Walk Like an Egyptian

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWP-AsG5DRk

Egypt gets hot

“Oh, yes, of course,” Nick said quickly. Bes squinted at them for a moment, then turned on his heel.

“Please follow me,” he said, as he led the way quickly through the halls of towering colums and brightly colored murals. His bare feet were silent on the stone floors. Nick followed after him, trying to look at everything at once. To his left he saw a giant statue of a golden cat. A few rooms later, he saw a group of boys about his age playing something that looked oddly like checkers. Valerine lingered there so long trying to watch that Nick had to grab her hand and drager her away. At last, Bes drew aside a curtain and pointed into a smaller room.

“Here is your chamber. The slaves will see to it that you have appropriate attire for your meeting with the Phaoroh. If you need anything, you have only to ask.” With a bow, Bes left them in the hands of the slaves.

The room they found themselves in was much smaller than the pharoh’s throne room, but to Nick it seemed just as elaborate. There was a table covered with vials and delicate glass bottles in every color. Beside it was a piece of bronze polished until it could be used as a mirror. There were hooks and brushes and sticks that he could only begin to guess the uses for—just like in his mom’s makeup bag. Beside the table were several low chairs placed perfectly to catch the gentle breeze coming in through the window.

Nick started over to one of the chairs, but one of the slaves, an old man, stepped forward. “My boy, surely you are roasting in your strange clothes. Come with me and we will find you something cooler. Perhaps in your land, the sun does not scorch so hot, but here in Eygpt, we say that the heat will swallow you if you try to ignore it.”

Valerie looked up from one of the many bottles of cosmetics, her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “It will eat you?”

One of the women beside her laughed kindly. “You will be uncomfortable indeed with all those strange heavy clothes on, little one. Our clothing is better suited for our weather.” Valerie nodded, and tugged at the sleeve of her jacket.

“Well, I am getting really hot!” She said. She stopped for a moment to eye the linen gowns the women were wearing. There were very simple, long, white dresses that fluttered slightly in the breeze. Their arms and shoulders were bare, except for bracelets. To Valerie, the best part was the fabric, which was intricately pleated so that it flowed gracefully whenever the women moved.

“Can I have one, too?” She asked, pointing to their dresses. The women nodded, smiling.

“Of course! And perhaps your companion would also like to change his clothes?” the woman asked, glancing at Nick in his thick red sweatshirt.

“Oh, Nick’s probably hot, too! What does he get to wear?” Valerie asked, looking around the room. The old man went to a chest against the wall and pulled out what looked to Valirie like a very long t-shirt.

“What?” Nick said, taking a step back. “You want me to wear a dress? Are you sure you aren’t just tring to pull a trick on me to send me to the feast in girls’ clothes?”

The old man clapped him in the shoulder. “Fear not, my boy, the pharoh himself often wears these tunics.”

The Cold War Turns Hot (Part Two)

Although tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union began to increase the moment the Germans were defeated in 1945, the Cold War truly began with the North Korean communist party’s invasion of South Korea on 24 June 1950. The Korean peninsula had been under Japanese military occupation since 1910, but with Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War it was divided into halves by the Soviets in the north and the United States and Britain in the south. Predictably, the Soviet half was ruled by a ruthless Communist who fought with the Russians at Stalingrad, named Kim Il Sung, while the south under American control was ruled by an equally ruthless capitalist, Syngman Rhee. Both rulers sought to unify their country politically and economically under their respective political philosophies. Sung’s army was by far superior to Rhee’s; many of the North Korean officers were actually Chinese communist commanders fresh off of their defeat of Chiang kai-Shek’s Nationalists only several months earlier and eager to spread the revolution to all of Korea. The South was nowhere near as battle hardened; most of its leaders has spent their lives comfortably in the United States and instead relied heavily on American aid. North Korea not only possessed the advantage in military experience over its southern counterpart, it also was the recipient of the latest hardware from the Soviet Union, like the feared T-34 tank, regarded as one of the deadliest tanks of WWII. The south, by comparison, was ill equipped to wage a modern tank battle over a front as long as its border with the north, nor was it capable of matching with the revolutionary zeal of the Korean communists and their Chinese allies. None of this was lost on Truman and his advisors; as far as they were concerned, Korea was a lost cause politically and its territory had no strategic value on the military side. As we will see later on, the same assessment was later made of South Vietnam, and for the same reasons that Vietnam eventually became an American battlefield despite the prevailing wisdom advising a contrary course of action, so too did Americans go to fight in a land considered strategiacally unimportant. Why then, did they fight?

The answer is to be found in origin of the Second World War. The men of the Truman administration still vividly remembered how the failure to confront Hitler’s armed takeovers of small neighboring states led to a cataclysmic global war. Coming only five years after the end of WWII, Kim Il Sung’s invasion of the South appeared to represent a similar attempt by Communism, directed from Moscow, to take advantage of the West’s desire for peace and absorb its neighbors into a gigantic Communist empire. President Truman was determined not to have a repeat of appeasement under his watch, deciding instead to oppose what he and his advisors were sure was an attempt by Moscow and Beijing to take over Asia. The truth was something quite different; Rhee had himself repeatedly threatened to invade the North, so often that American officials decided its best policy was to limit Rhee’s access to advanced American weaponry, lest he be tempted to initiate a forceful unification of his own. On the Communist side, Soviet leader Josef Stalin was less than enthusiastic for Sung’s proposed invasion, telling Sung when he made a pilgrimage to Moscow that “if the Americans begin kicking your teeth in, I will not help you”(Stalin had a way with words). Stalin eventually authorized a secret air war against the Americans after US aircraft attacked (“accidentally”) a Soviet air base near the North Korean border, but eventually called a halt after having second thoughts about the potential consequences of direct involvement. Stalin was primarily concerned with rebuilding Soviet economic strength, not starting a war with the United States only five years after Russia’s devastating war against Germany.

