Category: Uncategorized

Trump Era

When High School American history teachers in thirty years (assuming we have high schools, and, assuming we still have teachers) look back, they will call this the “Trump Era”.  Right or wrong, he earned the distinction of having his name attached to a time in American history, just as much as the Roosevelts, or Jackson, or even Washington.  And, assuming those future teachers (I kind of have a “Jetson’s” image of the thing) are somewhat truthful, they will talk about the awful polarization of our time.  

We do that now when we teach about the Pre-Civil War period of the United States.  Starting with the aging “Great Compromisers” of the 1850’s Congress, the country found less to agree upon, and more to rail against.  By 1856, the compromising was over, and in five years the chasm over the issue of slavery drove us to Civil War.  When Lincoln intoned that a nation could not live “Half slave and half free,” he wasn’t saying something new.  He was just recognizing that all the other methods of conflict resolution had failed.

I’m not prophesizing a civil war now, but I am saying that most of our methods of conflict resolution have failed as well.  We used to depend on the Courts to balance our partisan conflicts.  But that is seldom the case anymore.  

North Carolina

Look at the current North Carolina Supreme Court election, where a majority of Republicans on the Court are still refusing to acknowledge the narrow victory of a Democrat, Allison Riggs for one of their seats.  After the original vote count, the Democrat won by 700 or so votes out of 5.5 million.  The Republican candidate, Jefferson Griffin, rightfully demanded a recount. And when that count didn’t change the outcome, he asked for a second hand recount.  Riggs gained a few votes, to a winning margin of 734.

Then, after all of that, Griffin went to court to demand that 60,000 ballots be thrown out due to “ineligibility”.  This is after the state ruled them eligible and allowed them to vote, an ex-post-facto argument.  And who will determine whether Griffin or Riggs will be on the North Carolina Supreme Court based on this “after the fact” eligibility decision?  Well, the Republican majority of the North Carolina Supreme Court. 

It used to be that we would still trust “the Court” to do the right thing.  Today, no one will be surprised if North Carolina’s highest judicial body does the “political” thing, and puts another Republican on the bench.  It would just be another “marker” in our age of division.

Enemies List

Much as some would tell us to deny “our lying ears”, we know that Donald Trump and his MAGA minions declared the intent to “punish” those who tried to hold them accountable for trying to steal the 2020 election and the Insurrection of January 6^th.  Those to be punished are literally on an “enemies list”, published by Trump’s candidate for FBI Director, Kash Patel.  

And they are ingrained in statement after statement, in public and on social media, made by the candidate himself as he ran for President in 2024.  The “LOCK HER UP” chant against Hillary Clinton in 2016, became “LOCK THEM UP”, to include the January 6^th Congressional Committee, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Jack Smith of the Justice Department, General Milley, and others.  In fact, Trump thought that Milley ought to be executed for treason.

What They Think

It would be easy to say that it was all “rhetoric”, and that no one would use the Justice Department to exact some form of revenge against an “enemies list”.  But there’s one thing this “Trump Era” taught us.  From the early “Muslim Ban” to child separation at the border: if they can think it, they can do it.  No one should be surprised if members of the list; from Liz Cheney to Adam Kinzinger to Dr. Fauci to the good General; find themselves under criminal investigation. 

I guess we could hope that the “norms” hold, and that the Courts would toss such investigations out.  But there’s little we’ve seen in the American Court system, especially the United States Supreme Court, that should give us comfort.  The Supreme Court has gone so far as created a blanket immunity for the President of the United States for “official” criminal wrong-doing, taking the ancient concept of “sovereign immunity” and applying it to the Presidency as if he was what George Washington refused to be, a King.  

Injustice

Joe Biden, in the last morning of his Presidency, recognized that we live in “different” times.  He issued a Presidential pardon to the members of the January 6^th Congressional Committee, to those who testified before that Committee, to Dr. Anthony Fauci, and to General Milley.  They are pardoned for any “crime” they might have committed in that time. And, they are now immune from investigation and prosecution.  General Milley, now retired,  was “deeply grateful” for the pardon, stating:

“After forty-three years of faithful service in uniform to our nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights. I do not want to put my family, my friends, and those with whom I served through the resulting distraction, expense, and anxiety.”

There will be some, even some Democrats, who criticize President Biden.  They say that granting a pardon is conceding that there was in fact a “crime”, that needed pardoning.  Some will say that even if Patel’s FBI (if he gets appointed) did investigate, the Courts would protect justice and prove them innocent.

But we don’t live in a time of “innocence”.  We live in the Trump Era, where, injustice is not only possible, it’s likely.  It’s Inauguration Day, and dozens of Executive Orders will be issued this afternoon.  Many of them will highlight the injustice of our new leaders.  So for one last time, thank you Joe Biden, for everything you did, and for what you did today.  It was just.

I hope you don’t represent the end of justice in our Nation. 

Aware

I guess you could say I became politically “aware” in the summer of 1968.  I was always interested in politics; at four I was wearing a 1960 “Kennedy” button.  We went to see President Johnson speak in 1967, and I was shocked at the black turtle-necked protestors from Antioch College who dared to interrupt him.  And Dad introduced us to Vice President Humphrey on the tarmac at the Dayton Airport.  But in August of 1968, I broke my arm.  

The front wheel came off my bike in mid-pedal, and the bike flipped completely over on top of me.  I knew, right at that second, my right wrist was broken – bent in a direction I hadn’t seen before.  Dad took me to the orthopedic:  they had me hold a bar on the wall with my right hand and hang my elbow down from it.  I remember the nurse saying “I hate this sound”, and had just enough time to wonder what she meant.  Then the doctor grabbed my arm and set the bone – the snap – and the pain.  It was the 1960’s, no need for painkillers, just snap, pop, and it was in place.

I didn’t even have time to try out my new Second Class Scout profanity. 

Whole World Watching

They casted my arm, elbow locked at ninety degrees, and sent me home with orders to keep it elevated for a week.  I missed the Summer League Swim Meet, where I was scheduled to “clean up” at the top of the twelve year-old age group.  All I could do was sit on the family room couch, my arm on top of my painted Boy Scout beer box (where I kept clothes at Scout Camp), and watch TV.  It was the week of the Democratic Convention in Chicago.

Back then it was gavel to gavel coverage, twenty-four hours of riots and disorder and verbal fights on the floor of the convention. The Democratic Party was without President Johnson, Bobby Kennedy shot dead in a Los Angeles hotel hallway, and a chasm between the Johnson war supporters, the Kennedy/McCarthy anti-war Democrats, and the students in the streets of Chicago chanting “The whole world is watching”.   

Math Class

Humphrey got the nomination, but was never able to unite the party.  Republican Richard Nixon promised a quick peace settlement in Vietnam, but we all knew he was lying (it wasn’t until five years later, that a deal was actually reached).  What we didn’t know was that his campaign was actively interfering with the ongoing peace talks in Paris.  They didn’t want an October “surprise” that might tip the election in Humphrey’s favor.

It was a close election on the first Tuesday of November in 1968.  It wasn’t until the middle of the next day that the votes were finalized enough to declare a winner.  I was sitting in Mr. Schnapp’s 7^th grade math class at Van Buren Junior High School in Kettering, Ohio, when the principal made the announcement:  Richard Nixon won.  It seemed like the whole school cheered:  Kettering was a very Republican suburb at the time.  I put my head down on my desk, near tears.  How could America survive four years of Richard Nixon, four years of division, four more years of war?

Close to 2 million Vietnamese died after Nixon won office, and over 58,000 Americans.  Elections have consequences.  

Faith

That was the first Presidential election that shook my faith in American decision making.  The second was twelve years later, when a glib actor turned Governor of California won an overwhelming victory over my former boss, Jimmy Carter.  Ronald Reagan used uplifting oratory, describing the United States as a “…Shining city on a hill”.  But his real agenda was to turn America over to private industry.  He sacked the air traffic controllers, he “freed education” from Federal interference by carving $10 billion out of the Federal funding, he ignored the AIDS epidemic because it was a “gay disease”.  

The third faith-shaking election for me was in 2000, when George W Bush won the Presidency by one vote (the Supreme Court ruled in his favor five Republican Justices to Four Democrats).  It seemed to me the “will of the people” didn’t matter anymore, it was simply who could more effectively pull the levers of power.  It didn’t hurt Bush that his brother was the Governor of Florida, the state in question.  

On September 11^th, 2001, I “united” under George Bush.  But a few years later, after the atrocities at Abu Gharib and the private profit-taking in the Iraq war and the Defense Department, my “first impression” of Bush was still the most accurate.

Head Down

And last night, I came face to face with the fourth time that my belief in America is shaken.  Yes, I know the 2024 election results have been well known for months.  But last night I watched President Biden’s “exit interview” with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC.  And right after, the ad came on about “gavel to gavel” Inauguration Day coverage on Monday.  And I realized, that now, at my advance age of sixty-eight, I am faced with four years of Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi, of Elon Musk and Steven Miller, of inhumanity at the border, and watching the rich get richer, especially if the rich is named Trump.  

Four years to a twelve year-old seemed like forever, a full third of a life.  But four years now (a nineteenth of my life) stills seems like forever; four years of “Making America Backward Again”.  At the end, if 2028 is the end; how much will we have to do to get America back on the “The Arc of the Moral Universe bending towards justice”. 

Can’t Watch

I don’t hate America.  But I hate the narrow decision that puts these oligarchs in control of our Nation.  President Biden last night, characterized his whole political career as fighting against “bullies”, like the those that bullied a scrawny stuttering kid from Scranton, Pennsylvania.  A slim margin of Americans have put the “bullies” in control now:  to bully  the migrants and minorities, the disabled and the disenfranchised, the queer and the quiet.  That’s the America of Donald Trump, now back for a second, more experienced, and more vindictive term in office.

I don’t hate America.  But it’s hard today to see the good, when we stand on the cusp of this awful period of darkness.  I want to go back to Mr. Schnapp’s math class, and put my head down on the desk. 

 I won’t write about this inauguration;  I can’t watch it.  

I listened to President Biden’s farewell address last night – an American tradition that runs all the way back to George Washington. Like Washington (avoid foreign entanglements) and Eisenhower (military/industrial complex) Biden warned us of a new threat – the power of billionaires and their influence on our government. Will we be a Republic, or an oligarchy?

Kennedy Button

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is one of my “original” heroes.  I was just four years-old when he was elected. But I proudly wore the Kennedy button that Mom pinned on my sweater.  One of my earliest memories is sitting in the hallway outside Aunt Leah and Uncle Howard’s apartment in the Vernon Manor Hotel in Cincinnati.  I was banned from the residence, unless I took my button off. I wouldn’t do it.  Eventually we reached a compromise;  Aunt Leah allowed me in, as long as I carried the lead elephant she presented to me.  That was American politics at its best!

Mom was a Kennedy fan, with direct connections to the clan.  Her roommate in college was Kathleen Kennedy, fourth in the line of Joe and Rose Kennedy’s children.  Kathleen tragically died in a plane crash in 1948, but Mom was still loyal to the family. And even though Mom was a British citizen, she remained a strong supporter of JFK’s career.

So I was a Kennedy fan, literally from birth.  I’m not so sure Dad was, he might have voted for Nixon back in 1960.  We never had that conversation, though I know he later converted to some Democratic candidates, including Jimmy Carter (after all, I was working for him) and Barack Obama.

Missile Gap

But as a college student and budding political operative in the 1970’s, I discovered that there were issues where the Kennedy’s played fast and loose with the facts.  One of those was a major issue in the 1960 campaign, the “missile gap”.  According to Democrats, the Soviet Union was building more nuclear missiles than the United States, and had created a “gap”.  It seemed to be an actual threat. If the USSR could blow up the US “more completely” then they might actually “win” a nuclear war.  That concept was later described by Herman Kahn, an academic, published in a paper called “Thinking the Unthinkable”.

Kennedy promised to close the “gap” when elected, and the US began to build hundreds of new missiles after he took office.  The fallacy: in 1960 there really wasn’t a “gap” at all.  The US actually had more missiles at the time, making the balance of “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) especially effective.  Kennedy’s building program upset that balance even more.

