Growing Up Southern: March 13, 2018

On June 1, 1947, a tornado tore through our community south of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It resulted in the death of 34 people, including 21 children.

Our family had gone to Hot Springs that day and missed the actual event. Returning, we found that the home just north of ours was gone—not demolished, but gone—as was the home to the south of us. The storm destroyed 50 homes and damaged 500 others. A prominent farmer, his wife, and two children died when the funnel lifted their home and turned it upside down in Bayou Imbeau a couple of miles from us.

We would find that six teenagers died when the storm demolished a house less than a city block from ours. The news reports graciously called it “a rural youth center.” Actually, it was a vacant home where teenagers gathered of a Sunday afternoon for a friendly craps game.

Our home, attached to our country grocery, suffered only from a large oak tree blown over on the western end of the structure. That night, National Guard troops stood guard in our neighborhood to prevent looting. I’ve told before how my father gave away the contents of our grocery to the victims, ultimately going bankrupt as a result of his goodness.

Today though, I’m thinking of another subject: embedded terror. Although our family didn’t witness the storm, nor was our home destroyed, terror invaded the area like a dreadful germ left by a malicious wanderer. My best childhood friend would tremble and cry whenever a thunderstorm threatened, as would our family dog, Bob. Both had seen the storm and bore witness to its power. The fear of storms proved contagious to us all.

We feared the reoccurrence of another storm like the children of Europe must have feared another war. It was a silent, insidious terror that never left, lurking below the surface of our awareness. So it was, sometime later, when a warning was issued for a storm headed directly at our grade school.

I was in the third grade, in Miss Roundtree’s class. She was hardly past 21 years of age and the heart-throb of every boy in school. We would have faced a tribe of wild Apaches for her, even charged into a Nazi machine gun nest, had she but given the fateful order.

A tornado though? That was something different. Few students remained at the school at that moment. Only the children, of whom I was one, who waited each afternoon, under the guidance of a teacher, for the arrival of the school bus that transported “the country kids” home.

We had been shuffled into the northeast portion of the school building, our elders assuming that any storm would arrive from the southwest, from Texas. We knew how to “duck and cover” in preparation for physical emergences, and were quite ready and willing to do so.

Then Miss Roundtree announced a new plan. There was no use going to the trouble of diving under our desks unless the storm was actually upon us. We needed a lookout. A dozen sets of eyes bore into the floor, hoping to burn a hole wide enough to allow an escape from the honor.

It seemed, of a sudden, that everyone, save me, disappeared. “You,” our dream-goddess said, pointing a finger at a spot between my eyes, “Come with me.”

Off we went to the most southwestern classroom in the building. I lacked the height to see through the window, so Miss Roundtree pulled up a chair on which I could stand to watch for the terror, should it appear. My instructions were simple. “When you see a funnel cloud coming, jump down, run fast, and warn us.

Then she left. Before her footsteps faded, I heard it thunder.

I felt an electric charge on the back of my tongue, a sensation with which I would become familiar as I passed through life. Awaiting the unmanageable terror, I think I may have experienced, to some small degree, the fear that must accompany any child heading off today to what should be the most joyous and exciting period of their lives, the carefree wonder of school days. I wonder how many instead, should they hear a sharp and unknown sound, will feel that surge of electricity at the back of their tongues.

Unless you have felt it, in the singular and unwarranted way a seven-year old might feel it, you have no idea what an evil organization the National Rifle Association has become.

Terror requires eternal vigilance. 

Morning Thoughts: February 24, 2018

Haven’t taught at my second Alma Mater in over a year. A PhD. Teaches the course now. That’s probably a good idea. I miss it though. Being around young minds offers much satisfaction, both from the gaining of wisdom and the delight of torture.

I taught Introduction To Public Administration, and this would be an interesting time to participate. There’s an air of insanity about the topic that has even caught the attention of young folks.

Quite frankly, they showed limited interest in Marbury v. Madison, a case settled 215 years ago today by a Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Marshall, (no relation, as far as we know, to Thurgood). It established judicial review, or the principle that the Judicial Branch decides the constitutionality of a law passed by the Legislative Branch or greatly valued by the Executive Branch. It has saved the country from shame on occasion, (see Brown v. Board of Education). Despite assertions in the past, these days it shows definite signs of constituting a suicide pact. (See Citizens United).

