Category: Uncategorized

Roundabout – the song by Yes, helped me cross mountains and rivers as I drove across the Eastern United States in the mid-1970’s.  The tape cassette went into the “custom” sound system of my 1967 Volkswagen Squareback (station wagon). The speakers were in boxes in the back – sitting on the hatch to the engine!

America

This is America.  It is a big, broad, and diverse country.  What you call a “pop”, others call a “soda”.  And then there’s the few regions, from Southern Ohio to Alabama, who just call all brands a “Coke” or even an “R-C”.  The Founding Fathers recognized the distances involved in trying to govern such a place.  They created layers of power:  from the Federal to State, to County to local.  Each had a role in determining what happened in our lives, from the big things like fighting wars, to the small things like determining how best to pick up the garbage.

This is America.  It is a Nation where everyone has their own opinion.  We know:  what the President should do, and how to solve the unemployment crisis, and which quarterback should be starting for the high school on Friday night.  Since Andrew Jackson moved into the White House, opening the building to be ransacked “in a friendly way” to celebrate his election, America believes in the common man.  Jackson thought “anyone” could run the government, so he might as well have HIS supporters doing it.  We call it the “spoils system”, to the victor goes the “spoils”.  And so Jackson reaped his reward.

This is America.  We used to have arguments in the town square.  Bring your own soap box to mount, and make you best pitch.  The discussion would eventually move from the square to the pub, and from reasoned points to emotional argument.  Alcohol has that effect on people.  But now we can have those “discussions” in a sterile, sanitary manner – by computer or IPhone.  And with that sterility comes a price – I can say anything I want if you can’t reach across the bar and punch me in the nose.  And once we close our IPads, we don’t stumble home arm-in-arm, leaning on each other for guidance. There’s no closure bringing us together again.

Elections Matter

This is America.  There are the biggest elections, every four years: the Presidential elections.  In our best year (last year) 67% of eligible citizens came out to vote.  Then there are the “mid-term” elections, every two years.  We elect Senators and Congressmen, and most of our state office holders.  But without the national attention of the Presidency, about 55% will show up to vote.  But this year, the “off-off-year”, the issues are local.  We can expect that 30%, less than a third of those eligible, will decide what is going to happen in our cities, townships and schools.

Here in Precinct 4-A of Pataskala, Ohio, we have lots of issues.  Our local coffee house wants to sell more than coffee – they have two “liquor license” issues on the ballot.  And a new place, opening up in “downtown Pataskala” wants to serve liquor too.  We’ve come a long way from the “dry” town I moved to in 1978.  I helped make it “wet” then, and I’m still voting for liquor licenses today.

We’ve got to “affirm” the Mayor (only one is running), and the Council (three for three positions), the County School Board (again, three for three).  The “hot” contest is the local Southwest Licking School board, five candidates for three seats (I will vote to retain the current Board members, Spindler, Vincent and Zeune).  

Taxes

Then there’s the taxes.  This is America, and the only taxes most Americans directly vote on are at the local level.  Those issues face an uphill battle.  No one wants more taxes; but everyone wants more services.  The County Parks want .375 mills.  One mill equals 1/1000 of a dollar tax on your property – I’ll save you the math.  The Parks would get 3.75 cents per $1000 of property value per year.  For me that ends up being $21.81 a year – well worth it.

The City of Pataskala wants one half of one percent of taxable income for the police.  We are a small city, paying our police on the low end of the scale.  We need to raise their salaries to retain them in our City, and we need more officers. I’m all for this tax.  

And then there’s the Library Tax that’s confusing folks.  The library district is the same as the school district – so some here in town think this is a school levy.  IT IS NOT.  The library wants 1 mill – that’ll cost me $29 a year more than I’m paying now.  Having a good library is important to any town.  So here’s no surprise – a retired teacher supports the library.

The Future

So those “little” elections don’t seem so important when compared to THE PRESIDENCY.  But these are also the ones that most impact our lives.  In the township just south of town, Etna, there is a hotly contested election for two township trustee seats.  Etna is a community in transition, with former farm fields now filled with giant warehouses.  It’s a big deal to that small community, and rumors of corruption abound.  I don’t have a say – I’m not a resident of Etna.  But I do hope that the fine folks of Etna show up and vote.  Their decisions impact our entire area, not just those within the boundaries of the township.

This is America. We get to make decisions about our lives. Here in Pataskala there used to be one stop light in the whole town.  Now, there’s more than a dozen just along Broad Street, the main road.  How much we grow, and how much we change is what we get to decide. There’s talk that maybe we need even more traffic control – maybe a traffic circle.  Or is it a rotary?  I call them “round-abouts”. Ain’t that America?

No Brainer

Unless you’re completely crazy getting vaccinated against COVID makes sense.  If your vaccinated, you have a better than 90% chance of NOT getting the virus.  And if you do happen to get a “break-through” nfection, you are near 100% likely to avoid hospitalization, and/or death.   That’s what I call a “no-brainer” decision.  

So “no-brainer” that I got vaccinated as soon as I was able to.  Two weeks ago I got my booster shot, making for a total of three doses of the Pfizer vaccine.  And if tomorrow, they say I need a booster a month – so be it.  I don’t care that the US Government is paying Pfizer a whole lot for those shots, it’s a whole lot cheaper than the alternatives – people missing work, people in hospitals, people dying.

Spanish Flu

In case you missed it – more people died in the United States from COVID since February of 2020, then died in the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918.  More people died of COVD than died for both sides in the Civil War.  The United States – supposedly the most “modern” nation in the world, is the world leader in COVID deaths (though numbers from China and Russia are highly suspect).  So we are not a great example of how to handle this disease.

And what should we “chalk up” that failure to?  Why are so many more Americans dead – more than any other country in the world?  Even though we had the vaccines first, even though we supposedly have the best medical care (if you can afford it) in the world, even though we are AMERICA – we failed.

Because COVID in general, and the vaccines in particular, are wrapped up in politics. 

Mandate 

A couple of weeks ago, President Biden mandated that all Federal employees be vaccinated. That means all businesses of over 100 workers who do business with the US Government, require vaccination.  Why – the more people who get vaccinated, the fewer people spread the virus – duh!!

Keeping people from spreading the virus will slow down viral mutation, the biggest risk of all.  So vaccine mandates make sense.

Yesterday, Greg Abbott, the Governor of Texas, ordered all COVID vaccine mandates banned in the Lone Star State.  The Washington Post reported the Governor’s statement:

Abbott called the Biden administration’s sweeping plan “yet another instance of federal overreach,” saying in his order that the administration is “bullying” private entities into vaccine mandates, hurting the livelihoods of Texans and threatening the state’s economic recovery from the pandemic.

Livelihood

So let’s take just a moment to dissect the Governor’s statement.  There are two points that only make sense within the Texas borders.  It’s hard to see how getting a vaccine would hurt the livelihoods of Texans.  In fact, the word “livelihood” comes from the word “live” – something they would have a much greater chance of doing with the vaccine.  And it’s not vaccination that hurts the economy of Texas or anywhere else, it’s the disease the vaccination would prevent. People don’t go to work, they don’t gather in groups, they don’t go to restaurant – because of the virus – not the vaccination.

And to add full insult to idiocy, the Governor himself not only is vaccinated, but encourages others to get vaccinated.  So this isn’t about the “economy” or “over-reach” or even the poor, poor Texans being “bullied” into saving their own lives.  Nope – it’s about politics, and Governor Abbott’s run for a second term for the Big Chair in Austin.

Bullied

It’s Greg Abbott of the novel abortion ban.  Greg Abbott, who signed into law a restrictive voting measure that will keep Democrats from easily voting.  Greg Abbott who is trying to build his own WALL. Abbott is a Trump–Clone, but he’s still being out “Trumped” by two opponents in the Republican Primary.  So the Governor HAS to make a statement, make a move to get even “righter” with the Trump/Republican Party.  

And how can he do that?  By opposing everything that Joe Biden is for – and particularly by being against mandatory vaccination.  It’s not about what’s good or bad for Texas, it’s about what the small percentage of Republicans who vote in a primary want.  So to pander to the less than 12% of Texas voters who likely will participate in the 2022 Republican Primary (Texas), Greg Abbott is willing to put Texans, and the nation, at greater risk.

Big companies headquartered in Texas are now caught between two governments.  Ultimately it will be the Courts who decide whether Federal supremacy outweighs state’s rights.  But because many of those companies impact the entire nation, Southwest Airlines being a major example, what happens in Texas matters.  

And if you want an example of bullying – you don’t have to look much farther than what’s going on in Austin.  Governor Abbott is being “bullied”, but not by Joe Biden.  He’s being bullied by the small minority that dominates the Republican Party.  And so is the rest of the nation.

He is following instead of leading.  It’s bad for Texas, and bad for America as well.

From the Washington Post:

Southwest Airlines has canceled at least 1,800 flights this weekend, citing “disruptive weather” and air traffic control issues, although federal regulators attribute weekend service disruptions to airline staffing and aircraft issues.

Slipping Away

Southwest Airlines is the “happy” Airlines. “Happy” stands for “hang around positive people Y’All. At least that’s what the flight attendant (not a Stewardess, not anymore – for sure) told us yesterday.  Getting the message across – wear a mask, stay in your seat, don’t try to pretend the middle seat is taken – is all done with a joke and a smile.  But this weekend Southwest really wasn’t very happy – either in the positive sense or the pleasant sense.  And I got to travel right through the middle of it.

It all started on Saturday, for me, Saturday night.  We were at the “wake” for my cousin in Florida, who died last month.  As we were busy toasting and cheering, two of our party got the message. Their flights home (upstate New York) were cancelled.  As they battled on the phone to get through to Southwest reservations, their chances of getting home on Sunday slipped away, to Monday, and ultimately Tuesday.  Lubricated by Jameson’s Irish Whiskey and red wine, the invective was flowing in Southwest’s direction.  But swearing didn’t get an earlier re-reservation.

Rumor Control

The rumor – and it was really rumor – was that bad weather on the East Coast, especially Jacksonville, was delaying and even cancelling Southwest flights.  There was also the hint that maybe the Jacksonville Air Traffic Control center was short workers.  And as the flights got cancelled, the passengers were rebooked on later flights, cascading through Sunday and on into the week.  The strange thing was that no other airline seemed to be affected by the bad weather, of the ATC slowdown, or anything else.  Whatever was happening, it was a Southwest-only affair.

I was on Southwest for Sunday as well, but my straight-thru flight from Tampa to Columbus held up through Saturday evening.  And additional rumors started to come out.  Southwest had instituted the national vaccine mandate. Pilots, already stressed by too many flights and not enough pilots, were having an unofficial work slowdown.  The pilots’ association loudly denied that rumor, but something was definitely going on.

Wake Up Call

I slept well Saturday night, but Sunday morning started early – a text alarm from my phone at 6:17am.  Southwest Texting – my flight to Columbus was cancelled, click on a link to re-book.  I started to roll back over, I’d earned at least another hour’s sleep at the wake; but then I started thinking.  Everyone on that flight got the text, and they are all re-booking right now.  How long did I want to stay in Florida???

I will give Southwest credit, even with eyes half shut, the re-booking page was clear.  Flying from Tampa to Columbus on Sunday?  Here’s the list of flights.  Many were “unavailable”, full or already cancelled.  In fact, on the list for Sunday there was only one option – one seat left from Tampa to Dallas, and Dallas to Columbus.  I clicked.