China, however, was a different story; Mao put his fully support behind the Korean communists’ attempt to unify Korea and kick out the Americans. When McArthur pushed to far into North Korea, Mao sent Chinese troops into Korea to save the reeling communists from complete collapse, explaining at one point to Stalin that in order to keep the “American Invaders” from running rampant in the Far East (Asia), “We must be prepared for the US to declare and enter a state of war with China.” For Mao, American soldiers killing Korean communists right on the Chinese border posed a serious threat to the revolution he had just won in China after twenty some odd years of civil war. His former nemesis Chiang Kai-Shek enjoyed strong support by the Republican Party and continued to plot under American protection on the island of Formosa (now Taiwan, which is why Taiwan is not an official part of PDRC, it is/was the last stronghold of non-Communist China. In case you were wondering). Macarthur made no secret of his desire to take his army strait through Korea on into Beijing and put an end once and for all to Asian communism; Mao had only to read a newspaper to learn of this. The point of all this is not that Mao was valiantly defending his revolution from outside aggression, after all he supported the initial North Korean invasion that brought Macarthur to his doorstep, but rather to illustrate China’s considerable influence on the evolution of the Cold War. The early phases of the Cold War were actually very hot wars against primarily an Asian, not Russian, communist power: China.

America’s war in Korea set the tone for the next thirty years of the Cold War. Before the war, Truman’s requests for more defense spending met stiff resistance from an isolationist Congress, but after North Korea’s invasion, legislators essentially gave a blank check to cover any costs associated with defending the world from communism. The American defense budget skyrocketed to almost World War Two levels, never to return to its once humble percentage of American taxes. The American military state we recognize today had its origins in the Korean conflict. The war also alarmed the American public to the dangers, real and perceived, of the communist threat to the capitalist world, leading to an almost mass hysteria during the 1950s, most notably the communist persecutions of Senator Joe McCarthy and investigations into allegedly disloyal college professors across America. Most importantly for the purposes of explaining America’s eventual involvement in the Vietnam War, Korea greatly increased tensions between newly Communist China and the United States. The specter of Communist China spreading its roots throughout the fertile soil of decolonizing Asia continued to haunt American administrations well past the end of the Korean conflict in 1953, with terrible consequences for the people of Vietnam and neighboring Cambodia.

The End of the French in Indochina

After eight years of fighting a frustrating guerilla war to regain control of its old colony, France’s mission in Vietnam came to a humiliating end in 1954. Seeking to put an end to Vietminh incursions into neighboring Laos, also a French colony, as well as to cut the Vietminh off from their rice supply in the Dien Bien region of Vietnam, French military commanders placed a huge garrison of troops and a fortified compound at the bottom of a valley overlooked by high mountain peaks. Why the French chose to put their base there (militarily it is more desirable to control the high ground, not the low, where one is a sitting duck) is a bit of a mystery, although it has been said that they underestimated the enemy’s ability to get artillery through the rough jungle base of the mountains up to the top; unfortunately for the French, however, that is precisely what the Vietminh did. Over the course of several months, Vietnamese peasants and soldiers carried massive howitzer cannons and anti-aircraft guns, piece by piece, through the jungle and up the mountain, an impressive testament to what motivated team work can accomplish, assembling the guns at the top and camouflaging them with nets strewn with leaves and branches. Down below, fifteen thousand French military men, many of whom arrived fresh from France and were not really prepared to fight the grizzled veterans of the Vietminh, waited for the battle to begin. What ensued was a total bloodbath, lasting three months. The base at Dien Bien Phu had no direct access to supplies save for an airfield that the French commander in the field (well, actually he was safely directing the battle from an air conditioned HQ in Saigon), Henri Navarre, believed was out of the range of Vietminh artillery. It was not, and it was quickly destroyed, making it virtually impossible for the French garrison to receive badly needed supplies or evacuate the wounded. After three months of slaughter, the garrison surrendered, and France bid its old colony farewell.

The great tragedy of the battle of Dien Bien Phu, one that was to be repeated in later years as the United States became embroiled in Vietnam, was that it was fought with the knowledge that there was no real chance to defeat the Vietminh militarily. Indeed, the point of the battle from the French perspective was not to achieve a decisive victory over Ho Chi Minh, which most military analysts ruled out as unrealistic, but rather to inflict enough damage to pave the way for an “honorable” settlement in Vietnam and allow the French to save face and sneak out the back door. The term “peace with honor” made a comeback later on in the Johnson and Nixon years when it was equally clear that a military solution to the Vietnam War was not possible, with tragic consequences. That awful word “honor,” the refuge of men too weak to come to a peaceful solution, has killed a lot of people throughout history, as it will doubtlessly continue to do in wars of the future.

