If you live in today's world, it has to be difficult to be oblivious of the less fortunate. Even news outlets prone to painting unfortunates' circumstances as the fault of the unfortunates, do occasionally report on the existence of ... hunger, homelessness, war, corruption, hatred.
What can we do? The problems are huge.
Today I'm going to let it all hang out there with a simple suggestion.
Ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?"
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
Monday, November 4, 2019
My tribute to my mother
My mother was Mary Ann Keenan, and she
passed away on September 29, 2019, having lived 91 years. She married an
Irishman, where "for better or for worse" really does include both
sides of the equation, raised five children, loved to hear about her thirteen
grandchildren and seven great grandchildren, and followed city and national
government closely, scotch in one hand and phone in the other. She was
passionate right up to the day she died. She may not have been easy to live
with some of the time, but she was a woman with a mission all of the time. I'm
going to miss her. Below was my tribute at her memorial gathering, which was a
very joyous affair!
My mother was complicated.
The story goes that when she met my
father she was a wall flower. A very attractive wall flower, but still a wall
flower.
Shy!
Those of you who have only known her
for the last sixty-eight years have no idea what I’m talking about.
I have no idea what I’m talking about.
My mother was complicated.
My youngest brother, Joel, started ballroom
dancing a couple of years ago and I’m told when he shared that with mom, she
said ‘your father was a great dancer’.
So he asked her, ‘Did you ever take
dance lessons?’
‘I didn’t need to. I just followed
your father.’
My mother followed my father?
She may have done that on the dance
floor.
She didn’t do it anywhere else.
My mother was complicated.
She was opinionated, insightful, and
loud. She yelled ... a lot. I can only remember one time seeing her cry. I'm
sure she cried more than once, but I only remember the one time. Back in 1974.
It was at the airport. I was off to Ethiopia and she had taken me to the plane.
She just wanted to say goodbye.
My mother was
complicated...boisterous, colorful.
She swore like a sailor.
Happily.
She also listened.
I’m guessing that’s why people in
White Plains elected her to the common council for twenty-six years running. It
didn’t matter who was in the majority, democrats or republicans, she was always
voted in. And after she retired, I’ve heard she stayed in touch, for the next nineteen years. She cared
about the city. She cared about the nation. I think she read the New York Times
and The Reporter Dispatch from front to back almost every day. Her passion
wasn’t politics so much as it was government. She thought it was important and
she expected it to work well.
My mother was complicated.
I don’t know if mom ever voted for a
republican. They generally believe in limited government. I do know that when I
called her a year or so ago and said, "Mom, I really can't stand
republicans," she replied, earnestly, "Oh no, don't say that
Chris."
She focused on the issues, not the
party.
So she wanted teachers paid a decent
wage, but she was mad as hell to learn that teacher unions were preventing bad
teachers from being fired.
She wanted decent pay for city
workers, but she told me years ago that municipalities were being unfairly
crushed by city pension plans.
She was elated with much of the rest
of the nation when Barack Obama was elected President. But she was furious that
his attorney general couldn't find one senior executive to jail over the
financial meltdown.
My mother was complicated.
Some of you might say she was down
right rude.
You'd have company. All of us kids.
I think we all tuned her out at one
point or another, but time passed and we'd tune her back in. The wisest of us
tuned her back in quickest.
Mom spoke her mind, and didn't worry
too much about your feelings. She had a sharp tongue. I'm sad to say most of us
kids share a bit of that tongue. Debbie may be sadder than I am.
My mother was complicated.
Mom's sharp tongue had the
companionship of a generous heart. She took in our cousin when her aunt
couldn't manage him. I think I was eleven. That made Joel three with three more
children in between us. Dad worked late every night, so by herself she added a
troubled teenager to her flock.
This from a woman who did not
love mothering.
She did not wake in the morning,
pining to bake apple pies to feed all the mouths.
She was not kidding when she once
explained that she got into politics because she had five kids home with the
mumps and needed to get out of the house. Mom and politics were a match made in
heaven.
Mom showed her true grit before
running for any election by seeing the five of us and a few others out of the
house. With that accomplished Mom married city government, and that was a match
she could truly enjoy.
Don't get me wrong. Mom loved to hear
about us and our kids, and she traveled to many a recital or performance. But
the city was the real winner for her attention and love.
My mother was not soo
complicated.
She was simply principled.
And straight.
Not much bending. It was not difficult
to determine where she stood.
She had her blind spots. Some big
gaping holes left by personal bad experience.
So she favored rabbis over priests,
teachers over lawyers, nurses over doctors, almost any ethnicity at all over
the Irish.
