The population of the City of Baltimore has been in decline for the last 70 years. In 1950, over 975,000 people lived in the city limits. Now the city population is 575, 000. Currently, the per capita murder rate is twice that of the City of Chicago. The city population is poor and getting poorer and over 20% live below the poverty level.

In 1950, Bethlehem Steel employed over 40,000 people at its Sparrows Point plant and many of the 40,000 were Baltimore city residents earning steel worker union pay. Today there is no Sparrows Point Steel plant and, indeed, there is no longer a company known as Bethlehem Steel. Union wages are mostly a fond memory.

Murders have now exceeded 300 in each of the last seven years. Fewer people are coming into the city because of the crime. The property tax rate in Baltimore is twice that of the surrounding counties and the local school system ‒ with the exception of a few excellent elementary and high schools ‒ is pretty much a mess despite record funding levels. The public schools are avoided by anybody with any means which translates into a student body that is poor and poorer, making the job of teachers hard and harder.

Baltimore, however, is not without considerable attractions. Its once industrial waterfront is now occupied by expensive and attractive housing. The newest waterfront entry is called Port Covington where the Under Armor headquarters will be located along with extensive housing and retail locations.

Its port is bustling as it is the East Coast port which is closest to the Midwest markets. And the port jobs are high paying union jobs although certainly not as many as Bethlehem Steel once provided.

It has world-class health facilities including Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland.

For a small city (31st largest in the United States), it has exceptional cultural and museum facilities and a breathtakingly good Symphony.

Its professional sports teams (Orioles and Ravens) play in downtown state of the art facilities located within a stone’s throw of the dazzling Inner Harbor. It hosts the Preakness, the second jewel of the Triple Crown, and the aging Pimlico track is undergoing a major redevelopment which should rival the finest tracks in the country and promises to stabilize and, hopefully improve, the surrounding area. All these sports facilities have been almost entirely paid for by the State of Maryland in recognition of the importance of the city.

And, if you are a foodie, Baltimore is your kind of town. 

But the everyday story is about the number of murders. In April 2015, a man named Freddie Gray was arrested and placed in a paddy wagon and upon arrival at its destination, Gray was dead. Riots ensued and State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby calmed the waters by indicting six policemen as being responsible for Gray’s death. 

Mosby was lionized for her decision which she played to the hilt but, in fact, it was one awful decision. All six policemen were acquitted or the charges against them were dropped. In 2014, there were 40,000 arrests but that number plummeted to about 18,000 in 2017. And the murders took off from 211 in 2014 to well over 300 for the last 7 years.

As David Simon, the creator of the acclaimed TV show, The Wire, a former police reporter and city resident observed:  “So officers figured it out: ‘I can go to jail for making the wrong arrest, so I’m not getting out of my car to clear a corner’ and that’s exactly what happened post-Freddie Gray.”

Bad decisions are in Mosby’s DNA. In 2020, she decided not to prosecute low level offenses such as drug possession, prostitution, and public defecation. She has since bragged that violent crimes decreased because of this decision (except, oops, the increases in homicides, carjackings, bank robberies and assaults) and defended it as being the “progressive” position. This should be of small solace to the poor black neighborhoods where drug possession and drug sales are an everyday occurrence and where moms keep their children safe inside and to local shopkeepers who have to put up with the mess. Drug overdose deaths have spiked so sharply under her new policies that a specific Federal initiative was announced in October 2021 to address Baltimore’s “overdose” problem.

So what to make of Baltimore? The braying voices of talk radio claim that it is a “hellhole.” The most “pro-city” columnist in The Baltimore Sun weakly replies that it is not really a “hellhole” but it’s also not a “model city.” My friend Lorna Collins may have hit the nail on the head when she said that the city was “rudderless.” The last mayor is still in prison; the current mayor is a deer in the headlights. Competent political leadership has been AWOL for the last 10 years.

It seems clear that the current political leadership is not up to the task. Besides Marilyn Mosby, the President of the City Council is her husband and their political ally is the current mayor who has just announced his “five-year plan” to reduce the violence which, like all “five year” plans, is very likely to amount to a whole lot of nothing. At this point, one has to look to other places for relief.

But, then, amidst all the gloom and doom, there are points of light. The first President Bush was pretty roundly mocked when he called for a “Thousand Points of Light” to address problems in the country. The criticism was that “volunteer” and charitable activities were not a realistic substitute for government programs. Whatever the value of that criticism, the American experience has shown that volunteer and charitable activities are extremely important. Each of these activities can be a light shining in the darkness.

One of the first places to start is education. Public education has not fulfilled its promise in many large metropolitan areas with an impoverished population, including Baltimore. Experimentation is necessary. So, for example, Michael Bloomberg has just pledged $750 million for the charter school movement.

The intersection of 22nd St. and Greenmount Ave. is not the most desirable place to live in Baltimore. However, it is the site of Mother Seton Academy, a tuition free coed middle school for grades 6 through 8. It is supported by private donations, the most significant having been made by Renee and Steve Biscotti, the owner of the Baltimore Ravens. Students wear uniforms with the boys wearing ties, all under the watchful eye of Principal Sr. Peggy Juskelis, SSND. They are taught to look at adults directly, to extend their hands for handshakes and introduce themselves. They are successful academically and are admitted to excellent high schools.

So you say “that’s great, but it’s really a drop in the bucket” and, indeed, it is. But it is also a point of light in a dark place and for the students at Mother Seton Academy, a chance at a rewarding and purposeful life.

And Mother Seton is not the only point of light. A remarkable priest, Father William “Bill” Watters, S.J., started a middle school for boys known as Loyola Academy, founded Cristo Rey Jesuit High School and started a pre-school known as the Loyola Early Learning Center, all three in the city limits.

Last Sunday’s paper announced a $75 million program from Catholic Charities to assist the city. Those efforts will include:

• An inter-generational center in West Baltimore to support children, adults and seniors, and help 3 to 5 year olds to become ready for school and provide workforce development and behavioral health support.

• Programs for intellectually and developmentally disabled people.

• The redevelopment of the Cherry Hill Town Center in South Baltimore with a full 4,400 square-foot facility to include the first full service bank in the area, a hub for local entrepreneurs and for fresh food purveyors.

In the northern hemisphere, we are fast approaching the time when the days are darkest and there is little light. A Leonard Cohen lyric reads “there is a crack in everything and that’s how the light gets in.” In Baltimore and in many other places, we need to celebrate the lights amongst us, for “[t]he light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

The movie “Goodbye, Columbus” was released in 1969 starring Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw. Its name was derived from Ali MacGraw’s film brother who was disconsolate because his glory days as a basketball star at Ohio State were over.

While the title “Goodbye, Columbus” referred to the brother’s time at Ohio State located in Columbus Ohio, many now want to say “Goodbye” to Christopher Columbus because of the treatment of indigenous people he encountered.

In the United States, at least 25 counties, cities and towns have the name Columbus or Columbia. Columbus is the capital of Ohio; Columbia is the capital of South Carolina; and the capital of the nation is Washington, District of Columbia. Since 1968, Columbus Day has been a federal holiday, celebrated on the second Monday in October which also happens to be Canadian Thanksgiving Day. 

The first Columbus Day celebration took place on October 12, 1792 when the Columbian Order of New York held an event to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Columbus’ Landing. If the Declaration of Columbus Day as a federal holiday in 1968 was the high water mark for honoring Christopher Columbus, his reputation has taken a nosedive in the last 20 years because of his treatment of indigenous people.

150 years ago, the opposition to Columbus Day came from anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic nativists, including the Ku Klux Klan, who sought to eliminate the celebration because of its association with immigrants from Catholic countries and with the American Catholic fraternal organization, the Knights of Columbus.