By 6:27 I was all re-booked.  Now instead of leaving at 4 pm,  I had a 1:20 flight.  So I got up, drove to pay the family offering to Starbucks for the morning caffeination,  and waited for the rest of the “crew” to get up and get the news.  Our beachfront breakfast, out on the sand with the waves lapping in from the Gulf of Mexico was out.  Instead, it was breakfast in the hotel lobby, along with the homeless folks who hung out nearby. 

The Chosen 

It wasn’t just the pilots who were delaying things.  When I made it to the Tampa airport gate, the plane was all-ready to go, as were the airport staff.  Missing were the attending crew for the plane.  They were arriving on a flight from Denver, which was running late.  So there was no-go in Tampa for a while, hoping that the Denver flight would arrive and we could get on.

We ended up being about forty-five minutes late getting out of Tampa, not a problem for me with a two hour layover in Dallas.  But the specter of cancellation hung over everyone.  Even lining up to get on the plane, names were being called out of line, like prisoners being called back for further interrogation.  And when the “names” didn’t identify themselves, then it was “all passengers connecting to flights to Ontario (California), or Denver, or Kansas City.  Once they left the line, they never came back.  No going home for them tonight.

But we finally managed to get on the Dallas flight – a window seat!  I watched the Gulf Coast go by, flying over the familiar ground of Pensacola and Gulf Shores, Alabama.  I couldn’t find the Battleship Alabama docked in Mobile Bay, but definitely had a view of the Mississippi River from Port Hudson almost to Vicksburg.  And, thanks to Southwest, I was able to watch the Bengals game as well.

Just One Job

We arrived in Dallas, but couldn’t get out of the plane for a while.  As we watched the baggage get not so carefully, placed on the carts, there was no one to operate the “jet bridge” to get us in the terminal.   That’s when our flight attendant, who managed to joke her way through the entire flight, turned out to struggle with her “happy-ness” – she mentioned that the ‘p’s might stand for patience, rather than positive.  

After ten or so minutes we hit Dallas’s Love Field, home to Southwest.  It was stacked with passengers, worried about whether they would have a next flight.  Some were already looking for a place to bed down for the evening.  But there was plenty of food, I even had the opportunity to finally experience a “Whataburger” (now with In-and-Out Burgers, White Castles, and of course the Thurmaninator, my life is complete).  So whether the flight to Columbus made it out or not, I was sure of one thing – indigestion.

The Bengals finally lost as I waited for the flight home – after missing a game winning field goal attempt.  The Green Bay kicker, who already missed four in the game, managed to save himself a one way ticket  to stay in Cincinnati – and finally hit with two minutes left in overtime.

The Last Leg

The plane was there, the passengers lined up – but somehow, we weren’t getting on board.  It was an extra forty minutes or so, for “undetermined reasons”, before we actually got on the plane.  Buckle your seat belt – once on they’d have to pry us all back off if they changed their mind.

The flight from Dallas was uneventful – I slept most of the way.  We came up the Ohio River, then followed I-71 from Cincinnati straight to Grove City before making the turn for John Glenn International.  The baggage took forever to make it to the carousel, but finally I was loaded up on the “Parking Spot” bus headed back to the Jeep.

But the qwerty code failed to let me out – and I sat in the night, trying to convince the scanner that I really did pay my $30.  Someone “in charge” ultimately noticed my plight – and I finally was released for home. 

Here’s today’s addition to the Sunday Story Series.

My Bags Are Packed

This weekend I did something I haven’t done since – maybe 2017?  My cousin died last month in Florida, and this weekend was his memorial service.  I made a promise to him, three years ago, that I would give the eulogy at his funeral.  So this is it, I’m on the road (again?). 

It’s the age of COVID, and Florida isn’t the best place to go.  But a promise is a promise, even now. My first thought was to drive down.  That way, I would be contained in my own vehicle, able to control interactions with folks.  But that’s a problem – Tampa is about 1000 miles from Pataskala.  That’s a fifteen hour drive, by myself.  And that’s not the biggest concern.  Tampa (and back) is 130 gallons of gas.  At a simple $3.00 a gallon (and it’s more) that puts the cost at around $400.  So that’s two long days of driving, and twice the cost of an airplane ticket.

There I was, standing room only at Gate A6 in John Glenn International Airport of Columbus, Ohio.  My flight is scheduled to leave at 7:10 am.  That doesn’t sound so bad, if I were subbing at the high school I would be in the classroom by now.  But that’s not how it works.

 On The Road Again

It’s been a long time since I’ve flown, but some things haven’t changed.  Let’s see:  get to the airport an hour and a half before the flight to park the car, ride the shuttle, check my bag and get through security.  As always, when you get there early, that all happens really fast – and I’m standing in line at the airport Starbucks by 6:10.  But – cut things close, and it’s a late parking shuttle, they can’t find your ticket, the line at security is into the concourse, and, “…sir, step onto the second mat for a ‘personal’ security check”.  So better early than late.

All of that means that my alarm was set for 4:15 am.  But the dogs didn’t see it that way.  When the coffee pot went off by itself at four, our watchful Australian Shepherd mix KeeLie knew that wasn’t right.  So she alerted us all, that “what-the-Hell is going on” bark, that got three of the other dogs to join in the chorus.  So we all got up a little early, including Jenn who was looking forward to me sneaking out the door and some early peace and quiet.

Almost four years since I’ve flown.  I was on the way to the airport, going through a mental checklist.  Driver’s License – oh I did pay the extra money to have a “National” card, so I don’t need my passport.  Mask – and backup mask – and backup to the backup mask – and three more in my luggage:  I’m not going to be THAT guy on the plane.  The gatekeeper just announced that you don’t have to wear a mask – they’ll just bring in the “guys” to remove you and make you a viral “star” for fifteen seconds.  Can I still take my Starbucks on the plane with me?  Can I drink it when I do?  Lots of rules have changed since the last time we flew to New York City with our friends.

Who Are You

And it’s Southwest Airlines with what we used to call “Festival Seating” in the concerts days.  It means there are no assigned seats – everyone just gets on and finds a place.  150 passengers for 153 seats, no COVID distancing here; it’s just like the good old days.  I was boarding order B, number 42.  That’s basically the last person on the plane – but somehow there was an aisle seat left. 

The trip to Tampa was uneventful – read a few paragraphs about the Civil War in the American Southwest, then sleep for fifteen minutes.  Arrive, stand in line for an hour to get the rental car, then hangout and wait for the rest of the family to come in from Cleveland.

Celebrate Good Times

Funerals are always strange.  Of course they are sad, the missing person at the party is obvious.  Most of the funerals I’ve gone to recently have been older folks, so while there’s always sorrow, there’s not the sharp, cutting loss of a younger person.  And they have all the formulas of a more “normal” activity:  food, drink, introduction, conversation,  and toasts to the lost and the bereaved.  In short – it’s a party by some other name.

And the process of “funeral” has another purpose:  distraction.  Those closest are forced to deal with all the ceremony, the process, the “party” planning.  So here near Tampa the “party” started Friday evening and will go on through Monday, when finally, despite Southwest Airlines best attempts to strand everyone here, they’ll all go home.

My departed cousin was an interesting man (I wrote about him soon after his death several weeks ago – My Cousin Brendan).   He lived his life in chapters – growing up in England, coming to Cincinnati, a marriage in Chicago, and his final chapter remarried to Mary in Tampa.  The attendees at the service were from the three America chapters, and most were unaware of the other sections.  You could hear the “oh I didn’t know that” even in the church, a “High Episcopal” service complete with mass and the priests sprinkling holy water, the “aspergillum”  

Finnegan’s Wake

My cousin was a well-loved member of the congregation, and his wife stood by him in his long final illness.  You could feel the support for Mary from the two Fathers who led the church, and all the members who provided the after-service lunch.

The head minister is named “Father Ray”, a man of Asian ancestry.  The small church is built on a peninsula between two roads, and the site was an Episcopal Church since the late 1800’s.  The founder of the congregation is buried in the churchyard, a monument marking his grave.  He was a Civil War veteran, a Captain in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Virginia.  As Father Ray said, Confederate or not, he was a good man.  He gave the land to the church and built the first chapel.  

Every Confederate Memorial Day, a “Rebel” flag appears at the foot of the grave.  As Father Ray told me the story, members of the congregation wonder why he allows the flag to stay for a while.  The Father said, “…they’re simply honoring the dead.  Besides, the Captain and others in the church graveyard don’t seem too upset that their Church is now run by the ‘Asian Mafia’.”   

Our family descends from Ireland.  At Saturday’s dinner it was no surprise that Irish tradition was followed.  The Jameson’s whiskey was the “holy water” of the evening, and as befits Brendan’s English public school education, three cheers were made for the deceased: Hip-Hip, Hooray; Hip-Hip Hooray; Hip-Hip, Hooray.  There’s a cheer for Mary as well – her long struggle is over too.

It’s early Sunday morning.  I got a 6 am wakeup call, despite the Jameson’s.  Southwest cancelled my flight; now instead of a straight shot home, I’m headed out five hours earlier to Dallas to connect to John Glenn.  Hopefully they don’t cancel any more flights today.

• 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

Founding Fathers

The United States Constitution is hailed at the greatest “democratic” document in world history.  It even begins with the fateful words, “We The People”.  But that’s not really true.  The Constitution, especially the original seven Articles, were not particularly “democratic” at all.  

Many of the Founding Fathers were dubious about “democracy”.  They expressed as much worry about “mob rule” as they did for the autocratic rule they experienced under England’s King George III.  And while history teachers talk a lot about Jeffersonian “yeoman farmers”, in the end the Founding Fathers were members of the establishment of the colonies, and their own economic interests were just as important.

Competing Interests

The question was how to balance all of the competing interests: the need for a national government, the demands for individual state autonomy, protecting the wealth of the “establishment” (including those who enslaved people), and advancing the democratic principles they believed in as Enlightenment scholars.  So they developed a system that included all of those ideas.  The national government gained significant powers, particularly when it came to raising and spending money.  

And the Constitutional Convention recognized that the nation they were creating was vast.  Roads were often rough, and it took months for information to journey from the capital in New York to the hinterlands.  So it made perfect sense to diffuse powers for certain actions to the states.  The states were closer to the people, with the state capitals days versus weeks or months away.  So functions like education and elections were placed in the state government’s hands.

Democracy

The Constitution assumes two areas of “democracy”:  the state legislatures, and the federal House of Representatives.  Those were the only two original bodies where representatives were directly chosen by the people.  Until the 17th Amendment in 1913 Senators were chosen by the state legislatures rather than by direct election, though many states held elections and honored the choice.  

And the President of the United States famously is not directly chosen “by the people”. Instead, the people vote for a “slate of electors” pledged to vote for their candidate in the electoral college.  So when an Ohio voter selected Biden for President, they were actually voting for eighteen electors pledged to Biden.  Since Trump won the majority of Ohio’s vote, the eighteen electors pledged to him were actually certified to the Congress as Ohio’s choice.

Legal Precedent

But there’s a deeper secret here.  In Article II of the Constitution, the “people” voting for President actually isn’t mentioned at all.  The wording is:  “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors…”  So the way that electors are chosen is a matter for the state legislature, not a Constitutional guarantee. 

That means it seems Constitutionally possible for a state legislature to ignore the popular vote, and select the electors “they” want.  But that’s a “radical” interpretation of the Constitution.  There’s two hundred and thirty-five years of legal precedence recognizing the role of the popular vote in selecting electors for President.  If a state decided to ignore the popular outcome and choose the “losing” electors as their representatives, it’s likely that Congress would refuse to recognize them, and Courts might intervene. As Harvard Law Professor Laurence Lessig puts it: “…the constitutional duty that the legislatures have is, like the electors, to respect the vote of their people (USA Today).”

