Wounded Souls

Albert Camus on Moral Compromise 

Neptune, N.J., 2023.

I suppose this post is mainly for evangelical pastors and Catholic priests, especially the bishops. But it is really for us all. A key aspiration of any fascist regime is to create a state where every individual is morally compromised.

Albert Camus, who wrote the story containing the brief passage transcribed below, started his newspaper career in his native Algeria before moving to Paris shortly before the outbreak of World War II. After the German conquest of France, Camus joined the Resistance and served as editor of the underground newspaper Combat. After the war was over, his career flourished, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957. 

I read a lot of Camus when I was in my twenties. I checked, and I still have my copy of Le mythe de Sisyphe on a bookshelf, not far from Marc Bloch's Apologie pour l'histoire ou metier d'historien, which begins with the immortal sentence, "Papa, explique-moi donc a quoi sert l'histoire?" (Roughly translated, "Daddy, what is the point of history?")  Professor Bloch wrote this little book during World War II. He also joined the French Resistance; he was arrested on March 8, 1944, and on the night of June 16, shortly after D-Day, the Gestapo murdered him. 

Returning from the digression: Until recently, I had not been aware of the piece that contains the following story. It's in a little Modern Library collection of some of his shorter pieces. Camus made the selections himself shortly before his death in a car crash in 1960. The story is dated December 1943; in a brief introductory note Camus says that it was published in issue number three of Les cahiers de Liberation at the beginning of 1944 (p. ix); in this note (p. x) he also writes, "I loathe none but executioners." (To see the original article, click here. The Bibliotheque nationale gives issue three the date of February 1, 1944. Camus signs the article "Louis Neuville.")  

One day I noticed this little book on my wife's bureau. I asked her where it came from, and she said she'd found it on one of our bookshelves. Neither one of us has any idea how it got on that shelf. A few days later I noticed the book was still sitting on her bureau and asked her if she was reading it. Her answer, roughly translated, was "Why don't you read it?" And so I did.

The following little snippet, on pages 11-13 of the book, gave me an insight into the reality of a fascist regime that I simply had not had before: 

"Let me tell you this story. Before dawn, from a prison I know, somewhere in France, a truck driven by armed soldiers is taking eleven Frenchmen to the cemetery where you are to shoot them. Out of the eleven, five or six have really done something: a tract, a few meetings, something that showed their refusal to submit. The five or six, sitting motionless inside the truck, are filled with fear, but, if I may say so, it is an ordinary fear, the kind that grips every man facing the unknown, a fear that is not incompatible with courage. The others have done nothing. This hour is harder for them because they are dying by mistake or as victims of a kind of indifference. Among them is a child of sixteen. You know the faces of our adolescents; I don't want to talk about them. The boy is dominated by fear; he gives in to it shamelessly. Don't smile scornfully; his teeth are chattering. But you have placed beside him a chaplain, whose task is to alleviate somewhat the agonizing hour of waiting. I believe I can say that for men who are about to be killed a conversation about a future life is of no avail. It is too hard to believe that the lime-pit is not the end of all. The prisoners in the truck are silent. The chaplain turns toward the child huddled in his corner. He will understand better. The child answers, clings to the chaplain's voice, and hope returns. In the mutest of horrors sometimes it is enough for a man to speak; perhaps he is going to fix everything. 'I haven't done anything,' says the child. 'Yes,' says the chaplain, 'but that's not the question now. You must get ready to die properly.' 'It can't be possible that no one understands me.' 'I am your friend and perhaps I understand you. But it is late. I shall be with you and the Good Lord will be too. You'll see how easy it is.' The child turns his head away. The chaplain speaks of God. Does the child believe in him? Yes, he believes. Hence he knows that nothing is as important as the peace awaiting him. But that very peace is what frightens the child. 'I am your friend,' the chaplain repeats. 

"The others are silent. He must think of them. The chaplain leans toward the silent group, turning his back on the child for a moment. The truck is advancing slowly with a sucking sound over the road, which is damp with dew. Imagine the gray hour, the early-morning smell of men, the invisible countryside suggested by sounds of teams being harnessed or the cry of a bird. The child leans against the canvas covering, which gives a little. He notices a narrow space between it and the truck body. He could jump if he wanted. The chaplain has his back turned and, up front, the soldiers are intent on finding their way in the dark. The boy doesn't stop to think; he tears the canvas loose, slips into the opening, and jumps. His fall is hardly heard, the sound of running on the road, then nothing more. He is in the fields, where his steps can't be heard. But the flapping of the canvas, the sharp, damp morning air penetrating the truck make the chaplain and the prisoners turn around. For a second the priest stares at those men looking at him in silence. A second in which the man of God must decide whether he is on the side of the executioners or on the side of the martyrs in keeping with his vocation. But he has already knocked on the partition separating him from his comrades. 'Achtung!' The alarm is given. Two soldiers leap into the truck and point their guns at the prisoners. Two others leap to the ground and start running across the fields. The chaplain, a few paces from the truck, standing on the asphalt, tries to see them through the fog. In the truck the men can only listen to the sounds of the chase, the muffled exclamations, a shot, silence, then the sound of voices again coming nearer, finally a hollow stamping of feet. The child is brought back. He wasn't hit, but he stopped surrounded in the enemy fog, suddenly without courage, forsaken by himself. He is carried rather than led by his guards. He has been beaten somewhat, but not much. The most important lies ahead. He doesn't look at the chaplain or anyone else. The priest has climbed up beside the driver. An armed soldier has taken his place in the truck. Thrown into one of the corners, the child doesn't cry. Between the canvas and the floor he watches the road slip away again and sees in its surface a reflection of the dawn. 

