Category: Uncategorized

Routine Procedure

Secretary of Defense and retired Four Star General Lloyd Austin had a “routine medical procedure” last Monday.  Something obviously went wrong, and he ended up in the Intensive Care Unit at Walter Reed military hospital.  The White House wasn’t notified until Thursday, in fact, even the Pentagon wasn’t aware that their commander was out of commission.  Rumor was that he was “on vacation”.   And Congress wasn’t told until Friday, when Austin resumed his duties. He was still in a hospital bed.  Adding it all up, for three days, a key member of the United States nuclear command and control was out of the loop, and no one else knew.

Well, not quite no one else.  The next-in-line, Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks, was aware and kept up to speed.  But she was in Puerto Rico, with a whole communications net established to keep her informed.  Meanwhile, the President of the United States was not informed that part of his command decision team, sixth in line for the Presidency itself, was unavailable, hospitalized in the ICU, for days.

So let’s start with this.  Who has a “routine medical procedure” on New Year’s Day?  There are only two possible reasons.  One, it was an emergency “routine medical procedure”, one that couldn’t wait for a “regular” medical day.  Or two, it was a secret, done on a holiday, while reporters and many staff members are home watching parades and football games.  The goal may have been, slip Austin into Walter Reed and then back home before any noticed.

Responsibility

Secretary Austin surely has a right to some privacy.  We, the public, don’t need to know whether this was a colonoscopy that went wrong or an emergency cardiac catheterization that turned into a heart bypass.   But the President of the United States should.  In fact, General Austin (or his staff) showed grave disrespect for the office of the Presidency by not informing him.  We don’t know which, whether it was the Secretary himself, or whether his incapacity left it to a staff decision.  But someone made a clear “call”:  don’t tell the press, the Pentagon, or the White House.  

Heads need to roll:  not a medical procedure, but as a career consequence. 

The United States is long past the time that President Woodrow Wilson could have a stroke, and disappear into the White House for months.  First Lady Edith Wilson made command decisions, leaving her disabled husband out of the process and acting in his name.  That wasn’t good in 1920, when the United States was deeply involved in debating whether to join the League of Nations or not.  But in today’s world, with affairs moving at breakneck speed in the Middle East, Ukraine, potentially Taiwan and everywhere else around the world; Americans need to have confidence in our command decision process.  

And there’s nothing that can shake that confidence more, than a key member being hospitalized and unable to perform his duties without notifying the President.  

Politics

Sure it’s a political football.  Republicans in the Senate are already calling for action:

“The Secretary of Defense is the key link in the chain of command between the president and the uniformed military, including the nuclear chain of command, when the weightiest of decisions must be made in minutes,” said (Senator Tom) Cotton in a statement, adding that if Austin didn’t immediately tell the White House, “there must be consequences for this shocking breakdown” (AP).

And certainly this marked disrespect for the President will become part of the fabric of the 2024 Presidential race:  even his own Cabinet members don’t honor him, why should the uniformed military?

Consequences

But it’s more important than just politics.  I can’t tell you any other issue where Senator Cotton and I agree, but here’s one.  It only required one phone call, to White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients.  The President, and the command structure, needs to know who’s in charge; and who’s available for emergency consultation.  There are lots of scenarios where the President says, “Get me the Secretary of Defense”, and the entire process is temporarily derailed as the Deputy has to take the call.  Tom Cotton is right, it’s unacceptable.

It’s likely that we will soon learn a lot about Kelly Magsamen, General Austin’s Chief of Staff.  If there’s a head to be sacrificed, it’s hers that’s most likely to be the first.  Everyone has the right to medical privacy.  But assuming high responsibilities in government requires acceptance of some loss of that privilege, in return for the trust of the American people.  They can have privacy, but Americans still need transparency.  We need to know that those in charge, are actually there.   It’s the only way to keep the conspiracy nuts at bay, and more importantly, to keep the Nation’s trust.  

Rerun

Look, it’s 2024.  It seems like this Presidential election year started about six months after Biden was inaugurated in 2021, but now we’re really, finally, (sadly), here.  Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee, “God willing and the river don’t rise”.  Almost inevitably, Trump is going to be the Republican nominee.  So, like it or not, we are in for a “rerun” of 2020, this time hopefully, without a world pandemic to upstage every other issue.

At first it seemed that James Carville’s wise intonation would hold the day; “It’s the economy, stupid”.  Biden was saddled with inflation, an unavoidable side effect of the successful efforts to avoid a Covid depression. Most Americans don’t remember the crushing inflation of the 1970’s, averaging almost 10% a year throughout Jimmy Carter’s Administration.  

The past couple years felt “really bad”:  2021 at 7% and 2022 at 6.5%.  But last year it was down near 3% and this year looks even better.  So the inflation issue won’t have the impact Republicans wanted. (Gee, gas prices were down to $2.53 yesterday, even here in the Amazon van bubble!)

Binary Choice

Biden used a phrase in 2020 that still resonates in 2024:  “Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative”.  In the “binary choice” of Biden versus Trump, there are several key issues where voters face a black or white decision.  Trump embraced the results of “his” Supreme Court appointees in the Dodds case; abortion is now a state by state issue.  And the Pro-Life crowd made their goal clear:  end abortion care nationwide.  That’s mobilized voters, particularly women, even in Republican places like Kansas, Ohio, and Kentucky.  If women want to be able to control their own bodies, Biden is the only answer.

And in foreign policy the division is clear.  Support Ukraine, vote for Biden.  Want Russia to take over Ukraine, support Trump and his friend Putin.  The current Israeli War is more complicated.  The media makes a big deal about the Democratic split over the Israeli strategy of destruction of Gaza to destroy Hamas.  But the comparison (Almighty versus alternative) is obvious.  Trump would give his good friend Benjamin Netanyahu a completely free hand in Gaza, Biden is the only moderating force.  If you want to support the Palestinians and don’t like what Biden is doing, what’s the alternative?  Vote for Trump?  Or, don’t vote at all, and allow Trump to gain the Presidency? 

Caravan 

So Republicans returned to an old strategy, one we remember from the elections of 2016 and 2018.  There’s a “caravan” coming to the Southern border.  Thousands (Fox News says eight thousand) headed to the border.  They are still a thousand miles away, but when they get here, the border will be overwhelmed.  And Biden isn’t ready!

Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas has his solution:  militarize the border, arm it with razor wire, walls and armed troops, and arrest anyone who manages to get through for illegal crossing then send them back to Mexico.  Make illegal migration Mexico’s problem. 

The problem with that solution is twofold.  First, it creates a “death zone” at the border, that is guaranteed to kill some migrants trying to get through.  The “deterrence” concept that migrants won’t come if it’s “bad enough” just doesn’t work.  They continue to come, and drown in the Rio Grande, get tangled in the barbed wire, and their kids get sick and die from exposure.  Ultimately those armed troops will use their weapons, and we have the catastrophe of American troops shooting migrants.

And second, it creates a lawless zone on the Mexico side of the border, with towns overwhelmed with the humanitarian burden of hundreds of thousands of migrants.  Exposure, starvation, disease and crime will not remain just a Mexican problem.  It simply raises the stakes, and drives the migrants into the clutches of the “coyotes” who will offer them a way out through the wilderness onto American soil.  And more will die in the desert, trying to get to America.

Solutions

Fixing the border crisis is complicated.  We have treaty obligations to let people try to claim asylum in the United States.  The conditions in Central and South America driving migration are worse, far worse than even Governor Abbott is willing to create on the border.  So until that improves, folks are still going to leave their homes, risk the Darien crossing, pay extortion to the gangs, and show up in Juarez or Matamoras, or Tijuana; to come to America.

The United States absolutely must do a better job of administering the border.  It’s a legal, medical, ethical, issue.  And the United States can use more workers in the economy; there is a ready supply to be tapped at the border.  The political reality is:  a solution at the border isn’t in the Republican Party’s best interest.  With all of the other issues falling in Biden’s favor, Trump needs the Border.  That remains a “thorn in the side” of the Biden Presidency.  And besides, it’s all Trump’s got.

Start the Fire

It’s 2024!!!  We are almost a quarter the way through the 21^st century (and isn’t that still confusing – how did we get the centuries so screwed up that 2000 was the beginning of the 21^st, not the 20^th).  Just a thought:  the kids born on 9/11 are now the first responders to the next emergency.  Another thought:  Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire (1989) has been “updated” by a group called Fall Out Boy (2023).

I’m now an old retired guy, and that’s a great “gig”.  But I was born in the Eisenhower Administration, thirteen Presidents ago.  As a youngster I watched the Mickey Mouse Club in black and white on a big box TV with a tiny screen.  In fact, the family lore is that I was named for a character on that show, part of a boy’s adventure series called “Spin and Marty”.  Thank goodness I wasn’t called “Spin”!!!

Generations

As a history teacher, I was always amazed with the technological change that my father’s generation, the World War II “Greatest Generation”, went through.  Dad was born near the end of the First World War.  They had cars (Model T’s), electric lights, airplanes (biplanes) and gas stoves.  In fact, a gas stove of my parent’s youth is still in use in our kitchen today, a 1929 Magic Chef eight burner, four stove, half-a-ton, cast iron “beast”.  It works great, and it’s back in “style”.  That same style stove appears both in the movie Oppenheimer and in the Yellowstone series 1923.  

But in the near-century of Dad’s life – from 1918 to 2016 –  technology changed so much.  And Dad was a part of that.  He got into television in the beginning, the early 1950’s, when most homes did not have a TV.  And he changed what people watched; from selling syndicated shows like Highway Patrol, Sea Hunt and the Everglades, to pioneering the news/talk show with Phil Donahue, and getting way over the top with another guy named Jerry Springer. 

So Dad got tech, at least for most of his life.  Now I’m not approaching a century, in fact, I’m still a few years short of three-fourths of a century.  But today, on New Year’s Day 2024, let’s look at what the tech of those early days of 1950’s and 60’s television promised, and what’s been delivered.

New Tech

Dick Tracy was a cartoon and TV detective in a trench coat and fedora hat.  But he had a secret weapon, a “wrist radio”.  He didn’t need a lot of bulky equipment to check into the station, he simply talked into his wrist watch, and was connected.  

We can do that.  Apple watches can not only talk, but they can carry messages, read your blood pressure, tell you when to drink water, and, well, run your life.  I don’t have one of those, but it’s not because I’m a Luddite.  Apple watches can only be so big, and at my age reading small print isn’t my favorite task.  An Apple watch would require constant reading glasses.  Better to leave all the messages on my phone – I can make the font big enough to read on that.

And speaking of carrying computers in your pocket:  every smart phone is way smarter than the computers that landed men on the moon in the 1960’s.   My parents’ joke was that Mom was Dad’s memory, especially in the last few years of her life.  Well, I have my memory, right here beside me.  If I don’t have a picture of it, I can check it on the internet.  Don’t remember something, it’s all out there, and within minutes I can remember what year Billy Joel wrote “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and which group did the new version.  

Replicators

And what about the “replicators” of Star Trek?  We haven’t got quite to that point where a kitchen, with a button,  produces any desired food – but we do have microwave ovens, and we do have “three-dimensional” printers.  So we are working our way to being able to produce a given shape and form device on a “home replicator”.  The problem with that is; in our society the most produced 3-D products are “ghost guns”.

And about that food thing – today we don’t have to shop for food anymore.  We can sign up for a “meal service”, delivered to the front door.  Want “foodie” food – Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, or even Martha Stewart will take care of all of your needs.  Want groceries?  Get on your phone and order them (it’s a “click” thing, not a “talk” thing), they’ll be here before day’s end.  

And Christmas shopping has a lot more to do with the computer I’m typing on, or the phone in my pocket, then getting in the car and heading to the mall.  In fact, there are three malls left here in Columbus; Easton, Polaris, and Tuttle.  Easton is still making it, because it made itself into a “destination”, that has some stores. Polaris is trying to do the same thing, though they’ve been through one bankruptcy.  And Tuttle – well – I wouldn’t invest any money there.  

And what of Eastland, Northland, Westland, or City Centre?  Eastland’s still there, Westland and Northland are now strip malls, and City Centre closed fifteen years ago, and is mostly new urban “green space”.    

Cars

We didn’t get the flying cars promised by the Jetsons.  But we didn’t get the drab, lifeless ground of the Jetson’s either.  Maybe that’s why they all were in the sky, things don’t look so great for the homeless on the surface.

We are gradually shifting to non-gasoline cars, though my twenty year-old Jeep is still running strong.  And cars are doing so much more:  automatic braking, parking, lane assist and, just beginning, self-driving.  In another decade,  I  expect drivers will be the exception, rather than the rule.  Soon we will all be plugging in.  And the 1950’s designed highway system around Columbus, Ohio is being rebuilt.  Maybe a decade from now, it will be a lot easier to get around (though they’ve been building the I-70/I-71 interchange downtown longer than it took to build the Panama Canal).

