The most important decision a President makes concerns what he wants to do with the office, what range of issues he wants to recognize. The challenge is to create boundaries for the office, to select among possible goals. John Kennedy had set that agenda for his successor: tax reduction, the civil rights bill, federal aid to education, executive action to improve life in the cities, medical care for the aged, and plans for a poverty program. In the two years and ten months before November, 1963, Kennedy had denned for himself and for his Presidency a series of purposes, or what Richard Neustadt calls “irreversible commitments to denned courses of action.” The commitments implied the selection of a particular clientele and the shaping of an institutional core – a White House staff and a Cabinet – that understood the kind of Presidency John Kennedy wanted.
I could not help but updated the passage for today.
Trump had denned for himself and for his Presidency a series of purposes, or what Richard Neustadt calls “irreversible commitments to denned courses of action.” The commitments implied the selection of a particular clientele and the shaping of an institutional core – a White House staff and a Cabinet – that understood the kind of Presidency Donald Trump wanted.
Kind of frightening in a way.
Explains much.
Consider the list of commitments compiled for JFK.
tax reduction
the civil rights bill
federal aid to education
executive action to improve life in the cities
medical care for the aged
plans for a poverty program
hmmmmmmmmmmmm
To quote Francis Urquhart, “You might very well think that – I couldn’t possibly comment.”
like a low-hung cloud it rains so fast all at once falls and cannot last
Adapted on a rainy morning in the low country from John Dryden’s Palamon and Arcite or The Knight’s Tale– Book Three where the poet writes:
But, like a low-hung cloud, it rains so fast, That all at once it falls, and cannot last. The face of things is changed, and Athens now, That laughed so late, becomes the scene of woe:
when a man is afraid base fear is always stronger than respect always
Before there was House of Cards with Francis Underwood messing around with the United States, there was House of Cards with Francis Urquhart messing around with Great Britain.
According to wikipedia, Francis Ewan Urquhart is a fictional character created by British politician and author Michael Dobbs. Urquhart is the main character in Dobbs’s House of Cards trilogy of novels and television series: House of Cards, To Play the King and The Final Cut.
House of Cards follows Urquhart, a Conservative and the government chief whip with roots in the Scottish aristocracy, as he manoeuvres himself through blackmail, manipulation and murder to the post of Prime Minister. To Play the King sees Prime Minister Urquhart clash with the newly crowned King of the United Kingdom over disagreements regarding social justice. By the time of The Final Cut, Urquhart has been in power for 11 years, and refuses to relinquish his position until he has beaten Margaret Thatcher’s record as longest serving post-war Prime Minister
It was Francis Urquhart who said:
“It’s not respect but fear that motivates a man; that’s how empires are built and revolutions begin. It is the secret of great men. When a man is afraid you will crush him, utterly destroy him, his respect will always follow. Base fear is intoxicating, overwhelming, liberating. Always stronger than respect. Always.”
this stormy present occasion is piled high with difficulty
Again and again I keep coming back to Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 Annual Address to Congress when he wrote ( and I saw wrote as the speech, now known as the State of the Union, was not delivered by the President in person until Woodrow Wilson first did it in 1913) so this speech was read to Congress by a clerk.
Mr. Lincoln closed this address with these words.
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.
The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.
As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.
We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history.
We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.
No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.
The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.
We say we are for the Union.
The world will not forget that we say this.
We know how to save the Union.
The world knows we do know how to save it.
We, even we here, hold the power, and bear the responsibility.
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.
We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth.
Other means may succeed; this could not fail.
The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just — a way which if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.
give the blues a chase find a sunny place can cure your ills with sunshine
From the song, Little Sunshine by Irving Berlin and sung here in the video below, in such a way that you cannot help but smile, by Tatiana Eva-Marie & Avalon Jazz Band.
A lot of cobwebs in your head You’re getting rusty, so you said You’re feeling badly and everything looks grey You’re getting worried, yes indeed
Simple?
Yes!
Simplistic?
Maybe so.
Right now I am ready and willing to accept simplistic.
And the existence of songs like this from over 100 years ago, give me some hope, some piece of mind, some perspective.
Things have looked pretty bad before.
And growing up in West Michigan, the 2nd most overcast location in North America (after Seattle) I understand how much climate can play a role in my daily outlook.
My first year of living in the Atlanta area, I again and again commented how much just the presence of the sunshine, the quality of the light in the south, made me feel good.
Right now, sunshine seems to be about it in my cabinet of things that are good for what ails you.
All things considered, at least it is not the winter of our discontent, and while it is the summer of our discontent, there is sunshine.
The book of Matthew, Chapter 5, verse 45 reminds me that God ‘causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous‘.
