May Day means many things to many people, from pagans to factory workers to boaters in trouble. David Clark is here to explain it all.]]> May Day means many things to many people, from pagans to factory workers to troubled boaters. David Clark is here to explain it all.

May Day for Pagans

Wherever the winters are cold, wet, or overcast, the prime weeks of spring inspire elation and revelry. Finally, we can stop being irritable, morose winter brutes and commence our exuberant sun worship.

So around the end of April and beginning of May, the Romans honored their flower and fertility goddess Flora with dances, processions, games, and sundry merriment. Lots of this merriment involved prostitutes, rarely clothed. Of course everyone thinks the “Floralia” festival had roots in older earth and goddess worshipping cultures; defenders of Roman Virtue have blamed the Floralia’s rampant licentiousness — including nude mimes! — on those randy and uncivil primitives. Arguably, the Romans had lewd habits all their own, even before Caligula — but we won’t get into that.

On May 1st there were also sacrifices to the obscure Italian earth goddess Maia by the priests of Vulcan (the fire and volcano god, thought to be Maia’s beau). We don’t know much else about what the Romans thought of her, except that she’s the one who gave the month its name.

The Celtic druids had their own May Day holiday, Beltane — which translates to bright or lucky fire. They lit bonfires all over the hills to honor the sun, and they walked their cattle between the flames to provide some magical protection from diseases and witchcraft, before releasing the beasts to pasture for the season. People sometimes walked between the fires, as well, if they were feeling particularly wary of the coming year or were suffering a spate of bad luck. Some say that the Maypole tradition — in which a tall pole serves as center for fertility-oriented rites — began with the Celts. Some people will blame everything fertile or phallic on the pagans.

May Day for Christians

During medieval times, May Day festivities took off in England. At the crack of dawn everyone would “go a-maying,” gathering flowers and greenery and choosing a Maypole. Women would also wash their faces in fresh spring dew to improve their complexions — and men would try to seduce them. (Many poems about May Day festivities have made it into the scholarly canon of English Lit., and thus college classrooms — and almost all of them are not-so-subtle efforts to seduce a virgin.) Children hung flower baskets from door-handles, whether to fend off evil spirits or spread joy. And there were games, contests, dressed-up cows, sports, jesters, and wild costumes. A Queen of May was appointed to preside over festivities, and this practice has been connected with ancient worship of Maia. But by the middle ages, Maia was well-blended with Maid Marian. Robin Hood and his forest-dwelling bandits would also show up to bolster the merriment.

The Maypole was at the center of all this — and it was against that prominent shaft that many Puritans directed their righteous ire. They hated May Day with fist-shaking passion. They loathed the fleshy indulgence of it: what could irk a Puritan more than this celebration of “the birds and the bees”? (This is the basis of the 1973 cult hit The Wicker Man.) In 1644, the English Puritans in power were able to outlaw May Day for a little while. But that didn’t hold.

Pilgrims to America brought this tension with them, and in the early colonies one May Day caused quite the scandal. In 1627 Thomas Morton — who had established the non-puritanical colony of Merrymount to rival Plymouth — set up a Maypole and celebrated the May Day cheerfully (and beer-fully) around it. The gossip is that Merrymounters even danced with squaws! Of course the neighboring Puritans would have none of it. So the raging John Endicott (future governor of Massachusetts) strode into Merrymount and chopped down the Maypole. He re-dubbed Morton’s colony Mount Dagon, after a god of the sinful Philistines who died in Noah’s flood, and soon managed to have Morton himself expelled back to England on charges of selling weapons and booze to the natives.

May Day for Workers and Communists

A decidedly non-pagan, asexual May Day celebration is that of International Workers’ Day, a holiday created by socialists and labor organizers in commemoration of the Haymarket Riot of May 4th, 1886 (also called the Haymarket Massacre or, more cautiously, the Haymarket Affair).

In post-Civil War America, the Industrial Revolution was in full blaze and workers were suffering. Machines were replacing skilled laborers, hours were increasing, conditions were worsening, and the wages were inadequate. The revolutionary ideas of socialism and Marxism caught on with many of these disenfranchised and antagonized laborers, and the movement for an eight-hour day had gained powerful momentum. With all of this brewing, disputes and riots ignited again and again. Then at a large protest in Chicago’s Haymarket Square someone threw a dynamite bomb at the cops, which triggered a battle that left at least twelve dead and many more wounded. The riot was followed by a hugely publicized trial and the eventual hanging of four anarchists, the “Haymarket Martyrs.”

This violent clash in Chicago became a powerful symbol for radical labor groups. A few years later, the Second International officially initiated the tradition of May Day labor demonstrations that continue still.

May Day for Patriots

Of course, labor demonstrations often feature strong showings from socialists, communists, and anarchists. So during the post-WWII Red Scare, the United States counteracted Soviet-influenced May Day rallies by designating May 1st as Loyalty Day, a day during which all Americans, even disgruntled workers, are to remember their vows to the Nation — which should trump any allegiance to those insidious international rebel alliances. Loyalty Day probably didn’t have the intended effect of inspiring Soviet spies to turn Prodigal Son, but plenty of Americans tend to prefer a good parading, flag-waving, and hot-dog-eating holiday to some serious-minded May Day workers’ rights protest.

