Category: Uncategorized

Fifty Plus One

We are a nation divided.  The chasm of that divide is nowhere more apparent than in the United States Senate.  There are many who say that the Senate is anachronistic, representing a “false” America.  In a nation where the term “one person, one vote” is taught as unassailable doctrine, the Senate is an institution founded on the exact opposite.  In the Senate, one in 700,000 has as much say as one in 52 million.  

But the Senate “representation” is more of a mirror image of America than even the House of Representatives.  America is divided; by race, by economic class, by political party, and by allegiance to the false ideology of the 45th President.  And so is the Senate.

There are forty-eight Democrats in the Senate, two independents who organize with the Democrats, and fifty Republicans.  Only by virtue of Constitutional tie-breaking by the Vice President does the Democratic Party control the assembly.  On any “party-line” issue, every single vote counts.  If Democrats can gain a tie, they can win.

But the arcane rules of the Senate allow a single member, with the support of forty others, to prevent passage of any legislation (Filibuster). So to get most things done, it requires not fifty plus one, but sixty votes.  And that simply doesn’t happen much.  

Wedge in the Crack

A “wedge” issue is one which further divides the nation.  And any issue involving voting rights drives right to the heart of our current crisis.  The United States has “papered over” the Insurrection of January 6th.  Some Congressmen even pretended that the rioters were “tourists” wandering the halls of the Capitol improving their knowledge of US History.  But underneath the thin veneer of “moving forward”, the lies about a stolen election that drove the Insurrection are unresolved and un-refuted.

The falseness of those lies really doesn’t matter.  A majority of Republican voters, and a LARGE majority of Republican primary voters, believe the 2020 election was stolen (MTP). Whether Republican Senators know better or not really doesn’t matter.  They want to get re-elected, and in order to win their primaries, they must agree with their voters.  

These lies are enabling state legislatures throughout the nation to institute restrictive and suppressive new voter laws, laws aimed at reducing the number of Democratic votes.  And even more importantly, those laws allow those same state legislators to overturn the results of fair elections.

On the Democratic side, suppression laws may well determine which side controls the House and the Senate.  Both Republicans and Democrats learned the lesson of the Georgia Special Election of January 5th, the day before the Insurrection.  If everyone can vote – Democrats have a much better chance of winning.

Play to the Base

So both sides in the US Senate are bound to “play to their base”.  The want to stand in “support” of their voters.  So there is little room to compromise, or to reach some “bipartisan” deal that might be possible on some less controversial issue like spending trillions of dollars on infrastructure.  It is absolutely no surprise then, that the Senate split 50-50 on the “For the People” voting rights act that would have prevented many of the state legislative restrictions.  It failed – unable to gain the sixty votes needed to overcome the filibuster rule.

Republicans can tell their voters that they held firm.  Democrats can demonize Republicans as using “arcane” rules to thwart the will of the people.  Nothing moves forward.

But we know there is a path forward, one in control of a few Democrats.  Should they decide that the “arcane” filibuster rule is done, they can, by a fifty plus one vote, be done with it.  But those Democrats have also made a political calculation.  They have determined that their voter base values “bipartisanship” more than action.  They can hear the opposition ads now if they remove the filibuster rule: “ Joe Manchin is a puppet of Nancy Pelosi and the Socialist Democrat Left”.  

Play Out the Game

The “For the People Act” is not over.  Manchin will bring a “compromise” bill to the floor of the Senate in the next couple of weeks, one that gives Republicans the national “voter ID” they have wanted to decades.  But the likelihood of getting ten Republicans to agree and overcome the filibuster rule is almost non-existent.

So why go through the motions?  There are a few of possibilities.  First, perhaps Joe Manchin knows something the rest of us don’t.  Perhaps he has found a wedge in the Republican side, among the retiring members, that could gain him his ten votes.  Maybe he can use the ultimate negotiating tool – the filibuster itself – to leverage their support.  Vote for this bill, or I will have to vote to modify or even end the filibuster. That might be his ploy.

And maybe Joe Manchin will actually allow himself to be dragged into filibuster reform.  He has said that voting rights are the most important law he could pass, and it is within his power to get that done.  Maybe he needs the visual of getting dragged, kicking and screaming, across the line of filibuster reform, to make the change.

Or if not that, then at least Manchin will have “reached across the aisle”, striving to find of bipartisan solution to our most divisive issue.  He will have “played to his base”, standing as the Senator in the middle from the state that is so far to the right, for normalcy in times of hyper-partisanship. 

Fish or Cut Bait

The Senate will “play out the game”.  But as the clock winds down, it will be time for those Democrats placed in the middle to “fish or cut bait”.  For the past five years we have waited for acts of political courage, of Senators (and Congressmen) to stand up for the right instead of the expedient.  It has happened far too infrequently and our nation has been sorely disappointed in the “fortitude” of our leaders.  

They will be tested once again here in the next few weeks.  And like Charlie Brown with Lucy and the football, we will all be lining up to take our swing again.  Perhaps this time, we will kick the ball through the goal.

Supreme Court

The anguished cry was heard throughout the athletic world yesterday.  “It’s the death of amateurism, the end of College Athletics as we know it”.  And it might well be.  The United States Supreme Court cracked open the NCAA monopoly on money in college athletics.  The Court ruled that Universities cannot be restricted to offering only tuition and living expenses scholarships for athletes.  The Court narrowly defined that those schools could also offer other academic expenses, and even provide for “bonuses” for better grades and graduation. 

The good news:  for “revenue sports” athletes, the Court has narrowly opened the door that they should get a piece of the huge financial pie their efforts create.  How big a pie is it?  In the year before COVID, the Ohio State University grossed over $220 million in athletics revenues.  $60 million of that was in ticket sales for football alone. Ryan Day, the head football coach at OSU, makes over $5.6 million a year.  And that just puts him third in the Big Ten Conference.

All About the Benjamins

Why shouldn’t the athletes get more value?  If the head coach is worth millions a year, why should the recruited athlete, the one scoring the touchdowns and risking the injuries, only get $53,000 if they’re from out of state and $29,000 in-state?

There are two kinds of sports in the NCAA, and it’s not male and female.  It’s revenue, sports that produce enough money to cover all their costs and scholarships, and non-revenue.  In simpler terms:  it’s men’s football and basketball and a few women’s basketball teams at a select twenty-five schools in the nation, and there’s every other sport.

As a high school athlete I participated in track, swimming and wrestling.  All of those sports at the Division I level of the NCAA are “non-revenue”.  At the Ohio State University, all of those sports depend on the profits of the football program to continue in their present form.  The NCAA threat:  if they are forced give greater financial compensation to football and basketball players, then non-revenue sports may be cut to pay for it.  So while it might be fair to those few “paid” players, it may be the death-knell for the track and swimming and wrestling teams.

Play for Pay

Division I is the “top” level of NCAA competition in all sports.  Division I schools offer limited scholarships in the sports they offer.  While there are 85 scholarships on the football team, there are only 14 for women’s soccer (only 9 for men’s soccer).  For “my” sports:  men’s track, has 12.6 scholarships (18 for women);  and swimming and wrestling have 9.9 ( There are 14 in women’s swimming, women’s wrestling is just getting started).  

And what about those NCAA schools not in the twenty-five money makers?  Let’s take Ohio University.  When you look at their financials it seems that each of their sports, revenue and non-revenue, break-even.  But that break-even amount includes a subsidy by the University; 55% of the total athletic budget.  Only the “twenty-five” big money schools can finance athletics without non-athletic funds.

True Amateurs

Sports don’t have to be all about money. Athletics at the high school level, and at Division III colleges (my alma mater Denison University is one) doesn’t have scholarships. Athletes truly meet the “amateur” criteria, and while there is some limited revenue produced by athletics, most of the costs are covered as a “cost of doing business” by the University. Money is still important, but it isn’t the driving force that the Division I schools face. Division III schools can allow as many on their teams as they want, without trying to balance scholarship costs.

And maybe that’s how it should be.  Three major professional “revenue” sports have models that allow younger athletes to develop and try to “make it” outside of the collegiate ranks.  Minor league hockey, baseball and basketball circuits all provide their own pathway to “the big leagues”.  Football is the one major sport that depends on the college ranks as their “minor league”.  

However, for non-revenue sports, there isn’t really a pathway to the “top” except through the college ranks.  There is no “minor league” track and field circuit – if you’re good enough to “go pro”, you go, otherwise, it’s a college team or out.  College serves as the final developmental step for those athletes.

America’s Way

The “American Way” is about fairness.  And it is only fair that the superb athlete at the college level have the opportunity to benefit financially from their talents.  But it’s not as simple as just basketball and football.  It’s about the role that athletics should play in our collegiate system, and the way we develop athletes in all sports.  The NCAA can’t have it both ways.  They can’t “laud” the benefits of amateurism, while themselves benefitting from the incredible financial windfall of those amateurs’ efforts.  Whatever side of the “pay athletes” argument you’re on; that can’t be fair.

Sixteen Months

It’s been sixteen months since the COVID-19 pandemic became apparent.  Here in the United States, today we are breathing a deep sigh of relief.  If you watch our behavior, at the store, at the playground, in the movie theatres and the restaurants; the pandemic is over.  While some parts of the rest of the world are still suffering, in the US, the hospitals are nearing normal levels, and we are moving ahead.

But, of course, it’s not over.  Like the measles and polio, the COVID-19 virus hasn’t gone away.  In fact, the virus has mutated to become even more infectious with the  “Delta Variant”.  While it’s easy to say that’s someone else’s problem – the virus still remains an American problem as well.

Miracles of Public Health

Why?  Because the United States, after performing miracles of both vaccine development and vaccination efforts, has stalled.  That’s not a political question, it’s a fact.  We have the vaccines, and we now have the capacity to vaccinate everyone.  You can go to your doctor, to your pharmacy, your grocery store, or your local public health agency and get protected.  But we are struggling to reach even a seventy percent vaccination level.

A year ago we were talking about something called “herd immunity”.  At the time, the concept was used as an excuse for not taking reasonable preventive measures like social distancing and wearing masks.  The idea:  let everyone get COVID, and for those who survive it, they will have some term of immunity to the disease.  Then we can go on about our normal lives.

The politics of COVID and America, unnecessarily cost hundreds of thousands of lives.  Now we are faced with a similar situation.  We don’t need folks to risk getting sick.  We just need them to go to the local store and get vaccinated.  The current vaccines in the US:  Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson, are effective against the Delta strain, and are amazingly safe.  How safe are they?  Every form of vaccination can have side effects, but the COVID vaccine side-effects are literally measured in single digits per million people.  And even more than that, those side effects so far are almost always recoverable.  

Put the Fire Out

We have a chance to put COVID “out”, just like we put polio and smallpox “out”.  But it’s not going to happen here in the US, because there is a significant segment of the population, near thirty percent, who are “averse” to getting immunized.   So instead of reaching “herd immunity”, and perhaps more importantly, putting COVID “out” so those who legitimately can’t tolerate the vaccine are out of danger, we have allowed “the shot” to become a political issue.

In Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio there are old coal mines on fire.  They have been burning for decades, heating the ground, causing sink holes and smoke leaks.  They cannot be put out – they are burning through ancient seams of coal that stretch under roads and towns and houses.  

