Two women are discussing Christmas and the first says “I can’t stand these supposed miracles.”
The second replies: “Oh, you mean the stuff about the Virgin Birth?”
“No, I’m all right with that. But Three Wise Men.
Really?”
Ned Buchbinder
55 years ago, my college classmate, Ned Buchbinder, saved me.
Ned always had a whimsical charm. With a Jewish background, he would remind his almost all Catholic classmates that the statue on the iconic Golden Dome at Notre Dame was a Jewish lady.
But in 1968, while the unwinnable war dragged on in Vietnam and I and all my classmates were about to lose our student deferments, the Selective Service Administration (it no longer exists as the draft no longer exists) was our next stop which meant one thing: we were likely to be drafted and fighting in the Mekong Delta in a matter of months. Many left the country; many went to Vietnam; too few came back and those that did were marked forever, often not in a good way.
Ned was what was then called a “draft counselor” which meant that he had mastered all of the rules in the Selective Service system. He found me a provision (unknown to me) that would allow me to remain a civilian in the United States rather than an infantryman in Vietnam. That provision was that a student who had been deferred could still qualify for a fatherhood deferment, but for the next 2 weeks only. For that, I have been eternally grateful.
So last week the very same Ned Buchbinder sent an email which just quoted Carl Sagan: “In all our searching, the only thing that we have found that makes existence bearable is each other.”
This got me thinking about the people we meet. Over the last week, I have been with three people who have made my life better.
Adwoa Bonsra
Last Thursday, I was at a physical therapy session with Adwoa Bonsra. Adwoa (pronounced ADJOA) was born in Ghana. At age 8, her father, who was in the United States, brought her to live with him. Initially, it did not go well. She was mercilessly teased by her classmates for being “African,” for her very dark skin and for her accent.
In any event, her father told her that she had three things going against her: she was African; she was black and she was a girl. That conversation apparently took. Thereafter, Adwoa regained her footing and there was no stopping her. She would be the Salutatorian of her very large high school class, receive her bachelor’s degree and then a Doctorate in Physical Therapy from the University of Maryland Medical School.
Today, Adwoa is as American as apple pie. She knows and quietly sings the lyrics of every song on the radio which is always playing in the therapy room but she still is from Ghana. She recently married Francis Boadi who is also from Ghana and has been in the United States for just a short time. They had a tribal wedding in Ghana which was then redone at a church here just so it would be “legal.”
Dr. Linh Nguyen
On Friday I went to see my podiatrist, Dr. Linh (pronounced LEAN) Nguyen in Jacksonville, Maryland. She is only here because a Japanese freighter picked up a floundering boat in the South China Sea in 1978.
The boat had been built under cover of darkness by her father and turned out to be not entirely seaworthy as water had to be constantly bailed. They had left Vietnam eight days before and were shortly out of food but, more importantly, water. She was 3 years old and one of 50 or so, mostly children, on the boat.
She and her extended family ended up in a refugee camp in Malaysia. Six months later, they were sponsored and settled in a Baltimore suburb. Her dad worked a variety of entry level jobs until he obtained sufficient education to locate a better position. Her mom was a manicurist until she retired.
As her time in high school was coming to an end, Dr. Linh, despite exemplary grades, was not thinking of college but rather thinking that she would like to be a stay at home Mom raising kids. There was only one problem with that thought process. She did not have anyone to marry. That would come later.
Ultimately, she received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland and her medical degree from the Temple University Podiatric Medical School. Along the way, she met her husband and is the mother of three sons with a very active podiatric practice.
So Thursday and Friday were pretty interesting but then came Sunday.
Sister Laurentilla Back, SSND
The School Sisters of Notre Dame were founded in Bavaria in 1833. They take lifelong vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience, vows which most of us could not follow for any appreciable time at all. Their primary mission is to provide education at the elementary, secondary and college level.
They have always had a strong presence in Baltimore. One of their high schools (the Institute of Notre Dame just now closed) graduated former United States Senator Barbara Mikulski and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Villa Assumpta is the local SSND Mother House in Baltimore and Mass is said there every Sunday at 10 AM. The typical congregation consists of 40 retired nuns and usually two men, me and the priest. Jesus said that he was leaving the Holy Spirit to guide his newly founded church. Apparently, The Holy Spirit is speaking more clearly to our Protestant brethren and some Jewish believers as the Catholic Church squanders the opportunity to have women conduct our masses. I know 40 women who would do a superb job.
In any event, the last person that I usually see on Sunday is Sister Laurentilla. She was introduced to me by Sister Dot Malone, SSND. Dot and I sit together in the back of the church, she in her electric wheelchair and me in my walker. Sister Laurentilla is 90 and has been a nun for 70 years. She is always joyous and welcoming.