The present objection to Columbus Day may be more effective than the earlier objection.  Just this month, President Biden proclaimed that October 11^th would be recognized as Indigenous Peoples’ Day by the federal government.  In many parts of the country Columbus Day has been refashioned into Indigenous People Day. Even Columbus, Ohio now celebrates Columbus Day not as a tribute to Columbus but as a tribute to veterans. Columbus’ encounters with indigenous people is more nuanced than is currently depicted. The Taino tribe was friendly and non-threatening but the Carib tribe was threatening and aggressive and, according to the Tainos, practiced cannibalism against their enemies, a position that Columbus came to believe. Nevertheless, both were enslaved by the Spanish under Columbus.

In July 2020, during the George Floyd protests, the statue of Christopher Columbus in the Little Italy section of Baltimore was pulled down and rolled into the harbor. That statue had been dedicated in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan. The most “woke” member of the Baltimore City Council, Ryan Dorsey, tweeted “Bye.” The Baltimore Sun, a pale shadow of a once fine newspaper, opined that Columbus did not really discover America since he did not land on the mainland. The Sun has now been taken over by Alden Capital which will likely result in layoffs and, hopefully, one of the first to go is the moron who wrote that sentence.

Five of the first seven presidents of the United States owned slaves during their presidency and that was 300 years after Columbus had enslaved indigenous people. Most of these presidents were opposed to slavery but not so opposed that they gave up their slaves. Indeed, Jefferson, who had 600 slaves, bedded Sally Hemmings who produced a number of children who did not have his surname.

So what to make of the slave makers and slave owners? In large part, they were a product of their times where slavery was normal. At the same time, most instinctively knew that slavery was wrong.

The real issue is how do we treat historical figures who engaged in lamentable behavior but, at the same time, made significant contributions.

Columbus’ voyages were remarkable as were the voyages of another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, for whom the newly discovered continents were named. Imagine the fortitude necessary to sail 3,000 miles over open ocean without nautical charts, much less GPS, in the hope of finding land. Thomas Jefferson not only gave us the Declaration of Independence but founded the University of Virginia and, as President, negotiated the Louisiana Purchase which expanded the new nation westward and included approximately a third of the present country.

There is no reason that we cannot celebrate both Columbus and Indigenous People. Recently, the town of Franklin, Tennessee erected a “March to Freedom” memorial honoring the black enslaved men who joined The United States Colored Troops, a segregated unit of the Union Army, which fought with the Union in the Civil War. The town already had a memorial to Confederate soldiers which could not be taken down because of ownership issues and provisions of state law. Hence, those who objected to the Confederate soldier monument found a provocative way to even the playing field with a monument directly across the street from the Confederate monument.

There is no question that the indigenous people in the New Continent got the short end of the stick, time after time.  The American Indians were either eradicated or forced into reservations which always contained the least desirable land.  At the same time hundreds of thousands of European immigrants – “yearning to be free” – passed the Statue of Liberty and populated the country.

If you are a descendant of an American Indian you will never believe that what happened was “right” because it wasn’t. If, however, you are a descendant of immigrants you are probably grateful for the life you’ve been given. That doesn’t mean that you cannot recognize injustice but it does mean that you are not personally responsible and feeling guilt helps no one. Trying to eradicate the present day consequences of the injustices is more important than anything.

Unfortunately, the demand to admit “guilt” – even when you are not guilty ‒ occurs too often. Condolezza Rice, the first black female Secretary of State, was recently a guest on The View. She was asked about the critical race theory debate and she said: “One of the worries that I have about the way we’re talking about race…[is that somehow] white people have to feel guilty for everything that happened in the past.” In order for black kids to be empowered, you “don’t have to make white kids feel bad for being white.”

The criticism of Rice’s comments was fierce and she was accused of being a “soldier for white supremacy.” This should be news to Ms. Rice who herself was a victim of segregated schools as a child. The current “progressive” position seems to be that whites have to feel guilty even if they are not guilty because, somewhere in the distant past, some ancestor may have been guilty. This is nonsense of the highest order. Implied guilt is not productive as argued by John McWhorter in his column in the New York Times entitled “The Former Secretary of State is Right About the Inutility of White Guilt” (see reprinted article below).

This country’s founding document, The Constitution, began by stating that its goal was to form a “more perfect union.” That is still a work in progress. So as we go forward, we ‒ each in our own way ‒ need to work for the future while cognizant of the past. The future, however, is more important than assigning blame for the past.

Columbus and Jefferson – warts and all ‒ achieved remarkable things. Their sins should not be a cause for a failure to recognize their achievements.

Jefferson deserves the Jefferson Memorial overlooking the Tidal Basin in the nation’s capital and Columbus deserves his day.

October 29, 2021 by: John McWhorter

The Former Secretary of State is Right About the Inutility of White Guilt

Opinion polls over the years have indicated that Americans pretty much loathe Congress but almost always like their Congressman. My Congressman is John Sarbanes (Democrat, 3rd District, Maryland). Sarbanes has an impressive educational background. After graduating from an elite Baltimore prep school, he received his undergraduate degree from Princeton and his law degree from Harvard.

His educational pedigree is, however, no match for his political pedigree. He is the eldest son of Paul Sarbanes who was a United States Senator from Maryland for 30 years (1977–2007). The Senator’s most notable legislative accomplishment was the Sarbanes – Oxley Act of 2002 which reformed corporate accounting rules after the Enron, Tyco, WorldCom and similar scandals. These scandals resulted in investors losing billions of dollars when the stock prices of companies collapsed in spite of having received “clean bills of health” from public accounting firms.

Representative Sarbanes is the lead sponsor of House Bill 1 (For The People Act) now pending in Congress. Recently, it passed the House of Representatives on an almost straight party line vote of 220-210 but has been scuttled in the Senate by Republican opposition. Depending on your point of view, House Bill 1 is either a Democratic power grab seeking to overrule state voting laws or a necessary antidote to Republicans denying people the right to vote. However, the provision which most interests me is the proposal to set up non-partisan gerrymandering committees in each state.

House Bill 1 provides that there will be independent commissions in each state to design congressional districts. The commissions will consist of five Democrats, five Republicans and five Independents and the majority vote will prevail but only if at least one Democrat, one Republican and one Independent is in that majority. So, if the Democrats or the Republicans refused to vote with the majority, the vote would not be effective. I think that the majority vote should be just that and that one party or the other should not have a veto power.

Indeed, I think House Bill 1 is a repeat of the fundamental problem with our current redistricting process where incumbent politicians select their voters rather than the other way around. Currently 90% of the seats in the House of Representatives are “safe” for incumbents. This certainly contributes to the partisan nonsense that we now witness in Congress.

The term “gerrymandering” is derived from Elbridge Gerry who approved a redistricting plan for a state senate district in Massachusetts which, critics said, resembled a salamander, a mythological dragon like monster. Hence, the word:  “Gerry Mander.”

Gerrymandering is fairly easy to understand but it has been brought to new levels by the equivalent of google political maps. Basically, partisans will slice and dice voting precincts so that a Congressional district is loaded up with one party or another. The idea is that Bozo the Clown can be elected if he is of the correct party. And, the thing is that it works. Twenty years ago, Maryland had 4 Republicans and 4 Democrats in the House of Representatives. It now has seven Democratic Congressmen and one Republican.

Maryland is a blue state with Democratic registration being approximately 1.5 million voters, Republican voters amounting to 850,000 and Independents being almost 400,000. A non-partisan drawing of maps would give four Congressional districts to the Democrats, two to the Republicans and two would be tossups.

Recent polls indicate that 65% of all voters ‒ Democrats, Republicans and Independents ‒ remain opposed to partisan gerrymandering. The only real opposition comes from partisans and incumbent members of the House of Representatives who are more concerned with keeping their jobs than agreeing to fair maps which keep neighborhoods and communities of interest together.