Instead of putting COVID “out”, we are letting it fester like those old coal mine fires.  Instead of polio or smallpox, COVID is going to be the measles, breaking out and taking its toll on the unprotected, year in and year out.  Only it’s not the measles, it’s so much more serious, and deadly.

You’re Doing Me

And for those of us who are vaccinated,  it seems reasonable to say that those folks who are making the choice to avoid “the shot can pay the price.  But there is an additional problem.  Allowing the continued transmission of COVID vastly enhances the chance that the virus will mutate into something the vaccines do not prevent.  So not getting vaccinated, just like not wearing a mask was six months ago, isn’t just a “you do you, I’ll do me” thing.  It’s putting us all at increased risk, more of a “you do you and it will screw me” thing.

But the current politics of America has somehow devolved to the “freedom” to not get  vaccinated against a deadly disease.  We can, with only a couple of clicks on the Internet, find all of the justification needed to not get protected.  It’s stupid, and it’s selfish.  And it’s America today.

This is the next installment in the “Sunday Story” series of essays –no politics – just stories. It would be my Mom’s 103rd birthday on June 25th. Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Dawn Forty

At the moment we have five – that’s right – five dogs in our house.  I’ve told the stories before, but the short version is we had two rescue dogs, Buddy and Atticus.  Then there was the first “foster fail”, Keelie, found on I-75 in Northern Kentucky, who came to be fostered but bonded so much with all of us that she stayed.  And then there was Louisiana, a full story of his own (Lou’s Saga), who came to rehab.  He and Keelie bonded so tightly that we couldn’t let him go either.

Now there’s a new rescue pit bull puppy, CeCe.  Our group, Lost Pet Recovery, pulled her from a storm sewer over near Dayton.   She’s a sweetheart, and will make someone a wonderful adoptee.  But she’s not going to stay –  five is more than we care to handle, and a puppy is still a puppy.

But it’s five dogs right now, and the day starts with a push from Lou, a lick from Atticus, and a scratch from Buddy – all around 5:40 am.  And it’s not just open the door and let ‘em go in our fenced-in backyard.  Lou still has to be walked, and so does CeCe.  So 5:40 means get up, get dressed, and get outside.

Red Skies

This morning I stumbled behind Lou, searching for “land mines” in the half-morning light.  I finally got the chance to look up, and there in the east, it was a full orange sky.  The sun wasn’t visible yet, just below the horizon, but the clouds were fully lit.  I was reminded of my Mom, full of sayings from her upbringing in England.

“Red sky at night, sailors delight.  Red sky at dawn, sailors take warning”.   That’s a phrase that went trans-Atlantic long before Mom stepped off the boat, the Liberty Ship Francis D Culkin, in Portland, Maine in the winter of 1946.  And the phrase still has meaning, by our second outing around 7:00 am, the clouds were gathering for the storm of the day.

Hacking

There’s nothing worse than a dog with a cough.  First of all, it gives us nightmares of Atticus, who had “Kennel Cough” so badly when we first got him, we thought he was going to choke to death.  A midnight run to the dog Emergency Room at MedVet up in Worthington to be greeted by vets in full hazmat suits made the illness even more memorable.  So when Keelie started hacking the other day, our first move was to the records.  She has had all her shots, including Bordetella, the official name for Kennel Cough.  

But she was still coughing, and it brought another of Mom’s sayings to mind, an English nursery rhyme. 

I have a little cough, sir,
In my little chest sir,
Every time I cough, sir,
It leaves a little pain, sir,
Cough, cough, cough, cough,
There it is again, sir.

Mom knew a lot about coughing.  She had asthma as a child, and one of her mother’s remedies was to find a road construction project, and have Mom inhale the fumes by hanging over the tar barrel.  Mom knew all about “Vick’s Vapo Rub” and the electric “Vaporizer”, the steam machine that she put in our bedrooms when we were sick to help us breath.  I can still remember falling asleep to the gentle hiss of the steam escaping the steel coffee pot-like base.

That’s a story that came back around.  Mom never smoked, but it was pulmonary fibrosis, a hardening of the lungs, that ended her life after ninety-three years.  The “little cough” became more than she could bear.

Pots and Kettles

In our modern age of gas and electric stoves, the outsides of pots and kettles remain clean.  It took my first camping adventure as a new Boy Scout to really grasp one of Mom’s favorite phrases: “…that’s the pot calling the kettle black”.  We made a traditional Scout dish, Dinty Moore Beef Stew dumped in the big pot, and cooked over the open fire.  It takes a lot of stirring, otherwise half of the stew will end up burnt to the bottom of the pot, and the rest will taste like you’re eating ashes.  

But it was the cleanup when us newly minted Tenderfoot Scouts learned a hard lesson.  The black ash from the burning wood adhered to the outside of the pots.  It took steel wool pads and a lot of scrubbing to get the pot even close to being clean again.  But somehow, the “leaders” pot came clean almost right away.  They waited for us to get done scrubbing, then explained that they “soaped” their pot.  They put a thin layer of liquid soap all over the outside of the pot, to make it easier to wash off the black layer of soot.

Mom grew up in 1920’s England.  The main source of fuel for both heating and cooking was coal, and my Nana (grandmother) had a coal fired oven.  Maybe that’s another reason Mom had such a tough time breathing.  Anyway, the pots and kettles were always covered with soot from the burning coal.  The pot could “call” the kettle black, but the pot was just as black as the kettle.  It was another version of “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”.

Noses and Faces

One of Mom’s favorite phrases was “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face”.  I never really got that one as a kid,  I guess I didn’t get the whole “spite” thing.  In fact, I think I heard the expression wrong anyway – I always thought she said “despite your face”.  What would that mean, you cut off your own nose, despite the fact it’s on your own face?  It just didn’t make sense.

Eventually I got the meaning – don’t get so mad at your face you cut off your nose and make it look even worse.  As a “hot tempered” guy myself, I heard the phrase from Mom a lot.  Don’t do something in anger that would make the situation even worse.  But I never got the nuance of the “spite” part.

It was actually when I started to do a lot of the writing in “Our America” that I finally got the real sentiment of the phrase.  “Word” spell checker constantly corrected my use of the word “inspite” (it just did it again) because I thought it was a single word.  So I always corrected it to “despite”, with a similar but not exact same meaning.  One day I accidently put a space in “in spite” and “Word” was happy – and I finally got it.  To spite – to be angry – at yourself.

Saints

Mom was raised Roman Catholic.  When she fell in love with a Jewish man, my Dad, her religious teachings came in direct conflict with her heart.  It wasn’t that she couldn’t marry Dad, but she had to promise to raise their children in the Catholic Church.  That was something that Dad couldn’t agree to.  So they had a civil ceremony three months before D-Day in 1944. The “legendary” story was that the priest came over to tell Mom she was ex-communicated from the church, and my Bampa (grandfather) punched him in the nose.  I guess I got my hot temper honestly.

When Mom and Dad raised us in Cincinnati, we attended the Episcopal Church.  Episcopalians are the American version of the Church of England, the Anglican Church, which is as close to Catholicism as you can get without actually being Catholic.  Dad would fall asleep, but Mom and my sisters and I would attend Sunday services until we were in our teens.  

Mom’s Catholic upbringing would come up in surprising ways.  She was a woman of faith, and her faith included that she could ask for heavenly intercession to solve real world problems.  We were vacationing in Canada and attended the village festival at the small town of Bruce Mines.  Somewhere in the dark, wandering back to the car, I lost my glasses in the high grass.  My vision was pretty bad (worse now), so not having glasses even at a young age was a problem.

Lost Things

The next day we drove back to Bruce Mines, and began searching the field for my glasses.  Mom “raised the stakes”, praying over and over to St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, to find my glasses.  After some seeking, St. Anthony came through, and we plucked my glasses from between the stalks of grass.

In fact, St. Anthony almost always came through.  The only time I remember him failing, was when Mom put my driver’s education certificate in a “safe place”.  After  I completed my time behind the wheel, I needed that piece of paper to actually get a license, but it was nowhere to be found, not even in the secret drawer in the circular table in the living room.  We even “moved up the heavenly chain” to St. Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes, but to no avail.

I had to file to the state to get a new copy, and it took months to get the paperwork straight.  I was sixteen, with a car waiting for me in the driveway, so I was impatient.  The Saints failed us, and I had to wait until the end of February (my birthday is in September) to actually get my license and go out on the road.  

That failure haunted me.  When Mom passed away, and Dad moved to Cleveland, I went through the paperwork in the house with a fine toothed comb.  Sure, it was forty years later and twelve cars later.  But I still wanted to find that certificate.  Divine intervention didn’t work. Perhaps it was superseded by maternal intervention to delay my solo driving efforts. 

 I guess I won’t find that one out, at least for a while. But I have faith that someday I will get to ask the question.

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

On Board

I probably won’t come as a surprise to most folks who read “Our America”, that I participate in a “political” online discussion board.  Sometimes that board can get out of control. Occasionally there is a reasonable discussion, but mostly it’s folks venting their views.  When I write, I try to take a “moderate” approach –tempering idealism with practical politics.  It’s tough – sometimes I feel like I’m the “President of the Joe Manchin fan club” – and I’m not.  But there does seem to be a lot of my fellow Democrats who are willing to – as Mom would say – “cut off their nose to spite their face”.  Kicking Manchin out of the Democratic Party does not solve any problem, but it does mean that the Democrats lose all control in the Senate.

Wide Awake

So in the middle of last night I was in a discussion (hoping to fall back asleep).  The issue:  what conservatives think about their “liberal” friends.  In case you missed it, I am a liberal, in the classic, 1960’s Robert Kennedy/Hubert Humphrey sense.  I don’t even like the term “progressive”, it’s an alternative definition accepted because Republicans somehow managed to demonize the word “liberal”.  It’s my term, it’s my ideology, and I’ll call myself what I want, and what I am: a liberal.  So there.

The “conservative” defined a “liberal” as someone who is uninterested in individual liberty.  Conservatives, he said, believed in the rights of individuals.  Individuals ought to be able to do what they want, without government interference.  He essentially quoted Jefferson’s inalienable rights – life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. (Yes – I know Jefferson said happiness, but Jefferson was paraphrasing John Locke – and Locke used the term property as a symbol of economic success.  Jefferson meant economic happiness, kind of the same thing.)

Personal Freedom

“Liberals”, in his interpretation, believe it is the role of government to intervene and restrict those rights.  And by doing so, they violate the very tenets of American governing philosophy:  the ascendence of the individual over the group. Conservatives believe in the absolute importance of individual freedom, so much so, that when the government tries to “take from the individual” to aid another individual or group, it’s just wrong – to them it’s Un-American.

As a liberal, I agree with my conservative friend on the importance of individual freedom.  Where he and I differ is a matter of balance.  In his view, individuals need to have the “freedom” to deny their services to others based not just on their ability to pay, but on their identity, or their race, or their gender, or their ethnicity.   “My freedom is to not serve you in my restaurant, or bake you a wedding cake, or allow you to stay in my hotel. It is more important than your freedom to your sexual identity, or your ethnicity or race”. 