But even if you were a priest or a
lawyer or a doctor or, god forbid, Irish, if you knew her well, my bet is you
enjoyed the ride.
Friday, June 14, 2019
Gay Creation
I have never understood how people would assume that gay people are not biologically plausible midst the myriad life forms that exist in our world. I find it a stunning lack of imagination.
Mr. Buttigieg says it so much more succinctly and eloquently.
“That’s the thing that I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand,” Buttigieg said of the vice president, who has opposed same-sex marriage. “That if you have a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”
Sunday, June 2, 2019
DCCC blocks funds to democratic primary opponents...bad policy.
The NYT reports that the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) is blocking funds to any opponents of sitting democrats.
Their rationale is that spending money in primaries draws funds from the general election against the republicans.
This is a terrible decision, one that will exclude newcomers, particularly women and people of color, who have been fighting literally for centuries to get included. We desperately need fresh blood, new ideas, radical approaches to making our government work for all of us.
While I understand the position that drawing money away from the general election is costly, it is more costly to emulate totalitarian, authoritarian regimes, which discouraging voting and challenges at any level does.
Contact the DCCC and tell them this is a bad policy.
Contact your Congressperson and tell them they don't have your vote if they don't fight this.
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Syria, Torture, Magnitsky Act
The New York Times has done the difficult work, reporting on the unspeakable torture perpetrated by Assad's regime on his own people. We should do the easy work, applying the Magnitsky Act to every Syrian official involved in this hateful practice, starting with Bashar Hafez al-Assad.
Thursday, May 9, 2019
The Constitution, the Second Amendment, Holy Documents, and Common Sense
Our Constitution is not sacred and it is not a Holy Document. It countenanced slavery.
The Second Amendment is no less sacred or holy. It was meant to protect common folks from tyranny, which is all well and good. It doesn't mean we can't license guns just the way we license automobiles.
Both are tools which can seriously hurt someone who doesn't know how to use them. And just as we don't let common folks buy tanks, we also shouldn't let common folks buy machine guns, or anything like them. Those guns are no different than nuclear bombs. They are meant to kill lots and lots of people in a hurry, and we should leave that to governments and madmen, but certainly not to common folks.
If nothing else, common decency dictates we treat common folks with common sense.
The Second Amendment is no less sacred or holy. It was meant to protect common folks from tyranny, which is all well and good. It doesn't mean we can't license guns just the way we license automobiles.
Both are tools which can seriously hurt someone who doesn't know how to use them. And just as we don't let common folks buy tanks, we also shouldn't let common folks buy machine guns, or anything like them. Those guns are no different than nuclear bombs. They are meant to kill lots and lots of people in a hurry, and we should leave that to governments and madmen, but certainly not to common folks.
If nothing else, common decency dictates we treat common folks with common sense.
Dear Democrats, WAKE UP
Trump won the election because enough middle class people were fed up with the powers that be. They knew government did not work for them. They knew the economy did not work for them. So they threw out traditional republicans, they threw out traditional democrats, and they got behind a maverick. If Hillary Clinton's team had not locked up the democratic machine, the maverick could easily have been Bernie Sanders. He probably would have beaten Trump.
Sure Trump is a panderer. Sure Trump appeals to racists. Sure Trump feeds off people's meanest instincts....blame the son of a bitch who looks different from me for my misfortune. But there aren't enough blatant racists in America to elect Trump. He won because a lot of people got tired of being screwed by the government and wanted someone to pay attention to them.
While there appears to be no buyers remorse among Trump's core supporters, the swing voters on the other hand, the voters who decide elections, are hopefully regretting their frustration in the voter's booth in November, 2016.
Trump is a terrible leader. He does not think deeply. He is not terribly curious about anything that does not profit his business. If you think his business has become America, you're dreaming. He does not care deeply about anyone except himself, his family, and his businesses. I'm sure he's paying attention to the profits at his golf courses. And of course he is paying close attention to his image. His image is his core business.
Speaking of image, the democratic party at one time was widely promoted as the party of the people, the party of the working man (not so much woman, but that's another discussion). And then the democratic party screwed the middle class tradesman, the middle class factory worker. The democratic party sided with big business when it came time to look at overseas markets. The party claimed it would still fight for workers in America, but that was an empty promise. Of course business can make things cheaper in Taiwan, and India, and China, and South Korea, and Mexico. And of course business can then sell those products more cheaply at home. But what happens to the thousands of workers with no jobs. What happens to the thousands who do find jobs, but with much lower wages. The cheaper products don't mean much to these thousands of workers. Cars may cost $5,000 less, but their wages were cut by tens of thousands of dollars.
