Category: Uncategorized

Education 

Here in Ohio, early voting starts on October 8^th, two weeks from yesterday.  When I was a High School Government teacher, I helped register my seniors who were eligible to vote.  I don’t know if current teachers do that; politics in the classroom seems to be the “third rail” of education.  I didn’t do it for any partisan reasons.  My kids didn’t know my own politics, and frankly, most of them likely voted against the folks I supported.  But that didn’t matter.  I was a Government teacher, and voting is the single, critical act that every citizen can take to participate in their government.  It not only made sense to get them registered, it was a duty.

It’s been eighteen years since I was in that classroom (the building I taught in isn’t even a high school anymore).  I’ve “revealed” my political leanings since I retired; if you’re reading this essay you probably know all about that.  But voting is still a civic duty, even if we don’t agree on who to vote for.  To paraphrase French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire:  “I may not agree with who you vote for, but I will defend to the death your right to do so”.

Ohio Residents

Most of this applies to Ohio residents (and particularly in Licking County), and different states have differing rules.  If you’re outside of Ohio, check with your state Secretary of State (the election folks) or your local Board of Elections.  Here’s the link to every state’s Secretary of State. (Note – Hawaii is a little different, of course – so here’s their link).

Step one:  register to vote.  October 7^th is the LAST day to register in Ohio.  Local Licking County folks can do so at the Board of Elections in Newark; or at the Driver’s License Bureau on Township Road, or the Pataskala Library on Vine Street, both in Pataskala.  And, since it’s the 21^st Century, here’s the Ohio  Secretary of State’s online registration site.

Not sure if you’re registered in Ohio (or still registered, or at the correct address)?  Here’s the link to check all of that:  Voter Information Search.

The next day, October 8th, you can vote early if you want to.  You go to your county board of elections, here in Licking County it’s in Newark, and cast your ballot, just like you would do on election day.  There are twenty-three days to vote in October and early November.  Here’s the link for Licking County’s  schedule.

Full Monty

And finally, if you want to get the “full Monty” of elections, you can vote at your regular polling place on Election Day, on November 5^th.  Where is your polling place?  Go back up to the Voter Information Search.  You can find your polling place, request an absentee ballot to be sent to your address, and see your voting history back to 2010.  (No, you can’t see who you voted for.  You can see that you did vote, and if it was in a primary election, which ballot you asked for; Democrat, Republican, or Non-Partisan.)

If you get an absentee ballot, make sure you carefully fill out all the requirements, on the ballot, and on any envelopes the ballot goes in.  Some require signatures on the “outer envelope”, many require signatures, dates, and other information on the inner envelope.  If that information is missing, your absentee ballot may be voided – so take some time and get it right.  If you don’t want to mail it, there is a “drop-box” in front of the Board of Elections office in Newark, or you can go in during early voting hours and hand it to them.

In Person Voting

If you chose to vote in-person, either early or on election day, in Ohio you are required to have a photo ID with you.  Here’s the link for what ID’s are acceptable:  Voter ID.

If you are registered, if you have a photo ID, 99.4% of the time (I made that up) you won’t have any issues voting at your polling place.  But sometimes, stuff happens.  If for some reason the election officials won’t give you a ballot (or if there’s a system breakdown of some kind), here’s what to do:

• 1.  Don’t leave the Polling Place (if you leave without voting – you didn’t count)
• 2.  Ask to speak to the Precinct Election Official in Charge
• 3.  Help them rectify any issues they have – and if that doesn’t work
• 4. Ask to vote on a “Provisional Ballot”
• 5. IF none of that works – call the ACLU (even if you’re a Republican) – they can help Election Protection Hotline   1-866-687-8683. Also, both political parties will have their own hotlines set up on election day (Dems, Reps) – as well as the League of Women’s Voters (the least partisan choice).

If you do vote provisionally, it means that you will “fix” the ballot at the board of elections later (usually in the next couple days).  Provisional votes do not get counted unless they are “cured”, so don’t forget to go “cure” it.

Now, if you want to know WHO to vote for…

I’ll give you MY ballot choices in the next few days.  You probably won’t be surprised.  

Old Timer

I ain’t no mathematician (and obviously no grammarian either).  But statistics were a part of my life for a long time.  Take track and field.  In the “good old days”, before all of the fancy cameras (the ones that take a picture of “time over the finish line”, instead of space – see below) and automatic start timers, we used devices called stopwatches.  If there were eight racers, there were eight or more people designated as timers.  They all watched the starter. When they saw smoke from his gun, they pushed the button to start their watch.  Then they focused on the finish line, and when the torso of the runner they were timing crossed, they pushed the button again.

Really good timers would be consistent, both from race to race and with each other.  And so with experienced timers, two people could time the same place, and get the same time, within a tenth of a second.  And there was a rule in the book:  if two timers timed the same place, the slower time counted.  A tenth of a second was a good as humans could get.  Even when electric watches came that timed to the hundredth of a second, we (by the book) always rounded up to the next slowest tenth.  So a time in the 100 meters of 10.90 was 10.9, but 10.91 was 11.0.  We recognized that no one was good enough to catch the exact hundredth.  

Wiggle Room

(By the way, now with fully automatic timing the same rule applies, but to a different order of magnitude.  The “machine” normally places times to the hundredth of a second.  10.90 is 10.90, and 10.91 is slower.  But, if two athletes run 10.90, the machine can go to the thousandth. 10.895 is faster than 10.897.  But if two athletes run 10.895, then it’s a tie.  Even the fully automatic start and video cameras have limits.)

In track time and measuring there is always a margin of error.  Discus is measured to the lesser inch; shot, high jump, pole vault and long jump to the lesser quarter-inch.  We recognize that there is a margin of error in measurement, just like we recognize there is one in timing.  (With improvements in laser measuring, that may someday get “tighter”, like timing did. Tape measures are already being replaced by laser sights and reflecting pins). 

Ok, I’ve beat the margin of error concept to death.  But the same thing is true in lots of other forms of measuring, and it’s easy to be fooled.  So to quote the British Rockers The Who, we “Won’t get fooled again!!” 

NBC Poll

NBC News announced the results of their newest poll Sunday.  This new survey has Kamala Harris at 49%, and Donald Trump at 44%.   Steve Kornacki, the NBC polling “guru” was almost giddy in describing it, showing the big shift from July. Those results had then-candidate Biden with 43% and Trump at 45%.  But here’s the problem, that damned margin of error thing.  The mathematical margin of error in this poll is +/- 3.1%.  That means that Harris could be as low as 45.9%, and Trump could be as high as 47.1%.  Or it means that Harris could be at 52.1%, and Trump 41.9%.  Or anywhere in between.  

And the July poll was the same way.  So, given the margin of error, what does this poll really tell us?  It’s close.  That’s all.  And perhaps, it looks like Harris is doing better than Biden, but it’s all within the margin of error, so there’s no sure thing. 

Listen, Americans all want a winner and a loser.  It’s great to see the Bengals and the Chiefs, Burrow and Mahomes, battle it out on the football field.  We marvel at the accuracy of their passing, and the agility of their runs.  But, in the end, we really remember one thing.  The Chiefs won the game (Dammit, wait until next time!!).

We want to evaluate polls like they were scores.  So we ignore “margins of error” and just say “we’re winning” or “they’re losing”. And, in the end polls might give us some sense of what’s going on, but they are very, very, deceptive.  We are fooled because we want a score.  Don’t get fooled again!!

Pictures of Time

And, by the way, even if the results are beyond the margins of error:  polls are a lot like those photo-finish pictures you see from the track meet.  While it looks like a “u” shape with all the runners, it’s actually a picture of the exact same finish line, taken over time as each runner crosses the line.  The faster runners are in front, because they finished first.  If you look closely at the picture you’ll see the  thin, red finish line, over and over again as each runner crossed.  The space between the lines – is the time interval between the  first runner and the next, all the way to eighth.

How much did Noah Lyles win the Olympic Gold Medal by?  The slim difference between the first and second red lines, 9.784 to 9.789,  5 thousandths of a second. The photo-finish picture is of a moment (or about ½ a second) in time.  If they lined up and did it again, it might be completely different.

In the same way, polls, even beyond the margins, are simply a snapshot of a moment in the political race.  The only finish line is on election day, 41 days away. That’s the only time it counts.

Let me paraphrase President Obama:

 “Don’t cheer, VOTE.”

Boring Ohio

Ohio has a reputation as a “boring” state, where nothing big ever happens. In the heat of the current social-media Presidential crisis in Springfield, Ohio’s leadership acts like they’re trying to do the right thing.  Even Governor DeWine has found courage in his lame duckness.  His career is over, with nothing more to win. So he can stand and scold the Trump/Vance ticket without fear of retribution.  In two years, he’ll be retired to his country estate in Cedarville, a rural college village just ten miles south of Springfield.  And he still supports Trump, so he can show up at the local diner for lunch.

But in reality, Ohio is one of the most corrupt states in the Union.  Behind the façade of big rust-belt cities and gentle cornfields, the politics of Ohio is all about money and power.  The former Speaker of the State House of Representatives took a $60 million bribe from an energy company.  That’s not the worst of it. While almost every State Republican politician was involved, they were all more than happy to let that Speaker stand alone in Federal Court (he’s now serving a twenty year sentence).  The two other Party leaders legally snared in the scandal did “the right thing” for their party.  They committed suicide.  And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Power Corrupts

 Not to be too partisan, but corruption is endemic to the Republican Party.  That’s not because Democrats can’t be corrupt.  It’s simply that the state government is so overwhelmingly Republican, that Democrats don’t stand a chance of “bellying up” to the money bar.  Democrats in the state legislature are forced to choose which side of the Republican agenda to support:  extreme or extremely extreme.  The Democrats talk a good game, but they are powerless.

There’s a political axiom:  “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.  If you need to see that in action, come to Ohio.

Politically Ohio is (at most) 55% Republican, 45% Democrat.  Yet the state legislature is overwhelmingly Republican, with 66% of the House seats, and 79% of the State Senate seats in Republican hands.  Sure, it’s a veto-proof majority.   But no need to worry about vetoes. The Governor is also Republican, along with all of the other state-wide elected executives .  And the State Supreme Court is split four Republicans to three Democrats.  If that’s not enough power; the Governor’s son is one of the Supreme Judges; a Republican, of course.

Gerrymandering

The foundation of Republican power is the ability to draw the state legislative districts.  As long as they can draw the map, they can control the state legislature.  Newsweek rates Ohio as the third most “gerrymandered” state in the Nation, behind West Virginia and Wisconsin. (Newsweek).  So it’s not a surprise that Republicans will do almost anything to hold onto that precious ability to decide who votes in what legislative district.

Gerrymandering is nothing new.  In fact, the name itself came from 1812, when the Governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, drew a district that looked like a salamander – a “Gerrymander” the newspapers called it.   It’s a straight-forward process.  Divide the state so that one particular party’s voters are maximized, and the other party is minimized.  Either give the weaker party a few concentrated districts, or split up and dilute concentrations of opposition strength into multiple districts.  In Ohio that becomes a few overwhelmingly Democratic districts, then a lot of “pie slice” districts, where urban/Democrat areas find themselves diluted by huge swaths of rural/Republican areas.  And, of course, there are the remaining Republican areas, too far from any Democrats to matter.

On the Map

A quick example is Ohio’s 15^th Congressional District.  It stretches from the Republican suburbs of Dayton, around but excluding the Democratic areas of Springfield, then continues to pick up the Democratic west and south sides of Columbus.  It then extends far south to include Chillicothe and all of the countryside in between.  The District is nearly 100 miles east to west and 100 miles north to south, carefully diluting Democratic pockets with large swathes of Republican countryside.   It’s a great example of Gerrymandering reducing the power of one party and enhancing the other.

(Trivia Question:  what does the west side of the City of Cincinnati and the village of Ansonia, a farm community in Western Ohio more than a hundred miles north, have in common? Not much, except the same Congressman.  Both “towns” are in the 8^th Congressional District).

