KA, CIRQUE DU SOLEIL

Last night, we went to see the Cirque Du Soleil-KA show, one of several Cirque shows playing Vegas. I attended the original about twenty years ago and the differences are immaterial. The original was much like a fancy, musical circus with high fliers and acrobats. One particular acrobat act was stunning and unforgettable with one man balancing on the head of another moving with muscular precision in slow motion through all of their gravity defying positions.

KA is more of a story line with gracefully acrobatic fliers, and fast moving, dance choreography for the war scenes accompanied by thunderous music. The costuming was very original. The full theater aspects of the show, meaning acrobats running about the theater at every level, above and around you are unique to my experience and very exciting.

Several scenes, like a tragic opera, were so beautiful, and emotion rending, that even without words, the "play" is understandable. The special scenes, sinking a boat, the underwater rescue, the acrobats in the wheel and a war played out on a slippery perpendicular stage kept you glued to the action. The perpendicular stage is like nothing I've heard of or seen before. Just watching the machinery in motion was amazing.
Now, I want to see them all.

My son suggested we use valet parking to see the shows and we loved pulling up into valet parking with the old Bronco with a bike hanging off the back among all the El Dorados, Saturns, Mercedes, Rolls and other fancy cars. The looks we get when the valet brings us our vehicle are a riot. At MGM they have a lava heat to keep you warm while waiting for your vehicle.

WAR WILL ALWAYS BE WITH US

A couple blogs back, I started to sift through some favorite places I visited in our 16,000 mile trip. Cruising down memory lane I came to one place that stood out without any great pictures, and that was Fredericksburg, Texas where we visited the Pacific War Museum. Its coverage of World War Two was an experience in understanding, putting the war together in one place from battle to battle; much of it from the mouths of people who served. I don't approve of war as a way to solve problems, but it makes sense to understand war.

 World societies cannot be content to let others live their lives as they choose. There is always a leader who is a power monger, or greedy. Or, like as not, a religious zealot who knows best how the rest of us should live our lives.
I received an article from my friend Randy Vining that presented the view of Dr. Emanuel Tamay, an eminent psychiatrist. The article-shortened- follows with his tangent points:

A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'          Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.  China 's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.  The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.  And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?  History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts--the fanatics who threaten our way of life.  The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.    Emanuel Tanay, M.D. 2980 Provincial St. Ann Arbor , MI 48104  Food for thought. Randy Vining blogs at: mobilecodgers.blogspot.com

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GETTYSBURG NATIONAL MILITARY PARK

The Battle of Gettysburg almost went to the Confederates, it was that close and hard fought. It turned the tide for the Union at great cost in American lives on both sides.
There was so much carnage on the fields and roads and waysides after this 3 day battle, the people of Gettysburg were overwhelmed by the horrific task of hastily burying bodies, untangling the near dead from the dead where they had fallen, and treating the wounded. It took years for the town to recover. Their memories never did. And because 51,000 men lost their lives at Gettysburg, this war museum is well appointed with the relics of horrific warfare.
    "The harvest of bullets was left for the citizens to glean...picking up these missiles of death and selling them to dealers two of who alone sent to Baltimore fifty tons of lead."

As you drive about, one could easily decide the whole town is a monument to this battle. Rolling hills, farmland and fields changed forever because of the events played out upon them. That someone should simply return  the land back to wheat, or grazing, to simple fields, or anything but hallowing this ground is unthinkable.  As a nation we erect monuments that no one forget the sacrifice these men and boys made.

The cross fencing is maintained as it was. Farmland and fields around the battlefield have been purchased with lease agreements to maintain the look of the times. Cannon aim over rock fences, at the very position where men marched to their deaths. And small monuments placed about the battlefield  identify the regiments that gave their lives for all.

Then there is the nearby Gettysburg National Cemetery where men are buried by the numbers, and sometimes by name, position and regiment. A major monument stands above a semi-circle of stones, dividing the dead by state from which they came.

