The Lincoln Catafalque

Like everyone else today, I watched as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg set new precedents even as the nation mourned her passing.  Today, her coffin was moved from the Supreme Court Building to the Capitol to lie in state.  She is the first woman and the first Jewish American to be so honored.

If you watched any of the solemn proceedings, you were sure to hear an announcer say that the coffin was resting on a catafalque built for President Abraham Lincoln.  You had to hear it:  they repeated it every fifteen minutes.

So, what is a catafalque?  The word comes from the Latin word for scaffolding and simply refers to a strong trapezoidal wooden box designed to support the weight of a coffin.  In April, 1865, after the assassination of President Lincoln, Benjamin French, the Commissioner of Public Buildings, had the catafalque constructed from rough pine boards, and then had the frame covered with a black bunting designed and sewn by his wife.  

Over the years, while the catafalque has been altered to support the heavier weight of modern coffins, the pine wood is original, while the bunting has been replaced many times, but still retaining the original draped form used for President Lincoln.  At present, the catafalque is seven feet and one inch long, two feet six inches wide, and two feet tall, with the top platform measuring eleven feet long and six feet wide.

The catafalque has been used frequently over the years for the funerals of distinguished people in government or in the military who have lain “in state” at the capitol or at Arlington Cemetery.  For example, it was used for several, but not all, of the presidents who have died since Lincoln.  It was used for the funeral of the Unknown Soldiers of both World Wars, Korea, and Viet Nam, as well as for the funerals of Admiral Dewey and General Douglas MacArthur.  Either the Senate or the House of Representatives can authorize the use of the Lincoln Catafalque for a member of their chambers, but when the bier is used for members of the military, the request must come from the President.

The Lincoln Catafalque is not used for the funerals of people who ‘lie in honor’ at the capitol, such as for Reverend Billy Graham or for Rosa Parks.

Upon the death of a Supreme Court Justice, the catafalque is usually borrowed and the coffin “lies in repose” within the Supreme Court Building.  Only two Supreme Court Justices have lain “in state” at the capitol:  William Howard Taft (because he was president before he became a Justice) and today, Justice Ginsburg.

By this point, you are probably wondering just where they keep a massive wooden frame when it is not being used for funerals.  It’s large, heavy, and needs a space that is more or less coffin-shaped.  After George French allowed the catafalque to accompany Lincoln’s coffin on the long trip back to Lincoln’s home, he kept it as a memento, announcing that he intended to store the large wooden bier in George Washington’s tomb. 

I can just hear everyone thinking, “George Washington’s tomb?  I thought he was buried at Mount Vernon.”

Our first president is buried on his former plantation, Mount Vernon, but when he died in 1799 and the new capitol was still being constructed, the plans included a tomb for our first president two stories beneath the rotunda.  Martha Washington, his widow, gave her consent to the plan, despite her husband’s having left instructions in his will that he be buried at Mount Vernon.  Washington was placed in a temporary tomb while work continued on the capitol building.

Surprising no one today—Congress could never quite agree on the final design for the tomb, nor exactly how much the new nation should spend.  Congress tried to reach agreements in 1800, 1816, 1824, and 1829—and naturally failed to come to agreement, that being the usual course for Congress unless there is an emergency.

In 1830, there was, indeed, such an emergency, when a gardener on the estate became irate after being fired by John Augustine Washington II, the president’s nephew and heir to the estate.  Returning at night, the former gardener broke into the crypt with the intention of stealing the skull of George Washington.  The crypt was poorly constructed and water had rotted away most of the two dozen assorted caskets holding various members of the Washington family, and the various bodies were literally lying on the ground, spilling out of the remains of the wooden caskets.  In the dark, the gardener absconded with the head of one of the President’s in-laws.  (In case you are wondering, George and Martha were spared this indignity, their bodies having been encased in lead.)

At last, Congress acted, finally agreeing on plans for the Capitol Crypt, and the tomb was hastily completed.  But when it came time to move the president’s remains, John Washington refused to disturb his uncle, and decided that George Washington’s body should “remain at rest” at Mount Vernon.  (A few years later, John built a new and more secure crypt and moved George and Martha into it.  At the same time, John moved his uncle’s body into a new casket, taking the opportunity to interrupt the president’s “rest” by cutting open the lead sheets to view the president’s remains.  According to Harper’s Magazine, the corpse "appeared to have suffered little from the effects of time.")

If you visit the Capitol in the immediate future, you will find the Lincoln Catafalque on display as part of an exhibit in the United States Capitol Visitor Center, a museum located underground, beneath the East side of the Capitol.  When the museum exhibit is changed next time, the catafalque intended for Lincoln will be returned to the crypt intended for Washington.

