George Will, conservative columnist, once wrote that the five most glorious words in the Constitution are, "Congress shall make no law." Never mind what might have followed in the text of the Constitution. Just, "Congress shall make no law." That's a truly libertarian position to take, from one who used to be a Goldwater speech writer.
"Congress shall make no law." Well.
There are laws that obviously need to be made, but there is a law of unintended consequences that isn't written, but surely binds. To wit:
Once upon a time, someone thought a "Three strikes and you're out" law would be a pretty good idea. On the surface of it, it sounds great. Three felony convictions and, buddy, you're locked up and the key is in the sewer somewhere. But there were unforeseen issues. There were those who were repeat offenders of violence, and it's hard to argue that these should be allowed back on the street. But the three strikes laws give no consideration to whether the three offenses are, in fact, violent. Does it seem reasonable, given our already overcrowded prisons, that we should place non-violent offenders away for life while we grant early release to violent offenders?
It makes no sense to me. I worked at an adult max joint - the Joliet Correctional Center - for about three years. Part of the center was a Reception and Classification Facility. Inmates would be transported in by their county sheriff - the Cook County one was, by far, the largest - and the state correctional department would determine what kind of facility the inmate would be shipped to. Maximum? Medium? Minimum? If you came in with a life sentence, it was a stone-cold guarantee that you would go to a max joint. When I worked in Joliet, I rubbed elbows with people who would have killed me without blinking an eye if they had the chance. They'd done it before. I dealt with rapists who continued to see women - and men - as so much dressed-up meat. I've had boiling water on me. I've worn urine home. I've worn a bloody shirt home (the blood wasn't mine; I was a kind of crazy person in the day.) It was during that time that my drinking was at its worst.
And if I had run into someone who was in a max joint for a non-violent offense I'd wonder, "What in HELL are you doing here?" But, under current law, that's where they are,
Shame on us and our vigilante justice.
But, then, there are areas where I go all vigilante. To wit: pedophiles. Those who would sexually abuse a child. For these people, I would be all in favor of a life sentence. No parole. First offense. I know - there would have to be gradations, and I would advise any teenager to wait for marriage - subject for another discussion - but I don't think you can treat a relationship between an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old in quite the same way as you would treat a 40-year-old who abuses a 4-year-old. Still, I'd be pretty severe. There are two particular reasons for my thinking this way.
One, most criminals do age out of their types of crimes at some point. A 45-year-old armed robber is a comparatively rare critter, and armed-with-intent and assault with a deadly weapon are, for the most part, a younger person's game. Sexual offenders tend not to age out of their habits. A pedophile at 30 is a pedophile at 70. (Note the frequent use of the word "tend". I'm aware there are exceptions.) The only way to keep society safe is to remove them permanently.
The second reason has to do with that unintended consequences thing. Davenport is a case in point. Iowa has a law that a sex offender cannot live within a certain distance of a school. Good idea, right? Except. . .except. . .there is a mobile home park way out west on Kimberly Road. It's not near a school, and offenders can live there. So offenders do live there - a cluster of them. The schools are safe - great! - but what do you think the families who live in or near that mobile home park think of this? Are they just as pleased as punch that so many sex offenders are clustered right over THERE?
So just remove them
Or let me have at 'em. Father of 5, grandpa to 10 - who owns garden shears. I leave to your imagination. . .
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Borders, RIP
I see in the news today that Borders is closing its 400 remaining stores. I am heartbroken.
Borders wasn't done in by competition from Barnes and Noble. B&N has been in financial trouble, too. It's a shame, because this could have been and should have been a rollicking competition between two great companies that understood two of the great loves of my life: books and music.
No, B&N and Borders didn't do each other in. Rather, both were done in by far more disturbing trends. One was the onset of the Internet. A second was Amazon.com. And yet another was Kindle.
I'm so bugged by the Internet because it seems to have shortened attentions spans in a way no one would have believed possible ten years ago. "TLDR" - Too Long, Didn't Read - seems to apply to anything longer than a short paragraph. It bothers me because, admittedly, some of my trains of thought get a little long. We've become a nation of readers who think that such garbage as the Harry Potter series and the Twilight series are good writing. Never mind the cliched plots and plastic characters.
We've become a nation of self-styled "speed readers." Woody Allen had a great line about that: "I took a speed reading course. It was great! Read War and Peace in one night.
I think it had something to do with Russia."
If Amazon.com has been a reason for the demise of Borders and the near-demise of B&N, {sigh} {rolls eyes}. Bookstore browsing is a joy, and something I could do for hours if permitted. If your idea of "browsing" is browsing through Amazon (once you get out of the socks and watches), you won't be surprised by anything. You usually knew what you were looking for before you went there. You won't experience the unexpected find at a used bookstore like The Source in downtown Davenport. I found a book by Anthony diMello in a Borders in Colorado Springs. I'd thought the book was out of print. I found a copy of Montesqiueu's The Spirit of the Laws, a book often cited as being influential in the French Revolution, in a B&N one day. Who reads that? Well, if you're into things like libertarianism or maybe liberty, equality, fraternity, maybe you should. Jaroslav Pelikan's history of Christianity is something you'd probably not start looking in Amazon for, but if you're interested in the subject the display on the shelves of an actual bookstore just might interest you.
B&N and Borders have fallen victim of our not wanting to search. They have fallen victim to our intellectual laziness. Why wrestle with, say, Niebuhr or Husserl or Plato or Shakespeare or Milton or Hopkins when we can get it all in a paragraph in Wikipedia?
