Morning Thoughts: January 23, 2018

Politics is like in-line skating. We watch someone else do it and we say, That’s easy. Even I could do that.” Of course it’s not, easy that is.

It strikes me lately how much politics has become personal to so many. By personal, I mean that, for many individuals, it has become all about them. This seems so much more prevalent on the “left-side” of the political spectrum. On the right, they seem to take the position that, if one simply accepts the platform, all will eventually end to one’s satisfaction.

Many on the left, though, seem to want to be right more than they want to win. This is a normal feeling during normal times. The problem is that these aren’t normal times. While one is busy being “right,” the ones determined to do what we consider “wrong” are staying unified, amassing power, and winning elections. People who win elections tend to govern us.

What seems to be lost in this situation is a basic misunderstanding of politics, and the complexity therein. Perhaps this is symptomatic of a society that is losing its grip on the basic belief in a rigorous and demanding education. Further, it results from a growing segment of society that would rather watch an old TV show on a cell phone than read Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Getting our news from those with whom we agree on Facebook compounds the problem.

My contention manifests itself in the current flap over keeping open our United States government, the government, by the way, of those who stormed ashore at Normandy or were beaten and lynched for demanding to vote, wanting a decent, safe, and sanitary job, or seeking a good education.

Much of the anger over the current situation derives from the fact that an interim legislative solution didn’t offer what some individuals wanted. It wasn’t at all about the millions of fine people who were without paychecks while inferior people squabbled. It wasn’t about America’s standing (once at the pinnacle, now near the bottom) in the World at Large. It wasn’t about stability, honor, or responsibility. It was only about “winning” and not “caving.”

I’m not a political expert, but most people who post on social media make me feel like one. Let me therefore, offer an insight.

Winning elections isn’t about your ego. Winning elections isn’t about how bad the other side may be. Winning elections isn’t about whether your candidate was the nominee or not. Winning elections isn’t about “making a statement.” Winning elections isn’t about your feelings. Winning elections is not about being right. Winning elections isn’t even about being good. And winning elections is not about the fact that someone in government pissed you off once and you want to "show them a thing or two." Winning elections is certainly not about rioting or stopping traffic on an interstate highway.

Winning elections is about votes.

Votes flow from solidarity of purpose, and support for a body of principles that will benefit the health, safety, and welfare of us all, even if we don’t agree with every single principle involved. Votes flow from the tacit support of those who haven’t joined us but are watching our every move. Yes, votes are about money, and yes, bad people are pouring vast amounts of money into influencing our elections for greed and power.

Sitting elections out is not the best way to address that disadvantage. Winning elections is about voting. Why do you think one side is working so hard to keep people from doing it?

Morning Thoughts: January 22, 2018

America awakes this morning, shaking and cold from a national case of the DTs. What will happen is anybody’s guess.

As history would gleefully point out, this should be no surprise. We can be mean-spirited as a society or sub-society. Consider

- Our treatment of those who had settled this land before Europeans arrived,

- The American South before and after the Civil War,

- The era of Herbert Hoover and Joseph McCarthy,

- The horrible period of HUAC activity, and

- The rotting actions of governors like Orville Faubus, Ross Barnett, George Wallace, and Lester Maddox.

One of the textbooks used in teaching Public Administration to college students now is entitled Politics of the Administrative Process (Donald F. Kettl: Sage Publishing). It posits how managing government is an administrative process but one influenced heavily by politics.

Okay, but what happens when the balance of politics and administration gets out of balance? One instance, one which both interrupted and influenced my life, occurred during the mid-1960s. The decision to enter a civil war between two countries that posed minimal influence on America became a political one, one bereft of thoughtful administrative analysis. A president became politically trapped into participating in what is now widely considered to be a period of national insanity.

Some of us survived it. There resulted, however, a mournful wall of granite in Washington D.C. with over 58,000 names etched into it of Americans who didn’t. The black stones reflect only a fraction of the total deaths, not to mention the destruction, resulting from the use of human lives as political footballs.