The recent Supreme Court decision, Rucho v. Common Cause (North Carolina Republican gerrymandering) and the companion case of Lamone v. Benisek (Maryland Democratic gerrymandering) held the federal courts were not the proper forums in partisan gerrymandering cases since such gerrymandering was a “political question” which could not be resolved by the Judiciary.

According to the New Republic, “America’s Most Gerrymandered District” is ‒ good gosh, the one I’m sitting in ‒ that of Congressman John (For The People) Sarbanes’ Maryland District 3.  An official Maryland website indicates that District 3 “wanders” through Montgomery, Howard, Anne Arundel and Baltimore County and also Baltimore City. I suppose that the “wandering” is one way to describe it. The better way is to look at it.

Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Maryland geography will immediately see that this district makes no sense. At more than one point the various disparate parts are joined together by a single block. The tony liberal precincts of Montgomery County have absolutely nothing to do with Baltimore City hardscrabble precincts except, of course, they both vote Democratic.

Congressman Sarbanes has received in excess of 69% of the vote in the last two congressional elections. He has an absolutely “safe” district as do many Republicans in Texas or Ohio. This is the real problem with “gerrymandering.” A Democrat or Republican with a “safe” district has absolutely no incentive to “come to the middle.” He or she can remain comfortably on the left or on the right and be reelected.

I spent over 40 years working in the Maryland General Assembly. In just four of those years, right after the decennial census, you would see Maryland’s 8 congressmen / women ‒ being ferried by their drivers from their offices in Washington to Annapolis ‒ in order to “help out” with the new Congressional maps. Indeed, Congressman Sarbanes was intimately involved in creating current District 3. I think it is fair to say current District 3 helped Congressman Sarbanes a great deal but the “people” very little.

So is there a cure? It occurs to me that the solution is fairly simple.

First, create an Independent Redistricting Commission composed of 15 voters who are “registered” Independent. Republicans or Democrats need not apply.

Second, the maps drawn by the Independent Redistricting Commission may not be overruled unless the state legislature musters 75% of its members for a substitute.

Third, the Independent Redistricting Commission shall do its best to create compact districts that do not “wander” around the state and which are consistent with constitutional and statutory requirements.

Finally, incumbent congresspersons will be invited to testify before the Commission but they shall be the last witnesses, not the first as they are now.

So will any of this make a difference? Just imagine if 50 congressional seats were no longer “safe” but tossups so that candidates had to appeal to both Democrats and Republicans. Congress is now almost evenly split between Republicans and Democrats but the current Republicans and Democrats are in “safe” seats so they have no incentive to compromise but only to toe the company line. If 50 seats are no longer strictly partisan but held by people who appealed to both Democrats and Republicans, it would completely change the current dynamic and make all the difference. Dedicated partisans will not like this change but 99% of the “people” would.

So, do I hate Congress but like my Congressman? Hate is an awfully strong word. Let’s just say that I am extremely disappointed by Congress and its failure to work “for the people.” As for Congressman Sarbanes, he is a member of our disappointing Congress and, while he can file legislation saying it is “For The People,” his actual behavior reveals that may not be the case.

The Topps Company, Inc. is a distributor of baseball cards originally packaged with gum as well as cards in other sports. For all practical purposes, Topps has enjoyed a monopoly on baseball cards for the last 50 years. And the business of baseball cards is not insignificant. For example, a Topps 1955 rookie card in mint condition featuring Roberto Clemente can be had on eBay for a little over $21,000.

But the Clemente card is going for chicken feed. The Topps 1952 rookie card for Mickey Mantle was auctioned this year for $5.2 million and the rarest of baseball cards (Honus Wagner from 1910 and originally free with a pack of cigarettes) was just auctioned for $6.6 million.

Which brings us to the business of saints. The Roman Catholic Church (and closely related churches like the Greek and the Russian Orthodox Church and the High Anglicans) have a monopoly on the creation of “saints.” The reason for this is that the other religions don’t really have any interest in recognizing “saints” because most of them believe that any faithful person who has died is already a “saint.” Indeed, most Protestant religions believe that one speaks directly to God and the Catholic notion that one approaches God through a patron is a theological non-starter and was one reason for the Reformation.

So, for example, you don’t find any Methodist Church named after a “saint” unless it’s a Saint from the New Testament like Peter, Paul, Mark, John or Stephen. Not so with Catholic institutions, all of which have religious names. In my area, we have a number of Catholic hospitals (Saint Joseph’s, Good Samaritan, Mercy, and Saint Agnes) as well as any number of Catholic parishes and schools named after Catholic “saints.”

It seems to me that Protestants miss out by not recognizing saints. Catholics, for instance, have saints for absolutely everything (and I mean everything to the point that one says “you’ve got to be kidding” but it turns out you’re not as there is even a patron saint for skiers and snowboarders, St. Bernard of Montjoux who spent decades in the Alps as a missionary). There is a Saint to pray to when you’re missing things (Saint Anthony) or for lost causes (Saint Jude). There are patron saints for professions (Saint Thomas More for lawyers, St. Luke for doctors, St. Thomas Aquinas for academics), for animals (Saint Francis of Assisi), for diseases of the throat (Saint Blaise), for travelers (St. Christopher), for immigrants (Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini) and for musicians (Saint Cecilia). And then there is the Virgin Mary who is not a saint but someone far greater and to whom you pray for her to intercede for you with God for just about anything.

The Virgin Mary, in Catholic tradition, has appeared mostly to children. There is Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima, and Our Lady of Guadalupe. It seems that the Virgin Mary has appeared repeatedly throughout the world. And then there is the “Virgin of the Poor,” who appeared in 1933 in Banneux, Belgium to teenager Mariette Beco with a message. The Virgin of Banneux told Mariette that she had come to alleviate the suffering of the poor and broken-spirited. This was the first time that the Blessed Mother had appeared on behalf of the poor. 

When 27 year old Father Al Schwartz reached South Korea in December of 1957, he did not speak the native language and he encountered a dystopian society that was real, not imagined. “It looked like the end of the world. Everywhere I looked I could see squalor, shacks, shanties, slums and refugees…” He was devoted to the Virgin of the Poor and had both visited Banneux and been ordained a priest a few months earlier. He had dreamed of being a foreign missionary since he was a young boy.

The fighting in the Korean War had ended on July 27, 1953 but it was among the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, with approximately 3 million war fatalities and a larger proportional civilian death toll than World War II. Virtually all of Korea’s major cities had been destroyed. There were at least 100,000 orphans in South Korea.

Father Al was bound by train for Busan, an impoverished town far south of Seoul. At one of the station stops, ten or so boys raced onto a train car and he recounted them as “scurrying under the seats and reaching between the legs of passengers for discarded pop bottles, scraps of food and cigarette butts. They pushed food hungrily down their mouths…..The boys were uniformly filthy and in rags, and their eyes burned with a fierce, scared, hunted-animal expression. When the conductor appeared in the doorway the boys scampered out of the car in near-panic carrying their spoils with them.”

The boys on the train had been one thing but what he found in Busan ultimately determined the course of his life. A few days after arriving he walked with a guide across a bridge to the island of Yeongdo into hundreds of mountainside hovels where there was tuberculosis, a scarcity of food, despair and illnesses brought on by the frigid winds blowing off the Sea of Japan. Fresh air was overwhelmed by the smell of disease, human waste and decaying garbage. He entered one 12’ by 6’ structure where 12 boys lived subsisting as rag pickers.