And what happens to poets when we can only think in one paragraph?
And Kindle? Pulleeeze. Try passing your Kindle "book" to your son or daughter. I know of someone who was reading a bio of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Her friend expressed interest in the book. The first person used a kitchen knife to cut the book roughly in half. She let her friend read the part that she'd already read; she kept the part that she hadn't yet read.
Try doing that with Kindle! But Kindle does play into our one-paragraph-at-a-time thinking. I guess it's supposed to be - I dunno, businesslike?
Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your thoughts.
BTW, wonder if Borders will be having a sale?
Borders wasn't done in by competition from Barnes and Noble. B&N has been in financial trouble, too. It's a shame, because this could have been and should have been a rollicking competition between two great companies that understood two of the great loves of my life: books and music.
No, B&N and Borders didn't do each other in. Rather, both were done in by far more disturbing trends. One was the onset of the Internet. A second was Amazon.com. And yet another was Kindle.
I'm so bugged by the Internet because it seems to have shortened attentions spans in a way no one would have believed possible ten years ago. "TLDR" - Too Long, Didn't Read - seems to apply to anything longer than a short paragraph. It bothers me because, admittedly, some of my trains of thought get a little long. We've become a nation of readers who think that such garbage as the Harry Potter series and the Twilight series are good writing. Never mind the cliched plots and plastic characters.
We've become a nation of self-styled "speed readers." Woody Allen had a great line about that: "I took a speed reading course. It was great! Read War and Peace in one night.
I think it had something to do with Russia."
If Amazon.com has been a reason for the demise of Borders and the near-demise of B&N, {sigh} {rolls eyes}. Bookstore browsing is a joy, and something I could do for hours if permitted. If your idea of "browsing" is browsing through Amazon (once you get out of the socks and watches), you won't be surprised by anything. You usually knew what you were looking for before you went there. You won't experience the unexpected find at a used bookstore like The Source in downtown Davenport. I found a book by Anthony diMello in a Borders in Colorado Springs. I'd thought the book was out of print. I found a copy of Montesqiueu's The Spirit of the Laws, a book often cited as being influential in the French Revolution, in a B&N one day. Who reads that? Well, if you're into things like libertarianism or maybe liberty, equality, fraternity, maybe you should. Jaroslav Pelikan's history of Christianity is something you'd probably not start looking in Amazon for, but if you're interested in the subject the display on the shelves of an actual bookstore just might interest you.
B&N and Borders have fallen victim of our not wanting to search. They have fallen victim to our intellectual laziness. Why wrestle with, say, Niebuhr or Husserl or Plato or Shakespeare or Milton or Hopkins when we can get it all in a paragraph in Wikipedia?
And what happens to poets when we can only think in one paragraph?
And Kindle? Pulleeeze. Try passing your Kindle "book" to your son or daughter. I know of someone who was reading a bio of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Her friend expressed interest in the book. The first person used a kitchen knife to cut the book roughly in half. She let her friend read the part that she'd already read; she kept the part that she hadn't yet read.
Try doing that with Kindle! But Kindle does play into our one-paragraph-at-a-time thinking. I guess it's supposed to be - I dunno, businesslike?
Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your thoughts.
BTW, wonder if Borders will be having a sale?
Sunday, July 17, 2011
The Creed, continued
We believe in God, the Father Almighty
Creator of heaven and earth,
of all that is seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God,
Light from Light,
True God from True God,
Begotten, not made,
One in being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
He came down from heaven.
By the power of the Holy Spirit
He was born of the Virgin Mary
and became man.
For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
He suffered died and was buried.
And then the statement that it's really all about:
On the third day he rose again,
In accordance with the Scripture.
We Catholics recite the Nicene Creed in every Sunday Mass. I would hope that repetition never makes this statement go flat. This statement should set off a "GLORY, HALLELUIA!!!" reaction every time it's said.
If this statement is false, we base our whole faith structure on nothing. With Paul, we must observe: "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all" (emphasis mine.)
But no. That is not where we are. We hear the news from the angel at the tomb: "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, He is risen."
He is risen! He is risen indeed!
He ascended into heaven,
And is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead
And his Kingdom will have no end.
Next week - the rest of the Creed, and how one word contributed to a Churchwide split.
Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your reactions!
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Furthermore. . .
Today's post will be a further reflection on faith. I'd wanted to step deeper into the Nicene Creed. But there's an observatiion I'd want to make about the Creed.
Note that the first word in both segments we've looked at so far is "we": "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty"; "We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ." The third section also starts with "we": "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life." Always "we". In the Hebrew Scriptures the relationship with God was a relationship of community. It was Judah to whom God spoke. God spoke through prophets, but God usually spoke through the prophets to the community, to the nation. (Also - the prophetic word was almost always aimed at those inside the community. That word rarely was aimed at anyone outside the community.) Where God offered some level of salvation to an individual, it usually came to no good. Hezekiah had been a good and righteous king. When he was told that he was about to die, he pled with God for an extension. God gave Hezekiah fifteen more years - then spent those 15 years wondering why he'd bothered.
"We". Community, always community. I pointed this out to a couple of friends, that in the Old Testament salvation was always a communal business. To one steeped in American concepts of "individualism" (yes, Ayn Rand was a proponent of such individualism and Ayn Rand was an atheist - not just coincidence) - to one whose spirituality has a strong tint of "You and me, God", this idea that God deals with communities as communities is really a disruptive concept. So, they asked, "So this emphasis on community changed in the New Testament?" NO - it didn't change. "The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common" (Acts 4:32). And Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, was quite articulate in stating that every part of the community needs every other part of the community (see esp. 1 Cor. 12:12-31. Then, if you really want to see what it's all about, go on through 1 Cor. 13. 1 Cor. 13 is all about love - but what's love if not shared in community?)
