Chronicles by Ray Barrington

Lincoln, seeing what we are today

2021-01-29T16:27:00.006-08:00

Abraham Lincoln, at age 28, quoted by Ken Burns on CNN the other night, and sounding as if it had been written today, about current American affairs:

"Whence shall we xpect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic giant step the Earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track in the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we will live through all time, or die by suicide."

Speech to the Young Men's Lyceum in Springfield

Statues, statesmen, soldiers and society

2017-08-18T13:51:00.003-07:00

I was born the year Joe McCarthy died - yes, the namesake of "McCarthyism," of wild, not necessarily true attacks against those who, as much as anything, try to approach our fears rationally.

Two years after his death, a bust of McCarthy was unveiled in the Outagamie County Courthouse in
Appleton, with the inscription on the pedestal saying JOSEPH R McCARTHY/UNITED STATES SENATOR and the years of his birth and death. It stood in the lobby next to the staircase leading to the second floor.

I saw it several times, thinking nothing of it, when I was young; my mother worked for a lawyer in Appleton and occasionally had to drop off things at the courthouse, and sometimes I would be along with her. Other than the inscription ... and the feeling that some people had bad things to say about him ... I just went on my way. As I grew, read and learned more, I understood the feelings on both sides.

According to an article in the Appleton Post-Crescent by Madeline Behr,

County officials discussed in the 1980s whether to remove the bust, but those efforts stalled. It wasn't until 2001 that the McCarthy bust would finally be moved out of the courthouse and donated to the History Museum at the Castle for use in a McCarthy exhibit.

Plenty of assumptions were made about how the exhibit would frame McCarthy before it was complete, (museum director Matt) Carpenter said. Those within the Fox Cities thought the museum would paint McCarthy in a bad light, while those outside the Fox Cities assumed it would attempt to rehabilitate the image of a hometown boy.

"Our position wasn't either of those," Carpenter said. "We just said, 'Let's talk about what's important, what we can learn from this, and open up the conversation.'"

After the exhibit opened, the reaction was largely positive, both from family and friends of McCarthy and detractors of McCarthy.

The bust is now the most asked about item at the museum, Carpenter added, whether it is on display or not.

It wasn't a perfect solution, but it worked. The controversial bust isn't where it was controversial any more; it was in a place devoted to studying the past and, among other things, McCarthy's role in it.

McCarthy was popular in his home state, Carpenter said, not for his politics but his personality.

Jerald Podair, a history professor at Lawrence University, told Behr that most folks just considered him "a hometown boy made good.

"Even though people understand him nationally as an embarrassment, he still is the local boy," Podair said. "If you knew him, you actually like him personally because he was perfect for this area — no pretense, no airs, no arrogance, friendly to everybody. But he also was a vicious political insider when it came to politics. But people here separate the personal from the political."

So it can be done, and everyone can see what they want to see. And, yes, you know where this writing is going.

The incident in Charlottesville recently was over the removal of a statue of a person whose cause was deemed wrong by history. No, history is not being rewritten; it rewrites itself. Eventually, with time, perspective and exposure to what change has wrought, views change.

What happened to the bust of McCarthy is a good object lesson, and inevitably, a good model to follow. Don't tear down the statues, explain them in the context of what we know now. Note when the statues were put up, the conditions of race in those locations at the time, and how things changed.

Those white supremacists who protested the removal - and the Nazi sympathizers who followed in their wake like so much sludge - are wrong. Their cause was wrong.

But they are also part of our history, and pointing this out, with education and explanation, may be better than a teardown.

It's much better than tearing apart the country again.

.

Nose clips for sale

2016-11-06T19:32:00.001-08:00

It's over Tuesday. Yes, the election campaign that has given freedom, democracy and goverment service a bad name will finally, finally end, and we must go vote.

Except for the voting. And if the top cliche of the campaign is true, one could become, well, comfortably well off by buying a bunch of nose clips someplace and selling them at the polling place door. (Is interfering with a voter's ability to breathe rigging an election?)

With all due respect to third-, fourth- and 17th-party candidates, would-be substitutes, and the Sweet

Meteor o'Death, we've only got two choices, and I'm here to endorse Rock over Hard Place.

Those two are represented , of course, by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In a campaign world where negative advertising is king, these two have slung enough - and some of it true - to make, well, a new Sweet Meteor o'Death.

Much has been said about the fact that these two candidates have higher negatives than any other previous candidates, quite a feat when you consider such past contenders as George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, Richard Nixon and Mr. Warmth, Calvin Coolidge.

