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Post-224: My Great-Grandfather's Piece of World War I

8/2/2014

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Note: This post was updated Nov. 11th, 2014 (including a recollection posted as a comment), along with post-242

A century ago this week, somewhere in Connecticut, a 17-year-old named Earle Hazen on summer break from high school heard the news: The great powers of Europe were declaring war on one other! It was August 1914.

Earle probably read this news in a newspaper, as this was before even radio. He'd not have been able to predict that a century later, his great-grandson (me) would be typing these words about him, wondering how he learned of the war.

Of course, what we now call "World War I" didn't immediately affect him, nor many other Americans. The USA insisted on staying out of that irrational and deeply cynical war in its first few years. President Wilson famously ran for his second term in 1916 under the slogan "He Kept Us Out of the War".

In time, the war came for us, too. Spring 1917. The very week that the USA declared war on the German Empire in April 1917, my great-grandfather, Earle Hazen, turned 20. As this is prime conscription age, he ended up in the army.

Earlier this year, my cousin N.D. and I found a picture of Earle Hazen in the attic of the old house in Connecticut. The girl in the picture is our grandmother (born in 1921). Judging by her age here, this picture seems to be from around 1930. My cousin N.D., upon seeing this photo, insisted that Earle Hazen at that time looked a lot like N.D. does today.
Picture
My great-grandfather Earle Hazen (right, with glasses)
with his wife and daughter (my mother's mother). Circa 1930.
(This circa 1930 photograph is from about the same time as the Civil War veterans video in post-41.)

What do I know about Earle Hazen? I know the following:
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Post-223: Kinsfolk by the Millions (Or, My Y-Chromosome Story) (Or, What the Heck is "R1b-U106"?)

8/1/2014

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Picture
Map of frequency of my Y-chromosome (father's father's father's...etc.) [From here]
My Y-chromosome line is R1b-U106, determined by a professional test my father did last year. Above is a map of its distribution in Europe today. The darker the color, the more men native to that region have this Y-chromosome.

My father had this Y-chromosome, as did his, father, and his father before him, and so on. Every man's Y-chromsome is passed on in the same way as we pass on surnames. All those with R1b-U106 will share the same male ancestor (father's father's father's father's....etc.). Nobody really knows how long ago or where that man lived.
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Post-222: Good Journalism, From Iraq/Syria

8/1/2014

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In Malaysia last year, I curiously bought and read a few of the English newspapers. Malaysians with whom I spoke generally disparaged the big papers as government mouthpieces (This despite, many of them, often reading them).

We can make plenty of criticisms of the U.S. media, too. I feel generally disappointed by U.S. journalism.

What is good journalism?
Somebody named Robert Picard gives this definition, more eloquently than I could:
[Good journalism] is...labor intensive; it involves collecting, analysing, structuring and presenting information. The best journalism comes from knowledgeable and critical individuals determining what information is significant, backgrounding and contextualizing it, and thinking about and explaining its meaning. [...]

Good journalism involves engaging language and fluid prose, but it is not merely a well written and good story; it is not necessarily evident in stories that make the most popular list of stories or are most shared on social media. Good journalism involves stories that have import, impact, and elements of exclusivity and uniqueness; it wrestles with issues of the day, elucidates social conditions, facilitates society in finding solutions to challenges, and is independent of all forms of power. Good journalism is rational and critical; it is infused with scepticism, but not cynicism.
I was glad to discover Patrick Cockburn earlier this year, whom I consider a very good journalist along the lines of the above. He is an on-the-ground Middle East correspondent who writes for a British newspaper, The Independent. I learn a lot from his articles, which are archived since 2001 (when he was in Afghanistan) at Unz.com. The latest:
Isis Winning Its War on Two Fronts
Militants have conquered Sunni regions of Iraq and are now consolidating their hold on north-eastern Syria
By Patrick Cockburn • July 31, 2014

In the early hours of 24 July a Saudi volunteer belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) drove a car packed with explosives towards the perimeter wall of a base manned by 300 soldiers of the 17th Division of the Syrian army near the city of Raqqa in north-east Syria.

As the Saudi raced at high speed towards the wall he was given covering fire by a barrage of artillery shells and rockets, but he did not quite make it. His car was hit by Syrian army fire and blew up with an explosion that shook buildings miles away in Raqqa city. The plan had been for 40 Isis fighters to burst through a breach in the perimeter wall made by the suicide bomber. A further 600 Isis fighters were to follow up the first assault, if it made headway.
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