901 to 1905, he played shortstop on perhaps the best college team in the country (75 wins, 18 losses in his four years) at a time when baseball enjoyed singular appeal in the United States. It was not uncommon for players to walk off a college campus onto a major-league diamond: Christy Matthewson left Bucknell for John McGraw’s Giants, and two of Matthews’s teammates, Walter Clarkson and “Harvard Eddie” Grant, went on to play in the big leagues….

Unlike many other black players, he had options off the diamond. He had taken courses at Harvard Law School as a senior; now he earned an LL.B. at Boston University while working as an athletic instructor at Boston high schools. He passed the bar in 1908 and embarked on a legal and political career; in 1913, with the help of Booker T. Washington, he was appointed special assistant to the U.S. district attorney in Boston. From 1920 to 1923, he served as legal counsel to the black separatist Marcus Garvey.

Even while working with Garvey, he remained involved in Republican politics, and he played a major role in the 1924 presidential campaign. When Calvin Coolidge was elected with the help of a million black votes, Matthews was rewarded with a post in the Justice Department–but a list of “demands” for the “recognition of colored Republicans” that he presented to party leaders was ignored. Whatever else he might have accomplished was thwarted when he died of a perforated ulcer at 51. His death was reported in all the major East Coast newspapers: the Boston Globe called him “one of the most prominent Negro members of the bar in America.” The black press ran front-page headlines.

Matthews said in 1905, “A Negro is just as good as a white man and has just as much right to play ball.”

Now, ten years later, Karl Lindholm has published a fuller analysis of the public speculation at the time in the latest issue of NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture (Project MUSE subscription required). His article title, Rumors and Facts: William Clarence Matthews’s 1905 Challenge to Major League Baseball’s Color Barrier, indicates that the newspapers of that era, in particular the Boston Traveler, were often no more reliable than those of our day.

Rumors sometimes have a basis in fact, and sometimes rumors are pure fiction, made up, irresponsible, serving commercial, political, or personal ends. In 1905, one of baseball’s most compelling rumors involved the imminent entry into the major leagues of William Clarence Matthews, “Harvard’s famous colored shortstop.” This rumor, reported in the Boston Traveler in July 1905, was repeated in Sol White’s History of Colored Baseball (1907) and passed on to contemporary audiences by Robert Peterson in his seminal Only the Ball was White (1970).

There are inevitable questions about the rumor’s veracity. Is it possible that forty years before Jackie Robinson signed a contract with Brooklyn, someone in organized baseball was seriously considering adding a black man to a major league roster?

This essay addresses that question by examining the major players—the Boston Nationals’ player-manager Fred Tenney in particular—as well as the primary documents associated with the rumor of Matthews’s breakthrough, demonstrating the reasons Matthews might plausibly be considered for this role, while also raising the possibility that the Traveler conjured a patently false story in Boston’s overheated journalistic environment during the first decade of the twentieth century.

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by | 6 September 2008 · 10:49 am

Registan’s Foust on Citizen Propagandists

I’ve been distracted by other projects lately (no, not watching the major-party infomercials in the U.S.) and by reading hard-to-blog chapters in books (but a good long excerpt will follow), so I’ve neglected to post a link to a blogpost by Joshua Foust on Registan (the first blog to link to mine, back in 2003) about the rise of citizen propagandists. I’ll cite just one paragraph from the full article, which is online at Columbia Journalism Review.

Non-official propaganda matters greatly, because while most bloggers issued shallow and predictable jeremiads about either the horrors of the “new Cold War” or the horrors of American-supported client states, there were some out there who were largely getting things right. Unfortunately, these sober voices were often drowned out by the overwhelming amount of citizen propagandists flooding the blogosphere. Nevertheless, they bear mentioning.

Foust’s article concerns the role of citizen propagandists in the current war between Russia and Georgia, since Registan’s regional focus is the Russian Near Abroad in Central Asia. But Foust’s thesis also applies to political blog spinmeisters, comment-thread propagators, and the lazy professional journalists who rely on their favorite blogs both to determine the newsworthiness and to frame the narratives of the “news” stories they bother to report (or not).

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by | 6 August 2008 · 9:48 pm

Mayor vs. Journalist: Evading the Presumption

NYT reporter Matt Bai has a thumbsucker-with-interviews in this coming Sunday’s Times Magazine entitled Is Obama the End of Black Politics? I thought the following passage was the most amusing, and perhaps the most insightful.

I asked [Philadelphia Mayor Michael] Nutter if, during his private conversations with Obama early in the campaign, the subject of race and the historic nature of his candidacy came up. He stared at me for a moment. “Um, I knew he was black,” he said finally. “I’d really kind of picked up on that.”

Later, when I mentioned that it could be hard for a white journalist to understand all of the nuances of race, he looked over at his press secretary, who is black, and interrupted me. “He’s not black?” Nutter deadpanned, motioning back at me. “You guys told me it was a skin condition. I thought I was talking to a brother.” Nutter is known to have a dry sense of humor, but I also had the sense that he was tweaking me in these moments, watching with some amusement as I tried to navigate subjects that white and black Americans rarely discuss together. He seemed to think I was oddly preoccupied with race.

In fact, Nutter seemed puzzled by the very notion that he should be expected to support a candidate just because they both had dark skin. “Look, I never asked anybody to be for me because I was black,” he said. “I asked people to be for me because I thought I was the best candidate when I ran for City Council and when I ran for mayor. I’m proud of the votes I received. I’m proud I received the votes of the majority of the African-American community and the majority of the vote from the white community. But I never asked anybody to give me anything because I was black. I asked people to give me a chance because I thought I was the best.”

For most black Americans, Obama’s candidacy represented a kind of racial milestone, the natural next phase of a 50-year movement. But for Michael Nutter, the reverse was also true: not supporting Obama’s candidacy marked a kind of progress, too. The movement, after all, was about the freedom to choose your own candidate, white or black. In a sense, you could argue that it was Nutter — and not those black politicians who embraced Obama because they so closely identified with his racial experience — who represented the truest embodiment of Obama-ism. Here, perhaps, was a genuine postracial politician, even if that meant being, as John Lewis put it, on the wrong side of history.

I asked Nutter if he found it insulting to have me come barging into his office, demanding to know why he didn’t pick the black guy.

“It’s not insulting,” he answered. “It’s presumptuous. It demonstrates a continuation of this notion that the African-American community, unlike any other, is completely monolithic, that everyone in the African-American community does the same thing in lockstep, in contrast to any other group. I mean, I don’t remember seeing John Kerry on TV and anybody saying to him, ‘I can’t believe you’re not for Hillary Clinton.’ Why?”

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