The two year old National Military Park Museum reminds you what went on here and we attempt to understand how countries continue to chose war to settle conflicts. During this Civil War, people from both sides were pleading to end the carnage, and to go on as before if necessary, split the union if necessary, anything to stop the horror.
A Southern General made the statement, "It is good that war is horrible or we might become too fond of it." .

The museum houses a 377 foot painting weighing 3 tons, in a special building to hold this painting in a circle. Its called a cyclorama. It was painted by Paul Phillipoteaux, who was there at Pickets charge. The museum is well done and sets the battle in the greater theatre of the whole war which enlarges your understanding of how and where the war was fought battle by battle.
While I learned much about the Civil War I'd forgotten this museum brings to life the people who lived it, their faces and their voices.
The mule driven wagons carrying the wounded away stretched for 60 miles.
     "The sounds of wretched voices from that train will stay with me forever"
     "Please, can't you stop for one minute, just one minute!"
     "I beg you to put an end to me. Shoot me now."
     "Please just lay me by the side of the road to die. I don't want to live any longer."
     "I just want to die."

At times the battle front was a mile wide.
     "Men fire into each other's faces not five feet apart. There are bayonet-thrusts, sabre-thrusts, pistol shots...oaths, yells, curses, shoutings; men going down on their hands and knees, spinning like tops, gulping up blood, falling; legless; armless; headless. There are ghastly heaps of bodies."

"In an assault on Confederate trenches in Cold Harbor, VA., roughly 4000 soldiers were killed or wounded in less than an hour."
This was a very emotional and moving place to visit. Every person who votes for war should be required to visit a war museum like this one, or the Pacific War Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas. (My small voice in the void.)
 To do this well, you need at least three days. There is much to see and discover in the historic town as well. The National Park was gifted with the nearby President Eisenhower Farm  which I will cover later.

FORT BOWIE AND THE APACHE WARS

The trail we hiked was quite rough in places and steep in others. High desert, inhospitable to all but those who called it home, the Chiricahua Apache. They adopted the horse from incursions of Spaniards and made their last stand here against the American Calvary for life as they had known it.
The Apache allowed the Butterfield Stage to trek across their lands. They didn't see them as a threat. It was a tense trip because the Butterfield drivers knew the Apache could be unpredictable. This pass was a direct link to the only southern route into California by way of the Yuma crossing which moved men and goods across the mighty Colorado river. Above is a trace of the stage road leading down into the valley and beyond.


This pass was chosen because it had the only dependable, year around source of water, Apache Springs. The Apache way of life was to ride into the valley and bag deer. The women kept the children, collected berries, prickly pear and other edibles to complete their way of life. When settlers began intruding, the Apache raided them. Everyone coveted the water.

The U.S. established Fort Bowie to protect the pass and its settlers from the Apache. They sent in soldiers and an uneasy co-existence was maintained for many years between the U.S. and the Apache by way of talks with their leader, Cochise. The U.S. established an Indian Agent to assist with peace-keeping promises. Skirmishes with indians and settlers were common with fear and mistrust ruling reason on both sides.
A shared cemetery.
Then the Bascom affair led to eleven years of all out war when the Apache were accused of kidnapping Mickey Free. Bascom was sent in to rectify things and during a meeting with Cochise he committed the unforgiveable sin of grabbing Chochise and imprisoning him during a peace talk. The new Apache leader was the renegade, Geronimo.
The U.S. sent in more and more troops. Expanded Fort Bowie and brought in Cannon to fight the Indians. They eventually succeeded in getting the Apache to surrender. They moved Cochise and Geronimo with their people to reservations.
It struck me how accurately some of the western movies I've seen over the years portrayed these events. Its also ironic that just 120 miles north, at Tuscon, are the studios that produced most of those movies on Arizona land.
The remains of the expanded, second Fort Bowie above. The hike takes you to both forts. The visitor center nearby has wonderful books on the Apache and a small, but good museum.

In this museum sits the tent shaped stove above. A soldier invented it and canvas covered tents, claiming he got the idea from examining indian tents. He signed a contract with the U.S Government to supply the tents for a royalty on each one sold. It is estimated he would have made 250,000 in royalties had they paid him. It was his misfortune to side with the Confederates.