She gave me a way to remember her name: think of Lauren Bacall (the actor Humphrey Bogart’s great love) and Attila the Hun and then put them together.
A pinch of salt usually makes food taste much better. So too there are people who make our lives better.
These are stories of perseverance and commitment. There are many other stories out there. There are stories of love gained and love lost; of chances taken and not taken; of triumphs and defeats, both small and large, and many others. All of these stories are worth repeating and sharing. All you have to do is to be a little nosey, talk a lot and ask many questions.
Then, just listen.
It was just another day until it wasn’t.
For Americans alive in 1941, the date of December 7, 1941 will not be forgotten as it was the day the Japanese decimated the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. It was, according to President Roosevelt, a “day that will live in infamy.” For those alive in 1963, the date of November 23, 1963 will always be remembered as the day President Kennedy was assassinated. For those alive in 2001, September 11, 2001 will be forever etched in their memories as a day when the planes hit the Twin Towers in New York as well as the Pentagon.
But if you were not alive at these particular times, those days might have little meaning. While most seniors describe the effect of 9/11 as “uniting” the country, only 22% of the millennials (born 1980-1996) and 21% of Generation Z (born 1996-2010) agreed.
For those alive at the time of these events, they know exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. But there are other events which do not have historical significance but which evoke responses depending on your station in life.
Given my inability to walk any distance, my normal position is in an easy chair with my legs up which means that the most I usually do is read. My daily regimen includes the New York Times and the local newspaper. While the NYT provides considerable information including the crossword puzzle (not the big one but the little one), the local paper contains nuggets not otherwise found. For example, there is a column on people having birthdays although it appears that only entertainment celebrities have birthdays (My God, Stevie Nicks is 74 and I remember her when she was only 25). Barack Obama’s birthday, no; Michelle Obama’s birthday, no; Oprah’s birthday, definitely. Oh, and don’t forget the Rapper Pit Bull.
Just as the passage of time renders certain historical events unimportant to after born individuals, so too my knowledge of the individuals whose birthdays are being celebrated pretty much stops at 25 years younger than me, Pit Bull being one obvious exception.
Another nugget in the local newspaper was this: bird enthusiasts complained that wind turbines killed too many birds. They are right. The American Bird Conservancy estimates that wind turbines kill 681,000 birds a year but, as it turns out, cats kill 2.4 billion and cats provide static electricity only occasionally.
One of the other features of the local newspaper are the death notices. If you are at the point where you have more days behind you than ahead of you, obituaries are of interest. As Carl Reiner once said: “I get up and read the death notices and, if I’m not in them, then I have breakfast.”
Someone recently told me that the death notices were the only accurate information in the paper. I don’t think that is necessarily correct because, almost without exception, the notice speaks about the loving spouse left behind even though that can’t be 100% true, can it?
On December 29, 2022, Edson Arantes do Nascimento died at age 82 in Santos, Brazil. He was known to the world as Pele’ and, in his time, was the best paid and most well-known athlete in the world. He played what the world calls “football” and what people in the United States call soccer. He led Brazil to World Cup Championships in 1958, 1962 and 1970.
When he visited the White House, the President stepped forward, extended his hand and said “I am Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States, and everybody knows you.”
Pele’ was born with two huge strikes against him. He was very poor and he was very black but he was able to overcome because he had an athleticism enjoyed by only a few in every generation.
American football commands the attention of over 100 million people. Pele’s football has well over a 1 billion and maybe 2 billion fans. His 24-hour wake drew 230,000 people in his hometown of Santos, population 430,000.
What made Pele’s death one of those days? I think it really depends on your age.
The whole thought of death is one that many do not want to contemplate. Everyone knows it’s coming but why think about it? Their response in the teenage patois of today (“not cool bro”) or that of yesterday (“you’re bringing me down dude”). Or as one of your aunts would say during a family scuffle “let’s talk about something nice.”
Then there are the graying baby boomers sitting in church, preparing, as my friend Tom Figel says, for the “final examination.” Some have been attending church all along while others have recently joined. The business of aging has a person thinking about the end. First the hair recedes, turns grey, then the pot belly, the sagging neck, the lack of physical or mental strength, the daily pill containers, the health scares cured by medical interventions. For those 25 years younger, no worries but just know it’s coming.
The boomers all fondly remember their youth as well as the music of that time and now may be partial to Bob Dylan singing “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”.
There are those who are sick and infirm and quite willing to go quietly.
Many more follow the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and refuse “… to go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
I don’t remember whether the line occurred in a war movie, a cowboy movie or a spy movie. It may be apropos.