Within a year, it appeared that his missionary days were over. Dreadfully sick, he had to return to America to recuperate. While home, he went on an extended retreat to a Trappist Monastery in Virginia where he met a man named Gratian Meyer who owned a direct mail and marketing company. It was the beginning of a non-profit company called Korean Relief, Inc. which became so successful that some American bishops complained to the Vatican that funds were being diverted from their jurisdictions. Father Al had no idea of what he had begun. Entertainers, athletes and celebrities signed on to become sponsors of Korean Relief including Bing Crosby, Roger Staubach, Willie Stargell, Jonas Salk, M.D., Phyllis Diller, Ed McMahon, Mamie Eisenhower and Rose Kennedy.

Father Al had recovered his health and now had the wherewithal to help the “starving and the silent” in Busan and throughout South Korea. He didn’t return to his modest rectory in Busan but instead moved into a one room mud hut that lacked electricity, running water and plumbing but was just like the homes of his destitute parishioners and where they would feel comfortable visiting.

And the money poured in and with it began the construction of free sanitariums, free hospitals to aid the sick; then Boystown and Girlstown to house and educate all the orphans; developmentally disabled facilities and shelters for the homeless. The money kept coming.  And, so too, did the construction of new and better facilities.

But the money would’ve been useless without his creation of an order of nuns known as the Sisters of Mary. The Sisters were the foot soldiers to staff the sanitariums, the hospitals, the orphanages and the other facilities. They too were drawn from Korea’s poor and were tasked with caring for those who were also poor.

It did not end in Korea. It was replicated in the Philippines and then, as Father Al was dying from Lou Gehrig’s disease, it was started again in Mexico. He died in 1992 but the Sisters of Mary, led by Father Al’s chosen designee Korean born Sister Margie Cheong, carried on for the Virgin of the Poor. There are now also free boarding schools for poor children in Guatemala, Brazil, Honduras and Tanzania.

There are three successive stages to becoming a saint in the Catholic Church: the first is Servant of God, the second is Venerable and the third is Blessed. Before being declared a saint, two miracles must be attributed to that person.

In 2015, Father Al became the Venerable Aloysius Schwartz.

Maybe Catholics go overboard when it comes to saints. But then, maybe not. It is important to recognize that there are saints among us.

In 2003, at age 57, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) after experiencing numbness in my face and tingling in my feet and hands. For about 12 years that diagnosis changed my life very little. I would experience tingling and numbness from time to time but very little else. I had what is called “remitting relapsing” MS. For about 2/3 of those with that diagnosis, that would be as far as the disease progresses. However, for about 1/3, the disease will become “secondary progressive” MS, the operative word being “progressive.” Having received an inordinate number of good “breaks” in my life, I missed a good “break” this time.

By 2014, I was walking with a cane which became 2 canes and then a walker. It is a humbling disease. It affects your bowels and bladder, your ability to sleep, your small muscle control and your mental health.  In my case, the worst problem is loss of control of my legs. Simple things, like getting into bed are difficult because my legs don’t work. I need to use my hands to control my legs which are like deadweight. Walking without holding onto something is impossible as my balance is effectively gone. When I stand, my hamstrings and calves ache as if I had just completed a marathon. Steps and putting on long pants are Olympic events.

Even though I can’t move my legs, they move themselves with periodic and uncontrollable spasms, particularly at night when I am trying to sleep. My right leg is particularly recalcitrant as I can’t get my foot off the ground without an orthopedic assist and my right foot is always swollen and numb and either icy cold or fiery hot. And then there is “fatigue” which is constant. If you like to take naps, MS is the disease for you.

So many things that I liked to do (golf, recreational running, boating, sculling, etc.) were now off the table. My default position is now a reclining easy chair with legs up.

But just as you’re starting to feel sorry for yourself, you go to the neurologist’s office and see a 30 year old very upbeat young man who has the same problem and he has a long lifetime ahead.

The world record for the 100 meters is held by Usain Bolt at 9.83 seconds. My record for the 100 meters is 240 seconds. Given my mobility issues, that doesn’t seem so bad until you realize that the world record for a mile (1609 meters) is seventeen seconds less than my 100 meter “record.”

Many of you are probably now saying “Hey, I didn’t RSVP to a pity party.” Fair enough. But I recount this because it is the place from which I think about God.

While the then known world was worshiping multiple gods, the Jewish people gave the world the most significant idea about God in human history, to wit:

1. God exists;
2. There is only one God;
3. There are no other gods;
4. God is transcendent and above earthly things;
5. God created the universe without help and;
6. One’s job on earth is to follow God’s rules.

Christianity and Islam, which are both closely related to Judaism, also embrace the concept of one God and the admonition to follow God’s rules. The great Eastern religions do not recognize a God. Hinduism is not monotheistic, Buddhists are agnostic about a God and Confucianism recognizes no God.

So, what about this Jewish/Christian/Muslim God? For nonbelievers, God is a convenient myth invented by man to explain the origin of existence. For believers, God explains existence. Nonbelievers ask how a merciful God can create a world of such pain and suffering. Believers are thankful for a pathway to be reunited with God in an afterlife.

As to believers, some see the present world as a “vale of tears” to be endured on the way, in Saint Augustine’s words, to the City of God. That City is reached by mitzvahs, good works and a righteous life.  Other believers – like my wife – believe that the present world is a gift from God even with all of its hurts and disappointments.

Believers or nonbelievers ‒ which group is right? Nonbelievers really can’t explain where everything came from (who or what ignited the Big Bang) and believers can’t explain where God came from. In short, no true or pat answer but only matters of unprovable belief or faith.

I am a “Cradle Catholic” as I was baptized at approximately one month of age without my express consent. I earned a Master’s Degree before I ever attended a non-Catholic school. So while I was effectively indoctrinated, that does not mean that I accept everything (why, for instance, cannot women be ordained as priests?). Still, I attend Mass on a regular basis and find serenity and peace in the familiar liturgy.

In our current secular society, religion is often deemed “passé.” The number of churchgoers is in decline not only in this country but throughout the West and the number of non-believers increases each year. But there remains a yearning throughout our secular societies for “meaning.” For thousands of years, that “meaning” was provided by organized religions.

In 1946, Vicktor Frankl, an Auschwitz survivor who lost his wife, mother and brother in the camps, wrote an extraordinarily influential book which was translated into English in 1959 with the title “Man’s Search For Meaning.” His work posited that the search for life’s meaning was the central motivational force for human beings. Frankl’s work was perhaps the most important contribution to the field of psychology in the 20^th Century.

I don’t believe that it is accidental that all major religions have a concept of an afterlife. Indeed, I think that human beings intuitively know that “here” is not all there is. This intuition serves as the basis for religious thinking. I think it would be foolish to ignore the wisdom passed down by past generations.

That is not to say that “faith” comes easily. The commentator David Brooks recently said that ‒ with respect to “faith” ‒ it was good if one had “faith” on three out of every seven days. “Faith” requires a suspension of what we know and experience and the substitution of belief.

I think that Vicktor Frankl’s insight is correct and that man seeks “meaning” in his life’s journey. On one of my “faith” days, this is what I believe but obviously cannot prove.

Human beings have a “divine spark” and seek to be reunited with divinity in the world after death. The world we live in is a wonderful world and, although terribly imperfect, is a way station to a better world. There is a City of God but entrance is conditioned upon laudable behavior.

As a believer, there is one major problem. If God created the universe, why is there such suffering and cruelty? It is not enough to say that it is created by man because a great deal of it has nothing to do with man. Why, for instance, do innocent people suffer and die from starvation, typhoons, earthquakes, malaria and the like? Why would a merciful God allow this to happen?

If I ever get to the City of God, the one question I would ask is the one that the exasperated Desi Arnaz would always demand of Lucy in the old TV show “I Love Lucy.” Imitating his Cuban-American accent, the question would be: “God, you has a lot of ‘ess-plane-ing’ to do.”

The one question that I would never ask is “why me?” I think there are a lot of good answers to that question and I’m pretty sure one of them is “why not?”