But Kennedy’s programs poured a lot more money into the burgeoning defense industry. That’s the same “military-industrial complex” that President Eisenhower (also a General of the Army) warned about in his farewell address (*see below), just days before Kennedy’s inauguration (“…ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”).   And the American marriage to the Defense industry far out-lasted Kennedy.  The Vietnam War, and Reagan’s strategy to “win” the Cold War by out-spending the Soviet Union into the ground (it worked) continued the military-industrial complex growth.

Better than Yours

That’s all “ancient” history.  The Soviet Union fell over thirty years ago, and was replaced by Putin’s oligarchy in Russia.  They are struggling today to maintain a war against Ukraine. Russia is using up so many munitions that they are dragging tanks from the 1980’s back onto the battlefield, and borrowing troops from North Korea to help replace the hundreds of thousands of Russians lost in battle.   From time to time Russia puts an innovative weapon on “display”, like their new hypersonic (11x the speed of sound) missile, but most of their weapons are “old school”.  

Overall, the Russian military complex is the remnants of the Soviet Union. The flagship cruiser Moskva of the Russian Black Sea fleet sunk, and the only Russian aircraft carrier is unable to move without multiple tugs for steerage and towing.  The “Fifth Generation” Russian fighter jet, the Sukhoi 57, is ridiculed for radar-reflecting screws in its body, and for fuselage sections that don’t completely fit together.  There are currently 31 in service.

That’s opposed to the US F-35, a more sophisticated fifth generation fighter.  The US has 630 already deployed, with another 400 to US allied nations.  China also has a fifth generation fighter, the Shenyang J35-A, with over 300 deployed. The Chinese also have three conventional aircraft carriers with a fourth nuclear carrier under construction. The United States currently has eleven nuclear carriers.

The Complex

There is no weapons gap.  But there is a loyalty to the military-industrial complex, demonstrated in the nomination hearings for Pete Hegseth as Trump’s new Defense Secretary.  There’s lots of personal reasons why Hegseth isn’t appropriate for the post.  And the fact he’s never successfully run even a small organization, much less one the size of the Defense Department, should be a warning.  But, underneath all of the conversation about alcohol, womanizing and abuse, there is an even darker thread.  

Hegseth claims that we are “falling behind” in the arms development race. He promises to re-direct funding to make sure we are never “second place”.  Like Kennedy (who had his own personal issues with women) Hegseth is planning on closing another “weapons gap”.  And, like my original hero, he’s fixing a problem that doesn’t exist.  

The winner will continue to be what General Eisenhower warned us about:  the military-industrial complex. They have a huge financial stake in expansion, and get that accomplished by  supporting Republican politicians.  Perhaps that’s why the Hegseth nomination, which seemed almost as sunk as the lost Moskva, is now not only afloat, but seems destined for success.

Eisenhower’s Farewell Address

*Excerpt from Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1/17/1961)

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. . . . American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. . . . This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Towering Inferno

Southern California is an inferno.  Fires, driven by the incredibly powerful Santa Ana winds, are blowing out of the mountains, through the canyons, and into the suburbs of romantic cities:  Los Angeles (Beach Boys), Santa Monica (Everclear), Malibu (Miley Cyrus), Pasadena (Jan and Dean), and now, Ventura (America). There’s a California rock song about each of those places, because that’s where the  “rockers” were and are. 

Sure, there’s lots of “blame” to place – but the reality is that the Santa Ana winds are stronger than ever.  And they’re fueled by climate change – period.  Without the warming oceans, the winds don’t blow at tornadic force, and the embers from typical brush fires don’t travel miles to set new blazes.  It’s really that simple.  In the end, it’s hard to place blame on politicians for not “thinking the unthinkable”.  This kind of disaster was more the genre of the Hollywood studios, not Southern California politicians.

Action Hero

Speaking of Hollywood, there are Hollywood-like heroics going on daily.  As we watch the inferno clear neighborhood after neighborhood, with more than 12,000 homes, schools and businesses destroyed; we also are amazed by the efforts of the firefighters.  They are Heroes all: the crews with fire on all sides, desperately trying to save a single structure; and the amazing Canadian Scooper Planes, skimming the water at 70 miles an hour like pelicans to scoop up thousands of gallons to snuff out the closest blaze. Flying a helicopter is always a difficult task; “…like balancing a metal ball on a plate while on a unicycle”.  Now add the “gentle” winds (30 to 40 miles per hour) and the huge updrafts caused by blazing fires at the bottom of canyons, and it’s amazing they stay in the air, much less dump their water loads on target.

And there are the individual heroics of neighbor helping neighbor; fighting the fires, and aiding the elderly, sick and overwhelmed to evacuate before it’s too late.  Over 100,000 are out of their homes, and the greater community is taking care of them.  It is remarkable that the death toll (today 24) is so low.  It will be higher, but the videos look like there should be hundreds if not thousands gone.

Closer to Home

These fires are now striking close to home.  Our son lives in Ventura, a beach town up the coast from Malibu.  Last night, the “Auto Fire”, broke out on the east side of town, along a golf course.  It’s not far away.  He and his girlfriend and their two dogs (surprised?) are safe so far. 

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the was a lot of concern about the Federal response to the crisis.  Some of us remember “old Brownie”, the head of FEMA, getting atta-boys from President Bush, even as the crisis grew worse.  But, in the end, the Nation stepped up to rebuild.  When Hurricane Sandy flooded vast parts of New Jersey and New York, Democratic President Obama and Republican Governor Christie hugged, and went to work to help their citizens recover.  

The fires in Southern California aren’t under control.  The winds will whip back up tonight, and we simply don’t know where the next ember will land, and where it will ignite another conflagration.  It’s safe to say the cost for recovery is in the tens of billions of dollars, if not more.  And, just like the neighbors helping neighbors in Pacific Palisades, the Nation needs to “have the backs” of Southern Californians.

American Fiction

It’s already a political mess.  Disinformation (thanks to Joe Rogan and Alex Jones) from how the fire started to why there wasn’t enough water, is distracting from the very real crisis.  And now our Republican “leaders” in Congress, the “neighbors” who were more than happy to give aid to Florida and North Carolina just a few months ago, are demanding “strings attached” to help California recover.  

It doesn’t help that California’s Democratic Governor, Gavin Newsom, is a leading candidate for the 2028 Presidential election, and that the state is home to Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and Kamala Harris.  So the MAGA campaign will begin, almost four years early, to “knock them off” before the election even gets started.

But that’s not how Americans are.  Here in Ohio, we help our neighbors when tornadoes ravage small towns, or when fire burns down a local home.  That’s what we do, without concern about political viewpoint or racial or gender identity.  We help folks in need.

California is going to need a lot of America’s help — no strings attached.  And we need to get to it.

Get In Line

Like it or not, the Nation elected Donald Trump as the President of the United States.  And, unlike Trump and his MAGA-followers in 2020, the Democrats got “in-line” and did their duty as American citizens.  They, we; accepted the election results.

That we (Americans) elected a man who supports fascist (that word!!) goals, programs, and ideas hasn’t changed.  Many of my friends believe we should just oppose everything that Trump tries to do, and I don’t blame them.  Working with a fascist, someone who puts a dagger to the throat of American democracy, is repugnant.  But…and this is what many “other” Democrats believe… perhaps we should oppose when we can, cooperate when possible to further our national goals, and prepare to win in 2026 and 2028, to save our country.  

Barack Obama talked to Trump at the Carter funeral.  That  wasn’t treason.  Kamala Harris and Joe Biden pointedly ignored Trump. That wasn’t wrong either.  Two opposite things can be true at the same time.

Norms

The American tradition, the “norm”, is that a newly elected President gets to choose his own staff.  That includes those staff members “consented” to by the United States Senate.   Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was a stern advocate of this “norm”.  He voted for Democratic appointed judges, cabinet secretaries, and agency heads, until he didn’t.  After the Kavanaugh hearings and the 2020 election, he opposed most of Biden’s appointments. 

But some Democrats are willing to give Trump his appointees.  In fact, they feel that they can give Trump the “rope to hang himself”, and are all-in for that.  

One of the valuable lessons we learned in the first Trump Administration, was not to get distracted by the “Shiny Balls” (an essay from 2017, no raunchy reference intended).  The first one was Matt Gaetz, who’s ill-fated appointment to Attorney General was doomed from the start (Flash/Bang).  Now that the side-show ended, we are “down” to the “real” Trump appointees.  Let’s take a look, divided into three categories:  the “normal”, the kind of “cray-cray”, and the “completely whack”.

Normal

• Marco Rubio – Secretary of State
• Scott Bessent – Secretary of Treasury
• Doug Burgham – Secretary of Interior
• Brooke Rollins – Secretary of Agriculture
• Howard Lutnick – Secretary of Commerce
• Lori Chavez-DeRemer – Secretary of Labor
• Scott Turner – Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
• Sean Duffy – Secretary of Transportation
  • Doug Collins – Secretary of Veterans Affairs
• • Susie Wiles – WH Chief of Staff
• • John Ratcliffe – CIA Director
• • Michael Waltz – National Security Advisor
  • Elise Stefanik – Ambassador to the United Nations

Cray-Cray

• Pam Bondi – Attorney General (2020 election denier)
  • Chris Wright –  Secretary of Energy (climate crisis denier)
• • Linda McMahon – Secretary of Education (Public Education Defunder)
• • Kristi Noem – Secretary of Homeland Security (Governor of South Dakota and confessed puppy killer)
• • Tom Homan – Border “Czar” (driving force behind the first Trump Administration’s child separation plan)        
• •  Russ Vought – Director of the Office of Management and Budget (a co-author of Project 2025)
• • Lee Zelden – Administrator of Environmental Protection Agency (opposed to environmental regulation)
  • Kelly Loeffler – Administrator Small Business Administration (no experience in small business – made her fortune in corporate investment firm)

Completely Whack

• Pete Hegseth – Secretary of Defense (potential sex offender and a man with drinking problem)
  • Robert Kennedy Jr – Secretary of Health and Human Services (leading anti-vaxxer)
• • Kash Patel – FBI Director (put a 60 person “political enemies list” for prosecution in his book)
  • Tulsi Gabbard – Director of National Intelligence (friend of deposed Syrian dictator Assad and Vladimir Putin admirer)

Shiny Balls

Clearly the “completely whack” list is a total distraction.  Who’s worse:  a drunk womanizer who has never run a large organization in his life (the DoD has 2.8 million employees), or a former Congressman who likes dictators?  Or how about Bobby, the leading anti-vaxxer in the Nation, a heroin addict with a worm in his brain?  Or good ‘ol Kash; who made his “bones” as Congressman Devin Nunes’ “hitman” in the early Trump years?

All four are uniquely unqualified.  But it will take three Republican Senators (along with all of the Democrats) to deny confirmation.  It’s simple politics:  maybe all three could vote against one, or even two.   The political ramification of voting (correctly) against all four is probably fatal.  Millions of dollars (thanks Elon) will be poured into a primary against the “offending” Senator.

 But the real point is, even if all four on the “Completely Whack” list were denied; it virtually guarantees the entire “Cray-Cray” list gets through intact.  And Trump couldn’t ask for anything better:  an election denier as Attorney General, a climate change denier at Energy, an anti-environmentalist at EPA, and a “administrative state” opponent at OMB.  Oh, and closer to my heart, a public education “de-funder” at Education.

Even the “normal” gang isn’t so great, but they’re the kind of appointments expected of a Trump administration.  They are likely to be, at least, competent in their area.  

Gibbs’ Rules 

NCIS has been a stalwart CBS television show for the past twenty-two years.  The lead character in the show (for the first twenty) was Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, who had a very special list of rules, both for investigations and for life.  Rule #39:  there is no such thing as a coincidence.  It isn’t coincidental that two former Democrats (Kennedy and Gabbard, both cult-like figures), and a Fox TV host (Hegseth) are on the “Whack” list.  Win, lose or draw; they are the Shiny Balls, the baubles  placed intentionally to keep our eyes off of the rest of the appointments.  