I don’t think we are getting out of here alive.
For those who find this blog somewhat morbid, let me reintroduce some of you and introduce the rest to a more uplifting version of “Mama Said” by the Shirelles. Listening to this song, one thing occurs. It was not very hard to produce a hit record in 1961.
When Beethoven wrote his Ninth Symphony, containing the “Ode To Joy,” he was totally deaf. “Ode To Joy” is one of most recognized scores ever written and has been an anthem for both freedom and joy for many years. It is heard in many venues ranging from weddings to graduations to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square where it was played by the protesters before the tanks arrived in 1989.
I think people are hardwired to seek both freedom and joy. And “Ode To Joy” is the musical expression of that genetic disposition. The choral lyrics include the following:
O friends, no more these sounds!
Let us sing more cheerful songs,
More full of joy!
Listen now to two short renditions of “Ode To Joy.” One is a choral arrangement which is powerful even if you don’t understand German (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah-5wLaTwME) and the second is a musical rendition with a violin and piano (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8OKkvu8OB8). If you did not feel “joy” after listening, have someone check your pulse.
How to get from Beethoven to Pat Collins? Not so hard when you think about the essence of joy.
My college classmate, Pat Collins, just announced his retirement from the NBC affiliate in Washington DC after 34 years of reporting. He would cover stories, large and small, for over 30 years, making him one of the most recognized people in the City.
Late in his career, he may have discovered his true calling and it made him not only one of the best known but one of the City’s most beloved people.
Pat is a native Washingtonian, born and raised when Washington was a small southern town dwarfed entirely by brawny industrial Baltimore, 30 miles to the north. In the 1950s, Washington boasted perhaps 500,000 people while Baltimore housed a million people, had the largest steel mill in the world employing 40, 000, had winning professional sports teams in baseball, football and basketball. Washington had a very bad baseball team, a bad football team and no basketball team.
In 50 years, that has all changed. Baltimore has shrunk; Washington has grown on steroids fueled by federal money. Now the Washington Metropolitan area is twice the size of Baltimore.
The two cities are not alike. Baltimore is more of a blue-collar town; Washington anything but. So too, they are different television markets with one result being that I never saw Pat on the television until one snowy day about 10 years ago when, in an Annapolis hotel room, the television showed the Washington NBC affiliate and not the Baltimore affiliate. There he was.
The entire area was blanketed with snow and Pat appeared wearing a Russian winter hat with furry earflaps. He was measuring snow with the “blue snow stick” which was a yardstick painted blue. The whole routine involved him going to various areas of Washington and measuring the snow accumulation in each area.
I immediately called and a few days later requested my “blue snow stick.” Such was not to be since the snow sticks were in great demand and were not given out unless, for instance, they were auctioned off for charity netting thousands of dollars. In other words, he had created a crazy phenomenon bringing joy to Washington viewers on snowy days.
Still, I did not understand the role he played in the Washington area. A few years later, he and a number of our college classmates met for lunch at an Olive Garden in Laurel, Maryland, a Washington suburb. As usual, we recounted old stories, told new lies and were generally enjoying our old friends. At least we did, until the patrons in the restaurant, the entire wait staff and the kitchen crew appeared seeking “selfies” with Pat. He was gracious to each and every one.
It turns out that it was a lot more than snow sticks. On a regular basis, Pat would appear on television with stories that you would hear nowhere else. The best example is Pat Collins and Banana Man. This has all the hallmarks of a Pat Collins story: A funny story, made funnier by Pat in a costume with his dramatic over the top presentation. See for yourself (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR14cLx340k).
But not everyone is a fan. One critic conceded that he was funny but asked whether he stood for anything. A strange question. I’m not sure that I or anybody I know “stands” for anything. But, if pressed, I think that Pat may stand for something pretty obvious.
Pat intuitively understood that people needed joy in their lives. He was happy to play the theatrical fool and give it to them. In all these stories, like Beethoven, he exhibited perfect pitch.
And they loved it.
To say the least, I am really, really late to this party. Indeed, this is a party that probably most people don’t know is occurring. But a lot do. The dance floor is filled with employees of Microsoft, Apple and many Fortune 500 companies and the academic and enlightened political community are drinking Cosmos and toasting each other with flutes of champagne.
What party are you talking about? Not really a party but a way of thinking, pretty much followed by certain elites. The other day I received an email from the very bright and accomplished female leader of a project on which I am working. At the end of her signature, she indicated her “pronouns” being she/her/hers. Being a product of a time when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, I said to myself “of course” but why, in the Lord’s name, did she have to say that?
As it turns out, this is becoming a standard feature in business. Your choices are the following: “he/his/his” or “she/her/hers” or “they/them/theirs.” Apparently, the important thing is that you end your signature or identity yourself on the phone with your pronouns.
