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. 

We May Rise

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.

In the Roman Catholic Church, one of the most well attended liturgies occurs on Ash Wednesday when observant and semi-observant Catholics get “ashes” in the shape of a cross on their foreheads with the priest saying to each “Remember that thou are dust and to dust thou shall return.” It is a genius sentence as believers will understand that the “dust” at the end is the prelude to eternal life while “non-believers” will acknowledge that there is only dust at the end.

Ash Wednesday begins the 40 days of Lent where believers are encouraged to practice what they preach, to fast and perform other ascetic practices to bring them closer to God, all leading to Easter Sunday and the belief in the resurrection.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which is closely aligned with the Roman Catholic Church and is the predominant church in Ukraine, does not distribute ashes but requires even stricter fasting rules during its Lent which occurs at a slightly different time than that observed in the Western church because it follows the Julian, not the Gregorian, calendar. Nevertheless, the concept of Lent is identical.

On February 24, 2022, four days before Ash Wednesday, Russia invaded Ukraine and the “ashes” it brought arose from the rubble of buildings being bombed, including a maternity hospital. This invasion proved that the past is often the prelude. In 2014, Russia invaded the Crimea which was then, but is no longer, a part of Ukraine. The American response under President Obama and that of the rest of the West to the invasion of the Crimea could only have emboldened Vladimir Putin as it was the equivalent of “Hey, you shouldn’t have done that.”

This time it was different. President Biden has been called “Sleepy Joe.” Unlike Obama, however, he was not asleep at the switch. Indeed, he orchestrated a free world response to this invasion which was both dramatic and unprecedented. The Russian economy is in freefall because of the Western sanctions and its oligarchs are trying to sail their super yachts to safe harbors but are finding none in Europe. Putin’s miscalculation has effectively organized the “free” world in ways he never expected. Putin wanted Ukraine to back off from NATO but now has both Finland and Sweden talking about joining. 

But there are always dissenters. A small minority of the American left, fixated on American misdeeds, has actually justified the Putin invasion by stating that it is the end result of America encouraging Ukraine to be a part of the West which is an affront to Putin.

If one scores those on the left for their comments, they do not hold a candle to the drivel on the right. Former President Trump said: “I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘this is genius.’  Putin declared a big portion of the Ukraine … as independent.  Oh, that’s wonderful.” Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson is in the truly embarrassing position of having his comments replayed on Putin-controlled Russian TV. Republicans in Congress have not been silent. Representative Madison Cawthorn referred to President Zelensky as a “thug” while many people are comparing him to Winston Churchill rallying the British people during the Blitz.  Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who many say is the queen of “crazies,” said that the war was created by President Biden because he is “weak.”

John Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and international relations scholar who is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Chicago.  He belongs to the realist school of thought and has been described as the most influential realist of his generation. He predicted that the encouragement of Ukraine to join the EU and apply to NATO would result in the current mess as Russia would be forced to protect its flanks. In Mearsheimer’s view, “great” powers will always lord it over the lesser ones which they deem to be in their orbit. Hence, China and Taiwan, the United States and South America, Russia and Ukraine. In a phrase, “might makes right.” That is the way it is, always has been and always will be.

The essential problem with this view is that it equates power with proper behavior as if there were no difference. While Russia may not like a pro-western Ukraine, who says that Russia has any right to say anything about it? Russia may not like a free Hungary or a free Czechoslovakia or a free Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia but those countries surely don’t cotton to Russia either. The Hungarians saw Russian tanks in Budapest in 1956. The Czechs saw Russian tanks in Prague in 1968. The Baltic republics are only 30 years away from when the Soviet Union controlled their lives. These countries all joined NATO as soon as they could and the reason was this:  they had suffered plenty and they wanted to keep the Russians from returning.

The whole notion of “great” powers assumes that there are one or two or three “great” powers and the surrounding states are like pawns on a chessboard. However, as students of chess know, a pawn can sometimes checkmate a king. That is the story of Lech Walesa and the Solidarity Union movement in Poland. Started in 1980 at the Vladimir Lenin shipyard at Gdańsk, it led to semi-free elections in 1989 and Walesa was elected President of a now free Poland in 1990. This time around, the Russians did not send tanks but depended on their government allies in Warsaw. Between 1980 and 1989, Solidarity was outlawed under martial law, Walesa was imprisoned but nothing made a difference. Solidarity survived with the explicit help of a Polish Pope and the clandestine help of western intelligence agencies and was the first to sound the death knell of the Soviet Union.