Extremists Win

Besides creating super-majorities in the legislatures, gerrymandering also makes the primary election the only one that really counts.  In most districts here in Ohio, whether a Republican or a Democrat will win the general election is seldom in question.  Who will represent the majority party in that election; that’s selected in the primary.  And since primary voters are usually more motivated and partisan than general election voters, the majority party often selects the more extreme candidate over moderate ones.  All that means  that the legislature is not only loaded, but also extreme; elected by the few Party voters rather than the majority of voters closer to the “middle”.

Ohioans look to two institutions to reform re-districting.  First, Ohio has an “initiative” process. Citizens can place a State Constitutional Amendment directly up for a vote, bypassing the legislature.  In both 2015 and 2018, re-districting reform was passed by better than 70%.  However, the state legislature and executives failed to follow those amendments, and the state remains skewed.

Scofflaws

When the Amendments were ignored, reformers went to the state Supreme Court for help.  And for a while, even though the Court was four Republicans to three Democrats, the Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor sided with Democratic Justices and reformers.  Unfortunately, Republican legislators and executives chose to ignore the Court rulings, and Gerrymandering continued.   Then Justice O’Connor was age-limited out of the Court.  Now the four Republicans rubber-stamp their fellow partisans in the other branches.

So Justice O’Connor led a reform movement herself, one to take re-districting completely out of the hands of career politicians.  Her proposal establishes a non-politician board, divided evenly among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.  That board would follow a carefully written mandate to re-district based on community and county boundaries, maximizing competitive districts.  This was written into a proposed State Constitutional Amendment, and will appear as “Issue One” this November.

Flip the Script

The State Elections Board is chaired by the Secretary of State, Republican Frank LaRose, and dedicated to the gerrymandered status quo.  The Board gets to write the “ballot language” that will appear to every voter.  Even though Issue One supporters got over a half a million registered voter signatures on carefully worded petitions, the Elections Board literally flipped the script.  In a two column, ten point “explanation”on every ballot, the Election Board describes the Issue as a “Gerrymandering Amendment”.

• Repealing constitutional exceptions against gerrymandering passed in 2015 and 2018
• Eliminate the ability of voters to hold their representatives accountable for districts
• Establish a tax funded commission to manipulate boundaries to favor the two largest Parties in the state
• Require that a majority of the “partisan” commission are members of the two major parties
• Prevent commission members from removal for gross misconduct or willful neglect
• Reduce the ability to challenge re-districting in court
• Describes in detail the complex process of appointing commission members for ½ of an entire column
• Describes in detail the complex process of commission voting
• “Limits the right of Ohio citizens to freely express their opinions to members of the commission”
• Impose new taxpayer-funded costs.

And when Issue One supporters went to the Ohio Supreme Court to challenge the inverted explanation, the Court ruled four to three that it was “just fine”: no surprise there.

Ohio Knows

I know what Issue One is.  It’s the best “shot” to change Ohio’s gerrymandered corruption.  I’m going to vote for Issue One. Issue One is not what the Ballot Language says.  In fact, the current process of behind closed doors, computer generated re-districting maps and Republican scoffing at Ohio law and voters is much closer to that ballot explanation than the real Issue One.  And, if Issue One passes, it will be the petition language, that hundreds of thousands of Ohioans signed, not the warped ballot language, that will be law.

I think Frank LaRose out-smarted himself again.  There’s so much, closely typed and intricate language on the ballot, that most voters won’t even bother to read it.  They’ll listen to the real information outside the polling place, and, just like LaRose’s manipulations with 2023’s Issue One last August (to make the initiative process near impossible and stop the abortion amendment – it failed) and last November (the Abortion amendment itself, it passed and is now a right enshrined in the State Constitution), Ohio voters will figure it all out.  

And maybe, for the first time since I was in college back in the 1970’s, I’ll get to vote in truly contested Congressional, State Representative and State Senator races once again.

• Sign, sign, Everywhere a sign, Blocking out the scenery, 
• Breakin’ my mind, Do this, Don’t do that,
• Can’t you read the sign?  
• – Signs  The Five Man Electrical Band, 1971 (re-recorded by Tesla, 2007)

Polarization

For the past decade, the polarization of the United States was best defined by a simple drive.  In the city, there are few political signs, except in the carefully defined sixty days before the elections (a city ordinance that was ultimately declared unconstitutional, but still honored).  But get past the outer-belt, where concrete buildings turn into suburban homes, and then alternating fields of corn and soybeans; and, signs change.  For almost a decade, the informal “definition” of the countryside wasn’t a John Deere tractor or a Rural King store.  It was thousands of “Trump” signs.

Not just signs either.  There were Trump flags, Trump billboards (Trump-Pence until after January 6^th), Trump mannikins (get your picture taken with “him”); and for the stouter supporters, first the “Jail Hillary”, then “F**K Biden” flags in Trump colors. (One particular large F-Biden flag was displayed across the street from a neighboring middle school.  I wonder how the social studies teachers handled that).  I live in a “red” portion of Ohio, ten miles outside of the outer-belt, so Trump stuff wasn’t a surprise to me.  But to my “city-mouse friends”, out for a drive; there was often shock and fear.  They were in TRUMP COUNTRY, and they were unnerved by it.

Fractured Arc

In 2016, before the great catastrophe of the November election, it was easy to shrug off Trump.  The Nation seemed on a pre-destined course, Dr. King’s “arc of the moral universe”.  Barack Obama was elected and re-elected by large majorities, the next logical step was Hillary.  The path of the American experiment was clear.  It was easy to see Trump-ism as only a small portion of our Nation quailing from the future; seeking to return to a fictional past.

But if you took a drive, you’d know differently.  The signs were everywhere, establishing an unwritten “code” of uniformity.  Fealty to Trump became a “condition” of living out here.   Only the courageous few had Hillary or Biden signs.  And while in my neighborhood those political aberrations were somewhat tolerated, in conversation we were “those people” who thought different.  I appreciated my neighbors who could get beyond “signs”, but I also realize there are neighbors who haven’t had much to say since 2016.

In 2016 Trump-ism drove voters to the polls.  In our narrowly divided country, voter “turnout” is king, and in 2016 the “country-mouse vote” showed up for him.  The city-mouse vote did not show up for her, so Hillary lost by the slimmest of margins.

We Won, We Won

A lot of “signs” didn’t come down after 2016.  Trump country, the “Red-MAGA Hat club”, tattered Trump-Pence signs remained up for four years, a mark of victory against “the arc of the universe”.  In 2020 the signs were rejuvenated, increased in size, updated (some in marker) to the current election.  And the MAGA vote showed up again, even stronger than it did in 2016.  

It’s no wonder that Donald Trump is confused about who won the 2020 election.  He did better than 2016, he got more votes than anyone, (yes, anyone) before him, except one.  The “country-mouse” vote came to the polls (because Covid wasn’t a thing for them – right?) in record numbers.  The difference was, the city-mouse vote showed up in even greater records, voting early, and by mail, and then overwhelmingly on election day despite the risk of Covid.  Joe Biden got the most votes ever in a Presidential election, and won just a narrowly as Trump did in 2016.

Last Summer Drive

And the signs still stayed up, for a while.  But wind and rain and snow took its toll on the Trump/Pence signs, even the ones with Pence’s name cut off.   And while the stalwarts still had their flags, it seemed to dwindle.  A drive in the country might yield only a few “Trump” sightings, not the back-to-back-to-back of 2020.

Now we are in 2024, less than fifty days before the election.  I took a drive yesterday down to Lancaster, Ohio to see one of my favorite cross country meets.  Like many of those late September competitions, it was mid-summer hot with high pushing ninety.  So I took my Jeep, top up but all of the windows out.  (It’s almost time to go “winter” mode on it).  A kind of last “summer” drive in the country.

Give me a Sign

And what surprised me is what I didn’t see.  Sure, there were a few “Trump/Vance” signs, but not many (maybe seven or eight).  And there were actually some homes along the highway that dared a Harris/Walz sign (a couple).  So I’ve been trying to decide what that means.

Does it mean that the “country-mouse” vote is less Trumpy?  I don’t believe it; at least here in Pataskala, the “battle lines” are still clearly drawn.  But does it mean that the “country” isn’t as motivated as they were in 2016 and 2020; aren’t as dedicated to MAGA as they were before?  And will that dedication result in a lesser turnout, coupled with a greater Harris turnout in the “city-mouse” areas?

Or is there some vast MAGA conspiracy to keep the signs down.  Is our polarization so set in stone that it no longer requires a “sign” to display loyalty, and the MAGA turnout will be just as great as before?  I don’t have a good answer.

I’ll keep looking for a sign.

ASTM

I am a dues paying member of  ASTM International.  ASTM used to stand for the American Society for Testing and Measurement, an organization that set industry standards for things like the required density of concrete used in highway bridges or the varying characteristics of plastic.  It doesn’t sound like the usual political, educational or athletic group I involve myself with.  But they also make recommendations about the size of pole vault mats, and all the other safety equipment required.  That’s right up my alley.  So I’m on ASTM, Committee F08 (Sports Equipment), Sub Committee 67 on pole vault.

And that’s why I get the monthly “Standards” magazine, which usually doesn’t get too far into the house.  But this month, one of the “standards” discussed how to protect schools, and that’s an area where I used to have a significant amount of professional concern.  So I read it.

Tempered Glass

There was a lot of talk about tempered glass, not completely bullet-proof glass, but bullet resistant to make it more difficult for a school shooter to gain access to the building.  The glass is tempered with coatings that prevented it from shattering, instead just leaving bullet holes from the testing device (an AR-15). The shooter would then have to bust in the rest with his gun, or kick it out with his foot.  It wouldn’t stop him, but buys additional time. That gives schools  more opportunity to react. This standard was for school shootings like Sandy Hook in Connecticut and the Covenant School in Nashville.

The article also went into detail about “bollards”, the concrete posts designed to stop a careening vehicle from crashing into the school or a car bomb from parking too close. It explained how the “bollards” could be reinforced by brick walls or weakened by placement uphill from the “target” building.  That’s more of a reaction to terror attacks throughout the world, but still applies to the ultimate soft target, a school.  

The Cavalry

It discussed the use of metal detectors, (three kinds, hand attached, hand held, or standing arches). Wisely, it spoke of placing metal detection in some area of the school that could be locked away from the main part of the building, should a weapon be discovered.   If metal detection is in the main hall, the “gun” is already in the building.  That’s why newer buildings are built with a two-stage entryway.

And the article also mentioned video cameras, and pointed out the obvious.  Cameras don’t stop anything.  While they serve to alert staff what’s going on, in general, cameras are more for evidence after the fact rather than alerting and averting the event all-together.  There is the one exception:  the roving shooter, like the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas shootings in Florida.  Building cameras can be used by staff and law enforcement to target the “cavalry” for the rescue. 

Proactive

And I guess that’s the whole point.  Schools “standards”, like the Secret Service with their protectees, are  mostly “reactive”.   Sure, the Secret Service will “take a bullet” for their protectees, but the real point is to stop that first bullet from being fired.  Apalachee High School in Georgia did a wonderful job of getting School Resource Officers to the shooter.  The two police officers risked their lives to protect staff and students from further attack.  But there were already four dead, and nine wounded.  Certainly lives were saved. But it was reactive, not proactive.

The Secret Service has a vast population to look to, and folks of every political persuasion to worry about.  They require a huge network of intelligence to stay ahead of possible violence.  But schools have a much narrower “pool” of candidates.  Sure, there’s a possible random stranger, but evidence shows that most school shooters are either current or former students.   Schools know them, which creates an opportunity for intervention before the worst case occurs.  The school just needs to know to intervene.

