Tag: cyclorama

How to end the war in Afghanistan

A cannon accents rubble from the demolished cyclorama, grim reminder of the demolished lives.(First published in the Gettysburg Times, 5/10/2013)

“Thirty-five million deaths leave an empty place at only one family table.” – News commentator Eric Sevareid, (1912-1992) in a radio essay on the 25th anniversary of the start of World War Two.

With less than one percent of our warrior-age offspring actually in the military force, the odds greatly favor that a picture on the evening news is all most of us will know about someone who has died or been wounded in battle.

It is easy to think the war in Afghanistan, virtual static beneath whatever car crash or blustery foreign leader takes top billing each night, has been going on a very long time. An editor for ABC World News declared the war in Afghanistan “the longest war in our nation’s history, surpassing the conflict in Vietnam.” That was June 2010. Let’s do the math. Continue reading How to end the war in Afghanistan

Now you see it, now it’s gone

Gettysburg Cyclorama partially demolished.(Originally published in Gettysburg Times, March 15, 2013)

Wednesday, as I write these words, the Cyclorama – the circular enclosure that once housed a 359-foot wrap-around panoramic painting of the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg – is nearly demolished. Housed in a circular building, the artwork created by French artist Paul Philippoteaux in the late 1800s, offered viewers a virtual feeling of the famous battle. (Click the pix for larger views before and after.)

The painting, which had lived in the distinctive building since 1962, has been restored and, in 2008, moved to a new home in the new Gettysburg National Military Park visitor center in 2008.Pile of rubble marks the demolished Cyclorama.

Continue reading Now you see it, now it’s gone