Anyway. I woke up this morning thinking of a great assignment. Background: In a terrifically bizarre mood, even at a particularly bizarre moment in our nation’s history, by perhaps the most bizarre person to ever hold the office of President of the United States of America, our president actually proposed effecting an end to violence in our schools by arming teachers so they could be prepared to shoot terrorists before they could act. Further, we would pay said teachers a bonus for the extra service to the country.

Don’t go to Snopes. He really said that. No, not The Onion either. See the Washington Post. After all, it did save us from Richard Nixon and Tom Hanks played its editor in a recent movie. It deserves our trust for that, if nothing more.

Unsubstantiated at this point are reports that "gun bonuses" will be based on body counts, mirroring our highly successful strategy in Vietnam.  

Anyway, wouldn’t it be a neat assignment to have the kids write papers summarizing the public administration aspects of such a proposal?

One would hope they would cover the need to rewrite thousands of union contracts, probably resulting in extended and heated negotiations with, oh, say 99.67 percent of them. Now that would be fun to watch. If there is anything some unions know about, it’s guns.

One would hope for each paper to discuss budgeting aspects of the deal. Astute students would realize that, not only would the feds not allocate any money, the present administration would likely cut school funding more than it has already proposed, said cuts to be based on the avowed probability of reduced costs of emergency services and law enforcement participation once the teachers assumed responsibility. Teachers probably form the most capable group of individuals in our country. It’s best not to provoke them

Some misguided students might opt for including any costs in the Department of Defense budget. Trouble with that is … well there are many troubles with it, the main being that the DOD doesn’t favor sharing its bounty with anyone, save defense contractors. It doesn’t even include veteran’s care in its budgeting frolics.

I’m sure that even college students would recognize major problems with the Americans With Disabilities Act. There would be legal challenges flying from both directions: “Don’t tell me I must participate,” and “Don’t tell me I can’t participate.”

Oh, what about African-American teachers? Hell, they get shot down by both actual and self-proclaimed protectors of citizens, even when they don’t have guns in their hands. Would there be waivers? That should cause some heavy thinking, for we teach them that the granting of waivers is a slippery path that could lead to, oh, say, unqualified people receiving security clearances.

I’ve taught them that a degree in public administration offers job opportunities in the field of consulting work. Some students from conservative families would, no doubt, mention opportunities in writing performance standards or as serving as product representatives for arms manufacturers. It would stand as a big disappointment when I had to tell them that those jobs were probably filled before the proposal was made public. Blood is thicker than water, they say, as long as it’s not someone else’s blood.

Other than ADA issues, I would caution students to tread lightly on the legal implications. First, they aren’t attorneys. Second, a supreme court with Clarence Thomas et al in the majority cannot be analyzed by any normal academic standards.

It would be fun to think about it some more, if the whole affair wasn’t so cosmically terrifying.

President Trump explains that
not all teachers must be armed.

Morning Thoughts: February 23, 2018

Strange, I just compiled a mental list of people I know whom I would classify as a bit nutty about guns. Only two served in the military, out of a good many.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t include honest and sincere hunters. I didn’t even include people who keep a firearm, or maybe more, in their home for safety. I certainly didn’t include the ones who collect, restore, or view firearms as a hobby. I may not share their interests, but “to each his own,” as the farmer said, patting the head of his favorite sheep.

I only included those whom I consider, and this is just my personal opinion, irrational on the topic. Those who would put semi-automatic military rifles in the hands of the mentally deranged and tell them to walk our streets.

I included those who would have the government arrest anyone who spoke out against the unlimited worship of guns in our society, claiming protection of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

I included those who would force our government to establish a national religion that, among other things, would sanctify that same Second Amendment or deprive those who didn’t agree of the ability to vote.

I included anyone who would strap an assault rifle across his or her back and wander into Walmart.

I included anyone who would refuse even to sit and have a discussion as to how we might establish a more reasonable national attitude about the bearing of personal firearms in such a complicated social environment.

And so it went. Out of the many, came two I can think of that actually served in the military. I can’t understand why there weren’t more. People who worship music join bands. People who claim to love their god join churches. People who worship food join Weightwatchers, People who worship hatred join the KKK.

