Pondering the Imponderable

As one who professionally deals with policy analysis and the regulatory process, I always stand in awe of the simplicity employed by the Galilean in the Sermon on the Mount. You need to go no further than his opening line, the first Beatitude.

 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3 NIV)

Close your eyes and you can just hear the modern analysts having a go at it.

“Did he mean the poor, or the poor in spirit? Which source has it right, Matthew or Luke? Should the text include a disclaimer section?”

“Did he mean all of the “blessed” or a statistically pure population sample?”

“We need to add an exceptions section. Are Muslims included? Lonely prostitutes? Sexually confused teenagers? Methodists?”

“We need to define the word ‘spirit.’ Is it a measurable phenomenon or a simply a linguistic guide?”

“Is the kingdom of heaven theirs alone or will they share it with the others? Do we need an organizational chart?”

“Is there one kingdom of heaven or several? We may need mapping.”

“Will the statistical definitions of ‘poor’ change over time or are they fixed?”

"Have we fully established provenance?"

“If the term ‘blessed’ translates into ‘happy,’ what are the definable characteristics of same?

“Let us consider the contextual implications.”

“Does ownership include control over?”

“Is there a legally defensible definition of ‘heaven’ we can use?”

“Has anyone checked the translation from the original English in the King James Version?”

And so it goes. His simplicity seems to breed confusion and spawn difficulty in acceptance. He might as well have told us not to get divorces, to forgive our enemies, or to quit loving money.

Hope is where you find it ...

Spent yesterday with some of the best folks in the world, a group of municipal officials from around Arkansas. We were there to teach them something about urban planning. I think I learned more from them. Here are some of the most interesting topics discussed during breaks and lunch.

A council member from LA told me the most interesting story. She was in a group interviewing a young lady for a job. It was a typical interview except for one thing. The girl had her cell phone in between her hands and was busy texting during the entire interview. Yes, texting. She listened and answered questions but only stopped texting to look up at the interviewers once. That was when they told her the hours were from eight to five.

She stopped texting. Looked up, and said with surprise. “Eight to five?”

Yes.

“I can’t possibly be here before ten.” Back to texting.

Friends. It’s a new world in which we live. No, she didn’t get the job. Her parents probably blame affirmative action, or immigrants.

Another person told me about a modern problem in her city. Seems teenagers (and maybe older) males are flying drones, with cameras, over back yards and filming girls sunbathing. One lad was caught and offered the excuse that he had sought after the young lady as a girlfriend and had been rebuffed. Thought maybe some videos might produce leverage. Or whatever.

I heard about the “developer” that offered to fix a city’s affordable housing problem with some container crates, probably from Home Depot’s dumpster site, fitted onto a flat-bet trailer and parked on a site. He assured the Mayor that "tiny homes" were all the rage now in urban planning.

The most common topic was about a phase that seems to be sweeping the cities in our state. I call it the “Pirate’s Code Problem,” from the film Pirates of the Caribbean. Remember the response when the heroine invoked the “Pirate’s Code?  “… you must be a pirate for the pirate's code to apply and you're not. And …, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules.”

Yes, our cities are facing an increase of conflicts with builders and developers, mostly the local ones, who consider a city’s adopted regulations more as guidelines than actual rules, and act accordingly. They are hoping, it seems, for a return to the government of yesteryear, what I called “regulation by last name.”

I’ve thought about his and have two hypotheses, one negative and one positive. On the negative end, we are living in a time when those at the very top of the “governmental food chain” never miss an opportunity to show their disdain for the rule of law, good government, the general welfare of the population, or—really—the social stability that comes from common decency. It would be no wonder that this attitude would trickle down into local government.

I have a more positive hypothesis, borne out by the attitude of the folks I talked with yesterday. I think we have one of the most educated and attentive brood of elected officials at the local level in this state that I have seen in almost a half-century of dealing with municipalities. And they care deeply about their cities, hence the conflicts with the “dab a little gravel and run” developers.

If I’m right, look out you demons of darkness. Attitudes and actions can trickle up as well as down.