Unfortunately, Vietnam’s war for independence did not end with the fall of Dien Bien Phu, as it should have. Ho’s victory did not mean much militarily or economically for the capitalist West; Vietnam was a rural and extremely poor country, with very little significance on the grand chessboard of geopolitics. While the majority of Ho’s forces, and obviously Ho himself, were Communists, their deepest passions were defined by nationalism, the desire to see their fatherland free of foreign domination, from the French or any other country. They had no interest in the international struggle of workers or in spreading Communism across the globe.

The French defeat should have signaled to the Americans that fighting to deny the Vietnamese independence was a lost cause, both practically and morally. Events in Vietnam, however, were not taking place in a vacuum; they must be viewed through the larger scope of geopolitics in the early 1950s. The perception at the time in the eyes of many was that the Vietnamese war for independence was part of a monolithic Communist movement spreading throughout Asia, directed from Moscow, and it had to stopped before it advanced any further.

A snippet

As soon as they spoke the words, the air seemed to shimmer and the messy office faded away. Instead, they saw a huge wall covered in colorful symbols. As the scene came into focus, Nick held up the book and saw that it was the same wall from the picture. There was the column with the professor’s note scratched into it. The room was empty except for the giant black cat, curled on the golden throne. She opened one eye lazily to look at them.

“Nick, it worked!” Valerie said excitedly. Her laughter echoed in the empty room.

“Shhh, hang on a second Val. We should be careful. We don’t know if the people here are friendly. After all, the professor did ask for help!” Nick told her in a whisper.

Just as he said this, they heard the clatter of metal on marble and turned around. In the doorway behind them stood a boy about Nick’s age. He was wearing nothing but what looked like white skirt and a heavy gold bracelet around each wrist. At his feet were a golden tray and an overturned golden bowl. Figs rolled over the marble floor.

Without thinking, Valerie picked up a handful of figs and walked over to boy. She held the figs out with a smile. “You dropped these!”

For a long moment, the boy stood frozen, then he slowly bent down and picked up the bowl and the tray. Valerie dropped her figs in the bowl and bent down to pick up more.

“Thank you,” said the boy. “But who are you and why are you in the most sacred throne room?”

Valerie started to speak, but Nick shot her a glare that only a brother could give. She knew right away that he was thinking carefully about their answer.

“My name is Nick and this is my sister Valerie. We are travelers from very far away. We certainly didn’t mean to wander into the throne room. It was an accident.” Nick explained.

“Who are you?” Valerie chimed in. Nick sighed, with a smile. His little sister was always really friendly. Sometimes even when she should be staying quiet and letting him do the talking.

“My name is Bes. I am a cupbearer for the Pharoah.” He looked at Nick and Valerie. “It is one of my duties to escort visitors to see the Pharoah, but perhaps you would like to change into some more…appropriate clothing.”

“We are going to meet the Pharoah?” Nick asked.

Bes looked at him, confused. “Well of course. Is that not why you traveled here from your far away land?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Nick said quickly.

The Cold War Turns Hot (Part One)

For the first four years following World War Two, the vast numerical superiority of the Red Army still occupying large parts of central and Eastern Europe was balanced by the hitherto American monopoly on atomic weapons. On 3 September 1949 an American long-range reconnaissance plane taking air samples in the stratosphere detected an unusually high level of radiation near the eastern edge of the Soviet Union. Two days later, another recon plane detected an even larger amount and followed the trail towards Kazakhstan in central Asia. A panel of nuclear specialists in Washington analyzed the collected data and arrived at a startling conclusion—sometime between 26 and 29 August the Soviets successfully detonated a nuclear weapon. A few nights after the discovery, President Truman announced to that the Soviets had detonated an atomic device (he was careful not to say the word “bomb”)—Americans were stunned; they were assured that the Soviets would not have nuclear weapons any time soon. The Army told president Truman the Soviets would not have a bomb until 1960, while the Navy estimated 1965. With the help of well-placed spies though, Russian scientists were able to make a bomb closer to the Air Force’s estimate of 1952. Once the Soviets developed the capability to deliver nuclear weapons too, the strategic situation of the United States and Western Europe became greatly complicated. After WW II, the Soviet Union was exhausted by war with Germany and in desperate need of rebuilding; the last thing Stalin wanted was another war with the capitalists. Armed with the bomb, however, and began to take Stalin a more aggressive posture towards the West and the Cold War took on an increasingly menacing character. America’s confidence born of nuclear superiority was gone, replaced by a more humble awareness that the enemy could just as easily prevail as not in the coming struggle. In the indelicate words of American strategic air commander Curtis LaMay, “the era when we might have destroyed Russia completely and not even skinned our elbows in doing it,” was over.

Soviet entry into the nuclear club was not the only shock for the West in late 1949; events in Asia began to take an ominous turn as well. After more than twenty years of civil war, Mao Tse-tung’s Chinese communists finally overcame the Chinese nationalist forces of General Chiang Kai-shek, forcing the latter to flee the Chinese mainland in October. The same month Mao declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China in its new capital, Beijing. Back in the United States, the so-called “fall of China” to the Communists had severe political and psychological repercussions. The Republican Party, out of power for what seemed like an eternity with little prospect of returning, immediately seized on the opportunity to attack the administration of Democratic president Harry Truman, accusing him of “losing” China to the Communists. An open and friendly China had long been the goal of American business leaders and foreign policy makers (often one and the same), indeed, president Roosevelt hoped China would help lead the post-war world as one of the “Four Policemen” (the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union were the other proposed constables).