Muddy the Count

But there’s a more insidious movement afoot in today’s America.  State legislatures aren’t likely to ignore the clear outcome of an election, but they are “muddying” the results to confuse the final conclusion. Many states are passing laws allowing the legislatures to meddle in the count, determine which votes to accept and reject, and, if necessary, change the vote counters to gain a “better” outcome.  So while those states may still be endorsing “the will of the people” when they certify Presidential elections, they are also attempting to control whar “will” they receive.

How can a state legislature, elected by the people, then take away the people’s power to make electoral decisions?  That answer is relatively simple.  State legislatures have the power to determine their own legislative districts.  By gerrymandering districts, one political view can gain power disproportionate to their actual numbers.  For example, here in Ohio the lower house is Republican 64 to 35, a super-majority of 66%.  But in polling, 42% of Ohioans claim to be or lean towards Republican, 40% Democrat, and 18% Independent (Pew).  In the 2020 Presidential election, Trump won by 53% while Biden got 45%.  

Who Counts

Ohio is not two-thirds Republican, but our legislature is.  That’s true in several other “swing” states throughout the nation.  And those legislatures don’t feel bound to “the will of the people”, as they have managed to gerrymander the opposing party’s vote to a small minority.  It’s not really much of a step then, to “manage” the outcome of a Presidential election as well.  Nine states already have enacted restrictive laws, including key Presidential states.  Proposals are in the works in many other states.

All of this is being done under the guise of “election security” and restoring “the people’s trust” in elections.  But, despite the continuing cries of a defeated President, there was no election fraud, just sour grapes.  The distrust he managed to sow has created fertile ground for subverting the electoral process, and the state legislatures are leading the way.

So who will defend the “will of the people” in 2024?  If not the state legislatures, then what about the Congress? 

That’s what makes the Congressional elections of 2022 so important.

Bombs

I was a history/political science major at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.  One of the early courses I took was Poli Sci –360, titled  “Problems in American National Security”.  The short name for the course was “Bombs”.  It was about the “theories” behind the nuclear standoff of the Cold War, and how the United States and the Soviet Union faced each other.

It was the mid-1970’s, and studying nuclear war was hardly an esoteric exercise.  Two nations had the ultimate power to destroy the world. Both were poised on a hair trigger to do it.  And with the advent of computerization, that trigger was becoming more automated.  The proverbial finger on the button was more likely to be a series of binary equations adding up to “launch”.

MAD

We learned terms like “Mutual Assured Destruction”(MAD). That’s the idea that both sides knew full well that there was no winner in an all-out nuclear exchange.  Odd, that the ultimate power to destroy the world was held back by weakness:  if they can destroy us, we should not attack them.  In fact, the greatest risk of war, was if one side found a “new tool”allowing them to survive the all-out war.  If one side could live to be “the winner”, then the other side was ultimately vulnerable.  

The only choice that vulnerable side would have would be to attack:  to launch a “First Strike” all-out nuclear war, before the new tool could be fully implemented.  The two greatest threats for nuclear war were “accidental” triggers, and one side getting too great an advantage.

And so the US and Soviet Union engaged in a series of technological races, to build a “better bomb”.  The Soviets built bigger, the biggest bomb ever detonated. It was the 1961 “Tsar Bomb” at fifty megatons (equivalent to fifty million tons of TNT) and 3800 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.  And that was only at “half power”.  Even the Soviets were unwilling to try a 100 megaton blast.   The United States went for targeting accuracy. There was no need to make the bombs bigger if they could land them directly on their targets.  

The Edge

And both sides engaged in “brinksmanship”; moving as close to the edge of nuclear war as they could, without stepping over the line.  The Cuban Missile Crisis was the most obvious example, but there were other, less known confrontations where the world was at risk.  It was in 1983, a few weeks after the Soviets shot down a Korean Air Lines passenger flight. Soviet defense computers detected five US missiles launched.  A Soviet Lieutenant Colonel, Stanislav Petrov, acting on his own, determined that this had to be a mistake. He stopped the “automatic” launch response.  

Petrov was right:  the computers were in error.  And if he hadn’t acted, it’s likely nuclear war would have begun on the 26th of September.  His decision ended his military advancement, but it ultimately was seen as saving the world (US Park Service). 

Bankruptcy

The Cold War ended when the United States invested over half a trillion dollars in a “space based” defense program.  The program was Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed “Star Wars”. It hoped to put satellites in space that could intercept any Soviet missiles fired against the United States.  The Soviets tried to match the investment with their own programs, and the race became as much about money as weapons.  Ultimately, “Star Wars” didn’t work. But that and a failed war in Afghanistan bankrupted the Soviet economy and caused the fall of the Communist government.

 If “Star Wars” had worked, it likely would have triggered a nuclear war.  The Soviets would have been forced to launch, before a “Star Wars” system could be put in place, otherwise, Mutual Assured Destruction would be over, and they would be ultimately vulnerable.  The United States “played” on the edge of nuclear destruction, and won economically:  brinksmanship.

Thirty years after “Star Wars”, the United States and Russia still have hundreds of weapons aimed at each other.  While the likelihood of nuclear devastation is less, we still have our missiles, bombers and submarines poised to strike.  And access to nuclear weapons is spreading to less-stable regimes:  North Korea likely has “the bomb”, and Iran is working on one as well.

Economic Edge

Today the United States government is “playing” a different kind of brinksmanship.  The “debt ceiling” was created during World War I, to allow the government room to borrow money to prosecute the war.  The debt ceiling is like a credit card limit, with one big difference.  The money is already spent:  Congress has already passed the laws spending the money.  So failing to raise the debt ceiling is  simply refusing to pay for money already spent.

If the United States fails to raise the debt ceiling, then the government begins to default on its debts.  A failure of the US to pay its debts will create an economic crisis in the world,where the US Dollar is the bedrock currency.  Even the talk of failing to honor the debt is causing economic repercussions.  

The House of Representatives already voted to raise the ceiling and pay the bills of the United States.  But the Senate has not.  Republicans are voting against it as a fifty vote block.  In addition, the Republicans are also filibustering passage, creating the requirement that sixty Senators agree.  And since the Senate is fifty-fifty, either ten Republican Senators must change their mind, or the fifty Democrats need to change the rules and end the filibuster for this issue, with Vice President Harris adding her vote to break the tie.

There is a third option, the convoluted “budget reconciliation” process that circumvents the filibuster.  But reconciliation takes time, a long series of votes, and can only be used for a limited number to times in a session.  

Winners and Losers

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sees the deadlock as a “win-win-win” situation for his Republicans.  He is depending on the Democrats to pass a debt ceiling increase, either using the reconciliation process or by breaking the filibuster.  If they use reconciliation, then they can’t use it for other issues (like the Build-Back-Better infrastructure plan).  If Democrats vote to break the filibuster, then McConnell will be able to campaign on the “Democrats spending us into inflation”.  And if they don’t pass a debt ceiling increase – then the “Democrats can’t govern”.  

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Biden also see a “win-win”.  If the Republicans continue to refuse to raise the ceiling, then they are “playing politics with the American economy”.  And if Schumer and Biden refuse to use reconciliation, then they may force the “swing” Democrats to break the filibuster rule. That’s something they need for other legislation, like the voting rights acts.

Of course, all of this is premised on the idea that somewhere, somehow, the Senate WILL pass the debt ceiling, and that further damage to the US and world economies will be avoided.   But that all depends on a “Colonel Petrov” moment.  Either two Democratic Senators vote to break the filibuster (with forty-eight of their fellow Democrats), or ten Republican Senators vote with the Democrats, to lift the debt ceiling.  Some members of the Senate will need to see the catastrophe ahead, and decide to stop the “automatic response”.

Or the US defaults on its debts and our economy, along with the rest of the world’s, goes over the brink. 

Hate and Division

Facebook claims that are not the primary cause of “hate and division” in America.  And the company is absolutely right.  The issues that divide us have been around for a lot longer than Mark Zuckerberg’s algorithms.  Hate in America is nothing new.  It’s been the dirty underside of American history since well before the signing of the Declaration of Independence (and if you think that describes “Critical Race Theory”, you are misinformed).  

But what Facebook has managed to do is individualize and amplify that hate and division.  We get a “custom made cocktail”, delivered to our “newsfeed” on a minute by minute basis.  And, like any good addictive activity, the more we click, the more we get.  Psychologist B.F. Skinner would be pleased.  We press the bar just like his mice did back in the 1940’s, receiving our “rewards” with our own version of his operant conditioning cage that fits in our pocket.  And the more we click, the more specific the information Facebook directs to us, and the more we want to press.

Addiction

Why don’t we turn it off?  Facebook’s model is based on the same principal as any addiction – we have an emotional response to the information.  And that response is “pleasurable”, even if the emotion is anger.  So we click on, seeking even more emotion, more “pleasure”.  And Facebook provides a seemingly endless supply. 

Facebook will tell you that’s why we love the puppy pictures, and the stories of our friend’s young kids.  But if “pleasure” is measured by the level of emotional response, then the biggest emotion isn’t positive, it’s negative.  Anger is more powerful, and anger makes you click even more.  

None of this is rocket science.  But the not so hidden “dirty secret” of Facebook, is that they have developed mathematical equations to “feed” emotional response.  Facebook makes money by clicks, so it is in their specific economic interest to get more people to click more.  And since negative emotions are the most powerful, it is best for Facebook profits to generate those emotions. 

Profit from All Sides

Facebook doesn’t necessarily take a side in the controversy.  The equation doesn’t care who wins or whose right or wrong.  It’s the controversy itself that makes Facebook money.  There are 221.6 million Facebook users in the United States, fully two-thirds of the nation.  Not every user is “addicted”.  But every user is influenced by targeted controversy, and those who are more vulnerable; the young, the disaffected, the lonely – they keep clicking, and keep getting angrier.

The deeper they go, the more their emotions are validated.  They find companions in their anger, who then feed each other.  Facebook claims they are just a platform, a “town square” where people of all ideologies can meet.  But the Facebook equations do more than just lead you into the square, they direct you to those in the square who agree with you.  And like that mythical square, divided into ideologies and cliques, emotions run high.  And the Facebook cash register keeps ringing up profits.

Regulation

When television first came out in the 1940’s, the government took control of what was allowed.  This was because there was a limited amount of bandwidth on the airways.  Put simply, there were only so many TV channels, and the government licensed who could broadcast on any given channel.  To keep a license, stations were required to regulate what went on the air.  Break those rules, and the government could take the license and give it to someone else.

Those rules changed when cable television arrived in the 1970’s. Unlike the “public airways”, cable television used privately owned cables to reach their subscribers homes.  The cable providers, Time Warner (now Spectrum) and the like, were originally simple conduits for other programming.  If a program was “inappropriate”, then the cable viewer should simply choose not to watch it.  Don’t want what cable TV delivered, then go back to broadcast.  The government had little control over the programming, or the literal wires bringing it into homes.

In the 1990’s, media became more than just a one-way interaction.  With the arrival of the “internet”, people could inter-connect across all kinds of boundaries.  It was virtually uncontrolled by governments; the “wires” were still privately owned, and the “web” regulated by non-governmental entities.  So when Friendster and MySpace replaced AOL chatrooms, there wasn’t much worry about government intervention.  And when Mark Zuckerberg developed the key equations to empower Facebook, it’s growth and development was unrestricted.