There is minimal “momentum” for Republicans to oppose any Trump appointee.  And the “whack” list will absorb almost all of that energy.  It’s easy to think the Trump people are stupid, or crazy, to put these names up.  In the end though, they’ll win however it goes:  lose one or lose all four.  The rest of the program will roll on. Regardless how you feel about the MAGA leaders: don’t underestimate them.

Bowling

So I’m not a bowler; I play about once a decade. I have some fun, drink a beer or two, and hope to have one game approaching 200, and no games under 100.  I haven’t tried to play since getting the “$6 million shoulder” (you need to be of a “certain age” to understand that reference).  My whole left arm might now detach and fly down the alley, or I might be a  candidate for the senior Professional Bowlers Association.  I haven’t had the chance to try.

If you aren’t a bowler (or played one on TV), you may not know the ultimate humiliation of bowling.  That’s when your ball falls off the side of the alley and into the gutter.  The gutter leads it to pass harmlessly by the pins.  That is the base minimum standard of bowling. If you can’t keep the ball in the alley, then you can’t score.  

But for beginners and little kids, some alleys have “gutter bumpers”; big blow up cushions that inflate in the gutter and keeps the ball from falling in.  With bumpers, you are almost guaranteed to knock some pins down, no matter how badly you bowl.  That is, unless your ball doesn’t have enough impetus, and stops halfway up the alley.  Or, you are so out of control you throw into the next lane!  With those guards in place, it’s called “bumper bowling”.  

Norms

American politics and government normally has bumpers, guards that protect the political process from going completely in the gutter.  Historically, we depended on those bumpers to knock the “American ball” back into the alley of “normal” government.  Some of those bumpers are actual laws. But most of the “guard rails” in American government are “norms”; accepted and historic practices and traditions, but not necessarily in “Black Letter Law”.  

I was listening to the wonderful funeral ceremony for Jimmy Carter yesterday.  Two of the eulogizers  were “proxies”; sons of fathers who promised Carter to speak, but didn’t live long enough to do so.  It was comforting to hear the words of Gerald Ford and Walter Mondale, praising the 39^th President.  In one of those speeches, it was mentioned how Carter shepherded laws through to protect Americans from the extreme abuses of the Watergate era.  They erected “bumpers”, to keep the Presidency, no matter who was elected, in the alley and out of the gutters.

The first Trump Administration ignored the norms, and violated the laws.  But for their own ineptness in governing (and in fomenting insurrection), they might have ended the American experiment in democracy right there.  But enough of the “bumpers” held, particularly in the Courts.  And when, on January 6^th 2021, Trump tried to throw his ball over the bumpers and into the next alley, the determination of the Congress to stay “in the lane” narrowly prevented what would have been a coup d’état.  

Too Soon for Normal

When Joe Biden became President, it was clear that one of his major goals was to return the Nation to “Normalcy”. He wanted an American government that respected the laws and norms that kept it “in the alley”.  He appointed a “neutral arbiter” as the Attorney General, Judge Merrick Garland, a man who, by definition, was straight down the middle.   Garland’s absolute adherence to the norms and laws would have been laudable, had it worked.  But instead, it allowed the MAGA adherents to “work the courts”. They delayed and denied justice, and convinced the American people that they were the “victims” rather than the perpetrators.  Biden did fix the laws he could, but was blocked from erecting bigger bumpers.  And so, here we are, ten days before a second Trump Administration takes over.

One of the biggest failures of the Biden/Garland Justice Department was failing to hold the leaders of the Insurrection accountable.  Justice was delayed (and as the saying goes, denied), both by the investigators themselves, and by the Federal Courts.  The biggest MAGA co-conspirators were the three Trump appointees on the Supreme Court, in conjunction with two (and sometimes three) other Justices.  They created a whole new American “norm”, a citizen who by elected office, is literally above the law:  the President of the United States.  With his absolute immunity for “official acts”, the bumpers are completely gone.  Under their standard, Richard Nixon leading a felony coverup would be “OK”.  It was shocking.

Accountable

If the Courts are no longer bumpers, than what is left to protect America?   The answer is, not much.

So here we are, ten days before the second Trump ascendancy, with no bumpers in place.  Where’s the hope?   Well, there is a glimmer, a faint possibility of “bumpers” being placed once again.  It’s not a sure thing by any means, but here it is.

Today, the President-Elect will be sentenced for committing thirty-four felonies in the State of New York.  There will be no prison sentence, no “perp-walk”, no handcuffs or orange jump suits.  But, for one shining moment, the American justice system will hold Donald Trump accountable.  For a hazy instant, all Americans will be equal in the eyes of the law.  

But the biggest surprise is that the US Supreme Court is allowed it.  After declaring the President immune from prosecution, after doing all that was possible to delay and deny Federal justice, after allowing one of their judges in Florida to put more than a thumb on the scale for Trump, five Justices said that Trump must answer in Manhattan Court today.  We are all anxiously awaiting his appearance, and for Judge Marchan to declare his guilt.

Bowl a Strike

Perhaps it’s simply a mirage of the past, the last gasp of the American “bumpers”.  Or maybe it’s a harbinger of the role American Courts will play in the future, even if they failed so desperately in the past four years.  The glass may be three-quarters empty, or one-quarter full.  

Or maybe the Courts are sending us a message:  it’s up to Americans, not the Congress or the Courts or history teachers with their precedents and stories.  As Ben Franklin said: “It’s a republic, if you can keep it”.   That will certainly be put to the test in the next four years.  The American people will need to bowl a strike, without help of bumpers in the gutter.

Hosea 8:7: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

The Fire

Los Angeles is on fire.  “Santa Ana” winds, gusting up to 170 miles an hour (a force 5 Hurricane) with days of 100+ winds, are stoking the inferno raging through the hills and down to the sea.  The video looks like some big-budget disaster movie made just down the street in Hollywood: communities aflame, desperate residents trying to get out, heroic firefighters desperate to get to the front line, water running out, apocalyptic devastation.  

Wealth is of no consequence.  We know some of those who lost their homes:  comedian Billy Crystal, actor James Woods, celebrity Paris Hilton, along with thousands of others.  Who knew that three million gallons of water in Pacific Palisades wouldn’t be enough to quench the wind whipped flames – not even close.  

Disaster

It is a year of outsized disasters.  Florida devastated by back-to-back hurricanes.  The mountain region of North Carolina drowned in flash floods caused by that same “tropical storm”.  And now, the fires that are a way of life for Northern California forest residents, are in the city, at local addresses, storming across famous roads like Sunset Boulevard and the Pacific Coast Highway.  Like the folks in Lahaina (Hawaii), the only refuge for some was on the beach.

Hurricanes are more damaging, droughts more prolonged, snowstorms deeper, tornadoes more frequent, fires more intense:  what’s going on?  

We have sown the wind, and we are reaping the whirlwind.

Simple Science

Science shows us; we have, literally, poured gas on the fire.  The source of the hurricane winds that fan the flames, drive the rain, ignite the tornados, is the temperature of the oceans.  And that measurement has increased, due to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  We, civilization, are pumping that carbon dioxide into the air.  It is the prime bi-product of internal combustion engines, the singular way we use fossil fuels, and particularly, oil.

Somehow, like a pandemic disease, the United States has managed to make this a political issue.  It’s not – it’s simple science.  But just the effort of writing this essay will be seen as a partisan attack.  It’s simple:  one side of our political divide recognizes that we need to take control of our polluting actions, and the other side simply denies that the science is “real”.

Presidential Action

The outgoing President just banned the drilling for oil along our coastlines and in our National Parks and Landmarks.  The incoming President got elected, in part, by saying “…drill Baby, drill”.  The short term satisfaction of saving a few cents at the gas pump, has the long term effect of pouring more fuel into the “furnace” driving the rising ocean temperatures.  The rate of oceans warming up has doubled in the past twenty years, despite the best efforts of the Paris Accord (UNESCO).  That is because of the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Since 1960, what was a “balanced” amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by a full third (NOAA).  That increase holds more heat in, just like a “warm blanket” wrapped around the earth and oceans.  So the earth and oceans heat up, creating more “heat energy” which is imparted to storms.  It also creates a greater differential between the sea and the land, causing the increased effect of winds like the “Santa Ana” that are driving the current California disaster.

Beholden

And that was in an era of mixed American Presidents.  Some showed concern for the environment, some were beholden to the polluters and loosed the reins of regulation.  But this and the next decade are the critical balancing point, beyond which the amount of carbon dioxide will irrevocably alter our world.  Perhaps we are already there:  turn on the TV and watch what happens.

But one thing we can be sure of:  the Trump Administration will do little to protect the environment, and everything it can to gain the short term economic advantages of polluting.  Why should they worry about the world in twenty years, when their biggest concern is winning the next election?  Their priorities are clear, win the present, and let the future deal with the fallout.

It doesn’t require a crystal ball to see what will happen.  It’s happening already, today, right now.  We are reaping the whirlwind, for we have sown the wind.

Jefferson Prayer

“Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way.

Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those to whom in Thy Name we entrust the authority of governments that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth. In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.” 

The Speaker

On Friday, Republican Mike Johnson of Louisiana won a second term as Speaker of the House of Representatives.   In his victory, he showed the political adroitness that past Republican Speakers, including Kevin McCarthy and John Boehner, were unable to muster.  Johnson needed 218 votes to win the office.  There are 219 Republicans currently in the Congress (215 Democrats), so Johnson could only lose one vote of his own party and still reach the requisite majority.  

That’s no easy task.  There are no “moderates” in the Republican Party anymore, not in the real sense.  There are “regular” conservatives (like my Congressman from the 12^th District of Ohio, Troy Balderson).  Then there are the “very” conservatives, like the Speaker himself.  Then there are the “extreme” conservatives, the members of the “Freedom Caucus”, who are willing to burn down the government (figuratively, I guess, on this day of the anniversary of the Insurrection of 2021).  Jim Jordan of Ohio’s 4^th District is a leader of that group, but he is often outflanked even farther to the right by his fellow “Caucusers”.  

Wrangling Cats

So Johnson had to “wrangle cats” to gain his majority, and at the end of the first roll call was two votes short.  A third vote, the “one” that Johnson could do without, was from Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky. He’s known for his family Christmas card with his wife and children all holding AR-15 style rifles pointed “carefully” away from the camera – Happy Holidays!!! (Forbes). He literally swore he would never vote for Johnson.

In the end, with the help of well-placed phone calls from the President-elect in Mar-A-Lago, the other two holdouts signed on.  Mike Johnson won the gavel, 218 Republican votes to 215 Democratic votes for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. (Massie voted for Tom Emmer, and the seat previously held by Matt Gaetz of Florida is now vacant).  It was a positive sign for the incoming Republicans, though the “devil will get his due”.  Trump now holds the cards against any Johnson aberrations from the MAGA plan.  On the other hand, he already had that influence, so the phone calls just emphasized his control.

The Speech

Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries gave a gracious but pointed concession speech, and Johnson picked up the gavel to administer the oath of office to the 120^th Congress.  The newly minted Speaker then gave a speech full of the MAGA “talking points”: close the border, deconstruct  the “Deep State” (the bureaucracy of the United States government), and “return” Christian morals to American life.  Johnson takes his Christian role and duty seriously.  He sees his Speakership as a “mission” from God. In his first speech as Speaker last year, he intoned: “I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority.”   He is raised up.

He concluded his speech by quoting the Jefferson Prayer, it’s full text in the sub-title of this essay.  It clearly defines Jefferson’s view of America as a gift from God, one that Americans can only continue to enjoy through their faith to God and his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.  As I listened to the prayer, it struck me.  Everything I know about Thomas Jefferson, from years of study in history and even more years of teaching history to students from sixth to twelfth grade, clashed with the “Jefferson Prayer”.  The Jefferson I know would NEVER have said it.

Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States, and, as he himself worded for his tombstone, “ …author of the Declaration of American Independence (and) the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom…”.   He was, like many of the intellectuals of the Enlightenment Era, a Deist, who saw God as the great “watchmaker”, who created the world and then stepped back to watch it go.  Jefferson believed in the teachings of Jesus, but was unconvinced of his divinity.  