So how will Ukraine end? Presumably, the vastly superior Russian army will “win” and President Zelensky may be executed. But if he is executed, the fight will have only just begun as he has become the Winston Churchill/Lech Walesa of his country. The Russians can say all they want about how Ukraine is part of Russia but Ukraine has always resisted. Stalin detested the Ukrainian farmers who did not reach their quota of crops when his 5 Year Plan, depending on collective farms, proved a bust. Solution: order grain out of Ukraine and let at least 4,000,000 Ukrainians starve to death. The Ukrainians call this genocide Holodomor (Death By Hunger) and it is commemorated on Holodomor Memorial Day, the 4th Saturday of November, with a minute of silence at 4 PM with flags at half-mast. Ukrainians have never forgotten.

Hopefully, we have learned a few things out of this debacle. First, there is a great danger if we only believe that “might makes right.” Second, while any country has to be prudent in responding to such actions as are now occurring in Ukraine, there are any number of actions in our financially interconnected world that can make an important difference. And, in this case, they already have. Third, freedom is an aphrodisiac for the human soul. Once loosed, it cannot be contained.

Ukraine knows freedom and how to fight for it.  In 2014, months of popular protests swept pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych from office when he reneged on his promise to sign long anticipated association and trade agreements with the European Union. Instead he decided to expand ties with Russia. In the end, Yanukovych scurried home to Moscow in order to avoid a slew of criminal charges. This is known as the Maidan Revolution (Revolution of Dignity) and is featured in a documentary entitled Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom now streaming on Netflix.

There is a reason that the “free world” will always triumph over the authoritarian world. Neither Russia nor China has an immigration problem since people are not trying to get in but, rather, trying to get out.

Russia has given the world majestic music and wonderful literature and poetry. Putin’s Russia has given the world nothing but war (Syria, now Ukraine) and has allowed him to enrich himself and his oligarch buddies. The “great” power, Russia, is, in the late John McCain’s words, “A gas station run by a mafia that is masquerading as a country.”

So, in this season of Lent, we can only pray that the present mess ends well and that Ukraine survives without mounds of ashes.

In college I came to appreciate a few things. First, to have a profound respect for the life of the mind; second, try to live a meaningful life; third, to love college football. Since I went to Notre Dame, football was in the DNA of the place and it was great fun to watch with the dueling mascots, colorful team uniforms, cheerleaders, marching bands, tailgate parties, the fight songs after every score and beer fueled student sections willing a home team victory. The NFL, try as it may, can never replicate the pageantry of a college football game.

Joan Didion once wrote: “time passes, memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember.” While this is often the case, I have one football memory that has never “faded,” “adjusted” or “conformed” because it really happened.

My classmate and friend Dave Martin was a starting linebacker on the 1966 Notre Dame National Championship team. The Southern California game, Notre Dame’s most heated rivalry, was being played on Thanksgiving weekend in the Los Angeles Coliseum. I was listening to the radio report of the game (the game was not on TV because, the week before, #1 Notre Dame had played #2 Michigan State to a nationally televised 10-10 tie in East Lansing, Michigan and, in those days, a team only appeared on national TV once a year during the regular season). Then, I heard the announcer say that the ball has been intercepted by Dave Martin and that he has returned it for a touchdown. And when I heard that, I started screaming at the radio, to myself and to an empty room: “I know that guy!” Indescribable joy, as if I, not Dave, had scored the touchdown.

So what happens when a game that you love is turned upside down?  Because that is exactly what has happened.

William F. Tate, IV was hired in 2021 to be President of Louisiana State University (LSU). He received an employment contract of $725,000 a year plus a housing and car allowance totaling $50,000. He is responsible for multiple campuses (total of 8), a law school, a medical school, a veterinary school and the flagship campus in Baton Rouge. LSU faculty and staff number almost 5,000 and the student population is over 34,000.

Also in 2021, Brian Kelly was hired as head football coach at LSU and he is receiving a base salary of $9 million plus “bonuses” of at least $1 million per year (a “longevity” bonus of $500,000 each July and another $500,000 if LSU plays in a bowl game, a near certainty). He is also receiving car allowances ($24K a year) and an interest free housing loan up to $1.2 million.

The president of Michigan State University makes $720,000 a year. He is responsible for 13,000 faculty and staff employees and 50,000 students.

Mel Tucker, the successful second year coach of the Michigan State football team, was just rewarded with a $9.5 million a year contract for the next 10 years. Like the coach at LSU, he is probably responsible for the supervision of about 100 student athletes and maybe 200 support staff.

The 10th highest paid college football coach in 2021 was Kirby Smart of Georgia who made slightly more than $7 million with a bonus of not less than $850,000, which he undoubtedly collected when his team won the national title a few weeks ago. It’s almost a sure thing that Kirby’s salary next year will approach the $10 million level.  The president of the University of Georgia which educates 30,000 students makes less than 10% of Coach Smart’s salary.

The University of Southern California just awarded a $10 million a year contract to its new football coach, Lincoln Riley who, until a few weeks ago, was the football coach at the University of Oklahoma. Riley’s “package,” according to published articles, includes a $6 million home in Los Angeles and a private jet for his family’s use. The Southern California Athletic Department tweeted “we got our man” but it surely seems that their “man” also got them.