Vietnam and France during World War Two

Vietnam had been governed as a French colony since 1883, although French missionaries and traders had been active in Indochina since the seventeenth century. By 1900 it seemed as if Vietnam was destined (doomed?) to be a permanent fixture in France’s empire. Fifty-four years later, little longer than a generation, the French were forced to pack their bags and leave Vietnam to be governed by the Vietnamese people. France’s departure, however, was only the beginning of an ordeal for the Vietnamese that would last another twenty years and claim millions of lives. Vietnam’s struggle for independence began in earnest with events half a planet away. In a strange historical twist, Vietnam owed its independence almost as mush to Adolph Hitler as it did to Ho Chi Minh.

France’s crushing defeat at the hands of the Germans in 1940 removed all hope for French imperialists seeking to hold on to Indochina. The fall of Paris to the German army had two consequences that precluded a French return to power. First, it meant that the French could not spare the men or material to continue battling Vietnamese nationalists, as they were needed in the losing effort against Hitler. Second, right-wing French politicians struck a deal with the Nazis and were allowed to govern France, becoming the infamous Vichy government. In effect, the creation of the Vichy government meant France was henceforth allied with the Axis powers, including Japan. Seeking to build its own Asian empire, at the expense of the European colonial powers, Japan’s army quickly spread from its base in occupied China down into Vietnam. The Japanese occupation was far more brutal than that of the French, and any resistance was ruthlessly suppressed. Aiding the Japanese occupation was the Vichy colonial administration, which vainly sought to maintain French business interests and influence in Vietnam. The fact that the French actively aided and abetted the Japanese rape of Vietnam destroyed what little credibility remained of France’s claim to be a benefactor of the Vietnamese people; for most Vietnamese, Vichy support for the Japanese was unforgivable. After witnessing such a betrayal, it became clear to Vietnamese nationalists that France would do anything to hold on to its colony, and that to kick the French out once and for all, they most likely have to have to wage open warfare against their colonial overlords. Before doing so, however, they had to bide their time and build their strength.

On 15 August 1945, the Japanese surrendered to the United States and World War Two came to an end. Two weeks later, Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese nationalist army, the Vietminh, occupied Hanoi in the north of Vietnam, declaring Vietnamese independence shortly afterwards. In the south of Vietnam, Japanese forces surrendered to Great Britain, and control of the south was promptly returned to the French. Despite Ho’s declaration of Vietnamese independence, French colonial authorities set about re-establishing control over Vietnam, despite the very real occupation of Hanoi by the Vietminh. France would soon discover that a return to the prewar status quo was out of the question as far as the Vietnamese nationalist were concerned, although it would take a few years of political maneuvering between Ho and the French before open warfare broke out. When fighting finally broke out in 1950, it began twenty-five years of near ceaseless strife and brutality for the Vietnamese people and their would-be occupiers. How did the United States become involved in France’s struggle to maintain its empire? To understand that, one must examine the changing geopolitical circumstances of Asia in the period 1949-1954.

Next Chapter: The fall of the French Fortress at Dien Bien Phu and the beginning of the American phase.

Very Rough Beginning of Vietnam War History (comments greatly appreciated)

“I want to put Vietnam in context.

We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who partic-ipated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made out decisions in light of those values.

Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.”

-Robert McNamara, United States secretary of defense (1960-1967)

The Vietnam War was the greatest tragedy in America’s history since the Civil War of 1861-65. From 1965 to 1975, American ground troops fought and died in the jungles of southeast Asia against Vietnamese communists intent on unifying North and South Vietnam into one independent nation. 58,000 American military personnel died in the struggle to prevent the communists from doing so, along with almost two million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians; the North Vietnamese alone lost more than 700,000 people in the conflict. To put that number in perspective, it would be the equivalent of the United States losing ten million lives in a war. Young men, most no older than 19 or 20, were chosen by a lottery to go kill and be killed in the alien environment of Southeast Asia. Those that made it back home were often scarred, emotionally and physically, by their experiences in “the bush,” and found it difficult to transition back into the lives they were so suddenly pulled away from. To make matters worse, the America they returned to was tearing itself apart, as the youth of the country revolted against both the war and the older generation of Americans, their parents’ generation, which they held responsible for the war. National Guardsmen were sent onto American college campuses, including UC Berkeley and Colombia in New York, to put down anti-war demonstrations. Protesters camped outside of the White House and chanted, within earshot of President Lyndon B. Johnson, “Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?”

