7.7.2020 – indifference in

indifference in
this, our democracy,
is abdication

I was thinking about Harold Ross today.

Mr. Ross was the founder-editor of the New Yorker Magazine.

The magazine gave a home to so many American writers and was the focus of so many American dreams.

Neither here nor there but I remember a conversation with Gerald Elliott, then the retired Editor of the Grand Rapids Press and he told me that he missed the Sunday Magazine, Wonderland.

When I asked why, he replied that it was the one place where local authors had a chance to get published.

I didn’t tell him how many short stories I had submitted to Wonderland but I batted 1,000 on rejections.

Anyway, Mr. Ross started up the New Yorker with the announcement that the magazine would, “Not be edited for the little old lady from Peoria.”

Much much ink has been spilled try to explain just what Mr. Ross meant by that and I will not add to it.

I will mention that one of the funniest comments EVER about the New Yorker was an aside by James Thurber in a vignette about his mother. Mr. Thurber wrote that once his Mother told him that one of her friends in Columbus, OH, “took the New Yorker to help Jamie,” but never read it.

What stuck in my head was the thought, “what are the people in Peoria thinking right now?”

Through the magic of the World Wide Web I was soon reading the Peoria Journal Star.

The headline, “Commentary: Law enforcement: Thoughts of a sanctified believer in America” caught my eye.

I am glad it did.

It is what I would call an OP-ED piece.

It was written for the Peoria Journal Star (fabulous name by the way) by Judge Joe Billy McDade (another fabulous name by the way) a senior U.S. District Judge in the Central District of Illinois for the 4th of July.

Judge Joe Billy McDade at a naturalization ceremony, Nov 15 2019 – JOURNAL STAR

Judge McDade led off with the words, “The promise of America”

And went from there.

The Judge went on, “While the promise of America has flickered and faded in dark times, it has never been extinguished. That promise is the bedrock of American values and it should be the touchstone as we confront the challenges, new and old, that plague us.“

He concluded with:

We the People are sovereign;

We the People must safeguard our rights against encroachment.

It is upon all of us to do what we can to make the promise of America a reality. Doing nothing emboldens the wrongdoer, whatever the intent; indifference in a democracy is abdication.

These thoughts are only a starting point — I do not have all the answers.

But in the difficult conversations which are occurring and ought to continue, what I can offer is this: ever in the foreground, always in view, must be the fundamental idea of America, a nation where all and the rights of all are equal under the law.

By chance today I got a point of view from Peoria.

I have been feeling mostly rotten lately about our Country.

Knowing that Judge Joe Billy McDade is out there made me feel better.

One little light.

Maybe there are more.

There must be!

But even if Judge Joe Billy McDade is the ONLY one out there, I will not abdicate from my responsibilities as a citizen of the United States.

I will not walk away.

I will not go quietly into the night.

Indifference be damned.

It’s going to be a pub fight.

7.6.2020 – Heaven and earth will

Heaven and earth will
pass away, but my words will
never pass away

Interesting that the verse, Matthew 24:35 in the New International Version has 17 syllables.

Tailor made for the job of today’s haiku.

Tailor made when I have been thinking about what and how and who will last in all of the this.

Celebrated 244 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence the other day.

There has been a national discussion of late on the country’s history.

Its’ meaning.

Its’ representation through those 244 years.

Most of the discussion is on how we should remember our own history.

I cannot help thinking of our 244 years of history without thinking of some odd factoids that float around in my brain.

One of them concerns the family of one Guy of Lusignan.

Friend Guy bought the island of Cyprus from the Knights Templar back 1192.

It was during the Crusades and Guy more or less side stepped over the fighting for Jerusalem and with the backing of Richard the Lionhearted, established him and his family as the King of the Kingdom of Cyprus.

Guy and his heirs ruled Cyprus for almost 300 years, staying in charge until 1489.

Ever hear of Guy?

The other factoid I think about is an anecdote about John K. Galbraith.

It really bothers me because I cannot come up with a citation.

I know I read it and that I read it several times, but I cannot come up with the book I read it in.

Never the less, I repeat the story for you now.

In 1957, Mr. Galbraith found himself working for Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) and part of a project to go out into rural India and make a statistical abstract that showed the impact on rural India in the 10 years since the end of British Colonial rule.

The Brits had run India as a colonial cottage industry for 350 years.

Over night they were gone.