Out with the smell of sulfur.
Make America smell good again.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 33 (Cont._2)

Urban planning requires a lot of public hearings. Some are useful, some not. Some are entertaining, some not. Most are interesting. I attended a few during the summer of 1972 while I waited for my wedding day. I remember one in particular in my home town.

The way public hearings were conducted in those days was pretty standard, in most cases. Once the major decisions had been made, the city invited the public in to make comments or ask questions. After enduring what often turned into an ordeal, the city went ahead and carried out its original proposal. Planners would change the approach as years went by, but this was years ago, remember. One might say that we were, back then, approaching the twilight years of the good-old-boy days.

I don’t really remember what the public hearing in question involved exactly. I remember that it had to do with housing, and the room was full. I also remember that major actors in town favored a positive outcome. I remember that some people in the room didn’t.

The first speaker was a young architect whose firm was designing the project. I felt a little sorry for him since nothing in his experience or training had prepared him to deal with hostile audiences. They generally train architects to assume that they know best and to behave accordingly. There were emerging factions in the 1970s that didn’t buy into that. They called them “neo-hippies” and worse things. A group of them were in attendance that night, to the discomfiture of the architect.

They pulled his chain from every direction imaginable. They made him mad when they questioned his judgment. They made him defensive when they suggested revisions. They even made him go red-faced and almost cry when they questioned his motives. Flustered, he introduced the developers. They would know how to handle a crowd of people.

Speaking of the crowd, it wasn’t uniformly hostile. The proponents of the project had assembled a goodly throng of adherents: real estate folks, tradesmen, bankers, wholesalers and others who stood to profit from the project. All in all, it proved a rollicking good time. I felt that way since I had no vested interest. I simply drove down and attended to further my education.

It finally came to the point where a young activist was questioning the primary developer of the project about its possible impact on an adjacent low-income neighborhood. She wore a long, flowing gown-dress, sandals, love-beads, and a flower in her hair. She looked as if she belonged more in Candlestick Park than Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Her questioning concerned the lack of open space in the project and whether the housing couldn’t be built “up more than out.”

The developer answered her in the tone of a parent explaining to a four-year-old why the sun doesn’t shine when it rains. The design followed the demands of maximum economic efficiency. The design would provide maximum housing for minimum expenditures. Any other design wouldn’t be profitably feasible. Were there any more questions?

The woman said something then that produced a wave of laughter from the proponents of the project, as well as from the planning commissioners.

She said, “I don’t happen to believe that one should profit from providing a basic human need.”

The developer chuckled at her in response. The Chairman called the public hearing at an end and a vote hurriedly followed. As the men stood congratulating themselves, the activists marched defiantly from the room. The whole thing made me think.

Her comment sure sounded ludicrous at the time. With each passing year, it sounds less so.

Morning Thoughts: October 5, 2017

Woke up in Alma, Arkansas at a nice Quality Inn, thinking about what a lucky man I am. I get paid for visiting places like this. Further, it allows me to know some of the finest people on our planet, the elected officials and public servants who serve our state at the local level.

Then another thought occurred to me. I'm at the western edge of Arkansas, headed back East in a few moments. I got to thinking about how I could use the trip back to stop and visit friends along the way that I have made while working as an urban planning consultant in this state. I could just drop in and say "Hello, I was passing through and thought I would stop and say hello to wonderful friends whom I've had the pleasure of serving . I've made a few over the last nearly 50 years. Many have gone on but many are still here."

I truly believe that they would be glad to see me. I know I would enjoy it immensely.

There's just one problem.

I'd never get home.

Born to serve.

Sailing To Oblivium: July 17, 2017

As far as I’m concerned, there are enough things causing friction in our lives that we don’t need to produce it knowingly. But some do.

Carl von Clausewitz, whose writings on war have affected the actions of generation after generation of generals, expounded on it in his classic work, On War. “Friction is the only conception which, in a general way, corresponds to that which distinguishes real war from war on paper.”