In the end, America’s war effort failed, and South Vietnam fell to the communists. On the 29^th of April, 1975, as North Vietnamese forces prepared to take the city of Saigon, South Vietnam’s capital, the American military performed its final mission of the war. What unfolded was a scene of utter chaos and tragedy, and the American people witnessed it all on television. Thousands of South Vietnamese frantically stormed the gates of the American embassy in Saigon in a desperate attempt to escape the communists. The scene was unnerving, like something out of a disaster movie. Over packed helicopters took off from makeshift landing zones, often the roofs of buildings within the embassy compound, full to the brim with human cargo. US Marines and South Vietnamese soldiers guarded the landing zones to make sure that only authorized personnel boarded the escape helicopters. In two days more than 6,000 American citizens and South Vietnamese families were airlifted out of Saigon to nearby aircraft carriers by a fleet of American helicopters. After 10 years of fighting, America’s long war in Vietnam was over, and it was clear to all that the United States, the superpower that stood victorious in two World Wars, was leaving the battlefield defeated. What were we doing there in the first place? The answer begins with America’s victory against Japan to end World War Two.

From my old blog

When I got there, Uncle Mike was making bacon. Two pounds of it. Because someone had to do something. We had to keep up some semblance of functioning. Otherwise the quiet of the house would swallow us. There was only the hum of the oxygen machine and the sizzle of fat in the pan.

The hugs upon entry were an acknowledgment of our shared pain, a support. Aunt Cindy was crying again. Grandpa was dazed. He wandered through the house in the same red sweatshirt he wore when everything was alright. He sat in his chair. I think he was trying to read, but his eyes slid off the page and turned inwards.

I paced in the kitchen. Past the blue Formica counters, past the trash compactor. I stopped and looked out the window. Mom and Dad and Becky weren’t there yet. Uncle Mike’s Jeep was there. Grandpa’s red truck was there. The nurse would be there soon. There was nothing for us to do but wait.

I watched the clock on the oven. 9:37. It was one of the old-fashioned ones, where the numbers turn on a wheel. Every time a minute passed, a new number slid into the display with a click. So the clicks. The sizzle. And the hum of the oxygen. Everything else was quiet.

I went in for a moment to see Grandma. She was slanted on the bed, eyes half-open, mouth agape. Aunt Cindy was sitting on the bed beside her, holding her hand. A new sound: labored gasps. They came rattling and tearing through her throat and out her slack mouth. Each breath was so painful, so infrequent, that I half feared it would be her last. I leaned over, kissed her cheek. She didn’t move. She didn’t respond at all. Not even her eyes flickered.

“Leslie is here, Mom. And Dave and Kathy and Becky will be here soon,” Aunt Cindy said loudly. As if she could penetrate the morphine haze with mere volume. There were tears in her eyes. In situations like this, some people cry. Aunt Cindy is one of them. I’m not. I felt I was intruding, so I stood and slipped silently back into the kitchen.

“How are you doing kiddo?” Uncle Mike asked me, gentle rather than jovial today.

“I’m alright. How is everyone? How is Grandma?”

“We’re all having a rough time of it. Especially your Grandpa. Grandma slipped further last night. We think she has stabilized for the time being, but it’s only going to go downhill from here. Her left lung has collapsed completely, and her right one is severely compromised. She’s slipping pretty fast. We had a really rough morning.”

I nodded. What do you say to something like that? In the pan, the bacon was swimming in oil. He prodded it a little with a fork.

“Is there something I can do to help?”

“Well, we’re making breakfast. You can take care of that bacon there.” He nodded towards a pile of it, steaming on a paper towel.

I ripped off another towel and patted as much oil off of the bacon as I could.

“Patting it down doesn’t make that much a difference really, but at least it makes us feel a little better about eating it,” Uncle Mike said.

I smiled a wry little smile.

“We’re going to have a lot of visitors today. I figure bacon is useful. It can be breakfast or a BLT or a bacon cheeseburger.” He picked up one of the cooled pieces and took a bite.

“Mmm, that’s good. That’s why I don’t eat this stuff.”

“So who all is coming today?” I wrapped the bacon in foil and put it in the oven.

“Joy and Chase, Sunny, Buddy, Christy, and Keith, your mom and dad and sister. Us. Cori will be here tonight. She’s flying in from St. Kit’s. Last time she called she was in Fort Lauderdale. There are a lot of us. It tires Robbie out. She thinks she needs to entertain us, when she needs all her energy just to keep functioning. So we have to keep the visits quick. Just in for ten minutes, hold her hand, talk to her a little and back out. She’s on a lot of drugs, so she doesn’t really respond much, but she knows we’re here.”

I looked at the clock on the oven again. 10:07. The nurse would be here soon. And my family. I turned from the stove to look out the window, just in time to see a white truck pull up.

“The nurse is here!”

Uncle Mike came to the window. A twenty-something year old man climbed out of the truck. He had a clip-board

“That’s just a delivery guy.” He went out to the family room. I could hear him talking to my grandpa.

“Why don’t you go see what the delivery guy wants?”

My grandpa got slowly slowly to his feet and went out through the sliding kitchen door, across the deck, and down to the driveway. When he came back a few minutes later, he was thin-lipped and carrying a bouquet. He went in to my grandma.

I went back to stand beside the stove.

“He’s having a hard time of it,” Uncle Mike said quietly.

“Yeah.”

He kept cooking more and more bacon. I wandered through the house. I looked at my cell phone to see if Mom had called. She hadn’t. I looked at pictures on the wall. My great-grandparent’s fiftieth wedding anniversary. My parents were newly-engaged and smiling. Cori, now a veterinarian, was pigtailed and pinafored on Aunt Cindy’s lap. Grandpa still had hair. He was holding Grandma’s hand. Nana was smiling. I stared at all the faces, at once familiar and yet strange in their youth.