Intelligent Machines

My grandmother had a vacuum cleaner.  We do too, but it doesn’t look anything like the hose, tank and broom that Grandma Dahlman (or Mom for that matter) used.  Our vacuum looks like a turtle, and does it work without supervision.  It knows where to go, on what day, and even knows when to empty itself.  And if something goes wrong – it sends us a message on our phone – “help!”  It doesn’t answer to its name – Roomba – but the dogs sure know who she is.  Roomba is unrelenting when it comes to cleaning, and the dogs have learned to get out of the way – or get “bumped”.  

Technology has a way of incrementally changing life.  And we are on the cusp of a whole new generation of tech, artificial intelligence.  AI will write for us, think for us, fool us, and maybe decide for us.  “Everything”, from teaching to medicine to manufacturing, will be “better” with AI – I guess.  An I guess most of the folks pushing AI never watched 2001 – A Space Odyssey or worse, The Terminator (one of Mom and Dad’s favorite movies – really!!).

So Happy New Year to you!! May 2024 be pleasant and prosperous and peaceful – oh wait – it’s an election year.  The fate of our Democracy is on the line.  So have fun!!!

Senioritis

As a teacher we called it “senior-itis”, the “disease” that affects the graduating class sometime during their final year of school.  They  are“done”:  with school, with parents, with being “kids”.  They already moved on: to college, work, the military; whatever was coming next.  As a teacher and a spring sports coach, it was always my challenge – how to get them through that last assignment, term paper, or test; and how could I keep them motivated on the track?  

The one thing you could count on from them was honesty.  They just didn’t give a damn.  And in my last year as a school district employee, I could completely relate.  You think thirteen years of school is long, try thirty-five and a half years in education.  I did my job – but I had little tolerance for bureaucratic nonsense.  I’m sure the District Office sighed with relief when I finally handed in my keys.

Career Politician

Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine had a long and distinguished career.  He’s been – wait for it – county prosecutor, state Senator, US Congressman, Lieutenant Governor, US Senator, Ohio Attorney General, and, at seventy-two years of age, the Governor of Ohio.   He’s seventy-six now, term-limited into retirement at the end of 2024.  There are no more statewide campaigns for Mike DeWine;  talk about senioritis.

Mike DeWine has always been an old fashioned, Senator Bob Taft of the 1950’s, conservative Republican. He’s never been a MAGA guy. But he does represent the conservatives near his rural home in Cedarville, Ohio: the fundamental Christians of Cedarville College, the Roman Catholics of his youth,  and the great mass of Ohio’s farmers’ vote.

Covid

The big test of his first term in office was Covid.  DeWine did what the national Center for Disease Control and his own Ohio Health Department said.  He closed down the state, mandated masks, and did everything he could to stop the spread of the virus.  That worked – until the more “MAGA” majority of the state legislature threatened to remove his health emergency authority.  DeWine pushed as far as he could, then he let his Health Director, Amy Acton, resign to take the fall.  He re-opened the state, and removed many of the emergency provisions.  But he maintained much of his authority to act in a future emergency.

Sure DeWine signed off on the First Energy deal, using billions of Ohio tax dollars to back their old nuclear reactors.  The Republican Speaker of the House, Larry Householder, is serving twenty years in Federal Prison for taking a sixty million dollar bribe to get the “deal” done, but the investigation ended with him.  And DeWine was willing to fabricate and mis-represent the Issue One Amendment that passed by 57%, allowing abortion rights in the state.  DeWine is a true-believer, a religious Right-to-Lifer.  Even now he’s trying to find ways to dial the Issue One Amendment “back”.

“SAFE Act”

So there was little expectation that DeWine would veto the latest MAGA legislation. House Bill 68, the “Save Adolescents From Experimentation” Act. It would ban medical treatment for trans-gendered minors, including drug and surgical interventions (though surgical interventions aren’t done in Ohio already).  That was also “paired” with a bill to ban transgendered athletes from competing in school sports.  

The Governor gave an interview with WCMH news anchor Colleen Marshall last week.  Marshall is known for asking tough questions in a nice way, and not allowing politicians to dodge specific answers.  So when Marshall asked about whether DeWine would sign the “SAFE” Act, she wouldn’t allow  him to bluff through the response. 

And DeWine seemed very sincere.  He said he talked to the parents of transgendered kids, and to those who wanted medication controlled.  He also talked to the doctors who treat transgendered issues at Nationwide Children’s Hospital here in Columbus.  In fact, DeWine seemed like a man trying to make a reasoned decision based on the needs of those few kids (3300 under eighteen treated in Ohio in the past ten years). 

Party Line 

But Mike DeWine generally follows the “party line”.  The national line is that LGBTQ is a “Democrat” thing.  Also, there’s a potential super-majority that could override the Governor’s veto.   And there are other issues in Ohio where the Governor and the legislature will conflict.  Is it really possible the DeWine would pick this fight, and veto the “SAFE” Act, because it’s the right thing to do?

It must be senioritis, “short time”; that feeling of liberation that comes from not having to run for office anymore.  Friday Mike DeWine vetoed the legislature’s attempt to further the MAGA agenda.  He rejected the “SAFE” Act.

The transgendered kids, one of the most vulnerable groups in the state, aren’t out of the woods yet.  The State Legislature may well override his veto, and the transgendered kids might still be faced with having to go out of state to get their care.  But, just like the beginning of Covid; the former prosecutor, Senator, Representative, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General stepped away from politics for a moment.  He did the right thing for kids. 

Arithmetic

Let’s assume all of the “numbers” in Israel’s favor.  Hamas, through their Gaza Health Agency, estimates that more than 20,000 Palestinians are dead in the Israeli invasion.  Our “lying eyes” tell us that number is likely accurate.  And we know that statistically Gaza is one of the youngest regions in the world. Over half of the population under eighteen years.  So we can expect that many of the dead are children.  Israel says, that 10,000 of the dead are Hamas “soldiers”.  And many of them are kids as well, really.  

So, the hard, cold, arithmetic is that at least 10,000 Palestinians, innocent but by location, are dead. 

Israel says that “collateral damage” is the price of ridding Gaza of  the terrorist group Hamas, buried in the infrastructure of the region, in tunnels and hospitals, schools and Mosques.  It is Hamas that uses those 10,000 and many more as human shields against the Israeli juggernaut.  If a Hamas “army” would simply come out and battle, Israel would be “happy to oblige” in their destruction.  But  Israeli leaders say that there is no alternative:  the atrocities of October 7^th, the 1269 innocents murdered in those early morning hours at the hands of Hamas, demand an ultimate vengeance, Hamas’s extinction.  

And so the Israeli Defense Force called for Northern Gaza to be cleared, and then swept in to attack Hamas. Then they moved onto the South, where they sent the population for “refuge”, and attacked there as well.  The IDF “shuffled the deck”, forcing Hamas leadership to move and expose themselves, then attacked their exposed positions.  The fact that Hamas is among hundreds of thousands of innocents, is the “price” of  vengeance, the “payment” for the Butcher’s Bill of October 7^th, so Israeli leaders say.

Wrath of God

This is an old Israeli policy.  After the Holocaust, where six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, the founding motto of Israel was simply “Never Again”.  In 1972, Palestinian terrorists belonging to the Black September movement, attacked the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, Germany.  Eleven members of the team were killed by the terrorists, most during a German rescue attempt at the airport.  I still remember legendary sports announcer Jim McKay intoning, “They’re all gone”. 

While the terrorists on the ground were killed or captured, the Israeli government established a covert program within their security agency, Mossad.  It was called “Wrath of God”, and over the next several years operatives assassinated everyone in Black September connected to the attack, not only at their headquarters in Lebanon, but throughout Europe.  There was one innocent victim killed as well.

Legendary leaders of Israel; Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and Ehud Barak approved and planned the “Wrath of God” operation, in violation of international law.  It didn’t matter; Israelis and “justice” demanded blood.  And, frankly, much of the world quietly approved this “fighting fire with fire” approach.  So when Prime Minister Netanyahu and his extremist cabinet wage war in Gaza, they look to the example of “Wrath of God”, writ large.

Fire with Fire

It’s hard to imagine that the world could overlook the 1269 killed on October 7^th, but Israel managed to knock those innocents from the foreground.  Instead, the Israeli actions placed the innocent Palestinians to the front in the eyes of the world, and more importantly, of many in the United States who up until now have been Israeli supporters.  This modern “Wrath of God” looks more like a genocidal purge of Gaza, not just of Hamas, but of all Palestinians.  Israel has managed to lose the “high ground” of justice, and placed themselves at the same level as the terrorists.  Fighting “fire with fire” burned Israel’s image throughout the world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent decades in the United States. He graduated from high school near Philadelphia, and was educated at MIT and Harvard.  Netanyahu later was the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations in New York.  He not only sounds like an American politician, he knows America as an American.  So he would have, or at least should have, anticipated how the actions in Gaza are perceived.  He’s even running political commercials in the United States, trying to explain the Israeli actions to the American people. And it’s no coincidence that the parents of the hostages are frequently on American television, pleading for the return of their loved ones.  But it’s not working.

Vengeance

The Palestinian message and the videos of Gaza’s destruction, overwhelms the legitimate plight of the remaining October 7^th hostages, and the right of Israeli retaliation.   Even many American Jews are quietly shaking their heads.  While they publicly stand for Israel, in private they blame Netanyahu for being unprepared, and unwilling to work towards some settlement with less extreme Palestinians.  But they see no solution either, as the Palestinian Butcher’s Bill grows in length.

What the outcome of the current “mission” will be is unclear.  But the seeds of the next conflict are already sown in the ruins of Gaza, and burned into the memories of the Gazan survivors and their Palestinian brothers on the West Bank.

The major wars of Israel, in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 all ended with  “brokered” settlements.  Israel was pressured by its allies, particularly the United States, to stop the fighting and settle for “less”.  And that pressure is growing now.  What was sealed with a “hug” by President Biden in October, is now coming with strings attached.  And, while the Netanyahu government may have the stomach for complete destruction, the United States does not.   It’s only a matter of time.  The impetus on Israel is to get as much done as possible before it runs out. But how many more Palestinians, IDF forces and hostages must die before vengeance is finally theirs? 

 No one knows.

Hamas/Israel War

• Vengeance is Mine 12/27/23
• There is No Peace                   12/4/23
• Israel, Democrats, and 2024   11/19/23
• Zero State Solution                 11/8/23
• Credible Sources                     10/31/23
• Fog of War                              10/20/23
• Truth of the Matter                10/17/23
• Updates and Sadness             10/12/23
• Deserve to Die                        10/10/23

Stopping Trump

More than half of Americans want Donald Trump to “go away”.  65% believe the criminal charges against him are serious, and 49% believe he should suspend his Presidential campaign (ABC).  But, to quote Bill Murray’s stellar performance in the summer camp movie, Meatballs; “It just doesn’t matter”.  Donald Trump is the likely Republican nominee for the Presidency in 2024.  

Trump won the Presidency despite losing the popular vote.  He survived the Access Hollywood Tapes, and the Mueller investigation into his political campaign.   “Good people, on both sides” and child separation at the border didn’t tip the scales. And neither did the “perfect” phone call to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.  It took a world pandemic and Joe Biden to end his first term as President, and even then, he led his supporters in an attempt to alter the results on January 6^th.  He is, and remains, the only former President who faced two impeachments. And the only former President facing ninety-one criminal indictments, both Federal and State.  

We looked to the Republican Party leaders, the Justice Department,  and Mitch McConnell and his Senate Republicans twice, to “…rid us of this meddlesome President”.  It took Covid, and Biden, to break the chain in 2020.  But Trump is back again, as outrageous as ever, with a legitimate chance to win the Presidency and become “dictator”, at least for the “first day”. 

Criminal Charges

The truth of the criminal charges:  disrupting the lawful transition of power, trying to corruptly influence the election in his favor; and stealing and mishandling classified documents; is self-evident.  Justice is incremental, but is inexorably moving against him.  And Trump’s lawyers, legitimately, see delay as their best tactic.  If Trump wins “again”, Federal charges will disappear. The state charges will be placed in abeyance until he leaves the White House (if he leaves).  There will be no justice.

So many of us look to the Supreme Court as the institution that might finally stand to the moment.  After all, the Court was the bulwark that blocked the “stop the steal” movement in 2020.  Two cases are to that Court, with hopes that Trump’s illegal actions are punished.

One case comes from the Colorado Supreme Court, that ruled Trump was an “insurrectionist” as defined by the 14^th Amendment, and therefore disqualified from their ballot.  The other case comes out of Jack Smith’s targeted charges in the Washington, DC District Court.  In that case, the Trump lawyers claim that the President of the United States has “sovereign immunity”, a blanket protection from any criminal charges arising through the course of his Presidential “duties”.  Since Trump was the President, and the counting of the electoral ballots in Congress was a Federal action, they argue that immunity from prosecution extends to whatever he did leading up to and including January 6^th. 