Why do so few people I know who live and breathe a love of deadly weapons not join the military?

I’m not actually a psychologist, but I dated a woman in college who became one. Maybe the same lack of discipline in their thinking about guns, guns, more guns, bigger guns, faster guns, and more deadly guns also obviates a lack of discipline that makes military service undesirable to them. Based on my experience with it, the military wants women and men capable and willing to engage in violence when necessary, but never for fun, entertainment, or sexual compensation, only as a highly disciplined team action of last resort.

Or maybe it’s because the military giveth, but the military taketh away. They gave me an M-14 rifle and said, “use it to kill if we say so.” Then they took it away. They gave me an M-16 rifle but they took it away. They gave me a 45-calibler semi-automatic pistol, but took it away. They gave me (because I was six-feet tall and looked like I could carry it) an M-60 machine gun, but took it away. They even loaned me an M-79 grenade launcher for a day but took it away after I almost used it on a band of monkeys.

Their reasoning for the shifting attitudes by the military? The weapons were for war and not suitable for carrying around in civilized society. At least that’s the way they saw it, and regulated it. People who come to worship something to absurdity don’t want its use regulated in any manner.

We aren’t going to repeal that Second Amendment to the United States of America. The First and Thirteenth are in great danger and will likely disappear in my lifetime, but not the Second. I think the worship of the Second by some is due to two things. The first is a mutant gene in our DNA that gained efficacy during the days in which we engaged in slavery. The second reason the Second stands is that there has always been a lot of money in it.

Note to Remington: If you can’t survive, financially, in our blood-drenched world, don’t go into the casino business in New Jersey.

So we beat on, Those on each side of the argument becoming more entrenched and intractable each day. Those in the middle are afraid to send their kids to school, go to church, attend a concert, or buy a little pot without fear of having their bullet-riddled bodies, or those of their children, on the six-o’clock news.

We do need to talk, without the NRA, its legislators, those who really would confiscate all firearms, those who want to repeal the Second Amendment, those who view all firearms owners as fiends, gang members, or those with AR-15s strapped on, included in the talks.

Oh, it’s okay if we bring the kids. After all, they seem to be the only ones making sense these days.

 

Will we ever?

In a strange sort of way, some who may suffer most over America’s “gun thing,” may be the harmless hobbyists, hunters, and enthusiasts.

Although I am not one, I have no great bone to pick with these folks. Some probably don’t collect banjos. To each his own I say, as I down my morning glass of buttermilk and listen to Schubert.

I view it this way. There will come a time when mothers get fed up with seeing the cold corpses of their children spread across the schoolyard. Then they will act. It won’t be because of the killing that happened this week. It won’t be the one after, nor the next one, perhaps not even the one after. The NRA won’t allow it as long as its coffers overflow and some politicians have deep hands.

But it will happen someday. Just wait and see. There will come a day when the “butcher’s bill” gets too great. And those who read history, in states where it is still revered and taught, will remember what happens when mothers get mad enough against something.

Then what will happen? There won’t be a discussion then. It will be too late for one, not too soon as the “auto-response” button puts it. Grab a history book and look up the Volstead Act of 1919, then tell me Americans won’t go to extremes when it suits them.

When that happens, as the scriptures tell us, the rain will fall on the just and the unjust. Good, decent people, of whom I am blessed to know many, will suffer along with the thugs who run the National Rifle Association, the manufacturers who own them, and the once-majority of politicians. It won’t be pretty.

What happened? How did we get into this mess? I believe good people were sold a bad bill of goods. Moreover, they failed to sense the betrayal from what once was a benign organization that taught young kids—I was one—the value of safe and sane firearms usage. Too many stayed in its ranks until it has become the tool of the purveyors of death.  Good people make bad decisions. Why?

Things change, sometimes so gradually that we don’t notice. Who can pinpoint the exact date when that benign organization became the evil, blood-soaked empire that it is today? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that innocent owners of firearms, who simply wanted to collect, hunt, compete, or protect their homes, stayed latched onto the NRA like it was the Pied Piper. And, as in that cautionary tale, blind followers may ultimately face the same end.