Price to Pay

We govern automobile safety because the vehicles use public roads.  We still govern television stations because they use the public airways.  But social media comes to use through privately owned sources and methods.  And like the cable providers, Facebook claims to only be a “platform”, not responsible for the content or actions of those using it.  But we now know that Facebook (and Instagram and What’s App, also owned by Facebook) are manipulating their platform to generate emotion and gain more profit.  And so does Twitter and TikTok and the other social media giants.

Government can’t use the broadcast model to regulate social media.  But there is a whole different product that governments regularly control – alcohol and drugs.  Facebook (and the rest) mathematically manipulate their users, similar to what drugs and alcohol do chemically. That manipulation creates societal discord – and we should regulate their actions.  Ask the public schools who paid millions of dollars for damage to restrooms created by a TikTok trend, or the US government itself for damage to the Capitol during the Insurrection.  There are very real costs from social media, costs our entire society is paying in dollars, and in discord.  

We need to get it under control.  It’s already too late.

• Essays About Facebook
• I’m Not the Customer – 4/4/18
• Listening to Mark – 4/11/18
• Zuckerberg – We Hate/Love/Pay You  6/9/19
• Buying Votes – 11/8/19
• Freedom to Post – 5/25/21
• On the Square – 10/5/21

Cool Kids

The “Cool Kids” in the Democratic Senate are the “Progressives”.  Senators like Sanders, Warren, Booker, Gillibrand, Padilla and Ohio’s senior Senator, Sherrod Brown, fit the definition.  They get to fight for all the issues that the Democratic Party stands for, the “platform” issues from women’s and worker’s rights to climate change.  And all of them, with the exception of Sherrod, can do so with the full backing of their constituency.  Whether it’s New York or Massachusetts, New Jersey or Vermont, and of course, California; the Progressive agenda is in statewide agreement. 

Sherrod Brown is the “outlier”, the Progressive Democrat from the supposedly “Red” state.  But Sherrod has found the unique key to winning in Ohio.  Unlike most of the other Progressives, he still resonates well with white working men, a group that generally has migrated to  Trump world.  That working class ethos, as Sherrod says, “Whether you take a shower before work or after”, allows a relatively conservative state to continue to return a Progressive to the Senate. (Tim Ryan, the Democratic Congressman from Youngstown running for the other Ohio seat, is trying to replicate Brown’s successful formula). 

Razor Thin

Then there are the “razor thin” Democratic Senators.  Whatever their inner personal beliefs, they are more likely to straddle the middle. That’s because they are always on the verge of losing their Senate seat.  Senators like Tester of Montana and Kaine and Warner of Virginia are likely moderates because they want to be, but for sure, because they have to be.  

They represent states that are supportive of a more moderate agenda.  And there are two others that need to be included in this list, the “Senators of the Hour” as the Biden “Build-Back-Better” agenda comes near to a vote:  Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Krysten Sinema of Arizona.   There’s been a lot of talk about Manchin.  Politically, he is the Democrat elected from the MOST TRUMP state in the nation. Being the center of controversy is a good thing for the former Governor who has won statewide votes six times in his career.

Manchin’s Goals

Manchin wants West Virginians to see three things.  First, he wants them to see him as the “bulwark” against the “cool kids”. That’s something he can uniquely do as a member of the razor thin Senate Democratic majority.  Every single vote counts, and Manchin is “making hay” in West Virginia by being the “poster child” for holding back his more progressive comrades.  Second, he wants West Virginians to know that he has their interest at heart.  So when the deal is finally cut, and Manchin signs onto the Democratic plans, you can be sure he will be able to point out multiple places where the good folks of West Virginia will benefit, more than other states.

And finally, the Mountaineers have always valued independence.  The birth of their state, in rebellion against “Mother Virginia”, laid the groundwork for West Virginians views.  Manchin’s very visible independence plays well back in the home state. And that approach is likely to get him re-elected even as a seventy-seven year old in 2024.

Not Green Anymore

Which leaves Krystin Sinema, the Senator from Arizona.  Sinema began her political career not as a Democrat, but in the Green Party.  You can’t get more Progressive than that.  But as her elective career progressed, she seemed to back away from her Progressive roots.  In her successful 2018 campaign to win the US Senate seat, she even refused to use Trump as a campaign foil, and ultimately won the election over Republican Martha McSally 50% to 47.6%.

Sinema is emerging as the ultimate stumbling block to the Progressives in the Senate.  Unlike Manchin, who at least has hinted at his negotiating positions on the Build-Back-Better bill, Sinema has only voiced opposition to spending $3.5 Trillion, but refuses to hint at what she would consider.  It seems she’s trying to take the Arizona course of deceased Senator John McCain; the “maverick” in his own Republican Party.  In Sinema’s mind there’s the clear picture of the ailing McCain in the dark of night, voting “thumbs down” to the Republican plan to destroy the Affordable Care Act.

The problem Sinema has is this.  If she really does “thumbs down” the Biden agenda, she’s sure to have a very well financed Democratic primary opponent in 2024, who will hang her from the vote.  And yet if she supports the Biden agenda too quickly, she knows that the voting block she depends on, the McCain loving independent Republicans of Arizona, won’t stand behind her.  

Find the Play

Like Manchin she needs to find the “play” that will allow her to maintain her Democratic standing, but also be the “Maverick” for the Arizona voting base.  She obviously hasn’t figured out how to do that yet.  Her snide and cutting remarks – “…Progressives say that can’t find you to negotiate with”, “Well, I’m right here at the elevators now,” won’t work for long.  Like Manchin (and Tester, and the Virginians) she needs to find what’s good for Arizonans in “Build-Back-Better” and take that to the bank.

And the “cool kids” better find a way to get those two to play.  Otherwise, they all go home to campaign on — failure.

As Seen On TV

I’m retired.  One of the “benefits” of retirement, is that I get to watch more TV than I did while I was working.  And one of the things I’ve noticed is that there are an awful lot of commercials for “niche” pharmaceuticals.  What’s a “niche” pharmaceutical?  So here’s an example:  Vanda is a drug used by blind people who are suffering from Non-24 syndrome.  That’s when they lose the normal sleep cycle of night and day, because they don’t experience light and dark.

Now that’s got to be a huge issue for them, In a world that’s set up on a day/night cycle.  And I’m very glad they’ve found a drug that can help.  But Vanda is running a national ad campaign on television to let blind people know about the medication.  How many totally blind people are watching TV?  And how many of them are suffering from Non-24 Syndrome?  How much money does that pharmaceutical company have – that they can pay for a national ad campaign to maybe reach the 65,000 to 95,000 who are estimated to suffer from this disorder?

Writing Prescriptions

And another thing about all that.  Why are those companies “selling” drugs for very specific cancers, auto-immune diseases, and asthma caused by a specific protein?  Isn’t determining what drug is more effective up to the doctors who specialize in those issues?  Why are pharmaceuticals campaigning “over” the specialists heads directly to the patients?

There’s a simple answer to that last question.  The companies want the patients to go into the doctor and tell them they want that specific drug.  And the doctors may well write a prescription for that specific drug, because the patient wants it.  Clearly that must happen a lot, otherwise the pharmaceuticals’ wouldn’t pay the incredibly high price per patient for a national advertising campaign.

Which brings us to the larger point of this essay.  We are being trained to become our own “experts”.  We are being told what specific cancer treatment to use, and then to go to our oncologist and get it.  The commercial says we can reduce our psoriatic reactions, and improve our eosinophilic asthma symptoms.  We are becoming “the experts”, instead of the real experts we pay, who have a decade or more of schooling and practice in the field.  Who cares what the doctor says:  the commercial on TV says this will work.

Rocket Science

And this “expertization” of America bleeds over into our current national health crisis – Covid.  The Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines are MRNA vaccines.  That’s a technique developed over the past two decades to “fool” our immune systems into creating anti-bodies against a virus without exposing it to the actual virus itself.  Unlike the flu vaccine, where we are exposed to a weak or killed dose of the actual flu, MRNA vaccines stimulate antibody creation by simulating the proteins a virus uses to attach itself to cells, but not the virus itself.

And if that’s not a clear enough explanation, that’s no surprise.  It’s not rocket science, it’s even worse: molecular biology.  But how many Americans today have decided for themselves that the molecular biologists are “wrong”?  And even worse, many Americans are listening to “experts”, dressed in white lab coats, who really don’t have expertise at all in this area of science.

Fix Your Own Car

I used to work on cars.  Back in the day, I tore my 1967 Volkswagen Squareback engine apart.  I even put the pistons in the oven, and the wrist pins in the freezer before I re-assembled them.  Mom was definitely NOT HAPPY when she walked in and found that.  I wasn’t an expert, in fact I was using the manual – “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive for the Compleat Idiot” (you can still find a copy of that – $301 on Amazon!).   It was fun, but it was also necessary.  I couldn’t pay for the repairs, so I had to do it myself.  

The rebuild worked, and I drove the Squareback until the floor boards rusted out.  But when I pop the hood on our 2011 Chevy Silverado pickup truck, it’s difficult to even find familiar landmarks.  Modern engines are a balance between electronic controls and traditional engine parts, all adjusted by a computer “brain”.  It’s not even in the “ballpark” of this “Compleat Idiot”, and I hire a professional to maintain and fix it. 

And that’s car mechanics, not molecular biology.  I wouldn’t ignore my professional about the Silverado, so why would I ignore the world’s leading virologists, like Dr. Fauci about the Covid vaccine?  The answer for some: I heard it on TV, or a podcast, or I read it on FACEBOOK – so it must be true.  And that all starts with those wonderful ads on television, telling me about how to fix my asthma, or extend my life with cancer, or how to sleep while blind.  We’ve all become “experts”. 

Here’s another in the Sunday Story series.  This one is a real “high school” mix – of social media, old stories, and sex.  

Here’s the link to the Bob Seger and the Sliver Bullet song – Night Moves

Tik-Tok

A few weeks ago I read a long community Facebook “conversation” from the “Pataskala” group. There was a “Tik-Tok” video from the local high school restroom. No one put the actual video on Facebook, but it showed two feet under a restroom stall. The people connected to the feet were supposedly having sex. It raised “a ruckus” in this small town – those feet might actually symbolize (or simulate) having sex in school!

Whether the rest of the attached bodies were also having sex, or it was all just a staged “Tik-Tok” viral moment, only two know for sure. But folks here in town sure were hot. How could this happen, where were the teachers (not in the restroom for sure – that would create a whole different issue), and what can be done? Are feet “having sex” really kiddie porn?

I had the high honor and privilege to teach high school and middle school in this small town for thirty-six years, forty if you include the years I coached after I retired from teaching. I thank the “great teacher” in the sky, that there weren’t hand held video recording devices for most of those forty years, particularly ones that could broadcast to all of the other students and parents in the community and the world. Kids are kids, and for them, risks and rewards are often slanted. The risk of “getting caught” is almost never as compelling as the reward of notoriety or gratification.

Sex

Many kids (not yours, of course), particularly middle and high school kids, are all about sex.  As an eighth grade teacher, I was told that my male students thought about sex every eleven seconds.  I don’t think that’s accurate, more likely it was every five seconds.  No matter how hard (there’s one) a teacher tried to neutralize (there’s two) a lecture, somehow it all came (there’s three) back to sex.  Whether it was about astronomy (Uranus), or history (World War I:  Fokker aircraft and Marshal Foch), there was always a red face or a hushed giggle.

And some kids went beyond joking and discussing.  They tried it – in the restroom, training room, storage room, ice room, wrestling room, auditorium, prop room, the back of the bus, the school van, the teacher workroom and on the tables in the cafeteria.  We found them on the high jump and pole vault pits (both out and while in storage), the wrestling mats, on the tile floor, and even on top of a log and flat on a dirt path in the back of the school woods (poison ivy the least of their worries).  Did I forget the baseball dugouts?