May Day for Life-Threatening Emergencies

Why is “mayday!” an international distress call? It doesn’t derive from Puritans warning each other of druidic daylight orgies, and it’s not Cold War Army code for a communist uprising thick with bomb-throwing anarchists — it’s just a simple mispronunciation of the French venez m’aider, meaning “come help me!”

How do you do it? In a life-threatening emergency (please no sprained ankle alarms), just plug into a radio distress channel and say “mayday” three times, then the name of your boat three times, if you’re lucky enough to be on a boat, then give the information a rescuer will need to save you. If the danger isn’t immediately life-threatening, you can make a simple “pan-pan” call. Or better yet, ask your mother for advice.

Here’s the story of this early conservationist experiment, which helped bring 19th-century environmentalism into public view.]]>

Almost a century before the first Earth Day (in 1970), Nebraskans were celebrating their popular tree planting holiday, Arbor Day, on April 22nd. Here’s the story of this early conservationist experiment, which helped bring 19th-century environmentalism into public view.

Treehuggers of the World, Unite!

Arbor Day is now observed throughout the U.S. and around the world, on dates that differ from region to region, according to bureaucratic technicalities and seasonal variations. Within the States alone there’s enough diversity to scatter Arbor Days over half of the solar year: Florida and Louisiana bury their seeds as early as the third Friday of January; in South Carolina it is the first Friday of December; and in Hawaii the beginning of November. National Arbor Day claims the last Friday of April, and most temperate states conform to the Feds. But it all began in Nebraska, the Tree Planter and Cornhusker State — and before they fell in line with the National date, Nebraskans celebrated their great tree planting holiday on the birthday of its illustrious founder: April 22nd.

Julius Sterling Morton, the Conservative Conservationist

The Taurus responsible is Julius Sterling Morton (1832-1902), who was a determined and industrious public man with a handsome mustache. Morton moved to Nebraska during its territorial days and served in the legislature, even seized the governorship for a time. After Nebraska’s entrance into the Union he continued the pursuit of public office — efforts that generally failed but kept him in the game — until he was eventually appointed Secretary of Agriculture in the cabinet of Stephen Grover Cleveland, in 1893. But that was after Morton had already made a name for himself in Nebraska as an agrarian reformer and tree planting advocate.

Julius Morton was hardly a “treehugger,” according to the modern politicized stereotype. He was a fervid conservative — unwavering enough in this identity to establish a political journal titled, quite simply, The Conservative — and a dedicated Democrat, in an era when it was the Democratic party that ridiculed “elites,” championed business interests, and resisted taxation.

As you can imagine, then, there was no Druidic spiritualism or hippie-like aesthetic to Morgon’s enthusiasm for trees. During the late nineteenth century, American proto-environmentalism roughly split between the “conservationists,” who promoted the sustainable development and utilization of natural resources, and “preservationists” like the famous John Muir, who valued unpeopled wilderness as a good in itself, and opposed landscape blights like mines and dams whether they were “sustainable” or not. Morton’s role was with the conservationists: he was an enthusiastic proponent of railroads and rural development who also argued that stable progress must take environmental concerns into account — and he considered deforestation one of the most significant threats to the well-being of Nebraska and the Nation.

How Trees Can Save America

Morton believed that more trees in Nebraska would break the swift plain-winds, secure topsoil, conserve moisture, discourage erosion, and generally improve the state’s agriculture for current and future generations. When planning empires, one must always think of the children. So in early 1872, while working for a Nebraska newspaper, he proposed the adoption of Arbor Day, “to urge upon the people of the state the vital importance of tree planting.” That April saw the first observance of Morton’s holiday in Nebraska. With a few cash rewards offered to goad the masses on, about a million trees were planted in a single day, they say. The people loved the idea — and many loved Morton for it. So in a short time, Nebraskans settled the date of their Arbor Day on Julius Morton’s birth-anniversary, April 22.

Within decades the successful Arbor Day had spread to other states, and was enthusiastically endorsed by Theodore Roosevelt, who framed tree planting as a kind of nationalistic duty for the benefit of the imperium: “A people without children,” he wrote, “would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as hopeless.”

Drafting Preteens for Tree Planting

Morton was not alone in his arboreal enthusiasms. At the time there were a number of prominent activists specifically devoted to trees — among them the Doctor of Divinity Birdsey Grant Northrop, who was out preaching the practical and aesthetic virtues of the tree well before Arbor Day. When news of Morton’s tree planting day reached the East, Northrop grasped the torch and carried Arbor Day to the next level: schoolchildren. And at that level it largely remains to this day.

It was certainly sensible to recruit young backs and enthusiastic minds not yet averse to unpaid labor; Northrop also considered it right and proper to teach our youth the scientific benefits of “arboriculture,” since he believed, like Morton and Roosevelt, that the fate of the nation depended on the quality of its groves. After the success of Northrop’s tireless advocacy, pointing out the many educational opportunities in tree planting, elementary schoolchildren have arguably constituted the very lifeblood of Arbor Day — as is the case with so many non-bank holidays.

Arbor Day and the Fate of Civilization

Both Morton and Dr. Northrop were activists under the influence of George Perkins Marsh — a devastatingly talented Vermonter who had already succeeded as a linguistic scholar (familiar with 20 languages), Congressman, public conservationist, minister to Turkey, and ambassador to the new Kingdom of Italy before publishing his best known work, Man and Nature: Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, in 1864.