Separate but Equal

This is the same argument used in the Jim Crow Era – the famous “separate but equal” of the Plessy versus Ferguson Supreme Court case.  That was about Black people riding in “White” railroad cars in Louisiana. The state had a law separating cars by race. But ultimately the railroad was a privately owned company – and the railroad owner had an inalienable right to happiness.  The Court ruled that as long as that individual provided a “separate but equal” car, then it was OK.   Plessy codified Jim Crow segregation from the 1890’s until 1954, when the Supreme Court ruled that separating by race was inherently unequal, taking away the individual freedom of those separated out.

As a liberal, that’s my point.  Individuals freedom is not as simple as “I do what I want”.  It also has to deal with how one person’s actions impacts another’s freedom to do what they want.  And that is not just an individual liberty balance, it’s also an economic balance.  If one has a greater economic power, then they are able to exercise their freedom “more” than those who did not have the means.  

Means Testing Freedom

Freedom shouldn’t be based on the ability to pay.  Freedom should be exactly as Thomas Jefferson wrote:  an inalienable, granted by our Creator, right.  So government has a bigger job than just saying – you have freedom, go for it.  Government must balance the freedoms of all individuals, and guarantee the optimum freedom to all.  That “optimum” may not be “maximum” freedom, because “maximum” for one may well infringe on the “maximum” for another.  And that’s the balance that liberals look to the government to provide.

And liberals would expand on Jefferson’s “happiness”.  If you can’t feed yourself, or your children, you aren’t happy.  If you can’t express your ideas and beliefs in the public space, you aren’t happy.  So it’s more than just a balance of individual rights, it’s an economic balance to provide a “base line” of “happiness” for all.  And that’s where my conservative friends jump off of the train, segregated or not.  They believe that our government goes “off the tracks” when it tries to balance economic opportunities for all.  As a liberal, I believe that the government has a duty to make sure that the basics of life:  food, shelter, health, and education are provided.  

I don’t think my conservative friend agrees with that.  He used what he thinks is a “derogatory” word to describe my version of Jefferson’s ideal:  socialism.   I don’t agree with that description, I believe it is what every enlightened democracy should provide for all its people, a social-capitalism.  Social-capitalism is Jeffersonian individualism tempered by recognition that not everyone can economically “compete” equally.

That’s the discussion that went on a 2:47 AM.  Then it was time to get back to sleep – counting railroad cars instead of sheep – and have sweet social-capitalistic dreams – Good Night!!

Fifty-Cent Word

There is a fancy “fifty-cent” word:  kleptocracy.  Most of us know what a kleptomaniac is – someone who can’t stop stealing.  A “kleptocracy” is a government made up of thieves.  This is beyond what happens here in the United States, the “garden variety” kind of corruption.   Just recently in Ohio, the former Speaker of the State House of Representatives, Larry Householder, was expelled from his elected seat.  A Federal Grand Jury indicted him for accepting a $61 million bribe from the First Energy Corporation, in order to get them financing to maintain their nuclear reactors in Ohio.  Three others involved in the conspiracy have pled guilty – Householder still maintains his innocence.  The majority of his own political party in the House, Republicans, disagree with him and voter for his removal.

While there were (are?) people at the top of the political food-chain that are corrupt, that doesn’t make Ohio a kleptocracy.  In a kleptocracy the thievery uses the government to further the leadership’s own private financial interest.  It is an accepted goal of the government.  In the US, we don’t find that goal acceptable (though it certainly happens from time to time).  But in Russia – that’s the way it is.

Godfather

The head of the Russia Federation is Vladimir Putin.  He is the ultimate “gangster”, one who has effectively used his Soviet KGB (secret police) training to reach the top of the Russian government.  The richest Russians are rich by virtue of Putin’s permission.  Those that tried to gain their fortune without his say-so ended up in exile, or prison, or taking that long step out of a fifteenth floor window.  The old neighborhood “protection” racket – pay me so that I don’t burn your business, is writ large in Russia.  Pay the kleptocrats their “cut”, and you get to have your business.

Corruption is nothing new in Russia either.  The Soviet government was rife with corruption, and so was the Czarist monarchy before.  But Putin has created a Russian “cash-cow” for himself and the top echelons of his government.  According to Fox Business Putin personally is worth at least $40 billion.  Others like Bill Browder, an American businessman under indictment in Russia, and Gary Kasparov,  world chess master and Russian dissident, claim Putin has trillions of dollars and may be the richest man in the world.

A meeting then between President Biden and Putin is more like a President meeting the Godfather than a foreign leader.  Former National Security Advisor John Bolton and Kasparov argue that Biden shouldn’t have met with Putin.  They believe that the meeting, “raises” Putin to a legitimacy he doesn’t deserve, and treats Russia, the eleventh largest economy in the world behind South Korea and Canada, like a major world power.

Leftovers

But Putin does have two things that require the United States to deal with him.  First are the leftover nuclear weapons from the end of the Soviet regime.  US President Reagan “won” the Cold War by forcing the Soviet Union to spend itself into destruction to keep pace with American strategic weapons development.  The US economy could afford the expense, the Soviet economy could not.  The Soviet government finally collapsed, but they left behind all of the weapons they developed to keep up with the US.  And those weapons are still active today.

The Cold War between the US and allies and the Soviet Union is long over, but the weapons from that war are still housed in silos and submarines and armories.  And Vladimir Putin now control those weapons, an estimated 4500 nuclear warheads (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists).  The United States has 5500 (Center for Arms Control).  Whether Putin is a gangster or not, it is vital that the US and Russia have an understanding of how to control those weapons, and what the “rules” for their use are. 

 While we are not on the precarious edge of nuclear holocaust of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the weapons that could create that disaster still exist, and are still targeted.  

President Biden made it clear that nuclear weapons “stabilization” was a main goal of his meeting with Putin. 

Cyber-War

And Russia is waging a second “cold war”, this one with a new weapon – cyber-hacking.  The United States has been the frequent target of cyber-attacks from Russia, both from the Russian intelligence services and “independent” cyber-criminals in Russia.  Biden discussed these attacks with Putin and made it clear that cyber-attacks from Russia will result in retaliation from the United States – regardless of whether it was made by the government or “just” criminals.  In a kleptocracy like Russia, there is little difference between the two.

Another “fifty-cent” word used to describe the US-Russia relationship is “asymmetric”.  The Russian annual Gross Domestic Product is $1.7 trillion, the United States $22 trillion.  While economically the US and Russia are nowhere near equal, it is about nuclear weapons and cyber-warfare that the two nations need to find “stabilization”.  And for those reasons, it was important for Joe Biden to remind Vladimir Putin that the United States “is back”.

Kettering

I wasn’t much aware of discrimination until I was in elementary school in Kettering, Ohio in the 1960’s. Kettering was a suburb of a booming Dayton.  Back then, Dayton was a “heavy” industry town with Frigidaire, Delco, and National Cash Register all having big assembly plants.  And of course, there was Wright Patterson Air Force Base north of town, the biggest employer.  It was, and still is, a major Base, but back then it was a Strategic Air Command base as well (SAC).  Huge B-52 bombers with nuclear bomb payloads flew low over our house on course to land at Wright-Pat.  The garage door would go up and down by itself as they came in a few hundred feet above the roof, receiving some “top secret” transmission I thought.

 But Frigidaire, Delco and NCR were all in the south part of town.  You could have a good paying union job on the assembly line, and live in Kettering.  Racial discrimination wasn’t so much a thing in Kettering – or maybe it was everything; it was a single race town.  There were only three black kids in my school, and two were in my Scout Troop as well.  I don’t know how much discrimination they faced, though I expect there was a lot.  We didn’t talk much about race.  We just were friends, and it wasn’t an issue we discussed.

On the Hill

But I did understand living “on the Hill” or in the “Plat”.  Dad was the General Manager of one to the two television stations in town, WLW-D.  We lived “up on the hill”, on a street named for a Kentucky bourbon, Echo Springs.  I had a 1950’s childhood in the sixties:  we played in the woods and on the streets, out from after breakfast to home for dinner.  Our gang of kids all lived nearby and  road our bikes all over lower Kettering.  We could walk to school at Southdale Elementary, and, then, when we moved onto Van Buren Junior High School, raise a lot of “hell” in the neighborhood and on the school buses.

In the Plat

The “plat” was the Huber Homes built on land to the southwest of “Big Hill”.  They were sandwiched in all the way up to South Dixie Highway, with the Delco and Frigidaire plants just across the street.  Dad’s TV station was down that way as well, making it an easy commute for him.  But even though my “gang” got in trouble from time to time, at school you always heard people blame any mishap on the kids “from the Plat”.  

I don’t think they ever got in trouble for what we did, but they seemed to get blamed for about everything else.  “Plat” kids were “trouble” we were told, though some of them became my friends at Van Buren.  I don’t think that I realized the economic or regional discrimination back then.  Lots of the kids who lived in the Plat had parents who came North from Appalachia to work in the factories.  Looking back – I understand now that accent and income pegged those kids as “trouble” more than their actions.

Wyoming, Wyoming

After ninth grade, Dad got a promotion, and we moved back to Cincinnati.  It was the only move that I remember complaining about –I was just about to go to Fairmont West High School, and I was going to lose my friends.  But that was the “family business”, we moved when Dad needed us to move – four times while I was in school.  So it was high school at Wyoming in Cincinnati, an up-scale suburb was a racially diverse population.  

But being racially diverse didn’t mean that the students were all that integrated.  We all  were in class and played sports together.  Bob and I were the only white sprinters on the track team, but there wasn’t much socializing after.  It was the early 70’s, and there were still unwritten lines that didn’t seem to get crossed.

Town Gossip

All that memory came flooding back last week when I read the local posts on Facebook.  What used to be the gossip at the Nutcracker Restaurant or an article in the Pataskala Standard now is the fodder for chatter in the “Pataskala Group”.   School’s out, and there are kids out on the street.  It’s reminiscent of my Kettering days:  kids riding in packs on bikes – the “Huffy Gang”, and middle schoolers and high school freshmen walking in groups down the roads.  There are few sidewalks in Pataskala.  

Some of them are harmless – headed to the Dairy Hut for the soft-serve cone, or up to Taco Bell.  But, as in every small town, there are kids out looking for trouble.  Petty vandalism, snagging unattended bicycles from front yards, and harassing adult motorists by refusing to leave the middle of the road is a their version of fun.

Skaters

But in the Pataskala Facebook forum they are summarized as one of three kinds of kids. The first “bad kids” are “skaters”:  kids with a skateboard attached at all times. There are lots of good kids that skateboard:  it requires a high degree of physical skill, technique, and “practice man, practice”.  But to the unknowing adult it’s the “skater look” that condemns them.  Oh, and the fact that they ride down the streets, and perform tricks off of whatever curb or rail they can find.  Those kids could use a skatepark rather than condemnation, but with funds always short for the Parks and Recreation Department, and soccer the “king of the fields”, a skatepark isn’t coming soon to Pataskala.

Trailer Park Kids

And the other groups that gets blamed for being “rotten” in the summer time, are defined by their residence, and thus their income.  There are the “Kids in the Greens”, the local government subsidized housing, and the “Trailer Park Kids”.  They catch the blame for most of the “kid trouble” in this small town, unfair to all of the “good” kids who live in the same locations.  It’s short hand for low income kids, and that’s just as wrong now as it was when the kids “from the Plat” got harassed back in good old Kettering.