Paul assumes the existence of the church - community. Later, St. Cyprian of Carthage said, "Outside the Church" - outside of Christian community - "there is no salvation." Roman Catholics would assert this. Eastern Orthodox would assert this. Both Luther and Calvin affirmed this.
"We." We just can't overlook the cruciality of community in the Christian life.
Back to the Creed next week, I think. Thanks again for hanging out, and I'd love your reactions.
Note that the first word in both segments we've looked at so far is "we": "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty"; "We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ." The third section also starts with "we": "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life." Always "we". In the Hebrew Scriptures the relationship with God was a relationship of community. It was Judah to whom God spoke. God spoke through prophets, but God usually spoke through the prophets to the community, to the nation. (Also - the prophetic word was almost always aimed at those inside the community. That word rarely was aimed at anyone outside the community.) Where God offered some level of salvation to an individual, it usually came to no good. Hezekiah had been a good and righteous king. When he was told that he was about to die, he pled with God for an extension. God gave Hezekiah fifteen more years - then spent those 15 years wondering why he'd bothered.
"We". Community, always community. I pointed this out to a couple of friends, that in the Old Testament salvation was always a communal business. To one steeped in American concepts of "individualism" (yes, Ayn Rand was a proponent of such individualism and Ayn Rand was an atheist - not just coincidence) - to one whose spirituality has a strong tint of "You and me, God", this idea that God deals with communities as communities is really a disruptive concept. So, they asked, "So this emphasis on community changed in the New Testament?" NO - it didn't change. "The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common" (Acts 4:32). And Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, was quite articulate in stating that every part of the community needs every other part of the community (see esp. 1 Cor. 12:12-31. Then, if you really want to see what it's all about, go on through 1 Cor. 13. 1 Cor. 13 is all about love - but what's love if not shared in community?)
Paul assumes the existence of the church - community. Later, St. Cyprian of Carthage said, "Outside the Church" - outside of Christian community - "there is no salvation." Roman Catholics would assert this. Eastern Orthodox would assert this. Both Luther and Calvin affirmed this.
"We." We just can't overlook the cruciality of community in the Christian life.
Back to the Creed next week, I think. Thanks again for hanging out, and I'd love your reactions.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
That jury thing
I write this with Caylee Anthony in mind. I write, actually, in defense of the jury.
I am so incredibly saddened by what happened to Caylee that I have no words. My porch light most assuredly was on at 9:00 tonight. I cannot comprehend a mother who, even if we accept her account of events, was partying for the month between the time her daughter disappeared and the time she finally got around to telling someone. I'm married to a mom of 35 years. Two of our daughters are moms. I work with a lot of moms, and am related to a lot of other moms. The very minute any child of any of them came missing, every single one of them would have given a whole new meaning to "raising hell." NOBODY - least of all, them - would have been spending a minute partying until their kid was found.
So, I think Casey Anthony killed Caylee Anthony. I think Casey Anthony got away with murdering her daughter.
Wait - I thought this was supposed to be a DEFENSE of the jury?
Yes.
I have sat on juries twice. Both were criminal trials. Both were cases involving sexual assault of a student on a college campus in the Quad Cities. In both cases I served on the jury through the reaching of a verdict. In one case I was the jury foreman. One of the juries convicted. The other acquitted.
(This gets a little graphic here.)
The first trial involved a staff maintenance man at Augustana College who had sex with a student summer worker. Her account: he cornered her in a restroom in a dorm. He forced her to the floor, pulled off her shorts, and assaulted her. His account: she purchased condoms ahead of time; at the end of the work day they went to a dorm room. There was foreplay, followed by intercourse. The fact of sexual intercourse was not in dispute. The question: was this a rape that occurred in a bathroom, or was this consensual sex that occurred in a dorm room?
We convicted. At one point, after a few hours of deliberation, I asked my fellow jury members, "Does anybody seriously think anything at all happened in that dorm room?" We all said, "No." But we weren't absolutely certain. We wondered why the Rock Island Police Department did no investigating of that dorm room. (Answer: the suspect didn't even mention the dorm room until later. It was no crime scene.) We would have loved to know if there was any evidence of sexual activity in that dorm room, but the evidence at trial was silent. What we found out after the trial: the defense had lab people search that room with a fine-toothed comb. If they had found so much as a hair from either suspect or victim, game over for the prosecution. But the lab folks found nothing. Neither of these people had ever been in that room.
Wouldn't we have loved to know that in deliberations? But we couldn't know that. For the police that room wasn't a crime scene. The rest room was. For the defense, they knew there was no trace their man had ever been there, but the defense is under no obligation to present that at trial. So, there was something we just didn't know.
We convicted. A couple of months later the suspect was sentenced. Before sentencing, the judge affirmed that he thought we'd reached the right verdict, and sentenced the convict to 15 years.
And I replayed that trial again and again, in my waking hours and in my dreams. This was a family man whom we separated from his family (the thought later occurred to me that, even accepting his version, he was going to have sex with a college student in a dorm room. Not very family-friendly, I'd say.)
A couple of years after, I Googled the convict, just to see what turned up. He'd committed suicide in prison. And again, the waking reflections - the dreams - the nightmares. This trial stayed with me - was there any way around the verdict? Was there any possible alternative outcome? Eventually I made my peace with it. I didn't rape that girl. I'm just not bolted together like that. He raped her. I didn't tie that bedsheet around that light fixture. . .I just did the duty I was called to do.