Man and Nature is considered the first book to systematically examine the long-term impact of human practices on the natural environment — and, in a tone we’re all familiar with in the Global Warming Era, Marsh predicted catastrophe. Long before Jared Diamond’s bestselling Collapse, Marsh concluded that the fall of the Roman Empire was the result of poor land management techniques. And he feared that America could repeat the error, unless changes were made.

Marsh advocated reforestation as one vital component in a total overhaul of civilization’s relation to nature. His work is credited as a foundational text that spread environmentalist sympathies (and the love of trees) beyond the literary Romantics and Transcendentalists and into the political realm. Arbor Day did the same.

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If everything goes according to plan, one day America’s largest monument won’t honor any presidents or glorify the Republic’s early history. David Clark is here to discuss the unfinished tribute to Crazy Horse.]]>

This week, David Clark is our tour guide as we take a closer look at some of America’s greatest monuments. His series continues today with the story of a monument-in-progress, the unfinished tribute to Crazy Horse.

If everything goes according to plan, by the twenty-second century America’s largest monument won’t honor any presidents, and won’t glorify the Republic’s early history. It will be the most immense statue in the world – 563 feet high and 641 feet long – and it will depict a native warrior who lived and fought as an enemy of westward imperialism and a fugitive from the US government, who was driven from his people’s land and, after his surrender and imprisonment, surreptitiously murdered by US soldiers.

The gargantuan Crazy Horse Memorial, carved out of a mountain in the Black Hills just southwest of Mt. Rushmore, will certainly remind us that “the red man had great heroes, too” — as Chief Standing Bear of the Lakota Sioux intended it to — but it will also conjure all the fierce brutality and shameless injustice of American history, the kind of bloodstains that are scrubbed off our most well-known monuments. The image of Crazy Horse is at once a symbol for the many virtues of the Native Americans and for the many savage sins of the United States.

Korczak Ziolkowski’s No Indian-Lover

In the 1940s a group of Lakota chiefs decided to counter the iconography of Mr. Rushmore with a mountain sculpture of their own, in honor of those native civilizations that the US government and the apotheosized Presidents had systematically conquered. The chiefs found their craftsman in a Polish-American named Korczak Ziolkowski, who was out west already to work on Mt. Rushmore and relished the chance to devise and execute a colossal carving on his own terms. Ziolkowski didn’t consider himself “an Indian-lover,” in his words: rather, he was “a storyteller in stone” who respected the Lakota and their hero and understood the broad significance of a Crazy Horse monument. So the chiefs got their sculptor, and Ziolkowski got his life’s mission.

Ziolkowski scouted a site — the sacred mountain of Paha Sapa, also known as Thunderbird Mountain — and set to work in a wilderness without company or even roads (he had to bulldoze the first ones himself). He spent the remainder of his days, from 1949-1982, clambering on the rocks like a grey-bearded mountain goat, plotting and drilling, blasting, shoveling, and bulldozing — “carving” on the largest possible scale.

The unkempt sculptor exuded vitality; he carried himself as a cheery, rough-tongued, hard-drinking mountain man, an icon in his own right for the rugged individualism of the western “white man” — the cowboy, the settler, the prospector. He knew he had the talent for a more prosperous and celebrated life in the arts, but was fully devoted to the monument, the setting, the work, and the lifestyle. “I’m the world’s biggest chiseler,” he boasted. “I’ve got $23 dollars in my bank account . . . If I had stayed in the East I’d be a millionaire fancy-ass sculptor today.”

While almost single-handedly shaping the mountain, Ziolkowski suffered quite a few injuries, including two heart attacks. Once, his son Casimir mis-steered a tractor over a 170 foot cliff, tumbled through the air right over Korczak’s head — and luckily planted on the only soft dirt heap in sight, miraculously unharmed. After all this, Ziolkowski managed a peaceful death, and was buried in a tomb he blasted for himself at the base of the mountain, knowing he wouldn’t live to see Crazy Horse finished.

Early on, Ziolkowski’s first wife had joined him out in the Hills for a short time, then promptly divorced him. Apparently, the idea of wearing her life out with an eccentric dynamite-nut stranded in backwoods didn’t appeal to her, once she’d given it a try. The second wife worked out better: she endured, even thrived, and after Korczak’s death has been managing the project with the help of their clan of children (7 out of 10 are still working on or for the Memorial). There’s a visitor center and a museum at the base of the unfinished sculpture, which opened to educate the public and raise funds for continued work. In fact, Ziolkowski refused to accept government funding, fearing the Feds would hijack his vision, so the Crazy Horse Memorial is all privately funded by donations and visitor fees.

Crazy Horse’s nine-story-tall face was finished in 1998. There’s a catch, though: nobody knows exactly what Crazy Horse looked like. Whether the warrior chief refused to have his photograph taken for fear that it would steal his “shadow” and shorten his life, as one story goes, or he just didn’t care for the artistic medium, Crazy Horse left no (definitive) photographic remains. (There are plenty of “reputed” but unproven photos of Crazy Horse circulating today.) Ziolkowski, therefore, intended to fashion a nonspecific face to represent the Idea of Crazy Horse — a symbol rather than a mimetic likeness.