The Pandemic + Enema U = Pandemonium

Well, classes have started again and since it had an entire summer in which to plan for the resumption of classes, the Administration over in Judeca Hall was given dozens of suggestions on how to prepare:

• Keep the campus closed and move all classes online for a semester.
• Delay the start of the semester for a month or more.
• Allow the campus to reopen, but test all students upon returning to campus with random testing conducted regularly.
• Install cameras in every classroom, allow professors to teach from behind a plexiglass barrier and require most students to watch the lecture online, and the few students present in the classroom to maintain adequate social distances.
• Prepare most campus classes to go online, be televised, or devise some other method of delivery system to minimize contact between students and faculty.
• Close some of the dorms and use them for isolation for students who test positive or have been in contact with those who test positive.
• Above all—do lots of testing.

Predictably, Enema U did absolutely none of this.  What it did do, was…well, nothing much.  No testing of students, faculty, or staff.  They encouraged as many of the students to return to campus as possible, allowed most classes to be taught online, but required a few to be face-to-face.  Why?  Well, if there were no students present on campus, how could they continue to rent dormitories and sell meal plans?

I can almost hear the howls of protests now.  “That’s not the reason:  The classrooms were kept open in the sincere belief that was the best method of teaching.  You’re just being contrary.”

Well, of course I’m contrary.  I’m beyond contrary, deep into the range of curmudgeon.  It would be damn near impossible to write this blog otherwise.  In this case, however, there is ample proof that I’m right:  The university president sent an email to the various deans, mandating that no more face-to-face classes be turned into online classes for fear of students living on campus demanding a refund before they went home.  

The deans—and I have to give them credit for this—all realized they were holding a future Exhibit A in their hands and promptly forwarded the contents of the email to department heads who sent it to the faculty….and by now, every lawyer in a hundred-mile radius probably has a copy and is just waiting for the bereaved family of the first dead student or faculty member to file the appropriate lawsuit for negligent homicide.

The process of turning a real class in which students actually show up and interact with a real professor into a boring Zoom meeting is called “flipping a class”.  Supposedly just as good as “real” teaching, in practice it changes very little.  Good students still read on their own and learn, while the bad students are able to sleep through lectures without getting out of bed. 

A few departments got it right—the Art Department did an incredible job of preparation.  Other departments...not so much.  And the school as a whole decided that instead of general testing,  it would sample and test campus sewage.  (I’ll pass up the easy target and let you insert your own joke, here.)

A few areas of the campus didn’t need to plan:  they are just shut down.  The campus bookstore, the library, and the football stadium just closed.  (Students automatically purchase tickets to the football games as part of their “Activity” fee.  Will they receive a refund since there are no games?)

The library closing is the hardest hit to education.  There are no books placed on reserve, there is no browsing the stacks, and there are no study areas.  Students can request a book and pick it up a couple of days later, but the simple enjoyment of browsing the stacks while researching a topic—the educational sine qua non—has been eliminated.  In my book (pun intended), that alone is reason enough to cancel the semester. 

The library is rarely crowded, so couldn’t the students just be required to put the books they have examined on a cart for quarantining/cleaning them adequately before returning them to the shelves?  As I understand it, the virus lives on paper for only a few hours at most.  I cannot see why a cafeteria is safe but a library is dangerous.  A university where it is far, far easier to buy overpriced coffee than it is to read a book needs to reset its priorities.

Knowing that online teaching is, at best, a poor method of teaching, few of the faculty are happy with the sudden need to deliver their classes online.  Some of the problems involved are unsolvable.  Take discussions, for example: It is far, far harder to engage students in a discussion while they are all staring at a computer screen—perhaps simply because too many people are trained by watching television not to respond.  Professors try to stimulate discussion by using the Socratic method, asking questions and waiting for a reply (a technique that almost universally believed to be good).  It is only during the interminable silence after this is done online that one is forced to remember that Athens executed Socrates.  

So why is the Administration pushing Enema U into this sorry situation?  Simple.  It is not just about the money (though the university is as greedy as a desperate crack whore).  A while back the university went from having a Chancellor and a Provost to having a Chancellor, a President, AND a Provost, and any two of the latter cost more than both of the former.  So unlike MacDonalds, this institution has three top clowns drawing a staggeringly high salary plus bonuses...But, they were hired to increase enrollment—something extremely unlikely to occur in the face of a pandemic, so they are destined to fail.

Well, to be honest, an enrollment increase was unlikely before the pandemic, but a decline in actual enrollment is now certain. (I say ‘actual enrollment’ since suddenly enrollment data is top secret and we are being given “interpreted enrollment numbers”.)  Enrollment is not going to increase unless the administration starts registering names out of the cemeteries.  Any chance of meeting the contractual terms of those bonuses is obviously unlikely, hence, this point, the new administrators are just trying to put the best face on it they can.

The simple truth is that the best way to increase enrollment would be to expand academics by offering more courses taught by more faculty while cutting costs by reining in an out of control athletic program and eliminating an overabundance of plutocratic administrators.  While you’re at it, lower the cost of tuition and quit allowing the cafeterias to be run exclusively by a company that specializes in providing bad food at high prices in airports, prisons, and universities.  

Instead of seeing the students as an endless resource that should be strip-mined, the administrators at Enema U would be shocked to learn that essential services are run at some universities in such a way as to make the students happy.   What a strange concept!

My Vacuum Cleaner Can Knit

There is a new attraction at the Annkya Kulty’s Gallery in East London.  Ai-Da, an artist who resembles a young woman, is actually a robot whose mechanical arm can sketch faces in either pencil or ink.

 

Ai-Da’s is something of an instant sensation, her works are selling well, she has delivered her own Ted Talk, and a series of sculptures have been made from her paintings.  The last has me a little puzzled, why didn’t they just plug a 3-D printer into her and stand back while she made her own sculptures?

 

Recently, Ai-Da has even branched out into performance art, performing an homage to Yoko Ono’s show, Cut Piece.  If you are unfamiliar with this work, Yoko would sit stoically on the stage in her best clothes while members of the audience would step forward and cut away pieces of her clothing with a pair of scissors.  (Yes, I know what you are thinking.  When I first heard about the show, I initially had pretty much the same reaction, but you should watch it on Youtube before you pass judgement.  I’m not going to ruin your experience by explaining too much, but be prepared to be shocked.)

 

Somehow, watching people slowly cut away the drapes to reveal the equivalent of a toaster oven is probably not going to evoke the same strong emotional reaction.  Homage or not, the work is derivative, and that is precisely the problem with Ai-Da: she is incapable of creativity. 

 

Despite the publicity, personally, I don’t think Ai-Da is really an artist, she is more like an anthropomorphic copying machine.  Instead of admiring the machine’s artistic accomplishments, we should be celebrating the creativity of her programmers, a team of engineers from Oxford.

 

Still, this is an early example, and we can still be sure that more robotic art is one the way.  But is it really art?   Currently retired, I decided to return to the university as a student rather than slowly develop an interest in daytime television.  Before studying art history, I probably would have defined art by quoting Justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it.”

 

Now that I’ve studied art, I increasingly know that I don’t even know art when I see it.  I can think of any number of paintings that I have learned to love over time as I learned more about them.  No matter how much I learn about Ai-Da, I doubt that I will ever consider her work as more than a curiosity.  But, she is just the first of what I am sure will be a long line of future robot artists. 

 

We are just starting to see the onslaught of robots in our lives.  Oh, sure, factories have lots of robotic assembly lines, but it is arguable whether those actually reduce employment.  The design, maintenance, and supervision of such robots may provide more skilled jobs than the unskilled factory jobs they replace.

 

Increasingly, however, robots are replacing ordinary jobs.  It is getting hard to find a human cashier in a grocery store.  Robotic vacuums, once a novelty for the home, are starting to be used in commercial operations.  And robotic security guards, resembling the Daleks from Dr. Who, are patrolling parking lots and warehouses.  And just over the horizon are the hordes of driverless cars and trucks that threaten to replace thousands of workers.

 

For decades, there has been a running joke about the days when our machines would rise up and threaten their masters.  In the movies and novels, it was always massive killing machines, cyborgs sent by Skynet who cannot be stopped that wreak violence on mankind.  Maybe, we have it all wrong—maybe the robot uprising is actually going to be a peaceful revolt.  Instead of protracted warfare, maybe it will be a slow creep of household helpers and driverless cars, robotic artists, and a self-driving Chevy that slowly makes the human race superfluous.   Perhaps, humans faced with the overwhelming superiority of our mechanical assistants, will just give up and develop that taste for daytime television that I’ve been trying to escape.

 

Naturally, this reminds me of an old story about a futuristic robot arguing with his exasperated owner.   The cold logic of the mechanical man, with his steady stare and unemotional voice completely infuriated the man—that plus the fact the owner had slowly realized that he was wrong and his robot was right. 

 

“Shut UP!, roared the man.  “You mechanical monster, if you don’t shut up, I’ll pull your damn plug.”  In fury, the man reached down and snatched up a long black power cord that ran to a nearby electric outlet.

 

“But—“, began the robot, only to be cut off by a scream of fury from the man.

 

“I warned you,” thundered the man, ripping the cord from the wall with a flourish.

 

Slowly, the robot shook his head as he spoke softly while staring at the immobile form of the man.  “I tried to tell him that him that he was pulling his own cord.”

 

The Words of Spring

It was a beautiful early April morning, a wonderful time to be in the southern mountains of New Mexico.  At this altitude, it wasn’t really spring, yet, despite the calendar’s claim.  Shortly after the sun set, the temperature would begin to plunge below freezing. 

 

Standing in the sunshine, the old man thought—as he frequently did—the temperature really didn’t matter during the daylight in New Mexico.  If you stood in the piercing direct sunlight you were usually warm enough to get by with just a good shirt, but if you worked in the shade, you needed a solid jacket.  If you were stupid enough to be out and about after midnight without suitable protection from the cold, you could freeze to death.

 

This was one of those perfect mornings, when the sky was cloudless, the air was just cool enough to make the warm sunshine feel wonderful, and there was just enough of a breeze to make the tops of the trees sway.

Though there were still a few patches of snow scattered under the trees and along the shady side of rock formations, the hiking trail was generally clear as it wandered up the side of the mountain.  The old man stood for a while and watched as his grandson raced to catch up.  The boy reminded the old man of a young puppy, alternating between racing ahead until he was distracted, then running to catch up.

 

“Grandpa?” the boy asked as he caught up with his grandfather.  “Why aren’t there any houses up here?  This place is pretty.  I’d like to live here.”

 

“Yes, it is pretty, now.  But, Mason, if you had been up here a couple of months ago, everything would have been under a couple of feet of snow.  And there is no road up the side of the mountain, and there are no electric lines.  How would you plug in your PlayStation?”

 

Mason looked surprised and began looking about in every direction, probably trying to locate a utility pole, so he could catch his grandfather in an error (it was one of his favorite pastimes, as he correctly believed that his grandfather enjoyed teasing him). 

 

The old man patiently explained to the boy that New Mexico was one of the least populous states in the country, with far more places left wild than developed.  He explained that there were still plenty of places left that when you walked across the ground, you were probably the first person in history to cross that spot.  The old man didn’t bother to explain that those spots were mostly in the state’s arid deserts and canyons, and probably didn’t include the mountain forest where they were currently hiking.  (Too much information can ruin a good story.)

 

Sitting on a fallen log, the old man watched the boy running through the underbrush, obviously thrilled with exploring “new territory”.

 

Finally tiring, Mason joined his grandfather on the log.  “Why are all the trees bent over?” he asked.

 

“For most of the year, the winds come racing up the mountain from the valley, generally blowing in the same direction all year long.   As the trees grow, they start to lean into the wind.” 

 

“It’s so quiet up here.”

 

“Well, we’re lucky to be up here now.  In a few weeks when the spring winds start, this place will be loud as hell.”

 

“Why’s that?” the boy asked.

 

“What’s the name of the town down below?”

 

“Ruidoso.”

 

“Well,” said the old man.  “That means ‘noisy’ in Spanish.  The first Europeans who came here were from Spain, and when they got here they were astonished at all the noise.”

 

“I don’t hear any noise.”

 

“Well, when those winds I was telling you are about to start up in the spring, they blow across Arizona, right through New Mexico, and into Texas.  Along the way, they just snatch up the words people are saying and just blow them away.”

 

Mason tilted his head, staring at his grandfather, clearly not sure about the veracity of what he was hearing. 

 

“Yep,” continued his grandfather.  “All spring long, you can hear little bits of conversations that the winds have picked up and whisked away.  As they blow across these mountains, they began to snag and catch on every tree and bush.  Sometimes, it sounds like the trees are talking to each other.  Once, I was walking along the highway and heard a whole Sunday sermon from Tucson that had been caught along the fence line.  By the end of summer, these mountains sound like hundreds of people talking—it’s so damn loud that a body can’t think with everyone talking all at once.”

 

“Why don’t we hear them now?”, asked the boy.

 

“When winter comes, the snow that falls is so heavy that it holds all those little bits of stolen conversations down.  As the snow melts, it washes all the words underground.  Why, if you were to dig down a dozen feet below this log, you could probably find conversations from a hundred years ago, just waiting to be dug up and listened to.”

 

Mason stared intently down at the ground, as if looking for a stray word that been washed away, then looked intently at this grandfather.  “Are you telling me the truth?”

 

“Of course, I am.  Grandfathers never fib to their grandsons.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yep,” said the old man.  “Give or take a lie or two.”