Recent Reading: In Our Image, America’s Empire in the Philippines

Book Cover on Amazon Stanley Karnow is better known for his work on “Vietnam,” but his book on the Philippines “In Our Image” of course touches closer to home for me. Just the first chapter provides an excellent and comprehensive nutshell summary of the Philippines under Spanish rule, from Magellan to the Spanish-American war, a skillful encapsulation of over five centuries of history that omits no necessary details. From there, he gets into the meat of the topic, the story of the Philippines as United States colony, later a commonwealth, and later independent republic still under the American thumb.

Karnow traces a common thread through Philippine history of colonizers and governments favoring wealthy families at the top of the social stratum, dynasties holding power over the lifeblood resources and industries of the economy — sugar being a prime export in colonial days. This fueled a continuous culture of feudal aristocracy which widened the gap between the country’s rich and its struggling lower classes. Since the granting of full independence in 1945, politics in the Philippines has been more a proxy struggle between conflicting dynasties rather than an actual expression of the will of the people, backdropped always by the economic influence of United States foreign policy.

Little sympathy is shown towards William McKinley, American president when the US was victorious over Spain in a war which unexpectedly landed the Philippines right in America’s lap. Karnow depicts McKinley as a bumbling, indecisive leader who appointed secretaries on the basis of loyalty rather than skill or merit, but fought and won the Spanish-American war thanks in part to a fiery young Republican Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, who would later be a war hero for his work with the Rough Riders in the Philippines, and still later a President — though the position he desired more, Governor-General of the Philippines, was never granted him.

Names abound in this history with which most Filipinos would be familiar from their streets and neighborhoods: Cameron Forbes, governor-general of the colony and origin of the name of Forbes Park; William Howard Taft, another governor-general who would later be US President and Chief Justice and have an avenue named for him; Daniel Burnham, architect and urban designer of such classics as Union Station, Flatiron Building, and Baguio City, where a park is named in his memory; and of course, Douglas MacArthur, General “I Shall Return” himself, worshipped as a hero and highway namesake in the Philippines, though given rather less heroic treatment in Karnow’s portrayal of him as an initial failure in his defense against the Japanese invasion, and a better artisan of public relations than of military genius.

There are areas where Karnow displays a marked pro-Communist bias, depicting Hukbalahap rebels more as noble underdog fighters defeated by CIA-installed President Magsaysay, while glossing over the Huks’ rural atrocities and murder of a former First Lady. (His later coverage of contemporary Communist insurgents is a bit more balanced, however.)

The section on Ferdinand Marcos is surprisingly scant for what could be considered the darkest years of Filipino history, though what he does cover is enough to illustrate politics as proxy for oligarchic conflict. Marcos installed his own allies in positions of power and wealth, and the 1986 EDSA Revolution against him was just as much a reclamation of power by displaced dynasties as it was an overthrowing of a corrupt dictator.

The book was finished in 1989, and there the history ends — before Pinatubo and the ending of the US military bases agreement by the Philippine legislature, a contentious event which would have made an interesting closing chapter had Karnow written “In Our Image” just two or three years later. Still, for what he was able to cover, Karnow offers an excellent, detailed, comprehensive story, only slightly marred at points by un-subtle bias.

Manila – Sunset, Chicago – Poo

Manila - Sunset, Chicago - Poo

Above, a screenshot of consecutive Metblog posts on Twitter which I found funny for some reason. So you’re viewing two Metblogs entries (1,2) posted via Twitterfeed to Twitter uploaded as a screenshot to Flickr, which I’m now going to post to my own weblog. There’s something distinctly OMGWEB2.0 about it all.

Speaking of which, Twitter announced the launch of a new “Explore” section. At the time of this writing there’s only Blocks in there, but it’s an interesting feature, somewhat reminiscent of the old GeoCities neighborhoods and streets back in the day.

Tiles, Cavuto, and Contractors

While Endeavour STS-118 was in orbit and tile damage was on NASA’s mind, I noted with some amusement a link from Space Pragmatism to this op-ed on Fox News: “Earth to NASA: Fire Someone!” — in which Neil Cavuto demands that NASA dismiss whichever contractor manufactures the Space Shuttle’s thermal tiles, since they keep getting damaged.