For the last 15 years a remarkable black man named Thomas Outlen (Mr. Outlen to us) has cut our grass, cleaned snow and handled landscaping at our house. While college educated, he now operates a modest grass and landscaping business and is sometimes assisted by his 3 sons who are in their 20s and live with their dad.

When the boys were younger, he became disenchanted with their elementary school education and so he homeschooled them. All three were then accepted at the prestigious Baltimore School for the Arts, then on to college to get their degrees. All three (Thomas, Jr. and twins, Neiman and Aaron) now have good jobs but still find time to help their father.

A number of years ago I represented Mr. Outlen in a dispute with his now former wife over his entitlement to ownership in their marital home. His name was not on the title but he alone had made the mortgage payments for 15 years. The trial took the better part of the day and resulted in a judge ruling in his favor, a ruling that was upheld on appeal.

But what I remember about the trial had little to do with the case. During lulls, Mr. Outlen was reading a book by Paul Tillich, a German-American. Tillich was a Christian existentialist theologian and a leading Protestant thinker who immigrated to the United States, taught at the Harvard Divinity School and at the University of Chicago. He may be the most celebrated theologian of the 20th Century. I knew about him in the sense that I recognized his name and may have read one of his books while in college. To say that Paul Tillich is “dense” in his thinking is a massive understatement.

Mr. Outlen has a wry sense of humor. A few years ago two baby foxes were squashed by a passing car on our front street. My wife asked Mr. Outlen if he could dispose of the carcasses. He along with Neiman and Aaron conducted a funeral in the rear of our property and he reported to my wife that they had said a few prayers and had even christened the two baby foxes. Their names: Neiman and Aaron.

I think it is safe to say that Mr. Outlen is the only person in the history of the Baltimore City Circuit Court to have brought Tillich to a trial. Years later, I was kidding Mr. Outlen about reading Tillich during the trial and he then said something that remains with me to this day: “I read people like Tillich to keep my mind straight; otherwise the anger will well up in me.”

Martin Luther King once said: “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” This is one of the favorite sayings of President Obama but, I think, it is probably wrong. Why wrong? Because it assumes, that justice will always prevail when I think that the truth is that it will only prevail if people help it prevail. True justice is not self-executing but is a goal to be attained and, in this world, will probably never be reached. 

Which brings me to Juneteenth, the recently declared federal holiday representing June 19, 1865 when slaves in Galveston, Texas became aware of the Emancipation Proclamation issued two years earlier. They were the last slaves to be set free. For those interested in numerology, the first African slave landed in the Virginia colony in 1619. The last slave received their freedom on 6-19. I don’t know if Juneteenth was the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. I do know that America then began the very long road ‒ with numerous fits, starts, reverses and progress ‒ to a destination where, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal.” We still have not arrived at that destination.

The notion that “all men are created equal” is – contrary to the word of the Declaration – not “self-evident” as the history of mankind reveals. It is, however, a proposition on which the United States was founded and is a proposition that must govern our future.

Hopefully, in that future, Mr. Outlen’s sons, his grandchildren and his great grandchildren will find that equality and be able to release all feelings of anger.

If there was ever a person who was created “equal,” it is Thomas Outlen.

In 2011 a British author, E. L. James, self-published an erotic romance novel entitled Fifty Shades of Grey. Salman Rushdie’s take on the book: “I’ve never read anything so badly written that got published. It made Twilight look like War and Peace.” Maureen Dowd of the New York Times described the book as being written “like a Brontë devoid of talent.”

The reading public didn’t listen. The book topped the best seller list around the world, was translated into 52 languages and set a record in the United Kingdom as the fastest selling paperback of all time. The first book was followed by publication of the second and third volumes, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. By 2017, the trilogy had sold over 150 million copies worldwide. The books are notable for their explicitly erotic scenes including bondage and domination/submission. Predictably, Hollywood produced film adaptations which were thoroughly panned but were box office successes.

In a world where Kim Kardashian has 200 million Instagram followers and where sex always sells, it should be no surprise that the books and movies were smash hits.

But how many shades of grey are there? I suspect that there are far less than 50 but, nevertheless, we live in a grey world although we often pretend that is black and white.

The color grey is produced by mixing equal amounts of black and white paint. Anyone who listens to the daily news will not be surprised by the coverage given to the shootings of black people by white people, often police officers. In many cases, there is no reasonable defense to these killings.

The most prominent was the death of George Floyd which really ignited the Black Lives Matter movement which had been simmering for a number of years. A generation ago, the lyrics of a popular song said “that the revolution would not be televised.” In the George Floyd case, it was televised and the “television” consisted of a nine minute video recorded on numerous cell phones. The jury outcome was not a surprise although it appears that the verdict may be overturned because one juror did not answer his questionnaire truthfully. I don’t expect further proceedings to result in a different outcome and ex-police officer, Derek Chauvin, is likely to spend many years in prison.

While the Floyd trial was in progress, another Black man, Daunte Wright, was killed by a white police officer, Kim Potter, who said that she thought she was using her Taser and not her gun. Many found that hard to believe as the Taser has a grip completely unlike the police pistol and is drawn from an officer’s left side as opposed to the pistol on the right. However, she is heard just after the shooting expressing anguish that she had used her pistol. Clear or unclear or, maybe, a shade of gray.

On the day the Floyd verdict was delivered, there was another killing by a white officer of a Black female teenager in Columbus, Ohio.  Ma’Khia Bryant was shot as she was about to knife another girl whom she had pinned against car. For anyone who has seen the video, the evidence is clear that her shooting saved another teenager from being stabbed and possibly becoming a murder victim as shown in the picture below.

But what is interesting about all three cases is the reaction reported by the media. In the Bryant case, United States Senators Cory Booker and Raphael Warnock said that the shooting demonstrated the “need for police reform.” Valerie Jarrett, the Senior Adviser to President Obama, tweeted that a teenager had been shot multiple times to break up a “knife fight” and she demanded accountability. Apparently, in her view of the world, a knife fight is no big thing. Ms. Jarrett should get off her Twitter perch and ask the girl about to be stabbed her thoughts on the seriousness of this particular knife fight.

There is more than sufficient anecdotal evidence that black people can be more roughly treated by police. However, that does not mean that, in most cases, the treatment is either rough or inappropriate.

George Floyd was being arrested for passing a counterfeit bill. The call was appropriate; the response not.

Daunte Wright was pulled over for expired tags when it was discovered that he had an outstanding warrant. The stop proper; the outcome not, but likely an accident rather than intentional.

In Ma’Khia Bryant’s case, the call and response were proper.

Unfortunately, all three cases are lumped together by activists who are more interested in pursuing an agenda than seeking individual justice.

The case of Daunte Wright is an object lesson.

For Daunte’s adherents, the case for murder is clear. He was “driving while black” and stopped for expired tags and it was discovered that he had an air freshener on his rearview mirror which happens to be a violation under Minnesota law. He was on the phone to his mother when he was shot. According to the Rev. Al Sharpton: “you can die for having expired tags….It wouldn’t happen in any other community.”

The opposite view: It wasn’t the air freshener; it was the discovery that Wright was wanted on an outstanding warrant for fleeing police with an illegal firearm and for skipping bail on an armed robbery charge. Wright was outside the car about to be handcuffed but broke free back to the car when Officer Potter shouted “I’ll tase you” and then “Taser, Taser, Taser” but discharged her gun.

Former officer Kim Potter has been charged with second degree manslaughter which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. That is not enough for the activists; they demand more serious murder charges and the demands became so personal and threatening that the prosecutor removed himself from the case which now rests with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office which also prosecuted the George Floyd case.