The Controversies, The Ironies & The Paradoxes

Plenty of controversy seethes around the Memorial. In the beginning, some local people opposed the project for racial reasons, and even went so far as to vandalize Ziolkowski’s smaller works out of spite. While racist opposition has faded in time, other forms continue. Some Native Americans protest that blasting images into their sacred mountains is no way to honor their cultures and traditions, regardless of whose faced is chiseled out in the end. And others wonder why Lakota chiefs conceived the project without the permission of Crazy Horse’s family, or why the Ziolkowski family seems to control the whole project (and handles all the funds). Still, none of the trouble has halted the work, which continues today and will keep on indefinitely.

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a tangle of paradoxes and sobering ironies. The largest sculpture in America will honor a people the United States trod over, a man the government captured and killed. The four heads of Mt. Rushmore — heroes of the white Republic — will be overshadowed by a larger-than-life reminder of one of the Republic’s greatest crimes. A lone Polish-American immigrant will have been the primary architect and sculptor of a tribute to Native American history, community, and values. And the colossal form will depict a man who was wary of photographers, of whom no unequivocal image survives. [Images courtesy of crazyhorsememorial.org.]

Previously: The Statue of Liberty, The Washington Monument, The Gateway Arch

Only ten days after the death of George Washington (in 1799), Congress decided they should build some kind of grand monument for the late president-general. And 85 years later, after many delays and plenty of outrage, the Washington Monument was completed.]]> This week, David Clark will be our tour guide as we take a closer look at some of America’s greatest monuments. His series continues today with the story of the Washington Monument.

Born to Broken Promises

Only ten days after the death of George Washington (in 1799), Congress decided they should build some kind of grand monument for the late president-general, the “Father of His Country.” A couple of schemes came up, a few elaborate fantasies, but nothing material happened. And nothing continued to happen, as nothing does, despite several fervid public statements made by G.W. enthusiasts, decrying the delay and upbraiding a nation of ingrates and ditherers.

A New Resolve, and a Search for Stupendousness

This guilt-ridden procrastination continued on until the most passionate Washington Monument devotees formed a Washington National Monument Society in 1833, to kick-start the long-postponed project and give the Father of Founding Fathers his due. They had lofty ambitions for a piece of work that would “blend stupendousness with elegance,” and they invited artists nationwide to submit designs in an open competition. Where the pointy spire now stands, we could have had an ornate Gothic tower, a creepy mini-pyramid, a rectangular column with a Washington-Colossus perched atop. But final victory went to the offering of Robert Mills, whose obelisk expressed that special “stupendousness” everyone was looking for.

(Obelisks, of course, were a favorite shape first for the Ancient Egyptians, and then for the Romans. Conquering Roman armies often pilfered Egyptian obelisks and lugged them back to Rome or some other imperial metropolis. After the Empire had its way, there were more obelisks in Rome alone than in all of Egypt. So anything the Romans liked that much was bound to be an instant hit with the early American Republic, as Mills no doubt knew.)

Construction Begins, Despite the Displeasure of Poets

Now that Congress had the basic idea — something tall, thin, and decidedly phallic — nothing happened again for a while as partisans bickered over details. The obstructive effect of these minor revisions was compounded by lackluster fundraising, and some public opposition. Walt Whitman, for instance, wrote in 1847 that “of that plan [for the Washington Monument], we cannot find terms to speak in sufficient contempt!” (Virulent patriot that he was, Whitman thought stone monuments more worthy of “mere common heroes,” like Napoleon, or Roman Emperors.) Still, the cornerstone was laid at last in 1848, amid all the parading and hoopla one would expect from that kind of event.

Some people make a big fuss about the Monument’s chosen location, how it’s in the entirely wrong place and it spoils L’Enfants’ visionary layout for Washington D.C. But that’s all based off arcane symbology, esoteric Freemasonry, astronomy, and over-learned gibberish. So forget it.

Know-Nothings Hijack Monument to Save Nation From Popery

Funds remained scarce until Alabama initiated a breakthrough strategy. The states were each asked to donate money to the monument project; so Alabama, lacking money, offered a commemorative, engraved brick. It said, “Alabama. A union of equality, as adjusted by the constitution.” — subtly uppity, perhaps, but not out of line for a pre-Civil War motto. Organizers appreciated the gesture and asked the country for more stones. Before long, states, cities, societies, native tribes, companies, and lots of Freemasons were sending custom-chiseled bricks to D.C. — sometimes with money attached, often without.

Things looked up for the Monument until the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic Know Nothings — officially known as the American Party — got wind that Pope Pius the IX had donated a stone. Unwilling to endure such vile papist poison in an American monument, the Know Nothings abducted the Pope’s stone and, most likely, drowned it in the Potomac. Soon after, they managed to seize the whole Monument Society in a kind of democratic coup. In reaction, Congress withheld funding from the project until the Know Nothing party collapsed at last in 1857. After that, though, the Civil War happened, soaking up the available money and labor, and the Washington Monument had to wait a little longer.

Disgraceful Chimney Becomes Impressive Obelisk: Washington Honored At Last

Stalled with construction less than one-third complete, the grand monument was an eyesore and a disgrace, little more than a silly-looking rectangle. Mark Twain wrote in 1868, “It is just the general size and shape, and possesses about the dignity, of a sugar-mill chimney.” Others around the country called for the monument to be completed at once or gracefully demolished.