But most importantly of all, Jefferson believed that government and religion should not “mix”.  He specifically said:  “I consider the government of the US. as interdicted by the constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises” (Monticello).  The famous phrase “separation of church and state” is Jefferson’s own description of what the First Amendment to the US Constitution means.

Add to that the fact that Jefferson as President didn’t speak to the US Congress directly.  He even delivered his State of the Union messages by messenger (one was Meriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark Expedition fame), to be read by the Clerk of the House.  So he never stood at the familiar podium where Franklin Roosevelt said, “Yesterday, December, 7^th, 1941…”. 

Provenance

So what is the “Jefferson Prayer”?  It’s not a prayer by Thomas Jefferson.  In fact, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation says: “We have no evidence that this prayer was written or delivered by Thomas Jefferson. It appears in the 1928 United States Book of Common Prayer, and was first suggested for inclusion in a report published in 1919 (Monticello)”.

Mike Johnson’s staff are likely just as capable of doing internet research as I am, so why wrongfully attribute the prayer to Jefferson?  

This isn’t about governing; it’s about Christian Nationalism.  Mike Johnson believes the American “dream” is a Christian dream, founded in his Christian ideology.  We are, as Reagan said, the Biblical “ shining city on the hill”, with the shining faith that the “Jefferson Prayer” explains.  This ideology requires the re-writing of the faith of “our Fathers”, making them all high-priests in the founding of a Christian nation.  They were not.

The clearest example of the Founders devotion to keeping government and religion separated is Thomas Jefferson.  So if you’re going to re-write history, you might as well “go big”.  And portraying Jefferson as humbly beseeching God and Jesus in front of the Congress is a big an historic lie as there is.  

It’s a clear signal of the kind of Speaker Mike Johnson intends to be.  It doesn’t matter what the past was, he is intent on changing our present into the “Godly Nation” he wants – come Hell or High Water.

Notes:

Jefferson – “Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.” (National Archives).

What Jefferson believed:  Like other Founding Fathers, Jefferson was considered a Deist, subscribing to the liberal religious strand of Deism that values reason over revelation and rejects traditional Christian doctrines, including the Virgin Birth, original sin and the resurrection of Jesus. While he rejected orthodoxy, Jefferson was nevertheless a religious man  (PBS).

Tweets

After the massacre in the streets of New Orleans, Americans were desperate for information about what happened.  After all, there was also a bombing in Las Vegas, an explosion in Honolulu, and a mass shooting in New York City.  Were they all tied together?  Were we under a small scale 9-11 style attack?  And what about those large scale targets? There are big college football games scheduled, particularly the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans itself – can it go on?

 In the morning hours of New Year’s Day, Fox News put out a scoop via tweet on X  (formerly known as Twitter).  They identified the truck used in the massacre. It was one that crossed from Mexico two days before at Eagle Pass. And the terrorist driving it was an illegal migrant. 

That tweet was quickly echoed by a Trump statement on his own Truth Social. “When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in the country… it turned out to be true.”  We know where that was headed.  The attack was another result of Biden’s terrible, awful,”open-border” policy.  As Trump would say, “I alone can fix it”.  

In less than an hour, Fox deleted the tweet.  The FBI identified the driver/shooter as Shamsud-Dim Jabbar. He was a born American citizen of the great state of Texas. And he served honorably in the US Army and Army reserves in Afghanistan.  The truck didn’t come over the border, it was rented through a “rent my car” app called Turo a couple of months before in Texas.  Trump, of course, didn’t issue any correction.

Red Solo Cup

Soon after, there was a “grand” press conference in New Orleans.  Everyone was there: the Mayor, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI, the Louisiana Head of Homeland Security, the Police Chief, the Governor of Louisiana, Senator John Kennedy, the Sugar Bowl Football Game organizers, and many, many more law enforcement officials.  Each official took a turn at the microphone, delineating what their task was in the investigation.  

Senator Kennedy (R) actually looked like he was a New Year’s Eve reveler himself. He was dressed in blue jeans and a “cowboy-style” shirt, and held a Red Solo cup in his hand.  He spoke about the horror of the attack, oddly saying it should trigger the “gag reflex” of every American (I guess fitting after a night of New Year’s celebration).  But then he went off on a rant. He spoke about how he would make sure that the public would know the “truth” about what happened.  And, after a few more words, it was clear that he was telling America that he would do all he could to reveal any coverup of the facts.

Except for one thing:  no one was covering up any facts.  John Kennedy wasn’t promising to get to the bottom of how dim-Jabbar was radicalized. And he wasn’t going to trace the attack back to Isis.  No, Kennedy was promising that the US Government wasn’t going to lie to the American people.  

The fix was in.

Information Silos

Americans get their information through “silos” slanted to their own political predilections.  Many are conditioned to ignore the “mainstream media”. That’s because, as one conservative Reddit commentator put it, “they use too many facts”.  A large segment of Americans get their “facts” in a silo of chosen Twitter, Truth Social and online sources.  So , don’t be surprised, in a few months, when the story of New Year’s in New Orleans gets rewritten.  The “source” is already there, the now-deleted Fox News tweet, backed by the future President himself. 

Senator Kennedy may have looked hung-over, but he was actually being very politically shrewd at that press conference on New Year’s Day.  He established himself as the “defender” of the “real truth” , no matter what the FBI or Homeland Security or NOLA Police or anyone else has to say about the matter.  He’ll be able to cite now deleted sources to “prove” that the somehow the government (the “deep state” intelligence agencies in particular) covered up something even more awful than the reality we see now:  an American soldier radicalized, willing to murder dozens of innocents for ISIS (the death count stands at fifteen today).  

And they’ll be thirty to forty percent of the nation who will believe the Senator, because that’s what America does right now.  It will further Kennedy’s career, and stoke the fire of the Project 2025 guys in the Trump Administration who want to replace everyone in the Federal Government with those that only drink their brand of Kool-Aid.  The real truth won’t matter, only the truth that furthers their interests.  

The Fix is In.

Bourbon Street

An ominous start to 2025:  a car drives into crowded Bourbon Street in the middle of the night on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans.  Ten killed, more than thirty injured, and the driver jumped out to exchange gun fire with police (two officers hit).  Maybe there’s bombs as well, maybe not.  Maybe the driver/shooter is dead by his own hand, or by the police, maybe not.  But the FBI says he’s dead, and it’s only 8 am.  

Bourbon Street – an iconic location in American “lore”.  Walking with the crowd on Bourbon Street on New Year’s Eve, or better yet, Mardi Gras, is on the  lifetime “bucket list” for many.   I’ve been there a couple of times, but only with high school teams along.  Bourbon Street is about music, and parties, and “show me your — beads”.  Walking there in the daytime doesn’t really give the true “feel”.  As one of my athletes found out when he stepped in the door of a “nude dancers” club at one in the afternoon; “When it’s family night we’ll let you know!!!”

Bourbon Street never really has a family night.  But, like New Year’s Eve in Times Square, or Key West, or on the Vegas Strip; it’s where Americans go to party the New Year in. Now, they’re blowing up suspected “bombs” on the streets.  Maybe they’re really bombs, maybe they’re packages left behind in the panic of the moment.   Better safe than sorry.

Lone Wolf

It’s a reminder that we live in a dangerous world.  What we used to worry about was planned terrorist attacks by Black September or Al Qaeda or Isis.  That’s changed.  It’s not organized anymore. It’s a crazed “lone wolf”, who may be radicalized on the internet, or may just be nuts, or both.  We’ve all got cars, a weapon of choice.  And, since it’s the United States of America, many of us, including those who have lost their minds, have guns as well.

So what should be the “mindset” for 2025?  Should we go back to the weeks after 9/11, when Americans avoided malls, stadiums, crowds and celebrations?  They were all “soft targets”.  And it took a while before we went back to those events, and stopped looking up at each jet in the sky as a weapon.  

There is a theory of avoidance:   stay “small”.  Don’t put yourself in a position when you could be at risk.  Stay away from all of the events, national ones like New Year’s Eve on Bourbon Street, or local ones like the village festival.  But this violence can happen anywhere. It happened at a local school, a private Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin.  Or at a place of worship, like the one in Sutherland Springs, Texas.  Or at local grocery stores, like the Tops Friendly in Buffalo, New York, or the King Soopers in Boulder, Colorado.  How “small” are you willing to be?

Kismet

There is an Islamic word, Kismet.  It is a word for fate, for the pure random chance that put those folks in the path of a vehicle in the wee hours of New Year’s Day on Bourbon Street.  We can take precautions: Times Square is ringed with barriers and trash trucks to prevent exactly such an attack.  They don’t even allow port-a-potties, a place where a bomb could be assembled and detonated.  (The great mystery of New Year’s Eve on Times Square –  where do those people go to go?).

Surely Bourbon Street will be closed to  vehicle traffic next year, concrete barriers and, maybe New Orleans trash trucks as well.  But in the end, you can choose to live life, or you can choose to live “small”, avoiding the unavoidable, try to hide from Kismet.  But, no matter what your religious beliefs (or lack thereof), in the end there’s no avoiding that.

Resolution

So here’s a New Year’s Resolution:  Live Life.  2025 is a new year, one that you will never experience again.  Don’t let fear stop you from experiencing everything that 2025 has to offer.  You don’t have to be reckless, but you don’t have to be “small” either.  Living is more than existing, it’s experiencing the world.  There’s an Chinese expression; “Better to be a dog in times of tranquility than a human in times of chaos.”

As one with some experience with dogs, I can tell you that even in our times of chaos, they can be tranquil. And in tranquil times, they can create chaos.  We can’t control our world and our current times (the election of 2024 certainly proves that), but we can still strive to make it better, even with danger of other’s lunacy.   Kismet will find us when it does.  In the meantime, we can live, and experience, and find joy wherever we can. So live a Happy New Year!!!!

I wrote this essay almost two years ago, when Jimmy Carter went into hospice care. He passed away yesterday, and I thought it was appropriate to re-post it, with two post-scripts.

Campaigns

In 1975, I was nineteen, a sophomore at Denison University and an aspiring politician.  I already had experience. At fourteen I helped manage a local judicial election campaign, and at seventeen in the spring of ’74, I helped run Tom Luken’s “Get Out the Vote” operation for a Congressional special election . 

 My “shining moment”was  in the fall of ’75. I managed the campaign to make the village of Granville, Denison’s home, allow liquor sales.  Historically, Granville was headquarters for Ohio’s Methodist Convention, and a “dry town”.  While Denison (at least in my time) was anything but a “dry” campus, you couldn’t buy a beer within the village limits.  We changed that (If I had a nickel for every drink now sold in Granville, known for its pubs and breweries…). By 1975 campaigning was already “in my blood”. 

Denison

Denison gave students an opportunity to “design” their own academic major.  Students could put together courses and “experiences” and graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree molded to their own particular needs.  My degree was in “American Political Studies”. It was an amalgam of political science, history, and education courses; designed to earn a teaching certificate as well as prepare me for Law School and my future political life.  

One semester would involve student teaching,  and one semester would be working in Washington DC and taking courses at American University.  But the “best” part was the fall semester of 1976 – when I would do an “independent study” by working in a Presidential campaign.

Find a Winner

Easy to say:  but which political campaign could I work on?  In the early spring of 1976 there was no way of knowing which candidate could win the Democratic nomination.  I contacted the Sargent Shriver campaign.  Shriver was a Kennedy in-law, and head of the Peace Corps for JFK.  Getting close to a “Kennedy” campaign was always a goal, and Senator Ted Kennedy wasn’t running, still suffering from the political fallout of his Chappaquiddick disaster in 1970.  

But Shriver was out of the race by early April, and I was at a loss where to turn next.  My professor and advisor, Dr. Kirby, was friends with the brother of Ohio Governor Richard Celeste.  Ted Celeste was active in Columbus politics, and the state manager for the obscure former Governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter.  I had an interview with Ted (I wore a tie over a flannel shirt – it was 1976). We agreed I would volunteer with the Carter primary campaign in Cincinnati after spring semester was over in early May.