I spent eight years as the Dean of Students, the discipline guy, at the local high school.  I knew the “rough” kids that lived in the Greens or the Trailer Park.  But I also knew the “good” kids, trying to do the right thing, who lived in those areas. And there were kids who lived in the affluent areas, Beachwood Trails or the Oaks, who were plenty as “rough” as those kids living in apartments or double-wide’s.  It’s was always about the kid, not the location or the money. 

Folks in Pataskala need to get that right. 

This is the next in the “Outside My Window” series about daily life during the pandemic.

It’s Over

It took less than a month.  In the first week of May, I officiated a track meet in Columbus.  Everyone, kids, coaches, parents, wore masks.  “Social Distancing” was still a “thing”, and we all took pains to avoid crowds.  We were still a world restricted by the pandemic.  I officiated my last meet in Chillicothe three weeks later.  Masks were few to be seen – none of the officials wore one.  A few kids, a few elderly spectators, but other than those it was a “mask free” environment.  There were crowds in the stands, a record showing for Southeastern High School.

The world turned quickly.  The death and infection rates here in Ohio plummeted.  Over 50% of adults are vaccinated, with a part of the rest already infected and over the disease.  So the spread slowed.  It doesn’t really mean “it’s over”.  Over 250 died from COVID in Ohio in May.  The  Butcher’s Bill from the pandemic stands at 20,000 deaths in Ohio.  But only 503 are being treated in  hospitals now, down from the many thousands that nearly overwhelmed some facilities. 

COVID statistics are reported in the weekend newspapers, alongside the baseball scores and the horse racing results.  But they’ve lost their impact:  to folks here in Ohio, it’s over.

Normal Life

My family went to a “fancy” restaurant last week to celebrate a birthday.  It was the first time since – I’m not sure, maybe Christmas of 2019 – that we went to an “upscale” place.  Life was normal:  crowds at the bar, no Friday reservations available until after 8, the servers excited to be busy.  It was as if COVID hadn’t even happened.  We had a great time, with seafood and steaks and wine.  

I wrote my first essay on the pandemic on March 16, 2020 (Crisis in a Small Town).  It was about how our small town of Pataskala was reacting to the pandemic, even though the actual disease hadn’t touched us yet.  Sure there were fights over toilet paper at the local grocery, but there were also lots of stories about a town pulling together in crisis.  The local restaurants quickly switched to full carry-out modes, and one of the bars (Ziggy’s) even found a way to carry-out their mixed drinks.  

Variants

So here we are, more than a year later.  And for the moment, our crisis is over.  We still hear of the dreaded “variants” that somehow might escape all of the defenses.  And we are still reading about the tragedy of COVID – now ravaging India and other parts of the world.  Ohio has almost half-a-million COVID vaccinations ready to expire.  We can’t send them to India, but we could put them in Ohioans arms to protect them and keep the rest of us safe.  But those vaccines will likely go to waste.  Even a million-dollar lottery isn’t enough to get some to roll up their sleeves.

So the next step in COVID is to be charitable.  All of the billions of dollars spent to develop and produce enough vaccines for the United States, need to be re-directed to saving the rest of the world.  And it’s not just charity, it’s self-interest.  The fewer people with COVID, the less chance of a mutation in the virus that would circumvent the vaccinations.  Stop the spread, stop the variants:  protect us all.

I keep thinking  back to the flu epidemic of 1918, the “Spanish Flu” (it just as likely originated in Kansas).  They thought it was over after the first wave, but the second mutated strain that came back with the Armies from World War I was even more deadly.  We know a whole lot more about viruses today.  The solutions are really common sense.  But common sense doesn’t seem to be much of a driving force in today’s world.  We’ll see if there’s another essay in 2022 about life and COVID. 

Ohio

Meanwhile it’s back to normal here in Ohio.  We are going to a long awaited family reunion next weekend in Cleveland.   There’s another Pole Vault Camp (yes, there is such a thing) to coach this week, and maybe Jenn and I will take in a ballgame soon.  There’s nothing like a minor league game on “dime a dog night”, sitting in the bleacher seats in the hot sun, beer and dog in hand, rooting for the Clippers.  I hear they play the Toledo Mud Hens this week.  That’s about as normal as life can get.

The Outside My Window Series

• Crisis in a Small Town – (3/16/20)
• St Patrick’s Day – (3/17/20)
• Plagues and Floods – (3/21/20)
• Stories from Lockdown – (4/1/20)
• Out My Front Window – Part One (4/21/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Two (4/23/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Three (4/26/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Four (5/13/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Five (6/3/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Six (7/3/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Seven (7/31/20)
• Outside My Window – Inshallah (8/13/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Eight (9/15/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Nine (9/25/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Ten (10/9/20)
• Outside My Window – Part 11 (11/29/20)
• Outside My Window – Post-Truth World (12/16/20)
• Waiting for the Shot (3/11/21)
• Outside My Window – Part 15 (5/26/21)
• Outside My Window – Part 16 (6/13/21)

Beginnings

I was introduced to politics at a “tender” age.  One of Mom’s roommates in boarding school in England was Kathleen Kennedy, daughter of US Ambassador Joseph Kennedy.  Kathleen, like many of her siblings, met an untimely death in 1948, but Mom’s relationship with her before World War II led to a lifelong dedication to the Kennedy family.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise that when Kathleen’s older brother, Jack, ran for President of the United States in 1960, Mom was a big fan.

My Mom was a British citizen, so she couldn’t vote in American elections.  But she could support candidates in other ways, and she made sure her four year old son (me) was wearing a “Kennedy for President” button.  At that age I didn’t quite understand why our very good friends, Howard and Leah Shriver, didn’t want to let me in their Cincinnati apartment in the Vernon Manor with a Kennedy button on.  Howard was one of the doctors who founded Blue Cross insurance, and they were stalwart Republicans.  

So I sat in the hall outside the apartment for a while, wondering why that Nixon guy was so important.  “Aunt” Leah finally came out and bribed me with a toy – an iron elephant.  I didn’t get the significance at the time, but that toy gave me admittance to their residence, in spite of my Kennedy apparel.

Three years later President Kennedy was assassinated.  I recorded the funeral on reel-to-reel tapes, watching the speeches and the processions.  There was the plain caisson carrying the casket, followed by the horse with the empty saddle and reversed riding boots.  The eternal flame burned by the grave site, the hats of the various military divisions placed around the cross. 

Real Politics

But my real insights into politics began in the summer of 1968.  Dad repaired a flat tire on my bicycle, and one of us failed to tighten the front tire nuts.  I hit a bump, the wheel came loose, and the bike flipped over.  When I looked at my right wrist bent at an odd angle, I knew there was a problem.

I was disappointed.  It was the week of the swim championships, and at the top of my age group I looked forward to several “big wins”.  Instead, I was told to stay on the couch, my casted arm elevated on a green painted “beer box”.  So it was a week of “staying quiet”:  all I could do was watch TV.  

It was the week of the Democratic Convention in Chicago, the party torn apart by President Lyndon Johnson’s commitment to the Vietnam War and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, the President’s younger brother and an anti-war candidate.  There were riots in the streets, speeches in the convention hall, and the brutal control of Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley over the entire scene.  The police beat the demonstrators and the media, chasing them into the hotels and up into their rooms.  It was a disaster for the Democratic Party, and Republican Richard Nixon, now eight years later, finally became the President.  I learned a lot.

Watergate

I turned sixteen, Nixon was re-elected again, and a new word entered the American political vocabulary:  Watergate.

The next two years were consumed with the intersection of political power, money and corruption.  We learned that Nixon used the power of the Presidency to attack his opponents.  There were campaign operatives installing wiretaps on opposition communications, and break-ins to gain access to information.  The White House “Plumbers” unit moved far beyond the limits of the law to get Nixon’s enemies.  Nixon used the CIA to cover their efforts.

Nixon’s Administration was plagued with “leaks”:  information they wanted to hold secret that slipped out to the public.  In fact, Nixon’s illegal investigation group was called the “Plumbers” because they were supposed to “stop the leaks”.

It was a classic case of near-absolute power corrupting near-absolutely.  Watergate brought Nixon’s Presidency down, but it took decades to find how deep the corruption ran.  It was even greater than we knew at the time, when Nixon waved goodbye and went into exile in California.

Barrier to Corruption

Nixon used the intelligence agencies and the Treasury Department to attack his opponents.  He even used the Justice Department, and his first Attorney General, John Mitchell, actually served jail time for his actions.  After Nixon’s resignation, the Federal Government went to great lengths to “fence-off” law enforcement activities from politics.  It’s not so easy:  the Justice Department is a part of the Executive Branch, ultimately commanded by the President.  If he can command them, he can control them.  So for forty years there was a tension between the White House and Department of Justice headquarters in the Robert F. Kennedy building. 

It is up to the Attorney General to “hold the wall” against political interventions.  One of Nixon’s Attorneys General, Elliot Richardson, resigned rather than breach that barrier.  But the men who led Donald Trump’s Justice Department seemed to hardly put up a fight.  In fact, we are now learning that they were aiding and abetting the politicization of Justice.

No Administration in history was a “leaky” as the Trump Administration.  It seemed that whatever was told in confidence in the White House became public, with the leakers often the most senior advisors using the media to pursue their own influence over the President.  And when the 45th President came under investigation for Russia’s involvement in his 2016 campaign, leaks constantly disrupted White House plans.  The standing joke of the Trump years was “infra-structure week”:  time after time they tried to pivot to infra-structure only to have another Russia scandal take over the news cycle.

Legal Corruption

Donald Trump didn’t have to create a secret “Plumbers Unit” to investigate his leaks.  He had the full assistance of the Justice Department.  They went so far as to subpoena the communications of reporters who received the “leaks”.  They got the list of their phone calls, texts and emails.  And while they didn’t get the content (that we know of), they did get lists of who they contacted.

But what we discovered yesterday was that reporters weren’t the only ones that Justice was investigating.  We know now that the Justice Department was also investigating the Congressmen on the House Intelligence Committee who were investigating the President himself.  At least two of the Democrats leading the Committee, Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, as well as several committee aides and their families, had their records secretly seized.

Both of Trump’s confirmed Attorneys General, Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, encouraged this investigation.  Barr, in fact, revived the data collection after nothing was found in the first years and the Justice Department stopped.  They used the full power of Justice to spy on members of Congress as well as the media.  What did they want?

They wanted the investigations to stop.  They wanted the leaks to stop, and if they couldn’t find the leakers, they could attack the recipients of the leaks.  The full power of American Law Enforcement was being used to try to protect the “political life” of the President.

That’s farther than even Nixon went.  And like Nixon, it may take years to know what else happened in the Trump Administration.

No wonder Trump wants to run again.  He’s got a lot of covering up to do.

Senate Report

Yesterday, a combined committee of the United States Senate issued a report on the Insurrection.  They outlined the failures in security that allowed a mob to breech the Capitol Building, vandalizing and searching for leaders.  The report shows critical failures in the leadership of the Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies.  Those failures were so egregious, ignoring clear warnings for months about the upcoming “wild time”, that it’s hard to imagine them to be unintentional.  

But the Senate committees intentionally did not examine the cause of the crisis in the first place.  