And yet Congress managed a few more years of puttering and reconsidering. Some alternate designs were entertained again. Although they stuck with Mills’ original, in the end, they imposed some dramatic revisions. Among other things, Congress ended up cutting the classical temple Mills’ intended for the obelisk’s base, a prominent image of the Egyptian Winged-Sun, and a thirty-foot statue of Washington in a toga, riding a six-horse chariot. They added a pointy tip. Mills reportedly complained that his obelisk without its temple-colonnade would look as ridiculous as “a stalk of asparagus” — nobody listened.

Congress built up the nerve by 1880 to lay a new cornerstone 150 feet in the air: an official “second chance.” This time they were determined to get the thing done, and by 1884 the capstone was set on the pyramidion at the peak, the obelisk finished at 555 feet, and George Washington was the worthy honoree of the tallest manmade structure in the world. That statistic changed, of course, but the Washington Monument does remain to this day the tallest freestanding masonry built up by human hands.

Previously: The Statue of Liberty, The Gateway Arch, The Unfinished Tribute to Crazy Horse

This week, David Clark will be our tour guide as we take a closer look at some of America's greatest monuments. His series kicks off today with highlights from the history of “Liberty Enlightening the World.”]]>

This week, David Clark will be our tour guide as we take a closer look at some of America’s greatest monuments. His series kicks off today with highlights from the history of “Liberty Enlightening the World,” known to the masses as the Statue of Liberty: her life as modern colossus, wartime pin-up centerfold, copper bosom to comfort the weary, hostage for the dissatisfied, and bane of Vigo.

The Conception and Birth of Our Stern Green Giant

Ambitions ran high towards the end of the 19th century, and French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was aching to build a modern colossus. The Colossus of Rhodes, archetype of Western colossi, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: a hundred-foot-high sculpture of the Greek sun-god Helios that loomed over the harbor of Rhodes in the 3rd century B.C. Many people agreed that Bartholdi’s modern colossus idea was a fine one — then as now, people liked anything big, and always found it gratifying to compare themselves to Ancient Greeks — but when it came time to shell out for materials, the rich and powerful would shrug, mutter something about other priorities, and shuffle away. (If Bartholdi hadn’t been frustrated at first, Lady Liberty might have been built in Egypt as a lighthouse for the Suez Canal, titled “Egypt Bringing Light to Asia.” As though they don’t have enough hulking monuments already.)

Nevertheless, circumstances eventually granted Bartholdi his chance. The French were planning to give an ostentatious gift to the United States in honor of the centennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and in celebration of our mutual affection for liberty and republics and that kind of thing. Bartholdi pitched the idea of a giant Lady Liberty — a symbol that tied modern republican ideals to classical Rome — and France deemed it worthy. She would be titled “Liberty Enlightening the World,” she would have skin of beaten copper, and she would bear the Torch of Enlightenment, a seven-pointed halo, an unwieldy toga, a strong and sober brow, and a tablet spelling out in Roman numerals the birthday of the USA (July IV, MDCCLXXVI).

Work began in Paris during the 1870s, but only an arm was ready for 1876, the true centennial year. This limb was exhibited at the World’s Fair in Philadelphia that year; then the head appeared two years later at another World’s Fair, in Paris. The full woman was finally ready for display in 1884, so they packed her into hundreds of crates, shipped her oversea, and rebuilt the Statue atop a star-shaped pedestal the US had set up for her (with much less enthusiasm and much more fundraising troubles than the French had), on a little island that had served in the past as a pesthouse, quarantine station, gallows, military prison, and dump, among other things. Then during a grand celebration in late 1886, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated, and its face was dramatically unveiled from behind a French flag. At the time, she was the tallest structure in New York, at 305 feet. Rumor has it she looks like Bartholdi’s mother.

The American Colossus quickly turned green — which was inevitable, since copper will oxidize whenever given the chance. But nobody minded terribly except maybe Bartholdi, who had hoped the statue would be gilded, and in fact never felt satisfied that the Americans understood how fantastic his statue truly was, how symbolically potent, how politically inspiring, and so on.

Military Icon and Mother of Exiles

After the parades, high-flown rhetoric and fanfare of her unveiling, the Statue of Liberty endured periods of neglect and indifference. Some regarded her as little more than New York’s ornate, bedraggled lighthouse. The World Wars, however, bolstered public appreciation for Lady Liberty: she was the symbolic crusader against tyranny and feminine counterpart to Uncle Sam — the original Ms. America. A celebration of her 50th anniversary, presided over by President Roosevelt, stimulated further interest in the Statue as an icon of the American Way.

Through those years of growing favor, Lady Liberty acquired another meaning, as well — something less militant, more maternal. Due in part to her proximity to Ellis Island, the Statue came to represent America as a refuge for immigrants, and embodied for weary sea travelers the promise of freedom and prosperity. The Statue doesn’t quite have the eyes of a welcoming mother, but she’s at least humanoid, and unarmed, so that’s welcome enough. Early in the Statue’s life, the poet Emma Lazarus divined this significance and dubbed her “Mother of Exiles,” in a sonnet that is now world famous — but was little known until the 1930s. Inspired by an influx of harried Jews fleeing persecution in Russia, Lazarus wrote the celebrated lines: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breath free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Titled “The New Colossus” and engraved inside the pedestal’s entrance in 1903, Lazarus’ sonnet captures an interpretation of the Statue that later generations would come to embrace.