Trump, of course, started his campaign by going after Mexicans, then Muslims, and by this point,

T-shirt by @jephjacques

wants to build a wall around Megyn Kelly. He believes Vladimir Putin is a good guy, the pope needs to wake up and smell the coffee, and that the only attacking army that ever got war right was the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. He treats women as objects, minorities as useless, elections as rigged and people who want to know how he got so rich after declaring a handful of bankruptcies as a nuisance.

Clinton, meanwhile, carries the weight of being Vince Foster's killer, a secret crony of Wall Street, a money-grubber with ties to American enemies and somebody with no stamina. She also has been the No. 2 target of conservatives since her husband, the No. 1 target, took office. And with Democrats having been president for four of the last six terms, she bears the marks of all of their policies, some of which haven't worked out.

Of course, I could get a good phone book (remember those, old-timers?) and blindly pick somebody who could, with proper advertising, a good speechwriter and a controllable temper, probably do just as well. (In fact, if I had to pick any candidate to write in, I'd write in William Weld, the Libertarian VP candidate, whom I do not always agree with but who has shown sanity and intelligence in his few interviews.)

But we're stuck with The Hair and the Pantsuit. Write-ins won't work. Third parties won't work. It will be one or the other (unless the meteor arrives before Jan. 20)

So it will have to be Hillary Clinton. She has made mistakes, and I believe she showed contempt for the voters with her private e-mail server. She was a public official at the time, and needed to follow the rules about accessiblity of her official writings.

That said, she has also worked as a senator and Secretary of State. She knows what is required as part of the government, and she is as familiar with the workings of the White House as any non-incumbent has ever been.

As for Trump, he can build buildings and golf courses. Those are not small accomplishments, and if it weren't for his history of stiffing contractors and others (including his pollster this fall), would say much in his favor.

But he has never had to work with anything in government other than permit offices and the DMV. He has not had to handle the fates of the world. And his sheltered life makes him ill-equipped to understand the problems in the country he wants to run. He does not see individuals as people, he sees them as inferiors, minorities who really have no business being here.

And if he denies that, let him look at many of his supporters. He has become a focus for white nationalists and others who believed that the U.S. was better when women and minorities were kept away from any connection to power.

Ah, women. I'm going to leave anything prior to Trump's campaign out of this; still, such expressions as his snide remarks against Clinton and Kelly, among others; his attacks on the family of a Muslim soldier who gave his life for his country, against former POW John McCain, and others show he knows not when to shut up.

He has shown the maturity of a spoiled toddler, one who says anybody who disagrees with him hates him. It has reached the point that in this final weekend, his staff finally got him (at least at this writing) to stop his 3 a.m. tweeting of insults to his enemies, usually at the talk-show level of calling a newspaper "The New York Slimes."

Hunter S. Thompson noted that George McGovern, who had been called by many "the most decent man in the Senate," which was not quite the same thing as being the best candidate for President of the United States. "For that," he wrote, "McGovern would need at least one dark kinky streak of Mick Jagger in his soul."

That's about all Trump has. Whether you agree with Clinton or not, she has tried to do something to help people.

And that's how I will vote.

You KNOW Trump's gonna use this speech before it's over

2016-08-31T19:13:00.000-07:00

We have already gone past the Mariana Trench of this campaign, and are rapidly reaching Challenger Deep. (That's 1,034 m (36,201 feet) below sea level.) And we continue to go downhill. However, I am confident that I will know when Donald Trump gives this speech. He's come close many times before.

The speech may be familiar; it was, supposedly given by right-wing Democrat George Smathers against centrist Democrat Claude Pepper in the 1950 Florida Senate Primary. Smathers always denied it and even offered to pay anyone who could prove he gave the speech.

But even if it's apocryphal ... has that ever stopped The Donald?

This version is a revised and expanded version that appeared in Mad Magazine in 1970. But the basic idea of the original is there. Blogger Rick Sincere explained it back in 2007:

Had Smathers actually given this speech, he would have been practicing a form of the literary technique known as paranomasia, defined as

a play on words or ideas. This term is from the Greek and is a combination of a preposition and a noun, the former primarily meaning beside; the latter indicating to name or to give a name to. Laying aside the rigidity of the etymology of the term, we would say that paronomasia consists of our laying down beside one word or idea that has been used-- a similar one with a little variation or change. The point or force of the word or idea thus employed is contingent upon our understanding of the word or idea upon which it is a pun.

In this case, of course, the point is contingent on the audience's misunderstanding of "the word or idea upon which it is a pun."

But even if it's apocryphal ... has that ever stopped The Donald? If he hauls this out during the debates, don't say I didn't warn you.

Guaranteed Effective All-Occasion Non-Slanderous Political Smear Speech

My fellow citizens, it is an honor and a pleasure to be here today. My opponent has openly admitted he feels an affinity toward your city, but I happen to like this area. It might be a salubrious place to him, but to me it is one of the nation's most delightful garden spots.