It will be a shame, for many going over that cliff will be, as I say, kind, generous, good-hearted people, but last seen holding hands with the imbeciles that carry loaded assault rifles into Walmart, our schools, churches, or other gatherings of the innocent.

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t want your firearms. I already have some that I have inherited and don’t know what to do with. I don’t want to take any away from you, and I don’t recall right off hearing anyone else with half a brain proposing to. I simply don’t care what you do inside your home, the deep woods, or in a spot designated for discharging weapons of destruction.

If you simply can’t abide the thought, yeah there may be some, of not using your firearm to kill another human, be aware that the military is scraping the bottom of the barrel in its recruitment efforts. Your enlistment might postpone the ultimate return of the draft one more day. (Full disclosure: the animals hunted by the military do shoot back).

I just want to talk to you about not elevating your gun to the status of a religious icon. Religious icons have wreaked havoc on our planet for eons, from the fate of the Midianites to the destruction of the Twin Towers. It’s time we put those aside.

I just want reasonable people with different points of view to sit and discuss ways to prevent the carnage, and don’t say it won’t work. It works in other countries. Don’t say our “founding fathers” were infallible when they wrote the Constitution. If they were, many of my friends would still be counted as three-fifths of a human and my wife couldn’t vote at all. And let us all bear in mind that if it had been the “founding mothers” we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Imagine reasonable people sitting down to discuss a solution to a festering sore that is slaughtering our innocents. I think it could happen. Call me a dreamer if you wish, but “I’m not the only one.”

And it’s not to soon. Just a few more slaughterings, however, and it will be too late.

Grandmothers get mad too.
Best not risk it.

Morning thoughts: February 15, 2018

Yesterday we sacrificed a few more children and their caretakers to the ravenous monster we call “Gun-Love.” He is uniquely American. Over the still warm bodies, we scattered “thoughts and prayers” like they were fragrant blossoms that would cover the smell of the dead.

The usual suspects immediately appeared. One group called for some control over how we accommodate the Second Amendment to the Constitution. That will not happen. Everyone with a fifth-grade education knows it won’t. The NRA and their fellow Gun-Love handlers will not allow it.

More moderate respondents simply asked for a discussion. That will not happen. It a corporatocracy such as ours, we only discuss what the corporations allow us to discuss.

The United States Senator whom the parents and friends of the dead elected to serve them said it was too soon to discuss the tragedy.

A father of one of the students who had to wait for 45 agonizing minutes before he learned his daughter had survived responded with, “It’s always too soon, until it’s too late.”

So, we sit and wait until the next sacrifice, playing a grisly game called "whose kids next?" Must we? I'm afraid so.  Tragedies once united Americans. Nowadays, politicians only see them as a catalyst to secure their base and divide us further. It seems only a matter of time until we reach the point where, as Bob Dylan once said, "We're afraid to bring children into the world."

I used to think we could reach harmony, that honest, sincere hunters and gun enthusiasts could reach a point where adult conversation might allow them to join hands with parents of school children and seek a peaceful and safe America with a minimum of sacrifice.

I don’t think so anymore. There are strong and evil forces that seek the end to our experiment in a democratic government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." All I can say now is “So long, it’s been good to know you.

Forgive me if I have made you mad. You're not as mad as I am.

Morning Thoughts: November 6, 2017

Once again, we are numb. As a Charlie Chaplin character, a certain Monsieur Verdoux, said, "One murder makes a villain. Millions a hero. Numbers sanctify.”

He was talking of war, but the boundaries between outright war and everyday life blur more each day.

It takes more than one murder to transfix the news for us now. We are that inured to the insanity. We learn of the act. We become transfixed and attentive, not for the threat to the soul of America, but for a sign that our side is right. We then look at the numbers. Are there any new records set?

Then we look for the location and assure ourselves that the dangers lies nowhere near us.

For a tragic and alarming percentage of us, we await the identification of today’s monster. Will that person’s background fit some position they hold? Can they profit politically?

Perhaps, as we stand closer than ever in our planet’s history, to the final planetary war, or environmental implosion, these minor warmups, no matter how transfixing they are on the micro scale, serve to divert or prepare us for the macro disaster.