So I will not begrudge anyone access to the sunshine or the rain.
I will embrace it as it I can.
Here are the lyrics, written sometime during the years 1927–1931.
A lot of cobwebs in your head You’re getting rusty, so you said You’re feeling badly and everything looks grey You’re getting worried, yes indeed I know exactly what you need A little sunshine will make you feel OK
Give the blues a chase Find a sunny place Go and paint your face, with sunshine Pay your doctor bills Then throw away his pills You can cure your ills, with sunshine
The story deals with the complex of idea of the benefits derived from the re-release of near extinct predator animals back into the wild.
What I found somewhat refreshing in the article was one, its use of language and word along with the near blasphemous concept that science might be and maybe should be questioned.
When I was a kid growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, during the summer one of the big moments of the day was the delivery of the daily paper.
Down in the lower right hand corner of the front page was a small graphic of a thermometer that showed the current temperature of Lake Michigan at the Grand Haven State Park.
As it slowly crept up to near 70 degrees we would get excited and start yelling to our Mom that it was time to get the lake.
The temperature of the water in Lake Michigan along the shore can change in a matter of hours.
The center, deeper parts of the lake never warm up much and neither do the part of the lake, north of Ludington.
A shift of the wind out to out of the north can drop the temperature of the water along the shore faster than you can say ‘get your swimming suit on.’
Yet we would get excited when we got a the information in the paper.
A paper that had been printed sometime that day with information the newspaper staff had picked up, most likely the day before.
So the information we were getting was at least 24 hours old.
Who knew what the water temp was by that time.
Years later I worked at a local TV station and working with the weather team we created and online map that reported the water temperatures of Lake Michigan at the State Parks along the shore.
We had discovered that in all the METAR tables of data that the National Weather Service made available to us, there was a report of Water Temps.
This was daily data that we could get using the internet and use on air.
I told the weather team my story about reading the temp in the paper and how old it was by the time we got it.
This caught the interest of the chief Meteorologist who decided to call the National Weather Service and ask how this water temp data was gathered.
Turned out that State Park Rangers all had a thermometer on a rope and each day, sometime before 11AM, they would take the thermometer down to the beach and throw in the water, reel it in, read of the temp on the thermometer and then call than in to the National Weather Service.
“Were there any guidelines?” my guy asked, “How deep? How long to let it stay in?”
Nope, nope and nope.
The information was now online, but that didn’t make any more accurate.
That’s the science behind that piece of information.
Remember that not all technical advances are cultural ones.
All I know is, I put my toes in Lake Michigan, they got cold.
# # # #
This haiku is one of a couple or more in a series based on this same article.
There were so many good word combinations that I couldn’t pass them up.
And readers of this blog will know that from time to time I struggle with the weight of effort of producing a daily Haiku and any thoughts I may have about the words and time that went in the Haiku that day.
This daily schedule of missing a day can bring on a personal mental paralysis wherein writing these entries becomes impossible.
I learned to deal with this by not dealing with it and let it go.
Then when I look at my register of entries and see blank days with no post, I will grab a topic or book or poem for a source and produce a series of Haiku to fill in those blank dates.
This is one of the great benefits of this effort being my blog and my blog, my rules.
It IS cricket because I say it is.
It is ‘according to Hoyle’ because I say it is.
Thus I have this series of haiku based on this article and the Ms. Weston’s word choices.
I should also mention that this ‘lack of output’ coincided with a trip up to see our son and being away from a computer keyboard for a long weekend and I am playing catch-up.
they did not value resources, communities historic nature
Today’s haiku is adapted from a quote from US Representative Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico when she made a statement about the US Forest Service and that they made multiple miscalculations, used inaccurate models and underestimated how dry conditions were in the south-west, causing a planned burn to reduce the threat of wildfires to explode into the largest blaze in New Mexico’s recorded history.
Representative Fernández said, “These are complex issues. Starting a prescribed burn in an area where there are homes and watersheds and communities should be something that you take incredibly seriously because those are high value assets. They did not value the resources, the communities, the historic nature of these communities and so they went forward allowing more risk than they should have.”
She was speaking about forest management.
You could easily think she was talking about any number of things in the news right now.
When talking about right now I must be talking about rights.
Right to vote.
Right to have your vote counted.
Curious how right and right are the some word.
The online Merriam-Webster defines the words like this:
>Something to which one has a just claim.
>Conforming to facts or truth.
>Being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper.
>Qualities (such as adherence to duty or obedience to lawful authority) that together constitute the ideal of moral propriety or merit moral approval.
My thought this morning was to write about how difficult it has been of late to construct a daily haiku and write some commentary in a light hearted way when I am feeling anything but lighthearted.