Bipartisanship

We hear a lot about “bipartisan cooperation” these days.  There is a group in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, who are trying to find “common ground’ where they can work together.  Senator Joe Manchin is willingly the “poster boy” for this bipartisanship, but he’s not the only one, and not even the only Democrat who longs for the time when the Senate worked “across the aisle” for the good of the nation.

And this committee report is an example of where bipartisanship stands today.  They can blame the Capitol Police.  They can blame the FBI, and Homeland Security, and the other intelligence gathering agencies that failed to prepare for January 6th.  But blaming all of those folks for what are clear mistakes, fails to reach the most important conclusions:  who caused those events.

Bomb Maker

When a bomb goes off in a downtown building, we can discuss failures in the metal detectors.  We can blame the folks who examine the internet for hints and clues and bombings.  But in the end, there’s the person who built the bomb, the person who planted the bomb, and the person who triggered the bomb.  They are ultimately to blame.

Who built the Insurrection?  Clearly it was the 45th President of the United States.  He convinced his supporters that the election was stolen, a theme he repeated since before the 2016 election, and heightened after his failure in 2020.  He invited those supporters to Washington on the day of the Electoral Vote certification.  And he did it for the exact purpose of disrupting that certification process.  The 45th President was the bomb maker.

He and his minions gathered those supporters on the Mall, and harangued them about the unfairness of the electoral process.  He tried to convince them that they were acting as patriots, saving “their America” from “those others” who were “stealing the election”.  It was the 45th President who planted to bomb.

And he literally sent them to the Capitol, promising to join them (of course, he didn’t show up).  He told them to “convince” Vice President Mike Pence to disregard the Constitution and try to overthrow the election results, he sent them WITH PURPOSE to stop the United States Congress.  And they did exactly that.  The President triggered the bomb, he lit the fuse.  

And while “the bomb” was going off, he refused to do anything to stop the struggle.  Even when he finally sent a message telling the Insurrectionists to go home, he continued to express his “love” for them.  He loved the bomb he created, he loved the disruption it caused.  Like every crazed bomber, he didn’t mind that there were casualties along the way – they were “sacrifices” for his cause.

Infected

The United States, even the leaders of my own Party, have hoped that somehow, we would “get over” the Insurrection and Trumpism, and “go back” to the bygone days of bipartisan cooperation.  But the Insurrectionists haven’t gone away.  We all thought that those “Stop the Steal” supporters would dwindle, become a marginal fifteen percent that could be ignored and would ultimately disappear.

But like any infection, putting a Band-aid over it doesn’t solve the problem.  The infection is festering and spreading, and we may be sure that it will poison our body politic for years to come.  Infection requires clear acknowledgement of the disease, treatment, medication, and even surgery to cure.  

And until we excise the infection, it will continue to poison every other aspect of our political discourse.  President Biden’s and Senator Manchin’s longing for the “good old days” of collegiality can’t happen as long as our Democracy remains contaminated.  It’s not their fault for wanting things to be better.  But it’s their duty to recognize the symptoms, diagnose the problem, and cure the disease.

And it’s their duty to give up their dream of bipartisanship, and deal with our reality.  It’s the only way to save the nation.

Gettysburg

It was the Fourth of July in 1938.  The United States was still suffering the effects of the Great Depression.  Things were improving – unemployment was down from the desperate days of 1933 when a full one-fourth of Americans were out of work.  But the number was creeping back up from the peak of the “New Deal” just the year before – with 19% still searching for a job.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt went to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to speak to the last veteran survivors of the Civil War battle.  Seventy-five years before, the greatest cannonade in history was so loud, it shook church bells in Philadelphia 120 miles away.  As Roosevelt spoke,  it was seventy-five years since Robert E. Lee took his invading force away from the low ridges south of town and the bugles went silent.  Roosevelt was speaking to the last of those warriors.  Twenty-five Gettysburg battle veterans were in attendance, along with about two thousand others who served on both sides of the Civil War.  

Those seventy-five years represented an incredible speeding up of history.  Roosevelt’s speech was broadcast to the nation on radio.  Airplanes flew over the gathering, and the bloodshed of Gettysburg (still the bloodiest battle on US soil) was dwarfed by the death and destruction of the First World War.  The nation was only vaguely aware of the precipice it faced.  While some warned of the coming conflagration, World War II was not seen as inevitable.

Normandy

Yesterday was the seventy-seventh anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of France to defeat Nazism.  Seventy-seven years since nearly 7000 ships appeared off the coast of Normandy and let loose an artillery barrage that shook their world.  D-Day was a pivotal part of my parents’ life.  On that day in June of 1944, Mom was already in France, helping prepare the French Resistance in sabotaging the Nazis.  Dad was still in England, waiting to join US forces in supporting the struggle.  They both survived the War, and came to the United States to have a family and live an extraordinary life.

I was born twelve years and a couple months after D-Day.  In just that brief time the United States fought a war in Korea, and was in an ongoing Cold War with the Soviet Union.  The leader of the invading force on D-Day, General Dwight Eisenhower, was then the President of the United States.  The nation was in the shadow of potential nuclear holocaust, but  a post-war economic boom seemed non-stop, and my parents were on the “ground floor” of a budding new industry – television.

Historic Distance

That distance from the Civil War in 1863 to Roosevelt’s New Deal seems enormous. And yet, the distance from June 6, 1944 to today is even greater, seventy-seven years and lifetimes ago. What in my upbringing was a recent memory, one my parents re-lived often, is now faded black and white pictures in history books, ranked with the Norman Invasion in 1066 and the Battle of Waterloo in 1814 as one of the great turning points in history. So few survivors are left, we can no longer directly feel the sand or the hear the cannon, the concussions or the blood.

If history flew from Gettysburg to the Great Depression, it has literally broken the sound barrier from D-Day to the Insurrection. We live in an era ultimately connected. We literally wear our “Dick Tracy Wrist Radios”. The entire wealth of human knowledge is within reach in our pockets. And yet that network of communication also serves to isolate us from each other. We can hide behind the keyboard and screen and avoid direct human interaction.

Righteous Might

Three years after Roosevelt spoke at Gettysburg, the United States rose in its “righteous might” to literally save the world from tyranny.  Now we can’t even unite to face a world pandemic.  Our divisions are so great, we cannot even agree on what a “fact” is.

It’s been seventy-seven years since D-Day.  I can still reach out in memory and hear the stories, feel the emotions, recognize the pride my parents took in what their generation accomplished.  So much has changed, but as with all progress, something is lost as well as gained in the changing.   

My parents, part of the Greatest Generation, faced seemingly insurmountable problems.  The Great Depression, joblessness, climate disasters, Fascism and tyranny.  In their “righteous might” they united to overcome all of those obstacles.  While with the clear vision of history, their success looked inevitable, it certainly didn’t seem that way while they lived it.  Now seventy-seven years later we too face existential threats:  to our climate, our world and to our Democracy.   

What will our grandchildren say  about us in their speeches on June 6th of 2098?  

This is another in the “Sunday Story” series – no politics – just a story, this one about an idol, a dream, and a bunch of dedicated kids.

An Oregon Runner

Steve Prefontaine was the premier American distance runner in the 1970’s.  He, along with runners Bill Rogers, Frank Shorter; and Oregon Coach Bill Bowerman and his former athlete, Phil Knight, the creators of Nike running shoes, changed American running forever.  

Prefontaine was an Oregon high schooler, a dominant state champion, who went onto one of the premier distance running colleges in the United States, Bowerman’s Oregon “Ducks”.  At Oregon – “Pre” became a three time NCAA Division I Champion in Cross Country, and four time 5000 meter track champion.   Pre was known for his front running style – taking the lead early in races to run his opponents into the ground.  

Munich

His junior year in college was the 1972 Olympic year.  Prefontaine set the American record in the 5000 meter Olympic Trials to lead the US team to Munich.  The Munich Games were tragically interrupted by the terrorist attack on the Israeli Olympic team. Eleven of the Israelis were killed, along with the eight terrorists and one German policeman.  The world mourned, but after a two day pause – the games continued.  

For the athletes it was nearly impossible to remain focused. Pre competed in the 5000, but changed his normal strategy to run an unusually conservative race from the back of the field.  It was only at the beginning of the third mile (the 5000 is 3.1 miles long) that Pre raced to the front.  He led into the last lap, when he was passed by two on the back stretch.  A third runner passed him with ten meters to go – leaving him off of the podium in fourth place.

The AAU

Prefontaine returned to his senior year at Oregon, and remained undefeated on the collegiate track.  After his graduation, he struggled to support himself as an athlete.  He tangled with the American leaders of “Amateur” track and field, demanding that athletes gain the opportunity to profit from their performances.  Over the next two years, Pre led the fight for a living-wage for athletes in track and field, a struggle that ultimately broke the bureaucratic control of the AAU over the sport in the United States and developed a new organizing body, USA-Track and Field.

Meanwhile he continued to train for the 1976 Olympic games.  In 1975, after a successful track meet, and a post meet party – Steve Prefontaine was killed when his car, a gold MG-B, wrecked on the way back to his home in the hills above the city of Eugene, looking down on the University of Oregon.

Pre’s Legacy

Pre’s tragic death at twenty-four passed him into running legend.  In the 1990’s two films were made about his life and competition.  The first was a made for TV movie – Prefontaine.  It came out in 1997, a year when I had a young impressionable group of hard working (and playing) cross country runners.  They found a hero in Prefontaine, and his phrases became a staple in encouraging our athletes. “To give anything but your best is to sacrifice the gift” and “somebody may beat me, but they’ll have to bleed to do it” were common sayings in our team gatherings.  

Pre’s work ethic became our work ethic.  Morning runs started at 5:30 am at my house.  Sometimes we were out running as school was cancelled for snow.  Those runs were the best – ending up with a soak in the hot tub and breakfast before the kids carefully drove home on the covered roads.   And some of those “days off” ended up in another “quest”:   to find “the perfect” sledding hill.  

Without Limits

It was during that winter that the second Prefontaine movie – a made for theatre film – came out.  “Without Limits” was in the “art houses” – not in the “main theatres”.  So we loaded up my 15 passenger van and headed to Grandview (near downtown Columbus).  I watched their faces as the movie unreeled.  The film was as much about them – their thoughts, their doubts, their determination.  It was a quiet ride home – each of my runners absorbing the lessons of Steve Prefontaine, the bad (and there was bad) and the good.  But most importantly, they began reaching for their “gift”.  

That summer the National Track and Field Junior Olympics were held in Seattle, Washington.  Four of my runners qualified, and we decided to make a Western trip of it – flying out to Seattle early, then driving down to Oregon.  We competed in a small meet at fabled Hayward Field, the home track of the University of Oregon.  As the guys ran their warmup, they passed a gold MG-B, parked right outside the stadium.  The message to my athletes was received.  After the races, medals in hand, the quest for Steve Prefontaine was on.

The Quest

We drove up into the hills above Eugene, and passed the marker where Prefontaine died. On it, engraved into the stone, are these words:

 “PRE”

For your dedication and loyalty
To your principles and beliefs…
For your love, warmth, and friendship
For your family and friends…
You are missed by so many
And you will never be forgotten…

The kids stopped, stared at the marker, and laid their hard won medals on the stone.  Theirs weren’t the only ones.