A Tainted Court

Let’s get an ugly part out of the way first.  Justice Thomas, and to a lesser extent Justice Alito, are “tarred”. They accepted massive funds from conservative millionaires and groups for their own personal use. And Thomas’s wife helped organize the January 6^th Insurrection.  Both Justices are “conflicted” in a legal sense. They appear improper and biased.  In any other Court in the country, they would recuse themselves.  But they aren’t in any other Court, they are in a Supreme Court that sets its own rules, and has no authority to enforce those rules on their own members.  So all of the Trump cases will be heard by all nine of the Justices.

But even the financial “patrons” of the Justices aren’t necessarily Trump fans.  So it not just the weight of the money that  might sway their view.  Alito, Gorsuch, Barrett, Cavanaugh and even Chief Justice Roberts all owe their exalted positions to one man:  Leonard Leo, of the Federalist Society.  Leo and Senator Mitch McConnell made it a decades long mission to tilt the ideology of the Supreme Court in their favor; and with the Trump Presidency they cemented a  six to three majority.  The stand that the “Society” chooses about Donald Trump may be more important than the money, or even the law.  

So, even if the Supreme Court is corrupt beyond redemption; keep in mind, even the corrupters aren’t all for Trump.

The 14th

Start with the Colorado case.  The 14^th Amendment was written to protect the “gains” of the Civil War. The third section prevented the same people who led the Confederacy from returning to National power.  There were no “trials” for insurrection, no hangings for Treason.  Even Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy (and former US Senator and Secretary of War) was released from his imprisonment in Fortress Monroe, and ultimately pardoned.  But he was still banned by the 14^th from holding office again.  

From that precedent, it doesn’t take a trial or conviction of insurrection to ban someone from office under the 14^th.  A “common sense” rule applies:  if they participated in an Insurrection, they are banned.  And that’s what Colorado applied to Donald Trump.  

But the practical outcome of the Court letting Colorado’s decision stand, is that Trump would appear on ballots in Republican controlled states, and not appear on ballots in Democratic controlled states.  That would widely swing the popular vote, but probably do little to alter the outcome in the Electoral College.  What it would surely do, is magnify the political divide in the Nation. It could, whatever the outcome, make the results unacceptable to huge portions of the electorate.

The Supreme Court will not rule that Colorado was “right”, and that Trump is an insurrectionist.  And they won’t require that an insurrectionist need be “convicted”.  They’ll sidestep that whole issue.  They will rule that there were “procedural” errors in Colorado’s decision, that need to be “corrected”, and that process of “correction” will go beyond the 2024 election.  After that, the issue will be moot.  Score Trump 1,  Justice 0 – but a good try by Colorado.

Immunity

No matter the patrons of the Supreme Court majority, I cannot see them ruling that the President has “blanket immunity” from any actions he takes.  It’s not common sense, nor is it a reasonable outcome of the Constitution.  The entire impeachment/conviction process is based on removing the President (or other official) so they CAN be tried in the regular Court system.  (This also makes the Trump lawyers’ other claim – that impeachment trials created a “double jeopardy” situation – bogus).

The Jack Smith trial will continue.  But what procedure will the Court use?  They’ve already refused Smith’s request for an expedited hearing in front of the Supreme Court (Trump now 2, Justice 0).  So the immunity question will go to the DC Appellate Courts, who’s  likely to rule against Trump (Trump 2, Justice 1). 

Then, the Supreme Court will have a final say in the matter.  If they determine to hear the case, then Jack Smith’s goal of a trial decision before the election is over (Trump 3, Justice 1). But the Supreme Court may simply refuse a Trump appeal from the DC Circuit, affirming the Appellate decision.  And then the trial begins (Trump 2, Justice 2).  I’m betting that’s the tactic the Supreme Court uses.  

The Supreme Court won’t openly stand in opposition to Donald Trump.  But they won’t  enable a second Trump Presidency, either.  The flawed Robert’s Court, like the Senate Republicans, will step aside. The trials may go on, but ultimately the burden of Trump is on the votes of the American People, once again.

This is kind of a “Sunday Story”, about Christmas, Covid, Dogs and the smell of pine.

Covid

Covid seems like old news.  We have our “free tests”, but we haven’t used them in so long, that we need to check the expiration date.  There’s dozens of masks, stashed in the top of the Grandfather clock, right behind the current Christmas tree.  They definitely need to be dusted off before use. But I’ve kept up with the shots, (I had to go to the CVS app on my phone to count how many):

• Moderna 10/25/23, 12/27/22, 7/19/22
• Pfizer – 9/9/21, 3/10/21, 2/15/21.

I still substitute at the school, and I don’t want to bring Covid (or the flu) back home to Jenn.

Now, I know I had Covid in September of 2022.  That’s because it was the most “inconvenient” time, right before I was supposed to have my shoulder surgically rebuilt.  There was a week of a Covid “dampening” drug, testing, testing, testing, and worry about postponing the surgery.  I didn’t feel that bad, and finally my surgeon’s office said the magic words – stop testing.  They didn’t want to know, and didn’t want to upset their surgical schedule.  But I tested negative anyway, two days before I went in.

Long Covid

And then there was the “stealth” Covid, the one I had but never knew about.  It was sometime in January or February of 2022.  Jenn and I both felt lousy, and both tested negative over and over again.  But, sometime in March, I just stopped smelling – anything.

Long Covid is defined as:

 “…(L)ong-term effects from their infection, known as Long COVID or Post-COVID Conditions (PCC). Long COVID is broadly defined as signs, symptoms, and conditions that continue or develop after acute COVID-19 infection(CDC).”

I wrote a whole essay on this way back in April of ’22 (What’s Missing).  There are advantages to not smelling anything:  picking up dog poop (we have five) is definitely one of them.  But there are lots of things to miss: steak on the grill, black coffee before dawn, hickory smoke from the smoker (yep, I can open the smoker door, get “smoked” myself, and still not smell it).   The smell of fall leaves on the ground, or hot grass in the fields of summer, or the few moments before the rain starts in the spring; I miss them.

Does our house smell like dogs?  I’m definitely not the right one to ask about that. And in the rush to get dogs fed and to school before 7am, did I manage to put deodorant on?  That needs to be a “conscious” action, one that I specifically remember.  After the fact, there’s no way for me to tell.

Things to Miss

So it’s been a year and a half without smell – almost.  There’s been some “phantom” wisps: a hint of spilled gasoline when filling the mowers, Jenn’s lit cigarette in the car (not when filling mowers), a glorious moment when I opened a hot pizza box, and, just for a second, caught a whiff of pepperoni.  Sometimes I feel like the amputees who can still feel the toes of their missing leg: is my brain making it up, filling in blanks it knows are there?  

But it’s happening more frequently.  This morning I was making our first pot of coffee (we are on a three pot a day tear right now, there are dogs, not ours, lost everywhere – that’s a Christmas thing).  And  I caught a hint of Starbuck’s French Roast beans, before they hit the grinder.

You know all of those craft beer aficionados, who can take a sip and tell you the hops to wheat ratio, and find the hint of orange peel or cinnamon or cranberry in a Christmas ale?  So that’s how my nose is right now, except all I get are the few “hints”, never the full body flavor of the draft.  I think it’s coming back, slowly (it doesn’t help that this Long Covid left me with chronic stuffy nose anyway).  Either that or my brain has decided it’s taking over, making up smells so I feel better.

Merry Christmas

All I want for Christmas – is a good whiff of our traditional beef tenderloin.  And if I can detect the pine of the Christmas tree, so much the better.  After all, it’s been since Christmas 2021. Much as we don’t think about – celebrating the holiday is about smelling it too.  I’ve never smelled “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire”, but there’s a smell in a song, right out in public.  If my sense comes back, I guess I’ll have to try that.

Merry Christmas everyone – I know you expect a full legal exposition of the Supreme Court decision to dodge the Trump case, one more time.  That will come soon enough.  But for the next couple of days, enjoy Christmas, family, and friends; and all the “smells” that go with this season.  And for Santa’s sake – hold onto your dogs.  There’s far too many out already!!

The Sunday Story Series

• 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
• 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
• 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

Government Class

Back in Government class (or “POD”, Principles of Democracy), the Constitution was the first big unit we taught.  We went through the entire document, article by article. We discussed who could be a Representative, a Senator, a President or a Justice, and the arcane path of legislation.  After a massive test, we moved onto the Amendments to the Constitution, with the full force of the original articles.  

There was a lot to learn and discuss over twenty-seven amendments.  Once an Amendment was put in place, it was as much a part of the Constitution as the original Articles.  The only way to change that was highlighted in the Eighteenth which banned “intoxicating liquors”.  The Twenty-First was required to repeal the Eighteenth.   There were many discussions, particularly about interpreting the language of the First and Second Amendments, and how far the “clear language” of  “free exercise of speech” or “the right to bear arms” could be stretched.

The Colorado Supreme Court had a similar discussion in the past few weeks, about the Fourteenth.  But it wasn’t the “usual” Fourteenth arguments, citizenship and due process.  It wasn’t even the revived “novel” argument about the “full faith and credit” of the United States debt in Section Four.  Colorado was arguing about the Third section of the Fourteenth, a  section that seemed nothing more than an historic relic of another time.

Section Three

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

It seems obvious:  a person who swore allegiance to the United States, then rebelled against it, couldn’t come back into the service of the US government, unless there were forgiven.  Most regular Confederates were ultimately forgiven under a “blanket” pardon.  Some higher profile Confederate Generals were specifically pardoned.  General Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of Robert E Lee and grandson of Declaration of Independence signer “Light Horse” Harry Lee, served as a Governor, Ambassador, and Army General in the decades after the war.

And Confederate General Joseph Wheeler later served in the US House of Representatives.  When the Spanish-American War broke out, he returned to service as a US Major General and led at the Battle of San Juan Hill (of Teddy Roosevelt fame).  Supposedly, in the heat of battle, Wheeler called out to his troops:  “Come on boys, we’ve got the damn Yankees on the run again”.

The Questions

But the Colorado Courts were faced with interpreting that third section in a whole new light.  Instead of the faded echoes of Gettysburg and Chickamauga, there was a much more immediate “battle” to face:  the one on the Capitol steps and in the hallways on January 6^th, 2021.  

The Court asked the following questions:

• Were the actions on January 6^th an insurrection or rebellion under the 14^th Amendment?
• Did Donald Trump engage or give aid of comfort to the insurrectionists or rebels?
• Was Donald Trump an “officer” or other official labeled under Section Three?
• If all of the above are “yes”, should Trump be disqualified (disabled) from the ballot for President of the United States?

The District court heard the case first.  This is a case of “equity”; determining whether a law applies to a particular situation.  So there isn’t a jury, just arguments made to a judge (or judges) who then make a legal ruling.  The court of “first impression”, the District court, determines what the “facts” are, then determines the law.  It is the legal interpretation process that usually ends up appealed to higher courts.

The District court found that there was in fact, an insurrection, and that Donald Trump did give aid or comfort to the insurrectionists.  But the Court than made a third finding:  the President of the United States did not fall under the “list” of offices.  The Court said he wasn’t an “officer” in the way that Generals Lee and Wheeler were.  And the President didn’t hold any of the other offices listed.  On that basis, Trump would appear on the ballot as a qualified candidate for President.  Section Three didn’t apply.

Common Sense

But the Colorado Supreme Court reversed the decision.  The agreed that there was an insurrection, and that Trump gave aid and comfort to it.  But they applied  “common sense” to the language of the 14^th.  Surely if every other elected office was included, from Senator to state Judges, the authors did not intend to leave the President of the United States out.  They simply didn’t envision a President committing such a heinous act.  Then there was one named Donald Trump, and so he, for the moment, could not appear on the Colorado Republican Primary ballot.

This was “breaking news” last night.  And it is a “big deal”.  But there is a very long way to go before a final decision to declare Trump “disabled” from holding office.  The Colorado case next goes to the United States Supreme Court, if they decide to take it.  And if they don’t, then Trump won’t appear on Colorado’s ballot – but would still be on other states. 

Supreme Court

I’m sure the US Supreme Court will take this case.  They could follow the District Court’s hair-splitting, and say the Presidency wasn’t listed.  Or they could demand that a criminal conviction be required, though certainly that wasn’t how Section Three was applied by the authors of the amendment after the Civil War.  Or they could argue that January 6^th wasn’t “really” an insurrection or rebellion.  That particular argument doesn’t pass the “eyeball” test.  We all watched, and we all saw what happened there.

The Supreme Court could agree with Colorado, and declare Trump disabled from holding the Presidency. Now that would be a “big deal”, a world changing “breaking story”.

Or they could really take a coward’s way out.  They could agree to hear the case, but not take arguments until next fall, and “stay” the Colorado decision until after they decide, after the election. 