Apalachee

The Apalachee High shooter’s mother called the school about thirty minutes before the attack. She said her child was “in crisis” and needed immediate contact.  Did she tell the school that the crisis involved in AR-15? Not to my knowledge.  But the school counselors and administration did their best to reach him.  That all takes time; from the counselor to an administrator, to look up the schedule, and to physically get to the student.  

And, as any parent picking up their kid from high school can tell you; just because he’s scheduled in room 410 at 10:00am, doesn’t mean he’s in Room 410 at 10:00am.  There’s all sorts of legitimate reasons for a kid to be out of class:  restroom, band room, library, office, guidance, tutoring, nurse.  Sure the teacher in Room 410 should and probably does know where he is, but that just means more time. The clock is ticking. At Apalachee they didn’t reach him in time to stop the carnage.

Lessons

There are lots of things the 1999 Columbine school shootings taught us.  Now, teachers hide students out of the shooter’s sight, barricade doors and prepare to defend them if breeched.  If there’s a clear line of escape out of the building –  go!!  But the biggest lesson of Columbine was this:  the shooters were plotting their attack for months.  Like the 9-11 attacks, there were plenty of people who knew pieces of what they were plotting. But there was no one who could put the pieces together.

And that’s on the school.  Administrators, Guidance, Teachers, Staff (nurses, cooks, custodians, bus drivers, SRO’s, and the folks who know EVERYTHING – secretaries) and students need to communicate about kids that might be at risk.  It’s not usually the “bad” kids; everyone knows them.  It’s the kid that few know.   When I first went into education they were called the “Cipher in the Snow” kids. (Cipher in the Snow was a short-film put out by Brigham Young University back in 1974 about a kid who dies and no one knows him).  

Web of Concern

Kids need to find some adult they can talk to.  Adults need to find kids they can relate with.  Adults have to talk to other adults, and kids to kids.  There has to be a web of communication, so that if someone is going wrong, other folks know and action (pro-action) can be taken.  It’s that web of protection that doesn’t have an ASTM “standard”, but it is the best defense against school violence.

A school can put up tempered glass.  They can structure a “safe” building, and practice “active shooter drills”.  There can be advanced plans for “evasion” and “rendezvous”.  They can surround the entrances with bollards. All of those are reactions, and they are all absolutely necessary. Any school without those plans is committing “malpractice”.  

But, the only proactive method to try to evert school shootings is creating lines of communication between kids and adults; parents and staff. Those lines can forewarn against a student going “over the edge”.  It’s a “web” of communication and support.  And that needs to be a defined “plan”, just as much as the plan to lock the door and hide in the farthest corner.  A parent calls about their kid; or a kid comes off the bus with word that a friend is in crisis; that must become the most important thing.   It’s priority “one”, even in these days when there are always lots of very important priorities.  The “web” of concern is the best chance to avoid the unimaginable.   

Tradecraft

It’s amazing tradecraft.  No one’s admitting anything, but Mossad, the Israeli Intelligence Agency, was able to sabotage the pagers used for communication by Hezbollah, the terrorist group that holds sway in Lebanon.  Thousands of them exploded at 3:30 pm on the belts and in the hands and pockets of Hezbollah operatives yesterday, killing 8 (and 1 child) and injuring more 2800.  The “mini-explosions” occurred in offices, homes, stores, cars, and on the streets.  They rocked Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, and sent ambulances screaming all over town. 

And why did Hezbollah issue pagers to it’s operative?  Because the leadership was convinced that Mossad was tracking their cell phones, and wanted private communications.  The “old school” technology of pagers isn’t as traceable as modern phones.  So Hezbollah made a mass purchase of the devices from a company called Apollo Gold in Taiwan, with the actual pagers manufactured under license in Hungary.   Somewhere in that supply train, Mossad managed to secret explosive and a trigger into each of the pagers.

In the past, Mossad was able to get exploding cell phones in the hands of individual Hamas and Hezbollah members, but this attack was on a massive scale.  And while the death count was relatively low, the explosive wounds were severe, removing those operatives from the “battlefield” for an extending period of time, and putting a huge burden on the Lebanese health services.  With an estimated 40,000 fighters, the pager attack made a major dent in Hezbollah effectiveness.

Tit for Tat

It’s the kind of long-term, highly technical operation that Mossad specializes in.  And it’s being seen as a great victory for the Israeli government.  As the destruction of Hamas in Gaza winds down and ceasefire talks remain stalled, Hezbollah has been putting increased pressure on the Israeli north.  Rocket attacks killed dozens of Israeli civilians. The terrorist group has as many as 150,000 rockets aimed at the country.  While Hamas in Gaza was relatively “low tech”, Hezbollah is well supported by Iran, and represents a serious threat to Israel.

But, this is not a “tit-for-tat” response to Hezbollah.  It is a dramatic escalation of the “northern front” battle, one that seems designed to inflame conflict there.  Meanwhile, the Israeli government is “hellbent” to destroy every last vestige of Hamas in Gaza.  It seems like they will level the region, with little regard for the “collateral damage” in civilian destruction and death.  So, as Israel wraps up its destruction of Hamas (and much of Gaza in the process), they are literally picking a larger fight with Hezbollah in the north.

A full-on war with Hezbollah, a terrorist group and non-state actor, will certainly draw in the nation-states of Lebanon and Syria, all backed by Iran.  It is the opening to a generalized war in the Middle East.  It’s hard to see any other Israeli goal for such a broad attack.

Biblical Right

Perhaps, that’s exactly what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants.  Any ceasefire with Hamas would likely include a recognition of the United States’ goal of a “two-state solution”, requiring a sovereign Palestinian state.  And the forces that maintain Netanyahu in power aren’t interested in a Palestinian state. 

 They are interested in the land that the Palestinian state would occupy, seeing it as a “reasonable” expansion of the state of Israel, mandated by Biblical history.  But the only way to really achieve that goal, is to change the entire static map of the region, established after the 1967 War.  That’s when Israel  conquered the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank region.  To “rearrange the table” again will require a similar upheaval.

War and Politics

And in a more practical political matter, continuing war seems to be the path for Netanyahu to maintain office.  While his political future seemed dark just a few months ago, current polling shows his coalition would lose some seats but maintain control of the government in an election.  And Netanyahu needs to stay in power.  Once removed, he would face legal sanctions and possible jail time.  So he has every reason to continue a war in the Middle East.

President Biden has tried to pressure the Netanyahu government to a ceasefire agreement, but clearly the Israeli Prime Minister is willing to gamble on US politics.  A Trump victory in November would put him in a much better position, a Harris victory wouldn’t make things any worse than they are now.  So politically, Netanyahu is better off fighting until November.  If there aren’t enough Hamas left to fight in Gaza, then why not raise the stakes with Hezbollah?  Worst case scenario, a full-on Middle East War, and the opportunity to redraw the maps.  

But there is a cost:  the soldiers and civilians on all sides will pay the ultimate price.  

Update – late Wednesday morning – more devices exploding in Lebanon. Updated casualty report – 12 dead over 3000 injured. Question- why would a Hezbollah member still be carrying their pager today??? Or late reports – maybe walkie-talkies??

Hamas/Israel War

• Bombs  in Your Pocket             9/18/24
• Political Survival                      7/31/24
• The Gaza Reservation             4/7/24
• Vengeance is Mine                  12/27/23
• There is No Peace                   12/4/23
• Israel, Democrats, and 2024   11/19/23
• Zero State Solution                 11/8/23
• Credible Sources                     10/31/23
• Fog of War                              10/20/23
• Truth of the Matter                 10/17/23
• Updates and Sadness              10/12/23
• Deserve to Die                         10/10/23

Government Class

I was a high school government teacher for the majority of my thirty-five and a half year educational career.  There was a lot of complex teaching going on:  the nuts and bolts of the US Constitution, the legal intricacies of our Court systems, and even the basics of finance and taxation.  And, somewhere in the middle of all that there was the “crazy-isms” lesson.   First was the “crazy-isms” of governing:  fascism, totalitarianism, anarchism, federalism and communism.  They along came democracies, monarchies, theocracies, autocracies, kleptocracies.  They were all ways to govern (or in anarchy’s case, not govern).  

We came up with memorable examples, often based on more familiar situations.  Gangs “ruled” through theft and intimidation – a kleptocracy.  Iran’s Supreme Leader was the head of the ruling religion – a theocracy.  Monarchs wore crowns, hereditary kingships; a monarchy.  Totalitarians wanted total control (from the military to toilet paper) – totalitarianism.

Basic Macro-Economics

Then we switched to economics.  Who owned businesses, who paid wages, who put products on the market.  More “isms”:  capitalism, socialism, Marxism.  Capitalists believed that “the means of production”, business and industry; should be owned by private individuals competing with each other. Socialists believed that the main businesses should be owned by the government, a government made up of the people, democratically elected.  

And Marxists (Communists) believed that “All of the means of production”, from farm lands to factories to retail stores selling goods (toilet paper – forest to mill to packaging to store) should be owned by the government, a government controlled by the Communist Party (another “crazy-ism”, an oligarchy, with “fake democratic” elections).  Marxism, at its core, was supposed to be a dictatorship of the workers; but it turned out to just be a dictatorship of the powerful, with workers hung out to dry and nowhere to turn.

Governing versus Owning

So when some claim that the American government is socialist or Marxist, they are conflating government with economic models.  The American Government is a complex Federal mixture, of fifty states that are governed by elected representatives:  Representative Democracies. And then there’s a separate National government, also an elected Representative Democracy.  None of that describes the economic model the United States follows.  Most of the elected are definitely Capitalists, a few are Socialists, and I’m not aware of any Marxists elected in the United States. 

So what is the economic model of the United States?  We are a “mixed economy”.  Our “base” plan is capitalism, private ownership of business, manufacturing, production, distribution and retailing.  But we also have government regulations of those industries.  We try to provide a “safety net” so that individuals and families don’t fall through into abject poverty.  The United States tries to provide food, housing, education and health care to every American.

There are no “Marxists” in the American Government.  And there are no “Communists” either.  When most of the other Nations of the world look at the United States, our economy is far less “controlled” by the government than theirs.  And, of course, if you look at the United States’ greatest economic rival, China; their economy is Communist, totally controlled by their government.

No Marxists

There are some socialists in American political life, but they seem “extreme” to most Americans.  Even Bernie Sanders is a “mixed economy” guy, though his mix includes a whole lot more government regulation than we have today.  And where is Kamala Harris?  She is to the “right” of Sanders on economic issues, in fact, she is right down the center-line of American economic theory.   

And what about Trump?  He certainly is more “pure capitalist” than Harris.  But he too takes advantage of government intervention. After all, bankruptcy is a government protection.  Trump declared bankruptcy six times in his career.  So Trump wants the ability to run his businesses without government regulation, but he still wants the “fallback position” of government protection.  That’s not pure capitalism,  there’s no “mercy” there.

So when the MAGA crowd calls Vice President Harris a “Marxist”, they are demonstrating one of two things. Either they didn’t listen to their Government teacher back in high school, and are ignorant of the “crazy-isms”, or they are willfully lying to the public.  Donald Trump is proud of graduating from the Wharton School of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.  I suspect there was at least one macro-economics class on his schedule. He should know the differences in economic theories.  

I guess that makes him a liar:  surprised?

Full Disclosure

 I am not a “cat person”.  I earned that right honestly, at three years old.  We lived on Glenmary Avenue in Cincinnati, not far from the Zoo; with a cat named Bimbo. She was our house cat for as long as I remember, but somehow just disappeared. 

We had  woods behind the house. It seemed huge to a three-years old, like Winnie the Pooh’s hundred acre wood.  It was actually a quarter of an acre.   Anyway, one day I found Bimbo and went to grab her.  Now fully feral, she didn’t allow any of that, and I got scratched.  

So from that day forward, I was not, and am not, a cat person.