The next day we drove over the low mountain range to the coast.  We arrived in the fishing town of Coos Bay, where Prefontaine went to Marshfield High School.  We ran on “his” track, and through the streets of his town.  It was only when one athlete looked up Pre’s parents in the phone book that I finally put a limit on the “quest”.  We weren’t bothering them.

The next morning we headed up the coast, stopping at a small coastal village to run our last track workout of the summer.  It was early, and the fog hadn’t lifted when we prepared for our speed session.   The cloud was so thick, that I couldn’t see the back side of the under-distanced track.  The runners disappeared around the turn, then came back into view just as they approached the finish line.  It was a transforming experience – running in a cloud, only the immediate track in view, only the sounds of teammates’ efforts and the coach’s disembodied chanting of seconds from the finish line.  

Running Down a Dream

It wasn’t all running.  We drove dune buggies on the Oregon dunes (I flipped mine, and was given a “dune fine”).  I made sure we ate salmon fresh from the river (at least some did, I finished all the salmon they chose not to eat).  We visited volcanic mountains, and wandered through Portland.  And we sang along the way, Tom Petty’s “Running Down a Dream” and The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” at full throated volume, making our way along the coastline. Finally we headed back north to Seattle to prepare for the National Meet.

One of my runners earned All-American status, finishing in eighth in the steeplechase.  The others had good performances as well.  After the meet we still had a few more days in Seattle, hanging out with my sister, checking out the fish market, downtown and the Space Needle, and going to the longest Seattle Mariners game ever held in Kings County Stadium.  Around the seventeenth inning (about midnight) I said it was time to go.  We argued – we could be part of a “record” – (I’m just saying) how can we leave?  It went twenty-two innings – we heard the final run on the radio on the way back to our hotel.  

The Gift

The next day we went partway up Mt. Rainer, high enough to get above the August snow line.  Then it was back down to reality, to catch the plane home and get ready for our fall cross country season.  Our own dreams were waiting to be fulfilled.

We had our share of victories that year, and an ultimate disappointment.  We finished fifth in the state, not where we hoped.  But like most endeavors where you dedicate yourself, the journey was as important as the outcome.  It was a year of working for a dream, and of making sure we gave nothing less than the best.  The journey, not the outcome of any single competition, was the ultimate gift.

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

From the Halls of Montezuma, to the Shores of Tripoli. We will fight our nation’s battles, in the air, on land and sea. – Marine Corp Hymn

Avoid Foreign Entanglements

In the beginning of our Constitutional nation, we faced “known” foreign policy threats.  It was only twenty years after the Revolution, and we were still economically entangled with the British Empire.  Our ally of the Revolution, France, was continually at war with Britain.  In spite of George Washington’s final words to “avoid foreign entanglements,” it wasn’t easy.  France had their own Revolution, and much of its ideology came directly from America’s founding documents.

Both France and Britain directly contacted American borders – Britain owned Canada and still had great interest in the American West (then the land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi).  France owned much of the land west of the Mississippi – the Louisiana Territory.  And both had interactions with the Native American tribes whose land the American settlers were claiming.

For the first three decades of the United States, interactions with Britain and France dominated foreign policy.  But it was in a different geographical area that our first international military actions took place.  It was on the “Barbary Coast”.

Barbary Pirates

The Southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea was ostensibly controlled by the Ottoman Empire of Turkey.  But the land was sub-divided into military “republics” whose main source of income was piracy from European shipping and slave-trading along the Africa coast.  Even though the Ottoman Sultan diplomatically recognized the United States and encouraged American trade, he was unable to protect American flagged ships from piracy.

American diplomats arranged “payment” for protection from the pirates.  The John Adam’s Administration paid “tribute” to the Barbary states, protection money to keep the pirates at bay. It took an exorbitant $642,000 from the US Treasury to gain the release of captured sailors and protection from further attack.  But when Jefferson won the election of 1800, he refused to continue the tributes, instead depending on the new American Navy and Marines to protect American shipping.

One of the first foreign military actions of the new United States armed forces was attacking the Barbary Pirates, including a land invasion of one Barbary territory, Tripoli (“…to the shores of Tripoli”).  The attacks temporarily achieved the goal of stopping the piracy, though it took further action a few years later to completely protect American shipping.  

Paying Tribute

The United States has a long tradition of protecting industry from evil foreign actors.  It was the Marines that ultimately freed the sailors in Tripoli, and the US government that solved the piracy problem.  Today there is a whole different form of piracy going on.  A few weeks ago, Russian hackers (the new word for pirates) brought the US gas supply on the East coast to a halt.  They “only” asked for “tribute”; $5 million to release the computers and restore gas supply.    This week they “pirated” a major meat supplier in the US, resulting in spiking prices and meat shortages.  

And we also know that those same hackers infiltrated dozens of US government agencies.  What they did (or plan or doing) with the information they gained, we don’t know.  But what we have found, just like those early American leaders, is that paying “tribute” doesn’t seem to solve the problem.

It’s not as simple as sending a couple of cruisers and the Marines.  The “hacker/pirates” operate from the protection of Russia, as the Barbary pirates operated from the protection of the Barbary Republics.  And like those pirates, the hackers of today are probably paying “protection” as well, with the leaders of the Russian government getting their “cut” of the profits.

Cyber-Marines

The United States has the capacity of tracing the sources of internet piracy, and creating electronic havoc on their processes.  We also have the capability of doing much more, if needed, to stop these attacks on our private infrastructure.  We can bring pressure on the Putin’s Russian Government to take control, and if they don’t, we can give them a taste of their own piracy.  

It’s not just a matter of paying “tribute”.  American life is completely enmeshed in networks, from electric grids to mobile communications.  Our hospitals, schools, hydro-electric dams, public transportation, gas stations and grocery stores are all “tied” together electronically, and vulnerable to the modern day “Barbary Pirates”.  Our Founding Fathers faced the same situation, and used the then small force of American might to resolve the issue.

They showed us the way.  We need the “cyber-Marines” to go to the halls of St. Petersburg.  I’m sure they already know the address.

Preparation

I need to apologize – to twenty-eight years of students.  I taught you:  government and economics,  sociology and current affairs, world and American history.  And I used all of the knowledge I gained through my own education – twelve years of some of the best public schools in Ohio, four years at Denison University, a Masters Degree in Education from Ashland College, and lots of independent learning and study.  I had confidence that my body of knowledge prepared me to teach you.  But I was wrong.

I knew that there were biases in textbooks.  Our eighth grade history book had more pages on the Texas War of Independence than it did World War I.  It took a while to find out that Texas bought their textbooks state-wide, so publishers wanting to sell thousands of books in Texas made a much bigger deal about the Alamo than the Second Battle of the Marne.  It was about money, not about historic impact.

Coverup

I did “fight” my own battles against historic “coverups”.  When I was teaching history in the 1980’s, there was a movement to deny the Holocaust.  I sought out even more information about the what happened, determined to make sure MY STUDENTS knew the truth, and not the revisionist ignorance.  And I made the choice to deal with the causes of the Civil War with truth.  It was about slavery.  That’s a reality that still creates controversy in public education today.  Here’s how the Ohio Curriculum for Eighth Grade American History defines the causes of the Civil War:

“Disputes over the nature of federalism, complicated by economic developments in the United States, resulted in sectional issues, including slavery, which led to the American Civil War.”

In the media business – that’s called burying the lead.

The Prism

I did try to research the history of Black people in America.  But I did it through the prism of American individualism. I looked to individuals:  Benjamin Banneker, a Black intellect and contemporary of Benjamin Franklin; Charles Richard Drew the inventor of blood transfusions; Frederick Douglass and the other pioneering civil rights leaders, and of course, Martin Luther King Jr.  I saw history as the “story” of individuals and how they impacted on the nation around them for folks of all races – from Washington and Jefferson to John Lewis and Malcolm X. 

And I did teach about actions against Black Americans.  I taught about the end of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan, putting the Freedmen “back in their place”.   I used my personal experience with Jesse Owens to contrast Nazi racism to American segregation – but only as a difference in quality instead of just quantity.  My historical bias towards individualism missed a whole section of the American story – and not a pleasant one.

Critical Race Theory

It is somehow considered “Un-American” to teach “race”.  For my generation, we grew up on the “Schoolhouse Rock” concept of the “Melting Pot”, where we all blend into “American”. But folks of color weren’t allowed to “melt”, and that kept them from sharing in the American Dream.

There is a new movement in education; to teach how race has been institutionalized into our society, laws and government.  That isn’t really new, and it isn’t particularly surprising.  But the reaction of many white Americans to teaching “race” is extreme.

It’s called Critical Race Theory – defined by Education Week as:

“Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.”

Instinctively I think most Americans recognize that the core concept of Critical Race Theory is true.  We know all about economic “red lining”, when banks and even government agencies refuse to give home loans for folks of color to live in “white” communities.  We know that legal segregation separated our schools, and now “de-facto” segregation keeps races apart.  The “dirty little secret” of the suburbs around Columbus is that much of their original growth is as a result of Columbus Schools’ busing for desegregation. 

All of that was supposed to be “overcome” by American Individualism.  But it’s not.

The Gap

So we don’t talk about the ongoing racism in our lives – from employment to education, law enforcement to healthcare.  And by not teaching that – by sticking to the “truth” we learned fifty years ago – we perpetuate racism in our society.

And I participated in that.  I left generations of students with a gap in their knowledge.  And worse,  I left them with the “feeling” that they had “all the answers”.  That gives them “the out” of denying our societal reality, allowing some to claim that reality is “just politics”.  

And for that – to all my students, some now in their sixties – I apologize.

Sherrod

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown is the “Senator for the working person” (no longer the outdated term “working man”).  He built his entire career on the concept of the “dignity of work”.  He believes that Americans want to work, and that having a job that provides for their lives and their families is, beyond the money alone, an essential part of the American Ethos.  

It doesn’t matter whether, as the Senator says, “…you shower before work or after”. It’s not about the type of work, it’s the respect that “working” and “providing” creates.  That’s part of the American being, more so than in other nations.  Right or wrong, Americans often “become” our work.  

We can argue whether being a teacher, a salesman, a plumber, or a sanitation worker should become an identity, rather than “just” a job – but here in America, it is fact.  We are what we do.  And if we don’t have a job, short of retirement or disability, our culture sees us as somehow falling far short of “expectations”.  

Myths and Promises

Americans want to work.  There is the right-wing “myth” of the freeloaders, looking for a government handout.  They have to be coerced to work, forced to do their part in the “great American pageant”.  Of course everyone has a story of that “freeloader”.  But when you call the story-teller out, and demand actual names and situations – the tales tend to vaporize. 

Much of the “living on handouts” myth goes back to America’s ugly history of slavery.  Not surprisingly, humans owned by other humans didn’t want to work particularly hard.  They did only what they had to do to get by, the sole incentive being to avoid punishment.  So the “lazy Black man” is a relic, a racial memory that still rings through American thought – even though it’s based in our ugly original national sin.

But the promise of “work” in America has to be a “quid pro quo”.  Sure Americans are willing to work, even far beyond the forty hours a week that should be a healthy norm.  That’s the “quid”, the something given.  But there has to be a “quo”, the something “gotten” for the given.  And that needs to be a living wage, a wage that can “provide” for the worker and her/his family.