I moved to a different wall. My grandparent’s own fiftieth wedding anniversary. Everyone was pretty much unchanged from there. It wasn’t that long ago. We still all remember how good the turkey was at the reception. The only people who have changed really are the kids. In the picture, I’m young and awkward. All knees and elbows and eyebrows and braces. My punk rock sister was wearing a pink dress with frilly ankle socks. So we had changed. But not much else. Only Grandma now. The emaciated, gasping woman in the bedroom was not the white-haired lady smiling so proudly from the photos.

The slam of a car door brought me dashing to the window. A silver truck pilled up. My family climbed out of it. Dad’s face was drawn. Everyone trooped up the stairs, across the deck and into the kitchen. My mom was helpful and bright, as she always is. Dad looked carved from stone. He and my grandpa hugged. They never hug, those two stoic old men.

The nurse came, purple and gentle and smiling. Aunt Joy and Uncle Chase came. Christy called. She said she was bringing the wonton soup Grandma had asked for. Uncle Mike said she was a girl after his own heart.

The nurse was to discuss the situation of Grandma’s health. She took the immediate people downstairs. My grandpa, Aunt Joy, Uncle Mike and Aunt Cindy, Dad. Mom and I finished making breakfast for everyone. She made Potatoes O’Brien from a bag on the counter. I scrambled a dozen eggs. Productivity prevents grief.

Everyone else came back upstairs. Tight-faced or teary-eyed accordingly. People sat down at the table, pushed the eggs around, ate a few mouthfuls of potatoes, stared out the windows. I went into Grandma’s room again. Aunt Joy was there holding her sister’s hand, but when I came in, she got up and left.

I looked down at Grandma. Her nightgown was crooked, the buttons running down one breast instead of straight down the middle. My fastidious grandma, who never had a hair out of place. Her arms were bruised with the IV tubes, and the oxygen tubes made her nose bleed. I sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Grandma, don’t be scared,” I wanted to say. “I’m not sure about the whole heaven thing, but God’s a pretty cool guy. He’ll take care of you.”

“You have always been so good to us. We all appreciate you so much,” I wanted to say.

“Goodbye, Grandma. I love you,” I said. I kissed her cheek. I got up and left.

Yesterday, my grandma died.

UC Berkeley Campus Visit

UC Berkeley Visit

May 2011

Leslie Allen

Why UC Berkeley?

Although I live only 3 miles away, I didn't expect to do my campus visit at UC Berkeley. It is a notoriously difficult school for reps to get into. There's one story involving a rude professor, a slamming door, and Pearson rep with a broken finger. I planned to go to SF State or Sac State for my project. In fact, I planned to stay far away from Cal until I had a bit of training under my belt. So how on earth did I end up there?

I started out with the big picture. What disciplines are the biggest profit drivers for Sage? I took a look at the company website and found a section for key texts on Blackboard. I know that we here at Pearson don't set that up for all our titles, only the biggest ones, so I thought this section would give me an overview of the largest disciplines.

Sage’s Primary Disciplines:

• Business and Management
• Communication
• Criminology and Justice
• Education
• Psychology
• Research Methods
• Sociology and Social Work
• Statistics

I have access to Bowker’s Pub Track, which is an adoptions tracking system. Using it, I can see what books schools are using, how many new and used units they use, and even which professors teach the course. I logged in to see which books Sage published in their primary disciplines. From there I looked in greater depth the top two or three books of each discipline. I then narrowed the adoption list down to see which of the adopting schools were in my area, and created a spreadsheet sorted by school and course. The results showed a pattern I couldn’t ignore.

Sample Adoption Report

Title	Author	School	Dept.	Course	Enroll	Instr.	ISBN 10
Proposal Writing: Effective Grantsmanship (P)	Coley	UC Berkeley	SOC WEL	107	28	CORNET	1412937752
Proposal Writing: Effective Grantsmanship (P)	Coley	UC Berkeley	SOC WEL	107	25	CORNET	1412937752
Proposal Writing: Effective Grantsmanship (P)	Coley	UC Berkeley	SOC WEL	107	28	CORNET	1412937752

Again and again, I came up with UC Berkeley. Other nearby schools often had several notable adoptions or robust departments that could potentially use Sage texts, but Berkeley was always a leader on the list. I knew it would be the best place to go; I couldn't do anything less.

How did I arrange to meet with professors?

The adoption reports I pulled from PubTrack included professor names, which I quickly discovered were wrong when I tried to find them in the UC Berkeley directory. Instead, I took a look at the course number listed in my adoption report and used the course catalog to pinpoint the professors who did actually teach the relevant classes. I sent out my bevy of emails, eagerly awaiting responses.

A sample email:

The first response I got included an ominous line: "This is a bad time to get a hold of us." I took a look at the academic calendar and sure enough, it was commencement week. I glanced at my calendar to see if I could reschedule, but I really only had one available week to do my project before summer began in earnest. If I was going to do my campus project at Cal, it was going to be commencement week or nothing at all.