It seems as, in the words of Matthew Arnold, “I, on men’s impious uproar hurled, think only as I hear them rave, that peace has left the upper world, and now sleeps only in the grave.” And of all our nation’s populace, I’m the only person who has no idea of a solution.

One group demands a cure that will never happen. Their demands only strengthen and further enrich those who don’t agree with them. The barriers grow more strongly constructed. Where leaders once spoke, following tragedies, to heal, comfort, and provide hope, they now speak—or in more cowardly fashion, tweet—for political gain.

We insert the insipid phrase “thoughts and prayers” as a universal balm that replaces reason, analysis, and action. One can only wonder at the result, had FDR simply offered thoughts and prayers to those who lay at the bottom of Honolulu Bay, and their families, or to the farmers starving to death on the plains comprising the Dust Bowl.

I’m left, once again, with the pure and sanctified knowledge of one sure thing, following yesterday’s tragedy. There is one certainty on which we may count in the near future:

Nothing will happen except that we will receive more mind-deadening facts. We will do nothing, learn nothing, agree on nothing. Our addictions to violence and the tools of violence are simply too great. The desire for political and monetary benefits profound in our culture now, and they demand profound disagreements.

Which of these great philosophers is right?

“Das ist die Dämmerung der Götter.” - Richard Wagner

“So long, it’s been good to know you.” – Woody Guthrie

“Wherever human beings are concerned, trend is not destiny.” - René Dubos

“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.” – William Faulkner

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” – Helen Keller

“I have a dream …” Marin Luther King, Jr.

“… choose you this day whom ye will serve …” – The writer of Joshua 24:14-15 KJV

Is in up to each of us" So be it. As for my family and me, we choose peace, hope, and compassion.

.

Morning Thoughts: October 5, 2017

May I make a modest proposal on the violence imposed on America from firearms? After all, everyone else has.

Thanks. Now these are just my personal thoughts. You are welcome to yours. If we don’t agree, we can still be friends. Okay? Here goes.

First, our congress will not seriously consider passing any legislature involving gun control anytime soon. Emotions are too high, potential political repercussions too drastic, fear of strangers too endemic, and the firearms lobby too rich for there to be any serious discussion.

Let’s just shut up about legislation? Okay? I know the majority of Americans desire it. But, the majority of Americans would like for women to be treated as equal to men. See what that’s gotten us?

Second, the violence will continue. It is too tightly woven into our country’s emotional fabric. Just watch the movie trailers. Any problem that can’t be solved with a car chase and shootout isn’t worth addressing. Violence is not, it would appear to aliens, our best solution to failed human interactions—it is the only solution. Now, the bar has been set even higher. “Only 58 killed? Hold my spare Uzi and watch this.”

Can we do anything? Perhaps. Consider the following.

Americans don’t urinate or defecate in public. Why not? It’s a natural thing to do, after all. They do it in some societies. The Vietnamese do. At last they were doing it the last time I was there. My first memory of the country was standing by my sea-bag at the airport staging area, waiting for a mortar round to land, whistling “Popeye the Sailor Man,” and watching a local worker “hist up” one leg of his silk pajamas and take a leak in front of everyone. It didn’t rate a second look. Going to the bathroom in public, or anywhere, is a natural thing.

Face it, any American would do it under the right conditions. For “the happy few,” of us who still believe in biology, it is one of humankind’s most sacred rights.  Nonetheless, we discountenance the public practice of the act to the point of passing laws and regulations against it. Those laws result from no intrinsic threat to the health, safety, welfare, or morals involved. We simply choose, as a society, to deny the public practice of a completely natural function granted our bodies by (take your pick) a benevolent deity or 4.5 billion years of genetic descent through modification.

So what? Here is my thought: if we can, through the force of social abhorrence, deny display of a natural bodily function in certain places, a function that is necessary, unavoidable, and a right, why couldn’t that same technique be applied to firearms?

See, we don’t deny ourselves the right to go to the bathroom, we simply say that it’s not fitting to do it in certain ways. That works, generally, with the exception of babies, and southern males feeling the call of nature within a specified driving distance of a beer joint.

Anyway. Suppose society begins to say, “Keep your guns. Collect your guns. Shoot your guns. Hunt with your guns. Sleep with your guns. Fondle your guns until your heart’s content. Protect your home with them if necessary; I would with mine.”