That event mirrored another, earlier, when political decisions resulted in our carpet-bombing the country of North Korea, an act that still contains the seeds of the end of our planet as we know it.

It would be tempting to say that America is, once again, experiencing an imbalance between administrative and political decisions, only that isn’t true. There is no administration visible at the national level now, and little at some state levels. Our destiny is being determined largely by politics, some of which is setting new standards for greed and cruelty. Our cities, lonely entities in a sea of madness, plow on, but their inherent lack of power and dependence upon state and national sources for statutory enablement makes them frail crafts to tie to in the current storm.

It may help to calm our sense of despair if we remember that America can be a warm and nurturing place when it chooses. Consider

- The enactment of the 40-hour week for our workers,

- The establishment of Social Security to help our workers accommodate their senior years,

- The provision of unemployment insurance to protect workers from the whims of employers,

- The enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and

- The regulation of child labor and enactment of the minimum wage, and
- For a brief shining moment, the promise of health care for all.

No matter what one may have been made to think of these advancements, the millions of people who have benefited from them will stand witness to their goodness if there should ever be a day of judgement for nations.

How does this affect us? Our only hope, it seems to me, will be for us to start electing better people to office.

Morning Thoughts: January 21, 2018

Lot of posts these days talk about how some immigrants have “broken the law,” and should be punished. There’s something odd about it.

In my opinion, and this is just one person’s, these posts would carry more weight if they weren’t posted, in almost every instance, by the same folks who would totally exonerate the woman in Kentucky, who refused to obey a lawful requirement because of her (a woman with multiple marriages) so-called “religious beliefs.”

Now, I’m not a biblical scholar, but unlike most evangelicals, I’ve read the whole Bible, not just the parts that support my embedded beliefs. It’s tough going and takes you through so many nooks and crannies that forming a consisted belief system from it is tough without severe selectivity.

My readings have convinced me, though, that there are more requirements therein for us to love one another, to show mercy on one another, to comfort the afflicted, to treat aliens well, and to care for the weak and helpless than there are to keep two men or two women who love one another from engaging in a lawful wedding.

By lawful, I mean one that has been amended in modern times from the original biblical allowance for men to have as many wives as they chose, or for the woman to hold only a supporting and grossly unequal role in the matter. Geez, if we truly believe that, we wouldn’t even allow our sisters to preach the Gospel.

Yes, our definitions have changed over the years. By the time the Galilean came along, there were two people involved in marriage and he was more vocal about divorce than he was about who the two people were.

He didn’t like it, divorce that is. I haven’t found, though, where he suggested deportation for the offense.

But back to the law. Yes, certain things are illegal, sexual harassment being one of those. So far, there hasn’t been a national outcry for deporting the guilty, quite the contrary in at least one case.

Hiring illegal aliens itself is, well, illegal. I’m trying to get a count on how many employers have been departed so far for the offense, but no luck so far.

Hiring contractors and not paying them is, I think, under certain conditions, illegal. If the one doing the hiring and shafting has enough legal resources, though, deportation doesn’t follow. Filing bankruptcy seems to be a cheaper way out for the contractors involved than bringing lawsuits against billionaires.

Lynching and other forms of murdering African-Americans should have been illegal at least since shortly after the end of the Civil War. Not only did our country not make it illegal, we didn’t even deport a single guilty party. One can probably still smell the cloud of guilt on a hot summer night at Ninth and Broadway in my city of Little Rock, Arkansas where whites once burned a black man. A white man in the crowd then publicly directed traffic with a charred and severed arm. Deported? No. Arrested? No. A local hero? Yes, among many. Do any of his descendants now post offensive things on Facebook about minorities? In all likelihood. Acorns don’t fall far from the tree.

A woman recently admitted that she lied when she made comments that initiated one of our country’s most infamous lynchings, that of a black child. Has she been deported? Not to my knowledge. Would our country be better off if she never had lived within its borders? You decide.