The second trial, we acquitted. The girl was a student at St. Ambrose. She had celebrated her finishing her final exams in her senior year. The celebration involved about 10 beers and a Jager. She went to her dorm and went to bed. She woke up to find a hand where she'd given no permission for a hand to be. She screamed, and the assailant ran off. She had a roommate who woke up with the scream. But, the roommate saw no one. All I could think was, ten beers and a Jager. I don't even know if anything happened at all.
In the case of the Augie student, the assailant was well-known to the victim. The St. Ambrose student didn't make an ID until months later, and she made it from a newscast. The Augustana case was handled by the Rock Island Police Department, who knew a crime scene when they saw it and did understand evidence. The St. Ambrose case was handled by campus security, who obviously didn't. They did get Davenport PD involved - four days later. Davenport PD noticed that there was only one way out of the building (except emergency exits, which would have sounded an alarm.) Davenport PD noticed that the one way out had a security camera. They noticed it four days later. D'ya kinda think that if Davenport PD had been called immediately, it would have taken them two seconds flat to say, "That camera - where's the tape?!" But four days later. . .
So please don't think too harshly of the Anthony jury. The missing pieces of information they would have loved to have seen - a cause and time of death, for starters - will drive them crazy. It's one thing to say, "I think Casey Anthony is a murderer." It's quite another to say, "I have seen evidence that is convincing beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey Anthony killed her daughter."
And let's not think that Casey Anthony has an easy road from here on out. For the rest of her life she will be the one who murdered her own daughter and got away with it. I don't forecast a surfeit of prospective employers. She threw her entire family under the bus in the trial; I doubt that she can go home again. Maybe some network will pay for an interview. I don't know.
Thanks for hanging out. Love your reactions.
I am so incredibly saddened by what happened to Caylee that I have no words. My porch light most assuredly was on at 9:00 tonight. I cannot comprehend a mother who, even if we accept her account of events, was partying for the month between the time her daughter disappeared and the time she finally got around to telling someone. I'm married to a mom of 35 years. Two of our daughters are moms. I work with a lot of moms, and am related to a lot of other moms. The very minute any child of any of them came missing, every single one of them would have given a whole new meaning to "raising hell." NOBODY - least of all, them - would have been spending a minute partying until their kid was found.
So, I think Casey Anthony killed Caylee Anthony. I think Casey Anthony got away with murdering her daughter.
Wait - I thought this was supposed to be a DEFENSE of the jury?
Yes.
I have sat on juries twice. Both were criminal trials. Both were cases involving sexual assault of a student on a college campus in the Quad Cities. In both cases I served on the jury through the reaching of a verdict. In one case I was the jury foreman. One of the juries convicted. The other acquitted.
(This gets a little graphic here.)
The first trial involved a staff maintenance man at Augustana College who had sex with a student summer worker. Her account: he cornered her in a restroom in a dorm. He forced her to the floor, pulled off her shorts, and assaulted her. His account: she purchased condoms ahead of time; at the end of the work day they went to a dorm room. There was foreplay, followed by intercourse. The fact of sexual intercourse was not in dispute. The question: was this a rape that occurred in a bathroom, or was this consensual sex that occurred in a dorm room?
We convicted. At one point, after a few hours of deliberation, I asked my fellow jury members, "Does anybody seriously think anything at all happened in that dorm room?" We all said, "No." But we weren't absolutely certain. We wondered why the Rock Island Police Department did no investigating of that dorm room. (Answer: the suspect didn't even mention the dorm room until later. It was no crime scene.) We would have loved to know if there was any evidence of sexual activity in that dorm room, but the evidence at trial was silent. What we found out after the trial: the defense had lab people search that room with a fine-toothed comb. If they had found so much as a hair from either suspect or victim, game over for the prosecution. But the lab folks found nothing. Neither of these people had ever been in that room.
Wouldn't we have loved to know that in deliberations? But we couldn't know that. For the police that room wasn't a crime scene. The rest room was. For the defense, they knew there was no trace their man had ever been there, but the defense is under no obligation to present that at trial. So, there was something we just didn't know.
We convicted. A couple of months later the suspect was sentenced. Before sentencing, the judge affirmed that he thought we'd reached the right verdict, and sentenced the convict to 15 years.
And I replayed that trial again and again, in my waking hours and in my dreams. This was a family man whom we separated from his family (the thought later occurred to me that, even accepting his version, he was going to have sex with a college student in a dorm room. Not very family-friendly, I'd say.)
A couple of years after, I Googled the convict, just to see what turned up. He'd committed suicide in prison. And again, the waking reflections - the dreams - the nightmares. This trial stayed with me - was there any way around the verdict? Was there any possible alternative outcome? Eventually I made my peace with it. I didn't rape that girl. I'm just not bolted together like that. He raped her. I didn't tie that bedsheet around that light fixture. . .I just did the duty I was called to do.
The second trial, we acquitted. The girl was a student at St. Ambrose. She had celebrated her finishing her final exams in her senior year. The celebration involved about 10 beers and a Jager. She went to her dorm and went to bed. She woke up to find a hand where she'd given no permission for a hand to be. She screamed, and the assailant ran off. She had a roommate who woke up with the scream. But, the roommate saw no one. All I could think was, ten beers and a Jager. I don't even know if anything happened at all.