And that’s not including the few who decided to “do it” all by themselves in the back of a classroom, or the more modest couples who snuck out to their cars or vans or empty homes in between classes, or during lunch, or the day when the substitute failed to take attendance.

It all happened, over the forty years I was there.  The difference between then and now is that no one was putting it out on social media for everyone else to see.  So to all those folks who were so, so upset on Facebook the other day:  there’s nothing new here.  

And Punishment

Sure, we punished kids for “doing it” in school. Back in my day it was a five day out-of-school suspension. The worst part, both for the Administrator and the students, was calling “Mom” to tell her what happened. No matter how open the act, it was hard not to feel sorry for the kid as they tried to explain to Mom over the phone, or worse, in person, exactly what they did.

We didn’t publicize the kids we caught “in flagrante delicto”. We handled their misdeeds with discretion. It wasn’t a public thing, unless the kids were so public that the whole student body already knew. Even if they didn’t realize it, we adults knew that they didn’t want to be “that couple” that everyone remembered at the ten-year reunion. And, since back then there wasn’t an IPhone hooked straight to social media, most other kids went through school oblivious to those inappropriate inter-actions.

Making Moves

So it wasn’t a surprise to me that many of my former students were on Facebook, bashing THIS generation for their sexual desires and video notoriety.  Most of them didn’t get crazy enough back in “their day” to do that.  But someone else in their era almost always did, and we caught some of them.  In fact, I remembered  a couple of the names on Facebook from twenty years before.  I guess they just forgot – hah.

Kids have been trying out their “Night Moves” for as long as there were moves to be made.  Of course school is not the appropriate place, and of course the teachers and administrators need to do the best they can to supervise the children.  But there’s nothing new here – other than social media making it a spectacle.  And that’s not the fault of the “doers”, but of the “watchers”.  

Oh  – what else are these kids learning?

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

Preface

“Stop worrying about “Trump”, was what I was told.  A friend noted that there’s plenty to talk about with the flaws in the Biden Administration. So I went back and looked at the week’s essays. I wrote one piece about the polarization of America (This Dis-United States), one about the media and Biden (Creating Division),  and one about Biden foreign policy (Business is Business),  The essay that generated the comment was about Trump and his staff knowing that the “stop the steal” campaign was a lie from the beginning (No New News).  And the last was about the obligation Democrats have to reach an agreement in the Congress (My Fellow Democrats).

This week, like many in the past five years, is critical to America.  Democrats will either show that they can govern, or they will fail to act and give the Party of Trump a huge boost to winning back control.  So I will be writing about “Trump” once again, and Democrats, and where we will go from here.  It’s too important to ignore, and as new information is revealed, it’s clearer now.

This Week

This is a big week in politics. The Democrats in Washington are either going to find a way to work together, or surely they will turn the government over to Republicans in 2022. I hope that the stark image of the “Party of Insurrection” in power will drive the Progressives and the Moderates into each other’s arms, even if they don’t particularly like each other. But my Party is certainly capable of screwing that up. As Will Rogers said, “I’m not a member of an organized party, I’m a Democrat” (Thanks Doug).

What We Know

It’s hard to imagine that it’s only a short ten months since the attempt to overthrow the Constitution. We are now learning that behind the “Insurrection” were multiple plots to stop the legitimate election of Joe Biden. Trump Advisor Steve Bannon said it in his Washington hotel “war room” on January 5th: “We’re going to kill it in the crib, kill the Biden presidency in the crib.” (Rolling Stone).

It’s still unclear what exact plan the Trump cabal had in mind. Trump lawyer John Eastman believed that Vice President Pence could, by simply recognizing both Biden and Trump electors from the same state, confuse the results. He could then throw those states out, reducing the “electoral majority” from 270 to 228, and declare Trump the winner. After the inevitable protests, Pence would then declare that no candidate reached a majority. His only choice then would be to send the election to the House of Representatives, where Trump would be elected (CNN).

Another Trump lawyer, Sidney Powell, hoped the Insurrection would delay Congressional election certification. That would give her long enough to get a Supreme Court injunction to stop the process from one of the most conservative Justices, Samuel Alito (Newsweek).

No Accident

The Trump team was “all in” on stopping the Congress from acting on January 6th, the day the President sent his crowd to march on the Capitol.  We knew then, but now know even more, that his election fraud claim wasn’t real. And more recent revelations show that the Trump team knew that too.  They were lying, with direct intent to stop the Constitutional process. It didn’t work. Pence wouldn’t throw out the state ballots. And Speaker Pelosi’s insistence that the Congress return and finish the certification that night amidst the destruction of January 6th countered the injunction attempt.  

Yet no one in authority has borne the responsibility of that destruction.  The entire leadership of the Republican Party is “behind Trump”.  Those Republicans with the courage to stand up to the truth of the Insurrection, have been ostracized from the Party.  Our nation faced the greatest Constitutional crisis since the Civil War, and yet the perpetrators haven’t been punished.  In fact, many remain in office, and they may regain the power to govern.  Unlike the Civil War, when there was a ten-year Reconstruction Period before the rebels were rehabilitated, these Insurrectionists are in still in office after ten months. And the Party that remains enthralled with Donald Trump can even anticipate political victory.

Minority Rule

The Republicans are already trying to consolidate their position nationwide.  Republican controlled states are restricting the vote based on the “insecurity” of the election process.  There is no such insecurity. Even the Cyber Ninjas in Arizona were forced to admit that.  But in spite of the Arizona results; Texas, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania all are looking to “audit” the 2020 results.  It’s not about accuracy or finding fraud, it’s about creating the appearance of “insecurity” to justify draconian voting restrictions.  And those restrictions will keep voters who would normally chose Democratic candidates from voting.

Combine that with the ongoing Red Map gerrymandering project, and Republicans are moving to consolidate their power in the states, even as a minority party.  

Duty

It’s not just about whether the “Build-Back-Better” agenda gets passed or not.  It’s not about whether Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin can reach a truce.  And it’s not even about Mitch McConnell refusing to participate in governing.  

Democrats in Congress have an affirmative duty to protect the nation.  That duty includes preventing the Insurrectionists from regaining power, power that would allow them to consolidate their gains to change America into something “less” than a democracy.  

Damn-it Democrats: figure it out.  I don’t care if Manchin and Sinema are “closet Republicans” in ideology, or Sanders and Jayalpal are “un-closeted socialists”.  Get it together and govern.  This might sound hyperbolic, but it’s absolutely true.  Failure may mean the end of the American Experiment as we know it. 

So here’s this week’s Sunday Story. It’s about a very recent experience – an “old” dog learning new tricks.

Game Time

I had a job interview this week.  It was for a part-time job in the track and field world (not coaching), and it would be exciting to get it. I can’t say more about the job itself, at least not yet. But it was the first full-blown job interview I’ve done from the “applicant” side of the desk in a very, very long time, at least twenty-five years, and the experience has changed.

I know my strengths, and one of the biggest is to be “in person”.  But job interviews (generally) aren’t in person anymore.  They’re virtual, “Zoom” interviews, with a split screen of the interviewers in different places all asking questions.  To use a very dated analogy, it’s like being a contestant on Hollywood Squares, but the squares are asking questions instead of giving answers.  One of the things that made me a good teacher was being able to “read” my audience, and adjust my presentation based on their reactions.  

Zoom “Studio”

But that’s a lot harder on “Zoom”.  Is that guy bored, or just looking at something happening off camera?  Is the other one avoiding eye contact, or just staring at his screen, not the camera, so it only seems like he’s dodging you?  Yes, you can see the interviewers, and judge from their voice, but it’s a lot harder to get a “gut” reaction to what’s going on.

So I’m sitting in my own home office, “All dressed up with nowhere to go”.  I’ve had to dig out all the “formal” clothes; the button down shirt, a sports jacket, and a dark red tie.  And yes, I am wearing khaki pants and even dress shoes.  Sure I could do the interview in shorts or worse, but that’s like coaching in sweats at a track meet (something I did three times in thirty-six years – each a catastrophe) – not only is it “bad luck”, but just asking for trouble.  The camera will shift, or my shirt won’t hang right, and for sure I just wouldn’t feel right.  Job interviews are a performance, so “game on”, in uniform, pre-gamed and prepared.

One thing that a video interview does allow is “cheat sheets”.  They are laying on the desk, right below the computer keyboard.  A list of the possible interviewers and their backgrounds (got that right, by the way) and of the critical points that I wanted to make:  why they should choose me.  But the sheets are there to be viewed – not touched.  Just a quick glance to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

Zoom Primer 

1. Make sure everything works.  Nothing makes you look more unprepared then when the interview starts and you become a frozen, blank, or vanished screen.  Interviewers don’t have time for that. And it would definitely create panic on the interviewee side.
2. If you look at the screen, you’re not looking “at them”.  Look at the camera – that’s the hardest thing to do.  “Go to the green light”.
3. Just because you are at home, don’t get comfortable.  It’s an interview, adrenalin helps.  And by the way, make sure you look at the image you’re projecting before the actual interview.  Their eyes are going to wander – what are they seeing in your background.  “Room Rater” you own place so you know what they’ll talk about when the interview is over.
4. The dogs were cute when I was teaching an online classroom.  The kids loved them, and it broke the tension and got their attention.  The dogs aren’t so good for a job interview.  It’s a beautiful day: everyone outside to the backyard.  Even if they bark a bit, it won’t come through the microphone.
5. Make sure the light is good.  Nothing worse than appearing to be from an “undisclosed cave,” somewhere in Central Asia.    
6. Don’t be distracted.  Put the phone far away.  Ignore what’s going on outside.  Focus on what they are asking.  Organize in your head what points you want to make.
7. You are who you are – and that’s who they’re going to hire.  You aren’t someone else, so don’t pretend to be.  If they don’t want “the real” you, then you don’t want the job anyway.
8. Prepare – know why you want the job, and what you can do to make the job better.  There’s that great candidate interview question that tripped up Teddy Kennedy – “Why do you want to be President?” Better have your answers prepared. Know who’s interviewing you, and try to focus your answer to what they know and relate to.  Don’t interview “cold”, without preparation – if you want the job.
9. “Nerves” are good, not bad.  Like any competition – once the “game” begins, the nerves will go away. And like any competition – when you stop being nervous before the game, then it’s time to find a new game.
10. It’s Friday afternoon – recognize that they’ve been working all week – keep their interest.  But don’t offer to pop a beer.

What Happens Next

So that was my game plan – I guess it was only  good if it worked.  They did give me a time frame – they hope to make “the offer” by the middle of next week.  If I get the job – great!!  A new and different challenge.  And if I don’t, it was a good experience anyway.  This old dog still needs to learn new tricks, and a solid kick of “nerves” is a good thing.   

Besides, it was time to air out the sports coat and tie – it’s been a while!

• 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

A Year of Hope

It is the year 2021, a year full of hope for the Democratic (not the Republican pejorative “Democrat”) Party.  We have a President, Joe Biden.  He won the nomination by appealing to the middle of the Party, not the Progressive wing of Sanders and Warren and Jayapal.  It doesn’t mean the Progressives aren’t important, they make up a big portion of the Party, and some of its best ideas.  But Biden was a man of moderation, and we knew it coming in.  So did the American people that elected him with the biggest vote total in history.

We have a slim majority in the House of Representatives, and the narrowest of margins in the Senate.  It takes all of us Democrats, working as a unit, to get anything done.