Cat Ladies

But since cats (and dogs, and geese) are playing such an important part in our politics today, I am standing up for cats.  The whole thing started a couple years ago, with an ill-advised comment by then-candidate for Senate from Ohio, JD Vance.  The “Hillbilly Elegy” author was talking to a conservative commentator, and used a glib and in-artful description of Progressives, and women Progressives especially.  He called them “childless cat ladies”. 

When Vance became the Republican nominee for Vice President, it started a deluge of “childless cat ladies” memes and references.  T-shirts supporting Kamala Harris appeared with the “childless cat lady” comment and pictures from kittens to tigers on the front.  Even Taylor Swift posted her endorsement of Harris with her cat.  But MAGA-world being what it is, Vance continued to double-down, further commenting that “post-menopausal” women’s role was to help raise children.  It seemed that Vance and the whole Trump campaign wouldn’t move off of the insults to younger women and older women, and, of course, to cats.

But Vice President Harris and Governor Walz were getting the better of the “cat lady” fight.  They called it what it was:  weird.  And that weird comment stuck in Trump’s craw like a hairball.  He spent time in his rallies ranting that he and Vance weren’t “weird” at all.  And, of course, the more he talked about it, the weirder he seemed to be.

Flip the Script

MAGA-world had to open up a second front, to flip the “cat” script.  And what better way to do that, then to make Trump the cat “savior”.  So it should be no surprise that a woman’s rant on Facebook, complaining about Haitians, made it to national attention.  As the REO Speedwagon song goes:  “(She) heard from a friend who, heard it from a friend, who, heard it from a friend…”.  Pets were being taken and eaten by Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. Of course, (fact check) that wasn’t true.

But the MAGA internet network acted like a cat on catnip.  A video was attached to the comment, supposedly showing a Haitian in Springfield, Ohio, eating a dead cat in the street. (Turns out, it was a life-long, mentally deranged not-Haitian resident of and in Canton, Ohio. She was really eating a cat).  Added  to it was a photo of a black man carrying a dead goose along the road. (The picture was taken in Columbus, and the man was removing a goose that was run over).  So now, the Haitians were eating cats and geese. 

Fact Check

So there was “video evidence” of what now-illegal (they aren’t) Haitian migrants were doing in Springfield.  They’ll take the geese from your parks, and the cats (and soon dogs) from your neighborhoods, and eat them.  Trump and Vance, stood for pets and geese, and against their consumption by humans, especially illegal migrant humans from Haiti in Western Ohio. They took a Facebook rant (since retracted) about a rumor in Springfield, and made it a national “emergency”.

Of course, it’s all a fabrication, a very demonstrable fabrication.  But in our “post-truth” MAGA world, fact-checking is just another “tool” of Democrats to “lie”.  Fact-checkers used to generate righteous indignation; “How dare you question my ‘facts’”.  Now they’re just another “Boomer” or “Karen” to be ignored. As Ex-President Trump said in his debate with Vice President Harris, it must be true because, “…I saw it on TV”.  Along with the “Illegal immigrant gangs over-running cities,” in Aurora, Colorado and Dallas, Texas; it all fits in with the nativist MAGA message.  Illegal “brown” people are wrecking our country: vote for Trump.

Not Fair

There is an old phrase; “All’s fair in love, war and politics”.  And if this was all just an ugly, racist “Facebook fight” then, it wouldn’t really make a difference.  But there are real world consequences to the lies told by those running for the highest offices in the land.  Those lies impact people, and particularly the legal Haitian immigrants, of Springfield, Ohio.

The schools and city buildings have been closed by bomb threats.  Yesterday even the hospital was closed. The hard working Haitian migrants are worried that someone will take all of the nonsense to heart, and come to their town to “stop the madness”. A couple dozen “Proud Boys” just marched through town. Someone is likely to get hurt.  Someone is likely to get killed.  And all because the MAGA world had to get back at those “childless cat ladies”.

It was completely foreseeable.  And a man who was and wants to be President again should put community ahead of political gain.  But, of course, that’s far too much to ask.  Instead, all Springfield can do is hang onto their cats, and try to fortify themselves for the onslaught.

The Crisis

The famous pamphleteer Thomas Paine, wrote “The Crisis” in December of 1776, as Americans entered the second winter of the Revolution.  It’s opening paragraph starts with these epic words:

THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. 

The “summer soldier and sunshine patriot” were literal:  George Washington’s Army was encamped for the winter in Morristown, New Jersey. His victory in Trenton (the battle after the famous crossing of the Delaware River) occurred two days after “The Crisis” was published. The war would stretch four more long years until the final victory at Yorktown. 

American Winter

American history has several times when it seemed crisis had no end in sight.  The Civil War winters of 1863 and ‘64, the Great Depression winters of 1932 and ‘33, and the World War II winter of 1943 all tested “men’s souls”.  And historians will look back at the decade from 2015 to 2025, sadly – the “Trump Era”. They’ll see it  as a struggle to determine what view of the American Dream we will follow. 2024 is the pivotal year of that era. 

Like the Civil War, both sides today lay claim to American history.  Those that follow Donald Trump harken back to the patriots of the American Revolution just as much as those favoring Kamala Harris.  Both sides claim the flag and the trappings of American tradition and lore.  And one side will win out; at least in terms of the vote count in November.  

But it will take more than an election to consolidate a new foundation for the United States. We thought it was over in 2020, with the Pandemic election of Joe Biden.  But here we are again, four years later, caught in another alligator “death-roll” struggle to determine the American dream. These truly are, “The times that try men’s souls” – and women’s too.

He that Stands

A decade ago, there is no possible scenario that would put someone with the ideology of former Congressman Liz Cheney and I on the same side of a political argument.  Judge Luttig, the national “model” of a conservative jurist, would never have a spot on “my side” of the table.  Nicolle Wallace, was the Bush White House press secretary and senior advisor to Republican Presidential candidate John McCain. She supported those that I campaigned against.

They have all “stood up”, against their former political party and for what in their lifetime has been the “opposition”.  They all see Trumpism as such a threat, they are standing for Democrat Kamala Harris.  Trumpists derogatorily call them “RINOS” (Republicans in Name Only), and they all have paid a steep political price.  They have lost lifetime friends. But in these times, in this struggle to determine the American Dream, they stand against Trump.

But there are two individuals who recently joined the fray, that shocks the soul.  This morning Alberto Gonzalez, the Bush Attorney General who supported torture as a means of extracting information from terrorists, came out for the Democrat.  And, last weekend, the “Darth Vader” of the Republican Party; the man perhaps most responsible for the misdirected war in Iraq and the privatization of American intelligence gathering that led to the excesses of Abu Gharib, now supports Kamala Harris.  Former Vice President Dick Cheney, father of Liz and one of the pillars of the “old” Republican Party, is now on “our” side.

Bedfellows

In normal times I would have to consider:  if Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez, and the rest are on the same side I’m on – am I on the “right” side?  There is politically almost nothing that we have in common, except, for a vision of a Trump America that ends our American Dream.  And that’s enough.

Shakespeare in The Tempest wrote: “(M)isery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.”   We Democrats awaken today in bed with – Dick Cheney!!   There could be no better proof that America is in an “existential struggle”, an “alligator deathroll”, for the nature of the American Dream.  It’s made many of us swallow hard to accept the alliance of these opponents of decades duration.  But, as Paine put it, “Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered”.  We need all the help we can get, whatever the source.

Alberto, Dick, welcome to bed.  It’d be nice if you could convince your friend George to climb in too, to join his good friend Michelle.  We all make “strange bedfellows”, but a powerful alliance against Trump.  Remember:  “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Dawn Thirty

The dogs didn’t sleep well last night.  Atticus, our nervous Lab, whispered in my ear about 4:30am:  “Dad, there eating dogs”.  I rolled over – “No Att, they’re not eating dogs, that’s just a Twitter rumor.  Go back to sleep”.  Then, at 5:20am, Keelie, our motherly Australian shepherd, was barking:  “DAD, DAD, DAD; He said they’re eating cats AND dogs”.  So I got up, and went to calm her down.  “Keelie”, I said, “This is what happens when you listen to the Presidential debates.  It’s not real.”

By then four of the five dogs were up, all talking about someone, nearby, eating dogs.  (The youngest, CeCe, slept through the debate and the discussion). After all, the Republican candidate for President, the forty-fifth President of the United States said it was happening, just an hour away in Springfield.

Nightmares

When I was a kid, maybe three, I watched a Twilight Zone episode about large ants from space taking over the earth.  To this day, if I’m going to have a real nightmare, big ants the size of shoes are the protagonists.  But I didn’t think watching the debates last night with the dogs would scare them so badly.  There was no going back to sleep.  So I calmed them down, gave them breakfasts, and started writing.  Atticus was still so scared, he wouldn’t eat.  He’s lying right here, beside my chair, as I write this essay.  I even had to go outside with him in the pre-dawn darkness this morning – “they are eating dogs in Springfield!!!!”

They say that only the Super Bowl gets more viewers than the Presidential Debates.   The Biden debacle in June had over 50 million.  The numbers for last night aren’t out yet, but it’s likely that many more than that watched this one, the only scheduled Presidential debate in this current election cycle.   And for the 45^th President, Donald Trump, the line that everyone remembers is the same one that scared the dogs so badly; “They’re eating cats and dogs in Springfield”.  

Fact Check

First of all, according to Trump, “they” are “illegal” Haitian immigrants in Springfield.  “They” are in fact, not illegal, “they” are legal migrants settled in Springfield after escaping the disastrous conditions on their home island.  “They” speak Creole, and that’s causing some pressure on the Springfield Schools,  caught unprepared for Creole translators.  So there’s that.  But “they” aren’t eating Dogs, Cats, or the local geese in the city ponds.  In fact, Ohio Governor DeWine is increasing some services to the city for the new residents.  Dogs, cats and geese are safe. (In fact, the only one I know who is eating dogs, is Bobby Kennedy Jr, who recently endorsed Trump for President).

Ex-President Trump didn’t have a good night.  When Vice President Harris said that foreign leaders were concerned about another Trump Presidency, Trump searched for a  character reference that Americans would appreciate.  He chose Victor Orban, the Hungarian President who is working to end democracy in his own country.   And Trump yelled, a lot, as if yelling would make the “fake facts” he was spewing real. 

On Message

As for the Vice President, she was controlled, on message, and sharp.  She definitely goaded Trump into some of his more out-of-control moments and got the exact contrast she was looking for.  Harris wanted to show Trump as an agent of chaos, rumor, and craziness.  She wanted to remind Americans what the day-to-day life was like during Trump’s term, the constant fear of what the next bad thing would be.  And in contrast, she presented a plan for the future, with solid proposals for improving life in the middle class.  Her overall goal:  show a potential Presidency of hope and joy, or the dark return of Trump.  And that’s exactly the image Donald Trump gave her.

Can you criticize Kamala Harris?  Sure, she could have been more definitive in answering questions.  There is a clear answer to the “flip-flop” on fracking question:  the US is meeting our environmental goals enough that we can continue to frack.  But she chose not to go into those details, rather falling back on her “pat” and true answer:  “My values have not changed”.  But if she didn’t hit all the “facts” to the final point, she did achieve the “art” of this debate.  She made the contrast, and the choice, clear to the American people.

Trump tried to scare Americans with the dark and gloomy future he sees.  And there are problems; that’s why choosing a President is so important.  But Harris offered solutions, and hope, and even some joy in our future.  

All Trump did was scare the dogs.

Debate and the Nation

Tonight is “THE DEBATE”.  Vice President Kamala Harris will meet Ex-President Donald Trump on the stage in Philadelphia.  It’s on ABC without an audience, but in front of the Nation and the World.  How much can we expect?  In the end, we will remain a Nation divided. But, as they said in 1968 in Chicago, “The whole World is watching”.

We are a polarized Nation.  There are 45% of American voters who will support Donald Trump, and 45% of American voters who will support Kamala Harris.  That leaves 10% who are somehow undecided.  But the most important factor in this November election is which candidate can motivate their own voters to show up.  Of the 45% on both sides, there are “diehards”, maybe 35% MAGA supporters, and, now with Harris, about the same for her.  Who beyond the diehards shows up to vote; that will make all the difference.