So how did this come about? Apparently, it all relates to the attempt to make “non-binary” and transgender people comfortable. According to an LGBT website (https://lgbtlifecenter.org/) for “queer, gender non-conforming, non-binary and transgender individuals, the use of improper pronouns can lead to anxiety and stress.” According to this website, a recent study confirmed that the use of proper pronouns can reduce depression and the risk of suicide for transgender teenagers. Whatever the problems for transgender teenagers, there is surely no similar problem for the Caitlyn Jenners of the world.
I suppose the reasons for me not understanding the whole business of pronouns are several, one being that I have not had full-time employment since the end of 2015 and another being that I really have no need to see every new shiny nickel, since most of them will be tarnished by the end of the month.
It seems that the they/them/theirs pronouns are used by non-binary people and transgender individuals prefer their new pronouns (he becomes a she and she becomes a he). All of the gay people I know are quite happy with their gender pronouns. Indeed, gay marriage partners refer to their male spouse as their husband and their female spouse as their wife.
Imagine the confusion when someone asks about your conversation with a non-binary individual and you say: “I spoke to them.” The listener then asks what individuals were involved in the conversation and you reply: “It was only them.” The listener then says: “I know that but who were they?” Then exasperated, you say: “I told you once and I will tell you again, it was them.”
This reminds me of the old Abbott and Costello routine “Who’s on First,” which for those who have not heard it, is surely worth a listen. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg).
The newest shiny nickel appears to be the term “non-binary.” The Boston Marathon just announced that in 2023 there would be a category for non-binary people to run in the race. I will lay a bet that the winner of this non-binary race will be a “male” non-binary individual because testosterone will ultimately determine the winner.
Last week there was an article in the Baltimore paper which indicated that, in a Montgomery County (Maryland) high school, 45% of the students indicated that they were “non-binary.” Given the raging hormones of teenagers, I found that conclusion not credible. Could it be that the teacher talking to the students and taking the count was a “non-binary” individual seeking to identify like individuals?
This whole business of pronouns strikes me as Alice going down the rabbit hole. I assume that non-binary and transgender individuals have a need for their pronouns. If that is the case, they should declare and use their pronouns and everyone else can simply acknowledge. One doesn’t have to be locked into the Adam and Eve narrative to realize that this requiring everyone to declare their pronouns is a classic case of the tail wagging the dog.
What is truly amazing is that several important American groups actually think this is not only “enlightened” but, indeed, required. They snicker at the Philistine rabble which doesn’t “get it” but, as usual, continues its discriminatory behavior.
Actually, we do get it. This is pretty much nonsense of the first order.
We also get that elites have a need to feel superior even when they’re not.
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, there is a character named Dill who is a “summer friend” to Atticus Finch’s children, Jem and Scout (Jean Louise). Every summer Dill comes to a relative’s house and has various adventures with Jem and Scout.
Harper Lee had such a “summer friend” but for more than a summer. That friend was Truman Capote who was pretty much banished to his aunt’s house in Alabama as a result of his parents’ divorce. Lee, though 2 years younger, protected the small, sensitive Capote from the local bullies and they bonded from a shared love of reading.
In 1960, Capote begin work on what would become his most famous book, In Cold Blood. It detailed the murder of the Clutter family in their home in Holcomb, Kansas. The citizens of Holcomb and law enforcement were put off by Capote’s personality but they were enamored of Harper Lee’s Southern graciousness as she had journeyed to Holcomb to help Capote with the book and, because of her, the people of Holcomb opened up to this unlikely pair.
A year later, in 1961, Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird which not only won her a Pulitzer Prize but went on to sell over 30 million copies and be made into an extremely popular movie. It was also the beginning of the end of her friendship with Capote who was overcome by jealousy at her recognition and financial success. His own book, In Cold Blood, was finally published in 1966. It was widely recognized as a fine work and was a commercial success but it did not hold a candle to To Kill a Mockingbird.
My summer friend is Tilly which is not her baptized name. More on that later. Unlike Capote, Tilly will never be jealous nor is disloyal because Tilly belongs to a species in which loyalty is inbred. Tilly is a sweet tempered, medium sized yellow Labrador retriever.
In most cases, people seem to be either “dog” people or “cat” people although, to be sure, some people can be both, which I suppose means that a person can be “non-binary” when it comes to pets. As a complete and unrelated aside, the current “non-binary” sex discussion is a deep dive down the rabbit hole. Currently, there is a play in London (“I, Joan”) where Joan of Arc declares “I am not a girl.” True. Really? Yes.