The Ultimate Hostage, the Ultimate Hippie

Since World War II, Americans have considered the Statue a vital national symbol, manifesting any number of powerful and sometimes clashing values. As a locus of American identity and the troubled American Dream, she became a potent object for political gestures — and in the 1970s these culminated in a series of occupations. Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) snuck into the Statue and barricaded her entrances in 1971. They flew the flag upside down from Liberty’s crown and remained inside for a couple of days, demanding withdrawal from Vietnam, before they peacefully dispersed. The VVAW re-occupied the Statue after the war’s end to draw attention to the wretched treatment of American veterans. In 1977, a group of Iranians holed up inside the Statue to protest the Shah’s crimes in Iran, and America’s role in them. Then again that same year, Puerto Rican nationalists captured the Statue and draped a Puerto Rican flag from the crown.

There was a more passive attempt to appropriate the national icon in 1968, when a well-meaning hippie offered a colorful, colossus-sized string of beads that he’d custom-made for Lady Liberty. “They are lightweight, waterproof and made to go around her neck and extend to her waist,” he wrote; and by wearing them the Statue would “reflect the fashion of the forward-thinking people who are changing the attitudes in America today.” Sadly, the Park Service turned down the gift — or else we might have witnessed the spectacle of an angry President Nixon, emphatic enemy of the so-called counterculture, slashing and tearing the beads from Lady Liberty like one of Cinderella’s vicious step-sisters . . .

The Spectacle of Lady Liberty

Hollywood hasn’t shied from making a spectacle of the Statue and all its symbolic suggestions. She’s served as the scene for a number of climactic battles, from Hitchcock’s Saboteur to X-Men. She’s been demolished, toppled, beheaded, and burned by the many enemies of Life and Liberty — including aliens, sea beasts, the prehistoric reptile Rodan (enemy of Godzilla), Nuclear Man (who throws the Statue at Superman), Mother Nature (famous for mood swings), and the self-destructive human race — whom Charlton Heston dramatically damns to hell at the end of Planet of the Apes.

I say the Statue’s most profound and moving role (at least her most mobile) is in Ghostbusters II. Animated by reactive purple mood goo, the power of positive thinking, and some hot dance music, Lady Liberty struts through Manhattan and cheers up New Yorkers enough that their high spirits bring down Vigo the Carpathian, that dark sorcerer and savage baby-thief. Bartholdi himself could not have envisioned that his Statue would work such untold wonders.

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Did you know Kool-Aid was Nebraska's state beverage? That Oklahoma's state rock song is "Do You Realize??" by the Flaming Lips? It’s time we were all exposed to the bizarre symbology of state identity-politics.]]>

Almost everyone knows that each state of the Union has its own flag. State flags, however, are just the most visible elements of an elaborate, esoteric system of legalized symbols that characterize and codify our united states. For example, “Do You Realize??” by the Flaming Lips was just named the official Oklahoma State Rock Song. It’s time we were all exposed to the bizarre symbology of state identity-politics.

A Lesser-Known Tale of Badgers and Suckers

To begin with, some of the most well-known state symbols allude to lesser-known meanings and histories. I grew up in Wisconsin and only recently learned that the Badger State title originally refers not to Bucky, nor to the savage beast itself, but to lead miners in the 1820s and 30s. These miners moved from prospect to prospect in southwestern Wisconsin, traveling light and often, with little money for luxury. When winter came and conditions worsened, those miners too far from home to migrate would dig themselves sheltering caves in the hills — like badgers. These temporary dwellings could be abandoned if a prospect proved fruitless, without much regret; and if the lead pickings were good, the lucky miner could fluff up his badger hole or upgrade to a more traditional Euro-American residence. For this practice Wisconsin miners were dubbed “badgers” — a jibe that was soon appropriated as a proud, statewide nickname. Bucky didn’t come along until 1949; the furry, quadruped badger, notoriously vicious when cornered, wasn’t declared Wisconsin’s state animal until 1957.

Other miners migrated south for the winter to the far end of Illinois, much like the region’s sucker fish; which earned them the nickname of Suckers, and their state of Illinois its unenviable nickname, The Sucker State.

The Rebel Woodpecker

The state bird of Alabama has another tale behind it. They honor a little woodpecker they call the yellowhammer, which is known outside of Alabama as the northern flicker, the common flicker, or simply The Flicker. (It eats a lot of ants, and is not to be confused with the yellowhammer bunting of Europe and New Zealand.) State birds are chosen for reasons many and varied, some meaningful and others frivolous — from the pretty songs they sing to their proximity to extinction — and I believe this is the only bird singled out for its resemblance to Confederate uniforms. The story goes that a clean, trim, flashy bunch of new Confederate recruits one day passed by a weary, bedraggled, dusty pod of veterans, and their fresh uniforms, grey tinged with brilliant yellow, reminded some jokester vet of the woodpecker, so he let out a mocking call: “Yallerhammer, yallerhammer, flicker, flicker!” The jeer stuck, and the recruits were soon labeled the Yellowhammer Company. Later, as these things go, all Alabama troops were known as Yellowhammers, the whole state as the Yellowhammer State, and Confederate veterans developed a habit of wearing yellow feathers in their caps and lapels to dress up for post-war reunions.