We will never get those factory jobs back. Those of us in the service economy, those of us in the white collar world, those of us with savings in the stock market, we're doing fine.But we have a bucket load of neighbors who will never recover from the democratic party's NAFTA screw up.
If the party had been honest, it might have fared better. If the party had said, we know jobs will disappear, but we will create programs that help you find new jobs, maybe then the party would not have been spurned. When the party saw that new jobs were not being created, that the federal government was not pushing infrastructure in any meaningful way, then the party should have screamed, we made a mistake, we screwed up and the poorest of us are paying for it dearly. Factories and unions helped the middle class in a huge way, and factories and unions have largely disappeared. The democrats were complicit, they assisted the forces that destroyed our factories and unions. The democrats won't admit that, but it's oh so true. It took a socialist, Bernie Sanders, to own up to the democrat's failure. No wonder the party elite hated him. The emperor does not like to be labelled shoddy, even if his clothes are in tatters.
True conservatives want the government to stay the hell out of their lives. I don't agree with them, but I definitely respect them. They are tough, and they aren't asking for any handouts.
Most of us, however, do value government services: fire, police, education, (subsidized) health care, libraries, streets, bridges, parks, a robust legal system, etc. And many of us get by quite well with those services coupled with our own employment. Sadly, however, many, many of us don't have decent enough employment to couple with the existing government services.
The democrats should stop talking about trade and the world economy and simply talk about decent paying jobs.
Our capitalist system is great at creating superior products, but it's not so great at creating meaningful full employment. Don't get me wrong. We're not bad at creating jobs. We're simply not great at it. And the sad thing is that with a little imagination, with a little daring, we could fix that capitalistic short coming.
What's the real problem? What makes us cringe when we read the paper or listen to the news? It's pretty simple. America has millions of people who cannot make enough money to pay for food, housing, education, and health care. They are coming up short. Every week. Every month. Every year. Their kids are hungry, they live in beat up housing or no housing, they get a lousy education, and they become lousy citizens. It's a pretty vicious cycle.
We can solve this problem. There are various possibilities.
One example is being implemented in Germany today. The Germans are spending five billion dollars on trades schools that train their young people for gainful employment.
Another example might be a federal works program, structured along the lines of the armed services. You are owned by Uncle Sam, but you are also cared for .... food, housing, medical, school for the kids ... and your uncle can send you anywhere he wants. There is great pride among servicemen and women, which we ought to be able to translate to a federal works program. It could be the polar opposite of the post office or motor vehicle department.
Sure Trump is a panderer. Sure Trump appeals to racists. Sure Trump feeds off people's meanest instincts....blame the son of a bitch who looks different from me for my misfortune. But there aren't enough blatant racists in America to elect Trump. He won because a lot of people got tired of being screwed by the government and wanted someone to pay attention to them.
While there appears to be no buyers remorse among Trump's core supporters, the swing voters on the other hand, the voters who decide elections, are hopefully regretting their frustration in the voter's booth in November, 2016.
Trump is a terrible leader. He does not think deeply. He is not terribly curious about anything that does not profit his business. If you think his business has become America, you're dreaming. He does not care deeply about anyone except himself, his family, and his businesses. I'm sure he's paying attention to the profits at his golf courses. And of course he is paying close attention to his image. His image is his core business.
Speaking of image, the democratic party at one time was widely promoted as the party of the people, the party of the working man (not so much woman, but that's another discussion). And then the democratic party screwed the middle class tradesman, the middle class factory worker. The democratic party sided with big business when it came time to look at overseas markets. The party claimed it would still fight for workers in America, but that was an empty promise. Of course business can make things cheaper in Taiwan, and India, and China, and South Korea, and Mexico. And of course business can then sell those products more cheaply at home. But what happens to the thousands of workers with no jobs. What happens to the thousands who do find jobs, but with much lower wages. The cheaper products don't mean much to these thousands of workers. Cars may cost $5,000 less, but their wages were cut by tens of thousands of dollars.
We will never get those factory jobs back. Those of us in the service economy, those of us in the white collar world, those of us with savings in the stock market, we're doing fine.But we have a bucket load of neighbors who will never recover from the democratic party's NAFTA screw up.
If the party had been honest, it might have fared better. If the party had said, we know jobs will disappear, but we will create programs that help you find new jobs, maybe then the party would not have been spurned. When the party saw that new jobs were not being created, that the federal government was not pushing infrastructure in any meaningful way, then the party should have screamed, we made a mistake, we screwed up and the poorest of us are paying for it dearly. Factories and unions helped the middle class in a huge way, and factories and unions have largely disappeared. The democrats were complicit, they assisted the forces that destroyed our factories and unions. The democrats won't admit that, but it's oh so true. It took a socialist, Bernie Sanders, to own up to the democrat's failure. No wonder the party elite hated him. The emperor does not like to be labelled shoddy, even if his clothes are in tatters.