My late friend Mike Busch (see previous blog titled “My Best Friend Died on Sunday” dated May 27, 2019) was Tilly’s stepfather. He bought Tilly for his daughters Erin (age 14) and Megan (age 12). The girls then asked “Daddy, what are we going to name her?” Mike, who was never at a loss for a good response, proclaimed Tilly’s baptized name: “Her name is Matilda Erin Megan Busch, III and we’re going to call her Tilly.”
Tilly is now 12 years old and she has been spending most of this summer at our home on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Tilly has been a visitor for the last seven or eight years. At first, we just helped Mike avoid kennel boarding fees while on his family beach vacation. One week became two, then a month, then most of the summer.
I was always told that 1 dog year equaled 7 human years which would make Tilly 84. However, current thinking (pets.webmd.com) indicates that Tilly is 69. Whether her age is 84 or 69 is really of no moment since Tilly has not gotten either memo. She has the energy of an average 12-year-old kid and, while she has lost a step or two over the years, from the very beginning she was high-octane. If Tilly were a 12-year-old child, a child psychologist might diagnose her as having a hyperactivity disorder and prescribe Xanax or a similar medicine. I think that the truth is that Tilly is just high on life.
Does Tilly have any peculiarities? Not really unless you count a preternatural fixation on tennis balls. There is not a tennis ball that Tilly will not try to retrieve and you can throw it once, twice, 10 or 20 times and the ball will come back to you. Often, the ball is caught in mid-air. But the best time is when the Ball is retrieved from the swimming pool which looks like this:
Now that summer is “officially” over, Tilly will eventually return to Cindy, Erin and Megan Busch although I’m pretty sure that Tilly will contest the end of summer until such time as the pool cover is applied.
A few years ago Pope Francis upset the theological mandarins in the Vatican by consoling a young boy and implying that he would meet his just deceased dog in heaven.
I am with the Pope on this.
My only question is whether Tilly will give out just a single bark to tell Saint Peter to open the gate as she does to tell us to open our door.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas missed his true calling. He should have been a matador, dressed in his signature black, waving a red cape at 1 or 10 million bulls, all quite happy to gore him to death. In his concurring opinion in the just decided Dobbs abortion case (which reversed the 1973 Roe case), Thomas suggested that other precedents should be reversed including the 1965 Griswold case which struck down a Connecticut law forbidding the sale of contraceptives and the 2015 Obergefell case which declared a constitutional right to same sex marriage.
Some of the leading “bulls” in this case were the Democratic members of the House of Representatives who just passed legislation known as the Right to Contraception Act. That bill not only protects the right to purchase contraceptives, which was the issue in the Griswold case, but goes considerably further and is virtually certain to die in the Senate.
So what to say about both Clarence Thomas and the Democratic members of the House of Representatives? Borrowing from Shakespeare, it might be written: “This is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” There is no chance that the contraceptive debate is any longer viable so efforts to take away or guarantee access is frivolous and just a useful ploy for the midterm elections.
The contraceptive genie is out of the bottle, never to return. One can buy the “morning after” pill on Amazon for less than $10, no prescription needed with packages of 6 available. Condoms are available at every drugstore and in dispensing machines in bars and gas stations. For gentlemen who are very active sexually, Amazon will sell you 100 condoms for less than $19, in a dizzying variety of styles with guaranteed performance.
The majority opinion, which reversed Roe, took considerable pains to note that the decision applied only to abortion and the rest of the majority had no interest in going down the road where Thomas was headed.
Why the reversal of Roe? It is more than Republican versus Democratic appointees. It really has to do with how “conservatives” view the role of the Court as opposed to “liberals.” The “conservative” view is that the Court exists to explicate rights and powers mentioned in the constitution and its various amendments. It does not exist to create new rights which is the job of legislative bodies. The “liberal” view is that the explicit and implicit values of the Constitution must be applied to present day circumstances. In the “liberal” view, the Constitution implicitly recognized a “right to privacy” leading to the Roe decision.
Both points of views are reasonable and defensible but neither view is conclusive. One of the most interesting things about the Obergefell case is that – at the time it was decided – 36 states and the District of Columbia had already legalized same sex marriage. Hence, the net effect was to create a constitutional right to same sex marriage and force the issue in the remaining 14 states. The “conservative” view was that rules governing marriage had always been a matter of state law and 37 jurisdictions had already approved same sex marriage and the 14 remaining could well do the same without the creation of a new constitutional right nowhere mentioned in the Constitution.
As should be obvious, I am more in tune with the “conservative” view regarding the role of the Supreme Court because I trust the legislative process to be more reliable than the votes of 5 unelected judges with lifetime appointments.