I’m not trying to foment divisiveness. I’ll leave that to our president and his minions. I just choose to follow the path of one who said, “let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

I think, if I remember correctly, that same person, it is written, said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” I don’t recall a word therein about our deporting one another.

Further, I believe that if we have national problems, and we do, they can be solved better with love than with hatred. I also believe that if we do have laws, and we must enforce them, we can do so in the least restrictive, damaging, hurtful, and vengeful way possible. If a person’s church or political party doesn’t believe that, I have suggestions for that person. I, for one, think the Galilean would agree.

Morning Thoughts: January 20, 2107

On mornings like this, expressing one’s feelings is difficult. Finding solace takes some digging unless you’re a libertarian. They’re happy. No government in our country is, after all, their lifelong dream. Talk about “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” We’ll re-visit them when our rivers start burning again.

I guess some members of our president’s political party are happy. I’m not sure all of them are, but they could have prevented his train wreck at any time. I suspect the party’s radical fringe has the more thoughtful members locked into behavior-prisons from which they would just soon escape. Perhaps, several “Thomas Becket Moments,” “Saul of Tarsus Transformations,” or “John Newton Transfigurations” might have saved us.

Too late now, though.

Me? I’m just happy I don’t have to explain our country to my cousins in Germany. I’m sure that some of their ancestors felt the same way in 1936.

And,

I’m happy that the sun will rise in a few moments and the intemperate weather has subsided to the point where I can walk outside and enjoy the rebirth of “… my own little postage stamp of native soil,” as William Faulkner described his own world years ago.

I’m happy that YouTube still has posts of David Oistrakh playing Sibelius.

I’m happy that Joseph Conrad was born.

I’m happy that a person of African-American descent in our country can dine in restaurants, attend movies, pursue an education, and become President.

I’m happy Jonas Salk discovered a way to prevent polio and chose not to, in the ways “Big Pharma,” file a patent, so it would be available to the “least of those among us.”

I’m happy that it only took our planet 3.5 billion years to produce a Vincent van Gough from single-celled prokaryotic cells.

I’m happy that our American political system was blessed by the (much too brief) participation of a Barbara Jordan.

I’m happy that John Lewis survived Pettus Bridge.

I’m happy that Bob Dylan has lived a long life.

I’m happy that my best friend is sleeping in the next room and hasn’t grown tired of me.

I’m happy that I can still breath, think, and walk.

I’m happy that my cadre of close friends are, to a person, some of the finest people our country has ever produced, and that I will never have to apologize for the actions of any of them.

I’m happy that I served my country, albeit that I didn’t particularly want to at the time. Now, though, it scares some, pisses off some, and impresses a few, not a bad tally.

Finally, I guess that I’m happy in a way that I probably won’t be around to see our planet take its last gasp, that is to say unless those younger than I decide to take control. That doesn’t appear likely this morning, but I’m happy that the great pendulum of history swings fore and aft, that there hasn’t been a ship of state drop anchor for an extended length of time since the Egyptians, and that, as Lewis Mumford said, “trend is not destiny.”

Morning Thoughts: January 19, 2018

There’s something we need in America. Forget statues of Confederate soldiers. They fought for slavery. The Abandoned Woman: she deserves a monument. That’s who deserves honor and glory.

Who do I mean? Let me give you a composite from my personal experiences over the years. The following is no single person. She is, though, as real as the computer on which I type. Everything I’m going to describe is true. It all just happened to different people I’ve known. Consider a woman’s story.

She didn’t attend college. Instead, she worked so her husband could. Or, perhaps she married straight out of high school to a promising young man and began raising the child they conceived together and she birthed. (Notice I didn’t say “his child.” That term makes me nauseated).

Things went well until after that first child. Then she changed. The change showed on a face beleaguered by the strains put on her by colic, colds, bad tempers, diarrhea, teething, accidents, or the many other trials of nurture that go unseen by husbands and friends.