True conservatives want the government to stay the hell out of their lives. I don't agree with them, but I definitely respect them. They are tough, and they aren't asking for any handouts.
Most of us, however, do value government services: fire, police, education, (subsidized) health care, libraries, streets, bridges, parks, a robust legal system, etc. And many of us get by quite well with those services coupled with our own employment. Sadly, however, many, many of us don't have decent enough employment to couple with the existing government services.
The democrats should stop talking about trade and the world economy and simply talk about decent paying jobs.
Our capitalist system is great at creating superior products, but it's not so great at creating meaningful full employment. Don't get me wrong. We're not bad at creating jobs. We're simply not great at it. And the sad thing is that with a little imagination, with a little daring, we could fix that capitalistic short coming.
What's the real problem? What makes us cringe when we read the paper or listen to the news? It's pretty simple. America has millions of people who cannot make enough money to pay for food, housing, education, and health care. They are coming up short. Every week. Every month. Every year. Their kids are hungry, they live in beat up housing or no housing, they get a lousy education, and they become lousy citizens. It's a pretty vicious cycle.
We can solve this problem. There are various possibilities.
One example is being implemented in Germany today. The Germans are spending five billion dollars on trades schools that train their young people for gainful employment.
Another example might be a federal works program, structured along the lines of the armed services. You are owned by Uncle Sam, but you are also cared for .... food, housing, medical, school for the kids ... and your uncle can send you anywhere he wants. There is great pride among servicemen and women, which we ought to be able to translate to a federal works program. It could be the polar opposite of the post office or motor vehicle department.
I'm sure there are other possibilities. The point is that we must be having the conversation. We must be actively researching and solving why every family in America does not have a decent life.
How do we pay for it? The same way we paid for the Iraq war. Print money. Focus on the program and let's give the economy a chance to sort this out.
Speaking of money, it blows me away when people get away with saying that Medicare For All will cost the government too much money. We're already paying for our health care, way too much in fact. It's just coming out of our paychecks and our employers' budgets instead of our tax dollars. Take it out of our tax dollars and we'll end up paying LESS. How you ask? It's not difficult to figure out. Instead of dealing with forms from dozens of insurance companies, we'll deal with forms from one company, the government. Instead of factoring in insurance company profit to the bill, we will cut that piece out of the program completely. So less bureaucracy and less profit. Cheaper health costs.
Cheaper for most of us....not for the extremely wealthy, because their taxes are going to go up. I'm not really sad. If a man is making twenty million dollars and you reduce is income to ten million dollars with taxes, is he really suffering? He made ten million in one year, more than most of us make in a life time. I think he's doing OK.
Speaking of money, it blows me away when people get away with saying that Medicare For All will cost the government too much money. We're already paying for our health care, way too much in fact. It's just coming out of our paychecks and our employers' budgets instead of our tax dollars. Take it out of our tax dollars and we'll end up paying LESS. How you ask? It's not difficult to figure out. Instead of dealing with forms from dozens of insurance companies, we'll deal with forms from one company, the government. Instead of factoring in insurance company profit to the bill, we will cut that piece out of the program completely. So less bureaucracy and less profit. Cheaper health costs.
Cheaper for most of us....not for the extremely wealthy, because their taxes are going to go up. I'm not really sad. If a man is making twenty million dollars and you reduce is income to ten million dollars with taxes, is he really suffering? He made ten million in one year, more than most of us make in a life time. I think he's doing OK.
We are the strongest economy in the world. Some will say we got there by being tough. The weak struggled and the strong survived. That's a myth. Until we had a strong middle class, brought about largely through FDR's programs during and after World War II, our nation endured multiple boom and bust cycles, huge recessions that crippled all but the very wealthy. As a nation, we weren't very strong during those troughs. (If true strength is evidenced by how we treat the least among us, we were ashamedly weak.) But following World War II, our leaders and legislators created some amazing programs for the middle class. Education increased. Jobs appeared. Salaries grew. Home ownership increased.
Not for everyone. People of color kept getting the shaft, just as they did in The Constitution, and women had to fight pretty fiercely just to get into a law school, much less get hired by a law firm. Minorities and women are still marginalized, but the good news is that it's not much of secret anymore. Their inequality is in our face every day, and that's a very good thing.