One of the more unfortunate developments regarding the Supreme Court has been the partisan nature of confirmation votes of prospective Justices (51 votes needed if all voting). The last 4 nominees: Justice Neil Gorsuch received 54 votes, Justice Brett Kavanaugh 50 votes, Justice Amy Coney Barrett 52 votes and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson 51 votes. The controversy surrounding Justice Kavanaugh notwithstanding, it is crystal clear that Justices Gorsuch, Barrett and Jackson were eminently qualified by virtue of their schooling and legal careers and should have received virtually unanimous approval.
Compare their treatment to the 98 votes for Justice Antonin Scalia in 1987 (nominated by a Republican President), the 97 votes for Justice Anthony Kennedy in 1988 (Republican President), and the 96 votes for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993 (Democratic President). Today, confirmation hearings are more like bull fights where the opponents try to seriously wound the nominee and, when the television lights are off, opposing Senators take to their Twitter accounts to boast of their efforts. We are the poorer for it.
So who is responsible for the present mess? Currently, a lot of the blame is placed on Senator Mitch McConnell who, as Senate Majority Leader, insured the appointment of then President Trump’s 3 nominees. The truth, however, is that the current mess started when the Democrats were in the majority and then Majority Leader Harry Reid removed the filibuster from the appointment of lower court judges even though he was warned not to do so. The Republicans ‒ when it became their turn ‒ extended that policy to Supreme Court nominees. The value of the “filibuster” (60 votes) in an evenly divided Senate is that a candidate would have to attract a significant number of votes from the minority party and, hence, the nominee would be more acceptable to a wider group of Senators.
They say that it is always darkest before the dawn. If that is the case, we are in for a brilliant sunrise. Unfortunately, given the present hyper-partisan behavior, it is hard to imagine that the sun will ever appear. In fairness, both parties are to blame, but a far greater portion must be assigned to the Republicans where the Trump cancer has metastasized.
Eventually, sooner or later (probably later), the Republican Party will return to the party it once was with a positive and coherent set of positions instead of a party built on resentment and the notion that one is required to oppose what the other fellow is proposing rather than engaging in a discussion about changes.
In the meantime, we can only hope for the brilliant sunrise to come.
On March 6, 1981, Walter Cronkite ended his career as the anchorman for the CBS Evening News with his trademark closing: “And that’s the way it is: March 6, 1981.”
Many younger people will not remember him. Older people certainly remember him. He was the anchorman on the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981. During the 1960s and 1970s he was often cited in polls as the “most trusted man in America.” The CBS Evening News was usually the most watched news show in the 1960s and 1970s.
He started his career as a reporter in World War II. He was, before that word became current, “embedded” with the American forces. He flew bombing missions over Germany, landed on a glider in France and later covered the Nuremberg trials.
On February 27, 1968, he did not end his broadcast with his trademark verbal signature. Instead, just having returned from Vietnam, he ended an hour broadcast with these words: “We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds.… But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.”
These words, coming from Cronkite, may have been the beginning of the end to the Vietnam War which would take another four years and tens of thousands of American and Vietnamese lives. According to his Press Secretary George Christian, President Johnson is reported to have said: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the American people.”
In fact, Johnson had lost the American people well before the broadcast. As early as January 1967, critics of the Vietnam War outnumbered supporters. By August of that year, Johnson’s approval rating on Vietnam had fallen to just 32% in part because “doves” wanted no war “hawks” wanted more war.
On March 12, 1968, two weeks after Cronkite’s broadcast, anti-war candidate Senator Eugene McCarthy shocked the political establishment by winning almost 43% of the vote in the New Hampshire presidential primary. While President Johnson “won” by receiving 48%, it went down as a loss. The pre-election prognostication had placed McCarthy in the 10 to 20% range.
On March 31, just a month after the Cronkite broadcast, Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection.
There are some who will say that Cronkite’s influence was because America was then a simpler place without the tribal jealousies that now exist. But 1968 was not a simple year. In April 1968, Martin Luther King was murdered setting off riots, arson and looting in most of America’s inner cities. In June of 1968, Robert Kennedy was murdered after winning the California primary. In August of 1968, the Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago and the Chicago police waded in to beat thousands of anti-war protesters gathered in Grant Park. An independent Commission later called this a “police riot” and 17 minutes of it was broadcast on national TV with the protesters chanting “the whole world is watching.”
What is true, however, is that Cronkite had a number of advantages which are not currently present. He was the lead anchor on America’s most watched evening show when there were only three shows (CBS, NBC and ABC). There were no cable shows; Twitter did not exist; the poison on the Internet did not exist. Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram were not around. If one wanted to know the news, you tuned to one of the three networks or read your local paper which, in those years, had a following. There was a general consensus that “truth” could be found.