Carter/Mondale

Jimmy Carter was never my first choice.  He was too moderate, too Southern, and too anti-Washington DC for my taste.  But his crack staff of Georgia political operatives, led by Hamilton Jordan (pronounced Jur-den)  had him in position to win the nomination if he could win in Ohio in June.  They had momentum, and I wanted to be a part of the fall campaign for the Presidency.  

So I walked into the Cincinnati “headquarters”, a decrepit office building  next to an “hourly” hotel in downtown Cincinnati.  I already knew a couple of staffers there from the Luken campaign, and within a day I was putting together the “Get Out the Vote” effort for the Cincinnati area.  I was nineteen years old: street campaigning is for the young, energetic, dedicated and sleepless.  That fit my lifestyle just fine.

Carter won Ohio, and the Democratic nomination.  I used my primary contacts to get on the “professional” staff for the fall campaign.  I was a “paid political operative”, at $75 a week!! While today that sounds like nothing at all, it  converts to almost $400 in 2023, enough to live on, as long as I slept at Mom and Dad’s house.

Professional Operative

I spent the summer painting houses, repairing my Volkswagen’s engine, and studying Jimmy Carter.  I read his book, Why Not the Best, and every bit of the “policy bible” I could get my hands on.  In the end, I was a “Kennedy Liberal” in a “Carter Moderate” campaign, but that didn’t bother me.  As a future lawyer there would always be “clients” to represent that I didn’t necessarily agree with. I could make the case for Carter, especially against Republican Gerald Ford, the legacy of the Nixon/Watergate debacle.

I ultimately wrote a thirty-some page paper about my fall experience with the Carter Campaign for my independent study credit.  They put me in charge of eight rural counties around Cincinnati, gathering statistics (by hand, there was no such thing as a “webpage”; and just barely calculators) to analyze.  I also had Miami University in my “territory”, and I helped organize the student staff there.  And I had “the best” job:  I was in charge of the “illegal” sign operation in Cincinnati itself.  All of those campaign signs that “blossomed” at intersections, telephone poles and bridge railings in the middle of the night:  that was my crew.  Luckily for us, the Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police were on our side. In fact, some were part of the crew. 

And, in the end, I was back to my specialty:  Get Out the Vote efforts in Cincinnati in the last weeks.  The mantra was  we’ll sleep after the election.

The Candidate

I got to meet Jimmy the one time he was in town.  The “powers” in Atlanta decided to fly him in on the second day of the World Series. It was Sunday, and the Reds played the Yankees for the championship.  Everyone in town was fixated on the “Big Red Machine”. It seemed natural to send Carter to the ballgame.  But Atlanta worried that he might be booed. We said, “Put a Reds hat on and he would be golden.”

But It wasn’t to be.  Jimmy flew in for a brief rally at the Lunken commuter airport.  There was a crowd of a couple thousand there to see him, and the staff was brought in for a “meet and greet”.  When I shook hands and welcomed “Governor Carter” to Cincinnati, he quickly corrected me – “Jimmy.”  He gave us a short pep-talk, then was back on the plane headed to Cleveland.

In fact, I spent more time with Senator Howard Metzenbaum that day.  The Senator was there for the rally, but abandoned by his staff, who were anxious to go watch the game.  In the end I gave him a ride in my beat-up Volkswagen back to his downtown office.  He was a kind and respectful man, and  we had a good discussion about politics and Ohio.

I did get to spend more time with Carter’s daughter-in-law, who campaigned in the “outer” counties with me.  And I got to meet Rosalyn (Rose-a-linn, not Ross-a-linn) as she spent a couple days in town.  

Back to Granville

Carter won Ohio, and the Presidency.  The original count had him up by 5000 votes in the state. Each of us young staffers “knew” that it was our singular effort that got him there.  We walked across Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati early on Wednesday morning after the election was determined. For the moment – we owned that town.

I decided to finish my Denison education rather than try for a job in the Administration. But I spent the winter and spring of 1977 in Washington, working for Congressman Luken and studying at American University.  The next year I was back in Granville. And when I spent that winter and spring student teaching at Watkins Memorial High School in Pataskala, I found another vocation that could compete with politics:  teaching.

In 1980 I was contacted about joining the Carter Staff for their ill-fated campaign.  But it wasn’t disappointment in Jimmy – it  was the “lure” of teaching and coaching that kept me on the sidelines. 

Outside-Inside

I do have a better understanding than most why the Carter Administration failed in so many ways.  The “Georgia Mafia”, so brilliant at the politics of winning the Presidency, were too dedicated to being outsiders.  Washington is an insider town;  the compromise needed for the moderate President to work with a progressive Congress, even from the same party, didn’t happen.  Add to that the economic downturn, and the Iran hostages (with Reagan negotiating to hold until after the election). Jimmy was fated to lose in 1980.

But even with all that, he did manage to bring together two mortal enemies:  Israeli Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat. They negotiated the Camp David Accords, the first agreement between the two sides.  

President Carter

And Jimmy Carter, out of the Presidency at fifty-six, remained determined to impact the world.  His forty years of work through the Carter Center perhaps were more influential than his Presidency.  The organization monitored elections throughout the world, demanding free and fair voting.  It virtually eliminated parasitic river blindness worldwide.  And Jimmy annually volunteered for construction with Habitat of Humanity up until two years ago, when he was ninety-six.

Jimmy Carter is a model of faith, decency and service.  While his Presidency wasn’t what he hoped, his influence on the world was even greater after he left the highest office.  He’s taught Americans how to live, and now, entering hospice, he’s teaching Americans how to die.  I’m proud of my distant association with him, but more importantly, awed by his lifelong dedication.  

Godspeed, Jimmy.

Post Script 1 (November 5, 2024)

Count on Jimmy Carter to do exactly what he wanted to do.  I wrote the above as a eulogy in February of 2023, when Jimmy went into hospice for brain cancer.  I assumed that his stay on this earth would be short.  Be here we are, a year and a half later, and Jimmy is still with us.  

He lost the love of his life, Rosalyn.  And his grandchildren say he sleeps a lot.  But Jimmy is still aware of what’s going on in America.  On October 1st, he turned 100 years old.  Abiding by Georgia state laws, as soon as he was able, Jimmy voted by absentee for the President of the United States.  And while Georgia has no law prohibiting the counting of a deceased person’s absentee ballot, Jimmy is alive today, election day.  I’m sure part of the reason is to make sure his vote for Kamala Harris; the first woman, the second Black person, and the first person of West Asian descent to run for President; counted. 

Post Script 2 (December 30, 2024)

On December 29. 2024, Jimmy Carter passed away at 100 years old.  He was a man of politics, but his motives were pure.  The world will be a little dimmer with the loss of his life.  Once again, Godspeed Jimmy.

Across the Divide

There are few things both sides of the political divide agree on these days.  But there is one that aligns for economic and national security reasons. America needs to produce essential products we use here at home.   The best examples of these are right down the road from my house, here near good ol’ Pataskala.  

First Solar is the nation’s largest solar panel producer (50% of US production),. And there’s a plant at the corner of Mink Street and Refugee Road.   They use Chinese technology to make the panels, both here in Pataskala and in Arizona (Energy Sage).  Ten years ago, most solar panels were coming from China.  Now the US has its own production, lessening our dependence on an economic and military rival.

And just up that same Mink Street (actually in Johnstown) the massive Intel chip manufacturing plant is going up.  Computer chips, are the “brains” of everything from phones to cars to TV’s (and of course computers). Almost all of them come from Taiwan.  And while Taiwan is both a US economic and military ally, the island nation’s proximity to mainland China makes it vulnerable.  China’s avowed national goal is to “recover” the island for the Chinese Communist Party. (Taiwan was the refuge of the opposition Chinese Nationalists, driven from the mainland in 1949).  

The United States pledges to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. But even with our military force, a battle for the island would disrupt world chip production.  It makes sense for the US to add its own domestic chip production to reduce economic vulnerability.  President Biden’s Chips and Science Act provided support for the building of 19 chip plants in the US.  The Intel campus on Mink Street is one of those.

Birthright

Biden, Trump, and Harris are all for “Made in America”.  That is, until it comes to the intellect to lead America’s technological rebirth.  While Trump takes heroic stands before “the Flag” and disparages immigrants, some of those around him jostle for the opportunity to bring in more immigrants under the “H-1-B” program.  Both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy claim the US needs to bring in the world’s best, because Americans aren’t good enough for the work.   Ramaswamy posted on Musk’s ‘X’: “(American culture) has venerated mediocrity over excellence, leading to a nation that does not produce the best engineers.”

Ramaswamy, was a child of immigrants from Sri Lanka. His father was a General Electric engineer and patent attorney and his mother a psychiatrist. Neither were US citizens. Vivek was born in Cincinnati and has “birthright citizenship” under the 14^th Amendment. Ramaswamy was educated at Cincinnati’s St Xavier High School, Harvard undergrad, and Yale Law School.   As my (English) mother would say, he is the proverbial “Pot calling the kettle black”. If American culture venerates mediocrity over excellence, he is a product of it.

Naturalized

Musk’s career itself is a result of an F-1 US student visa.  He came from South Africa to study in Canada, then ultimately moved to the University of Pennsylvania to get his undergraduate degree.  He then remained on the visa to go to Stanford for graduate school, but never enrolled in classes.  Instead, he and his brother developed an online city guide application, which they sold to Compaq for over $300 million.  That work was, and is, illegal to do under an F-1 visa.

But that was the basis for Musk’s fortune.  And while Musk, and his brother, later got legal work visas, if they had answered the application truthfully they would likely have been denied and removed the country. Both are now naturalized US citizens.

Of a Feather

Here are two, “birds of a feather”, as Mom would say, in Trump’s orbit.   They stand in stark contrast to the “Steven’s”; Bannon and Miller, who take a dim view of any immigrant (particularly those of darker skin tones).   And while all of them have degrees from American universities, they all express disdain for Americans with the same credentials (Bannon from Virginia Tech, Georgetown, and Harvard; and Miller a Duke undergrad). 

But they have one important point.  More than half of students enrolled in post-bachelor’s education in US engineering schools are not US citizens, and in some areas, like petroleum engineering, less than 25% are.  American universities are educating the world, but fewer and fewer Americans.  

Made in America

So maybe the solution to their concerns isn’t so much with immigration, but with graduate school admission.  Just like the solar panels and the chips, the American government (even a Trump government) needs to make it a national priority to get Americans into the elite post-graduate programs at American universities.  

And for those who are somehow convinced that the American educational process can’t produce such students anymore; take a look at the cost of getting an MIT Engineering degree – $86,000 — a year.  Purdue, another top ten Engineering School is better; about $25,000 a year.  Perhaps it isn’t the educational process, but the price.

American education may be the best in the world, but it is expensive. Ask any recipient of a student loan.  Sure, it’s expensive for students from other countries as well, but they are often getting aid from their own governments. To be told that Americans just can’t hack it, especially by a naturalized and a birthright citizen who took full advantage of what American education can offer; well, it all kind of sounds un-American.

Bombs on the Way

Herman Kahn was a physicist, game theorist, and futurist with the Rand Corporation in the late 1950’s and early 60’s.  Kahn’s specialty was theorizing about possible outcomes of nuclear warfare.  He shocked the academic and government world by explaining a “winnable” nuclear war, at a time when academic thought ended at “just” overwhelming atomic destruction.  It was the gallows humor joke:  “Moscow in flames, bombs on the way, film at eleven” (as if there would be anyone left to film or watch the eleven o’clock news).   Kahn posited that there could be “acceptable losses” of civilian life (“just” 20 million), and that the survival of American government and culture could be considered a “win”.

He called it “thinking about the unthinkable”.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

For almost half of American voters, they are facing the “unthinkable” right now.   Donald Trump will again be the President of the United States in less than a month.  And, unlike Trump four years ago, there will not “…be a wild time” in Washington on January 6^th. There is no threat to the Presidential Inauguration.  Like it or not, Democrats know how to lose.  We know what’s expected by the American experiment: we must now be the “loyal” opposition.  It’s Trump’s Presidency until 2029. 