Being divided over politics is nothing new.  What is new in America is the vitriol and fear connected with political positions this year.  For many diehards, it comes down to, “Choose my candidate or I hate you”.  And that’s new for the modern era.  In fact, you have to go back to the Civil War to find that kind of discord between supporters of one side or the other.  

Back in the “old days”, the 1970’s and 80’s, there were certainly issues that divided us.  The Vietnam War, school desegregation, the more extreme version of conservatism that Ronald Reagan represented, are all examples.  But, through most of those times, it didn’t pit neighbor against neighbor.  I could put a Carter/Mondale sign on the corner, my opponent could put a Ford/Dole sign, but somehow we still respected each other’s right to make the choice.  It doesn’t feel like that anymore.  

Curating the Divisions

Families are divided.  Conversations are carefully “curated”. (That’s the word of the month, everything is “curated” from restaurant menu items to bed frame upgrades).  There are times you can speak your “truth”, and times when a casual conversation could put you at risk.  The traditional American Thanksgiving or Christmas is now conflicted, some topics “verboten”.    

In 1976, I was on the Carter/Mondale staff.  Teachers had me into their classes to talk about campaigning. As a  twenty year-old college student with a “uniform” blue blazer and a American Bicentennial flag tie (still hanging in the closet), I didn’t pretend to be unbiased.  But that was allowed, back then.  Teachers let their students know that I was obviously biased, but a good source for what campaign “life” was about.  

Today, I don’t think that could happen.  Students would feel quite comfortable attacking “the other” side, either way.  Parents would be outraged.  Teachers would be questioned for inappropriate class materials, or political bias.   

So what happened in the 1980’s and 90’s that led to this change, from a time when we could mutually disagree without, as the saying goes, being disagreeable?  Who’s to blame for our current division, not just in politics, but in conversations?

I have an answer, but first, I need to give a “full disclosure” notice.  My father was the head of Multimedia Programs and Production.  He created and sold individual television shows across the country, a process called “syndication”.  His most famous show was “The Phil Donahue Show” (Phil passed away a couple of weeks ago, the end of an era for my family).  So I had more than a little exposure to some of what went on behind the scenes in syndication, and with some of the personnel behind those shows.

Rush

Remember that the late 1980’s was still an era before cable TV took hold.  Most of the programming America watched came “over the air” (no wires, you could watch TV for free – still can, though today it feels kind of like the rotary dial telephone – antique).  Instead of thousands of viewing or listening choices at any given time, there were only six or so channels to see.  So most Americans were familiar with most shows; we’d all at least “tried” them once.

There are two figures that I lay “the blame” for America’s path to being “disagreeable”.  The first is Rush Limbaugh.  Limbaugh was better known for his radio broadcasts, but he also had a TV show for a few years.  Rush brought a whole new style to conservative “talk show” radio/TV.  He would make a point, then attack any who argued against him as not only wrong, but stupid.  It was a machine gun spray against any other view than his own. He would never acknowledge even a single “point” by the other side.  Listening to Limbaugh, or trying to have a discussion with his adherents, was a completely different, frustrating, “take no prisoners” kind of political discussion.  It was frustrating because no one listened to your points, they simply moved onto to their next talking point.  Sound familiar?

There wasn’t a “give and take”, a debate of point and counter-point.  It was simply “give” it, and you either “took it” or something was wrong with you; your intelligence or your motivation.  Limbaugh (and to a lesser extent, Glen Beck) became the “model” for the new conservative movement.  It’s how “conservatives” learned to “fight” for their cause.  There’s a straight line from them to the Sean Hannity’s and Mark Levin’s and Steven Millers’ of today.

Jerry

The second figure was Jerry Springer (The Jerry Springer Show was one of Dad’s).  Jerry Springer was originally a politician out of Cincinnati, who became a Democrat and Mayor, then fell from grace in a sex-for-money scandal.  He recovered and returned to prominence.  After a failed Gubernatorial race, Springer turned to television (just downstairs from Dad’s office), first as a commentator, then a news anchor, and finally as a host of his own show.  The original idea was a Donahue kind of show, a talk show about serious political issues. 

But Springer found that the more outlandish he got, the higher the ratings were.  So the Jerry Springer show became synonymous with scandal: who’s your Daddy, I had sex with my step-mother, the man who was a girl, then couldn’t decide.  Jerry had “professional referees” on site, able to break up physical altercations between “guests”, and sometimes, the audience.  

But the real point was that the Springer Show blurred the lines between reality and “show”.  It was all presented as “truth”, but it wasn’t.  Americans suspended disbelief, because we were entertained by the craziness, shocked at the subject matter, and fascinated to see when the “conversation” would turn to physical blows (and who would win, the husband or the wife).  It was, to put it concisely, coarse; the worst view of what of America was.  And America loved it (and the company made a lot of money).  Jerry sat back, shook his head, and seemed “above” the fray.

Channeling

With Limbaugh and Springer, insults became common place, and reality became blurred.  It’s that “lineage” that brought us to “spectator” politics; the more outlandish, the better.  It all sounds like a Trump Rally, doesn’t it?  Trump tapped into all the tools, the derision, the open hatred, the breaking of every norm.  But he didn’t start it:  Rush and Jerry did, forty years ago.

So what about tonight’s debate?  Expect Trump will channel Limbaugh.  After all, as President, Trump awarded Rush the Presidential Medal of Freedom, “So much better than the Medal of Honor”.  And while Harris may try to be more “Donahue”, in all likelihood she’ll be “Springer”, shaking her head at the craziness of Trump World.  

A rational political debate is unlikely.  But, don’t worry, it will sure be a show.

This is a “Sunday Story” – no politics here, just the story of a cross country “institution” in Ohio – “the McGowan”.

Covid

I guess it’s one of the “benefits” of Covid.  The Cross Country (running) Invitational at Watkins Memorial High School started with just a few schools back in 1974.  It grew through the 1980’s and 90’s, then exploded in size during the 2000’s.  It was renamed for its founder, Coach John McGowan in 2003, and to the Cross Country world of Ohio it is simply known today as “the McGowan”.  This year there were 2187 runners who completed the course (high school 3.1 miles, middle school 2.0 miles), and a total of 146 teams fighting for trophies in the sixteen races.

And what about Covid?  Well technically the Watkins/McGowan Invitational traces all the way from 1974 to 2024, fifty-one years.  But in 2020, the “Covid” year, only ten teams were allowed in the “Woods and Mud” meet on that Saturday in September, carefully distancing their team camps, arriving late and leaving early in cars rather than buses, and masking until two minutes before the race (it was the rule).  So there was a meet, but it wasn’t “the McGowan”.  

So 2023 was fifty years of a meet at Watkins, and 2024 was the fiftieth anniversary of the Watkins/McGowan Invitational.  Thanks to Covid, we got to celebrate twice. 

Cool and Fast

It was an anniversary, but that wasn’t the only exception of the 2024 edition of the McGowan.  It’s seldom that the Saturday after Labor Day starts with a cool 40 degrees, and even less likely that there was no rain for weeks before the race.  What’s bad for the local farmers is great for cross country running conditions.  The paths through the woods were hard and fast, and the typical “mud spots” were completely dry.  So it wasn’t a surprise to coaches and knowing fans that times were fast, and when runners run fast, everyone is happy at a cross country meet!! 

Why do teams like to come to Watkins Memorial High School, year-after-year?  Sure “we” (well, I used to be a bigger part of we, but I still take a little credit) run a great meet.  The races start on time, the management bends over backwards to solve problems, and the course is well marked and prepped for running.  There’s always great competition, individually and for teams.  There are lots of races,  and not just for the “best” runners.  John McGowan taught us that Cross Country is for every kid on the team, from the fastest to the kid struggling at the “end”.  So every kid on the team gets to run at the McGowan.

The Woods

But the biggest draw is “the woods”.  Over two miles of the 3.1 mile the high school course are on wood trails.  That used to be a lot more common in high school cross country, but “modern” courses are likely to be around playing fields; smooth and fast, but not challenging or interesting (and unshaded for the hot late summer meets).   So teams come for the meet, but they really come for a run “in the woods”. 

 John McGowan set it up that way, and built some of the trails himself.  Those of us who came “after” John, continued to work on the trails, widening them out, and improving things a little more each year.  The creek crossings now have bridges, the “swamp” now has a boardwalk.  But the “woods” at Watkins still remain unique in Ohio cross country competition.

Tradition

I’ve only been a part of the meet for forty-six years.  John McGowan was with me on the finish line yesterday. He’s still helping the kids struggling after they spent their all on the course.  So was his brother Lonnie, and others who can measure their “McGowan” service in decades.  And the current Coach, John Jarvis, and his staff, Nathan Corum, Scott Parks and Lance Westbrook do a great job of the tough work of putting the meet together, from maps and starting assignments to erecting fences and filling holes in the fields.  It’s an effort that includes the whole current Watkins cross country team, the “labor” of Labor Day practice. They carry on the tradition, from John, to me, to them.

The officiating crew has been the same for at least the last thirty years as well.  Doug and Jeff O’Brien and Penny Zuber do a great job of getting kids “within” the rules. They quietly and calmly deal with whatever infractions might occur.  They fit in perfectly with a meet designed, not for management, or for officials, or even for coaches.  The “McGowan” is about the kids, the runners; and Doug, Jeff and Penny are too.

Finish Line

For me, the finish line is fun.  It’s also the place to see “everyone you ever knew” from decades of cross country coaching.  Old runners, old coaches, old friends; all stop by for a conversation, held in about twenty minute increments between the finish of one race and the next.  Some are still coaching, some come back to reminisce about “their years” at the McGowan. And some just want to catch on the “old retired guys”.   

And there are always the stories.  This year:  a girl from Olentangy Orange High School ran within seconds of the course record, set way back in 2007 by Claire Durkin who went on to win the state championship.  And this year, an unnamed middle school boy discovered why a lunch of bean and bacon soup wasn’t a great pre-race meal (it was evident at the finish line – I’ll leave it at that – so did he).   Orange juice for breakfast isn’t good either. 

The Saturday after Labor Day, like the phases of the moon and the change of the seasons, is just what it is:  the day of the McGowan Invitational at Watkins.  It’s a checkpoint on the calendar, and after all of these years, a moment that echoes back in time.  And it was a good day yesterday, though it will take me a week to recover.  But don’t worry, I’ll be back in the woods, and on the line next year too.  Come say hello.

The Sunday Story Series

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21
• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22
• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23
• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24

Biden

It takes courage to sacrifice for a Nation.  We learned a lot about that this year from President Biden.  He’s a man whose whole life aimed at reaching the Presidency.  After three decades in the Senate and two runs for the Presidency, Biden got the ultimate consolation prize, the Vice Presidency.  In what should have been “his time”, his final “shot” at the Presidency:   his son, the scion of the Biden political tradition, died. It crushed him.  Hillary Clinton got the call.

It took a combined Constitutional crisis of the Trump Presidency and the world pandemic to open the door to the White House one more time.  Biden finally earned the top position.  And after three years of one of the most successful Presidency’s in history, he was poised to win a second term.  His campaign was well financed, and developed the best “ground game” in American politics.  Then the debate happened.  Joe Biden was betrayed by his own body, showing the wear of forty-five years of political combat.

He could have continued.  The nomination was his, as was the hundreds of millions of campaign funds.  Sure, other party leaders wanted him to quit, most notably, Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi.  But he could have defied their Machiavellian efforts.  Instead, he put the future of the Party, and the Nation, ahead of his own ambitions.  It was the most politically courageous act of this century.

Kinzinger

But Biden isn’t the only politician to demonstrate that rare quality this year.  Adam Kinzinger, the former Republican Congressman from Illinois, joined the January 6^th Committee against the “orders” of his party’s leadership.  He knew the “price” of his actions:  he faced being “primaried” from the right.  He didn’t even try to run for re-election.  