In the case of the Augie student, the assailant was well-known to the victim. The St. Ambrose student didn't make an ID until months later, and she made it from a newscast. The Augustana case was handled by the Rock Island Police Department, who knew a crime scene when they saw it and did understand evidence. The St. Ambrose case was handled by campus security, who obviously didn't. They did get Davenport PD involved - four days later. Davenport PD noticed that there was only one way out of the building (except emergency exits, which would have sounded an alarm.) Davenport PD noticed that the one way out had a security camera. They noticed it four days later. D'ya kinda think that if Davenport PD had been called immediately, it would have taken them two seconds flat to say, "That camera - where's the tape?!" But four days later. . .
So please don't think too harshly of the Anthony jury. The missing pieces of information they would have loved to have seen - a cause and time of death, for starters - will drive them crazy. It's one thing to say, "I think Casey Anthony is a murderer." It's quite another to say, "I have seen evidence that is convincing beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey Anthony killed her daughter."
And let's not think that Casey Anthony has an easy road from here on out. For the rest of her life she will be the one who murdered her own daughter and got away with it. I don't forecast a surfeit of prospective employers. She threw her entire family under the bus in the trial; I doubt that she can go home again. Maybe some network will pay for an interview. I don't know.
Thanks for hanging out. Love your reactions.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Today, July 4, 2011. . .
I will wear black.
One of my dear friends posted an item that some would wear black today because of what happened to a woman who was trying to board a flight. She's 95 years old, a cancer patient, and she was wearing a diaper. The Transportation Security Agency personnel who were doing the screening at that terminal subjected this woman to a search that went as far as making this woman remove that diaper. There is, I guess, some justification for concern on the part of the TSA - they didn't know who it was that dressed her that day - but really? Seriously?
When my friend posted this, she posted with a note, "Take back Independence Day." I thought that was a bit overstated. Did you lose Independence Day somewhere? I thought it was. . .yeah - it is! Right there, on July 4. Like always. Just where we'd left it. Besides, the concerns brought up were constitutional, a matter of the Bill of Rights and that unreasonable search and seizure thingy. The U.S. Constitution didn't take effect until years after the Declaration.
Still, my friend makes a point that I now see as valid. (And it's really a socialistic point from that libertarian.) If one person's rights are diminished or violated, then the rights of all of us are violated. If one person's dignity is assaulted, then the dignity of all of us is under attack. Point well-made. Point taken.
So I wear black. If I knew that woman, or if we had any mutual acquaintances, then I would say that I am so very sorry that someone representing my country - someone who, since I vote and I pay taxes, is in my employ - thought it either necessary or appropriate to do that to you. I am sorry. We all should apologize.
We celebrate Independence Day for the promise of America. We celebrate because of an ideal, because of what America should stand for. In that very Declaration we see the profound statement: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (how about we leave that word out?) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Please note that this does not say that all white natural-born U.S. males are so endowed. It's a statement of a universal - all are thus endowed. Today I wear black, because we've fallen short.
I wear black for that woman in Florida.
I wear black for Native Americans. We (yes, we - I'm not all Anglo although you couldn't tell by looking) have been starved, driven off lands onto reservations, the land no whites wanted. The Rez becomes a lifelong trap. Poverty is endemic; alcoholism abounds. The whites who started educational systems were well-intentioned, but part of their effort was to eradicate the native civilization. Children who spoke their own language were severely punished. As a result, the number of Arapaho speakers, to use one example, is low and dwindling. Diabetes on the Rez is almost pandemic.
Mount Rushmore comes to mind. A monument to four Presidents, carved right in the middle of what had been Native American lands. I know what that looks like to most. Do you know what that looks like through Native American eyes? Betcha don't know. Bet you never thought about it.
I wear black for African Americans. Faulkner, in writing about his South, treated it as a cursed land, and Southern civilization as a cursed civilization. The source of the curse was that it was stolen land (from the Native Americans) built by stolen labor (slave labor). The question: Was it just the South? And, is it any less true now? Have the vestiges of racism gone away?
Short answer: no, they have not. Case in point: Barack Obama and the "birther" garbage. He'd produced his short form birth certificate. That's all we would have required of Hillary Clinton, of John McCain, of Mitt Romney. Not only did the birthers not have any reason to doubt that Barack Obama is a native-born citizen; they had been presented affirmative proof that he is such.
It was not enough for the birthers. It wasn't a matter of Obama's standing. The simple fact of the matter is, the birthers could not stand it that an African-American is President. The birther nonsense stemmed from racism, pure and simple.
Case in point: DWB is an offense that will still get you pulled over, despite police departments' protestations that they do no racial profiling. For the unititated, "DWB" - Driving While Black. Or, since this happens also to those of Hispanic heritage, Driving While Brown.
Case in point: two reporters - one black, one white - graduated from college about 25 years ago. They hired on to the same news organization. They handled savings and investments in a similar manner. Both married and had families. After 25 years, the white reporter was about $500,000 ahead of the black one. How could this happen? Fifty years ago both of these reporters' parents went house-shopping. Both came from professional families, but there real estate salespeople wouldn't show houses in certain affluent areas to blacks. That still has repercussions.
I wear black for our treatment of undocumented immigrants. The various ethnic groups that have made up our country have long been possessed of a "last one off the boat" thought pattern. The result is they sound like a KKK chapter. The KKK was, in its origins, an anti-immigrant group. They didn't like blacks or Jews, but they really didn't like those Poles or Italians or Irish. They were all Catholic, and the Poles and Italians - for that matter, the immigrant Germans - didn't speak much English. The Catholic schools were founded largely because the Catholic kids weren't allowed into public schools. Now, the immigration is Mexican. They don't speask much English; they are almost uniformly Catholic and they have an additional quality that makes them especially inviting as targets: their brown skin. So, kick 'em all out. Never mind that they've been holding a job and paying taxes for twenty years. Never mind that you're imposing a family split because the kids were born in the U.S. and are citizens.