Living Wage 

Americans shouldn’t have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.  That was the promise of the labor reformers of the 1930’s, that if we work 25% of our weekly lives, we could support our families.  If we wanted to work more, we could, to get the extras.  But that 25% was supposed to cover the basics:  rent and food, transportation, children and health care.

And that is the next “promise”:  a living wage.  Americans working fulltime, 2000 hours a year (two weeks’ vacation) should make a minimum of $40,000.  That’s simple math – $20/hour.   We can argue whether “it can happen tomorrow”, but that should be the goal.  The proposed Federal minimum of $15/hour, $30,000/year, leaves the fulltime worker still at the edge of poverty.   A reasonable apartment is $9,000 a year.  Food for a year is minimally $6000.  Clothes, transportation, childcare, healthcare all could quickly eat the rest of the budget, leaving workers where they are now: one missed check short of financial catastrophe.

And many workers aren’t even making $15/hour. Right now, many are working more than 40 hours a week, more than one job, and still can’t make ends meet. They seek the American dream, but find only a financial nightmare.

Shortage

As we come out of the “pandemic world” some industries are experiencing worker shortages.  Restaurants and fast food places are finding it hard to re-staff after the COVID pause.  They have been under incredible financial strain:  it’s hard to find fault that owners don’t want to pay “big bucks” to their workers.  But it’s also hard to find fault with former restaurant workers who have found more lucrative employment – working at Amazon instead of behind the lunch counter, or working online from home instead of paying for hugely expensive child care.

In an era when the rich are richer and the gap between the wealthy and the poor is greater than ever before, we need to examine America’s priorities.  Americans want to work, and they want to advance.  It is the “American Way”.  And Americans are willing to pay for service as well.  So it’s up to us to set our priorities.  And paying a living wage to take care of all our workers needs to be on top.  That way there is dignity in work.

This essay was first written for Memorial Day 2019.  I’ve edited and expanded it this year.

Defined by War

Memorial Day: the day to remember those who have died in the service of our nation.  As Lincoln said at Gettysburg:  “It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.” 

Generations are defined by war.  The beginnings of Memorial Day were in “Decoration Days” started even before the guns of the Civil War went silent.  Both Northerners and Southerners placed flags and wreaths upon the graves of those lost.  After the War, that became a tradition for both sides at the beginning of the summer season, decorating graves.  In 1860 the population of the United States was just over thirty million; 600,000 died in the war, two percent.   (Two percent of today’s population would be almost eight million.)  There were plenty of graves to decorate; plenty of veterans to honor.  The ceremonies grew into the Memorial Day of today, along with the picnics and the politics that went along, both then and now.

Those We Knew

I think of Memorial Day as a day to remember those who I personally knew sacrificed to earn the honor.  I think of my parents, part of the Greatest Generation, who lived amazing lives after their War. But with all of their life of “adventure”, World War II was still the crucible.  It was the seminal event that shaped their lives.

I think of my contemporaries, guys I coached with like Chuck Eastham. Chuck went to the war in Vietnam at 17, and forever remained a proud Marine.  But he  suffered from the effects of his war for the rest of his life. The memories of what he was required to do to survive in that war, haunted him throughout his life. And his exposure to the chemical weapon used in Vietnam, Agent Orange, finally took his life just a couple years ago.  

 And I think of my “kids,” those who I taught and coached in school, who came back from their wars in Lebanon and Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Many of them suffer from the physical and mental effects of America’s long involvement in world conflicts.  They all offered their lives up for their country, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.

At What Cost?

When I was a young teacher here in Pataskala, Ohio, there was an older man who wandered around town.  He wasn’t homeless, but he was of “lost mind.”  He walked the streets talking to himself, unintentionally  scaring the younger kids.  Older kids made fun, but the local merchants took care of him.  There was always a cup of coffee, or a hamburger available as he wandered from place to place.

I found out his story, eventually.  He also was only seventeen when he volunteered to serve in the World War II Navy.  His ship went to the Pacific, and in the midst of battle, was torpedoed and sunk.  He made it off the doomed vessel.  But sometime between when the torpedo hit and when he was dragged from the ocean waters several hours later, he lost his mind.

Young people go to war willing to sacrifice for their nation.  They think of death, they think of physical wounds, of amputations and burns.  But they don’t ever think that they could lose what they value most, themselves, and survive.  But that young man did.

He lived with his family here in town.  The kids learned his story, and most appreciated the ultimate sacrifice he made, and more importantly respected his right to be left alone.  He was our little town’s Memorial Day, every day.

On the Streets

There are many veterans like him on the streets today. According to Government figures, there are over 40,000 homeless veterans, nine percent of the homeless population.  For some homelessness is a choice made as a result of effects from their service.  But for most it is a combination of circumstance, disability, and substance abuse.  For all it is a lousy repayment for their record of service.  For some “normal folks”, it may be too much or too scary to directly interact with the homeless. But as we walk quickly past with eyes averted, keep in mind:  one in ten fought for us.

It’s Memorial Day.  The sun is out, the burgers are hot on the grill, the beer is cold in the cooler.  As we celebrate the beginning of summer, the end of school and with this particular year, the reopening of our lives:  remember those we have asked for sacrifice.  To quote Hamilton (once again) – 

            Raise a Glass to Freedom – Something they can never take away.

Raise a glass to those who have sacrificed for our freedom.  Their honor is something that “…can never be taken away.”  Then remember them as the friends they were – and drink up.  It’s what Mom and Dad and Chuck would want us to do.  

West Wing

It’s been a long time since I’ve quoted The West Wing, a television series now more than twenty years old.  That show got a lot of us through the grimy end of the Clinton administration and on into the Bush years.  It was about the Administration of Democratic President Josiah Bartlet, and gave America a lot of insights into how the White House works.  Veterans of both Democratic and Republican Administrations added their expertise to the plots, and Aaron Sorkin (and later Lawrence O’Donnell) wrote fast paced and interesting scripts.

In one episode (Season 3, Episode 3) the White House is faced with a scandal.  The White House counsel advises that a special prosecutor be appointed to do a long and unbiased investigation, one that would tie the Administration up for months or even years.  CJ Craig, the Press Secretary, proposes an alternative plan to Chief of Staff Leo McGarry – one that would give the White House something to fight against.

“Leo, we need to be investigated by someone who wants to kill us just to watch us die.  We need someone perceived by the American people to be irresponsible, untrustworthy, partisan, ambitious and thirsty for the limelight.  Am I crazy, or is this not a job for the U.S. House of Representatives?” (YouTube).

The words echo through the years – and are still relevant today.

Insurrection Commission

Up front I need to be clear about this.  I think the “right” thing to do, is for the Congress of the United States to establish a bipartisan commission that can investigate the Insurrection of January 6th and the events that led to it.  It is important for us to know what and why this happened, not just for historic purposes, but because the threat is still here.  But it has become clear that the current Republican Party is unwilling to do anything that would bring the actions of the 45th President into question.  They are too afraid, of him, and of the large faction of their Party that continues to support him.

From Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s standpoint, the last thing he wants is a non-partisan investigation of what happened on January 6th.  He doesn’t want the focus of the nation on the lies of the 2020 campaign.  He wants to “move on” to focus on the failures he perceives in the Biden Administration – trying to tie Biden to the “far left – Communists” of the Democratic Party. (By the way, there are no Communists among us Democrats, though we do have some socialists.  But they are a very, very long way from Communists).

Win-Win

Being against the Commission is a “win-win” solution for McConnell.  By preventing the Senate passage through the filibuster, he shows the Republican base that he is protecting the former President.  If, by some radical change of heart in West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, Democrats actually force the Commission through by breaking the filibuster – then McConnell can claim that they “broke the rules” to get what they wanted.  He can then claim the Commission is illegitimate, and downplay their conclusions.

But Joe Manchin is unlikely to vote to override a filibuster on this issue, and  the Senate will likely fail to agree to the Commission. That good idea will die.  That doesn’t mean there won’t be investigations of the Insurrection.  But, as CJ Craig said to Leo McGarry, it will be the job of the Democratic controlled House of Representatives.  

2022

And that’s exactly what McConnell hopes.  He wants the same body that impeached the former President twice, and that led the Russia investigation as well, to handle the job.  In his dreams, he hopes that Adam Schiff would be the committee chairman.   While Schiff would be the most competent member of the House to lead that investigation, he won’t be the one.  Schiff lead the Russia investigation and was the House Manager for impeachment. He is too “hot” to use.  

But that really doesn’t matter to McConnell.  He will demonize whoever leads the investigation in the House, claiming she or he is completely biased.  And, of course, there will be the stalwart supporters of the former President as the Republican members of the Committee, probably led by Ohio’s Jim Jordan. They will disrupt every hearing, and leak targeted information to bring the investigation to a standstill.

The Republicans have a problem in 2022.  Donald Trump is not on the ticket.  Joe Biden’s Administration is competent, and will proclaim their success with the COVID vaccine and recovery.  And, one way or another, there will be an infrastructure bill, and there might well by voter protections.  McConnell needs a “foil” to change the subject.

That’s not all bad for Democrats either.  The House can investigate the Insurrection and display for all to see any involvement of both former and current Republican leaders.  It can be a legitimate version of the Benghazi Investigation(s) that was used to demonize Hillary Clinton. And it can go right through the 2022 campaign.  

Am I crazy, or is that a job for the U.S. House of Representatives?

The Polls

A plurality of Americans, 44%, do not “identify” with a political party.  They see themselves as independent.  Of the rest, 30% see themselves as Democrats, and 25% Republican.

But when asked which party they “lean” towards, 49% of Americans over 18 identify as “Democrat or Democratic leaning”.  40% identify as Republican or Republican leaning, and 11% see themselves as completely independent.  That 9% Democratic lead in “leaners” is above the “norm”.  Democrats typically have a 4 to 6% lead.

So when you slice the pie almost half is “independent”.  The other half is unevenly divided between Blue and Red.   But the candidates for major political office in America are determined by the two political parties, now representing just barely more than half of voters.  The 30% of identified Democrats and 25% of identified Republicans will determine who gets to run for office.

It’s a major dilemma for any American candidate.  To get to run you have to win a primary, and that election is among only the most committed partisans.  But to win the general election, where everyone can vote, somehow that candidate must gain “the leaners”, less partisan and likely more moderate, as well.

Slicing the Slices

So to win a Republican Party primary, a candidate must win 12.5% of the overall vote.  And Republican candidates have clearly made the decision that at least 12.5% still support the 45^th President of the United States.

That’s a “no-risk” position for them.  The “slice of the slice” who are “45’ers” have made it very clear where they stand.  There is no doubt:  ask Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, or a host of local Republican office holders who know that the 2020 election wasn’t “fixed”.  

And the Republican caucus of the House of Representatives is a simple reflection of their primary electorate.  So when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy seems to uncomfortably straddle the political fence, he’s trying to appeal to his caucus members.  His hope:  that the 2022 election will follow historic precedent, and that he will be elected to become Speaker of the House.  