If that sounds unlikely, it’s exactly what’s happened with Trump since the “Access Hollywood Tape” broke in October of 2016.  At that time, the Republican Party chose to leave Trump on the ballot as their candidate.  Let him lose to Hillary and be done, they thought.  And after the Insurrection, the US Senate could have convicted Trump in the impeachment process, and “disabled” his ability to hold office again.  But, they chose to leave him again, and hoped he’d go away.

He hasn’t.  And I really don’t expect the Supreme Court to show any more courage than the Republican Party leaders or Republican Senators showed.  In the end, I expect it will be up to the American people, on their ballots next November. 

 They will determine to save the Union from Trump, or not.

Booming Columbus

I can’t speak for the entire Nation, but I can speak for Central Ohio.  And here, the economy is good.  Let’s look at the numbers first:  the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the “temperature” of the American stock exchanges, is setting record highs.  For the millions of Americans invested in 401-K retirements plans, that is a great thing.  Your money is making money.  The Central Ohio unemployment rate is 3.3%, a number that was considered beyond “full employment” for decades.  Want a job?  You don’t need to “do” fast food, there are thousands of jobs available in “distribution centers”, and even better jobs coming in this “Silicon Valley of the Midwest” boom.

In spite of the current home mortgage rates, they can’t build enough houses here.  Columbus estimated 5000 new home builds in the past year, the “need” is closer to 15,000.  The mortgage rate still is high at 7.3% (down from 8.1%), especially when compared to the rate available two years ago of only 2.8% (when I luckily refinanced).   But it all beats my original rate in the late 1980’s of 8.5%.  

The market pressure is also pushing existing housing prices up.   In the past four years, my own home value has increased 64%.  Unfortunately, the County Auditor figured that out too, so my property taxes will go up, but not anywhere near that much. 

Market Forces

My natural gas bill doubled from $0.35 for a cubic foot in 2021 to $0.69.9 in 2022, but dropped back to $.53.5 in 2023.  It still “feels” high, but better than it was.  On the other hand, the electric bill hasn’t changed much in that time.   

The daily “standard measurement” of inflation is the price of three items:  gas for the car, loaves of bread, and gallons of milk (though to be fair, I don’t drink milk, so I definitely had to look that one up).  A gallon of 2% milk today is $3.29, below the 2023 average of $3.42.  A loaf of white bread is $2.00, up $0.20 from this time last year.  And a gallon of gas is under $2.70, down more than a $1.00 from earlier in the year.   Most items are trending  down, or at least even.

Managing Tides

It’s easy to blame economic forces on politicians.  But all they can really do is react to the current problems and do their best to influence the outcomes.  Donald Trump didn’t “cause” the Covid shutdown.  He did his best to avoid a Covid economic depression, a difficult thing to do when unemployment went from less than 5% to greater than 15% in just a couple of months.  It could have been the Great Depression of the twenty-first century, like the one my parents experienced in the 1930’s.  But it wasn’t, for most of us.

And Joe Biden did his best to re-open and moderate the swings of the economy as we all went back to work.  Sure there was inflation:  exactly what pumping all that money into the economy to avoid depression would do.  But there also was a return to more than full employment, and  increases in wages.  And the Biden policies “fixed” the worst of what could have been a “wildfire” economy followed by a crushing recession.  The “soft landing” of the economy, pandemic and post-pandemic, has arrived. 

Mismanaged Retirement

And from a more personal standpoint, Ohio’s retired teachers  are “riding” the economy as well.  Ohio’s teacher retirement system was mismanaged.  With an investment portfolio of $90 billion, in the past fifteen years their “private” (and hidden) investment strategy fell $70 billion short of just following the stock market, according to the State Auditor.  And the System paid “investment specialists” millions of dollars to do it.  

The result is that in a decade of retirement, I have received only a 4% Cost of Living increase, instead of the promised 18% or even more.  I’m living on 2014 money, with a purchasing power of almost 30% less today.

And, to get partisan; the Teacher Retirement debacle is a product of Ohio’s Republican government.  Led by then Governor John Kasich (who made his millions working for the failed Lehman Brothers investment firm), Ohio’s leaders were convinced that private investment strategies could beat market strategies every time. They gave the System full authority to invest behind closed doors, and to cut benefits.  And that’s exactly what happened.  They cut benefits and cost-of-living increases, raised the retirement age and the amount every teacher paid into the program (second highest in the Nation); lost billions of dollars in potential profits and paid themselves millions in bonuses to do it.  So here we are.

That needs fixing too. 

The College Model

There’s an old phrase, guaranteed to fire-up anyone who works in a classroom:  “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”.   Before we get into all of that, may I point out that the line is from a 1905 play, Man and Superman, by George Bernard Shaw.  If you recognize that name, thank a teacher.

There’s an ongoing fallacy: literally “anyone” with an education can teach.  It’s based on the old college model.  College professors often have no training in how to impart knowledge to their students, other than the simple experience of sitting in classes (watching others who had no training in how to impart knowledge to their students, who watched others…you get the point).  Need a better example?  Go down to your local auto mechanic and watch him/her work.  A few might be able to clearly explain what a torque converter does and why you need a new one.  But most simply get the job done, and us laymen have faith in their ability, and pay the bill.

Experience

Look, we all have a lot of “educational” experience.  Almost everyone lived through thirteen years of school, and many spent even more years of college, post-college, or other training.  We’ve seen lots of “practitioners” of teaching, so much so, that another “old line” applies:  “Familiarity breeds contempt” (St Augustine – 5^th century, if you know him, thank a teacher).   

For those who continued their education beyond high school, there was a lot of motivation in the college classroom.  Back in my day, it was a dollars and cents approach.  Each semester course cost about $600, in 1977 dollars.  Whether the professors were amazing (I had a few) or terrible (a few of those too), I wanted my money’s worth.  Today at that same institution, those semester courses cost $7000, almost twelve times what it cost “in my day” (this “math block” kid figured that out – thank a teacher).   That’s real motivation.

Public School

But in pre-school, primary school, intermediate school, middle school and high school:  those kids aren’t making advanced mathematical calculations with 2023 dollars. (Here’s a challenge, what grades are in each of those different educational environments?  Answers at the end of the essay.)  Students in public school are going to school because they have to.  Our society, rightfully, determines that our citizens need education. It maintains our culture, our democracy and our economy.  And the folks that provide that education need to have two very different skills.  First, they need to know their subject areas.  But, second, and perhaps more important, they need to know how to impart that knowledge to someone else, whether the someone else is intrinsically motivated to learn, or not.

Teachers go to college to learn their subject.  For me, courses in American and world history and politics; economics, geography, sociology and psychology helped me “know” what to teach.  But, even in the “bad old days” of the 1970’s, we had several classes on “how to teach” rather than just “what to teach”.  Add to that, an “apprenticeship” under a “master teacher”.  Mine was the last semester of my college career.   And once a teacher actually gets a job, there’s another year of “journeyman” status, and more “dollars to donuts” in post-graduate work. 

How to Teach

Why all of this training?  Because kids “learn” differently:  some different than I do, some different than you do, and some different than almost any other kid in school.  And teachers are taught/trained to search for multiple ways to reach each of those differing learning styles.  Here’s “the” list:  

• Visual learners
• Auditory learners
• Kinesthetic learners
• Reading/writing learners
• Logical/analytical learners
• Social/linguistic learners
• Solitary learners
• Nature learners.

Perhaps you recognize yourself in one or more of those “styles”.  And perhaps you have no clue what some of the others are (nature learner?).  Just like our car mechanic understands how a torque converter works and when it needs replacement for a Chrysler, Ford, or a Toyota; so teachers have to know and apply all of the different “styles” in any given lesson plan to reach all the different students.  

There is also another factor:  teaching as an “art”, and teaching as a “science”.  There are some who intuitively understand how to reach different students with differing ways of learning.  Those folks find teaching an “art”, a talent that can be improved and polished, but ultimately an innate skill, “born” into them.  They are “naturals” at teaching.  

And there are others who need to have a more elaborate process to prepare their instruction.  They need a “playbook”, carefully planned, with “branches” to reach all of the differing learners.  They often are very good teachers, meticulously prepared for their class.  Teaching is a “science” for them, an outcome of a practiced procedure.  

And the “best” teachers are both, “art” and “science”.  You remember them – because they are likely the ones you learned the most from.

Teacher Shortage

The state Senate of Ohio has determined that “teacher training” is “overrated”.   Today  they claim there is a shortage of teachers, with fewer students going into the profession, and many “old” teachers looking forward to their promised “gold standard” retirement (that’s a whole different essay).   Like many other jobs in our current boom employment market, the answer should be to make teaching more attractive.  Higher wages, improved working conditions, better “perks”:  that’s how the economy usually deals with employment shortages (understand those economics;  thank a teacher).  

Instead, Ohio is considering lowering the qualifications to teach (WCMH).  No need to go through all of that “education on educating”, let’s go to straight to the “college model”.  If you’ve got the academic degree, Ohio may grant you a teaching license.  Here’s the problem.  Instead of bringing folks who know “how to teach” to the classroom, Ohio will supply folks who just know what to teach.  They can put that torque converter on a Ford, like them, maybe.  But what happens when a Nissan shows up in their classroom?  

Rookies

Of course these “rookies” will have a “master-teacher mentor” to guide them.  But that “master” will still have their own classroom, their own planning, their own preparation to get through.  And they’ll have an “apprentice” who can’t even speak the language of the profession.   They don’t know a torque converter from a torque wrench.  So will Ohio really “fix” the teacher shortage – or continue to do what Ohio has done in the past: transfer more work onto teachers who already are beyond overload?   Instead of biting the bullet of better working conditions, the state is trying to pass the buck, again.  And that buck stops on a teacher’s desk (recognize that phrase; thank Harry Truman, and a teacher). 

Want to fix the “teacher shortage”?  Don’t dilute the profession with amateurs who will have to learn on the job, to the detriment of their students.  We all know what to do – make education a more attractive job category.  It’s not just pay, it’s reducing all of the extraneous duties that saddles today’s teachers.  There’s so much more of that than this old veteran teacher had in twenty-eight years in the classroom.  I guess I taught in the “good old days”.

And finally,  stop telling teachers they are folks that “can’t”.  We fully know that they are skilled professionals that “can”, and already “do”, the job.  Need public education fixed:  ask a teacher.

Answer: Pre-School 3, 4, 5 years old; Primary K-1-2-3; Intermediate 4,5; Middle 6,7,8; High School 9,10,11,12.

Cold War

I am a child of the Cold War.  Among my earliest memories is living in the suburbs of Detroit in 1962.   I was in first grade, and sometime during the Thirteen Days of October (the Cuban Missile Crisis), all of the students of Bloomfield Village Elementary school were lined up against the hallway wall.  We were told to sit facing it, put our heads between our legs, and our hands locked over the back of our necks.  It was all to protect us from some terrible force – Russian bombs.  And, with the clear logic of a first grader, I knew we kids would be OK, because we were tight against the wall, huddled in little balls.  But the teachers, including my favorite Miss Fox, all worried and standing behind us – they would be “zapped” by the bomb!

Years later, we moved to Dayton, Ohio.  Our house was on the top of “Big Hill” in the southern part of the city, dead-on the flight path of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.  At the time, Wright-Pat was a Strategic Air Command Base, with giant B-52 bombers constantly going in and out.  SAC’s job was to keep our nuclear deterrent, bombs, constantly in the air.  That way, Russian missiles couldn’t destroy our forces on the ground.  

It’s hard to imagine that those giant, eight-engine bombers, wide as a football field, roaring close over our house were “common place”, but they were.  So was the electric garage door going up and down as the bombers went overhead – they must have shared a frequency with some landing equipment.  And, looking back, it’s even harder to imagine that each of those bombers, screaming so close that they seemed “touchable”, contained multiple nuclear weapons capable of destroying dozens of Dayton’s in a single flash of light.  

Nuclear Lessons

A decade later, I was at Denison University, studying the complexities of nuclear deterrence theory.  I learned the differences between counterforce, destroying the enemies weapons; and countervalue, destroying their cities and their civilians.  We laughed at the darkly ironic jokes, gallows humor:  “Moscow in flames, bombs on the way, film at eleven”, as if anyone would be around at eleven to watch television.  And I learned about Russia, the communist revolution that placed ideology over people, the Stalinist strategy of World War II: trade civilians and distance, for time to prepare a defense from the Nazi invasion.  Millions of Russian casualties; anything to preserve the “Rodina”, the Motherland, against the invader.  

Communism was important, but nothing was more important that Mother Russia. After the war, the “Eastern Bloc”, the series of small occupied nations between Russia and Germany, were Russia’s line of defense against a potentially aggressive West.  That has been true since the Yalta Conference in 1945 (ironically, in Crimea, today contested territory between Ukraine and Russia).   