And about that little bit of uneducated garbage that I see on Facebook: "You're in America. Speak English." No. No. How's this: "You're in America. Speak Cherokee." Or, "You're in Arizona. Speak Spanish - it was there before English."
We might as well take that statue down and send it back to France.
I wear black for our schoolkids, who are relegated to middle-of-the-world-pack status in math and science. Our school years are limited to about 180 days. Can't overload the poor little brains! OK, maybe. But if we want to know why India, China, Japan, Korea are gaining on us so fast technologically and economically, pay attention to their longer school years. Pay attention to Americans' lack of family involvement in their kids' education. Pay attention to funding. Abundance of funding doers not necessarily guarantee good outcomes, but pay some attention, anyway. And quit whining about those overpaid, overbenefitted teachers. They are no such thing.
Come back home to the refinery;
I am a Vietnam-era vet. The status is a matter of when I enlisted in the Navy; I never saw the 'Nam. Bruce Springsteen's Born In the USA (the song, not the whole album) is a protest against the way such vets were treated by the society we served to protect. Note that the sentences are unfinished: "Son, if it was up to me. . ." "Son, don't you understand now. . ." Springsteen didn't have to finish the sentences. Every single one of us vets knows the rest of the sentences. America celebrates those who serve, before it tosses them aside. And I'm seeing the same sort of pattern setting up for those who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Go serve! We honor you! We'll take care of you!" Then, when they come home, "We're broke!"
So I wear black for all vets who served so well and are served so badly.
I do love my country. I wore the uniform of the U.S. Navy, and I swore to defend my country. I love that America, while it has its flaws, has many people in it who are aware of the flaws and who want to fix them - who strive for our reaching of the higher dream that we should represent. I love that we can speak in opposition to our government - well, many of us can - without fear of repercussion. There is so much to love, and I would enlist to defend this nation again. I thank God that I'm an American.
But. . .but. . .
But -
That's the hope we cling to. In my work with the core group at St. Mary's - in my involvement with Quad Cities Interfaith and its immigration task force - that's the hope I cling to. We can do better. And, until recently, I was convinced that America wanted to do better, that we wanted to rise above and reach for better. I'm not as sure now, but I cling to the hope. I do cling.
So, I wear black today.
Thanks for hanging out for a few. Your reactions?
One of my dear friends posted an item that some would wear black today because of what happened to a woman who was trying to board a flight. She's 95 years old, a cancer patient, and she was wearing a diaper. The Transportation Security Agency personnel who were doing the screening at that terminal subjected this woman to a search that went as far as making this woman remove that diaper. There is, I guess, some justification for concern on the part of the TSA - they didn't know who it was that dressed her that day - but really? Seriously?
When my friend posted this, she posted with a note, "Take back Independence Day." I thought that was a bit overstated. Did you lose Independence Day somewhere? I thought it was. . .yeah - it is! Right there, on July 4. Like always. Just where we'd left it. Besides, the concerns brought up were constitutional, a matter of the Bill of Rights and that unreasonable search and seizure thingy. The U.S. Constitution didn't take effect until years after the Declaration.
Still, my friend makes a point that I now see as valid. (And it's really a socialistic point from that libertarian.) If one person's rights are diminished or violated, then the rights of all of us are violated. If one person's dignity is assaulted, then the dignity of all of us is under attack. Point well-made. Point taken.
So I wear black. If I knew that woman, or if we had any mutual acquaintances, then I would say that I am so very sorry that someone representing my country - someone who, since I vote and I pay taxes, is in my employ - thought it either necessary or appropriate to do that to you. I am sorry. We all should apologize.
We celebrate Independence Day for the promise of America. We celebrate because of an ideal, because of what America should stand for. In that very Declaration we see the profound statement: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (how about we leave that word out?) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Please note that this does not say that all white natural-born U.S. males are so endowed. It's a statement of a universal - all are thus endowed. Today I wear black, because we've fallen short.
I wear black for that woman in Florida.
I wear black for Native Americans. We (yes, we - I'm not all Anglo although you couldn't tell by looking) have been starved, driven off lands onto reservations, the land no whites wanted. The Rez becomes a lifelong trap. Poverty is endemic; alcoholism abounds. The whites who started educational systems were well-intentioned, but part of their effort was to eradicate the native civilization. Children who spoke their own language were severely punished. As a result, the number of Arapaho speakers, to use one example, is low and dwindling. Diabetes on the Rez is almost pandemic.
Mount Rushmore comes to mind. A monument to four Presidents, carved right in the middle of what had been Native American lands. I know what that looks like to most. Do you know what that looks like through Native American eyes? Betcha don't know. Bet you never thought about it.
I wear black for African Americans. Faulkner, in writing about his South, treated it as a cursed land, and Southern civilization as a cursed civilization. The source of the curse was that it was stolen land (from the Native Americans) built by stolen labor (slave labor). The question: Was it just the South? And, is it any less true now? Have the vestiges of racism gone away?
Short answer: no, they have not. Case in point: Barack Obama and the "birther" garbage. He'd produced his short form birth certificate. That's all we would have required of Hillary Clinton, of John McCain, of Mitt Romney. Not only did the birthers not have any reason to doubt that Barack Obama is a native-born citizen; they had been presented affirmative proof that he is such.