McCarthy’s “fence sitting” was most apparent on the issue of the January 6th Commission.  His chosen negotiator, Congressman John Katko of New York, worked out an agreement with Democrats.  This was with the McCarthy’s knowledge and blessing.  But when the former President sent word that the caucus “must” oppose the Commission, McCarthy, without apparent regret, threw Katko “under the bus” and came out against it.

Doubling Down

From a longer view, the Republican Party seems committed to being a minority party.  They are allowing the “45-ers”,   around 12.5% of the total electorate, to determine their candidates and positions.  They are committed to a nationwide policy of voter restriction, and actual interference in free and fair Elections.  If their actions were occurring in another nation, we would be talking about sending in monitors to make sure the voting processes were fair.  

And the Republican Party is in the process of “purging” any member who does not agree with the “45-ers”.  It’s not just denying Liz Cheney a leadership position in the House of Representatives.  They are organizing primary challenges to many “moderate” Republican candidates, challenges that are likely to be successful.

Look at who’s running for the Republican nomination for Senator in Missouri.  The two leading candidates:  former Governor Eric Greitens, who resigned from office after accusations of sexual assault and blackmail. And attorney Mark McCloskey, best known for brandishing an AR style rifle at Black Lives Matter protestors passing in front of his home. What they both have in common:  oaths of fealty to the former President.

Pygmy Elephants

It’s all about the 12.5%, and perhaps some of the rest of those that identify Republican.  But it clearly ignores the real “elephant” in the Republican room.  What about the vast majority of the American electorate – some Democrat but the rest “independent”?  The Republican strategy is to keep them from voting, win their small slice of the pie, and declare victory.

And that’s the American dilemma right now.  The gerrymandering of political districts have created state legislatures that are dominated by extremist “45-ers” in many states, including here in Ohio.  Those legislatures are “codifying” an exclusive voting system, and in some states, taking legislative power over the election results. 

Instead of trying to win a majority, they are shaping elections where the minority can claim victory.  If that sounds like Trump 2020, it should.  It’s the next step in the “Stop the Steal” campaign that led to the Insurrection, a “legal” way of gaining control without a majority of the votes.  It didn’t end at the Capitol steps on January 6th.  It just moved to the hallways of capitol buildings in Phoenix, Madison, Atlanta, and yes, here in Columbus as well.

The shirtless idiot wearing horns became the “poster boy” for the January 6th Insurrection.  But the real leaders of the “rebellion”  now are the shirt and tied legislators in state capitols around the country.  The insurrection continues. 

 We have been warned.

This is another in the series about life in Pataskala, and because it’s us – dogs.

High Summer

It’s only May, but it feels like “high summer” here in Pataskala.  The thermometer topped ninety degrees yesterday.  I could hear my air conditioner groaning – we keep the house at a constant sixty-five degrees all four seasons.  It’s great for Jenn and I sleeping – but that’s not the main reason.   Sixty-five degrees keeps the four dogs in our house happy, especially the senior citizen, Buddy.  And what keeps Buddy happy, keeps us ALL happy – at least that’s the operating system here.

We’ve lost three of our big trees in the past few years, and what used to be a shaded home now gets full sun.  The morning is no longer blocked by the old oak in the east, and the noon sun is hardly touched by our new young maple out front, replacing the original.  But it’s in the afternoon that the west side of the house cooks, the stump of the other old maple now covered by our “sun deck”.  Right now you could fry eggs on it.

So the indoor temperature creeps up into the low seventies by late afternoon, and Buddy climbs into the bathtub, trying to find the cool.  It’s always good for a “surprise” for visitors using our facilities:  they hear a groan from behind the shower curtain just as they get seated!! 

Use the Force

The mosquitoes must think it’s “high summer” as well.  Right now, the three in the morning walk (one dog on steroids – he has to go!!) feels like that old commercial – the Raid “Yard Guard” test.  That was the one where the man put his arm in a tank of mosquitoes, and they completely covered his skin.  Then – with the “Raid” on his arm – they left it alone.  

So if you see a hooded figure looking like a Jedi Knight wandering our backyard in the middle of the night, now you know.  That isn’t a light saber for protection, it’s a flashlight carefully guiding the path around the “landmines” of four dogs.  And it’s not a robe, it’s a full jacket with hood, zipped up in the middle of the night heat, the sole protection from blood loss due to mosquito penetration.

Foster Pup

Did I say four dogs?  Right now, it’s actually five.  Our organization, Lost Pet Recovery, rescued this incredibly cute Pit-mix puppy from a drainage pipe near Dayton.  There was a foster placement all set up for the girl, named CeCe (pronounced CEE CEE), a home with young kids to fit right in with the young puppy.  But she proved to be too much:  four kids under nine and a puppy was overwhelming, and we had to do an “emergency” pickup.

So Cece is now here, learning how to deal with four other dogs, and Jenn and I of course.  She had a bit of a scare early this morning, when she decided her food bowl wasn’t near as interesting as that of our Lab, Atticus.  Atticus is a wonderful guy, but he doesn’t do “food sharing” very well.  He didn’t hurt CeCe, just reminded her that it was HIS bowl and HIS food and SHE was not welcome to share.  CeCe escaped unscathed, but definitely got the message.

This is the “backdoor” way to becoming a “Dahlman Dog” – foster “failure” leading to adoption.  We have two other dogs who came in under the guise of fostering, and now they have a permanent place.  But five dogs, and one a puppy at that – CeCe will get a great (and hopefully short) education here, then find a final home somewhere else – I hope.  If you’re interested in the cutest puppy ever – let us know!!

Spring Growth

Besides mosquitoes, early “high summer” in Ohio also means outbreaks of dandelions, seventeen-year cicadas, and orange barrels.  Right now, the main north/south highway out of Pataskala is closed.  One of the main east/west highways has gone from four lane to two, full of semi-trucks trying to reach Amazon and the other “distribution centers” in nearby Etna.  Today I’m starting a four-day track meet in Chillicothe, seventy miles south of here.  I don’t have to be there until two or so, but I’m already plotting how I can get out of Pataskala, without getting stuck in a local traffic jam.

It feels like high summer in Ohio today – but it’s still early.  High in the eighties today – but by day three of the Chillicothe track meet, the low will be in the forties.  The meet bag is stuffed with every type of clothes imaginable.  One day this week might be a “roof-down” Jeep day – but another will require the heat on the way home.  

Orange barrels, thunderstorms, heat stroke and shivering cold:  outside my window it’s May in Ohio.

• The Out My Window Series
• Out My Front Window – Part One (4/21/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Two (4/23/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Three (4/26/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Four (5/13/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Five (6/3/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Six (7/3/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Seven (7/31/20)
• Outside My Window – Inshallah (8/13/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Eight (9/15/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Nine (9/25/20)
• Outside My Window – Part Ten (10/9/20)
• Outside My Window – Part 11 (11/29/20)
• Outside My Window – Post-Truth World (12/16/20)
• Waiting for the Shot (3/11/21)
• Outside My Window – Part 15 (5/26/21)

Hate Speech

We’ve heard the cry for years.  “How can Facebook delete MY comments.  That’s a violation of my FREEDOM OF SPEECH”.  It has been a complaint of the far right, the far left and a myriad of other folks who use social media as their main form of expression. 

They claim it’s “UNAMERICAN” to censor speech, any kind of speech, even the kind that invokes hate.  There’s even controversy about the short term for explaining that kind of speech, “hate-speech”.  The term itself sounds like something out of Orwell’s 1984, like the Ministry of Peace that waged war, or the Ministry of Truth that pushed propaganda.

Now the great state of Florida has waded “alligator deep” into the fray.  This week Governor DeSantis signed into law regulations restricting social media platforms from banning a political candidate for more than fourteen days at a time.  It also makes it easier for private citizens to sue those platforms for “inconsistent” regulation of what they put on social media.

Who Is Regulated

On the face of it, telling Facebook and the rest what to do sounds almost “normal”.  We are used to hearing these kinds of regulations.  Schools must allow freedom of expression and so do our communities.  You might not like the “F—K Biden” sign hanging on your neighbor’s porch, you might think it’s inappropriate for one to be across the street from an elementary school, but it’s the classic definition of “freedom of speech”.  We don’t want the government telling us what we can say.

And that fits right into the actual wording of the Constitution that provides “freedom of speech”.  The First Amendment states:  “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or of the press”.  And there it is – Congress, and by the extension of the 14^th Amendment, the state governments as well, cannot regulate most speech.  So if the government can’t regulate it, why should Facebook and Twitter and all the rest be allowed to?

There’s a simple answer to that:  social media platforms are not the government.  They are companies, massive in scope and interaction, international in reach, but individual companies none-the-less.  They are not “government”.  When you sign onto Facebook or the rest, you are actually creating a contract with those companies.  And in the great tradition of contract law, you are establishing a “quid pro quo” relationship.  You get to use Facebook without paying a fee.  But Facebook gets to use your information, selling it to advertisers and others.  And they also get to follow your usage, saving “where you go”, so they can more specifically direct those who do pay – to you.

Mom and Pop

So social media isn’t restricted by the First Amendment.  They are more like that restaurant down the street, the one with the “no shoes, no shirt, (no mask), no service” sign in the window.  If you go into that restaurant and throw your food at others, you might get thrown out.  If you make a big scene over how your eggs were done, you might be banned from coming back.  We don’t restrict privately owned restaurants from those actions, with certain very narrow exceptions.  If it can be shown that the restaurant is discriminating based on race, religion, sexual identification, or ethnic origin, then there are legal restrictions.  Other than that, they can control who they serve, and what they serve.

Those discriminatory regulations are based on the “interstate commerce clause” in Article I of the Constitution.  Since those businesses are involved in interstate commerce, even the “Mom and Pop” café down the street, certain areas of their operation can be regulated by the Federal government.  There’s interstate commerce on the corner in Pataskala?  Sure – the potatoes come from Idaho, the orange juice from Florida, and the apple sauce from Michigan.  

Interstate Commerce

So now that we are buried in Constitutional Law, here’s the dilemma.  The Federal government can regulate some private business discriminatory behavior under the “commerce clause”.   But guaranteeing “freedom of speech” under the First Amendment is not a requirement of those companies, only of the government itself.  The “law” regards those corporations as “entities” with their own “right” to determine what happens in their places of business.  That’s even if the place of business is right here, on the computer screen, all over the world.

But, as any astute law student would now suggest, why can’t the government regulate those businesses under the laws against discrimination, just like they do the Mom and Pop Café.  Then the government would “just” have to show that Facebook was discriminating against a protected class of people – and regulation could be applied.

Congressional Power

Well, Congress could.  That’s the main purpose of the millions of dollars spent by the social media giants in lobbying the Federal government; preventing Federal regulation.   And, so far, that lobbying effort has been very successful.  Social media companies have managed to portray Congress as “unfit” to regulate their highly technical industry, and prevented all attempts to control what goes on their platform.  “We can regulate ourselves,” they say – “we already do with graphic violence and pornography”.  

There’s a lot to be said for regulating social media.  It’s profound impact on our political life means that private individuals like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey are making decisions that impact our collective future.  We can trust that they will do what’s profitable for their business.  But can we trust and that it will be in the best interest of the nation?

One thing we can be sure of.  No single state, like Florida, will be able to enforce regulations on a company that is by definition “interstate”, and in fact, international.  That would be the job of Congress. 

If they’re up to it.