Category: Politics

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.

5.2.2020 – need a solution

need a solution
to a problem, first admit
there is a problem

The United States of America is a big country.

For every 1000 residents, you will have 1000 opinions and points of view that have a right to be heard.

It is difficult to achieve a consensus let alone unanimity on any topic.

It takes a lot to change peoples minds.

Back in May of 1941, a nationwide poll showed that 80% of Americans were against getting involved in World War 2.

On December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR’s request for a declaration of war against JAPAN passed with one NO vote.

Note this was a war against the Empire of Japan.

The United States did NOT declare war on Germany.

Germany, so far, had not done anything to the United States.

The US got into the European war at that time only because Hitler declared war on the United States on December 8th.

I would have put this current emergency up there.

While I would not expect that everyone could agree on how to handle Covid, I would have thought there was agreement that we need to do something.

Silly me.

But then I would have bet my last dollar that it was against the law to carry an M16 into the State Capitol Building in Lansing, Michigan.

In my nuttiest, most US Constitution embracing moment, I never would have thought that the 1st Amendment right to assembly would have given me the right to stand face to face with the Michigan State Police while carrying a loaded assault rifle in the rotunda of the State Capitol.

I just can’t imagine it.

I want to stay away from that argument and focus on the mindset.

As Atticus Finch famously says in “To Kill a Mockingbird“, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb in his skin and walk around in it.”

Let me try to get into the shoes of those protestors in Lansing.

I am thinking of one feller who was captured on the network news, standing face to face with a Michigan State Police Trooper, and screaming something.

There was no audio so I don’t know what he was screaming.

But this feller woke up that morning.

Got dressed in his camouflage so he wouldn’t stand out, I guess.

Got his coffee and his rifle and drove to Lansing to defend his rights.

Not exactly the Lexington Minute Men gathering on the village green to confront the redcoats but close enough in his mind.

Our feller parks his car and gets out and assembles with his fellow countrymen outside the Capitol Building.

At some command or order or maybe just a mass rush, the assembly moves into the building and our feller finds himself in the front row.

The next thing he knows, he is in the Rotunda of the Capitol, surrounded both by his buddies but also by glassed cabinets of flags that circle the Rotunda.

Flags of the volunteer regiments of the State of Michigan that decided Black Lives Matter and that the Union was worth preserving and marched off to the Civil War.

One of those flags is the flag of the 16th Michigan Volunteer Infantry.

A member of Company C of that Regiment was 18 year old, Edwin Barlow.

Private Barlow was my Great-Great Grand Father.

Back to our feller, who is now explaining to the State Trooper why he and his friends are there and what they want.

Feller seems to be quite agitated and explaining himself very loudly.

The Troopers don’t move or react.

The Troopers don’t arrest anyone.

Though, like I said, I would have bet my last dollar it was a crime to bring a loaded AK-47 into the State Capitol or engage a State Trooper while carrying a loaded AK-47 but that is beside the point.

After a bit our feller leaves with his buddies.

After exchanging farewells with the assembly our feller goes back to his car and drives home.

He gets home and hangs his rifle over the fireplace.

He goes to the fridge and gets a beer.

Does his wife greet him with a hug and a ‘Good Job Honey’ hug?

Does he sit in his rocker or his lazy-boy and review the day?

Does he feel satisfaction in delivering his message to the man.

Does he feel like he delivered his message that we are fed up and can’t take it anymore?

I am trying to follow Mr. Finch and understand a person by considering things from his point of view,

I am trying to climb into his skin and walk around in it.

I am trying to understand why I don’t want to wear a mask.

I am trying to understand why I don’t want to stay home.

I am trying to understand why I don’t want to protect myself, my family and other people by not risking the spread if this illness.

Or am I missing it?

Am I the problem here that I don’t feel threatened by my Government as they bass ackwards try to figure all this out.

Am I deluded by the bread and circuses.

Maybe.

But I just can’t get comfortable in that feller’s shoes up in Lansing.

I often refer to problems as Charlie Sheen problems.

The 1st problem Charlie Sheen needs to deal with is that Charlie has to admit he has a problem.

If he doesn’t see a life focused on drugs and alcohol as a problem, then there is nothing to be fixed.

What is the problem right now?

What is the biggest problem?

That’s my problem.