Cavuto. Those more acquainted with the history of spaceflight than Fox News talking heads should know that the issues of foam strikes and tile damage are merely an offshoot of the whole engineering problem of flying an orbiter too large to be perched atop a launch rocket and too massive to use ablative thermal shielding less suited to the mass and surface area of a vehicle the size of the shuttle, thanks to outdated Cold War specs demanded by military interests connected to the Shuttle program. That’s a whole other book all by itself.

Much more amusing, however, is the fact that the contractors about whom Cavuto is ranting, the ones who manufactured the shuttle and its tiles in the first place, were Lockheed and Rockwell — now Lockheed-Martin and Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. Lockheed-Martin and Boeing are not only the two largest aerospace and defense contractors in the world, but are also advertisers on Fox News, as revealed here and here.

Perhaps Fox should allow Cavuto to continue his on-air demands to have NASA dismiss these two aerospace contractors: “And hey, that whole Constellation thing? Forget it!” I’m sure both Boeing and Lockheed will be quite happy to reward his extensive knowledge of aerospace engineering with a sensible response towards the Fox News advertising group.

For more info, see these articles critical of the Shuttle program:

And more basic shuttle program info from NASA and the contractors themselves:

Saturday in NYC

Amy and I were up in New York Saturday, to check out the Central Park Zoo and see a show in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where Steve had some work up.

The zoo (zoos, actually, if you include the Tisch children’s zoo) was nice, despite the $8/person entrance fee, but the trip to Williamsburg was a lemon. We got lost around the Marcy Ave train station, and when we finally found the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center after wandering about in the heat, it was closed for the Labor Day weekend.

Still, it wasn’t a total loss of a Saturday; we got some nice photos at the zoo, and had a delicious lunch of dim sum and Yang Chow fried rice at “Good Dumpling House” on Grand Street in Chinatown. (This is a few blocks up from the “Excellent Dumpling House” near Lafayette and Canal Streets, which makes me wonder if there’s a “Mediocre Dumpling House” somewhere on Houston St., and a “Terrible Dumpling House” in Midtown.)

Zoo photo highlights:

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Note the poetry sign closeup. One thing that struck me about the zoo was the zealous quantity of poetry scattered through the park at various places, which was nice at first, but became quickly tedious. By noon I was suffering from poetry overload.

More photos here, and video of the polar bear and spectacled elders soon if I can get the files off my damaged SD card.

Blue Heron of Lock 2

The Blue Heron of Lock 2

I’ve posted photos of this particular heron before, but this time it stood at just the right angle below the towpath between 29th St and 30th St NW, as close as I’ve gotten to it, and it didn’t mind when I sat on the ledge with my camera, snapping away. Lovely creature.

Mobile Catchup

Owing to intermittent Flickr mail2blog problems, mobile content has not been getting properly posted, so here’s a quick catch-up on cellphone photos taken on the go in recent days:

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(Top left) A black squirrel in Foggy Bottom.

(Top right) New Le Pain Quotidien coming to Georgetown.

(Middle left) Cloudy gray sky over Pennsylvania Ave NW.

(Middle right) Arch of a bridge over the C&O Canal.

(Bottom left) Broken torchiere lampshade.

(Bottom right) Family of traffic cones.

Hopefully Flickr can get mail2blog functionality working consistently again, otherwise I’ll need to start looking into other solutions to push mobile content to this stream.

Harpers Ferry Honeymoon

Me and Amy with the View Two months since our wedding, Amy and I still had not gone on a honeymoon for lack of time and money; so we decided to go on a quick weekend getaway to Harpers Ferry, WV, that famous little historical town at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. To stay relatively cheap and completely car-less, we opted to take the commuter train, and stay at a place right by the station in Lower Town. Just the town itself and the immediate walkable area offered far more than enough historical and mild sport activity to fill a weekend.

More after the jump.

Also Flickr photoset here, and DC Metroblogging companion piece here.

Continue reading Harpers Ferry Honeymoon