4.6.2024 – the only danger

the only danger
greater than not helping was
not helping enough

Adapted from the Opinion Piece, America Was Once the Country Begging Richer Allies for Help By Stacy Schiff.

Ms. Schiff is the author of “A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and the Birth of America.”

She writes of the French Foreign Minister during the American Revolution that, “Vergennes engaged throughout in a familiar calculation: The only danger greater than not helping the Americans at all, he insisted in discussion after discussion at Versailles, was not helping them enough. He carried the day. The majority of the guns fired on the British at Saratoga had been French. The surrender four years later at Yorktown would be to troops that were equal parts French and American, supplied and clothed by France, all of them protected by a French fleet.“

Ms. Schiff continues, “Some 250 years after Franklin’s French errand, Congress is again debating the entanglement of a young republic — one that actually does border the Black Sea — with a wealthy benefactor. Political considerations aside, it pays to remember that the United States itself was, with its own bid for freedom, once the infant republic in dire need of munitions. No one at Versailles knew that the man waving about a 38-page shopping list would be remembered as one of the greatest diplomats in our history. Nor did anyone suspect that granting his requests would help to create an “arsenal of democracy,” a power that might one day, for the most high-minded and the most self-serving of reasons, assist another nation in its struggle for autonomy. Neither mattered when it came to the French calculus, based on something more fundamental. As one French gunrunner reminded Congress in September, 1776, “The enemies of our enemies are more than half our friends.”

4.5.2024 – a lofty ideal …

a lofty ideal …
White House will be adorned by
a downright moron

As democracy is perfected, the office [of president] represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move towards a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

HL Mencken in the Baltimore Sun (26 July 1920).

4.4.2024 – suppose hundred years

suppose hundred years
hence we’re better off – nothing …
here to surprise us

Let us, for the sake of argument, suppose that a hundred years hence we are all of us, on the average, eight times better off in the economic sense than we are to-day. Assuredly there need be nothing here to surprise us.

Now it is true that the needs of human beings may seem to be insatiable. But they fall into two classes—those needs which are absolute in the sense that we feel them whatever the situation of our fellow human beings may be, and those which are relative in the sense that we feel them only if their satisfaction lifts us above, makes us feel superior to, our fellows. Needs of the second class, those which satisfy the desire for superiority, may indeed be insatiable; for the higher the general level, the higher still are they. But this is not so true of the absolute needs—a point may soon be reached, much sooner perhaps than we are all of us aware of, when these needs are satisfied in the sense that we prefer to devote our further energies to non-economic purposes.

Now for my conclusion, which you will find, I think, to become more and more startling to the imagination the longer you think about it.

I draw the conclusion that, assuming no important wars and no important increase in population, the economic problem may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not—if we look into the future—the permanent problem of the human race.

From the essay, Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930) in Essays in Persuasion by John Maynard Keynes, Macmillan and Co. LTD, London, 1931.

I guess there were a few important wars since 1932.

And the world population has doubled from 3.5 to 8 billion since 1931 (and you wonder why it is hard to find a spot at the beach).

So I guess Mr. Keynes is off the the hook that we would solve the economic problem.

Are we 8 times better off than we were in 1932?

Assuredly there need be nothing here to surprise us.

4.3.2024 – never been lonely

never been lonely
been lied to, the church bells chime
born at the right time

But among the reeds and rushes
A baby girl was found
Her eyes as clear as centuries
Her silky hair was brown
Never been lonely
Never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear
Nothing denied to
Born at the instant
The church bells chime
And the whole world whispering
Born at the right time

From Born At The Right Time 1990 Words and Music by Paul Simon.

My grand daughter just made her appearance on the world stage.

Born in 2024.

My Mom was born in 1924.

My Mom lived through the Great Depression, World War 2, Korea, Vietnam (which she claimed that with 11 kids she really didn’t remember and I do not dispute the claim) and and the Gulf Wars. Voted for the first time for Thomas Dewey for President and once on a tour of the US Capital, locked glances with Vice President Richard Nixon. She raised 11 kids and had more grand kids than I can remember and great grand kids that just keep coming.

My grand daughter was born on March 31st at about 9:10pm, Eastern Daily Saving Time.

She was followed minutes (give or take the international date line) later by another grand daughter in Japan.

What will their lives be like?

What will my tiny teeny grand daughter experience?

For myself, I didn’t meet this little girl until very late last Saturday on the eve of Easter Sunday.

Looking forward, I cannot imagine life without her being a part of it.

Born at the instant
The church bells chime
And the whole world whispering
Born at the right time

I’ll say it once more.

Born at the right time.

4.2.3024 – big men of great wealth

big men of great wealth
played mischievous part in life
… was awake to the need

Two former Presidents of the United States are natives of New York City.

Both wrote books.

One, as a matter of fact, on their marriage license, listed their occupation as ‘Author.’

One was Theodore Roosevelt.

A man who traced his roots back to the founding of New Amsterdam.

A man whose family, when the social list of the top 400 families of New York was put together was asked for their okay (well, not really but there was no question that the New York City Roosevelts would be in the book.)

The other was Donald Trump.

One wrote, ” … as I have said, I was getting our social, industrial, and political needs into pretty fair perspective.

I was still ignorant of the extent to which big men of great wealth played a mischievous part in our industrial and social life, but I was well awake to the need of making ours in good faith both an economic and an industrial as well as a political democracy.

This same man continued, “… because the book “How the Other Half Lives” (about slum life in New York) had been to me both an enlightenment and an inspiration for which I felt I could never be too grateful.

Soon after it was written I had called at his [the author’s] office to tell him how deeply impressed I was by the book, and that I wished to help him in any practical way to try to make things a little better.

I have always had a horror of words that are not translated into deeds, of speech that does not result in action — in other words, I believe in realizable ideals and in realizing them, in preaching what can be practiced and then in practicing it.

I will let you guess which of the two men wrote that.

I won’t come out and say who but I will say that the passage is taken from Theodore Roosevelt; an autobiography … by Theodore Roosevelt, (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1913).

The book in question, How the Other Half Lives, was written by Jacob Riis, a reporter for a New York City newspaper in 1895 when Mr. Roosevelt was NYC Police Commissioner.

Mr. Roosevelt did go to Mr. Riis’ office.

Mr. Roosevelt said simply, ‘How can I help?’