Knowing that I'd be pitting myself against the craziness of graduation week, I widened my search to include all the professors who teach upper div classes in their respective departments. Since Sage books are best represented at Cal in the Psychology and Education departments, I made an extra effort to get in contact with them. After many emails, I had set appointments with three professors and a bookstore manager.

Joseph Campos

Psychology Professor

Director of Infant Studies Laboratory

Joseph teaches a course on emotion and emotional development. He does not currently use a textbook and he explained his reasons to me at great length.

Joseph wants his students to think like behavioral scientists. Psychology, he says, is simply what happens between your ears. Behavioral science is what happens when you take that mindset out into the world to interact with other people. In the beginning of the semester, his students are able to recite theories, but the higher levels of understanding often escape them.

The majority of textbooks currently available reinforce that kind of recitational learning. The texts present the facts, but never teach students how to connect the dots. Joseph would prefer a book that covers fewer of the broad theories but in a far more holistic fashion. The book becomes an example of the type of critical thinking the students will need rather than a mere depository of facts. Although he does not teach from a book currently, he frequently reviews textbooks and works on the supplements and seems to be quite in tune with the current options in the market.

Currently, Joseph’s students are assigned readings in the primary literature, they have discussions, and, for the coming semester, there will be a film lab wherein they analyze the emotional responses of the characters. This film lab was especially interesting to me because Joseph is legally blind—I can’t help marveling that he studies emotions without being able to see the subtle nuances that I use to interpret other people’s feelings.

Joseph told me that the book was important to him, but increasingly professors are interested in the supplements. Professors want tools to make their lives easier. They want high level test banks, thoughtful instructor guides, and a variety of ideas for lecture activities and lesson plans. Though he cannot use online systems himself, he is a huge fan of the idea. This was my real take home message from the entire campus project: do whatever you can to make the professor’s life easier, while maintaining the quality of your books

In my capacity as a Sage rep, my first goal would be to find a book that helps Joseph achieve his goals. I would also get him involved in some of our review and supplement projects. He’s smart, eloquent, and his approach to teaching is becoming increasingly prevalent throughout higher education. It would also build a sense of loyalty while creating the exact product he, and many other professors, are asking for. Upon the adoption of one of our books, I would be sure to provide as much supplementary material as we had—to be sure that using our book is as easy as I can possibly make it.

Alisa Crovetti

Education Professor

Cognition and Development

Alisa teaches a two-hour didactic course on school psychology using the DSM and Gabbard's Psychodynamic Psychiatry in Clinical Practice by the American Psychiatric Press.

Alisa's goal in her class is to teach her students to work effectively with children in a school psychology setting. When students begin her course, they often have no background in school psychology whatsoever; by the end of their two semesters together, they are in the field making diagnoses.

As it is often the first class students have had on the topic, Alisa gives them a broad overview of the theories of the field and then builds to diagnosis and treatment of patients. In addition to their two hours of seminar, her students are required to spend one day a week in a community-based mental health clinic as interns.

In the classroom, Alisa uses many of the very techniques she is teaching her students about. While her courses do include lectures, she also includes student presentations on the readings, role-plays, and low-stakes group quizzes. Throughout the two semesters, the students present on the cases they interact with in their clinical internships.

Alisa chose her textbook because it follows the same structure as her class: theory to practical application. It is, however, overly technical and she told me her students often get lost in the more abstract theories because the book breezes over them.

Ideally, Alisa would like a book that hits the few major theories but goes into greater depth when explaining them. She also said that she would appreciate having access to more case studies and activities in her class.

As a Sage rep, I would work with Alisa to find something in our book bag that satisfies those needs. If she liked one of our texts, but found it too encyclopedic, perhaps we could work together to create a custom edition that only reflected the chapters she requires. I would also be sure to communicate with the in-house team about the kinds of supplements she finds helpful. Perhaps we would be able to pick up similar case studies in a psychology text for this purpose.

Diane Anderson

Psychology Professor

Clinical Psychology

Diane teaches two courses on developmental psychology, using The Development of Children by Cole, Cole, and Lightfoot published by Worth Publishers. She also occasionally teaches the introductory course.

Diane’s goals in her courses are to teach her students to learn how to think and evaluate critically about developmental processes, research methods, and the major theories in the field. She uses the textbook as a touchstone for the facts, then goes beyond the text to teach the students how to really analyze and apply the concepts they’ve learned to situations they have never seen before.

For example, in a weekly assignment, students analyze NY Times psychology articles for research methodology that might cause misleading results. They are then asked to determine whether the article accurately represents what was done in the study. All of Diane’s exams are open book take home tests, but they ask the students to apply what they’ve learned to new cases and situations.

As a mother of four, Diane has frequent anecdotes to share with her classes, but she is always on the lookout for more activities that truly engage her students. Some current class favorites are taking a variety of IQ and EQ tests, and performing Piaget tasks. These, she feels, bring the concepts to life from the pages of the readings. It’s very important to Diane that the students are not just discussing ideas, but putting them into action.

Though Diane has been using her current book for a long time and though the students like it, her text has a major shortcoming. Many graduate level psychology programs require a development course that covers infancy through adulthood and hers stops at adolescence. She also wants more instructor resources, like lecture presentation slides and more engaging lecture activities that show different applications of the material in the text.