Perhaps the change manifested itself by a weight gain. Maybe the “ten” her husband described her as, to his friends, while the two had courted slipped to an “eight.” Maybe she wasn’t as “hot to trot” as she had once been. Maybe she just got older.

Her husband changed too. He was becoming successful, a change he felt entitled him to the same marriage benefits as always. Besides, the more successful he became, the more the younger women at work admired him. His wife should as well, even as she washed his dirty underwear.

Then he met “Bambi” and everything changed. He hated to do it, but, dammit, Bambi was still a “ten,” maybe even better. One night his desires and disappointments collided and his wife and child were banished to a friend’s house. She found a cheap apartment for the two of them. Divorce followed.

What’s an abandoned wife to do? First a job. She still had skills, though they were rusty. She found a job typing and sued for child support. The judge, an old friend of the ex-husband’s boss, awarded an amount that was 21 dollars a month less than the cheapest child care center she could find. It cost her “ex” so much that he had to forego membership in a more prestigious duck club. He was kind enough to remind her of that often.

Once a month he would pick up his son for the weekend. It turns out that Bambi’s family owned horses. The son would come home after the weekend spent with his father and talk incessantly about riding horses and how much he looked forward to the next visitation. Oh, and why couldn’t they have a horse?

The “father-son ecstasy” would not persist. Soon, Dad and Bambi had their own child. It drew the attention. Then, the same weak moral standards that caused Dad to abandon his first family finally cost him his job. Both the visits and the child-support payments became “iffy.” In those days, there was little recourse from an all-male judicial system.

The woman just worked harder. Sometimes there was a second job that still allowed her care for the son. Maybe she attended night classes. Maybe she found herself in a better job, training men to fill the position just above hers. She thought of dating, but men wanted an unencumbered “ten” for serious involvements. Even if she were still “hot to trot,” men weren’t interested in long journeys, just short sprints around the track.

Why a monument to her? Just this: she survived, and that survival should be an inspiration to us all. Despite the abandonment, the privation, and the fact that she worked for sixty cents on the dollar compared to a male counterpart, she survived. It was a feat accomplished by a work ethic and a monumental determination that might be compared in some aspects to the strength of African-Americans during the Jim Crow era.

Yeah, I think she deserves a monument. After all, she didn’t start out on her own with a gift of a college education and a million dollars. She’s worth, though, a lot more than that.

Why do I preach about it? Because I’m as guilty as the next person, and maybe self-awareness is the first step toward redemption and reparation. Oh yes, and maybe I respect success produced from a strength that was forged from the heat of adversity more than I respect success by inheritance.

To Moms

Morning Thoughts: January 17, 2018

One of the things that cause me despair these days has to do with my college education. I decided at first to study architecture. The only problem there was it took talent, and I had none. I ended up in urban planning, a more fitting, and surprisingly well-paid career. I flourished, but never regretted my efforts in architecture. They proved most fruitful in both my professional and public lives.

See, they taught me that problems exist to be solved, and that solving them is one of life’s noble callings. Further, it taught that difficult problems can be addressed with a combination of facts, analysis, education, study, application, and cooperation.

Does it always work? No. Is there a better way of solving problems? Not that I know of. Then what is causing me despair?

Simply this: at our higher levels of government, I see no effort to solve some of the most serious, dangerous, and emotionally-charged problems that our country faces. This unwillingness to collaborate on addressing problems appears is chipping away at the fundamental tenants of a democracy that once was a shining light for the world. That democracy is now becoming a world-wide laughing stock.

When solutions are proposed in Washington, or many state capitols, they are the most potentially disruptive, cruelest, polarizing and mean-spirited ones that can be devised. Is there an alternative? Maybe.

Some years ago, the federal legislature passed, and the president signed into law a bill very favorable to religious and other institutions but not so for public bodies, including cities. One of the provisions of the act stated that solutions proposed by those public entities had to be the “least restrictive possible.” That’s not a bad stricture for many issues—perhaps not for pandemics, but for most things. Current proposals by the federal government, however, tend to verge on the most restrictive and, as I say, disruptive solutions possible. One feels obligated to say, “physician, heal thyself.”