I, for one, believe Kim Potter is telling the truth. That does not mean that she should not be charged with negligent manslaughter but it does mean that this was not an intentional murder. Unlike the activists, I think this is a perfect example of the way things happen in a “grey” world and that those who say “here we go again” are not seeking real justice but are pushing a false narrative. As Alfred Lord Tennyson said: “A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.” This is particularly true when it stirs racial animosities.

One of the more unfortunate aspect of these cases is the television presence of the Reverend Al Sharpton who is the master of the “half-truth.” He has considerable rhetorical abilities and a true gift for hogging the klieg lights when the cameras are rolling. His “half-truth” in the Daunte Wright case is that a black man was murdered because of expired plates and an air freshener. Sharpton has come a long way from the 1980s when he engaged in outright fabrications and he has honed his ability to mislead with “half-truths” rather than complete lies which spectacularly backfired on him 40 years ago.

For those who are not familiar with his history, it began in the 1980s with the case of Tawanna Brawley. Brawley maintained that she had been abducted and sexually violated by six white men, one of whom was a police officer. She was found with fecal matter on her and racial epithets written on her body in charcoal. Her case became a national story due to the efforts of the Reverend Sharpton and a few others. Initially, there was widespread sympathy for Brawley but the tide turned when, after an extensive grand jury investigation, it was determined that the story had been made up and was not true. Sharpton (and three others including Brawley) were ordered to pay significant damages for defamation.

I am sure it has not been lost on Sharpton that, with the many millions of dollars being paid to the Floyd and Wright families, they might be called upon to make contributions to his national efforts. God knows that he needs money. According to the New York Times, he was in default of federal and state taxes a few years ago to the tune of $4.5 million.

This false narrative is not limited to Sharpton. Indeed, every white Minnesota politician including the Governor and a United States Senator are in Twitter lockstep in suggesting that this is a case of “here we go again” where a black man is killed by a white police officer. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz tweeted that this was “… another life of a Black man taken by law enforcement.” Minnesota United States Senator Tina Smith tweeted the exact same message.

The prize for the most inane tweet goes to Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan who declared “Minnesota is a place where it is not safe to be Black.” Presumably, all Minnesota black men should move to Iowa where things will be “hunky-dory.”

Nowhere is there an appreciation of the nuances of this particular case or any recognition of what plainly is a tragic accident. The national media has fallen in line in promulgating this false narrative.

Much remains to be done to continue to ameliorate America’s original sin of slavery and much that followed. Nevertheless, we will only get there by telling the “truth” about events in this “grey” world and by calling out “half-truths.”

The truth probably is that, if Daunte Wright were white, he would have suffered the same fate. Anyone who is resisting arrest and attempting to flee with an outstanding warrant for doing the same thing before would have been “tased” as well and the same accident would have occurred.

We do a profound disservice to our fellow black citizens in continuing to assert that they are sitting ducks for police officers and that white citizens don’t care.

The Statue of Liberty in New York harbor was first conceived around 1870 by two Frenchmen ‒ Édouard René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye, the President of the French Anti-Slavery Society, and the sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. France provided the Statue and the United States was responsible for the pedestal. The Statue was ultimately dedicated in 1886 with a multi-day celebration presided over by President Grover Cleveland. The Statue is modeled on the Roman goddess Libertas who is the patroness of liberty and it sought to celebrate the abolition of slavery. Lady Liberty is stepping out of chains at her feet.

However, the original idea behind the Statue was lost because of Emma Lazarus as well as the immigrants who entered the United States by way of New York harbor. In 1883 Lazarus, who was fiercely pro-immigrant, wrote a sonnet entitled “The New Colossus” for the purpose of raising funds for construction of the Statue’s pedestal. Her poem compared the New Colossus (Lady Liberty) to the ancient male Colossus of Rhodes. The poem was unmentioned at the dedication ceremony in 1886 and its words would not be placed on the Statue of Liberty until 1903. Still, it came to symbolize the meaning of the Statue.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

The net effect: The Statue, conceived as the triumph of freedom over slavery, instead became a symbol of welcome to the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Without immigrants there would be no present day America. Massive waves of immigrants came from 1850 to 1920. The Irish started in the late 1840s as a result of the potato famine. They were unwelcome with employment ads reading “Irish Need Not Apply.” But they kept coming and their sheer numbers transformed the cities where they landed. By 1880, they had elected an Irish American as Mayor of New York with Boston to follow in 1884. Immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe followed the Irish.  None were turned away or had to prove a skill; only the sick were quarantined. 

Many of us are descendants of immigrants who arrived in the great waves from 1850 to 1920. However, immigration continues to bring people here. Most first generation immigrants are now hiding in plain sight, generally in blue collar jobs. This became crystal clear as the result of a horrible workplace shooting in a town not far from Baltimore. 

A few weeks ago, a Judge sentenced Radee Prince to five life sentences for murdering three people and the attempted murder of two others. Prince worked at a company called Advanced Granite Solutions which is located in Edgewood, Maryland, and is approximately 30 miles north of Baltimore on I-95. Advanced, a small company, specializes in granite and stone applications and is the local place to go for your new granite kitchen countertop.

On October 18, 2017, Prince went to work, opened fire, killing three coworkers and seriously injuring two others.  The names of the murdered and seriously injured:

But now the “huddled masses” are not sailing into New York but, rather, crossing the Rio Grande River, the mountains and deserts of Arizona and New Mexico.  It is clear that the end of Trump and the beginning of Biden became a signal to those “yearning to breathe free.” And behind all of this are the “coyotes” who demand exorbitant sums to get people to the Promised Land. The “coyotes” are the vermin of this world who prey on the poor, the uneducated and the desperate and care nothing if their charges don’t make it as long as they have been paid.

Most people end up where they started. Usually, a person’s natural desire is to stay “home” with their families and loved ones. But what happens when “home” has become intolerable whether because of the absence of economic opportunity or lawlessness. That seems to be the case with respect to most people trying to enter the southern border. In story after story, those who are coming are coming because they are fleeing grinding poverty or gangs which are trying to recruit their children and which make their neighborhoods unsafe.

Last week there was a newspaper story about a Honduran father and his seven-year-old daughter attempting to cross the Rio Grande into Texas. The only contact they had in the United States was a relative in South Carolina. They were caught and sent back.

Then, he sent his daughter by herself and she made it only because of the kindness of a fellow immigrant who found her crying and alone short of the border. As an unaccompanied child, it is virtually certain that she will be allowed to stay.

I try to put myself in her father’s mind. The two had walked through Honduras, then through Guatemala and the length of Mexico to reach Texas. Now they’re stuck. But her father knows that she will be protected if she can reach the United States. He probably thinks “I will follow and find her.” But, down deep, he must also think “even if I don’t make it, it is better for her to make it and be alone than to be with me in Honduras.”

So what is the answer? Many immigrants who are here “legally” are not in favor of “illegal” immigrants and insist that they should have to go through the same bureaucratic, expensive and time-consuming process that they did. This notion may well account for Trump’s surprising level of support from Hispanic Americans in the 2020 election.

As long as Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico remain inhospitable to their people, the immigrants will come and the coyotes will prosper. United States’ immigration policy should first try to stabilize the situation in these countries. That, of course, is easier said than done. In the meantime, we have to develop a coherent policy for dealing with the “illegals.” Here are a few ideas:

1. Our present policy unreasonably limits “legal” immigrants with the result that there are too many “illegal” immigrants. One solution is to increase “legal” immigrants by encouraging family based immigration. In this way, an immigrant would have a family member to assist in his or her integration into the country. Trump railed against this, saying that he wanted “skilled” people to immigrate not the unskilled.  When my great grandfather immigrated, I don’t think he had any “skill” but he had a lot of moxie.  It takes a whole lot of moxie to leave the land of your birth, travel over 3,000 miles to a place you have never seen and where you do not know the prevailing language. His son, my grandfather, inherited the moxie but only got through the third grade.  Things seemed to have worked out pretty well from there.
2. New rules for granting asylum that recognize fear for personal safety from groups like gangs. Right now you can probably get asylum if the neighborhood gangs came after you because you were gay or because of your religious affiliation. However, your next-door neighbor who is dealing with the same gangs, would not qualify if they could not assert fear based on sexual orientation or religion.
3. Funds to help other countries remedy the problems at “home” and to help Mexico to secure its southern border.
4. Trump’s policy of making immigrants remain in Mexico until their asylum cases were decided would not have been so wrong if Mexico were safe but it is not. People escaping gang violence in Guatemala found the same in Mexico. What if funds were found to assist Mexico in providing safe waiting zones?