“Just don’t:

- Expose them to view or pull them out in public,

- Wave them around it public,

- Empty them out in public,

- Talk about them in public, particularly in a bragging manner,

- Tell young children what you would like to use them for (your guns, that is) in public,

- Or use them to be a jerk in public.”

We are talking about social approbation, not legal stricture. Why goodness, in a few years, the violation of the any of the above would be as socially unacceptable as describing one’s female problems while yelling into a cell phone at Walmart. Uh, wait ….

Let me use another example. It would be as socially unacceptable as “dropping trow” at a Sunday School picnic. Yeah, that’s better.

I won’t go as far as to suggest registering repeat offenders. Someone very close to me did, but she always sets higher goals for society.

At any rate, for gun worshipers, go at it. If you feel the need for heat or the smell of cordite, go inside and blast away. Outside? Hold it in and don’t talk about it. It will be hard, but take Hamlet’s advice:

“Refrain to-night,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence: the next more easy;

For use almost can change the stamp of nature …”

You will soon be welcomed back into polite society.

Just thinking.
Pardon the length - complicated topic

Sailing To Oblivium: October 3, 2017

They say insanity consists of performing the same act over and over again, hoping for different results. It is happening now, after Las Vegas.

Some folks are screaming for some official policies relating to a citizen’s right under the Second Amendment. That is not going to happen. They’ve performed this act so many times before and it hasn’t worked, not for any discernible length of time. It certainly won’t work now, a time in our nation's history when the firearms lobby owns all three branches of government.

Some folks will say “Don’t worry. The next attempt at mass murder will be miraculously prevented by well-armed citizen-militia groups roaming the streets, colleges, nurseries, churches, theaters, schools, restaurants, and marketplaces of America. Give them even more guns this time and you'll be even safer. We see how well that has been working.”

Those speaking for the elected officials will, while the bodies are still bleeding, echo the words of Bob Dylan, “Now’s not the time for your tears.”

The politicians will give the next one the ubiquitous "moment of silence" and go back to what they were doing.

We'll all, to a man or woman, offer our "thoughts and prayers," as if that has worked in the past.

And we’ll go on, numbed and waiting for the next time, doing nothing, while our terrified citizens distrust anyone they see. Parents will learn to dread a phone call from their child’s school. Public gatherings will take place under a cloud of dread. Our brave police officers, firefighters, and medical professionals will wonder if they are the ones who must charge into the melee, or extract the bullets next time.

The ammunition factory near where I live will put the “help wanted” banner on its fence the way it always does after a mass killing. That’s when sales are at their most brisk, after all.

Then we are left alone to face the most terrifying part: the knowledge that next year’s Stephen Paddock will be able to accomplish the task with silencers, on even more advance killing machines.

Now is the time for our tears.

Sailing To Oblivion: October 2, 2017

Some mornings I feel downright ashamed of myself. This was one. I'll explain.

You see, sometimes I can’t sleep about three in the morning. I tend to worry.

What do I worry about? Oh, real important stuff like whether I’ll get around to mowing a strip of pasture on the farm before first frost. Yeah, and about the patch of roofing that needs repair, and a door latch that needs replacing. Then there is this magazine deadline due soon and I haven’t thought of a topic. And don’t forget the couch we need to move. Did the autopay work for the credit card this month? Gosh, I need to order some tractor parts. Should we economize to protect our retirement savings or splurge a bit? Neither of us has ever experienced bad health. What if it came now? We live pretty well, but what if suddenly we couldn’t, for some unknown reason?

I’ve even been known to imagine that I hear “the eternal footman snicker.”

Sometimes, with these heavy, yea almost epochal, concerns weighing on me, I simply get up and listen to music while I read or catch up with the news on the internet. After all, who could sleep with such cosmic concerns worming around in his mind? I must be carrying far, far more than my fair share of the weight of the world on my shoulders.

First, let’s get some Schubert playing on YouTube, just the thing for my beleaguered psyche.

Then I turn to the news, like this morning. The headlines flashed. I gasped, read more, and wept for my country. In short, I was ashamed.

Will it ever stop?