In other words, it all looks easy in some Chateau miles away from the trenches where men exist, under adverse weather conditions, suffer almost constant bombardment, and operate under standing orders to “report to the front and remain there in service until death, incapacitation, or the end of the war.” They know that a line drawn on paper, marking a direction of attack, doesn’t recognize the fact that, in reality, it leads through two feet of mud.

In other words, amateurs in the business, or people with nefarious motives, can get a lot of others killed. Unexpected changes in the weather, a surprise movement by the enemy, lost supplies, or a lapse of leadership on the ground can add untold friction to the best plans.

Now to our present condition in America. I seem to remember that Clausewitz also warned about creating unnecessary friction on our own part. Consider the habits of the Nazi army in mistreating civilians in captured territory, habits that generated resistance (friction). Napoleon Bonaparte didn’t create the kind of friction that Hitler did. We are told the French basically allowed a captured populace to continue operating as they had, as long as they didn’t cause trouble. Further back in history, we read of a similar practice during the so-called Pax Romana.

Okay. Okay. I’m getting to it.

With both Clausewitz and history on our minds, how the hell do we explain Donald Trump? Avoid friction? Why he arises during the early hours of the morning with one thought in mind, apparently. That is to create as much discord, distrust, and enmity among the American people as possible. Why?

Did he think governing the strongest and most important country in the world would be easy?

Does he think that making people hate him makes him powerful?

Does he think discord is the right way to progress?

Does he, even on the brightest day, imagine there are good, honest, loyal Americans that don’t share his views but who could be valuable allies when treated with understanding and a willingness to compromise?

Does he, as it appears at this point, think that we can “make America great again” by destroying everything that makes America great?

I don’t know. I’m just confused, some would say a lingering condition. I do know, however, that there are people whose political beliefs differ from mine, and that many of those people are good, honest, and loyal Americans. When we sit together in fellowship and good humor, we agree on most things and, I’m certain, could find many bridges with which to cross any gaps that do exist in our beliefs. They are not “losers.”

Nor did a much greater man than Donald Trump could even imagine—I’m talking about Abraham Lincoln—call the people of the South “losers” in April of 1865. He treated them as fellow countrymen and countrywomen. He was a man who understood the negative effects of friction.

Just thinking …

Reconciliation: 13

Some days, any effort at reconciliation stalls at the starting gate. Some days, a primal fear that our very way of life is ending overpowers a wish for us all to “just get along,” as the famous line goes—the one that Tony Soprano attributed to Dr. Rodney King.

When a respected conservative columnist, with a sterling international reputation, describes the leader of one of the two primary political parties in America as a child, perhaps it is time to accept the fact the we no longer face simple political differences. Political differences, after all, are based on real issues, such as

- How much influence should various religious dogmas play in the exercise of government?

- What are reasonable limitations on freedom of speech?

- What powers of government should be left to individual states?

- What approach to criminal justice would best serve the country?

- Is individual health care a right or a privilege?

- Is what’s best for General Motors really best for the country?

- Do deficits really matter?

Whether it is proper for a foreign country that has been our country’s avowed enemy since the 1940s take an active role in electing our president does not a political difference.

Whether it is proper for a president of the United States to spend time on social media spreading falsehoods and ad hominem attacks on individual American citizens does not constitute a political difference.

Whether it is acceptable for a president of the United States to lie to the American public, whether it be about the results of a sexual affair or the results of an election, does not constitute a political difference.

Whether it is acceptable for a president of the United States knowingly to try and divide us in our feelings for our country by utilizing hatred, prejudices, and fears, does not constitute a political difference.

I think I’ll take a day off from thinking about all this. Maybe I’ll go somewhere private and practice my primal scream.

Ahh. That feels better.

Reconciliation: Day Eight

 Perhaps no topic is more controversial among Americans as taxes. We run a wide gamut of opinions, to say the least. There was the famous Civil War veteran and jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. who wrote, in a dissenting opinion while on the U.S. Supreme Court, “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society … .”

At the other end, we have the work of political kingmaker Grover Norquist who states, “I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” He works at doing this by exacting a pledge from candidates who want the support he can provide. The pledge is, basically, never to vote on enacting or raising a tax.