Sure, we’ve had more than a month to “digest” the “indigestible”.  And I’m sure many Democrats have searched for a way out. Go off the grid, go to Canada (not going to be the 51^st state), or put on our “foil hats” of conspiracy.  Was the election really stolen?  Did MAGA-world do what it always does:  blame Democrats for what they themselves do?  Should we really be considering a “wild time”?  Is Democracy at stake, and if it is, do we need to do more than just be “loyal”?

All of that leads to a kind of madness, the “real” version of “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, as my MAGA friends would say.   So here are a few rules to survive the second Trump Administration, and, hopefully to allow the American experiment in Democracy to survive as well.

A TV Show

One way to look at Trump’s actions is to learn the way he learned.  Trump’s biggest success wasn’t in real estate, or steak, wine and Bible sales, or in casino management.  In fact, he failed at most of those endeavors.  No, Trump’s biggest success was as a reality TV show star.   It was that success which put him in the national eye, and allowed him to parlay his way through a weak 2016 Republican field into the Presidential nomination.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Trump isn’t stupid.  He’s just not very successful in business.  He learned from the TV experience, as well as his own personal connections to Joe McCarthy’s lawyer Roy Cohn.  

Cohn’s rules were:  “Attack, attack, attack; admit nothing, deny everything; always claim victory”.  Trump added his own; “Bad publicity is better than no publicity”.  

From reality TV, Trump learned that it was important to always have a “plot twist”, and to leave the audience hanging to wait for more.  He also learned the art of distraction; focus the audience away from the “real” crisis with some inconsequential event, then back to the main show. And most importantly, always be the “star”, the ultimate “winner” of every show and season, even if someone else actually became “The Apprentice”.  

Tweets

It’s already happening.  Trump’s thirty-four posts on Truth Social on Christmas Day (someone didn’t get what he wanted from Santa) are a great example of his “rules”, and guaranteed to drive us Democrats to foil hat madness!!.  He talked about buying Greenland, making Canada the 51^st state (sorry “Governor” Trudeau), retaking the Panama Canal and driving non-existent Chinese armed forces out.  

He did manage to wish Merry Christmas to us “Radical Left Lunatics” (we all need Biden pardons) but only had “coal” for the 37 Federal inmates whose death penalties were commuted to life in prison – “they can go to Hell!!”.  

My fellow Democrats, are we getting ready to invade Greenland, or Panama (again), or even Canada (that didn’t work out so well in 1778 and 1812)?  After all, we Democrats have an expectation that the President-elect of the United States is serious.   If he wants Greenland, or Canada, or Panama, he’ll actually go and get them.  But Trump won’t. 

What He Does

What he is doing is distracting, from the fact that he cannot achieve his main campaign goal of “fixing high prices” (he already told us that).  And he wants to make sure he has all of your attention. President Biden continues to serve the country (he signed 57 bills into law on Christmas Day). And, of course, “President” Musk suffered a huge defeat in Congress last week (that makes Musk a “loser”, not Trump).

It’s what’s to come.  Plot twist (Greenland), distraction (Panama), insult (Radical Left Lunatic).  MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow put it simply when she said; “Watch what he does, not what he says”.  That might be the number one rule to follow in the next four years.  It’s the way to try to endure the “unthinkable”.

Disappeared

Many Americans think that President Joe Biden “disappeared” after he withdrew from the Presidential election last summer.  Biden knew exactly what that withdrawal would mean to him.  The political moniker for an office holder who is serving out his term without running for re-election is “a lame duck”.  That’s because most of the powers and authorities of office are based on the idea of “what can you do for me”.  And as a “lame duck”, there’s only a limited amount of time and authority to get things done, for legislators, constituents, or the Nation.

Biden knew full well what would happen when he withdrew and anointed Vice President Harris as his successor.  He got shoved into the background, with Harris and Trump taking up all of the political “air”.  Whether Democrats like it or not, that’s certainly a big part of the reason that Biden didn’t, as many suggested he should, get out earlier and allow for a full Democratic primary process.  Biden entered office with a lot to do. He wasn’t done.  

In fact, many historians compare Biden’s Presidency to that of Franklin Roosevelt’s. His efforts in the last four years not only helped the country recover from economic crisis, but left a lasting impact on the physical infrastructure.  Biden’s plate was full, and he wanted to get as much done as possible.  But from that Sunday afternoon when Biden withdrew, his ability to empty that plate was limited.

Power’s Lost

Biden faced a near total loss of power in three areas.  First, his ability to influence legislation was over.   While the President maintains the power to sign or veto laws; what can a “lame duck” promise in the legislative bargaining process?  Biden didn’t take a public hand in the recent Congressional Budget and government shutdown negotiations – but he still signed the final bill keeping the government open.

Second, he lost his ability to “speak for the Nation” in international affairs.  President-Elect Trump has taken a highly visible role, acting like he was already President.  But even if Harris had won, Biden would still be seen as the short-timer he is.  Why should the Netanyahu’s or Putin’s or Xi’s of the world negotiate with an Administration that can’t make commitments beyond January 20^th?  

And finally, Biden’s impact as the leader of the Nation diminished from the moment he withdrew.  Instead of the leading voice of Democratic ideas and values, that role was passed to Harris, and now is vacant. And, of course, the alternative ideas and values represented by Trump were selected by the narroest of margins.  Both Biden and Harris were barely rejected, (by less than 250,000 votes out of 130 million. But that rejection was still plain and final.

Power Remains

Just because Biden receded from his public role as National leader, he still continues to use his executive powers.  Sure, we all are aware of the very public pardon of Hunter Biden.  Controversial or not, the President  continues to use the “merciful” Article II powers of pardon and commutation.  Just today, he announced that he is commuting the death sentence of 37 of the 40 Federal prisoners on death row, changing their sentences to life without parole.  And it’s likely that there will be more commutations, particularly of non-violent drug offenders in federal custody.

And quietly, Biden is doing everything in his remaining powers to consolidate the changes he made during his Presidency.  The Project 2025 guys (and I do mean guys, no women allowed?) are in love with a concept called “impoundment”.  The theory is that once Congress passes a law to spend money, the President can still determine whether to actually spend it for the “Congressional purpose”, or can take it for something else.  

Spend It Now

Courts in the past ruled against impoundment, saying (rightfully) it violates separation of powers.  But all bets are off with the current Supreme Court.  So Biden’s getting money from the Infrastructure act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips Act out of government hands.  He’s making sure it’s spent, not still sitting in the Treasury, when the Trump Administration takes office.

Biden isn’t sitting on his “laurels”.  He will continue to pursue his agenda behind the scenes until noon on January 20^th.  But Joe Biden will also stand by the principle of a peaceful transition of power, even if it’s turning power over to Donald Trump.  There will be no Biden tweets:  “Come to Washington, it will be a wild time”.   

It will be wild enough for the next four years without that.

Provenance – the place of origin or earliest known history of something (OED)

It’s an actual Sunday, and this is another in the “Sunday Story” series. It was originally published on the Ohio Pole Vault Safety website.

This is a (long) pole vaulting story, a brief history of a piece of equipment, and what’s happened to the event in the past thirty-five years (or more) here in Central Ohio.  

I sold the raised runway today. 

Indoor Vaulting

What is a raised runway?  Mine was a series of wooden platforms, 48” long by 10” high by 36” wide, that hook together to make a 100’ raised runway for pole vaulting.  It’s heavy, 25 sections of wood each near 100 lbs.  That’s more than a ton, set up and torn down every time we wanted to vault.  But, back in the day, it gave my Watkins vaulters a competitive advantage.  We could vault, indoors, on the gym floor, in the middle of winter; something that only vaulters with access to collegiate indoor tracks could do at that time.  And we shared it with others, sometimes as many as twenty kids from different schools lined up on snowy winter nights, after the Watkins basketball practices finally ended, sharing stories and taking their turn to become a better pole vaulter.

Before the raised runway, we still tried to vault in the gym.  We moved the pole vault pit inside, stored in the hallway between the gym and the locker rooms.  Then, when we had access, we’d set it up, and plug in a device called a “vacuum” box.  It was a plastic tray with a vacuum cleaner motor in it, that sucked to the gym floor.  It created a stable spot to put the pole in for a vault into the pit.

But the problem with the vacuum box was that it was at ground level, not the 8” down angled box that is the standard pole vault box.  That changed the entire physics of the vault; requiring vaulters to use a pole a foot shorter than they would in competition.  And, since the box was flat, once the pole reached vertical, the tip “kicked back” out of the box.  That feeling, while up 12’ in the air, was unnerving, even when you know you’re still going to land in the mats.  

So while we did practice indoors in the winter, it wasn’t nearly as productive as actual vaulting.  And when I had an athlete with a serious pole vault issue, one that I could solve only on a real runway, I had to beg college coaches around to let us in.  The NCAA frowned on that, so it didn’t happen very often.  

The Raised Runway

Then, in the late 1990’s, a coaching friend of mine stopped by on a late spring day with an offer.  A parent of one of his vaulters built an entire raised runway, 100’ of heavy wood, with an actual box, 8” lower at the end.  The vaulter graduated, and the school didn’t want to store it.  If I wanted and could store it, I could have it. And boy, did I want it!!!

Thus began the “saga” of Watkins indoor pole vault.  We went a couple of nights a week and often on Sundays, originally storing the pole vault pit in a corner of the gym and the runway on a wooden cart in the hallway.  And since, with eight or ten vaulters, it took about fifteen minutes to set up and tear down everything, we’d start at 9:00pm, and finish around 11:00pm.  Some kids might have been in violation of local curfew laws.  Sometimes I worried, especially about the “guest” vaulters who drove an hour or more to jump. One night, I didn’t realize it snowed a foot while we vaulted, (One of my kid’s parents sure had words for me). But, when you’re moving a whole pole vault pit and building a whole runway, “the more the merrier” made sense.

Vaulting made a huge difference.  Now our kids could go into indoor competitions with actual full vaults on their big poles.  They were ready, vaulting almost as much as we did in the outdoor season practices.  And we saw those benefits right away. One of our vaulters won the “state invitational” (there was no State Indoor meet yet). And when the actual state indoor meet was established (first at Findlay, then Akron, and now at Spires) we had qualifiers and placers almost every year. 

Adventures 

Up until the last couple years, the athletic directors at Watkins were incredibly cooperative.  But there were some “glitches”.  The Fire Marshal determined that the pit (mats) couldn’t be stored inside the gym, worried that it blocked an exit.  So we had to store it outside, up against the building in the winter, then drag it through the narrow doorways into the gym.  The pits were often wet or snowy.  And once there were literally frozen. We had to wait for them to defrost to actually vault. 

And there was always a concern about the gym floor.  We did everything we could to protect it, putting carpet under the wood, and a full “rollout” runway beside it for the kids to walk back on (in track spikes).  But basketball coaches always seemed to have a magnifying glass out, examining the floor for any marks, after we got done. I don’t blame them, I was the same way with the track.

 There were always adventures.  There was the time that I found the wrestlers up on the roof of the gym hallway, diving off the building into the pole vault pits stacked on the side.  I heard their footsteps on the ceiling in the middle of a wrestling tournament.  And once, when I stepped out of the gym for a moment, I came back in to find my vaulters had moved the pit besides the 22’ high bleachers, and were doing “butt drops” from the top.  Then there was the kid from Logan, who completely missed the plant box, went fifteen feet in the air, and landed on his feet on the gym floor.  He was OK, but I didn’t ask him to come back.

Club Vault

And so for more than a decade we had indoor vault at Watkins.  And it was during that decade, the event started to change.

While we were vaulting two or three times a week, there was a new concept in town:  the Buckeye Pole Vault Academy, led by an itinerant Pole Vault Coach named Dave Garcia (he coached everywhere, including Ohio State and Michigan).  Dave leased a barn in rural Delaware County, set up a runway and pit, and charged kids to come.  It was a seven day a week operation.  If you had the time (the barn is a long way from anywhere) and the money (several hundred dollars a month) you could have virtually unlimited access to a full runway and pit.  