4.23.2020 – have the right to speak

have the right to speak
just as much right to not listen
exercise all rights

Watching TV with my wife last night, she said she found it hard to believe that you could have two networks report the same news, the same facts, and yet, with entirely different stories and opinions.

She turned to me and asked, “was it always like that?”

‘No, no way,” I was quick to respond.

TV was regarded as much too powerful a medium to allow editorializing.

I said remember how whenever Howard K. Smith or John Chancellor had something to say and the word, “COMMENTARY”, would be superimposed across the bottom of the screen.

Now TV News follows the rule laid down by Charles Foster Kane in the movie, Citizen Kane, when he said, “If the headline is big enough, the news is big enough.”

In age of 24 hour news, something has to fill those 24 hours.

Some how the news has to be big enough fill all those hours.

Or at least the voices and the talking heads.

I think of that monologue of Jeff Daniels in the HBO Series, The Newsroom, when he says, “We waged wars on poverty, not on poor people.

We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chest.

We built great, big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists AND the world’s greatest economy.

We reached for the stars, acted like men.

We aspired to intelligence, we didn’t belittle it. It didn’t make us feel inferior.

We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn’t scare so easy.

We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed … by great men, men who were revered.

Informed by people.

Great people,

People who were revered.

Cronkite, Chancellor and Edward R. Murrow types.

But along with the people who kept us informed, the audience was informed.

The audience cared.

The audience had influence.

After Walter Cronkite summed up his trip to Vietnam at the end of his CBS Special Report, Report from Vietnam: Who, What, When, Where, Why? with a rare editorial report (Feburary 27, 1968) and he said the war was unwinnable.

According to legend and the historical record, President Lyndon Johnson watched the program and said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”

LBJ knew if he lost Middle America, he lost.

He announced he would not seek re-election within weeks of the show.

There is so much noise.

To quote the Grinch, “Its the Noise! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!”

I understand this is America.

This is the land of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

This is the land where “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.”

There is no law, no amendment, nothing that says, I have to listen.

I have a remote control and I use it!

4.17.2020 – squabble and squabble

squabble and squabble
squabble squabble and squabble
and squabble squabble

CNN Anchor Chris Cuomo was quoted saying recently that he was tired of, “talking to Democrats about things that I don’t really believe they mean” and “talking to Republicans about them parroting things they feel they have to say.”

Mr. Cuomo also said, “It is frustrating to do this job in an environment where people are not interested and open. It is hard to practice journalism when people are so intent on believing what they want to believe for political advantage.”

I am quoting the New York Post but I don’t mind as I am not trying to get on Mr. Cuomo’s case for being tired of what he does or who he interviews or even his thoughts on his job.

But I find the “hard to practice journalism when people are so intent on believing what they want to believe for political advantage’ pretty funny.

In the long on glorious history of politics is there any other reason for people to believe what they believe?

I am reminded of Minister of Administrative Affairs, The Right Honourable Jim Hacker, MP, when he described who read the newspapers in Britain.

Jim said, “I know exactly who reads the papers.
The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country;
The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country;
The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country;
the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country;
the Financial Times is read by people who own the country;
the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country,
and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.”*

If updated for today in these United States and Television, you might say:

I know exactly who watches TV News.
NBC is watched by people who think they run the country;
CNN is watched by people who think they ought to run the country;
CBS is watched by the people who actually do run the country;
ABC is watched by the wives of the people who run the country;
MSNBC is watched by people who own the country;
PBS is watched by people who think the country ought to be run by another country,
and FOX is watched by people who think it is.

My point being whether it was newspapers or TV or other media outlets, I am attracted by ideas that I agree with.

Back in the day I shared a ride to work with my good friend Elaine.

When I drove we listened to NPR.

When she drove, we listened to a local Christian radio station, WCSG.

It was two different news cycles and rarely did any story make the crossover.

I didn’t mind that.

I thought it was interesting.

A new perspective.

I don’t mind who might watch which tv networks or why.

Because I seek out views that I agree with.

I don’t get what Mr. Cuomo is mad about.

I do mind that regardless of the channel or network, the show is the same.

squabble and squabble
squabble squabble and squabble
and squabble squabble

Come on folks.

Where is that off button?

*Yes Minister, in Series 2, Episode 4 – 1987- A Conflict Of Interest by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn