{"id":29526,"date":"2010-06-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-02T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/WP-IMPORT\/2010\/06\/02\/olympia\/"},"modified":"2010-06-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-02T03:00:00","slug":"olympia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/olympia\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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(Bow of the USS Olympia. Oil on Masonite by Jeffery Alllon)
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Man, it is hard to come back to work, and particularly challenging after some international and transcontinental travel. There were sedimentary layers of dirty laundry and loose furniture all over the apartment, and an issue of a neglected Quarterly to get out the door to lay-out.
\u00a0
Thankfully, everyone else seems to be in about the same boat, and a little sunburned and querulous just like me. So it was a day of shuffling things around in the in-basket and looking at the thunderclouds outside.
\u00a0
\u00a0The key issue in Yukio Hatoyama\u2019s decision to step down was his inability to relocate the Marine air base at Futenma in Okinawa. Hillary Clinton pressed back hard, and with tensions rising in the region, it seemed like everything got too hard. Hatoyama did the honorable thing; since he was unable to come through on his campaign promise, he quit.
\u00a0
It is a curious thing, honor in a politician. Maybe we should try that here.
\u00a0
The centre-left DPJ’s election landslide last year ended half a century of conservative rule in Japan, one that played heavily on the strategic junior partnership with the US.
\u00a0
The issue is not over, of course, any more than the recalibration of the relationship is. The old Asia hands are in an uproar, as I am sure you have noticed in these scribblings of late.
\u00a0
My pal Jim summed up the mood pretty effectively. He is an old shipmate from out in the 7th Fleet, and he noted the cascade of strange news that trailed after in random order, starting with the end of the 40-year Al and Tipper Gore marriage. I don\u2019t know what to think about that, except I wish them both the best with the $10,000 a month electric bill at the house in Tennessee.
\u00a0
Then Jim let it all out, saying:
\u00a0
\u201cSo we get to start all over again, with a weakened main ally in the Fare East. It was a hollow win. Where is the upside in all this?\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cWell,\u201d I said tentatively, \u201cThe Marines can continue to irritate the Okinawans with noise and pollution and there will be no short term mission degradation?\u201d
\u00a0
Jim snorted. \u201cLet’s see now. He raised an index finger and I could see he was about to get on a roll. \u201cIn addition to a failed Japanese government we now have:
\u00a0
An endless war in Iraq\u2026
An endless war in Afghanistan\u2026
A major new crisis in the Mideast\u2026
A truly pissed-off Turkey\u2026
Serious tension on the Korean peninsula\u2026
A major world-wide economic crisis\u2026
The Euro Zone at risk of collapse…
The real possibility of worldwide economic contagion\u2026
Major and pervasive domestic unemployment\u2026
A stock market that had the worst month of May since 1940\u2026\u201d
<\/em>
He wasn\u2019t done but he had run out of fingers. He stopped and then clenched both fists. \u201cTo top it off, we have a nasty and apparently un-stoppable oil spill in our part of the Gulf of Mexico, a transparent border with Mexico that requires the deployment of the National Guard to provide some degree of national security!\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cEasy, Jim,\u201d I said. \u201cThe glass is still half full. We had a great weekend, no one got too burned, the pool is open and there are signs of economic recovery. Besides, the recession never really affected Washington, so come on, how bad are things really?\u201d
\u00a0
He glowered at me. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you how bad it is, and it is not a metaphor. Remember the USS Olympia<\/em>?\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cOf course,\u201d I said. \u201cDewey\u2019s flagship at the Battle of Manila Bay. Big reverse swoop bow. One of Teddy Roosevelt\u2019s Great White Fleet, the basis of America\u2019s colonial presence in the Far East.\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cYeah- oldest surviving steel-hulled warship in the world. Historic symbol of America\u2019s naval tradition, and a world historic site.\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cI didn\u2019t know she was still afloat. That is pretty cool. Where is it? I would like to walk her decks, like we used to on Admiral Togo\u2019s flagship IJN Mikasa<\/em> back in Yoko.\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cWell, she is a memorial in Philly right now but you better act now. She is sinking at the pier, twenty-five patches in her hull and two compartments open to the tide. The museum is threatening to sink her as a reef to promote sport fishing.\u201d
\u00a0
I looked at him in dumb amazement. \u201cYou mean like they did to Oriskany<\/em> down in Pensacola? It was hard to watch them get the O-Boat ready to die, which is something no enemy could ever do.\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cWell, if we don\u2019t come up with $20 million bucks, Olympia<\/em> goes down by the bow this summer, my friend. That is chump change, but I am a little short this week.\u201d He began throwing things in his briefcase.
\u00a0
\u201cShoot,\u201d I said. \u201cI would like to help. Along with Nelson\u2019s flagship Victory<\/em>, Old Ironsides and Mikasa<\/em> there are not many ships left of their eras. Olympia<\/em> is really important.\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cApparently not that <\/em>important. She is fish habitat unless we do something.\u201d
\u00a0
\u201cOh come on, Jim. This is like what the Park Service does every year at budget time when they threaten to close the Washington Monument for lack of funds. It will never happen.\u201d
\u00a0
Jim picked up his briefcase. \u201cI have a meeting down town. I will have to tell you more about it tomorrow. But remember this: the Washington Monument is never going to sink under the Potomac of her own weight. Some places you can stuck a pencil through Olympia\u2019s hull.\u201d
\u00a0
I watched him sweep out of the office. \u201cDamn the torpedoes,\u201d I said to no one in particular, \u201cI need to know more about that.\u201d <\/p>\n


(Stern Quarter of USS Olympia at the Independence Seaport Museum)
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Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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(Bow of the USS Olympia. Oil on Masonite by Jeffery Alllon) Man, it is hard to come back to work, and particularly challenging after some international and transcontinental travel. There were sedimentary layers of dirty laundry and loose furniture all over the apartment, and an issue of a neglected Quarterly to get out the door […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}