"I am sure you can very well imagine the rest." 

See also A Teacher's Dilemma, A Lesson From the Berlin Wall.

Trump Is a Russian Agent

But It's Apparently Impolite to Say So

The term fifth column got its origin in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War. The Nationalists (the bad guys) were attacking the Republicans' forces (these were the good guys) in Madrid. The bad guys had four separate columns of soldiers attacking toward Madrid from different directions, and the bad guys said there was also a fifth column inside the city, ready to attack it from within.

The term has been remarkably durable, perhaps because it is so useful.

Vladimir Putin is a career KGB agent turned politician, and today one of his favorite activities is erecting fifth columns in countries where he is feeling mischievous, like the United States. So who is leading his fifth column in America? Well, Trump, of course. He has helpers, like Mike Johnson and Tucker Carlson, but let's face it: Since the beginning, Putin has been putting his money on Trump. 

And Putin desperately needs Trump's column to succeed, since his main column, in Ukraine, appears significantly lacking in tumescence.

Like the New York Daily News (see picture above), I decided that Trump was a Russian agent after the Helsinki fiasco in 2018. That was five years ago.

But what kind of agent is he? He's certainly not a trained KGB officer like Putin. There are no mysterious gaps in his resume - times when he was off at spy school in Moscow, struggling to pick up some Russian while learning sixteen ways to kill a man quietly with his bare hands.

I think it's possible that he is an unwitting agent, that he thinks Vladimir is doing all these nice things for him out of friendship. And perhaps the file Vladimir keeps on Donald is labeled "useful idiot." Donald is, after all, quite stupid - and worse, he thinks he's smart.

Or maybe he's just a venal, money-grubbing slug whose real-estate con in New York has gone sour, and Roy Cohn is no longer there to show him the way out of his self-inflicted catastrophe. But Putin is there.

I don't know what exact category to put the Donald in, but I think the label "agent" fits. And I wish people who clearly think he is a Russian agent would say so more often, in public.

See also An Inflection Point; The Correct Strategy: Fight; 7/11 - The Day the Trump White House Fell Apart.

Chestnut Street: Loading Only

Curbside Parking Here Is a Waste of Valuable Space

Chestnut street every day. (Nov. 10, 2023.)

Something good happened on October 26, 2023. It happened in Philadelphia's City Council chamber in our lovely old City Hall. I hadn't been to a City Council meeting in quite a while, but when I received notice that a certain bill was up for passage, I decided to go for a visit. 

The meeting was scheduled for 10 am to 1 pm. I knew from experience that these meetings never start on time, but I decided to show up at ten and go through the whole performance. Shortly after I arrived, members started entering the chamber and drifting toward their desks, talking to one another, and there was a general air of geniality and possibly even happiness. The socializing, and possibly horse trading, went on for some time. In the past, I had found myself somewhat impatient with this phase, but after what we've seen in Congress recently I was enjoying watching politicians knit themselves, and by extension the city, into a reasonably cohesive group.

The meeting came to order at 10:43, and in due course we got to the public comment section. Speakers addressed various bills under consideration. Connor Descheemaker, coalition manager at Transit Forward Philadelphia, spoke in favor of bill number 230489, Council Member Mark Squilla's bill to enable camera-assisted enforcement of parking violations in bus lanes and bus stops. Another supporter of the bill, Jessie Amadio, noted that prior experience showed the vast majority of people who got a ticket from a camera did not get a second ticket.

Eventually public comment came to an end, and Council turned to consideration of bills, among other business. The highly formulaic language of the voting ritual was encouraging me to nod off, but then 230489 came up for consideration. I perked up, the bill passed unanimously, and shortly afterwards Council, having completed its business, adjourned. At 12:31 pm, 29 minutes early.

I'm glad the bill passed. The cameras clearly alter driver behavior for the better. But it won't be enough. 