Here in the United States, for the decades since World War II, there has been a single view of US relations with Russia (or the Soviet Union).  We have been competitors, two of the three nations capable of destroying the world, and well aware of the dangers each represented to the other.  The “liberal” John F Kennedy was elected, in part, by the concept of a non-existent missile gap.  The Soviets supposedly had more, and we needed to catch up.  Democrats and Republicans alike were well aware of the dangers of Russia.

Russian Imperialism

What happened to that consensus?  Today, it is the Democratic Biden Administration that carries on the common sense balancing of Russian imperialism, changed only in words alone from Soviet expansionism. And the Party that stood up against Communism, that threatened the Nation with the “Red Scare” of the 1950’s, that stood so strong that only their most stalwart anti-communist, Richard Nixon, could dare go to China – what happened to them?

Many are now Putin apologists.  They somehow accept Putin’s logic that allows him to invade Ukraine (what’s next?).   They’ve even tied helping Ukraine with the most polarized issue in American politics, immigration, as if somehow Democrats care more about Ukraine than the Southern Border.

Russian President (for life) Vladimir Putin held a confident press conference yesterday.  He is secure in the knowledge that Ukrainian resistance will fold without assistance from NATO, led by the United States.  And he has every right to be confident.  It seems that the United States government, in spite of all the good intentions of the Biden Administration; is going to leave Ukraine “hanging”, without further assistance.  That’s because the goals of Putin and the twice impeached, former President of the United States are aligned.  Trump wants the Presidency, and Putin wants Ukraine.  And Republicans seem to be as afraid of Trump as Russians are of Putin. 

Fear Itself

It’s all about fear.  In Russia, if you cross Putin, your plane falls from the sky, or you find yourself launched from a five story window, or you get a first-hand experience in a penal colony.  If you’re a Republican politician in America, it’s not quite so physical.  Instead of actual suicide, crossing Trump is political suicide.  With a single phrase, MAGA world rises against you in a primary.  You become a bystander in politics, like Paul Ryan or Kevin McCarthy; a “commentator” on some obscure news channel.  

Trump hates Ukraine.  Their President, Zelenskyy, failed to give him the “dirt” to attack Biden in the first place, an unforgiveable sin.  And Biden has made defending Ukraine as a centerpiece of his foreign policy. Besides, Trump has consistently shown fealty to Putin.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Ukraine becomes the “throwaway” for Trump 2024, linked to the seemingly insolvable issue of immigration.   And the Republicans in the House and Senate aren’t “stupid”.  While most are too young to have my “Cold War” experience, they still know the truths of history.  But fear drives them, fear of defeat, fear of loss of power, fear of Trump’s strangle hold on the Republican base.

I stand for Ukraine, not just for the righteous fight of a Nation for its independence,  but also for the “real politik” of holding the line against Russian expansionism.  That’s as plain as the nose on Putin’s face.  To ignore those facts just to “stay in office” is nothing short of moral cowardice.  That is un-American.  But, that is the Republican Party.

Ukraine Crisis Essays

• Cowards – 12/15/23
• Battle for Ukraine – 9/29/23
• Putin’s Disaster – 7/11/23
• How Good Are They – 4/10/23
• Marking Territory – 3/15/23
• Ukraine and America – 2/28/23
• Kherson – 11/14/22
• When Winter Calls – 9/12/22
• A Full Plate – 7/26/22
• Ukrainian Independence – 6/30/22
• No Victory Day – 5/10/22
• Desperate Moves – 4/27/22
• This is the Time – 4/20/22
• The Winning Message – 4/18/22
• Victory Day – 4/12/22
• Chapter Two – 4/11/22
• Zelenskyy’s Choice – 3/31/22
• The Gaffe – 3/28/22
• Putin’s Choice – 3/27/22
• Far Away From the Front – 3/20/22
• The Next Step – 3/17/22
• Thinking the Unthinkable – 3/14/22
• Russian Oil – 3/11/22
• Kyiv’s Choice – 3/8/22
• The Logic of Madness – 3/7/22
• Lights Out – 3/6/22
• Ante Up – 3/3/22
• State of the Union  3/2/22
• The Guns of March 3/1/22
• Sanctions 2/26/22
• What Happens Next 2/24/22
• The Games Begin  2/22/22
• Talking with a Friend 2/18/22
• Trip Wire 2/2/22
• On the Brink 1/23/22
• The Ukrainian Dilemma 12/5/19

Texas and Florida

Folks in Texas and the Nation are outraged.  A woman carrying a fetus with a terminal defect, is required to carry to full term, even though the fetus is 90% likely to be still-born, and 100% likely to die in the first few months.  And, despite the fact that the birth is likely to destroy the woman’s ability to have further children, the Texas Supreme Court banned her access to abortion care.  

She had to leave the state to find the care she needed.  No one is sure what legal sanctions she, and her family, might face when she returns to the “Lone Star State”.  But that’s the way it is in Texas, the “state” knows better than the individual (and their physicians) what the right medical treatment is.  

Folks in Florida and the Nation are outraged.  Parents whose children have “gender dysphoria”; children who mentally are one gender trapped in a body of the other gender, are unable to get care for their kids.  The “state” decided that those kids don’t deserve care until they reach adulthood.  The problem is:  many of those kids might not reach adulthood.  Suicide “ideation” among teenagers with gender dysphoria is high; they might not live to make decisions as adults (Guardian).  But the leaders of Florida, who spout about the “right of parents” when it comes to education, have no problems taking away the rights of parents to make the best medical decisions for their children.  Instead, the “state” knows what’s best – and somehow, they don’t see the contradiction.

Ohio

Texas and Florida are in the headlines, for restricting abortion rights and parental choices.  But somehow, Ohio seems to get a big political “pass”.

Sure, Ohio was a big deal last month.  The voters, in a huge turnout of 49.7% in an off-off year election, voted for a State Constitutional amendment protecting the right of women to control health care, including abortions.  The Republican leaders of the state from the Governor on down, including the Secretary of State who controls the election apparatus; all campaigned against the Amendment.  But 57% of Ohioans still came out in support, and now those same leaders are struggling to find ways to curtail the scope of the change.  

But this week, the same leaders got some “payback”.  The state legislature passed the “Save Adolescents from Experimentation” Act, the “SAFE” Act.  It makes children “safe” from parents allowing their gender dysphoric child to choose medical care affirming their gender, just like Florida.  On the floor of the State Senate, you heard Senators decrying the “castration” and “mutilation” of teenagers.  

Fake News

But that’s not what happens here in Ohio (or pretty much anywhere else in the Nation).  The medical care for gender dysphoric children consists of hormone therapy and mental health assessments.  Surgical interventions aren’t done here in Ohio.  As Nick Lashutka, spokesman for Ohio Children’s Hospital Association noted, “Children’s hospitals in Ohio do not perform surgeries on minors for the condition of gender dysphoria”( NBC4).  But that’s the “fake news”, the specter of surgery used to justify the “Safe” Act.  

Make no mistake, our grandfatherly Governor will sign the bill.  And he’ll make some statement about protecting children.  But what he’s really doing is taking away parents’ rights to choose what’s best for their child.  And he’ll do it with the high and mighty justification that the “state” knows better.  This isn’t really about what’s “best” for those few children (Ohio hospitals have served about 3,300 individuals in ten years whose first appointment at a gender clinic took place when they were under eighteen – NBC4).  It’s about the MAGA Republicans that still control the laws, enforcing their minority views.

Punish the Few

That’s an average of 330 kids out of 2.5 million in the state –  .0132%.   Ohio isn’t “protecting” those kids, they aren’t getting “SAFE”.  They’re faced with a loss of care, and a future that requires them to suffer, or leave the state.  But it’s the politically “right” (in the left v right way) thing to do, and that’s what Ohio is all about.

The same state Senate is now weighing-in on transgendered girls.  The State is telling those very few who want to participate in school sports, they can’t.  The Senate presents some “vision” of a fully developed “male” beating all the girls on the basketball court, or in the pool, or on the track.  But here’s the facts. In Ohio, 350,000 kids annually participate in high school sports.  Last year, six, just six, transgendered kids participated in girls’ sports.  That’s .004%.    And over the last eight years, there was a total of nineteen (10 middle school, 9 high school) in girls’ sports.  

Sins of Ohio

They aren’t State Champions.  They’re kids trying to “fit in” and be as normal as they can be, in a world that isn’t allowing them to live normal lives.  But the powers that be in the state are demanding they be “outed” as “biologic males”, and forced to participate as boys, or not at all.  It’s just another way to energize their political base, instead of doing what’s right for those few children.

The saddest part is there’s little outcry, other than from those directly impacted.  Ohioans, and the Nation, just let it “roll”.  Ohio’s not Texas, and not Florida. DeWine (the Governor) or DeRose (the Secretary of State) aren’t running for President.  But the “sins” of Ohio are just as bad.  We are letting politics determine the present and future lives of the kids that need the most protection.  The last thing they need is “the State” telling them, and their parents, how to live.

(The Guess Who,  rock group from Canada, came out with the song No Time in 1969.)

What Time is It

There’s no time left.  No time left to figure out funding for Ukraine.  No time left to fund Israel, with or without restrictions on their military actions.  And there’s not even time left to fund the American Southern Border, supposedly the highest priority for the Radical Republican House of Representatives.  

There’s no time to solve the biggest concerns of American foreign policy.  After all, we are only weeks away from Christmas, New Year, and a whole new series of crises that befall Washington, DC come 2024.  Remember that budget deal cut by the new Speaker, Mike Johnson, they kept the Government open?  It’s back again, this time without Johnson’s “honeymoon period” with his own Party extremists.  Surely, they’ll be little time for Ukrainian aid, or Israeli aid and control, or the 12,000 migrants hitting the Southern Border each day.  No time left for them. 

But there sure is time to start the impeachment of President Joe Biden.  Well, not really start the impeachment, but begin an “impeachment inquiry”.  That resolution will be on the floor of the House today (Wednesday), superseding all of the other “crisis” issues in America.  The House of Representatives is establishing this priority, Biden first, everything else, last.  There’s no time left for them. 

Factual Predicate

And, for the few Republicans who read these essays, I hear you.  This is “tit-for-tat”, paybacks for the two impeachments of Donald Trump.  Of course it is.  My argument to you is that the first impeachment of Donald Trump, over the so-called “perfect” phone call to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, seeking “dirt” on Joe Biden in exchange for military funding; opened with solid evidence.  Trump DID make the phone call, he DID ask for “dirt”, he DID threaten US funding.  

To use a legal phrase learned in the eternal world of FBI investigations:  there was a “factual predicate” for opening an impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump.  And while Democrats never had an impeachment inquiry for the January 6^th impeachment, they also were all eye-witnesses to the predicate and facts of that day.

And so, what is the “factual predicate” for the impeachment, or even the inquiry, into Joe Biden?  To paraphrase a twice impeached President, it’s “Hunter, Hunter, Hunter” (instead of “Russia, Russia, Russia”; an issue which also could have risen to the level of impeachment).  And, to use another legal phrase, let me stipulate a fact.  Hunter is a bad person:  he was a drug addict, a “fallen” lawyer, willing to trade on his family name for financial gain, and a tax evader to boot.  For the family’s sake, I hope Hunter is reformed, but he definitely screwed up.  They should impeach him.

Sins of the Son

Oh, wait a minute.  Hunter is a private citizen, not a public official.  So you can’t impeach him, or hold a “trial” in front of the House or Senate on his actions.  So what’s the “factual predicate” linking Biden the father to Biden the son?

Nothing:  the investigations go all the way back to BEFORE Trump’s call to Zelenskyy, BEFORE Rudy Giuliani went to Ukraine to find dirt on Hunter, even BEFORE Lev and Igor got the information from Russian Intelligence sources.  There’s plenty of crap about Hunter, Hunter, Hunter; but nothing that ties the son to the father, when it comes to illegal gains.

When the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump campaign, they had a “factual predicate”.  Even the internal Justice Department investigation agreed to that.  And it wasn’t based on the Steele Dossier, but the actual testimony of an Australian diplomat about a conversation with a Trump campaign advisor.  When the House of Representatives opened an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s call to Zelenskyy, it was based on the actual testimony of Colonel Vindman about the conversation.  

Making Smoke

But the House right now “ain’t got it”.  Forget a “smoking gun”, they can’t even find the weapon.   They have a lot of “what if’s”.  What if Hunter gave the money to his father?  What if Biden intervened illegally for his son?  But, after seven years of investigation, all Republicans have managed to do is generate a lot of smoke, but found no fire.  

It’s their smoke; that only exists because of their actions.  And now they are using that “smoke” to justify their investigation.  So what’s the real priority?  Former Speaker and continuing Trump sycophant Kevin McCarthy said this, way back in 2015: 

 “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought” (WAPO).

It’s not about Joe Biden, or even Hunter.  This is simply a bad repeat of the Benghazi hearings, $7.8 millions of American tax money spent to drag Hillary Clinton down.  It worked in for 2016, maybe it will work again in 2024.  It’s about “softening the ground” so that Donald Trump can have a chance to avoid jail, and win back the Presidency.  