When I embarked upon this political campaign, I hoped that it could be conducted on a high level and that my opponent would be willing to stick to the issues. Unfortunately, he has decided to be tractable instead—to indulge in unequivocal language, to eschew the use of outright lies in his speeches, and even to make repeated veracious statements about me.

At first I tried to ignore these scrupulous, unvarnished fidelities. Now I will do so no longer. If my opponent wants a fight, he's going to get one!

It might be instructive to start with his background. My friends, have you ever accidentally dislodged a rock on the ground and seen what was underneath? Well, exploring my opponent's background is dissimilar. All the slime and filth and corruption you can possibly imagine, even in your wildest dreams, are glaringly nonexistent in this man's life. And even in his childhood!

Let us take a very quick look at that childhood: It is a known fact that, on a number of occasions, he emulated older boys at a certain playground. It is also known that his parents not only permitted him to masticate in their presence, but even urged him to do so. Most explicable of all, this man who poses as a paragon of virtue exacerbated his own sister when they were both teenagers!

I ask you, my fellow Americans: is this the kind of person we want in public office to set an example for our youth?

Of course, it's not surprising that he should have such a typically pristine background—no, not when you consider the other members of his family:

His female relatives put on a constant pose of purity and innocence, and claim they are inscrutable, yet every one of them has taken part in hortatory activities.

The men in the family are likewise completely amenable to moral suasion.

My opponent's uncle was a flagrant heterosexual.

His sister, who has always been obsessed by sects, once worked as a proselyte outside a church.

His father was secretly chagrined at least a dozen times by matters of a pecuniary nature.

His youngest brother wrote an essay extolling the virtues of being a homo sapien.

His great-aunt expired from a degenerative disease.

His nephew subscribes to a phonographic magazine.

His wife was a thespian before their marriage and even performed the act in front of paying customers.

And his own mother had to resign from a women's organization in her later years because she was an admitted sexagenarian.

Now what shall we say about the man himself?

I can tell you in solemn truth that he is the very antithesis of political radicalism, economic irresponsibility and personal depravity. His own record proves that he has frequently discountenanced treasonable, un-American philosophies and has perpetrated many overt acts as well.

He perambulated his infant on the street.

He practiced nepotism with his uncle and first cousin.

He attempted to interest a 13-year-old girl in philately.

He participated in a seance at a private residence where, among other odd goings-on, there was incense.

He has declared himself in favor of more homogeneity on college campuses.

He has advocated social intercourse in mixed company - and has taken part in such gatherings himself.

He has been deliberately averse to crime in our city streets.

He has urged our Protestant and Jewish citizens to develop more catholic tastes.

Last summer he committed a piscatorial act on a boat that was flying the U.S. flag.

Finally, at a time when we must be on our guard against all foreign isms, he has cooly announced his belief in altruism - and his fervent hope that some day this entire nation will be altruistic!

I beg you, my friends, to oppose this man whose life and work and ideas are so openly and avowedly compatible with our American way of life. A vote for him would be a vote for the perpetuation of everything we hold dear.

The facts are clear; the record speaks for itself. Do your duty.

Electoral College could Trump disaster

2016-02-27T16:35:00.002-08:00

The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States may not be the worst disaster to befall the U.S. of A. – we survived two world wars, the Civil War and the Cola Wars – but Lord, it can’t be a good idea.

I, for one, have the fear that we will end up with Trump the way the USFL did – bankrupt but winning a $3 court judgment.

And, for whatever reason, the Republican Party – more and more run by groups that haven’t

quite accepted the end of Prohibition, the militia part of the Second Amendment and the no law establishing a religion of the First Amendment – has become too weak to throw out what should be a mere thorn in its elephantine hide.

(We’re going to leave the Democrats out of this for now; they’ve got their own problems, but neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders is that far removed from the governmental mainstream; they’ve both held national office, for example.)

Instead, the GOP is going to nominate the richest multi-bankrupt person ever, a man whose political beliefs are in many cases in direct obstruction to the Constitution, and a man who has contributed not one idea to the political debate until now (if you ignore his belief that President Obama is a secret Kenyan Muslim with a fake birth certificate).

But I rise, not to warn of Trump, but to find a way to stop him. The Republicans seem unwilling to do the deed.

But there is a way, and to the joy of conservatives everywhere, it is 110 percent Constitutional.

Fellow frustrated voters, I give you The Electoral College.

Yes, that ancient body, that vestigial tail of American politics, that relic of the Founding Fathers’ belief that the mass of voters really couldn’t be trusted. (Boy, do they look prescient now!)

In short, it’s time for a college protest of the electoral kind.