It was not enough for the birthers. It wasn't a matter of Obama's standing. The simple fact of the matter is, the birthers could not stand it that an African-American is President. The birther nonsense stemmed from racism, pure and simple.
Case in point: DWB is an offense that will still get you pulled over, despite police departments' protestations that they do no racial profiling. For the unititated, "DWB" - Driving While Black. Or, since this happens also to those of Hispanic heritage, Driving While Brown.
Case in point: two reporters - one black, one white - graduated from college about 25 years ago. They hired on to the same news organization. They handled savings and investments in a similar manner. Both married and had families. After 25 years, the white reporter was about $500,000 ahead of the black one. How could this happen? Fifty years ago both of these reporters' parents went house-shopping. Both came from professional families, but there real estate salespeople wouldn't show houses in certain affluent areas to blacks. That still has repercussions.
I wear black for our treatment of undocumented immigrants. The various ethnic groups that have made up our country have long been possessed of a "last one off the boat" thought pattern. The result is they sound like a KKK chapter. The KKK was, in its origins, an anti-immigrant group. They didn't like blacks or Jews, but they really didn't like those Poles or Italians or Irish. They were all Catholic, and the Poles and Italians - for that matter, the immigrant Germans - didn't speak much English. The Catholic schools were founded largely because the Catholic kids weren't allowed into public schools. Now, the immigration is Mexican. They don't speask much English; they are almost uniformly Catholic and they have an additional quality that makes them especially inviting as targets: their brown skin. So, kick 'em all out. Never mind that they've been holding a job and paying taxes for twenty years. Never mind that you're imposing a family split because the kids were born in the U.S. and are citizens.
And about that little bit of uneducated garbage that I see on Facebook: "You're in America. Speak English." No. No. How's this: "You're in America. Speak Cherokee." Or, "You're in Arizona. Speak Spanish - it was there before English."
Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she,
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the tempest-tossed, to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
We might as well take that statue down and send it back to France.
I wear black for our schoolkids, who are relegated to middle-of-the-world-pack status in math and science. Our school years are limited to about 180 days. Can't overload the poor little brains! OK, maybe. But if we want to know why India, China, Japan, Korea are gaining on us so fast technologically and economically, pay attention to their longer school years. Pay attention to Americans' lack of family involvement in their kids' education. Pay attention to funding. Abundance of funding doers not necessarily guarantee good outcomes, but pay some attention, anyway. And quit whining about those overpaid, overbenefitted teachers. They are no such thing.
Come back home to the refinery;
Hiring man says, "Son, if it was up to me";
I go down to see the VA man;
He says, "Son, don't you understand. . ."
I am a Vietnam-era vet. The status is a matter of when I enlisted in the Navy; I never saw the 'Nam. Bruce Springsteen's Born In the USA (the song, not the whole album) is a protest against the way such vets were treated by the society we served to protect. Note that the sentences are unfinished: "Son, if it was up to me. . ." "Son, don't you understand now. . ." Springsteen didn't have to finish the sentences. Every single one of us vets knows the rest of the sentences. America celebrates those who serve, before it tosses them aside. And I'm seeing the same sort of pattern setting up for those who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Go serve! We honor you! We'll take care of you!" Then, when they come home, "We're broke!"
So I wear black for all vets who served so well and are served so badly.
I do love my country. I wore the uniform of the U.S. Navy, and I swore to defend my country. I love that America, while it has its flaws, has many people in it who are aware of the flaws and who want to fix them - who strive for our reaching of the higher dream that we should represent. I love that we can speak in opposition to our government - well, many of us can - without fear of repercussion. There is so much to love, and I would enlist to defend this nation again. I thank God that I'm an American.
But. . .but. . .
"It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people (and the immigrant, and the vet, and the schoolkids, and the Native Americans, and that lady in Florida) a bad check, which has come back marked, 'Insufficient funds.'"
But -
"But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt."
Preach it, Dr. King!
There was One who also preached a higher standard:
"Inasmuch as you have done it for the least of these, my brothers (and sisters), you have done it to me."
That's the hope we cling to. In my work with the core group at St. Mary's - in my involvement with Quad Cities Interfaith and its immigration task force - that's the hope I cling to. We can do better. And, until recently, I was convinced that America wanted to do better, that we wanted to rise above and reach for better. I'm not as sure now, but I cling to the hope. I do cling.
So, I wear black today.
Thanks for hanging out for a few. Your reactions?
Sunday, July 3, 2011
More on the faith
We believe in one God, the Father almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth,
Of all that is seen and unseen.
We believe in one lord Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
Eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God,
Light from Light,
True God from True God,
Begotten, not made,
One in being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
Another assertion against those who would maintain that this creation, since it has so much evil in it, could not have been created by a good God. Another assertion that Jesus Christ, in a mysterious way completely beyond our comprehension, is the same as the YHWH that the Hebrew scriptures maintain is God.
For us, and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.
He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
Most presentations of the Creed insert the word "men" into the first line. When reciting the Creed at Mass I, and a lot of other Catholics I know of, omit the word "men". The reasons are obvious to me.
For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
He suffered, died and was buried.
This statement, as obvious at it seems to us, was a major bone of contention in the early church.You can see St. Paul in debate with the early stages of this position. The question: If Jesus was truly God, could he have suffered? Would God have even been capable of suffering? Or was this all a front, an effort at making the appearance of Jesus' being fully human? Would God even have been capable of dying? Paul stated that this whole idea of a crucified God would have been nonsense to his civilization: "The message of the cross is folly for those who are on the way to ruin, but for those of us who are on the road to salvation it is the power of God. . .While the Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, we are preaching a crucified Christ. . ." Since nothing ever goes away, two and three centuries later some who called themselves Christian also found the idea of a crucified suffering God to be untenable.