Some will say “where will the money come from?” If we want the money, we will find the money.  It now appears that there is no shortage of dollars flowing out of the Federal spigot.  Here is one recent example.

The recent $1.9 trillion COVID package passed by President Biden and the Democrats contained $86 billion for a “bailout” of Multi-Employer Pension Trusts. These Trusts were not victims of the pandemic; they had been consistently under funded by employers and workers alike for any number of years. No problem: let’s have the taxpayers properly fund them even though the affected parties had not done so and without even requiring that these Trusts clean up their acts going forward. This was an outright grant of money not a loan. This one item was approximately 5% of the recent legislation. You pretty much know that there is something wrong with a proposal when the Washington Post, New York Times and the Wall Street Journal all question it. These are the broadsheets for the Democratic and Republican parties and rarely agree on anything.

Ronald Reagan, quoting John Winthrop, referred to America as a “shining city on a hill.”  Later, he said:  “And if there had to be city walls, the walls have doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and heart to get there.”

It is fashionable in certain enlightened quarters to dismiss Reagan’s optimistic view of America and to decry its numerous sins: systemic racism, income inequality, gun violence, foreign misadventures and the like. Indeed, these same people scoff at the idea of American exceptionalism described by the “city on a hill” metaphor.

In the end, I believe that immigrants are a positive good for the country. Almost without exception, they are extremely hard-working, grateful and bring an energy to succeed which they pass on to their children. Those of us who were born here often do not realize how special, warts and all, this place is.  

If you don’t think America is a “shining city on a hill,” just ask an immigrant.

Woke is an old word which has now taken on a new life. It was first used in the 1940s by black Americans but became increasingly popular as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement after the deaths of Michael Brown and George Floyd. BLM activists use the word to alert people to keep watch for police brutality. In other words, “wake up” to the systemic racism which continues as a result of America’s inability to expiate its original sin of slavery.

As often is the case, “woke” was appropriated from the black community by the white community to state its own grievances. And “woke” ‒ once loosed ‒ is not easily cabined. “Woke” is now a more generic slang word associated with “progressive” causes such as LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, environmentalism and, as will be seen in a few paragraphs below, the audacity of a non-ethnic person in giving advice on how to prepare ethnic recipes (yes, you read that right).

Without question, the most “woke” governmental body in the United States is the San Francisco School Board. A previous blog on this site introduced readers to this group. The School Board just passed a Resolution to rename 44 schools with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt and even current U.S. Senator Feinstein getting the boot.

The Resolution which passed by a vote of 6-1 on January 27, 2021 provided that the names were being changed because they were historical figures responsible for “…the subjugation and enslavement of human beings; or who oppressed women, inhibiting societal progress; or whose actions led to genocide; or who otherwise significantly diminished the opportunities of those among us to the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness…”

It is, at best, ironic that the School Board said its actions promoted “the opportunities among us to the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Those words are from the Declaration of Independence which was penned by Thomas Jefferson whose name is now being stricken from one of the schools. You really can’t make this stuff up.

The politicians in San Francisco are so “woke” that no one, including the Mayor, objects to the renaming. Meanwhile, the public schools in San Francisco, both the renamed ones and the others, remain closed with no apparent plan to reopen anytime soon.  As Mark Twain said:  “First God made idiots.  That was for practice.  Then He made School Boards.”

The rap on Lincoln, according to teacher Jeremiah Jeffries, is that he was chosen based on “his treatment of First Nations peoples.”

The Cherokee Nation, after dithering for almost 5 decades (explained over the years as having “no official position”) just “woke up” and requested that Jeep change the name of the Grand Cherokee. The Cherokees may do better copying the Seminole Tribe.

Florida State University retains the name Seminoles, complete with the head dress costumed brave who rides a horse and throws a ceremonial spear into the turf prior to football games. The Seminole Tribe was happy to let this tradition continue, proving once again that money is a great leveler.  Suffice it to say that the Seminoles would have driven an extraordinarily hard bargain for Manhattan.

All of which brings us to one of the most bizarre instances of “woke” from the world of food. Hamantaschens are triangular cookies eaten during the Jewish Festival of Purim (celebrated a few weeks ago). In 2015, Bon Appétit published an article by food writer Dawn Perry on how to make a really tasty hamantaschen. Recently, Abigail Koffler was researching hamantaschen fillings and came upon Perry’s article. She was not pleased and turned to Twitter (where else) to state “that traditional foods need to be updated by someone from that tradition.” Dawn Perry’s sin: she is a Gentile.

Bon Appétit is a part of the Condé Nast mass media empire. Its brands include Architectural Digest, The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ and attract over 72 million consumers in print, 394 million in digital and 454 million across social platforms.

The title of this post copies the title of Bret Stephen’s must read Opinion column in the New York Times of February 23, 2021. Within hours of the Koffler tweet Condé Nast responded as recounted in the Stephen’s piece:

“The original version of this article included language that was insensitive toward Jewish food traditions and does not align with our brand’s standards,” the editor wrote. “As part of our Archive Repair Project, we have edited the headline, dek, and content to better convey the history of Purim and the goals of this particular recipe. We apologize for the previous version’s flippant tone and stereotypical characterizations of Jewish culture.”

…What Bon Appétit blithely calls its “Archive Repair Project” is, according to The Associated Press, an effort to scour “55 years’ worth of recipes from a variety of Condé Nast magazines in search of objectionable titles, ingredient lists and stories told through a white American lens.”

There’s no way to be certain about this but I wager that Dawn Perry’s hamantaschens are tastier than Abigail Koffler’s and that she would be better company. But one thing is surely certain: Condé Nast’s groveling over the Perry article is appalling.

Winston Churchill once said “a nation that forgets its past has no future.” Whatever their now declared sins, Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln are our past and the reasons we have a present and a future. Without Washington, the Revolutionary War would not have been won; without Jefferson there would be no Declaration of Independence nor the Louisiana Purchase; without Lincoln there would be no United States; without Theodore Roosevelt there would be no National Park System and without Franklin Roosevelt there would be no Social Security program or regulation of Wall Street.

Is there anything good about the current “woke” sensibility? With respect to the business of “names” it is clear that certain names should be ditched and others should be elevated. A rough sampling:

1. Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Hood in Texas are huge military bases. Both are named after Confederate generals. We should never give honor to those who fought against the United States. A law school classmate has suggested that the business of renaming strikes him as “empathy on the cheap.” That may be, but I remain convinced that federal military institutions should not honor Confederate rebels.
2. Whatever happened to the elevation of women?  Susan B. Anthony’s face appears on a one dollar coin which is rarely used. Surely more can be done to honor women who were held back for so long but who have been so important to the success of the country. Identifying those women and finding appropriate ways to honor them would be a good “woke” project.  One woman to be considered is Lois Wilson who was the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous Family Groups.  Her more famous husband Bill was co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.  These groups have proven to be the most effective self-help programs ever devised. 
3. What about Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman?  Douglass has a number a public schools named after him and truly more can be done but Tubman has pretty much been slighted. That was so until the Obama Administration decided to place Harriet on the $10 bill in lieu of Alexander Hamilton. That bonehead suggestion was altered only because of the success of the Broadway show “Hamilton.” Now Harriet is being proposed for the $20 bill in lieu of Andrew Jackson. As between Hamilton, who is probably one of the least famous but one of the most important Founding Fathers and Jackson, there is no choice. Put Harriet on the $20 or let her share it with Jackson.