And the scary part is, right or wrong,  it worked in 2016.  Here we go again, because when it comes to winning the Presidency; we always have time for that.

Zero Based Budget

I worked for the Jimmy Carter Campaign in 1976, and while my lowly post as a “Field Coordinator” in Southwestern Ohio didn’t put me beside the candidate, I did get to meet him, and spend some time with his family.  Carter was a practical guy, a product of his Annapolis nuclear engineering degree.  And he had practical ideas for government.  One was that agencies ought to be able to justify their budget, top to bottom, every year.  “Zero Based Budgeting” centered on the idea that big, bureaucratic agencies never wanted to cut, just add.  Defending their core functions every year would “lean them out”, and save government money.

To be clear:  Carter was not in favor of “deconstructing the administrative state” (a Steve Bannon term from the Trump Administration). But he recognized that agencies and their Congressional backers often gained bureaucratic momentum beyond their original functions.  And that’s where the new Democratic President and his “Georgia Mafia” ran into trouble.  They were definitely Washington “outsiders”, and a Democratic Congress wasn’t interested in cutting their own pet projects.  To quote Hamilton the Musical, when it came to cutting the budget, “(He) don’t have the votes, ha, ha, ha…”.  

Democrat v Democrat

Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate, and had done so for over twenty years.  Those legislators were incredibly vested in the status quo.  So even though the titular head of the Party was President Carter, Speaker Tip O’Neil and Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd weren’t ceding any power to him.  And that made the four years of Carter’s Administration frustrating, especially for the Democrats who supported him, and the American people who were hoping for something different.

Like today, there were issues in the Middle East.  But those issues, and America’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil, caused energy prices to rocket up.  The cost of a gallon of gas more than doubled from $.59 in 1976, to $1.19 in 1980.  That helped drive the inflation rate, which went from around 5%  to over 13% in the same time period.   

Carter worked to not only control energy prices, but to move America away from fossil fuel use.  He established the Energy Department to consolidated energy policy, lowered the speed limits to 55 MPH, and urged Americans to conserve.  He even gave a speech from the White House wearing what we would call today a “Mr. Rodgers” sweater, urging the Nation to keep the thermostat down and dress warmer.

America’s Problem

In July of 1979, Carter spoke to the Nation.  He saw America’s problems as much greater than just rising prices.  Carter defined the problem as:

The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.

The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.

He then listed the specific issues that were bringing Americans “down”:

• Lost faith in the government, and in citizens ability to govern
•  “worship” of self-indulgence and consumption.
• “Human identity, (is) no longer defined by what one does, but what one owns.”
• Belief that the next five years will be worse than the last five.
• Two-thirds of Americans don’t vote
• Work productivity dropping
• Savings below all others in the Western World.
• Disrespect for government, churches, schools, the news media.

What Washington Can Do

And for Americans looking to the Federal government to improve this – here’s what Carter said:

What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends.

Often you see paralysis and stagnation and drift. You don’t like it, and neither do I. What can we do?

The President then went on to offer a series of tough changes, to improve our energy situation, and to rebuild confidence in America’s institutions.  By telling Americans the “truth”, he wanted to galvanize them towards a common goal. 

Politics

From a political standpoint it was a risky speech.  Some commentators dubbed it the “malaise speech”, though Carter never used the term.  It might have worked, and Carter might have made the great strides in energy and environmental changes he was looking for.  But four months later, fifty Americans were taken hostage in Iran, and Carter’s inability to get them released over the next year cost him the Presidency.   Though today it seems Ronald Reagan’s victory was inevitable, at the time the outcome was unclear up until the last few days before the election.

There are a lot of similarities between America of the 1970’s and America today.  We too have lost confidence in the government to solve problems.  We look at Congress, still “…twisted and pulled by hundreds of powerful and well-funded special interests.”  Even Carter’s term, “fair and balanced”, was co-opted by Fox News.  But there are two significant differences between Democrats Jimmy Carter in 1979, and Joe Biden in 2023.  

Today’s America

First of all, Biden was never a Washington outsider.  He knows how to get things done, and has a stack of successful legislative programs to show for it, that are helping America.  Drive anywhere; the barrels are on the roads, the bridges are going up, and the factories are blooming in the fields like corn stalks, “knee-high by the Fourth of July”.  Unlike the soaring figures of the seventies, Biden has gotten inflation under control.  Gas prices are down by over a dollar since the peak in 2022.  All indicators are that he will “land the economy” after the economic disruption of the Covid pandemic.  

Biden is trying to balance the international affairs that afflict our time.   Russia’s leader is right where Biden wants him; bogged down and 100% committed to a failed attempt to takeover Ukraine.  And Biden is pressuring Israel to change their scorched earth strategy in Gaza, pressure that will ultimately be effective because Israel, frankly, has nowhere else to turn for support.

And second, to paraphrase Senator Lloyd Bentsen, “Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan”.  America knows exactly what we’ll get from a second Trump Administration.  No matter how low the MAGA world is able to drag Biden’s name, they can’t get him as low as Trump already has placed himself.

It’s not about who wins in 2024.  The question is what will America do to regain its confidence in itself,  America’s mission, and America’s destiny as the greatest Democracy in the world?  That’s not an issue that Joe Biden may be able to solve.  Ultimately, it up to all of us, Americans as a whole:  to find a shared identity, a shared mission, to  take us into the future.

This is another in the “Sunday Story” Series on Our America.  There’s just a few local politics here, but mostly a story of a “little” city called:   Pataskala.

Christmas

Jenn and I were out Christmas “prepping” the other day.  There’s a difference between Christmas “shopping”, that is, buying presents, and Christmas “prepping”.  The “prepping” is all of the wrapping paper, ribbons, packing boxes, tape and other supplies that go into our long distance Christmas this year.  So we were getting “prepped” for an evening of wrapping; trying to re-package all of those Amazon, Fed-Ex and UPS boxes that arrived on our front porch at literally all hours in the past two weeks.  The dogs have had a field day with that – no one gets by un-noticed, even the 4 am stealth Amazon delivery guy. We  listened to the Nat King Cole and James Taylor Christmas albums, and told stories of “prepping” Christmas’s of yore.  A little red wine helped.

While we were driving around gathering supplies, I turned down a main county road here in Pataskala.  Mink Street (or Mink Road, or Wagram Road, or County Road 41; it goes by all four) was once a country road, with farm fields on all sides.  But it’s a connector from State Route 40 (the National Road, or Main Street, Columbus) to State Route 16 (Broad Street, Columbus), and it was always a busier-than-usual route. But now things have really changed.

Roundabouts

First, it is the “home” to the first roundabout in the city of Pataskala.  That’s right, the old and dangerous intersection of Mink and Refugee (that’s Refugee in Licking County, not Refugee in Fairfield and Franklin Counties – a totally different road) now has a “newfangled” roundabout.  It slows the traffic on Mink quite a bit, but it makes it possible to actually get onto Mink from Refugee without getting slammed by someone going sixty miles-an-hour on an “unmarked” country road.  Not that Mink’s really unmarked – to the chagrin of the locals, it was marked at 35 miles-per-hour a few years ago.  But that was widely ignored, and the city wisely moved it to the 45 MPH speed limit it has now.  

All of that traffic control wasn’t just a matter of the “greater Pataskala” population growth, though.  You see, County Road 41 just “ain’t” in the country anymore.  What was fire Station #3,  farms, a boat storage place, and a nice residential sub-division at the south end, is now wall-to-wall industry.   And by industry, I mean big, giant footprint, semi-traffic and twenty-four hour action, industry.

Cities and Townships

Our local governments divide Mink Street.  North of the new roundabout is the City of Pataskala, south is Etna Township.  And both Pataskala and Etna are part of the huge industrial boom taking place on the outskirts of Columbus, beyond the “outer-belt”.   What in the “old” days we would call warehouses, have been rechristened as “distribution centers”.  And Etna has a bunch of them, from Fed-Ex and Kohls to several in the Ascena complex.  But the biggest ones of all have the familiar Amazon label on the side.  

So there’s the original Amazon distribution center, a huge single building built between the National Road and Interstate 70, titled “CMH 1”.  And like any booming company, that initial complex birthed several only slightly smaller buildings (I think a total of six) with two spreading up Mink Street.  In fact, those are the buildings where the ubiquitous little blue delivery vans come from.  They line up everywhere, at the roundabout, intersections, and gas pumps in the Etna/Pataskala area.  Those blue vans even create a local gas price “bubble”, the old supply and demand story.  They create a lot of demand, raising the price a few cents a gallon here in our area.   Just driving west into Reynoldsburg usually drops the cost.

Stalks of Concrete

And it’s not just Amazon.  I can’t even tell you who owns the other giant “distribution centers” to the north on Mink, but they go up faster than corn grew in those fields just a couple of years ago. The pre-fabricated walls just pop up, days after the bulldozers and cement trucks move on, and soon there’s another nearly mile long building, with the requisite drainage pond alongside.  The migrating ducks and geese are happy with the idea, as long as they don’t get in the way of the twenty-four/seven semi-trucks, or those little blue vans.

And it’s not just moving product either.  No matter where you stand politically, we all realized after Covid that too much of the “important stuff” used by Americans was made in China.  So “we” are “onshoring” industries like making computer chips (Intel is building about five miles north at the other end of Mink Steet).  The newest is manufacturing solar panels, right here in “River City” (that’s a reference to the musical The Music Man, a show about the clash between the “country” and the “city”).   One of the first industrial solar panel manufacturing plants in the United States is set to open in January, just down Refugee road from the new roundabout (Newark Advocate).

On-Shoring

There’s some controversy over that too.  Solar panel manufacturing is dominated by the Chinese, and a Chinese company has a financial stake in the American company building here in Pataskala.  Who would have thought – the words “Chinese Communist Party” were actually uttered in a Pataskala City Council debate, as if the “People’s Liberation Army” were opening a training facility on the “Red Chip” Parkway, the next road east from Mink Steet.   

Pataskala is now a “center” of US “onshoring”.  Soon the next industrial solar panels will say “Proudly Made in Pataskala”, instead of Wuhan or Qingdao.  That’s a good thing.

And guess who just bought the land between the Red Chip Parkway and Mink Street, north of Refugee?  Here in the “Silicon Valley” of the Midwest, the folks in Pataskala are welcoming Microsoft to their new 300 acre site (Dispatch).   The computer company isn’t revealing its plans for the farm fields and horse stables yet; but you can bet it won’t be a Bill Gates’s horse farm.

Looking for a job?  Pataskala is definitely the place.  The “entry level” positions at Kroger’s and McDonalds are filled with high school kids.  For fulltime work, there’s thousands of jobs available within the confines of the City of Pataskala and the Township of Etna.  Just don’t get stuck having to rent or buy here.  The housing price “bubble”, just like the gas, is pressing up.  As always, people like to live near where they work.

And if you’re looking for a nice place, “out in the country”, with quiet lanes and bucolic scenes, it’s probably not here in Pataskala, a “Right to Farm” community (it says so, right on the city boundary signs).  We are on the cutting edge of American industry.  But we “ain’t” out in the country anymore.

PS – the original version of this essay mistakenly referenced the musical “Oklahoma”, instead of “The Music Man”. Shirley Jones, of “the Partridge Family” fame was in the film versions of both – which is, I guess, why I made the mistake!!!

The Sunday Story Series

• 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
• 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
• 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

World Role

Yesterday, the US Senate got stuck.  They can’t pass funding for Israel’s battle against Hamas, they can’t pass funding for Ukraine’s battle against Russia, and they can’t agree on what to do about the US Southern Border.  But there’s still a glimmer of hope:  the White House is open to discussions about the Border, the real sticking point. Republicans want to “seal” the border, preventing any immigration and keeping thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of migrants trapped in Mexico.  Democrats won’t go for that; and who knows what the extremists in the House want.

 While everyone, even Democrats, even the President, acknowledges there’s a serious problem at the Southern Border; it’s one that’s incredibly difficult to “fix”.  There are short-term solutions (think Texas’s barbed-wire river buoys) that don’t touch the real problem: why are the migrants coming.  Until we solve what’s going on in Central America, what’s driving folks to risk the hazardous jungle “passage” through the Darian Gap, they are going to keep coming. And we understand why:  like the Pilgrims, they seek a better life in America.

Easy Solution

I think Democrats and Republicans can agree on funding Israel, with “strings attached”.  I think Democrats and Republicans can agree on funding Ukraine.  It’s really just “good business”.  The US is spending money to support the Ukrainians, and that’s depleted the military force levels of Russia by 50%.  That’s half of what Russia had before Putin’s ill-fated adventure in Ukraine, and he’s doubled-down on the attack.  It’s a very “Kissingerian” equation (to honor the recently deceased advisor).  For a relatively small investment, the United States is changing the world military balance.  And the real “price” of that change is paid for in the willing loss of Ukrainian blood, not American. 

