Nimitz

Chester Nimitz was one of the truly great commanders of World War II. Taking command of a decimated Pacific Fleet after the disaster at Pearl Harbor, he directed the recovery and developed strategies for first containing and then reversing the tide of Japanese success. Within six months he and his gifted subordinate Spruance won a victory at Midway that was as decisive in World War II as Trafalgar had been in the wars against Napoleon. From that point the United States Navy seized the strategic initiative in the Pacific and two months later at Guadalcanal, began offensive operations on land as well. Over the next three years Nimitz commanded the Pacific Fleet through a series of great battles, managed it through explosive growth into the largest and most powerful naval force in history, and led it to complete victory over Japan.

This is all well known, at least to people who study World War II. The details of his life and character are far less known. That is one reason it is a good thing that the naval institute biography of him by E. B. Potter is now out in paperback. Nimitz was an interesting, thoughtful, dedicated, brilliant, and admirable man whose life is worthy of contemplation and whose story is pleasing, interesting, and instructive. His path from boyhood in Fredericksburg, Texas to five stars is a fine tale. The book is well written and full of first hand information from Nimitz, his family, and his contemporaries. It covers his entire life with particular attention to his early career and development. It both sets and presents the large context and shows small and telling details. One of my favorites of the latter is the fact that during the war Nimitz kept a picture of MacArthur in his office to remind himself “not to make Jovian pronouncements complete with thunderbolts.” That story by itself is worth the price of the book.

It is a fine book about a great man. I recommend it.

Food Bank

Our city has a large local food bank that includes a large plant for drying and packaging food for shipment. The food bank has done some useful work particularly in sending dehydrated food to poor areas overseas and to locations hit by natural disasters. However its main public focus is on ameliorating a supposed problem with hunger in our own country and in particular in our own region. Its influence is pervasive. We are faced at every turn with canned food drives for the food bank sponsored by this or that organization, often offering free or reduced admission to some event to those who bring a donation. The public schools push their students to participate. Clubs and groups of all sorts join in. One grocery store sells preselected, pre-wrapped donation bags that customers can purchase and drop off. A local TV station devotes the weeks before Thanksgiving to hectoring the citizenry to bring food to the food bank.

This is all interesting and seems to make a lot of people feel virtuous. It provides a diversion to a number of people and allows a lot of folks to get their picture on TV or their name in the papers. However one has to wonder if we are being given a little slice of the big lie with all this.

In the first place, to the extent malnutrition exists in this country it seems almost always connected with things such as dementia or other debilitating health problems of the elderly, willful neglect or abuse of children by a parent or custodian, drug abuse, alcoholism, mental problems, or simply bad choices that have nothing to do with the actual availability of food. The main nutritionally related health problem of poor people in this country is obesity, not anything related to deficiency. The country spends billions of dollars each year on the food stamp program - now called Supplemental Nutritional Access Program or SNAP - to make food available to those who need it. Of course the food stamp program has its problems with  overpayment, fraud everywhere, and the opportunity for recipients to use the benefits to trade at a discount for money to buy non-food items instead of purchasing food, but these again are not problems of availability of resources to obtain food. (It is interesting as an aside that those beating the drums for the food bank seem not to realize that their claims of hunger in the community are a tacit admission that the food stamp program could use a strong dose of reform and loophole closing.)

Still the drumbeat goes on, and there is usually an undertone, attempting to induce guilt and suggesting that those sitting at home with plenty to eat are somehow to blame. Well they aren’t, and they should reject any suggestion that they are. They should enjoy their Thanksgiving turkey with a sense of pride and gratitude that they live in the freest, most productive country the world has ever seen (with perhaps a kind thought for the farmer). They might also consider finding other charities besides the food bank or its national affiliates.