I saw this quote of Representative Fernández’s and thought how easy it would be to use the words in a commentary on how so many decisions and actions are being taken today without any consideration to the value the resources, the communities, the historic nature of these communities and so they went forward allowing more risk than they should have.
Then by chance I hit that word right.
Seems there has been a major disconnect on the importance of this word.
Right.
Rights.
Right rights.
I am reminded of Proverbs 21:3 (NIV) –
To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.
It was a long time ago but I had to take a class in school to learn how to drive a car.
It was a free class offered by the Grand Rapids Public Schools, all you had to do was sign up.
The only restriction was that you had to turn 16 years old, legal driving age, either before the class started or by the time it finished to sign up.
In the winter of 1976, for reasons I have never understood, my Dad was interested in my getting a drivers license.
At the same time he also took a life insurance policy out of me.
Maybe he thought it was a good investment.
It was January and my birthday was in July and I knew that I couldn’t sign up until then but he kept after me to sign up for drivers ed.
Maybe he just wanted to avoid another summer of having a kid in drivers ed instead of during the school year.
To make him happy I went into the office and asked for a registration card and filled it out and dropped it in the office inbox and forgot about it.
I can’t say I have had many you-could-knock-me-over-with-a-feather shocks in my life but a week later, this would have been January still, I was walking home from school in the snow with my buddies when my Dad pulled up next to us in his car, rolled down the window and said, “get in.”
This NEVER HAPPENED.
The first thing that went through my mind was to examine my conscience to figure out what I done wrong.
Truthfully, the list was so long I most likely didn’t know where to start.
My buddies all looked at me with that oh-are-you-in-trouble look and they all moved away from me to get away from any possible shrapnel.
Very slowly and tentatively I opened the car door and got in my Dad’s car.
My Dad’s car was one of the pleasures’ he allowed himself to indulge in.
My Dad had driven a Thunderbird convertible in the early 1960’s when there might not have been a more coveted car in America.
He updated that to the Buick Riviera, which in the late ’60s had POWER EVERYTHING.
From the Riviera, he got a 1976 two door navy blue Mercury Cougar.
It was this car I was now sitting in.
15 years old and I learned how to drive in this car
Sitting in the front seat and waiting to find out what I had done.
My stomach was doing all kinds of calisthenics and I kept my mouth shut.
My Dad drove pulled away from the curb and said, “We are going to the park so I can show you have to drive. School called and you have Driver’s Ed at 4 o’clock!”
HUhhhhhhhhhhhhhh whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?
Talk about you-could-knock-me-over-with-a-feather!
We got to the nearby Riverside Park and I was put in the drivers seat of my Dad’s Cougar and on a snow covered park road, I got a quick lesson in how to start a car, put it in gear and drive.
While I drove, my Dad explained that School had called and said that due to a cancellation there was an opening in the Drivers Ed class that started that day.
As it happened, my card was sitting out on the desk and the school was calling to see if I was eligible for the class.
See, when I filled out the card, I put my birthday as being in July, 1976!
The current year.
The school was calling to check if was old enough.
In other words, had I been born in 1959 (when I had been born in 1960).
My Dad said that my Mom had taken the call and she looked at Dad and asked what to say.
“TELL THEM YES!,” my Dad said.
About an hour later, I was dropped off back at school and found the Drivers Ed class where the teacher had my card in his hand.
“You Hoffman?” he asked.
I said yes and the class started.
The teacher started talking to the class about driving and getting a drivers license.
The story deals with the complex of idea of the benefits derived from the re-release of near extinct predator animals back into the wild.
What I found somewhat refreshing in the article was one, its use of language and word along with the near blasphemous concept that science might be and maybe should be questioned.
Question the science?
Gosh!
This haiku is one of a couple or more in a series based on this same article.
There were so many good word combinations that I couldn’t pass them up.
And readers of this blog will know that from time to time I struggle with the weight of effort of producing a daily Haiku and any thoughts I may have about the words and time that went in the Haiku that day.
This daily schedule of missing a day can bring on a personal mental paralysis wherein writing these entries becomes impossible.
I learned to deal with this by not dealing with it and let it go.
Then when I look at my register of entries and see blank days with no post, I will grab a topic or book or poem for a source and produce a series of Haiku to fill in those blank dates.
This is one of the great benefits of this effort being my blog and my blog, my rules.
It IS cricket because I say it is.
It is ‘according to Hoyle’ because I say it is.
Thus I have this series of haiku based on this article and the Ms. Weston’s word choices.
I should also mention that this ‘lack of output’ coincided with a trip up to see our son and being away from a computer keyboard for a long weekend and I am playing catch-up.
No Haiku For You 