How entertaining and informative. But the real fun starts when these state symbols more shamelessly approach the ridiculous. Let us consider some of the finest specimens:

Eat and Drink to the Honor of the State

Most states have at least one form of official food. In Louisiana, the official doughnut is the beignet. (I’m unaware of any other state doughnuts — and I’m disappointed.) New York’s official muffin is made with apples; Minnesota’s with blueberries; and none have yet found it fit to honor the vegan bran and raisin muffin, despite whatever strange wonders it works on the abdominal tubing. Vermont is the only state with an official flavor: maple, as in maple syrup — but because they’ve designated the “flavor,” not the “syrup,” we can assume the appointment includes everything from maple-glaze for ham to autumnal maple lattes. Shockingly, Oklahoma has recognized a complete (and daunting) meal: fried okra, squash, cornbread, barbeque pork, biscuits, sausage and gravy, grits, corn, chicken friend steak, black-eyed peas, strawberries, and pecan pies. As for state drinks, Nebraska has Kool-Aid, Indiana has water (hubris!), and Alabama, the standout, has Conecuh Ridge Alabama Fine Whiskey — a re-creation of some well-regarded illegal moonshine made in the backwoods by a man named Clyde May.

The Silly, Sentimental, and Insulting Songs that Define Us

All states have songs, too, except New Jersey, where good cheer goes to die. Most states have more than one. There are state ballads, state marches, state waltzes, and so on. Connecticut has a state cantata (a narrative piece intermixed with solos and choruses); Louisiana has a state environmental song (“The Gifts of the Earth”); Massachusetts a polka (“Say Hello to Someone from Massachusetts”); a couple states have lullabies; and Ohio has an official rock song, “Hang On Sloopy.” Two state anthems, Maryland’s and Iowa’s, are set to the familiar tune of “O Tannenbaum!”, or “O Christmas Tree!”; but no states have designated official Christmas songs. And despite Texas’ toughboy image (their official footwear is the cowboy boot), it’s the only state with an official flower song — in praise of its state flower, the bluebonnet. Many of the traditional states songs are brazenly effusive. Arizona’s begins, “I love you, Arizona,” and continues, rather romantically, “You’re the magic in me.” California’s is similar, without the magic: “I love you, California, you’re the greatest state of all.” South Dakotans use the superlative when singing to “The state we love the best.”

Usually they’re just hilarious, but a few of these songs bear some heinously outdated lyrics. With a nod to the old Eternal Feminine, North Carolina praises its women as Queens of the Forest, “So graceful, so constant, yet to gentlest breath trembling.” The real trouble comes, though, with old minstrel tunes that portray humble “darkies” praising “old Massa” in song and romanticizing their cotton-picking servitude. Kentucky changed the language for “My Old Kentucky Home” in 1986 to glaze over such indiscretions. But Virginia still seems to have trouble acknowledging its error, and simply demoted its song, “Carry Me Back To Old Virginny,” to the status of “state song emeritus.” Virginia still seeks an adequate replacement, preferably one that doesn’t idealize slavery — but, of course, those are hard to come by.

Every State For Itself

Besides these strange variations on common themes, many states have even more idiosyncratic symbols. Since 1962, the official sport of Maryland has been jousting, and more recently, the state’s official “exercise” was declared to be walking. Not even mall-walking or speed-walking — just “walking.” Kentucky doesn’t have a “sport,” but it does have an official tug-of-war: the Fordsville Tug-of-War Championship. Mississippi has a state toy, the teddy bear; Massachusetts a state bean, the navy bean; and Oklahoma proudly boasts the only state cartoon character, a gust of wind named Gusty that was used to report weather and news, between 1954 and 1989. (You can order commemorative Gusty artwork here.)

While many designations seem absurd, most aim to represent some definite aspect of a state’s intended “character.” Legislators want icons that mean something, that give you a sense of the land and its people — something like the bolo tie. Arizona named the bolo tie its official neckwear back in 1971. And more recently, in 2007, New Mexico added the same to its list of emblems. Apparently, it was an Arizona silversmith who invented the string-and-buckle necktie when he took off his hatband to avoid losing the precious buckle during a high-wind horse ride, and hung it around his neck. This discovery occurred as late as 1940, but the bolo’s become such an icon that it’s hard to imagine a Wild West without it.

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On this planet, there are now more chickens than any other bird, and many, many more chickens than humans. Nevertheless, most people know very little about the fowl they devour nearly every day. For the enlightenment of all, here are the answers to five questions about chickens.]]> On this planet, there are now more chickens than any other bird, and many, many more chickens than humans. Nevertheless, most people know very little about the fowl they devour nearly every day. Last night, we addressed which came first, the chicken or the egg. For the enlightenment of all, here are the answers to five more questions about chickens.

What were the first chickens like, and what activities did they enjoy? And how did they become the modern chicken we love to eat today?

The ancestor of all chickens was a feathered beast we call Gallus gallus, “red junglefowl,” that lived in the shade of India and southeastern Asia starting a few million years ago. These primal chickens lived in flocks, and probably liked pecking around, laying eggs, and fighting. At least that’s what we presume kept them busy: but who really knows how they felt about the whole thing. Humans may have domesticated their first chickens in Thailand as early as 7500 BC, but G. gallus domesticus didn’t arrive in the Mediterranean until much later, between 800 and 500 BC. Such a delay is unjustifiable, and certainly doesn’t speak well for early man’s priorities.