And America expects we will get “stuff done”.  

We may do it in the typical Democratic fashion, with pulling and pushing and complaining in every direction, and with disappointment in not achieving everything we hoped for.  But we MUST get “stuff done”, however the “sausage is made” to get there. 

Hope for Failure

The Republican Party (I wish there was a similar pejorative – the “Repubs”?) has thrown down a gauntlet.  They are refusing to participate in governing the nation.  They have abrogated their responsibility, the duty created by winning elections. The Repubs have simply said:  you have the majority – so you govern.  We will sit on the sidelines and hope for your failure.

What a terrible position to take.  What an Un-American way to be – we didn’t win so we will take “our ball” and go home.  It’s the kids on the playground you didn’t like, the guys on the sidelines who, instead of contributing to the team, undercut every advance.  But we can’t control what they do.

What the Democratic Party can do, in its ugly, multi-directional fashion, is determine what needs to get done and do it. And these next two weeks are the crisis, the crux of whether we can govern or not.

Fake Crisis

There’s the debt ceiling, an artificial issue created just so that everyone could go and campaign about it.  The laws are already passed, and the money already allocated.  Now, we have to pass a law saying that the actions we have already taken are OK.  Let’s think about that:  I have a credit card with a $30,000 limit.  I spend $35,000.  My credit card company would have stopped me at $30,000, but instead, just asks if I want to raise my limit.  If I say yes, I get the $35,000 that I’ve ALREADY SPENT.   If I say no, then whoever I spent the last $5000 with doesn’t get paid.  That wrecks my credit rating.

The decision was made when the money was spent in the first place.  There is no decision about raising the debt ceiling now – it’s ALREADY SPENT.  So the only argument is, do we want to wreck our credit rating, or not.  And if that’s an issue for us Democrats – then we really don’t deserve to govern.

But it is for the Repubs – they are willing to sit on their hands – no, worse – they are willing to vote NO and wreck the US credit rating for political gain.  That says a lot about who they are.  Meanwhile, it’s our government to run – and we’d better run it.

Make the Sausage

Then there’s the infra-structure plan.  Everyone’s already agreed to the first $1 Trillion.  Now we are arguing about how much more to spend – somewhere between none and $3.5 Trillion.  I know we Democrats want to get a lot done, for people, for America, and most importantly, for all of those Americans who have been left behind in the last three decades of prosperity.  

This is the core of the Progressive agenda.  This is what they ran for office to do.  And those Progressives feel that they have a mandate from the 2020 election to get this done. 

But no one is going to get “the whole pie”.  The moderate Democrats aren’t willing to go as far, spend as much.  That’s partly because they don’t think they can get re-elected if they do, and partly because they really don’t believe it’s the right thing to do.  So there’s a negotiation to be had.  It’s between Sanders and Manchin, Jayapal and Gottheimer; to reach a “deal” that no one will be happy with – but everyone can live with.

And finally, there’s the most critical issue of all – the voting rights acts. We Democrats – all of us – agree on big portions of it. And the Repubs will stand as a block against all of it. So again, we must deal, agree to disagree, and put forth a plan to protect the voting rights of all Americans. It is not only in the best interest of the Democratic Party – it is in the best traditions of our Democracy.

And if we Democrats can’t do that – then I guess the Repubs are right – we don’t deserve to govern.  So, my fellow Democrats, get talking, get negotiating, and get this show on the road.

Dominion

Dominion Voting Systems is a manufacturer of voting machines.  That’s a pretty limited industry.  Most people just know that they go vote at a polling place and use some form of machine to do it.  Who, where, what made that machine isn’t really ever a concern.  

But Dominion has become a more familiar name to many after the 2020 election.  Donald Trump, then President of the United States, and his staff claimed that the election was “rigged”.  They insisted that the Dominion machines were somehow fixed to “steal the election” for Joe Biden.  This became the basis of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign, and it led to the Insurrection of January 6th. And even worse, it led to so much of the distrust many have in our institutions today.

Since that time, I’ve always wondered what they were thinking.  Did Donald Trump and his staff actually believe all of that?  Or did Trump have, from the stress of Covid and campaigning and losing, some kind of breakdown that his staff just went along?  Or did everyone, the President, his family and his staff, know that they were making it all up?  Were they willing to destroy the results of a legitimate American election in order to maintain power?

Press Conference

On November 17th, two weeks after the election, lawyers representing the Trump Campaign held a press conference.  Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Florida attorney Sydney Powell spoke at the Republican National Committee headquarters. They outlined how Dominion used a software from a company called Smartmatic to rig the election, with financing from Venezuela.  You’ll remember the scene:  Giuliani was sweating so profusely that hair dye ran down his face.  Not only did the two lawyers lend credence to the claims, but they placed the conference at the RNC to put the Party’s weight behind it.

What wasn’t revealed at the press conference: on November 15th, two days before, the communications staff of the Trump Campaign issued an internal memo about the so-called “evidence”.  The memo’s conclusion: Dominion voter machines were NOT rigged, and did not even use the Smartmatic software.  But two days later, Giuliani and Powell and the RNC went ahead with the lie. They knew or should have known it wasn’t true.

We Now Know

How do we know that? The New York Times broke the story yesterday. An employee of Dominion is suing the Trump Campaign and several of their representatives for defamation.  It is a multi-million dollar lawsuit, and like any legal action, the lawyers from both sides are required to provide “discovery” of information before the proceedings can continue.  The November 15th memo was part of the information provided to the Court.

To put it bluntly: they knew, in real time, that they were lying.  They knew, that the information that were using to stir up “Stop the Steal” was false.  They determined that it was more important to try to illegitimately keep Donald Trump as President, then to follow the Constitution of the United States.

And this is after former Attorney General and Trump supporter Bill Barr, FBI Director Chris Wray, and the head of the Department of Homeland Security cyber-security division Chris Krebs; all told Trump and his staff that there wasn’t voting fraud that could alter the election’s outcome.  His staff separately reported the same thing to him as well.   At least by November 15th, they all knew that the election wasn’t rigged.

Un-Patriotic

No one from the campaign countered what Trump, Giuliani and Powell were saying.  They put their jobs and loyalty to Trump ahead of their nation, and allowed the “Stop the Steal” effort to continue.  This led to the Insurrection of January 6th: bad enough.  But, just as badly, it led to a significant percentage of Americans who now believe that our current President is a fraud.

Patriotism is love for a country.  We know patriots from their courageous acts and sacrifices, starting with Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary War American officer who was caught by the British spying in New York. As he approached the gallows, he said, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country”. 

That is simple courage and patriotism.  He wasn’t worried about a “tweet” against him, or even losing his job.  He was about to die.  But the members of the Trump family and staff, and those other American “leaders” from Congressman Mo Brooks to Senator Josh Hawley, who went along with the “Stop the Steal” campaign, knew.  They knew it was a lie, and they were willing to lie to America to get the power they wanted.  

Treachery

It’s easy to throw around words like treason.  Treason has a legal definition, to give aid or bear arms against the nation.  So what those “leaders” did wasn’t legally treasonous.  But the common definition of treason is to go against one’s country.  I can think of no greater example of doing that, than to knowingly lie in order to overturn the Constitutional process of election.   It was “common” treason – and it was treachery.

This isn’t “new-news” to most of us.  But there, on paper in the Court documents revealed by the New York Times, is the “proof” of what most of us already figured out.  I wish that my all-so-committed “Trump” friends could read and realize what that means.  But it’s in the New York Times, and I am sure there will be some slant from right-wing media to make the lies more palatable.  Besides, so many are so pledged to so many lies: for them there’s no turning back.

Madmen

My Dad was a television executive in the 1950’s and 60’s.  He started at the “bottom”: a spot advertising salesman for WLW-T in Cincinnati back at the beginning of the television era in 1952.  He worked his way up, switching to selling individual television shows for Ziv Productions around the country.  Dad was a “leave on Monday, come home on Friday” guy, talking to us kids from hotel rooms in Lansing or Ottumwa or New York.  You have to be of a certain age, well past Medicare eligibility, to remember the shows:  The Cisco Kid, Highway Patrol, Ripcord, and Sea Hunt among them.

By the early 60’s he was back at a TV station, WLW-D in Dayton, first as Sales Manager and then as the General Manager, the CEO of the station.  He was working for a company called Avco, a hard-drinking, hard-living, and hard-dealing bunch of businessmen who owned and ran television and radio stations.  I never watched the series Madmen, but from what I gather about the show, they were the kind Dad worked with.

Tough Love

Dad wasn’t that kind of guy in a lot of ways.  He was never a hard drinker, in fact, a couple of drinks put Dad to sleep.  And he was intensely loyal to Mom and our family. There was no chance of Dad having an affair on the road or with his secretary, unlike most of his co-workers.  But he was tough.  

I first learned how to swear in the Boy Scouts (of course), but I learned the nuances of profanity from listening to Dad on the phone with his salesmen.  At first, I thought he hated those guys.  The way he spoke to them was terrifying.  Later I realized that, in Dad’s own way, he was showing how much he cared.  He wanted them to succeed, both for the company but also for themselves.  This was how Dad was taught, and this was the way he knew to teach them.  If he wasn’t pushing, yelling, demanding, and swearing; then they should start worrying about their job.

Business was business for that generation.  Dad was an exception.  As a salesman at heart, he knew that trust was part of the “secret” of his success.  But that wasn’t the general trend of the business back then.  When Dad put together a multi-million dollar deal to buy WLW-D from Avco, his “friends” found another buyer to outbid him.  And when many of those same friends bought out the company they waited until Dad was retiring, and cut him out of a life-changing multi-million dollar profit.  Business was business, no hard feelings. Let’s have a drink, at the mountain home in North Carolina or the beach house in Florida.

Strategic Business

The nation of Australia had a deal with France to purchase advanced submarines for the Australian Navy.  Why have submarines?  Australia is a major player in a region including North Korea and China.  To this point, they had tactical weapons, good for defending from the pirates along the Cambodian coast.  But to act as a strategic power, to have a place at the table of West Pacific military affairs, they needed to have a stronger military presence.  Twelve diesel submarines, modern attack weapons, was the deal, worth $66 Billion.  

But nothing says strategic weapon like a nuclear submarine.  For Australia there was only one place to buy “nukes”, the United States.  Up until now, the United States has only shared nuclear submarine technology with one other nation, the United Kingdom.  The US offered Australia nuclear submarines without nuclear weapons capabilities, but with conventional cruise missiles, and also the nuclear ability to remain at sea for many months at a time without refueling.

The Biden Administration saw an opportunity.  Australia could take a larger role when it came to Chinese expansion into the South China Sea, as well as issues with Taiwan and, of course, North Korea.  What was a dominant US presence with some help from the UK, could add a third partner to “share the load”.  And it doesn’t hurt that US companies will be building the submarines.  It’s not likely that Australia will save money going from twelve diesel subs to eight nuclear subs.

French Pride

France is more than angry.  President Macron withdrew his ambassadors from both Australia and the United States.  France too is an ally, and a leader in the “Western Alliance”.  And they have been “dissed” by the US and Australia. The French are a proud nation, and a nation cut out of a $66 Billion deal.   It will take a lot of US and Australian diplomacy, and probably some way to make up the economic damages, to smooth over the rupture in relations.

But business is business:  both economically and strategically.  The United States is looking for help in the Far East to balance growing Chinese influence, and Australia is looking for a larger presence at the table.  That’s a win-win for the new AUKUS (Australia-United Kingdom-United States) relationship.  It’s another bolster against the growing Chinese influence in the Pacific.  And it’s a blow to French pride and economics, a blow that will need to be made up.  