As for the poor, the disadvantaged, the forgotten, strangers from another land, or those whom nature didn’t produce as a Caucasian heterosexual, the attacks are particularly heinous and the neglect most heartbreaking. The most terrifying and confusing aspect of all this is that the very worst of the persecutors are the ones who most loudly claim direct guidance from The Galilean.

Is either political party blameless? No. But as the actual or cultural descendants of those who froze in the Ardennes, suffered for a woman’s right to vote, ended slavery, or hung from trees as “Strange Fruit” in our American South, we have the right to an elected president who seeks to unite, not divide us. If that individual refuses to do so, we have the right to demand that the political party represented take action for Americans and not for party.

It’s too important that it doesn’t. How can America be great when some of her children died of hunger last night? When war profiteers are using their power to convince us to invade again. When those who have everything demand more? When there are sick and dying in America, lying alone in forlorn places with no medical care. When there are those who love America, and would become a part of her heritage if only their plight could be viewed with human compassion instead of retribution. When there are those who are not allowed to live in peace as nature made them. When young boys are imprisoned in a ghetto hovel awaiting the day they are given their first gun and sent forth as a drug runner.

The list goes on, and we tweet our thoughts instead of proposing actions. As for me, I think I’ll go look in the mirror at the face of one of the guilty.

Morning Thoughts: January 16, 2018

Mornings I wander the net, landing on interesting places at times. Today I hit Dick Cavett’s interview of the writer Eudora Welty. One comment that Cavett allowed her to make stuck to me like a snowflake to a leaf. She was talking about being in Paris and he asked if she wrote while she was there (and not in Mississippi). “I didn’t mean to write there, because I was too busy looking,” she said. How illuminating.

Could something a Southerner saw in Paris contribute to Why I Live At The P.0.? (Read it before you do anything else). Maybe, just maybe.

The only thing I see so many people looking at these days is their cell phone. If we lose the eyes of a Eudora Welty, will we lose the voice of a potential William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, Harper Lee, James Baldwin, Kazuo Ishiguroor, or other? Hard as one might look, there is no material, or inspiration, for Snow Falling On Cedars inside the soldered guts of a cell phone.

Perhaps that is why I, personally, find modern fiction so hard to plow through and so tiresome to read. Mostly, they are balls of angst wrapped tightly with the life-strands of weak and helpless characters who are being “borne ceaselessly” into their own Purgatory. Many read like a bad PBS mini-series (not the many excellent ones, but the ones that go from one case of human frailty to another). One will find neither a Barkis who “is willin,’” nor a Peggotty who is amused and amenable, therein.

One thing Welty did, and she did so many things well, is to set the tone for the colorful southern character. I’m not sure Southerners, if we can lump their vast diversity into one definition, are any more colorful than anyone else. But, like the image of the empty-spirited Vietnam Veteran with his broken wings, Southerners are forever stuck in society’s stereotype.

Yes, Eudora Welty helped to form the Southerner’s image. But she did it so well, and without apparent malice aforethought.

Widening our lens, Southerners, as I say, are like everyone else. I used to think they differed in that the white ones hated African-Americans more than their “other-world” counterparts. The presidency of Barrack Obama disabused me of that notion.

Next, I thought that maybe Southerners, who do tend to express themselves well, could articulate their hatred of other races more adroitly than big-city northerners. Then, Donald Trump came along.

I guess the lesson is that each of us mentally, or actually, visits our own personal Paris from time to time. Some look and see. Some don’t. Those who look may see things that, though never outwardly manifested, may inspire and help them gain immortality.

Oh yes, those who don’t look while in their particular Paris may also gain immortality. Too often, though, it results in placing them on the wrong side of history.

Miss Welty: Definitely on the right side of history