So where are we now? We have a lot of “news” being reported by regular and cable TV and designed to appeal to like-minded listeners. If you want to hear from the “right,” tune in to Fox; from the “left,” tune into MSNBC. If you want to know “the way it is,” good luck.
William Cullen Bryant said that “truth crushed to earth shall rise again.” Today, in many ways, truth has exited the stage. The best example of this is Donald Trump’s continued campaign to claim that the election was stolen from him. Many think that politicians always lie. But, as it turns out, that is not always true.
Former President Bush was giving a talk at his Presidential Library in Houston in the last few weeks. As Maureen Dowd reported in the New York Times he made the “mother of all Freudian slips.” He denounced “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” He quickly corrected himself to say that he was referring to Putin and the Ukraine. But, then, he shook his head and said “Iraq too.” Dowd wrote: “It was a display of conscience and a swerve into the truth in a time when truth seems lost in the mist.”
P. T. Barnum was the 19th Century showman who started what is now known as the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. The saying ‒ “a sucker is born every minute” ‒ is attributed to him although he may not have said it. Today’s showman is Donald Trump who clearly believes that “suckers” are everywhere and he has proven that he can make a great many of them believe in his fantastic lies.
So thinking about this probably accounts for my latest dream. Trump is the ringmaster of the Circus and he is in the center ring wearing a red, not a black, top hat with gold MAGA letters across the front. He is orchestrating all the acts in the Grand Finale when the clown car careens into the main ring and Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, Dr. Oz and a gaggle of other sycophants spill out and are chanting that the election was stolen. Half asleep and restless, I worry that lies, not truth, will prevail until the dream ends perfectly.
Three hungry man eating tigers enter the tent.
The recently leaked opinion of the Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade (1973) has created a firestorm. For those who like the Roe rule, it is the latest indication that Republican judges do not value women’s opinions and proof that the Supreme Court is a political body and not a judicial body. For those who don’t like the Roe rule, it is a blessing 50 years in the making.
Almost all women I know like the Roe rule and think men should butt out. I have one woman friend who is no fan of abortion but, as a high school teacher, saw too many “babies having babies” and those babies were pretty much slated to repeat their mother’s cycle or worse. For her, abortion stopped the bleeding.
This blog is not about the Roe rule. It appears that a majority agree with some form of this rule. Rather, this blog is about what happens when the wrong group creates the rule and the unintended, but nevertheless, bad effects when that occurs.
The politics of abortion are, to say the least, complicated. Abortion has become a litmus test for advancement to the Supreme Court where Republican nominees routinely answer questions from Democratic Senators that Roe v. Wade is settled law. No one would dare to say that Roe is a bad decision even though it clearly is. The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a defender of Roe, was clearly correct when she said that it would’ve been better if the state legislatures had enacted abortion protection rather than have the Supreme Court make the decision.
Why a bad decision? The Roe opinion was written by Justice Harry Blackmun, a Nixon appointee and a former General Counsel to the Mayo Clinic. He decided that the Constitution required a trimester analysis of abortion. Abortion on demand was fine in the first trimester; in the second trimester it would be up to the doctor and the woman; in the third trimester it would be discouraged unless the life of the mother was in peril. One doesn’t have to be a lawyer to understand that the Constitution didn’t dictate such an analysis.
The scholarly analysis of Roe was blistering. The American legal scholar John Hart Ely wrote in a highly cited article in the Yale Law Review the following: “[Roe] is bad because it is bad constitutional law, or rather because it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.”
American constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe of Harvard had similar thoughts. “One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.” Liberal law professors Alan Dershowitz, Cass Sunstein and Kermit Roosevelt agreed.
Edward Lazarus, a former Blackmun clerk, who loved Blackmun like a “grandfather” wrote: “As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible…and, in almost 30 years since Roe’s announcement, no one has ever produced a convincing defense of Roe on its own terms.”
In layman’s terms, the constitutional basis for Roe was as substantial as, say, cotton candy. If Roe was legal dross, it would soon become a driver of political realignment. There never was another Supreme Court decision which occasioned an annual protest march numbering recently a half million people. Single issue anti-abortion Democrats became Republicans and the Democratic Party became the abortion party and the Republican Party became the anti-abortion party.
Joe Biden entered the Senate the same year that Roe was decided. He was decidedly anti-abortion and voted repeatedly on the anti-abortion side including voting for a constitutional amendment to overrule Roe. However, he would never have been the Democratic nominee for President if he had maintained that stance and so he changed. His position became that, while he was opposed to abortion, he did not think it right to impose his personal views on his fellow citizens. He was not alone.