The top 10 college coaches make more money than all but three of the NFL coaches and the highest paid college coaches when all “perks” and “bonuses” are counted (Nike, Under Armor, Aflac commercials) likely make more than any NFL coach.  You have to give it to the lawyer who coined the term “longevity bonus” to award someone $500K per year when he actually honors his 10 year contract.

How do we get to the state of affairs where the football team is more important than the university’s mission? It was a long time coming but may have been jump started in 1991 when NBC entered into a contract with Notre Dame to broadcast all of the Fighting Irish home games. The college football world was stunned by this contract which has now been extended until 2025. And then the arms race began. Now we have a Big 10 television network, the SEC television network, and repeated reconfigurations of teams and conferences in order to enhance television coverage. As the money rolled in, the first pig at the trough was the football coach who argued that his enterprise was reaping untold dollars for the school. In most cases, the school acquiesced. Oddly enough, Notre Dame ‒ which may have started it all ‒ was “only” paying Coach Kelly a little less than $2 million a year which he parlayed into $10 million a year at LSU.

In 1996, teams played a 10 game regular season schedule and there were a total of 8 bowl games in Division 1 football.  In 2021, teams played 12 games in the regular season and there were 43 bowl games.

So is this just an old man reminiscing about the good old days?  Maybe so but I think football has become the tail wagging the university dog and that’s not right.

There is one other thing I know.  On one magical Saturday in November of 1966, Dave Martin and I scored a touchdown against Southern Cal.

In the beginning, the COVID-19 variants were described by their country of origin. There was the Chinese flu, the British variant, the South African variant and the Indian Variant. The World Health Organization (WHO) decided that the use of country names to describe the variants encouraged discrimination particularly against Asian people so it decreed that the variance should follow letters of the Greek alphabet. Apparently, WHO was not concerned that some looney tune would then target Greeks.

Now that the pandemic has become endemic and the variants have been pretty much conquered by the developed vaccines and the world is returning to normal, it’s time to retire the Greek alphabet.

There are 32 letters in the Greek alphabet but, before they are retired, we should use most of them. That job has been pretty much completed by Nate Odenkirk and Bob Odenkirk (of Better Call Saul fame) who published the following article in the January 21, 2022 edition of The New Yorker. The article was entitled “COVID’s Lesser Variants” and appears below.

Enjoy!

COVID’s Lesser Variants

There are ten Greek letters between delta and omicron—and ten corresponding Covid variants we’ve not heard much about. That’s because they spread less easily; in fact, after much study, scientists have determined that they are transmitted only in what might be characterized as very rare scenarios.

Between the Delta and Omicron variants, there is . . .

Epsilon: Transmissible through podcasts. Sound scary? It’s not. Take into account that you have to listen to an entire podcast, beginning to end, in one go, including commercials, paying attention the whole time. Very rare.

Zeta: Spread through the sharing of a McRib sandwich. Only the Filet-O-Fish sub-variant is of less concern. The C.D.C. has partnered with dedicated contact tracers at mcriblocator.com to ceaselessly flag the isolated outbreaks via pressed-pork sandwiches. Cannot be spread through fries. Relax.

Eta: Passed via the sharing of an iPhone charger, but only when the owner of the charger has less battery power than the borrower. Epidemiologists have not recorded a single instance of such selflessness in the United States.

Theta: Quite unique, the theta variant spreads via quicksand. Spreads slowly, though the sand is quick! If you have to have two people in quicksand, one with covid, neither with a mask, and both sinking, together . . . it’s hard to say who gave it to whom. But then again they have a bigger problem to worry about.

Iota: Kazoo. Specifically, the sharing of a kazoo. Friends are advised not to share one or play one in front of each other if they want to remain “Iota safe,” or simply remain “friends.”

Kappa: A truly odd evolutionary mutation, Kappa spreads through the re-dipping of a strawberry in a chocolate fountain, followed by the reusing of the toothpick, and then the licking of one’s fingers, and then, finally, the licking of the fingers of the Kappa-infected subject. Nobody does this. Well, not adults, not if they have boundaries.

Lambda: Contracted only by attending a “Chris Christie for President” rally. This variant has never been found and will never be found. Sorry, champ.

Mu: Spread via the burping of the entire national anthem by an infected individual. Outbreaks linked to tailgating events and frat hazings. Keep one hand over your heart, and two masks over your mouth.

Nu: Transmissible only by the shared wearing of a bald cap in an evening of light comic sketches. Improvisers beware!

Xi: Spread by the sharing of pertinent knowledge gained from a liberal-arts degree. The key word is “pertinent.” Rarest variant by far—practically inconceivable. ♦