Dave altered the pole vault model.  It’s not that the kids went that much higher, but pit (and pole) access allowed them to reach their best heights so much earlier in the season.  Ohio kids no longer had to wait for May to finally get great practice days.  It was always warm and dry in the Barn.  A series of state champions, led by the Uhle brothers (there were three) from Olentangy, cemented Dave’s grip at the top. Today, Dave’s coaching “descendants” are back at the barn, and there’s another coach working with a local university, and a couple of others with indoor facilities every few years.

Around that time I retired from teaching.  I was still coaching at Watkins, but I decided to also try my hand at “private” pole vault coaching.  I found a local fitness center in an old factory building near Granville. It had an unused loft, big enough for a pit, and an 80’ runway.  We set up what we titled “The Vault Loft at ARC”.   

Have Runway, Will Travel

I carried that raised runway up the two flights of stairs by myself, and I used the Watkins pole vault pit (I got some help with that!!).  And for a couple of years, I tried to make a “go” of private coaching.  It never made financial sense, but we did have a lot of athletic success, sending multiple kids from different schools (including Watkins) to the state indoor meet.  Some became outdoor state placers as well.  And I found out what I already knew:  I was a much better coach than a business man.

In the end, the gym owners decided they could make more money putting their weight facility in the loft, and we parted ways.  Meanwhile, there was a new Athletic Director at Watkins, a “new sheriff in town”.  She wanted nothing to do with indoor pole vault.  So the runway moved again, this time to a neighboring school with a more cooperative AD, and a coach who wanted a place to vault.

For the last couple of years I coached (2016, 2017), twice a week I loaded kids up in my big Yukon, and hauled them to the neighboring school at 8pm.  We always outnumbered the kids from the home school, and together we set up the runway and got our practices in.

Finally though, I traded my black coaching shirt for a white officiating one, and left the runway, behind.

Make it Useful

The neighboring school no longer uses the runway, and it was sitting in their storage shed.  A month ago I picked it up, moved it (the last time) to my own storage facility, and put it up for sale.  A pole vault group out of Long Island, New York, was desperate for a way to vault indoors, just like I was in the 1990’s. When they contacted me, I got to tell my story of flying to Yale University in Connecticut back in 1989, then driving a U Haul truck with a pole vault pit back to Pataskala.  Today I helped them load up a U Haul, bound for the coast.

I’m glad to have the runway off my hands.  I’m also glad that there will be more vaulting, thumping down “the boards” that were made two decades before these vaulters were born.  They will be able to have full vaults indoors.  And there’s a New York vault coach so excited, that he’s ready to unload in the middle of the night, whenever the U Haul crosses the Narrows, and finally arrives in its new home on Long Island.

 He’s already scheduled practice for tomorrow.

PS – The Long Island coach set me pictures – all set up with kids on the runway.  It’s a game-changer for him, just like it was for me.  

The Sunday Story Series

2021

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21

2022

• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22

2023

• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23

2024

• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24
• A Walk in the Woods – 10/22/24
• Smokin – 12/6/24
• Coal for Christmas 12/16/24
• Provenance – 12/22/24

Oligarchy – a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution

1981

1981 was a big year of change for me.  I left teaching in June, and started law school at the University of Cincinnati in August.  Cincinnati was home, and I was soon managing a Cincinnati City Council campaign for a good friend who was a great candidate.  Like many Democratic campaigns of the time, we were well organized, had great volunteers, a very little money.  We were trying to run a $40,000 campaign on a $10,000 budget.  This campaign taught me an important political lesson. I was a good campaign manager, but a lousy fundraiser.  That’s a near-fatal flaw in politics.

But we had an offer, an opportunity, from a wealthy Cincinnati woman interested in supporting other women for office.  She offered $15,000, more than the entire cost of our efforts.  It would have allowed us to jump into the television market, the one area that we were desperate to crack, but blocked by the entry costs.  

Quid Pro Quo

I remember serious discussions with the candidate about the position that the single donation would put her in, were we to win.  What did that amount, and more importantly, what did that percentage of our effort, guarantee to the donor?  Sure money in politics guarantees access to the office holder, but at what point does it actually promise action?  Is there an implicit quid pro quo if a donor literally writes the check that wins the office?

We agreed the answer to that last question was a resounding “yes”.  So we backed away from the donor, and never got the “magic check” that would change everything.  We lost, thirteenth out of twenty with the top ten winning a seat on the Council.  I went on to leave law school at the end of the semester, discovering that my three-year taste of teaching and coaching was more powerful than my desire to learn the law.   There were lots of decisions for me in the fall of 1981.

Musk’s Lead

The 2024 Donald Trump campaign raised and spent around $1.5 Billion in the last campaign (Open Secrets).  We know that Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, spent $277 million supporting the Trump Campaign (CBS).  That’s about 18.5% of the total.   Since Trump won the election, Musk has literally moved in with him at Mar-A-Lago.  He’s been “appointed” to lead an unofficial advisory group, deceptively named the “Department of Government Efficiency”(DOGE). Only Congress can create a whole-new department of the executive branch. 

And this week, Musk exercised unilateral power over the House Republican Caucus; single-handedly killing a bi-partisan agreement to keep the US Government from closing.  His combination of social media attacks (after all, he does own Twitter) and threats of retribution threw the House into a crisis that still isn’t resolved.  The Government technically shuts down Friday at midnight – with no reasonable solution in sight.

Sure, the President-Elect chimed in.  But he clearly was following Musk’s lead.

Elon Musk is the ultimate capitalist.  His expertise isn’t in space travel, nor in social media, and not even in electric car technology.  Musk is a venture capitalist, with his original stake coming from his wealthy South African parents.  He co-founded PayPal, then sold it to E-Bay for $1.5 billion.   Now he owns Tesla, Space X, Twitter (now known as ‘X’) and some other smaller companies.  

Money Talks

Capitalists understand that they get something for their money.  And Musk gave a lot of money to Donald Trump, enough that he can take the credit for Trump’s win in 2024.  So what’s the “quid-pro-quo”:  what did Musk buy?  

It certainly is more than just access, though he got plenty of that:  breakfast, golf, lunch and dinner with the next President of the United States. And it’s more than the unofficial head of “DOGE”.   Musk is now acting as the “muscle” for Trump’s influence on his own MAGA-Republican Party.  When Trump tells a Congressman to do something, his threat is to “primary” the legislator if they don’t.  Now it’s not just Trump’s endorsement; the threat is also backed by Musk’s almost unlimited money.

The easiest way to explain the Russian Government is that it is an oligarchy, with a few very wealthy people running the government, “fronted”  by (and scared of)  Vladimir Putin.  We haven’t even started the second term of the Donald Trump Presidency.  But the outlines are already clear:  there is a single oligarch, Elon Musk, determining the course of the United States of America.  

Money talks, (everything else) walks.  That’s what America looks forward to for the next four years.

RESISTANCE

The “mantra” of the first Trump Administration – RESIST.  Resist the Nation altering changes that his Presidency represented. Resist the atrocity of child separation at the border. And, Resist the mind numbing litany of hate and disrespect uncovered by his presence.  And Resistance was effective (not futile, for those Star Trek fans – he ain’t the Borg).  But it wasn’t half as effective as Trump world falling all over itself.  

Trump was unable to make systemic changes in America in large part because he, and his minions, couldn’t get it together.  They constantly stepped on their own messages, fell over their own ideas, over-reached when the shouldn’t, and fell back when they should have “charged”.  They knew it, and so did the larger “MAGA” movement.  That’s why the “good folks” at the Heritage Foundation laid out almost 1000 pages of explicit plans for the second Trump Administration, “Project 2025”.  They don’t want to miss their “second bite at the apple”.

Chaos Theory

He’s not the President, yet.  But Trump is already starting his personal brand of “chaos theory”.   The latest example is the general disorder of the House of Representatives and the current government funding bill.  It’s all pretty simple:  if the House (and the Senate, already on board) don’t pass a spending resolution before tomorrow (Friday, 12/20), the government will shut down.  Well, not really, but those parts of the government deemed “non-essential” will shut down.  Paying Federal employees for example is not essential (according to them), especially the week before Christmas.  Many will still be required to come to work.

But it’s still a big deal, and the Republicans in the House of Representatives know it.  So they negotiated a bi-partisan deal with the Democrats, one that most of both parties could support, to gain the majority needed to fund the government until March.  Part of that bill is emergency aid for disaster relief to places like North Carolina and Florida.  Yesterday morning, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson woke up secure that the bill would be passed, and he could send his Congress home for Christmas secure the government was still functioning.

That’s when Trump, and his new side-kick Elon Musk, decided to tank the deal.  Musk (in Trump’s name) demanded that a debt limit be included in this piece of legislation, a “poison pill” to any bipartisan legislation.  And Trump backed it up, saying he would support a primary challenge against any Republican (that’s his own Party) who dared to support the “old” bipartisan bill.  Musk followed up with a pledge of financial support to those challengers.

 Blackmail

If that sounds like good, old-fashioned political blackmail, it is.  Blackmail from two men who currently hold no office in American government, who are operating from their own “capital” at Mar-a-Lago, and who completely undercut their own, elected, Speaker of the House.

So what’s the plan?  Is this really about shutting the government down, or is this more about sending a message to the Senate?  Pete Hegseth, Bobby Kennedy Jr, and Tulsi Gabbard all are highly problematic appointments to the prospective Trump Cabinet, each with multiple Republican Senators questioning their fitness for office.  Is Trump and his “muscle” Musk flexing to make the point to Murkowski, Ernst, Collins and Cassidy:  this can happen to you?

Miss the Target

It’s pretty clear, the only path to keep the government open would require Speaker Johnson to make a deal with Dems, a “poison pill” for him that may well cost the Speakership in January’s House vote.  Johnson can’t depend on Democrats to pull him out of the fire on then.  Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is more likely to let the vote go for days, demonstrating how weak and divided the House Republicans really are, with only a couple of votes to the majority.

And maybe that’s what Trump wants:  a Speaker wholly beholden to him.  Hard to imagine Mike Johnson as some kind of “rebel”, but he is theoretically the most important Republican in the government right now.  Maybe Trump needs to disable him first, though no one can top Johnson for his sycophancy to Trump.  It doesn’t matter.  

Close the government.  Dump Mike Johnson.  Make Elon the “Q” (another Star Trek analogy) behind the throne.  It doesn’t really matter.  The second Trump administration seems to be starting where the first Trump administration left off.  Sure, we need to RESIST where we can.  But, at least this far, Trump and his minions aren’t “the Borg”, an immense, immutable force.  Instead they’re more like the Feringi, in for the profit, and often “the gang that can’t shoot straight”.  

In the long run, that’s good for everyone.

Boomers Know

Covid took America by surprise.  I think we thought that the “age of disease” was past.  In fact, most Americans today believe that cancer will soon be “cured” (in some way or other).  I hope they’re right.  But folks of my generation, the dreaded Baby Boomers (I’m near the tail end), should know better.  Many of us were born in the shadow of polio, a disease of the summer that could quickly take your life.  Or, it could leave you paralyzed or even trapped in an iron lung (a steel tube that changed air pressure to force your lungs to expand and contract, replacing paralyzed chest muscles).  

It was real.  There seemed to be no way to avoid it, no action parents could take that could guarantee their child wouldn’t be stricken.  We all knew kids on crutches, or in braces; left disabled by the virus.  The most effective national fundraising operation was called “The March of Dimes”, raising money for polio research and medical care.  It was a time when dimes made a difference.

If you were a kid of the 1950’s, you were part of the near-miraculous experiment:  the polio vaccine.  The first was the injectable vaccine, created by Jonas Salk (University of Michigan), with incredible results.  But one manufacturer put out a “bad batch”, that sickened a lot of kids.  So the Salk vaccine was placed on hold for a while.  Meanwhile, there was a second vaccine, this one taken orally, literally with “a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down” (and where the “Mary Poppins” song lyrics came from).  

Maggie’s Street

Albert Sabin developed the oral vaccine.  He lived in Cincinnati on Rawson Woods Lane, just down the street from Mom’s great friend Maggie Miller.  A family story tells of neighborhood kids lining up at Sabin’s back door to be a part of the original vaccine studies.  I don’t remember doing that; I would have been three or four, but Sabin’s oral vaccine soon became the standard of care for preventing polio.  The shadows cast by “iron lungs” faded into vague memories.