But - Jesus was also fully human. That being the case, he could suffer. He could die. And the conclusion that the Church came to was that Jesus did just that.
How?
Remember: don't ask how. We can't get it. Just ask Who?
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate - really and truly -
He suffered, died and was buried. He was indeed.
Thanks for hanging out for a few. The last few posts have been about that which is most central to my life and being. That, and family, but since I am Catholic, I can't really separate the concepts of faith and family. They go together.
Love your reactions.
Vi
One July 3, long, long ago, in a place far - well, never mind, it wasn't so far away - Vi was born. Violet Marie Bales.
Vi grew up in Rock Island, surrounded by family. The average American family produced the average American girl. Except, she was anything but average. You had to know her, or have the good fortune to be related to her, to know that, though. She never was much of one to seek to get her name in the papers.
Vi graduated from Rocky High School. Then we had this little affair in Europe - World War II, which was really a continuation of World War I, after a 21-year hiatus. Vi went to work at the Servus Rubber plant in Rock Island. Then, in 1945 that little European business ended. Vi met a guy that was returning from that European unpleasantness. Vi and Walter married in 1946, and Vi became Violet Marie Hendrix.
And then they started something. A LOT of something. Vi and Walter (and they were and are a matched pair) became the parents of 14 - count 'em, 14 - kids. Eleven daughters, three sons. I married one of those daughters. Three sets of twins (the only way they could get a boy was to take a girl along with) - six babies in diapers at the same time. It's wearing me down just to think about it. Walt worked at the Arsenal, and retired from there. Vi worked at her family, and never really did retire.
There was joy and accomplishment. All of the kids graduated from high school. All grew up to become the best citizens they knew how to be. That, in and of itself, is a remarkable accomplishment.
There was pain that had to be almost unbearable and searing. Vi anmd Walt lost one of their sons, Paul, in infancy. Their two other sons served in Vietnam, and came back with their issues from that. Vi has buried grandkids.
And yet, through it all, Vi lived her life with integrity. Utter, complete integrity. She knew who she was, and she knew what drove her. She was a dedicated mom. She was a happy person, easy to get along with, but if someone - anyone - messed with one of hers, that unfortunate would find that they had aroused a tiger - a ferocious one, at that.
The part of her attitude that I remember best: Life is not to be pissed and moaned about, and it isn't all about you. Get over it, get over yourself, and you might actually enjoy the ride.
Walt passed in '88 after a bout with cancer. Vi passed a few years ago, after her own bout with cancer. They are buried side-by-side - as I said, a matched pair - in National Cemetery on Arsenal Island. Today, Vi's birthday, my wife and daughters and granddaughters, along with some of Vi's other daughters, visited the gravesite. In celebration of Vi's birthday. In honor of a woman worthy of honor. In celebration of a life lived long and well.
In honor of Mom.
I'll have another posting today, in continuation of a theme I've been writing on. This, though, is for Vi.
Vi grew up in Rock Island, surrounded by family. The average American family produced the average American girl. Except, she was anything but average. You had to know her, or have the good fortune to be related to her, to know that, though. She never was much of one to seek to get her name in the papers.
Vi graduated from Rocky High School. Then we had this little affair in Europe - World War II, which was really a continuation of World War I, after a 21-year hiatus. Vi went to work at the Servus Rubber plant in Rock Island. Then, in 1945 that little European business ended. Vi met a guy that was returning from that European unpleasantness. Vi and Walter married in 1946, and Vi became Violet Marie Hendrix.
And then they started something. A LOT of something. Vi and Walter (and they were and are a matched pair) became the parents of 14 - count 'em, 14 - kids. Eleven daughters, three sons. I married one of those daughters. Three sets of twins (the only way they could get a boy was to take a girl along with) - six babies in diapers at the same time. It's wearing me down just to think about it. Walt worked at the Arsenal, and retired from there. Vi worked at her family, and never really did retire.
There was joy and accomplishment. All of the kids graduated from high school. All grew up to become the best citizens they knew how to be. That, in and of itself, is a remarkable accomplishment.
There was pain that had to be almost unbearable and searing. Vi anmd Walt lost one of their sons, Paul, in infancy. Their two other sons served in Vietnam, and came back with their issues from that. Vi has buried grandkids.
And yet, through it all, Vi lived her life with integrity. Utter, complete integrity. She knew who she was, and she knew what drove her. She was a dedicated mom. She was a happy person, easy to get along with, but if someone - anyone - messed with one of hers, that unfortunate would find that they had aroused a tiger - a ferocious one, at that.
The part of her attitude that I remember best: Life is not to be pissed and moaned about, and it isn't all about you. Get over it, get over yourself, and you might actually enjoy the ride.
Walt passed in '88 after a bout with cancer. Vi passed a few years ago, after her own bout with cancer. They are buried side-by-side - as I said, a matched pair - in National Cemetery on Arsenal Island. Today, Vi's birthday, my wife and daughters and granddaughters, along with some of Vi's other daughters, visited the gravesite. In celebration of Vi's birthday. In honor of a woman worthy of honor. In celebration of a life lived long and well.
In honor of Mom.
I'll have another posting today, in continuation of a theme I've been writing on. This, though, is for Vi.
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