Maybe we can ask them to join us for a glass of champagne at our mountain home or at the beach.

Division

I’ve written a lot about division in the last few weeks.  There were essays about the division in our nation, divisions in the Democratic Party, and the lack of division in the Republican fealty to Trumpism.  Why there was even an essay about trying to remember how to do division of fractions as a substitute teacher:  that whole flipping over and changing to multiplication thing.  Thank goodness for decimals.

And there is plenty of division to talk about.  But there are some apparent divisions that aren’t really there.  And one of those is the so-called big “divide” between the Food and Drug Administration and the White House over Covid “booster” shots.

Boosters

A few weeks ago, the Biden Administration announced that they were prepared to begin booster shots for all Americans.  Folks would be eligible to receive them eight months after their second Pfizer vaccination, with the program beginning on September 20th (that’s today!!).  In that announcement the President himself made sure to say the “magic words”; “Pending FDA approval”.  (Moderna and Johnson and Johnson “boosters” are a few weeks away). 

The FDA didn’t approve the “Biden Plan”.  Perhaps some of the scientists were annoyed that the President got “ahead of their science”.  But to give them full credit, most of the panel simply didn’t feel that the existing evidence for boosters was compelling enough to require a national booster program.  They did, however, approve booster shots for those sixty-five and over, immune compromised, and those working in environments with increased exposure risk. So, I guess the science really says that boosters work, but aren’t overwhelmingly necessary – yet.  

Not Ready Yet

So Joe Biden wasn’t wrong.  Boosters do increase resistance to Covid, including the Delta Variant.  And most of the scientists acknowledge that booster shots are necessary in the long run.  They simply say it’s not time, yet, for everyone to get a Covid vaccine booster shot, particularly when so many in the United States and the world haven’t even gotten the first (or second) shot yet.  64.5% of Americans have received at least one dose.  That percentage includes kids under twelve who cannot get the vaccine.  But the big news this morning – Pfizer released results from their trials with vaccines for five to eleven year old children.  The data looks good, kids are gaining immunity without a lot of side-effects.  The “kids’ vaccine” is on the way.

Sure the President is more than anxious to find a “stop” to Covid.  When he entered office, the “science” said if we could only get 75% of the adult population vaccinated, we could go back to “normal”.  But we didn’t reach that point soon enough, and the Delta Variant changed the Covid rules.  There is a direct correlation between Covid and the President’s approval rating – Joe Biden knows that, like Donald Trump, he will be judged by his handling of the Covid pandemic.  So it should be no surprise he was ready for the next step.

Moving the Ball

And, Biden also knows that when he entered office, there were vaccines developed in the Trump Administration. “Operation Warp Speed” was remarkable, developing amazingly effective vaccines in record time.  But the Trump Administration seemed to lose interest after the election, with little effort to get the vaccine out to the public.  Biden’s team had to pick that “ball” up, and did a remarkable job between January and May getting the vaccine out.

Biden didn’t want to be left “holding the ball” this time should the FDA approve mass booster shots. And he wasn’t.

This Isn’t a Nail

I don’t know why today’s society has to make a controversy over every difference.  I guess once you head down the “division” trail, ever problem looks like a divide (there’s my favorite paraphrase again – if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail).  The headline could have read, “Biden ready if FDA demands boosters”.  Instead, there’s all the talk about Biden getting “turned down” by the FDA, as if he was applying to the panel, instead of the Pfizer company.  

I guess it makes good headlines – and puts Dr. Fauci “on the spot”, defending the FDA process and the President at the same time.  He did that well.

So where are we?  Currently if you’ve had the vaccine, you have a 1 in 5000 chance of getting a “breakthrough infection”, getting the Covid Delta variant despite vaccination.  That’s a .02% chance (there’s that division thing again).  And even if you do get a breakthrough infection, your risk of serious illness is very small, and risk of hospitalization even smaller.  So get vaccinated.

And get a booster when you can – just like we got the vaccine when we could. I promise, as a sixty-five year old substitute teacher, that will be soon for me.

Division

We, the people of the United States — aren’t.  

That is, we aren’t United.  In fact, we live in one of the most divisive periods in American history, perhaps as polarized as the era leading to the Civil War.  Like that time, there are a variety of reasons for division.  And like the 1850’s, in the end the main issue is race.

The Civil War was about a region of the United States maintaining an economic model which required slave labor.  A minority of Americans used every political “trick” in the book to keep that model. That included long periods of time when the national legislature, Congress, literally banned discussion of the subject.  Many of our institutions, including the Electoral College and the filibuster in the Senate, were established in part, to maintain that minority power. 

The “majority” won the Civil War, but many of those political “tricks” remained.  While the “peculiar institution” of slavery ended, manipulation of the laws allowed that same minority to maintain control, and to keep the former enslaved peoples in a lesser form of citizenship.  It took almost one hundred years to pass laws implementing the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution guaranteeing their civil and voting rights.  Those were the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Minority Rule

And even those momentous pieces of legislation did not end the issue.  Only eight years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that large sections of the Voting Rights Act were no longer “needed”.  As Chief Justice Roberts said in his majority decision:

“Our country has changed. While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.” (Shelby County v Holder), 570 U.S. 529 (2013).

Essentially, John Roberts and the other four concurring Justices declared that discrimination in voting was over, and the efforts to prevent it no longer necessary.  Or, to put it another way, they declared another procedural victory for the minority.

Like the Southern enslavers, there are various reasons that today’s “minority” wants to maintain control.  As the Civil War Era South wanted to maintain their plantation culture, so today the minority wants to recreate a culture of the 1950’s, where people of color, of differing gender identities, of non-Christian religious beliefs, are forced to hide in the darkness.  And they are “rigging” the system in the face of an overwhelming threat – they are rapidly becoming a voting minority.

Inevitable Change

Within a score of years, the “United” States will be a majority-minority country.  Whites will no longer have a voting majority in the nation.  And some white people are so threatened that they are gerrymandering districts, restricting voting, and making sure that their power is enshrined in institutions that are protected by law.  Those folks are the direct political descendants of the protectors of slavery.  They claim that they are “defending” America from majority rule, a rule that they somehow have warped to be “evil”.  

They are today’s Republican Party.

Republicans today are attacking the sanctity of the vote, oddly enough, in the name of “voting security”. Here in Ohio they are reneging on promises to make the voting districts representative and less manipulated. When Democrats called them on the promise, they literally said, “That’s how the cookie crumbles”.

In other states they are doing everything they can to make voting more difficult – knowing that by making it harder, they make it less likely that people will vote. The ideal of “every citizen participating in democracy” is the very thing they want to prevent.

They isn’t a Trumpian issue.  The Republican Party has been working on de-democratizing the nation for two decades. And the Democratic Party, as often as it has cried out against these actions, has done little to stop it.

Higher Ground

It’s not that the Republicans are “smarter” than the Democrats.  Current Democrats hope to claim “higher moral ground”; so they won’t take similar actions to the Republicans.  Essentially, Democrats have been fighting a battle without accessing the same weapons that Republicans use, because they think it’s somehow “wrong”.

What’s wrong is not using every weapon to defend democracy.  What’s wrong is allowing the ideologic descendants of the slaveholders to use every “trick in the book” without responding in kind.   The mid-20th century conservative hero Barry Goldwater said it best:

“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice… and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. (1964 Republican convention).”  

He set the tone for today’s Republicans.  Democrats need to do the same, now.

Step one: end the filibuster in the United States Senate.  

Step two:  “unpack” the Supreme Court by changing the number of Justices to thirteen. 

And Step three:  pass the For the People Voting Rights Act.

It’s time to take the gloves off.  It’s time for the Democrats, including the President I voted for in November and still support today, to stop talking about “the moral high ground”.  We need to just take that ground, moral or not.  It’s the only way to defend Abraham Lincoln’s vision:

“…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Levers

Power is the ability to make something happen.  It can also be the ability to prevent things from happening.  But it always is the ability to shape and control events.  And that’s the position that members of the Democratic Party in Washington are in.

They are in power, with marginal control of the House of Representatives (an eight vote majority) and an even smaller margin in the Senate (50-50 tie, with the Vice President as the tie-breaking vote).  And of course they have full control of the Executive Branch of the Government, with all the “levers” exercised by President Biden.

Except, that’s not really true either.  Biden has already conceded some of that control. From the first day of his Administration he confirmed the independence of the Justice Department.  This week is a clear example of that, as an investigation begun under the Trump Administration with the clear intent of countering the Mueller Report was allowed to continue.  The Durham investigation brought a second indictment this week, alleging that a lawyer, Michael Sussman, lied to the FBI about who he was representing.  This was in an interview after Sussman brought information to the Bureau about possible computer linkages between the Trump Organization and a Russian company with close connection to the government, Alpha Bank. 

Whether Sussman actually lied or not really isn’t a big deal in a global sense.  What is important is that Biden’s White House didn’t interfere with Attorney General Garland’s decision to allow the case to go forward.  The previous administration had a well-established record of interference and even pardons of their “friends”. 

The Few

So even though the Democrats are “in power”, they are also only a few votes from failure.  And that fact empowers individual legislators, both in the Senate and House.  It only takes four “defectors” in the House to stop Democratic legislation.  And, of course, it only takes one Senator to derail Democratic plans there.

The current Republican Party is whipped into a single discipline.  It’s not because of the “vaunted” power of Mitch McConnell, or the simpering favoritism of Kevin McCarthy.  The power in the Republican Party is the single-mindedness of the Republican Primary voter.   That voter is still a die-hard supporter of Donald Trump’s MAGA liturgy, and any political deviation from that is suicidal.  Ask Congressman Anthony Gonzalez from the west side of Cleveland.  He voted for the impeachment of Donald Trump after the Insurrection of January 6th, and now has no path to re-election. 

Big Tent

When we talk about Democratic Party power in the Congress, we are really talking about the power of every single Senator, and groups of four Congressmen.  The “Democrats” are a “Big Tent” party, with a wide range of ideologies. They are the Party of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and the Party of Joe Manchin.  There are similar contrasts in the House.  So getting a legislative “plan” together is tough.

It’s tough because there is no negotiation with the Republican side.  They are in “lock-step” opposition to anything that the Democrats offer.  Even the Covid Relief Package was passed on a strictly partisan vote.  By taking that stand, the Republicans determined to “not participate” in governing.  Instead they see steadfast opposition as their means to regaining power.  But even more important to them, intransigent opposition is their way of keeping faith with the Republican primary voter – and Trump.

On the List

There is an old legislative “saw”, purportedly by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck: “Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to seem them made”. But in our twenty-four-seven news cycle, there is no such thing as “not seeing”, so we get to view every twist, turn and ugly moment of Congressional “sausage making”.

And there’s a lot going into this particular sausage.  There’s the original infra-structure plan, already agreed to in the Senate.  There’s the second infra-structure plan making its way through the House, the $3.5 Trillion package that includes “human infra-structure” as well as bridges, roads and wires.  

And there’s the voting rights laws, designed to counter state-by-state Republican voter suppression laws.  There are two levels of that as well, the more traditional John Lewis Act, and the all-encompassing For the People Act. 

Add to all of that a looming debt ceiling vote.  The United States Congress made it a requirement to vote on increasing the debt payment, even though the reason the debt increases is because the Congress has already passed laws spending more money.  So there’s the annual approval to increase the amount, a vote Republicans vow to oppose.