So what is the “state” of the Union right now?   We have a government that seems unable to chart any path forward.  What a month ago was a “no-brainer”, funding Israel and Ukraine, now is held hostage to the US border.  And all of the “voices” out there, particularly the Republican candidates for President, are beating their message home:  “Something’s WRONG WITH AMERICA – AND IT’S BIDEN’S FAULT”.  

Biden’s Fault

They have the microphone, the “Bully Pulpit”.  There is no contest on the Democratic side (sorry Congressman Phillips) and so there is no voice to balance out that “noise”.  And the President is consumed with governing.  I’m not saying that’s a “bad” thing; there’s a lot of governing to be done.  And clearly the House, and now the Senate, aren’t up to the task.

I track the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the best known measure of the health of the American stock markets.  Yesterday (12/6/23) the market closed over 36,000; nearing record highs.  The unemployment rate is 3.9%, a little up from the past few months.  And, oddly, that’s a good thing.  It means that the post-covid economy is slowing just a bit, and we see that in the current annual inflation rate, 3.24%, down from 3.7% last year and 7.75% the year before.   

The average US salary is almost $60,000, an increase of almost $14000 since Biden became President. Local gas here in Pataskala is under $3.00, down from the almost $5.00 of the post-Covid high.  Watch the Republican debate, and you’ll hear how “BAD” things are.  And listen to the Republican media, and you’ll hear how “dangerous” our country is (of course you need to buy a gun to protect yourself).  But as our population has increased in the past three decades, the number of violent crimes (and crimes per 100,000) is at a thirty-year low (Statista).

Lying Eyes

So, look around America.  How are we doing?  Believe your “lying eyes”, in spite of what the “noise” on debates and right-wing media demands.  The US is on the “up-swing”, and as much as Americans “bitch and moan” about it, most have figured this out.  “Things must be ‘terrible’ for someone else, because it’s not so bad here”.  

We can’t fail in our obligation to support Israel.  But we also have the obligation to restrain the Israeli government from the extreme excesses we are seeing in Gaza.  Hamas must be destroyed, but the civilian cost must be considered.  It’s the “price” Israel needs to pay for being a civilized nation, battling the forces of terrorism.  Israel cannot just become another terrorist force.

We can’t fail in our obligation to support Ukraine.  I am a child of the Vietnam War era, I grew up with the invalidated “domino theory”.  But President Zelenskyy is right.  Ukraine can stop Russia, or some other country, like Poland, or Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, all NATO Nations, will have to.  The war to fight against Putin’s dream of hegemony is already on:  it’s in Ukraine.   And we’re already winning, so let’s finish it there.

And we can’t fail to work towards a solution to the border crisis.  That should involve recognizing that the US must find a way to legalize 12 million residents who are essential to our economy and our communities. I ain’t holding my breath for that.  But what Americans need to do is recognize that the doomsayers are wrong, that  while we have issues and concerns, we also have opportunities to make the future brighter.  

We’re on the upswing – figure it out.

Progressivism

I stepped back into a US History classroom last week. After a career in History classes, it was refreshing to be in a room where I had some expertise.  While I enjoy substitute teaching, even in Pre-Calculus and Physics; it’s not like I can help the students out much in those classes.  Google Classroom is really “in charge”.  But US History: yes, I still know “my stuff”.  

The topic of the day was the “Progressive Movement”,  the era of the late 1890’s into the early 20^th Century.  For those who might be a little rusty, Progressives were able to pass four US Constitutional Amendments: 

• The graduated income tax (16),
• Direct election of US Senators (17),
• Ban the sale of alcohol in the US (18), and
• Grant women the right to vote (19).  

If that doesn’t jog your memory, perhaps you remember President Teddy Roosevelt (and even more, Ohio’s own Williams Howard Taft) “busting” the trusts, the massive business monopolies that controlled American commerce. 

The People

The Progressives also made same serious changes at the state level.  The state legislatures were dominated by corporate interests. (Think $60 million and the First Energy Corporation…oh wait, that was a couple of years ago). Progressives developed a “bypass” plan.  Initiative and Referendum allowed the people of a state to directly vote on State Constitutional amendments or laws. (Initiative is when the people initiate the vote, referendum is when the people either ratify or reject a proposal of the state legislature).   Politically, “the people’s vote” gave politicians “cover” from their financial backers – “I didn’t vote for it, but the people did!!”

And the perfect example of initiative is the people passing a law that the state legislature refused to touch.  It’s the marijuana initiative passed in Ohio last month.

The marijuana initiative passed with 57% of the popular vote.  And though it was on the ballot in November of 2023, there was a huge turnout. 48% of registered voters, voted, just slightly less than a normal “off-even-year” election of around 50%. (Presidential election years run around 70% turnout).  So there was a serious margin of victory, and a serious number of votes.  To put it simply, over 2 million Ohioans wanted the initiative to pass.

The Initiative

And what did the initiative say? 

Issue 2 legalized and provided for the regulation of recreational marijuana for adults aged 21 and above, including cultivation, processing, sale, purchase, possession, and home growth. Under the initiative, adults are allowed to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and up to 15 grams of marijuana concentrates. Additionally, individuals are allowed to cultivate up to six marijuana plants at home, while households can cultivate up to 12 plants collectively. 

The Division of Cannabis Control, created under the initiative, is responsible for regulating and licensing marijuana operators and facilities and is responsible for overseeing the compliance and standardization of marijuana businesses and production in Ohio. Licensing for distributing facilities was expected to be complete around Fall 2024. 

Under Issue 2, marijuana sales were set to be taxed at 10%. The revenue generated from this tax was set to be directed toward establishing a cannabis social equity and jobs program, designed to provide financial support and assistance for license applications to individuals who have been disproportionately affected by past marijuana-related law enforcement (Ballotpedia).

Like It or Not

Look, you can like the new marijuana law, or not.  You can think that marijuana is already endemic in our society, and might as well be legal, or you can think it’s just another “evil” to add to alcohol – a bad idea.  But the people of the State of Ohio have spoken – in large numbers.  No one “snuck” marijuana legalization under the table.  The new “law” is scheduled to go into effect on December 7^th, (that’s the day after tomorrow).   And, as we live in a democracy, where we respect the “voice of the people”, it’s a “done deal”; right?

The words “respect” and “voice of the people” don’t resonate with the Legislature of the State of Ohio.   Here’s the “modifications” the Republicans in the State Senate are proposing.

Full disclosure:  while the Senate wants to make these changes to “the will of the people”, the State House isn’t so gung-ho about it.  And while the Governor is clearly on the side of “modifying” the initiative as passed, he isn’t willing to go so far either.  But the Senate proposal begs the question:  what’s the political upside of going in the face of more than 2 million Ohioans?

In Their Face

What are the “powers that be” in the State of Ohio, that seem to be even more powerful than 2 million voters making their will clear?   First, it’s the right-wing, and often Christian fundamentalists of the state.  While they don’t hold a majority, they do represent the vast majority of the Republican voter base, the voters in the political primaries.  And this same legislature has gerrymandered the state to the extent that a state that voted less than 55% Republican in 2020 has a legislature that’s more than 66% Republican.  

In short, Republicans are more worried about winning their primary, than the general election that follows it.  And primary elections are won in the base.  Those legislators aren’t worried about what the state “thinks”, but they are worried about getting “primaried to the right”.  So they are perfectly willing to “buck” a statewide decision; their carefully curated districts don’t include many of “those” folks.

Second, there’s a powerful beer, wine, and liquor lobby,  donating millions of dollars to Ohio legislators.  They’re worried about the impact of legalized marijuana on their own product sales, though, limited studies show it’s actually a reverse effect.  Legalization seems to increase local alcohol sales (Medical Express). (And probably the sale of brownies and potato chips as well).

These Senators agree with former Senator and Presidential candidate Republican Rick Santorum. He said:  

“Thank goodness that most of the states in this country don’t allow you to put everything on the ballot, because pure democracies are not the way to run a country,” Santorum said Tuesday night on Newsmax (The Hill).

Pure Democracy – well certainly the Ohio Senate is making their feelings clear about that.  Democracy must be the enemy of – what – partisan political power?

That’s certainly what the Progressives thought, more than a century ago.

75 Years of War

When I was sophomore in college, back in 1975, I wrote a long paper for my history class.  The class was called “The Development of the Modern Middle East”, and our final paper addressed how peace could be achieved.  At the time, most of the violence in the Middle East was nation against nation.  The four wars, in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973; saw Israel fighting Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, and their backers, Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf States.   By 1975, the current borders were set.  The original borders of Israel, drawn by the United Nations from the British Palestine mandate in 1948 were almost indefensible.  By 1975, Israel occupied the “high ground”,  the Golan Heights to the North (Syrian and Lebanese) and the West Bank of the Jordan River to the east (Jordanian).

Oh Jerusalem!

In 1975, I thought the key was Jerusalem, a Holy City to three religions.  Israel claimed Jerusalem as the center, the core of the Jewish state.  Jerusalem is the home of the Temple of David, the center of historic Judaism.  Israel could see no path forward without control of the City.  But Jerusalem was also just as important to Muslims.  It was from that same Temple Mount that Mohammad ascended to Heaven.  

And Christianity was just as vested in the fate of Jerusalem.  It was in Jerusalem that the critical events of Christianity took place; the final betrayal of Christ, his trial, execution, and resurrection. Jerusalem was the target of the Christian Crusades of the Middle Ages, hoping to wrest control from Islamic forces.  

My thought, naively, was to internationalize the “Holy Part” of Jerusalem.  What I didn’t realize at the time, was the centrality of the Holy City to Israel;  there was no way they were giving up; the hard-won spoils of four wars.   Passover and Yom Kippur are the “High Holy Days” of Judaism; Jews throughout the world  for millennia end the final supper with the prayer: “L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim…” in English, “Next Year in Jerusalem…”

Terrorism

It wasn’t that I ignored the problem of “terrorism”.  After all, it was only three years after the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, when Palestinian terrorists kidnapping twelve Israeli athletes, resulting in their deaths. The “Palestinian Problem” was difficult, but in 1975 I saw the resolution in assimilation:  Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria should assimilate the refugees, rather than keep them trapped in refugee camps.  When they became part of those Arab nations, then they would no longer be incubators for terrorist violence.

In spite of a semester steeped in the Middle Eastern history, I didn’t get it.  Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria didn’t want the refugees.  The camps represented the “cause celeb” to continue war against Israel, and the Palestinians were a political force unto themselves.  Jordan tried to assimilate them, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization led a revolt against the Jordanian King in 1970.   The revolt failed, and Jordan set the Palestinians aside in the West Bank, physically separated from the Kingdom.  (Not much has changed – Egypt isn’t opening its border with Gaza today for the same reason – Hamas is just as much a threat to the Egyptian government as it is to the Israeli government). 

Incubators

It’s been almost fifty years since I wrote that paper.  The refugee camps remained incubators, but the difference is that fifty years has made the grievances of the 1970’s into almost religion of itself.  And the “camps” aren’t necessarily the tent cities of the original Palestinian “removal”, Gaza City with apartment blocks, stores and hospitals, is one giant refugee camp.  

Palestinians and Israelis faced a dilemma in the 21^st Century.  Israel cannot “assimilate” the Palestinians living in Israeli controlled territory either, without losing the founding nature of the Nation.  There are 4.5 million Palestinians and a little over 9 million Israelis.  Where they all to be in one democratic nation, the nature of Israel as a Jewish homeland would be threatened.  So in the past decades, there has been the “two state solution”, a homeland from the Palestinians, and a homeland for the Jews.  The “State of Palestine” would consist of two separate geographic areas, divided by Israel in the middle; the West Bank and Gaza. 

Occupation

There are answers to that geographic separation (some outlandish).  One  includes building a “tunnel” between the two sections, allowing free passage from Gaza to the West Bank (Daily Hampshire Gazette).  But, in the early 2000’s, the Israeli government made a different  decision.  Faced with constant upheaval and terrorist threats from the occupied territories, they determined to crack down.  They abandoned the “two state solution”.  What was a temporary occupation waiting for resolution, became a permanent occupying force militarily controlling a “subservient” population.  In short, Israel refused to “negotiate with terrorists”, and made themselves a permanent terrorist target.

None of which excuses terrorism, especially the assault on Israeli civilians of October 7^th.  But it doesn’t excuse the seemingly wanton destruction of Gaza by the Israelis either.  No matter that the death toll numbers are subject to Hamas propaganda, certainly Israel’s actions are killing a lot more than just Hamas terrorists (5000 fighters are estimated dead, about 20% of the total of Hamas Force – Reuters).  And the consequence of Israel’s onslaught, will be decades more of terrorist religious fervor.  It’s a short term solution to a long term problem.  For a nation like Israel suffering 1200 dead in the October 7^th attack, retribution might be satisfying, and necessary.  But for the Palestinians who survive, it will create an even greater reason to lay down their lives for “the Cause”.  