And we also went through a litany of other childhood diseases.  Most came out unscathed, but there were always a few who “didn’t make it”.  Measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, scarlet fever, mumps; most kids had them all.  Like my classmates, I had them too (though it took until my thirties to “finally get” chicken pox).  

The Boomers were the last generation facing that.  Childhood vaccinations; polio, the “MMR” (measles, mumps, rubella, also known as “German Measles”) and later the chicken pox vaccine spared millions of kids the known risks of disease.  In fact, the vaccines were so effective, that the miniscule number of adverse reactions became “the story”.  Instead of marveling at the vast numbers who didn’t get sick at all, we focused on the few damaged by the vaccines.

Covid

That was, until Covid.  Since more recent generations grew up in an era when the most dangerous community disease was the flu (with some protection available even for that), there was a great deal of skepticism about Covid.  To a large segment of our Nation, it became another infection to get, survive, and move on.  Even when the Covid vaccines were developed (with “Warp Speed” under the Trump Administration), many decided to ignore them, and take their chances with the virus.

Covid killed 1.2 million Americans.  It still is in the “top-ten” of causes of death in the US today.  Even though the vaccine didn’t prevent infection, it clearly reduces the impact of illness.  IF Americans were vaccinated, then those who are most vulnerable to Covid infection would be better protected.  Instead, Covid vaccination became a political talking point, a way to rally “the base”, and a point of honor to many Americans.  Vaccinations don’t work in a Nation where it is tied to ideological Red or Blue.

Hallowed Name

President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated Robert Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services.  Kennedy carries a “hallowed” name, the son of my greatest political hero.  But that’s where the similarity ends.  Kennedy originally made his mark as a lawyer who fought against polluters, but now stands as the premier “anti-vaxxer” in the Nation.  And his “anti-vax” stand doesn’t just include the Covid vaccine.  He has called for an end to mandatory childhood vaccinations, including polio.  His “science” is based on radically divergent medical opinion.  He cherry-picked a very few doctors opinions against the overwhelming majority of scientific facts to base his view.

Donald Trump wants to make him the head of the Department that controls public health.  He plans to place a man in charge who is determined to go back to the era of childhood diseases, back into the shadow of the iron lung.  Kennedy may have his “whack-o” views, perhaps a byproduct of earlier heroin addiction, or the worm infection in his brain.  That’s sad; for both him and the rest of his family who finds their hallowed name dragged through the mud.

But what is totally irresponsible is that the man elected President ( by a very slim margin) would place such a man in a position of authority.  

That’s the real failure.

It’s not Sunday – but this is definitely a “Sunday Story”. Enjoy a Christmas Tale.

NPD Inc.

Modernization, it’s a Santa Claus thing.  Here’s a guy who runs a worldwide distribution network, North Pole Delivery Inc. (NPD Inc.).  He’s always, “just in time”.  There’s a twenty-four hour delivery window, carefully coordinated with the time zones, and, of course, the North American Defense Command (NORAD).  Wouldn’t want Santa shot down, or worse, the cause of a nuclear confrontation between the super powers. 

Of course, someone with that expertise would use the most advanced intelligence gathering process possible.  The “old days” of taking written reports from parents all of the world, then hand collating them to the children available is gone; gone with the old written ledgers at the bank, or the checkbook in the desk drawer.  Now there’s a digitized process, integrating school records, social media information, police reports, and also, direct elfin observation (those odd-looking elves on the shelves).  It’s not your old fashioned St. Nicholas with a pipe and a rocker anymore (and no tobacco use either).

Legal in Jersey

You see, with all the presents requested in the past few years, NPD Inc. discovered what most kids already know:  drones are cool!!!  For just a few hundred bucks, you can vicariously fly around the neighborhood.   Better yet, you can look over the neighbor’s privacy fence to see what’s really going on, and have a birds-eye view of parades, games, and neighborhood celebrations (did you see Mrs. Smith take her top off after that sixth Tequila shooter??).  

The present selection advisory committee, headed by senior elf Jingle, suggested to the intelligence gathering service that the big guy get into the 21^st century.  What better way to “know when you’ve been bad or good…” then to have a series of drones observing the “customers?”

It’s Santa Claus:  there’s no such thing as too much of a good thing.   But like any good toy, Santa wanted to field-test “Project Bad or Good” on a limited basis before going to worldwide distribution.  And what better place to determine the efficacy of such an expenditure, than New Jersey.  Afterall, as the musical Hamilton made clear, “…everything’s legal in Jersey”.  

Good or Bad

Dobby the elf who invented the hobby horse, was placed in charge of “Project Bad or Good”, Jersey style.  He gathered dozens of drones, all kinds and sizes, to see which would work best for the planned up-scale.  Dobby carefully selected a cadre of younger elves as pilots, familiar with hand controls from their long experience in testing video games for Santa’s “peddler’s pack”.  And they settled into a temporary headquarters, an old warehouse in Asbury Park, just down the street from the bar where Bruce Springsteen first sang “Born to Run”.   These elves were “Born to Fly”.

“Project Good or Bad” started three weeks ago, with just a few smaller drone flights.  But the information was amazing, masses of “good or bad” behaviors that fully informed Santa who should get presents. And Dobby was able to use infrared technology to answer that all too critical NPD Inc. question:  “…(H)e knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake”.  

With the early successes, Dobby continued to increase the drone flights.  He even went to bigger drones, capable of staying up for hours and provide gigabytes of data on good little girls and boys.   What Dobby didn’t anticipate was the reaction of Jerseyites to the drones.  You’d think that with Manhattan’s waste washing up on the Jersey Shore, and Donald Trump’s first wife buried in a Jersey golf course, drones would be the least of their worries.  

Biden’s Gift

But even ex-Governors, Chris Christie and Larry Hogan (of Maryland, one of the younger elves got lost) got into the act.  So Santa himself was forced to consult with NORAD, to let them know that, truly, they had nothing to dread.

NORAD communicated the Santa-connection to President Biden, who actually giggled.  It was nice to see him smile, the first time since that ill-fated debate with Trump in June.  Biden ordered all government agencies (and his own press staff) to “dummy up”.  Sure, he wanted to back the “big guy”, Santa.  He knew him well from his childhood days in Scranton, back in the late 1880’s.  But all of the drone uproar was also drawing attention away from the incoming Trump administration.  Biden knew full well; the one thing Donald Trump wants most is attention.  Drones were the best “gift” Biden could give the President-elect.  He gave Dobby full authorization to continue.

“Get Ova-h It”

But some in New Jersey took things into their own hands.  Shots were fired at the NPD Inc. drones, and rumors that they were Iranian, or Russian, or Isis; spread like Christmas Ale at the office party.  An old broken down trawler, marooned two dozen miles at sea, was identified as the “Iranian Mother Ship” sending drones to spy on the good citizens of Jersey.

Dobby reported back to Santa:  “The drones work great, but folks in Jersey are crazy”.  Santa was nervous; it was close to “game time”, only weeks before Christmas.  The old man wasn’t interested in distractions.  “Either the folks in New Jersey ‘get ova-h it’, or they’re not going to be happy on Christmas morning!!!”

We’ll see what happens.  Maybe New Jerseyites will settle down, or maybe Dobby brings in the stealth drones intended for the Ukrainian military stockings in two weeks.  But if the good citizens of the Garden State don’t get with the Christmas spirit, there’s one thing for sure.

Invest in coal stocks.  Because there’s likely to be a shortage – all the coal will be in stockings hung by the chimney with care — in New Jersey.

The Sunday Story Series

2021

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21

2022

• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22

2023

• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23

2024

• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24
• A Walk in the Woods – 10/22/24
• Smokin – 12/6/24
• Coals for Christmas – 12/16/24

Above the Fold

What importance do newspapers have today?  They used to be the primary source of news, delivered straight to your doorstep every morning (or farther back, morning and evening).  Who won the Presidential election?  Look at the front page of the paper (except for the Chicago Tribune’s mistake: a jubilant Harry Truman and the front page with “DEWEY WINS”).  Want to know which team won the local football rivalry?  Check out the back of the sports section.  Want to know who got married, divorced, died?  It was right there, on your front doorstep, knowledge directly “at hand”.

But that’s not so true today.  While newspapers still exist, they are now a “niche” news delivery system.  We all have the answers to those important questions literally in our pocket.  Our phones know-all:  Presidential results, sports scores, local events, obituaries.  So why get a newspaper?  For the older generation it’s simple habit. We can browse a “paper”, feel the pages, see the black type on white newsprint, and, of course,  do the crosswords and wordles and word searches.

There’s a Sunday Columbus Dispatch sitting across the table as I type.

 Single Source 

And, there are certain important topics which struggle to rise to the level of “news on the phone”.  Sure, there’s always an “app for that”, including an app for the Columbus Dispatch.  But the paper, the actual paper, is actually a quicker way to “index” what’s going on, especially in local and state news.

Here in Ohio, the Gannett Newspapers own 18 daily papers.  That includes the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Columbus Dispatch, and the Akron Beacon Journal; three of the seven major Ohio papers.  So when Gannett “speaks”, especially on state issues, they become the one voice that many Ohioans hear.   And when Gannett uses a single reporter for years to explain a single issue; that reporter’s view becomes the “sole, single” source for many.

Premier System

My “niche” concern is the State Teacher’s Retirement System.  Without getting to “in the weeds”, (OK, maybe a little weedy) the problem is simple.  There are over 150,000 retired teachers in Ohio.  Those teachers worked in the schools for relatively lower wages, in part, because of a promise:  a “Premier” retirement system.  In fact, my generation of teachers didn’t even pay into social security or Medicare.  The State of Ohio exempted us, saying that our “Premier” retirement would serve all of our needs.  

And that was true until it wasn’t, in 2012.  The State of Ohio changed the deal.  The legislature delegated their powers to the State Retirement Board to make cuts (a “courageous” move by the legislators – “cuts aren’t our fault”).  They were worried that there wouldn’t be enough money in the fund to cover the mass of “boomer” teachers retiring; and the Legislature didn’t want to be part of a financial solution.  Over the next decade, the Retirement System cut what retirees thought was their “contract”.  The most important cut, Cost of Living Allowances (COLA).   

It’s simple:  you retire with an annual income of, say, $70,000 in 2013. Due to inflation, with prices up over 35% in a decade, that requires  $94000 to “stay even” now .  An annual 3% COLA  keeps “buying power” close to the cost of living. But the Retirement System cut COLAs.  It’s like retiring on $45,000 back in 2013, something that you’d never do.  When you did retire, the Retirement System, the Premier System in the Nation, promised the COLA.  They even put it in writing.  And then they broke that contract.

Old Teachers

But even worse, the Retirement System took their billions of dollars of teacher-earned money (over $90 Billion) and invested  close to a third in “private equity” firms and in real estate.  Those investments paid back less than 7% a year, and there were some years were they lost money.  If those funds were simply in the stock market over those years, they would have average over 14% gain a year.  Meanwhile, the System paid untold fees to equity firms (hidden from the public) and spent millions in wages and bonuses to the in-house staff as well.

Over 40,000 retired teachers joined together to make changes to the elected Retirement Board.  They want to change the way the fund is managed, and stop the profligate staff spending.  The goal: secure the fund for the future, provide promised COLA’s to retirees, and allow teachers to retire after thirty years of service (though they certainly can stay longer if they want to). 

But the Gannett Newspapers have decided that those 40,000 are simply a “lobbying group”.  And their reporter, author of almost every article (in the Columbus Dispatch and the Newark Advocate locally) has taken the current staff’s “line” in most issues.  To the reading public, Gannett sees the “lobbyists” as trying to soak the fund for their own benefit.  And since Gannett controls the information to most of the state – that’s how this story is heard.

You can go read the Toledo Blade, or the Cleveland Plain Dealer, to get alternate information.  If you live in Columbus, you can listen to the great work by WCMH’s Colleen Marshall.  Or you can go talk to a retired teacher.  But for most of the state, the story is cast as “greedy old retirees” versus “hard working young teachers”.  

There’s only one voice heard – Gannett’s.