Sausage Making

So don’t get fooled into thinking that the negotiations in the Democratic Caucus in either the House or the Senate is “just” about voting rights, or infra-structure, or the debt ceiling.  All of those topics are on the table for a “universal” deal, particularly when it comes to the critical votes of Joe Manchin and Krystin Sinema in the Senate.

Biden wants the $3.5 Trillion plan – Manchin is talking about $1.5 Trillion.  Manchin is opposed to the For the People Act, but in favor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.  But Manchin (and Sinema) would have to allow “voting rights” to be added to the list of items that can be exempted from the sixty vote filibuster standard to pass legislation.  The list is currently short:  executive appointments and budget reconciliation.  Biden will need to convince at least those two Senators to add voting rights, and that may require a “price” to pay somewhere else.  

Interstate Gridlock

And all of that has to balance the equally powerful Bernie Sanders and progressive coalition in the House of Representatives.  “Herding cats” is comparatively easy.  It’s a lot more like driving across downtown Columbus.  I-70 westbound has four to five lanes ripping through the east side of town.  As downtown approaches, westbound narrows to a single lane, lined by concrete barricades.  Meanwhile another single lane splits to downtown, and two more head north on I-71. And in the background “Siri” is often telling you to go the opposite way.  It’s no surprise that there’s always a slowdown getting anywhere, and often accidents stalling traffic completely.

The sausage is being made.  And just like I-70, there will be accidents, slowdowns, and sometime gridlock.  But ultimately most people make it across town, and move onto the west side.  And that’s where the Democrats in Washington are right now:  sitting in the jam, waiting to find a single lane to slide through. 

Steps of the Capitol

This Saturday, a now-prepared Capitol Police and over-protected Congressional buildings are ready.  They are ready for the “J-6” rally, organized by former Trump staffers at the foot of Capitol Hill. For those not fully aware of DC geography, that’s “the Capitol end” of the National Mall, around a reflecting pool that looks up at the majestic front of the Capitol building.  

(If you went on a “senior trip” to Washington, at least in my day, it’s where your class lined up for a panoramic camera picture with the Capitol in the background. If you got at the very end of one side of the class, you could outrun the panoramic to the other side – and appear twice in your school picture!! Joel and Doug did it, Craig is a little blurry on one side.)

Those were simpler times at the end of the Vietnam War.  While protests were still around, Nixon had withdrawn most of the US personnel.  It would be another year before the fall of Saigon.  

There were extremists in the Vietnam War era. But there also was a clear distinction between those “mainstream” politicians who were against the War, and those groups who were burning down ROTC buildings on campuses and threatening other Federal buildings.  The anti-war “mainstream” and the far-left “Weather Underground”, considered a domestic terrorist group, were far apart.

Footsie

I was listening to Nicolle Wallace, a former Republican staffer for George W Bush, discuss how Republican Party politicians are “playing footsie” with today’s version of domestic terrorism. Those terrorists are the same folks who stormed in the Capitol Building on January 6th. They threatened to hang Vice President Pence and Congressional leaders. And they attempted to stop the Constitutionally mandated process of certifying the Presidential election.

There is a bright line connecting the terrorists of January 6th and the Republican Party today.  And that line, like all current Republican political trends, runs right through the Presidency of Donald Trump.  Trump’s refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the 2020 outcome with his loss, and his constant encouragement of the “stop the steal” fantasy, damn near brought our Republic down.

And it hasn’t ended.  Trump is still on the “trail”, and still claiming that the election was a “fraud”.  And his supporters, millions of them, still believe.  He continues to give a “wink and a nod” to those organizations that are using his rhetoric to mobilize for their own reasons, the Proud Boys and the other far-right crazies.  

 Most Republican politicians have reached a conclusion:  they cannot win a Republican primary without the support of the “Trump” voter.  From Harvard educated Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and Ron DeSantis to formerly more “moderate” Republicans like Marco Rubio and even an Ohio Senatorial candidate, former Trump critic and Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance (Yale): all are “onboard the Trump train”.  So they cannot stand for the truth of the insurrection of January 6th, they have to accept the “new version”: it was a “First Amendment protest” with a few “bad actors”. 

Lying Eyes

We watched on our televisions on January 6th and saw the battles on the steps and in the hallways.  We watched as the House and Senate floors were desecrated, and the flag of Rebellion was marched into the building.  It was much, much more than a few “bad actors”. 

But the modern Republican Party needs us to stop believing our “lying eyes”. Now, we are told that the video where a mob attempts to break through to the House chamber as members are evacuating the other end, was just an exercise in “free speech”. They demand that a woman was simply exercising her “privilege” as a citizen, jumping though a broken window into the face of an officer with a gun. “She did not deserve to be shot”. And finally, those hundreds held by the government on charges are the“victims”, not the “perpetrators” of an insurrection.

Ask Governor Mike DeWine from Ohio. There seems to be little room in the Republican Party for more moderate views.  Drink the “Kool Aid” and accept the revisionist view of the Insurrection, or risk losing a Trump leaning primary vote.  DeWine can’t even get the endorsement of his own Party in the primary.  This Saturday’s rally is just one more step in the “redemption” of the insurrectionists, and one more brick on the road to the perdition of Trumpism.  They are changing history, in a way more blatant than that of the removal of the old Daughters of the Confederacy statuary.

Good News

They are ready:  Capitol Police, National Guard, FBI, Homeland Security, National Park Police; everyone.  The risk to the United States Capitol is low.  Experts worry more about the corollary rallies at State Houses throughout the nation, “softer” targets less prepared for “bad actors”.  Let’s hope the scenes of long-guns in the Michigan State Capitol balcony, or Idaho, or Oregon, won’t be repeated.  

There is one bit of good news. The vote turnout in the California Gubernatorial Recall was high, keeping Gavin Newsom, the current Democratic Governor, in office. It demonstrates what we knew in 2020: if everyone shows up, Democrats win. As the Republican Party continues to whittle itself to a small Trumpophile base, it gives up the moderate former Republicans who can’t stomach the lies. In an America where elections are won in the middle, it’s incredibly complicated for a Republican to win anywhere but the “Reddest” areas. It even puts Ohio, with the Governor position and a Senate seat up, in play for 2022.

Who would have “thunk” that? 

Not Even on TV

I’m not a doctor.  I don’t even play one on TV, though there were times over the years where I had to give medical-like aid and advice on cross country trails miles away from trainers or medics.  I am an interested “observer”, particularly of the intersection of science, medicine and politics.  So I’ve done my best to understand the intricacies of our current national pandemic.  

It doesn’t take a medical degree, or a doctorate in molecular biology, to understand our current situation.  A viral infection is spreading across our nation.  For many, infection is an inconvenience, like a bad cold. For some it is a serious health issue, with symptoms lasting for months.  And for a few, infection results in hospitalization, intensive care treatment, and even death.  A few is a relative term.  There are more than 680,000 deaths to Covid in the United States, at a rate now accelerating to 1000 deaths a day, again.

This viral infection spreads through the air, person to person.  And like most viruses, this virus goes through mutations.  It is in that mutation process that our nation has reached a political crisis.  

Genetic Mistakes

OK – so this when an old social studies teacher tries to explain science (I guess that’s better than math).  Viruses don’t mutate because their “evil”.  They mutate because there are “mistakes” in their genetic code when they replicate (that is, make more viruses).  And most of those mistakes mean that the virus with the mistake doesn’t survive.  But the more “replication”, the more opportunity for a “mistake” to be “good” for the virus (that means, in this case, bad for us). 

So, for example, somewhere in the millions of people (more than 225 million worldwide) the original Covid-19 virus mutated to become more infective to humans.  That mutation, the Delta variant, could infect more people, and therefore got the chance to replicate (reproduce) even more, and quickly became the dominant strain. 

We know that the vaccines, particularly the MRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, are very effective against original Covid-19.  We also know that they are still pretty effective against the Delta Variant.  They are not quite as good at preventing people from catching it, though still pretty good – only 1 in 5000 vaccinated folks are likely to get a “break-through” (the vaccine) infection. And even those that get infected, have much better health outcomes.

So if everyone in the United States were vaccinated, there would be less infection, less death, and here’s the big one:  less opportunity for the virus to mutate into a more effective killer.  One more time:  if fewer people can be infected with the virus, the virus is denied the opportunity to mutate into something worse.

Freedom’s Just a Word

I have discussions with my non-vaccinated friends.  I’m glad they are still willing to talk, in our polarized society today it’s so easy to not even listen (that goes both ways).  And their consistent statement goes like this:

“It’s OK that you want to be vaccinated.  That’s your choice.  But it’s my freedom to make a different choice.  That’s my choice, not yours”.

Some even go so far as to put that thought into the language of the pro-choice movement:  “My Body, My Choice”.  

The United States has a long tradition of medical choice.  We allow folks to sign Do Not Resuscitate orders, preventing hospitals from taking extraordinary steps to save their lives.  We also allow those with terminal illnesses to determine when it’s time to stop treatment, and let the illness take its course.  And we even have the Hospice movement, where folks are allowed to die without undue interference from the medical profession, given palliative care to keep them comfortable in their final hours and days.

But all of those choices have one thing in common.  It’s about the fate of a single patient, making their own decision about their life and death.  Even in the question of abortion, it is the decision of the woman about the fetus she is carrying.  Without opening that debate, it’s still one and one, or depending on your belief, perhaps two.

Government and Vaccines

I am sixty-five (today!!).  On the side of my left arm, between bicep and triceps, there is a small circular scar, hard to even see.  It is a smallpox vaccination.  My generation was one of the last to carry that scar, because by vaccinating everyone, we actually ended the disease.  There was no one left to carry it onto someone else, and it disappeared.  Smallpox was the scourge of civilizations for thousands of years.  It wiped out cities and armies.  In fact, George Washington, a scarred survivor of smallpox himself, required his Continental Army to be vaccinated with cow pox, a similar, less serious illness that provided protection from its deadly cousin.

The whole point is by vaccinating everyone for smallpox, it ended.  Unfortunately we aren’t likely to be so “lucky” with Covid.  We can all get vaccinated, but the virus will probably continue.  But what we can do is reduce the opportunity for Covid variants that might make the vaccines ineffective.  

But to do that, we have to reduce the spread of Covid.  That requires vaccination.  And here’s where the argument “My Body, My Choice” falls aside.  Because it is your body, but your choice is impacting everyone else’s bodies.  By allowing the spread of Covid, and the opportunity for more variants, you are threatening us all.  We stop Covid variants by vaccinations that work, now, rather than wait for variants that can overwhelm the vaccine.

Fire in a Crowded Theatre

It is your body, but it is our national body.  We require all sorts of vaccinations for highly transmissible diseases , from polio to measles, to mumps and the ubiquitous “rubella”.  We have found ways to contain all of those “childhood” diseases in just my lifetime (I had measles, mumps, scarlet fever and chicken pox; the actual diseases).  By doing so, we prevented countless injuries and deaths.

Yep, the Covid vaccine is new.  We don’t have long-term, ten-year studies on the impact of the vaccine.  And we don’t have long-term, ten-year studies on the impact of having Covid either.  But we do know that Covid kills people now, and with the wrong variant, could kill a whole lot more.  And we know how to stop it.

There’s a famous line about the freedom of speech:  you can’t yell FIRE in a crowded theatre.  That’s because the ensuing panic might injure many.  And there’s another famous line:  your freedom of action ends when your fist hits my nose.  When it comes to Covid vaccination, “My Body, My Choice” means we all are in danger.  Those who claim that are yelling Fire, and punching the rest of us square in the nose.  

And that’s why it’s different.