After that, everybody was eating chickens and chicken eggs. The European chicken, however, tended to be a scraggly barnyard scavenger, dropping eggs where it pleased and swallowing whatever it could, until the 19th century, when larger Chinese breeds were imported and everyone got excited about “exotic” chickens. Europeans and Americans started breeding chickens like the fate of the earth depended on it — observers called the fad “hen fever” — and they came out with all sorts of fanciful, colorful, curious beasts. A couple of breeds pulled through as ideal barnyard birds, favored for qualities of egg-laying (like the White Leghorn) or meaty-succulence (like the Cornish). And it was these strains that became the placid layers, roasters, broilers, and fryers we enslave to our own ends today.

If they were so smart, what did ancient Greek philosophers have to say about chickens?

For all the respect he’s been given over the years, Plato had a notoriously rough time distinguishing chickens from human beings. One day at his academy, the story goes, Plato decided to define “man”; he wanted to allow plenty of leeway for variation and unknowns, so he left his statement somewhat vague: man is a biped without feathers. In response to this, a cynical rouge in the crowd by the name of Diogenes — a thinker well-known for living in a tub and aspiring to the simplicity of street-dogs — presented for peer review a plucked cock. “This is Plato’s man,” he scoffed. Of course Plato had to revise his definition — but only slightly: man is a biped without feathers, and with broad, flat nails.

The moral of the story: philosophy is no cakewalk.

You also should know that Plato’s beloved mentor, Socrates, mentioned chicken in his famous (if confounding) last words: “Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?” Asclepius was the god of medicine and healing, so Socrates probably meant that he had been cured of some illness and had to thank the god for it. But what was the illness, and what was the cure? There’s some controversy in philosophical circles over this. Was the illness unreason, cured by philosophy? Or was the illness life, cured by death? For our purposes, what matters most is that Socrates, the very egg of Western philosophy, had chicken on his mind just before he conked out.

I have excellent taste and refined moral sensibilities — so what kind of chicken am I supposed to buy at the grocery store?

Chicken packages are dense with code, and sometimes it all gets thick enough to make a poor soul give thought to throwing in the towel. But persist.

Some words simply refer to age and weight: “broilers” and “fryers” are young (6-8 weeks) and weigh less; “roasters” are older (11-20 weeks) and weigh more. (Older chickens are supposed to have more developed flavor.) Most of the other words have to do with a chicken’s diet or the conditions in which it lived and was untimely killed. Regular grocery-store chickens are reliably tortured creatures, kept in small cages, immobile, saturated with antibiotics — lives that we good citizens would only wish on America’s enemies. “Free range” chickens have some access to the out-of-doors, even if it’s only a small outdoor cage connected with the standard small indoor cage. “Organic” chickens eat organic feed and are antibiotic-free. “Natural” can mean almost anything.

“Kosher” and “Halal” chickens are killed according to Jewish and Muslim law, respectively. Both are hand-slaughtered; and kosher chickens are also cold-water de-feathered, soaked, brined, and dried. These are two of the few labels that many tasters agree will actually make a consistent difference in the meat’s flavor. A clean, hand-made kill, with good drainage (every assassin’s goal), won’t result in blot clots that can toughen the meat. And the brining that kosher chickens undergo enhances flavor so much that some cookbooks recommend you do your own brining of any non-kosher chickens you buy.

Finally, it’s worth mention that different brands breed for different qualities. Murray’s goes for high yield, low fat breast meat. Perdue wants a high ratio of meat to bone. Etcetera.

After all that, it certainly seems that most of us have little choice but to make a half-blind decision and stick with it. Life is very short, and there are many chickens to eat.

Is it true that the Republican Party wants to put a chicken in every American’s pot?

Well, at least it was true. A 1928 Republican Party flyer did promise “a chicken for every pot” — an idea they adopted from the French king Henry IV, who once wished that no peasant would be so poor as to lack a chicken in his pot on Sunday (for which he earned the tedious nickname, King of the Chicken in the Pot). The flyer was part of Herbert Hoover’s presidential campaign; but Hoover never spoke the words himself, and it was his Democratic rival, Al Smith, who attributed this whimsical, easily-mockable statement to Hoover. The promised-chicken soon became a nasty joke as the Depression rolled in, and less people were eating less chicken, less of the time. It was a joke that Republicans couldn’t shake for some time. Even FDR and Kennedy were known to make cracks about Hoover’s chickens.

I’m not familiar with the current Party position, as far as chickens in American pots. I can only assume they’d rather we all had chickens than nothing.

Why is Werner Herzog afraid of chickens?

Contemporary German filmmaker Werner Herzog has won global acclaim for his artsy films (like Aguirre, The Wrath of God) and documentaries (like Grizzly Man). While explicit themes or ideas don’t easily untangle from Herzog’s weird, haunting imagery, everyone can agree on one recurrent symbol: the chicken. Even Dwarfs Started Small includes cannibalistic chickens and cock fight footage. Game in the Sand starred four children and a rooster, but wasn’t released because Herzog felt the filming “got out of hand.” And, climactically, Stroszek ends with a chicken dancing on tabletop for several minutes to a wild, hootin’ tune.

What’s the deal, Werner? Well, he explained in a 1974 interview, “chickens frighten me. I was the first to show that chickens are cannibalistic and horrible. What is most frightening about them is when you look directly into their eyes: what looks back at you is dullness, death and dullness.” Watch enough of Herzog’s films and you might consider your next chicken sandwich to be part of a noble crusade.