And when Trump was nominated again by the Republican Party, Kinzinger stood up at the Democratic Convention. He showed other Republicans “the way” to vote against him.  To use modern psychological parlance, Kinzinger gave doubting Republicans a “permission structure” to vote Democratic, for the good of the Nation.

Cheney

But perhaps the greatest act of political courage of all, is by Liz Chaney.  She is the daughter of Dick Cheney; former Vice President, Secretary of Defense, White House Chief of Staff, and Congressman from Wyoming.  Liz followed in her father’s footsteps, a Congressman herself from Wyoming, and the first woman to Chair the House Republican Caucus.  She was third in line in the Republican power structure, poised to ultimately ascend to the Speakership.  

But then Donald Trump came along.  And Liz Cheney made a choice between what was good for her political future, and what was good for the Nation.  She voted to impeach Trump, and along with Kinzinger, accepted appointment (and the Vice-Chairmanship) of the January 6^th Committee.  It cost her everything.  She lost her leadership position in the caucus, and then, she was “primaried” out of her Wyoming Congressional seat.

But Liz Cheney makes it clear:  a vote for Donald Trump is a vote against the Constitutional Democracy of the United States.  Sure Cheney and Kinzinger have policy differences with Vice President Harris, serious differences about the role of the Federal government.  But those are nothing compared to the existential threat that Donald Trump represents to our Nation.  (I know, Dems aren’t supposed to say that anymore, that’s “old-school speak”.  But it’s still the unspoken truth of the 2024 election – check out Project 2025, the playbook for the second Trump Administration).

This week Liz Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris for President of the United States.  She’s going on the campaign trail to support her.

Timidity 

Over the past decade, I have looked to Republicans for political courage.  From Ohio politicians like Rob Portman and Mike DeWine, to national figures like Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio; again and again they have turned to Party over Country, and their own political careers over national interest.  Some, like Portman (and Speaker Paul Ryan) left the “field”. DeWine, “laid low” when the pressure was on.  Others, like Graham, became Trump sycophants.  But few stood up against the MAGA takeover of their own Party.  Even Vice President Mike Pence, who showed personal courage and stood against the mob on January 6^th, tried to have it “both ways”.  He campaigned against Trump, but still as part of the Trump/Pence team.  It didn’t work.

I lamented that the courage of John McCain was gone.  Instead, in the (supposed) words of retired Senator Lamar Alexander, they supported Trump because, “Who will I eat lunch with at the club if I don’t”.  And I wonder:   where is George W Bush or Condoleezza Rice, or the Generals who made it clear that Trump is dangerous.  Are they too worried about losing their “lunch companions”?  Are they to remain “profiles in timidity”?

But there is still courage in American politics today.  If you’re looking for proof, look to Biden and Kinzinger.  And most recently, look to Liz Cheney, a “Profile in Courage” putting country over career and party.  I hope her fellow Republicans listen.

Another

Two children and two teachers are dead.  Nine more are in the hospital.  A fourteen year-old with an AR “style” weapon is the cause.  Sure, our hearts are with them, the students and faculty and administration of Appalachee High School. They are “just” another high school that now is “on the list”.  But there’s little more to say.  

We, the people of the United States, have made a choice.  We could choose to make changes, to make a difference, to protect our children and our people. Instead, we choose to be helpless.  

I’ve been writing essays on Our America since 2017.  Twenty-six times I’ve written about America’s sick willingness to allow mass shootings.   I don’t have much new to say except – when we decide to change, we can.

Guns

• Guns and Sadness   10/3/17
• A Teacher with a Gun   2/23/18
• Don’t Change the Subject   3/25/18
• Again   4/15/18
• Staying Small   5/3/19
• Saving Lives Is Not Politics   8/4/19
• The Pain Becomes too Great  8/5/19
• Who’s Your Daddy  8/21/19
• A Good Guy With a Gun   9/1/19
• Rights and Guns   5/17/20
• Pittsburgh  6/17/20
• Our Choice   12/1/21
• Toxic Mix   5/16/22
• Apple Pie    5/25/22
• Prairie Dogs   6/9/22
• The Will to Do It   7/6/22
• Hanging Together   8/12/22
• Swatted    9/23/22
• They Aren’t Pro-Life   5/26/22
• Motive, Means, Opportunity  1/25/23
• Accepted Losses   2/14/23
• German Rights   3/28/23
• Fear Itself   3/30/23
• The Gravel Pit   4/16/23
• Butcher’s Bill    5/8/23
• Right to Live     10/26/23

Who’s Smart 

Our politicians think we’re not very smart.  And, surprisingly, it’s not just one party.  Politicians on both sides of the aisle seem to think “we the voters” just are, well, kind of dumb.  That’s a dangerous assumption to make.  American voters are often very astute.  An example: here in Ohio on the recent abortion amendment, voters who wanted the amendment to pass first had to vote No on Issue One in August, then Yes on Issue One in November.  That mental gymnastics was awkward, but voters got it.  The Amendment passed.

I listen to commentators telling us that Donald Trump is shifting on the abortion issue, or that Harris is more pro-Palestinian than Biden.  With deep and knowing voices, they let us know that the candidates are “moving” to the middle, and might be in danger of losing their base voters.  As the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas kids so often said:  I call “BS”. 

On the Ropes

Let’s take Trump’s “gymnastics” on abortion.  First, Donald Trump was pro-choice, way back before the end of the “Apprentice” and his reinvention as a Presidential candidate.  Then he was pro-life, so much so that he talked about how women having abortions ought to be punished, on air with Chris Matthews back in 2015.  It was part of his campaign to earn the pro-life vote, and it worked.

He is the man who brought us Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch (in place of Merrick Garland), Kavanaugh, and Comey-Barrett (in place of what should have been another Democratic appointee).   Trump changed the nature of the Supreme Court, and the course of American legal rights.  And he assured the Nation that over-ruling Roe v Wade  was what “everyone wanted”:  millions of American women lost control of their own health care choices.  He paid back his pro-life supporters in full.

But Trump is up against “the ropes” in what may be another narrowly decided election.  He needs to expand his “base” of voters, a very difficult political maneuver.  So now he’s against a national abortion ban, and he’s so in favor of In-Vitro Fertilization that he wants the government to pay for it.  Trump thinks that there’s some incredibly narrow segment of voters who will say, “Oh, he’s kind of pro-choice again, I’ll vote for him”.  

Soccer Moms

Really:  the guy who (with the help of Mitch McConnell) single-handedly change America’s abortion policy for the first time in fifty years?  The man who “slayed” Roe? He’s Pro-Choice?  Few voters are going to be fooled by that.  And as for his “base” slipping; the pro-life voters know who exactly who their candidate is.  With “a wink and a nod”, they’ll let him say anything he wants.  Donald Trump has “told them who he is”, and they listened.  They’re certainly not going to vote for Kamala Harris, and they aren’t going to stay home either.  They know a “feint” when they see one.

So, it’s all about what is condescendingly called “soccer moms”.  It’s the suburban women’s vote, in places like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Milwaukee (and Columbus, Ohio too; though probably not enough to make a difference in the state’s outcome).  That’s the voting block most mobilized by the end of Roe. States as “red” as Ohio, Kentucky and Kansas stood for pro-choice at the ballot box.  Soccer Moms normally vote Republican, but the abortion issue may have altered that paradigm.  This is the first Presidential election where abortion is more than just a theoretical issue, and the Trump strategy is to throw those Moms “a bone” of pro-choice rhetoric.  I don’t think that “bone” is going to work; Soccer Mom’s aren’t fools.

Thread the Needle

Meanwhile, Vice President Harris has her own issue to deal with.  A narrow segment of her “base voters” are pro-Palestinian, and believe that the American government hasn’t done enough to stop the Israeli destruction in Gaza.  The Harris campaign “ain’t so dumb”:  they’re letting President Biden take the heat when it comes to the Middle East.  While Harris has made it clear, even in her nomination acceptance speech, that she supports Israel; she is trying to shade a little closer to the Palestinian cause than Biden.

Her base voters have nowhere to go either.  It’s not like Trump, beholden to the Sheldon Adelson fortune and close friend of Bebe Netanyahu, is going to be anything but “all-in” for Israel.  The Harris campaign’s concern is that those pro-Palestinian voters will simply choose “not to play”, and stay at home on election day. 

So, it’s a second group, one numerically more significant, that Harris is trying to motivate:  young college kids.  And that’s where Harris is trying to thread the Middle East needle; for Israel, but, not so pro-Netanyahu.  

Young voters are notoriously fickle.  They usually don’t show up at all.  The last time they made a significant difference was in the Obama 2008 victory. That’s not about “lazy kids”, it’s all about motivating them to make a difference.  If they can find their way through the Harris-Palestinian dilemma, maybe they can impact the election.  But they are just as likely to also take the third route, and choose “not to play”.  

 As George Bush so eloquently misquoted The Who: “ fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”  Be sure though:both candidates and both campaigns;  they probably aren’t fooling the voters.

October 7^th

On October 7^th, 2023; the terrorist organization Hamas launched a devastating attack on Israel.  The attack wasn’t on military targets.  It was on civilians; people in their homes in Southern Israel, the elderly, babies; and notably a music festival in the Negev desert.  Over 1200 Israelis (and citizens of other nations) were killed in the widespread assault, and 251 were taken as hostages.  Some of those were exchanged in the first ceasefire last year.  Some of them were rescued by Israeli forces.  And thirty-five are confirmed dead, including six found today.  Around 100 are still in captivity.

There should be no question:  when Hamas took the hostages, they took responsibility for their lives.  There are a whole lot of issues about what Israel is doing in Gaza, and now in the West Bank. But none of these change that  “duty of care”; the responsibility  for the lives taken over.  Those young adults in the desert, those senior citizens in their homes, those babies; had no say in the matter.  

Hersh

For those of us who watched the Democratic Convention; we heard the anguished story of an American citizen, twenty-three year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, told by his parents.  He went to the concert in the desert.  When Hamas attacked, he took shelter with dozens in a small bomb shelter.  The lower part of his left arm was blown off by a grenade, but Hersh survived the attack to be taken hostage.

He was alive two weeks ago while his parents stood at the Democratic Convention podium in Chicago and asked for help.  He was alive when they asked Democrats, the President, the United States, Israel and Hamas, to finish the deal and get their son freed. Hersh was alive yesterday morning.  Today, he is dead in a tunnel in Gaza. He was murdered by his captors as Israeli forces closed in, along with five other hostages.

Those that support Hamas have nothing of value to talk about.  Terrorism is beyond any reason; it negates any legitimate grievance.  Those that killed and continue to kill thousands of innocent Israelis, and Americans and others, deserve only just retribution for their acts.  

Lay Waste

But it is the Middle East, and like every other issue in the region, it’s not that simple.

Hamas is not every Palestinian: it doesn’t even represent every Palestinian.  The 1200 and now more killed by Hamas does not justify the utter devastation of Gaza and the death caused by Israeli actions.  Over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed.  Even accepting the Israeli estimates that 17,000 were Hamas fighters, that still leaves 23,000 civilian deaths, many of them elderly and babies.   The Israeli forces attack indiscriminately, which makes it difficult for the world to discriminate between terrorist and aggrieved victim.  

It is clear that the Israeli policy, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, is to “lay waste” to Gaza.  Their action does not look like an attack on Hamas. It looks like the ancient Roman army laying waste to Carthage, destroying the city and selling the population into slavery.  It is clear that not only is Israel determined to kill every Hamas fighter, but also every innocent Palestinian in the way.  

US President Biden is committed to getting a ceasefire in the region.  It’s hard to imagine: through all of the destruction and innocent death, there are still representatives from all sides in the same city.  They are not sitting at the same table, but they are still attempting to reach some kind of agreement to stop the violence. But it’s now too late for Hersh, and too late for the thousands of Palestinian innocents.  