So what to make of all of this?
First, many will say that they don’t care whether Roe was a good decision or not because they are pleased with the result. The real problem is that a substantive law dictated by nine unelected judges can also be undone by nine future unelected judges. If, however, the same law is made by a legislature, it is extremely unlikely that it will be repealed.
Second, it would have been a far better result if the decision had been made by a legislative body rather than an unelected court. Suppose California, New York, Illinois and Maryland had enacted laws protecting abortion. Those objecting to those laws would have a remedy: vote the rascals out. There was no such remedy with respect to the Supreme Court whose nine members have a lifetime appointment.
Third, some will say that is not a good solution because there would be no single federal rule. Welcome to the United States. For example, I am an opponent of the death penalty. I think that the Supreme Court, if so disposed, could have figured out a way to declare the death penalty unconstitutional as violating the “cruel and unusual” punishment provision of the Eighth Amendment. Indeed, unlike Roe, there was a specific provision of the Constitution on which the Court could rely.
One year before Roe, the Supreme Court decided the case of Furman v. Georgia and rejected the claim that the death penalty was “cruel and unusual” (2 Justices arguing for that result) but instead determined that it was being applied in an inappropriate manner. So what happened? Legislatures in the various states “corrected” their death penalty statutes but, a number of years later, efforts began to repeal the death penalty.
The net result today is this: 22 states and the District of Columbia have repealed the death penalty and three others have imposed a moratorium (a total of 26). The remainder (25) have the death penalty. This is the way that the Constitution intended for things to work. In the words of Justice Brandeis written in 1932, the states are described as “laboratories for democracy” and their decisions can pave the way for a national policy. It certainly appears that could be the case with the death penalty as DNA proves that mistakes repeatedly occur.
Fourth, the new decision – if finalized ‒ may not have a profound effect. The reason is that well over half of current abortions are effected by use of the abortion pill. That pill has been approved by the Federal Food and Drug Administration and, in this case, the FDA has the whip hand and the Internet and existing networks of helpers will provide a way for someone to get the pill by mail and remain anonymous.
Finally, I think that Roe was a seriously wrong decision and has had profound negative impacts on American life. It has gone a long way to making our courts “political” bodies instead of judicial bodies, but, even more importantly, it was the waystation leading to today’s toxic tribal politics. However, I am not sure that a reversal is in the best interest of the country.
So today’s Supreme Court, in getting it “right,” may actually undermine the country’s confidence in fair and impartial justice not only with respect to abortion but with respect to all other divisive issues. As much as I would like a shot across the bow of the abortion industry (yes, an industry that, like all industries, has annual national conferences with vendor booths and take home trinkets like mouse pads), it is not worth it. We need peace in this country now not more rancor and bitterness.
Sometimes, the best thing to do is accept the past and move on. As Bret Stephens wrote in his New York Times column a few days ago: “The word ‘conservative’ encompasses many ideas and habits, none more important than prudence. Justices: be prudent.”
For the last number of weeks, I’ve been working on a blog entitled “Meditations on Abortion.” That blog is now on the shelf because both of my editors, one female and one male with different views, have given the draft a decided thumbs down.
And while Easter is now behind us, I received an unexpected gift on Easter Sunday from my college friend, Don Hynes. In the late 1960s, everyone understood the word “hippie.” It is now going out of style but, if you had looked up the word in a picture dictionary, it would’ve been a younger Don.
His career was absolutely unexpected as he became a sought after construction manager for huge building projects. But the “hippie” sensibility was never lost and so he began publishing poetry usually to be sent out on Sunday of each week. Most of the poetry was seasonal in nature, aligning human emotions with the death of winter, the birth of spring, the glory of summer and the slow dying of autumn. I thought him as pantheistic.
But then came, “The Irish Girl” a book length poem that as one reviewer said: “This is magical lyricism of the highest order, not a comma out of place. It doesn’t get better than this.”
And then last Easter Sunday, Don Hynes, sent this poem and, I think, even my non-Christian friends will appreciate it.
The tree that grew on the hills above Jerusalem
was cousin to the juniper growing here
on this rock shelf above the Salish Sea.
Stately furrows, roots like cable,
branches bearing delicate spindles
to capture the rain and light of this spring day.
We cut and shape these trees
as we did that one on Golgotha
those centuries ago,
forming it to a cross
to bear the weight of love.
It is a heavy burden
and one many choose to reject.
I remember that terrible day,
the punishment of the Via Dolorosa.
Here and now there is only
water, light and stone
and the body of forgiveness
taken down from the cross,
placed in the earth
and from the earth risen,
as we may rise
into the sunlit presence
speaking to us softly
in the murmuring voice
of the endless sea.