Good for them and bad for us (white men), you say? Actually no. It's a good thing for all of us. The amazing thing about equality is that when it's spread around, we help each other, we teach each other, we find that we all have different talents and together we are stronger than we were alone. So my last big issue is education. Make it good. Fund it federally and implement it locally. Send the federal tax dollars to the cities and towns and let their school committees battle with the curriculum. Will some towns do a lousy job? Sure. And people will move away to towns that do a better job. But we have to fund education for all, from day-care through college. Why? Because we will be a much richer society in the long run, if we are an educated citizenry.
Democrats, push the issues, not the labels. While it's true that I don't think I could ever marry a Republican, I don't think that's a good campaign slogan and it's not very compassionate either. What is compassionate, if a little corny is
"You want a job? Uncle Sam wants you!"
"You want an education? Uncle Sam wants your brain!"
"You need a doctor? Uncle Sam needs a healthy citizen, so come tell him where it hurts!"
Democrats, run on the issues and these elections won't be close any more. The titans of power can gerrymander to hell and they will still lose.
I started this essay two years ago and just found my way back to it. I'm so elated to see literally ten's of thoughtful, serious candidates running for the President of the United States. And so many are not white men. Who would have thunk?!
Not for everyone. People of color kept getting the shaft, just as they did in The Constitution, and women had to fight pretty fiercely just to get into a law school, much less get hired by a law firm. Minorities and women are still marginalized, but the good news is that it's not much of secret anymore. Their inequality is in our face every day, and that's a very good thing.
Good for them and bad for us (white men), you say? Actually no. It's a good thing for all of us. The amazing thing about equality is that when it's spread around, we help each other, we teach each other, we find that we all have different talents and together we are stronger than we were alone. So my last big issue is education. Make it good. Fund it federally and implement it locally. Send the federal tax dollars to the cities and towns and let their school committees battle with the curriculum. Will some towns do a lousy job? Sure. And people will move away to towns that do a better job. But we have to fund education for all, from day-care through college. Why? Because we will be a much richer society in the long run, if we are an educated citizenry.
Democrats, push the issues, not the labels. While it's true that I don't think I could ever marry a Republican, I don't think that's a good campaign slogan and it's not very compassionate either. What is compassionate, if a little corny is
"You want a job? Uncle Sam wants you!"
"You want an education? Uncle Sam wants your brain!"
"You need a doctor? Uncle Sam needs a healthy citizen, so come tell him where it hurts!"
Democrats, run on the issues and these elections won't be close any more. The titans of power can gerrymander to hell and they will still lose.
I started this essay two years ago and just found my way back to it. I'm so elated to see literally ten's of thoughtful, serious candidates running for the President of the United States. And so many are not white men. Who would have thunk?!
Facebook....Another Weapon of Mass Destruction
Facebook is just the latest tool we have created that we can use to kill each other with. Kill is actually too kind. Massacre fits better. Facebook is actually genocidal. Ironic that a website with so many baby pictures and happy faces and people holding hands and hugging each other can also be as dangerous as the A-bomb. The atom bomb can wipe out a city with a single push of a button. And Facebook will allow a single fool to spew forth hate and vitriol, and watch it capture the dim-witted imaginations of his friends, watch it spread faster than a heat-sucking California wild fire, and in hours watch literally thousands of people whose religion or ethnicity or gender is of another kind, watch them succumb to the march of marauding machetes and exploding guns.
What to do? Ban facebook? Like we banned the bomb? The genie is out of the bottle. He won't be put back.
My wife keeps telling me you have to start with the young ones. Teach them to love each other's differences, teach them to cherish diversity and their own identity.
I wonder if we're too late. Are there too many old haters out there? Have they taught their children well? Will their youngsters hate as well as their parents have? Is there room for wiser children? Can those children prevail?
It probably doesn't matter who prevails. The journey's the thing. How we live it is pretty much all that matters.
Pretty unlikely that our species will last much longer. We're making it pretty unlikely that any species will last much longer on this earth. But there are other earths. Thank God!
What to do? Ban facebook? Like we banned the bomb? The genie is out of the bottle. He won't be put back.
My wife keeps telling me you have to start with the young ones. Teach them to love each other's differences, teach them to cherish diversity and their own identity.
I wonder if we're too late. Are there too many old haters out there? Have they taught their children well? Will their youngsters hate as well as their parents have? Is there room for wiser children? Can those children prevail?
It probably doesn't matter who prevails. The journey's the thing. How we live it is pretty much all that matters.
Pretty unlikely that our species will last much longer. We're making it pretty unlikely that any species will last much longer on this earth. But there are other earths. Thank God!
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