But the block to agreement isn’t Hamas.  It’s Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.  And it’s time to ask why.

One State 

Netanyahu is in a tenuous political position.  Not unlike ex-President Trump’s situation, Netanyahu faces criminal charges in the Israeli Courts, held in abeyance while he serves as leader of the government.  Should Netanyahu be removed from office, he faces possible conviction and imprisonment.  The coalition that keeps him in office is a deal with his “devil”, the far-right political parties of Israel.  They are intent on not only the destruction of Gaza, but also the end of talk of a “two-state solution” for Israel and Palestine.  They don’t want two states, they want an Israeli state that includes all of the Palestinian territory, but not the Palestinians themselves.

Israel is a democracy, but the far-right’s “one state” would not include Palestinian citizenship.  In the end, there are as many Palestinians as Israelis; a single democracy would mean that Israel would no longer be a Jewish state.  But democracy cannot exist with an equal group that is not free to express themselves – so getting rid of Palestinians is the only choice for their “one state” solution.

Provocation

As long as war continues, Netanyahu is safe from calls for an Israeli election, and from the collapse of his own coalition.  So each time it looks like there is progress in negotiations, he allows one more act to push Israel deeper into war.  He allowed the assassination of the Hamas negotiator.  He antagonized Hezbollah, another terrorist organization to the north of Israel.  And now, he is sending Israeli forces into the West Bank, the other Palestinian enclave under Israeli control.  

Of course President Biden is frustrated with Netanyahu.  Every time the negotiations seem close to success, the Prime Minister adds one more provocation.  But Biden also recognizes the original premise of this conflict:  Hamas attacked Israel.  So he must balance the two as he continues to pressure Israel to sign a deal.  It’s “easy” for those suffering for the Palestinians to say, stop sending weapons to Israel.  But those weapons are the only real leverage Biden has.  He can’t just “stop”, if he does then he loses the US seat at the negotiating table.

And, of course, President Biden is devastated by the all the death, but particularly the death of Hersh.  No one knows better the pain of the death of a child than the President.

This ends when Netanyahu decides it ends.  A majority of Israelis, and it sounds like, a majority of Israeli military advisors want it to end as well.  So what is Netanyahu waiting for?  Why does he continue to deepen the conflict?

Perhaps he hopes for the election of Donald Trump.

Labor Day

It’s Labor Day weekend. Traditionally, Labor Day is the beginning of the fall election campaigns.  This year that’s more acute. Like the “bad old days” of politics, one party didn’t fill out “their ticket” until just a few weeks ago.  Now we know:  it’s Trump and Vance versus Harris and Walz.  

There’s been a lot of pre-game activity.  Since the Democratic Convention ended; Harris barnstormed south Georgia, and finally did an interview.  Walz got “vetted” by the press: yes, he really was a Sergeant Major; no, he didn’t get deployed in 24 years of National Guard service, yes he had a DUI back in the 1990’s, and yes, he quit drinking after.   

Trump also was busy.  The Arlington Cemetery moment is one more example of the ex-President pushing through an event that might have ended a “lesser” candidacy.  Oh, and Prosecutor Jack Smith is pushing forward, on criminal charges against Trump in two courts.  And Vance, he’s getting vetted too.  It’s all about “single cat ladies” and telling the opposition to “go to Hell” (must be the mark of that Yale education). 

So here we go, an election match-up we didn’t expect just a month and a half ago.  What we thought we going to be the sad sequel to 2020, now is a fresh, new, race.  What was a battle of the old Boomers, is now a battle of Boomer versus Gen X (that “flipped the script” on Trump).  And Harris brings the hidden values of race and gender fully into play.  Obama won decisively in 2008 and 2012.  Clinton won, but still lost the election in 2016.  What lessons should Harris learn from both?  And just to increase the anticipation – in some states, early voting opens in a week.

It Just Doesn’t Matter

As Hillary Clinton would be the first to remind us, the election of the American President is not by “popular vote”.  If it was, our recent history would be very different:  think Al Gore instead of George W Bush, and Hillary instead of Donald.  It’s not that the popular vote doesn’t “count”, but it only counts by state.  Our arcane and flawed Electoral College system will determine the Presidency again.  And when it’s all told, forty-three states and Washington, DC, are likely already determined.  

Sure, those of us in Ohio and California and Texas need to go through the motions:  we need to vote.  But the likelihood of Ohio going “blue”, or California going “red” is small.  If either happens, we are in the “landslide” territory, unseen since 2008.  And while Texas is on the verge of turning “purple”, don’t hold your breath.  The good old boys counting votes down there will make sure “Red” prevails once more (Florida too).

When you split the “44” into Red and Blue, Trump has 219 Electoral votes, and Harris has 226.  93 votes remain in the seven “swing states” that will determine who gets to 270; becomes our next President, and decides the fate of the free world (whoops, fell in Biden-esque language there, but still true).  From left to right they are:  Nevada (6), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10), Michigan (15), Georgia (16), North Carolina (16), and Pennsylvania (19).

Surprise

By the way, North Carolina is a surprise.  It’s been a Presidential “Red” state for a while, and, like Red Florida; Democrats are hesitant to spend “good money after bad” there.  But Harris’s candidacy changed the Biden strategy of completely depending on the Midwest “Blue Wall” of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania; putting North Carolina and Georgia back into Democratic play.  Keep in mind though:  Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania total 44 electoral votes.  Add that to 226 and it equals 270, the magic number for election.  That’s all the “swing” a Democrat needs.  

Where is Trump’s path to victory?  Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and, crack the  Blue Wall  say at Wisconsin; that’s 272 votes.  It all makes North Carolina’s 16 votes win or die for Republicans, as much as Pennsylvania’s 19 is for Democrats.   What happens in those seven states will make all the difference.  As Pennsylvania and North Carolina go, so goes the Nation.

Polls

We won’t know who won until after election day.  Likely, we won’t know until long after election day.  Like 2020, the margins are so narrow, that it took four days to know for sure.  We know those margins are so narrow, because we’ve fallen back into the trap of worrying about polling once again.  

Polling:  the political equivalent of Lucy holding Charlie Brown’s football.  We think it’s giving us answers, we want to believe it gives us answers; but in the end, in our narrowly divided country, it doesn’t.  But we still line up behind the ball, knowing that “this time”, she won’t let go.  So what are the problems?

Polls are taken with small numbers of people (in the hundreds usually) used to project a result, and each poll has a mathematically determined “margin of error”.  So to start with, if Harris is ahead of Trump by 2%, and the margin of error is 4%; then Harris could be up by 6%, or Trump could be up by 2%, or any result in between.  And here’s the big point:  there’s no greater likelihood of a positive Harris result than there is a positive Trump result, even though “on paper”, Harris is winning.  The margin of error is literally a “gray zone” of indecision.

But we want a winner and a loser, and the poll “shows” a winner and a loser, so we get fired up.

Poll Watching

And polls aren’t just random samples of people.  The polling data is pushed through a “model”, a formula that hopes to reflect what the actual 2024 voters look like.  So different pollsters could take the same data and come out with different results.  Some of that is politically driven; but most is just the “best guest” of what the 2024 electorate might look like.  In both 2016 and 2020, most models under-counted Trump support.  That’s where the Harris “hidden values” may change things.  Trump versus Biden – pollsters had the solid evidence of 2020 to work from.  But now it’s Harris as candidate.  She’s Black, South Asian, and a woman.  Pollsters literally have to take “educated guesses” to determine what the 2024 electorate will look like.  Who’s right? Who knows.

So what’s the “trick” to reading polls?  I look at the “Republican Polls”; Fox News, Rasmussen, Fabrizio among others.  Their models are more likely to under-count Harris support. So if Harris is doing well on those polls, then she likely is doing even better in “real life”.  And if Harris or Trump is outside the margin of error, then that’s solid data.

But polls are nothing more than snapshots of the present.  How people respond on a poll today, is merely an indicator of how they’ll vote in a week, or a month, or on election day.  Polls might reflect the “trends” of where we are going, they still do not determine the destination.  They can make you “believe” in a candidate.  But until those days after the election, nothing really matters.  Believe what you will; only the actual votes count.

A very “Republican” friend sent me an article from a group called “Red Right Updates”. It called the Harris economic plans a “disaster” and a “collection of misguided policies that threaten to stifle investment, cripple our economy, and ultimately weaken America…”.   He challenged me to explain “the Left’s” position.  So here’s my point-by-point “rebuttal”.  My guess is that we won’t ever agree, but we can have a civil discussion. (Note – section headings are from the Red Right article).

A National Debt Nightmare

Red Right predicts that the Harris program will create a $1.7 trillion deficit over ten years.  According the them, “…(That) represents a massive burden on future generations and a dire threat to the economic stability of the United States”. 

A $1.7 trillion increase in the National debt over ten years is hardly staggering.  In the last Administration, Trump raised the debt by at least $6.5 Trillion in four years (Heritage Foundation), and as much as $8.4 Trillion (Newsweek).  Biden added $4.3 Trillion in his term (Newsweek) .  So $170 Billion a year really isn’t quite as “staggering” versus $1.1 Trillion a year under Biden or $2.2 trillion a year under Trump.  And Trump’s alma mater, the Wharton School, predicts that his program for the next four years would add another $6 Trillion to the deficit (Wharton).

Stifling Investment and Economic Growth

Red Right is troubled that “…Harris’s plan (will) stifle investment”.

Red Right seems concerned that if lower income workers get an increase in the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Credit, that would somehow remove incentives for them to “work” and cause them to  “…drag down economic output”.  It’s as if folks wouldn’t work as hard if they had some more of their earnings instead of losing them to taxes.  There’s a basic fallacy here:  that the government somehow needs to hammer the working class to pay for something so they “work hard”.  But the reality is, that, according to the Tax Foundation, the bottom half of income earners paid only 2.3% of taxes anyway.  So those that would benefit most from child and earned income credits, don’t impact the amount of taxes collected.  

Is opposition to this is really about making sure workers have to “struggle” to take care of their kids and their insurance?  As you know, there are lots of people who are working hard just to make it at all.  If they have some additional amounts of their own earned money, they’ll likely spend it, encouraging  economic growth.  Why should those people pay what turns out to be a small fraction of the overall tax load?  Is that what this is about – keeping the poor impoverished?

The $25000 First-Time Homebuyer Incentive is a Vote-Buying Scheme

First, let’s be clear.  Both Harris and Trump are proposing ideas that would be, in their view, good for the country.  They hope that voters agree, and show that agreement by casting their ballot for one or the other.  So, in a sense, it’s all “vote buying”. 

Harris is proposing a $25000 first time home buyer credit.  She’s also proposing government incentives to build three million new homes (National Low Income Housing). The reality is, that the entry cost into the housing market is so high, a substantial number of Americans can’t look forward to ever owning a home. A “starter” home here in Pataskala, is well over $200,000 (Rocket).  

Instead, they are locked into a cycle of rental, putting money into something that has no financial return. Here in Pataskala, rent is over $1300/month, a mortgage payment’s worth for a two bedroom apartment that used to cost $700 (Apartment Guide) .  It used to be that parents would help their children with down payments.  It was a way to pay their wealth “forward”.  But, with  current housing costs and inflation, for many it’s not possible.  Owning a home is a way to create generational wealth, that can change the financial life for whole generations of people.  

The Absurdity of Taxing Unrealized Gains

Speaking of generational wealth – let’s talk about “unrealized gains”. (Unrealized gains example:  when a stock is bought at $100, but goes up to $1000. The “gain” of $900 is only realized when it’s sold).  Before we go farther, put that into context:  this is an issue for those with over $100 million in wealth (Smart Asset): serious “generational wealth”.  