Now 10 years later, it was time to assess the damage or the benefit to the rural parts of India.

It was easy to look at the major cities and population centers, but how it the removal of 350 years of British rule changed lives in rural India.

Mr. Galbraith recounted that the survey went on for a month or two and all the research teams were called back.

There was a problem with the research.

The problem was that when they got into the small town and villages, far away from the city centers, and asked, “How has life been since the British?”

The answer again and again in town after town was, “Who?”

So we are 244 years old.

Maybe we should start to worry IF we are remembered, not how.

6.20.2020 – Sympathetic thoughts

Sympathetic thoughts.
America cannot be deaf,
to calls such as that.

This was adapted from this paragraph, “While we are thinking of promoting the fortunes of our own people I am sure there is room in the sympathetic thought of America for fellow human beings who are suffering and dying of starvation in Russia. A severe drought in the Valley of the Volga has plunged 15,000,000 people into grievous famine. Our voluntary agencies are exerting themselves to the utmost to save the lives of children in this area, but it is now evident that unless relief is afforded the loss of life will extend into many millions. America cannot be deaf to such a call as that.”

That was said by President Warren G. Harding in the State of Union address on December 6, 1921.

Mr. Harding was referring to problems in Russia at least and not problems at home.

About problems at home, he said, “I am not unaware that we have suffering and privation at home. When it exceeds the capacity for the relief within the States concerned, it will have Federal consideration.”

Mr. Harding also said: “It has been perhaps the proudest claim of our American civilization that in dealing with human relationships it has constantly moved toward such justice in distributing the product of human energy that it has improved continuously the economic status of the mass of people. Ours has been a highly productive social organization. On the way up from the elemental stages of society we have eliminated slavery and serfdom and are now far on the way to the elimination of poverty.

Through the eradication of illiteracy and the diffusion of education mankind has reached a stage where we may fairly say that in the United States equality of opportunity has been attained, though all are not prepared to embrace it. There is, indeed, a too great divergence between the economic conditions of the most and the least favored classes in the com

The further we get from President Harding and the more time we spend in the present, President Harding doesn’t look so bad.

After all is said and done about Mr. Harding, maybe Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt’s cousin summed him up best when she said, “Harding wasn’t a bad man. He was just a slob.”

I feel like I know what she meant.

6.2.2020 – amazing ability

amazing ability
crowds have to police themselves
supporting others

In recent decades, detailed analytical research has produced ever-more sophisticated insights into crowd behavior.

“Crowds have an amazing ability to police themselves, self-regulate, and actually display a lot of pro-social behaviour, supporting others in their group,” says Anne Templeton, an academic at Edinburgh University who studies crowd psychology. She points to the 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist attack, in which CCTV footage showed members of the public performing first aid on the wounded before emergency services arrived, and Mancunians rushed to provide food, shelter, transport and emotional support for the victims. “People provide an amazing amount of help in emergencies to people they don’t know, especially when they’re part of an in-group.”

Strange things happen to our brains when we’re in a crowd we’ve chosen to be part of, says Templeton. We don’t just feel happier and more confident, we also have a lower threshold of disgust. This is why festivalgoers will happily share drinks (and by dint of their proximity, sweat) with strangers, or Hajj pilgrims will share the sometimes bloody razors used to shave their heads. In a crowd, we feel safer from harm.

from The power of crowds by Dan Hancox.

5.6.2020 – library feeling

library feeling
of communion, a feeling
of vitality

In the middle of the United States of America’s part in World War 2, EB White got a request from the War Department to write out the meaning of Democracy.

In the the Notes and Comment section of the July 3, 1943 edition of The New Yorker magazine, Mr. White’s response was printed.

Andy White wrote:

We received a letter from the Writers’ War Board the other day asking for a statement on “The Meaning of Democracy.”

It presumably is our duty to comply with such a request, and it is certainly our pleasure.

Surely the Board knows what democracy is.

It is the line that forms on the right.

It is the don’t in don’t shove.

It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere.

Democracy is a letter to the editor.

Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth.

It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad.

It’s the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee.

Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.

It is the don’t in don’t shove ought to be added to our money just under In God We Trust.

And that Library feeling of Communion.

I guess you feel it or you don’t.

If you don’t you have my sympathy.

I hope you enjoy the mustard on the hot dog.

My youngest son is named Ellington.

His middle name is Bernard after his Grand Father.

I snuck an EB into the family without telling anyone.