The Chestnut Puzzle

I have a particular concern for Chestnut street in Center City. I've been watching the stretch from Broad to 19th for a number of years (for stories, click here and here). Altering driver behavior is only part of the problem. We also need to look at the thinking and behavior of the people who run the stores and other businesses that line the street. And finally we need to look at the built environment and how we are using it.

Bus turning from 15th to Chestnut, Nov. 18, 2023.

Here's an interesting case. Around 5 pm on November 18, I found myself standing at the intersection of 15th and Chestnut, where I took this picture of a bus trying to turn from 15th onto Chestnut. There was a car stopped at the curb in the left-hand traffic lane of Chestnut, very close to the intersection and in front of a fire hydrant. The bus driver was having great difficulty making this turn, which means that traffic was backing up on both 15th and Chestnut. The driver of the car stopped at the fire hydrant clearly had no intention of moving his car unless there was an invasion by Martians - or perhaps Godzilla was marching toward him on Chestnut.

So he stayed put. It was, after all, only a Septa bus. And the bus driver worked and worked, and eventually got the bus around the corner.

It turns out there was a reason why the driver of the car was where he was. He was at the end of a line of double-parked cars extending almost the full block of 1400 Chestnut. There are two hotels on this block, and the entire block is either no stopping or valet parking. All of the curbside space was full of parked cars that were showing no signs of going anywhere. Next to them, in the left-hand traffic lane, was the string of double-parked cars. There were a number of valiant parking enforcement officers trying to cope with this situation, but they were not making a lot of progress.

(An early reader suggested I explain that this block, like several others on Chestnut in this area, has sidewalk bumpouts at crosswalks. That's why the car next to the fire hydrant is next to the curb, rather than next to a parked car.)

I suppose the cars may have been there because there was a teleporter at that location that was taking people to an event in Camden. Or perhaps they were attending an event at one of the hotels, and the valet parking system had simply broken down. I don't know.  

I do know that Chestnut street was not functioning very well that night. And the double-parked drivers were simply pawns. 

Emergency Vehicles and Traffic Jams 

Here's a rainy day shot. This is what it looks like out where the rubber hits the road.

Dec. 3, 2023.

Traffic jams are more than an annoyance; they can be life threatening. Imagine you've had one too many hamburgers at Five Guys and you're experiencing a myocardial infarction. How long will it take an emergency vehicle to reach you?

Use the Genius of the Grid: Activate the Alleys

One of the things that simply stupefies me about Philadelphia is our abysmal misuse of our alleys. If you look at the layout of the streets, and the way older buildings were built, it's apparent that alleys were originally intended to be much more than linear dung heaps. Rear access was clearly important for a variety of uses, and if you look at the number of bricked-up windows and doors, it's evident that buildings were meant to have a meaningful relationship with these little streets. There are even quite a few buildings that have front facades facing the alley.

And there is definitely some decent architecture. Here's an example of rear access in the grand manner.

1800 block of Sansom.

There are several imposing rear entrances in this neighborhood, but this one is in a class by itself. And it's still in use.

A number of these blocks see a fair amount of dropping off and picking up. Here's a UPS driver on the 1700 block of Stock Exchange Place. He's going going door to door on the north side of the street, knocking on rear doors and handing off packages. Not exactly rocket science, but you'll notice that he is not blocking a bus lane.

Dec. 14, 2023.

Most of these alleys don't get a lot of sunlight at street level, but if you can pick your eyes up from the muck at your feet for a moment, there are some interesting views available higher up.

It's at moments like this that I find myself comparing us to the shepherds in old Rome, in the centuries after the aqueducts were cut, herding their flocks among the grassy ruins.

Arch of Constantine and Colosseum with sheep grazing. 

(The picture above is a 1656 etching by Stefano della Bella in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is in the public domain.)

Some People Don't Have Rear Access

The man standing in the truck bed and his crew are unloading construction materials for yet another redo of the old Valiant building, next to Boyds. He's in the bus lane, and he has no options. The parking/loading lane across the street is full, and there doesn't appear to be any viable rear access.

November 20, 2023.

Chestnut is not a large street, and I think it's time we faced up to the fact that we need to focus on the two main things: buses and loading. There are more than 3,000 off-street parking stalls in garages within 1.5 blocks of this location. Curbside parking on this stretch of Chestnut is a waste of valuable space.

As we saw with the car parked in a traffic lane in front of a fire hydrant at 15th and Chestnut, increasing the number of loading zones is not a cure-all. But at least we would be moving toward a rational design for the limited amount of space available; and with competent management, including buy-in from the local merchants, maximizing the space for loading zones should dramatically improve the performance of Chestnut street.

See also Unblocking the Bus Lane on Chestnut, Taming Chestnut Street, Small Streets Are Like Diamonds, What Should We Do With the Humble Dumpster? Quo Vadis, Philadelphia?