Having gains of multiple millions in stock or real estate (or art or old Babe Ruth jerseys) is not really “unrealized”, even if it’s not sold.  The value is used to leverage other profit-making measures (as collateral for example).  The point is pretty simple:  we have a tax system designed to allow “hiding” of wealth.  So those in the $100 million plus category might have to pay a bit more of their fair-share.  “Unrealized gains” is an income “hiding” scheme, that should be “outed”.    One of the folks that agree with that is Warren Buffett, with a net worth over $142 Billion (White House – The Buffett Rule).

Raising the Corporate Tax Rates – A self-inflicted Wound

The corporate tax rate is currently 21%, a percent less than the rate paid by families making from $100,000 to $200,000.  Raising the corporate tax rate, especially when some of the inflationary pressure was caused by corporations taking windfall advantage of our economy, not only seems “right”, but also fair.  The corporate tax rate was in the 50% range in the 1950’s, and even 30% in the Reagan era (Economic Policy Institute). 

Corporations, benefit from living and operating in the United States.  They should share in the tax burden .The United States did well over the last half of the twentieth century with higher rates; 28% isn’t a “load” too great to bear.  Corporations making millions and billions shouldn’t pay a rate less than a middle class family.

Stealing Trump’s Proposal:  Eliminating Taxes on Tips

 Yes, I’ll admit it, Trump actually did have a decent idea; not taxing tips (though that certainly looks like a “vote getting scheme”, especially Nevada’s votes).  It is important to note that the Trump proposal might include lawyers and hedge fund managers as “tipped” workers, folks “looking for a loophole”.   But  for lower paid workers who depend on tips, it could be a good idea, especially as they are still being taxed on their base wages.  So Harris stealing it doesn’t make it a bad idea, as long as my lawyer and broker can’t call their fees “tips” too (Axios).

Price Controls on Food:  A Communistic Approach

What Red Right (and others) calls price controls, Harris calls anti-price gouging.  This has happened especially in the grocery industry, where prices climbed 25% post-Covid, helping drive inflation without a commensurate increase in the supply cost.  Harris is not calling for “price controls” like the 1970’s, Richard Nixon style. (The Republican President actually issued an order freezing prices and wages – what Red Right would call a “Communistic Approach”). 

But she is calling for Post-Covid profiteers to be reined in, through “anti-gouging” legislation (CBS).  A huge share of the grocery market is down to just four stores:  Walmart, Kroger, Costco, and Albertsons control over 50% (and Kroger and Albertson’s want to merge).   They can get away with gouging because there’s not enough competition to pressure prices down.  Red Right complains that this kind of legislations “stifles competition”, but that competition already is stifled for much of the country with access to only one “brand” of grocery.

Final Thoughts

People of “good faith” can have different views on American economics.  Hyperbole like “Communistic”, “disaster”, and “crippling” doesn’t further the discussion, it just enflames passions.  As I see it, the Trump plan is for unfettered capitalism, with corporations and the wealthy “cashing in”.  Harris tries to temper that capitalism and direct some of that wealth to the lower and middle classes, so they can share in the economic prosperity.  

Democrats and Republicans have had this same argument since the 1960’s; without Communism, or crippling disasters.  America will survive either way, economically.   While I clearly favor the Democratic economic view, the more important issues this year are about Democracy and Freedom.  

But that’s for a different discussion.

John Kasich

I really don’t have much good to say about Ohio’s former Governor, John Kasich.   He wanted to “bust unions”, and tried to break the public employees organizations with his failed “Issue 5”.  He brought his experience making a fortune working for the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers investment firm to government, encouraging state retirement services to hire private investors rather than using more transparent public investments.  As it turned out, state-sponsored studies show that the teacher retirement system lost $60 Billion in potential gains, and paid many millions of dollars to private firms for the loss.  As a retired teacher, that’s a big deal to me.

Kasich was, is, and always will be a business Republican in the “old school” model.  In all fairness, he did do at least two things right.  When the Obama Administration offered Medicaid expansion, Kasich immediately signed Ohio up, adding 1.2 million citizens to the insurance plan who weren’t covered before.  And, when Trump ran for President in 2020, Kasich did his duty as an American. He supported Joe Biden.

Kasich is out of politics right now (he’s seventy-two), but he does serve as a commentator for MSNBC.  When I see him broadcasting from the halls of Otterbein College, just up the road in Westerville, I still remember marching on the Ohio Capitol against Issue 5.  But he occasionally brings up a valid point, and this week was no different.

Economics

The Governor commented on the momentum of the Democratic Convention.  He’s skeptical that the high spirits and imaging from Chicago will make a dent in the incredibly narrow polling difference between Harris and Trump.  Kasich kept coming back to one point:  voters vote their “pocketbook” ahead of all other issues.  Democratic Campaign operative James Carville makes the same point in his usual, blunt, Louisiana bayou way:  “It’s the economy, stupid”.

I disagree to some extent.  Abortion, the future of American Democracy, foreign policy, and justice and equal rights for all Americans will make a difference too.  But, for the moment, let’s assume that Kasich and Carville, opposite sides of the coin, are right.  So what is the state of the American economy today – and how will it impact the election?

Investments

When Donald Trump was President, he continually measured his success against the stock markets. (Measuring is a big thing to Trump, from crowd size to hand size to…never mind).  So on Trump’s scale, where is the American economy today?  Last week the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended within 200 points of a record high, over 41,0000 (at Trump’s best, the Dow was close to 31,000).  Other indexes, Standard and Poor’s and NASDAQ, are also in record territory.  

That impacts more than just high-priced investment guys like Kasich.  Most major retirement programs in the United States (even Ohio teachers, though not enough) are based on market investments, as are personal Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA’s).  So when investments are up, so are folks retirement “nest eggs”, always a good thing.  

Covid Depression

When Trump says that our economy is “the worst ever” in American history – what is he talking about? It’s all about the inflationary period we just went through, when prices went up 20% over the last four years.  It happened since Trump left office and Biden came in. But more importantly, it all happened after Covid. 

When Joe Biden became President, he had to deal with the economic impacts of the Covid pandemic.  Trump already did some of the right things. He pumped money into the economy to keep the US from a Covid economic depression.  (Remember those checks with the huge – size again – Trump signature on them?). While many of us have a memory “gap” from the Covid year, prices dropped (especially gas) because people couldn’t do a lot.  We were stuck in our homes, trying to dodge the virus. 

Products that jumped in price were construction supplies, some food (like meats), and, of course, toilet paper.  That was caused by problems getting the supply to retail market, and in part, because we had nothing better to do than build on our homes (while we were stuck there).  Buying deck boards and outdoor furniture in 2020 was difficult and expensive.

So Trump, and then Biden, pumped money into the economy to keep people spending .  And that money kept America going. Other countries suffered deep economic problems.  But even though US unemployment rate briefly shot to over 13% and there were lots of product shortages, most Americans managed to stay afloat.

Inflation and Wages

The United States avoided an actual depression, but the “payback” for adding so much money into the supply was inflation.  It’s simple supply and demand economics:  if there’s more money in the economy, the money will be valued less.  That means it takes more money to purchase something –  inflation.  

Once the American economy got going after Covid, Biden’s biggest goal was to increase employment and wages, and get control of inflation.  Price increases were as high as 9% for a while, and Biden and the Federal Reserve Board worked to tighten credit, so that the “supply” of money was smaller and inflation was controlled.  Biden called it the “soft landing” of the US Economy. 

Wages increased too (same supply and demand principle).  From April of 2021 to January 2023 inflation was ahead of wages, but since then, wage growth has been way ahead of the inflation rate.  Today, inflation is under control (less than 3%), jobs are plentiful (unemployment rate 4.3%) and wages are going up (annual wages up 4.72%).   The Federal Reserve will reduce their interest rates next month, signaling that the inflation crisis is over.

Today

The inflation “bump” was, and still is, a shock.  The Trump campaign is making “hay” on the four year gas price trend, from $1.50 during the depths of Covid, to $3.30 today.  But in 2020 and part of 2021, we couldn’t go anywhere because of Covid, so the supply of gas was high and the demand was low.  Dig deep in that Covid memory hole; gas didn’t do much good, restaurants and hotels weren’t open.  And gas was close to $2.70 in the summer before Covid, not so far from what it costs today. 

Where’s the economy today?  There’s still that consumer “sticker shock”.  But investments are up, prices are stabilized, unemployment is low and wages are increasing.  Biden earned his “soft landing”, and prevented a Covid depression in the process. 

 So in real economic terms, Biden fixed most of the problems (Thank You, Joe Biden!!!). Voters will recognize the alternative the US avoided; an actual Covid Depression.  Now it’s up to the Harris Campaign to explain that to America, and take advantage and credit for Biden’s great work. 

Vision

There’s an old coaching phrase:  “You can’t be what you can’t see.”   I used it with my track athletes all of the time.  If they could envision themselves winning the race, clearing the bar, throwing or jumping farther; they were half way there.  We used to “practice” visualizing what it would feel like to win, to soar, to stand at the top of the podium.  We even jumped off spring boards, used elastic bands, and threw lighter weights, just to gain the physical experience of what achievement would feel like. If they could see it, they could do it.

I know, with a high school football coach on the Democratic ticket, it opens the door to all sorts of athletic analogies.  He talked about “the 4^th Quarter down a field goal”, “blocking and tackling” and getting down “in the trenches”.  It’s not like I needed permission;  my coaching life and my political life often mirror each other.  Laying out a track schedule and laying out a campaign plan are much the same.  Add that to the recent Olympics, and there’s going to be a whole lot of sports similarities in our lives, or at least in my writing.

Last night, Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.  For only the second time in our history, a woman is on the top line of a major party ticket.  And for the first time, a woman of color, of South Asian descent, stands at the brink of that ultimate political power. 

Summon the Future 

I have to say that only sixteen years ago, I questioned whether America was ready to elect a Black man as President.  Barack Obama seemed to summon the future, an action I didn’t really think I’d be alive for.  You see, it was only sixty-four years ago (1960) that Americans elected the first Roman Catholic as President. That’s something that today isn’t even an issue (Joe Biden is the second Catholic President).  It was only thirty-two years before that New York’s Al Smith, was defeated by Herbert Hoover by almost twenty percent.  He even lost his own home state, mostly because of his Catholic religion.

I was very much in favor of Obama in 2008; knocking on doors, putting up signs, and voting for him in both the primary and general elections. But I still questioned whether America was ready.  When he won, I was even more impressed by his opponent, John McCain. Through the exquisite pain of national defeat, he acknowledged the historic marker that the United States had reached.

Last night we watched Kamala Harris, the Vice President of the United States, accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for President.  She is the 52^nd Democratic nominee in history, a long line going all the way back to Thomas Jefferson and the founding of our American political system.    When she stood at that podium she told us her life “story”. And she explained why she is prepared to hold the ultimate political power.  Harris demonstrated that she is a central part of America’s “story”, the ultimate success of the “Schoolhouse Rock” American Melting Pot saga.  

And she excoriated her opponent Donald Trump.   

The President

She fulfilled every objective, and did what politics required her to do.  To achieve success, good politicians run “to the center” when it comes to the general election.  Like most elections, this one will be won or lost “in the middle”, by the decision of those ten percent of our citizens who remain willing to vote, but undecided.  Harris gave a “centrist” speech, praising American institutions, and promising to defend freedom and liberty both here and in the world.  

She explained her “bona fides”. She told us the work she’s done as a prosecutor, a state attorney general, a Senator and a Vice President, that prepared her for the task.  And she exhorted her fellow Democrats to go to work.  As Governor Wes Moore of Maryland put it, there are seventy-four days and a “wake-up” before election day. It’s only a little time before the decision is made.  And as Governor/Coach Walz of Minnesota said:  we can sleep when we’re dead.

But the most important thing that Vice President Kamala Harris did last night, was give America the vision of herself as the President of the United States.  America saw what could be.  We saw, not just a Black woman, not just a South Asian woman; not just a Prosecutor from California. We saw a person who would be, should be, President.  She showed all of us that she is “ready”.  

And if we can see it, we can do it.