I feel confident that with Sage’s focus on quality materials we could find a book from our list that would satisfy Diane’s need for a text that both keeps the students interested and examines the appropriate range of ages. Since she is very interested in lecture activities, I would certainly set her up with as many instructor materials as possible. Since Diane also places a heavy emphasis on research methodology, I would either try to found a developmental psychology book that included a great deal of research or perhaps look to some of our research books for case studies and lecture activity supplements.

Wendy Johnson

Bookstore Manager

San Francisco State University

Wendy is a friend I’ve made over the course of many on-campus experiences. I’ve worked with her during first day of class presentations, media sign up booths, and I worked with her in the bookstore on freshman rush day. Throughout all of these activities, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with her and get a manager’s perspective on how to create and maintain happy publisher/bookstore relations.

They key to this happy relationship is reciprocity; sometimes the bookstore needs an order at the last minute and sometimes a rep needs just a few more study guides to be adopted to make their goal. Bookstore managers, I’ve learned, hold the real key to making your numbers. In cases when it is simply more cost efficient for the bookstore to order used books, a good relationship may mean ordering used books, but a batch of new study guides or eBooks.

When I got in touch with Wendy, the bookstore manager at San Francisco State, and explained that I was doing a campus project for Sage, she sounded puzzled for a moment. “Sage? But they don’t have any outside reps.” I told her that was changing and she sounded delighted. Sage textbooks are well respected at SF State for their quality, especially the research methodology texts, but without a personal contact, it has not always been easy for the professors to adopt the books and get them up and running. If Wendy needs a rush order or has some kind of circumstance requiring a little extra attention, it has been a challenge to work with a remote team. And, while she said that even that aspect has been improving over the past few years, she seemed delighted that there was going to be a field rep to work with more closely.

So what am I going to do about all of this?

There is huge opportunity for growth here in California, and especially in Northern California. Over and over again I heard professors tell me that they want publishers to make things as easy as possible for them to adopt and use a book. While the quality of Sage’s publications have always been acknowledged, I think providing personal customer service will take the business to a higher level. Indeed, the schools in Northern California seem ripe for the picking.

When I was working with the adoption reports, there was a noticeable lack of schools here in the area. There are certainly schools that would provide fertile markets for the types of upper level products in which Sage specializes. There are 5 UCs, 11 CSUs, as well as many highly renowned private schools. These are all markets that have not yet had an outside rep to help smooth the way for professors to use Sage products. They have a slew of other publisher’s reps bombarding them with information, but there isn’t yet a voice for the Sage products the professors would love, if only they knew Sage has the products they need.

When the professors like those books, I will be there to smooth the way to an adoption and ordering. If they seem uncertain, I will work with them until I can find something that suits their needs. My tactic in these campus visits has been to learn as much as I can about what these professors are doing, what challenges they face, and what they want. I think the best initial approach to any sales situation is to find out what the customer wants and work from there.

Of course, because this sales position has not always been in the field, schools in Southern California would enjoy the same benefits of a personal point of reference for the first time, but judging by the adoption reports, those schools have not recently suffered for want of attention. Even with the time Mark has spent on them, everywhere I look, I see room for even more expansion.

I am hungry to learn more about the strategies that Sage uses to expand its business, as well as about the products we have to offer. Whenever I ask professors or other people in publishing, the words I hear are “quality” and “integrity.” I am eager to become a member of such a great team.

What makes a good writer?

Decent writing is easy to come by. The grammar is correct and the ideas are adequately communicated. I find decent writing on blogs, in online news stories, in work emails, and even in the books I'm editing. Even adequate language seems to me a neurological miracle, but I did not dedicate ten years of my life to studying how to write just well enough to get by.

While I love to read truly great writing, the work of the masters, I'm not sure it's something I can ever aspire to myself. But to be a good writer? Yes, I can certainly do that. So what elevates someone from mere communication to good writing?

The first thing that comes to mind is a piece of advice from Strunk and White's Elements of Style. "Omit needless words." Looking at the paragraph above, there are plenty that could be removed. Do I really need the the truly to describe truly great writing. Do I need the appositive to tell you that it's the work of the masters? What about certainly? Wouldn't my sentence be stronger if I just quietly said, "I can do that"? Good writing does not pad or fluff. In good writing, each word serves a purpose.

This is not to say that each sentence need only be Hemingway-esque bare bones. There is certainly room, in my writing at least, for a rhetorical flourish here and there to make a point. Perhaps you want to create, through asides and delays, a sense of crescendo that slowly builds, leaving the readers holding their breath until, at last, your point is made. All of my favorite writers, Woolf, Faulkner, Shakespeare, use extremely complex sentences to mirror the tension and complexity of their subjects. There is room for style.

So what makes style, then? It is, I think, a sense of rhythm. It's arranging the words so they have the greatest possible impact. For example, I could have phrased that last sentence as: To have the greatest impact, the words should be carefully arranged. But that just falls a little flat, doesn't it? Impact is the exciting word, so that's what you want to strike the readers with at the very end.

"Write the way you talk." It's age old advice for a reason. We have certain cadences to our speech, verbal tics, and mannerisms that all lend themselves to creating a voice. It's speaking that gives us our rhythms. Often that gets lost when the words are put down on paper.

So how to maintain that natural sense? How do we achieve clarity? The best thing I've found so far is practice. So here we are. Practicing.