So where does this leave a sensible person? My friends are free to make any decision they chose. I can only hope that decision is not based on a knee-jerk reaction fulfilling an allegiance to a person rather than the people as a whole.

Personally, I tend toward the Holmes version. He was a veteran of both our most divisive war and the Supreme Court. He must have spent long hours contemplating the complexities of both history and government. Analytical thought is good, I believe.

Does the government waste money? Oh yes. As I write this, our military is still trying to explain the evaporation of over a trillion dollars during our adventure in Iraq.

Does the government spend money on frivolous or unneeded projects? Oh dear. Does the term “pork barrel” ring a bell?

On the other hand, can we seriously contemplate such varied things as Hurricane Katrina, Yellowstone National Park, the invasion of Normandy, 9-11, Oklahoma City, Sesame Street, the elimination of polio, Social Security, Medicare, The Smithsonian, and a postal service that connects us to even the most remote areas of our country, without admitting the government can be a source of good for many, if not all of us?

Of course, some of those items represent programs that are more popular with our diverse society than others. Still, I’ve observed each of them providing great solace to our people, many of whom represent the “least of those among us.”

As complicated as the topic may be, and as elusive as answers may be, I choose, myself, to pay taxes willingly. I do this even when the paying may not benefit me directly. Though we have no children, we steadfastly support our public school system. An uneducated population, incapable of analytical thinking, may seem a worthwhile goal to some, but I beg to disagree. Does an H.G. Wells book called “The Time Machine” strike a chord?”

Let us each view taxes in our own way, each of us. I choose to not attack the concept, but to be on constant vigilance toward the administration of the concept. This is consistent with my belief that freedom, within the bounds of enlightened control and regulation, is truly what can make America great.

My country is too great ever
to become a place of depair.

Reconciliation: Day Three

People often say that “government should be run like a business.” I realize that this is an honest, sincere appraisal and should be taken seriously. Having worked as a consultant to local governments for all these years, I can agree that, in many cases, government can be operated in a more businesslike manner.

In such matters as fiscal conservatism, long-range attention to operation and maintenance costs, productivity, considerations of life-cycle costs, and employee proficiency, the public sector can learn from its counterparts in the private sector.

I know my friends will allow me, though, to point out some differences.

First, government entities operate under what is known as “The Antideficiency Act. This act forbids agencies from “making or authorizing an expenditure from, or creating or authorizing an obligation under, any appropriation or fund in excess of the amount available in the appropriation or fund unless authorized by law.” 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a)(1)(A). In other the act forbids from spending money on any purpose not explicitly authorized and funded by a specific law.

The act also forbids government from “accepting voluntary services for the United States, or employing personal services not authorized by law, except in cases of emergency involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.” 31 U.S.C. § 1342. So, government can’t operate like a non-profit corporation either.

I hope we can agree that those are substantial differences. Further, business can use any means to make a profit as long as the means are legal. (We might agree that some corporations skate closer to the edge of that pond than others).

Government must not only operate legally, it must also operate strictly within the limits of specific enabling or operative legislation, including the ancient stricture of protecting the “health, safety, welfare, and morals” of the community.

One additional point merits consideration. Government must provide services to all eligible citizens. It can’t pick and choose which members of the public to serve. For me, personally—and you are free to decide for yourself—that’s what unnerves me about the concept of “charter schools.” We once had a concept in the South called “pretty-bolling,” or picking only those cotton bolls that were large and easy to pick. The others were left to rot.

This all reminds me of a time I complained to a good friend, a legal scholar and teacher of The Law, about the behavior of some attorney. He carefully (we were out jogging and had plenty of time) explained that America’s judicial system, unlike that of some countries, was based on a form whereby the aim was that each side was protected by the laws and adequately represented by a legal advocate.

“If you want to change the way our attorneys behave,” he said, “you’ll have to change our entire legal system. And I don’t think that is going to happen.”

We might apply that lesson to government. Our system of government operates in the way for which it is designed. Could we not all work together to make it operate well for all under that system, rather than seeking to destroy it?

Just thinking …