The principal problem with most of the current “woke” movement is that it scours the past for mistakes instead of trying to claim the future. It is the future where inclusion is important and past mistakes can be remedied. 

However, there is one thing I do know for sure:  a cookie whisperer should not be the subject of derision.

Shame, today thy name is Condé Nast.

P.S.  A college roommate recently exposed me to a singer named Eva Cassidy. Twenty-five years ago (January 1996) Eva and a fellow bandmate secured enough money to make a record while they performed a live set at a small but famous music venue in Washington D.C. known as Blues Alley.

Eva would be dead before that year was out. The record from that session has sold over 10 million copies, mostly as a result of word of mouth.

The following is a documentary about Eva, her band and that record. Her marvelous voice is on full display.  Live at Blues Alley

The last three weeks have provided much inspiration for blog subjects.  The question of whether President Trump should be impeached because he incited the mob that invaded the Capitol is one worthy subject (he should be) but covered by many commentators.

For those of you who are appreciative of Twitter suspending Trump’s account, you may want to rethink your position if the social media account of Alexei Navalny is suspended.  Navalny, who just survived a Putin poisoning, uses social media which is the only way he can effectively speak to fellow Russian dissidents.

Finally, who thought it was a good idea to turn Washington D.C. into a war zone for the Biden inauguration just because a number of wingnuts were making threatening comments on the Internet, none of which came to be even remotely true.  There will be those who say that the reason they did not become true was because of the show of force.  In my view, 5% of the show of force would have accomplished the same thing and everything else was overkill.

While all of the above would have been fit subjects, one reader told me it was time for a “light” subject which I took to mean something silly that did not offend anyone (I am waiting for a reader to now say “if you are not going to write about anything important, why should I read it?”)

The pandemic has given us a good subject which are the “jokes” which have been shared as we are all sheltering in place and living on our computers.  Every day, for the last nine months or so, I have received jokes, clever images and the like from friends and acquaintances.  Most are mildly entertaining but some deserve more attention.

For example, as President Trump left the White House, I received the following one which was not great but faintly amusing.

The joke received at Thanksgiving was memorable. 

A man goes to a pet shop and buys a talking parrot. He takes the parrot home and tries to teach the parrot how to say a few things, but instead, the parrot just swears at him. After a few hours of trying to teach the bird, the man finally says, “If you don’t stop swearing, I’m going to put you in the freezer as punishment.” The parrot continues, so finally the man puts the bird in the freezer. About an hour later, the parrot asks the man to please open the door. As the man takes the shivering bird out of the freezer, it says, “I promise to never swear again. Just tell me what that turkey did!”

At Christmas there was Edna.

There was a man who worked for the Post Office whose job was to process all the mail that had illegible addresses.

One day, a letter came addressed in a shaky handwriting to God with no actual address.

He thought he should open it to see what it was about.

The letter read:

Dear God,

I am an 83 year old widow, living on a very small pension.

Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had $100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next pension payment.

Next Sunday is Christmas, and I had invited two of my friends over for dinner.

Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with, have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope…

Can you please help me?

Sincerely, Edna

The postal worker was touched.

He showed the letter to all the other workers. Each one dug into his or her wallet and came up with a few dollars.

By the time he made the rounds, he had collected $96, which they put into an envelope and sent to the woman.

Christmas came and went.

A few days later, another letter came from the same old lady to God.

All the workers gathered around while the letter was opened.

It read:

Dear God,

How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me?

Because of your gift of love, I was able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends.

We had a very nice day and I told my friends of your wonderful gift.

By the way, there was $4 missing.

I think it might have been those bastards at the post office.

Sincerely, Edna

However, by far the one of the funniest (and surely the longest) jokes was the following:

One day a man decided to retire.

He booked himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the time of his life, that is, until the ship sank.

He soon found himself on an island with no other people, no supplies, nothing, only bananas and coconuts.

After about four months, he is lying on the beach one day when the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen rows up to the shore.

In disbelief, he asks, “Where did you come from? How did you get here?”

She replies, “I rowed over from the other side of the island where I landed when my cruise ship sank.”

“Amazing,” he notes. “You were really lucky to have a row boat wash up with you.”

“Oh, this thing?” explains the woman. ”I made the boat out of some raw material I found on the island. The oars were whittled from gum tree branches. I wove the bottom from palm tree branches, and the sides and stern came from an Eucalyptus tree.”

“But, where did you get the tools?”

“Oh, that was no problem,” replied the woman. ” On the south side of the island, a very unusual stratum of alluvial rock is exposed I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into ductile iron and I used that to make tools and used the tools to make the hardware.”

The guy is stunned.

“Let’s row over to my place,” she says “and I’ll give you a tour.” So, after a short time of rowing, she soon docks the boat at a small wharf. As the man looks to shore, he nearly falls off the boat.

Before him is a long stone walk leading to a cabin and tree house.

While the woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, the man can only stare ahead, dumb struck.

As they walk into the house, she says casually, “It’s not much, but I call it home. Please sit down.”

“Would you like a drink?”

“No! No thank you,” the man blurts out, still dazed. “I can’t take another drop of coconut juice.”

“Oh, it’s not coconut juice,” winks the woman. “I have a still. How would you like a Tropical Spritz?”

Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepts, and they sit down on her couch to talk. After they exchange their individual survival stories, the woman announces,

“I’m going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave? There’s a razor in the bathroom cabinet upstairs.

No longer questioning anything, the man goes upstairs into the bathroom. There, in the cabinet is a razor made from a piece of tortoise bone. Two shells honed to a hollow ground edge are fastened on to its end inside a swivel mechanism.

“This woman is amazing,” he muses. “What’s next?”

When he returns, she greets him wearing nothing but some small flowers on tiny vines, each strategically positioned, she smelled faintly of gardenias. She then beckons for him to sit down next to her.

“Tell me,” she begins suggestively, slithering closer to him, “We’ve both been out here for many months. You must have been lonely. When was the last time you played around? She stares into his eyes.

He can’t believe what he’s hearing. “You mean…” he swallows excitedly as tears start to form in his eyes,

“You’ve built a Golf Course?

One just received proves the Shakespearian line that “brevity is the soul of wit.”

There was a man and woman living separately in a retirement community who became friends as they both had dogs which they would walk every day. Most of the time, they would sit on the bench and talk while the dogs played. One day the man asked the woman what she thought about moving in together. He said they both would be paying half of their current expenses. It turned out that both of them were financially secure and their children were grown and well taken care of. She then asked the man: “What about sex”; he replied: “Infrequently”; she thought for a minute and then said: “Is that one word or two?”

Clearly corny jokes still abound such as “A penguin walks into a bar.”

Bartender:  “My goodness, I now think I’ve seen everything:  A penguin walking into my bar.  What can I do for you?”

Penguin:  “Thank you for that welcome.  I am looking for my brother.” 

Bartender:  “Happy to help.  What does he look like?”

And in the time you have taken to read this, there is a fair chance that another one has landed in your inbox.

P.S. In the early days of television one of the most popular shows was “I Love Lucy” featuring the celebrated comedian Lucille Ball and her TV (and real life) husband Desi Arnaz who played a Cuban American band leader. In almost every episode Desi would become exasperated with Lucy’s antics and say, in fractured English, “Luceee, you has a lot of ‘ess plane ing’ to do.”

Listen to this video and will someone please “ess plane” to me how this is possible.