That’s no good for either side.

Hamas/Israel War

• There is No Peace                   12/4/23
• Israel, Democrats, and 2024   11/19/23
• Zero State Solution                 11/8/23
• Credible Sources                     10/31/23
• Fog of War                              10/20/23
• Truth of the Matter                10/17/23
• Updates and Sadness             10/12/23
• Deserve to Die                         10/10/23

Left Hanging

Last Sunday, I left a dog story “hanging” (A Tale of Turkey and Dogs).  I started the tale of Bruno, the Mastiff wandering a mobile home park thirty minutes south of here.  He’s been “out” for almost a year.  No one really knows how he turned up at the Park. Did a resident move out and leave him, or did someone drop him off at the front gate, or did he just wander onto the place?  Only Bruno could tell that part of the story, and he’s not talking.

But he did find himself in a good place.  While he spent last winter finding shelter under empty mobile homes, he also found people who would help him out with food.  In fact, even the mailman became attached to the wandering boy.  Bruno wouldn’t allow petting, and shied away from “go for a ride”, but he would take a treat, right from his hand.

Another resident, who lives towards the back of the Park, fed Bruno since last February.  They bonded.  She could pet him, and he’d follow her around. They spent the summer playing with toys in an open field.  And he would go up on her porch. But he still wouldn’t go inside, even in the worst weather.  And when she tried to put a leash on him, he wriggled out and disappeared for two days.  But he came back.  Unfortunately, the resident is terminally ill.  So she and the mailman reached out to our group, Lost Pet Recovery:  what could we do to help Bruno?  She wanted to be sure he’s safe, with someone to take care of him.

Trapper’s Instinct

My wife Jenn is a “trapper”.  She is able to think “with” the dog.  It’s not about making him do anything, the rule is, “It’s all on the dog’s terms”.  But she tried to convince Bruno to go into a trap.  There’s a foster home waiting for him, if only Bruno would “come in”.  It excruciating:  as the winter sets in, and the temperature dropped into the teens, we’d drive off watching Bruno huddled on the grass by the mobile home, shivering with the cold.  A warm home, with food and friends and other dogs, is only a couple of steps away. But he wouldn’t go in.  

He’s “trap smart”; especially since the local dog warden already tried three times.  And he even ignored our much larger trap, with the “magic” McDonald’s double cheeseburgers as bait.  So Jenn tried a different kind, a panel trap, one that looks like a kennel fence instead of a wire crate.  And Bruno slowly eased into it, stepping farther into the doorway each time.  Dinner time was 9:30 pm, so Jenn spent almost two weeks, driving over to the Park, and leaving paper plates with a mix of Kroger roast “savory” chicken and dog food, four plates staggered to draw Bruno farther into the trap.   On Thanksgiving night, there was even a portion of our hickory smoked turkey from our table.

Dancing in the Back

It took more than a week.  Bruno was waiting at 9:30 pm, right at the corner of the mobile home.  If Jenn was a couple of minutes late, and he’d give her “the look” – where have you been?  He allowed Jenn to get close to him, in fact, she sat on the ground and Bruno ate chicken from her hand.  In his mind, Jenn was “The Chicken lady”.  But Bruno always kept an eye on the other hand, the one without the chicken:  “No funny business, Chicken Lady!!!”.  And each night, he went a little farther into the panel trap.  We could see him on the trail camera, dark night shots of the dog with first his front paws over the transom, then four paws, then stretching his whole body forward to get to the next plate.

And finally, in the middle of the night on Tuesday; he was all the way in the back of the trap, getting the prized fourth plate with the biggest portion of dog food and chicken. He danced with joy.   We did too, he was where we needed him.  Thank goodness: the Park Management didn’t like Bruno, and they didn’t like the trap and camera either.  We had a deadline – get him by Friday, or get out.

Technical Glitch

Wednesday night we set the trap.  Bruno stood and watched Jenn lay the plates out, a pathway to the “pot of gold” at the back.  He even watched Jenn hook up the electronics, a laser light that when broken, de-activated an electro-magnet that held the door open.  It sounds high-tech, and it kind-of is:  like a garage door version of the famous Tom Cruise scene with laser beams in Mission Impossible.  A lawn mower battery powered the system.

And Wednesday Bruno went all the way back – and —  comfortably ate.  The system didn’t work.  As John Wayne would say: “My fault, your fault, nobody’s fault…”.   The door didn’t close.  Bruno was very pleased with the “pot of gold”.  Jenn, and LPR Director Don, were disappointed:  try again Thursday.

It was almost three weeks since LPR got on the case, more than two weeks with the panel trap.  And, unlike most of the “cases” we work on, we not only had Bruno in sight, but in contact, day after day.  We talked to him, and watched him play, and dance, and run around on the warm nights. He looked happy.  But he shivered so much from the cold as the temperatures dropped.  

There weren’t many good alternatives if the panel trap failed.   “Knock-out darts” are hazardous.  They can hurt the dog if they hit in the wrong place, the dog can react badly to the drugs, but most of all, the drug takes minutes to take effect.  Meanwhile the dog’s been “shot”, and he’s running.  So after the dart hits there’s a frantic search – can we find where the dog is hiding, where he passed out?  The window is only a couple of hours.  

Deadline

Thursday was the last night.  We showed up at 9:34, and, unlike other nights, Bruno wasn’t around.  Jenn put the plates in and set the trap.  She nervously came back to the truck to wait. Already something was different – no Bruno waiting for his “handout”.  But it only took a few minutes, and Bruno was IN, all the way back!!   The door still didn’t close.  Bruno finished up the “prize” and wandered out to find what other “goodies” might be around.  Don texted – well, not a nice acronym, and Jenn determined that we’d reset and try again.  The “high tech” system got the ultimate fix – a system restart, pull the plug, then power it all back up.  

This time, the prize was a plate of Vienna Sausages.  And this time, before Jenn could even it back to our truck, the trap door slammed shut.  There were four startled barks, and the sound of the panel trap shaking furiously as Bruno tried to force the door.  But then, the “Chicken Lady” was there, saying “NO-NO-NO-NO”.  Bruno stood still, terrified, but trusting enough to stop trying to wreck the place. 

Then he laid down, eyes glazed.  He was drooling, almost frozen with fear.  Jenn continued to talk to him, and Don came to figure out how to get him out.  It wasn’t like a regular trap, where we’d just pick the whole thing up and transport trap and dog to a closed environment.  And it was clear Bruno wasn’t going to come out on a leash.  Don had us place a regular trap up against the panel door, then went into the enclosure to coax Bruno out.  As soon as he felt the lead go around his neck, Bruno made a mad dash,  out the door, and straight into the trap.  We could now transport him to his new home at the foster.

Safe and Warm

But Bruno still didn’t unfreeze, didn’t settle, until the lady in the mobile home came out.  He heard her voice, felt he hand; and immediately relaxed.  She cried a little bit, but he knew that if she trusted us, he could as well.  

Bruno’s at the foster home now.  He’s met the foster parents, hung out on the couch, had a bath and slept beside his new foster brother.  He’s still a huge flight risk, the fosters have to watch every door.  But he’s warm, and fed, and seems happy to adjust to a new life as a “house” dog.  

Oh, and the lady from the Park made sure he has his favorite toys. 

 

If you’d like to donate to our group, Lost Pet Recovery – here’s the link – hit the Donate button:

            Facebook – Lost Pet Recovery

Or if you’d like to send a check –  

• Lost Pet Recovery
• PO Box 16383
• Columbus, OH  43216

Sunday Stories

• 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
• 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
• 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

Model Red

I live in Ohio, the supposedly “model Red” state.  We are Republican. There’s a “super-majority” in the state legislature GOP, and all of the elected state officials are Republican as well.  There’s a majority of Republicans on the “non-partisan” State Supreme Court (four to three). That includes the son of the current Republican Governor.   Democratic US Senator Sherrod Brown stands as the sole elected state-wide Democrat.

Not surprisingly, in a state that voted 53% for Trump in 2020, the majority of the Congressional seats are held by Republicans.  But in a state where 45% voted for Biden in 2020, only five (33%) of the fifteen Congressional seats are held by Democrats.  That’s the results of extreme Gerrymandering by the Republican legislature, the Republican Governor and the Republican Secretary of State; as ratified by the Republican State Supreme Court. It’s all in spite of a state Constitutional Amendment, passed in 2018 with 75% approval, restraining the legislature from Gerrymandering.

It Takes Two

In fact, the Republicans are so “in charge” in Ohio, that the House Republicans (with 66 seats) have split into two factions.  One, the “normal” Republicans (take over the State Board of Education types), aligned with minority Democrats (all 32 of them, less than 33%) for legislative control. Meanwhile the other “crazies” faction (anti Trans, DEI, CRT, LGBTQ and other alphabet things) represent a majority of their Party.  

There’s an old phrase; “it takes two to tango”.    Well, it takes two to check and balance a legislature, and a state executive branch as well.  But Ohio, the “model Red” state really is a flawed model of unchecked partisan governance.  Here’s two recent examples.  This month, two exciting state-wide initiatives which passed with 57% majorities.  Issue One, guarantees women the right to determine their own health care, including getting abortions.  It reinstates the “rules” of the Roe v Wade US Supreme Court decision.

New Issues, Old Tactics

Immediately after the passage of Issue One, the “crazies” wing of the Republican Party vowed to maintain Ohio’s strict abortion laws. That included the six-week limit which virtually banned abortions.  “Cooler” Republican heads seems to have prevailed. But even they are talking about the need for “compromise” with the brand-new Constitutional Amendment.  For those who thought that “black letter law” enshrined in the State Constitution would be the final word, the fight isn’t over.  And with a State Supreme Court that disemboweled the anti-gerrymandering re-districting amendment, nothing in the Constitution may be sacred.  A battle was won on Issue One, but the “war” for women’s health rights will go on.

And Issue Two was the proposed law to legalize recreational marijuana.  Ohio already had a pretty lax “medical marijuana” law:  for $200 almost anyone could get an online medical marijuana card.  But as of December 7^th, everyone over twenty-one will be allowed to purchase “weed”.   The wily Republicans in the legislature probably will “accept” the legalization in the newly passed law.  What they want to control is the immense tax monies to be divided.  Ohioans will get to “smoke-up”. But where the tax money goes; regular state sales tax plus a 10% state “fee”; that’s a different matter.

Show Me the Money

And those are only two recent examples of Republican legal “arrogance”.  The former Republican Speaker of the House, Larry Householder, took a $60 MILLION bribe from First Energy Corporation. He made sure the Legislature passed (and the Governor signed) a law guaranteeing billions of state dollars to cover First Energy’s cost of aging Ohio nuclear plants.  Householder is now serving a twenty-year Federal sentence. But multiple other Ohio leaders, implicated in the bribe distribution, have skated free, so far. (The Lieutenant Governor, John Husted, and Governor DeWine were subpoenaed in a civil case).  

But the “cash cow” of the Ohio Republican Party is education.  In the past, even the chief of the National Association of Charter Schools called Ohio the “Wild West” of charter schooling (Cleveland).   The state freely provided money earmarked for public education to private charter schools.  The most egregious example was the online program ECOT (Education Center of Tomorrow), which generated huge payouts to its top executives, and misappropriate $117 million of Ohio education money.  ECOT went under, and the money was never returned to the State.

William Lager, the founder of ECOT, was a heavy contributor to Ohio Republicans with over $800,000 in donations  (OCEASF).   And he managed to personally distance himself from the financial collapse, maintaining his fourteen million dollar home in Florida. 

Help the Rich

Charter schools are still “a thing” here in Ohio, but the new “cash” is in the nearly unlimited school voucher program.  Republicans supposedly passed  school vouchers as a way for economically disadvantaged kids to escape from “failing public schools”.  The legislature made state funded education money “portable” for students.  Want to go to a private (or charter) school?  Just sign up, and over $8000 in state money goes to pay for private education (Cleveland).  

But the big “reveal” this week, is that the majority of the voucher money isn’t going to economically disadvantaged kids.  In fact, the majority is going to supplement kids already in private schools.  And with the “relaxation” of income restrictions, a large proportion of the almost $1 Billion appropriated for vouchers are going to families with greater than $100,000 annual incomes. (The state government appropriated $12.7 Billion for public K-12 education in 2022, so close to 8% is going to vouchers – Public Policy).   What was “advertised” as helping “disadvantaged kids” is really going to help voters more likely to vote the Republican way, at least as far as the legislature is concerned.

And the majority of private schools are religious.  Of course parents should have the right to send their child to a religious school. But should the State, with public tax money, pay for it?  As long as the private “owners” of the schools donate to Republican candidates, our current “Red Model” thinks Ohio should.

Here in Ohio it’s all about money – money into the hands of those who already have it, and money into the hands of Republican politicians.  If this were California, or New York or any other “high profile” state, it would be a national story.  But here in Ohio, the “model Red” state, it’s just business as usual.