What many people do not realize is that the Electoral College still does exist as real people. Granted, their role has been traditionally ceremonial, confirming the vote of each state and signing off on that state’s votes in a nice note to the Congress.

But there are real people who cast those electoral votes. Once in a while, someone goes off the tracks and withholds a vote or votes for somebody else, and is doing so in a mostly legal manner.

(I say mostly legal, as 25 states and the District of Columbia have laws requiring electors to vote for the state winner. There are still 24 that do not have such a law, and Virginia’s is seen by the National Archives and Records Administration as “Virginia statute may be advisory – ‘Shall be expected’ to vote for nominees.)

Those 24 states are Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

Combine those 24 plus one, and you have 269 electoral votes – one short of a majority. Even if not all of them participate, it could easily be enough to deny Trump the election.

Of course, that would throw the whole thing into the House of Representatives, with each state having one vote in that body. But you have to figure there are enough people in there who realize what a danger a Trumpresidency would be to happy overthrow the whole thing.

Yes, it would be a dangerous move, one that would bring anger across the country. Then again, so did Bush v. Gore in 2000, and probably, so did Hayes v. Tilden in 1876. And we survived.

I believe that with the realization of the sensible majority, it can be realized that the danger from this move would be far, far less than the danger of the Call of the Last Trump-et.

The Electoral College may not be in the AP Top 25, but It could post a big victory for us all if it would exercise its potential and keep America from an incompetent, dangerous president.

Compromise

2015-11-14T10:17:00.001-08:00

The gestures are well-meaning. Lighting up buildings. Putting bleu, blanc et rouge stripes on your facebook photos. Waving French flags.

It is all as meaningless as Friday night's attacks. So much is being said. So little can be done. At least, so little that can make a difference.

What they want ... is and never will be available, and they will never stop fighting for it.

What we want ... tolerance of coexistence, a realization that this is the only world we have and every last person is an individual with individual belief ...is and never will be available, and we will never stop fighting for it.

In either case, the only way that will be with not only attacks, but all-out war that will leave millions on both sides dead. We will never be willing to do that. They will be.

We see this on a small scale in our own politics - the parties are being taken over bu those who insist on ideological purity over working together to get things done that will help us all.

And there is a word to describe this.

In French, it is compromis.In Arabic, it is hall wasat.

T.S. Eliot once said the world would end "not with a bang, but with a whimper." Between the terrorists and the ideologues who want their own way, we will have both, and much too soon for any of us.

Not so much a team, more a way of life

2015-08-20T17:43:00.001-07:00

So, the team from Titletown now owns the title to the Titletown District. And we're finding out what they're going to do with it.
It pretty much follows what we've been hearing over the years, commercial development. The only surprise to me was the townhouses, which are supposed to provide a buffer between the commercial area and the housing already there. Whether those are year-round dwellings or just game-day party houses remains to be seen.
The idea, according to those who spoke at today's event, is to bring in yuppie types and reverse a "brain drain" that is apparently happening here. Not sure how more retail and medical jobs are going to do that, but it's a lure.
And it will be good for a little extra tourism. I remember an article several years ago in which someone was shocked that there was a Kmart next door to Lambeau Field. (This brought the response - "whaddya expect, a Hall of Famer on every corner?")
Well, with the monuments up and down Lombardi Avenue, that's getting to be the case. One thing, if this is going to be a tourist stop, is to put up indicators and information about not only those, but the Packers Heritage Trail downtown for people who can't get enough green and gold.
One question was answered today - that hotel is NOT going to be reserved for the visiting teams when they come to Green Bay. Mark Murphy, president of the Packers, said coaches usually don't like to stay that close to the stadium.
And it was noted that Hinterland's new facility is a wash in a way - the Broadway area loses a stalwart to Ashwaubenon. Granted, there had to be some beer involved; it's a shame there couldn't be a bratwurst factory or cheesemaker in there to complete the Balanced Wisconsin Diet.
I also wonder if there will be more youth-oriented restaurants; brewpubs are nice, but what about the fast food crowd?
The plaza/skating rink that is supposed to be the centerpiece might be nice; may it be used for more than impromptu football games. And we now will have a large Super Bowl ring (Bart Starr model, Super Bowl I) to match the large Lombardi Trophy at Lambeau. Maybe it's compensation for being the NFL's smallest city.
Of course, there could be some other attractions. I list a few suggestions, not all serious:
--The Bellin Head Trauma center. Could get a lot of business, so it should be convenient to the stadium.
--The old state historic marker that used to stand at the entrance to the Packer Hall of Fame when it was behind the arena. Where HAS that gone?
--A box where you can sit in 13-below temperatures with lots of fans to bring up the wind chill. Get the REAL Green Bay experience.
--And with everything cleared out, at least one place, a bit elevated, where you can get a nice picture of Lambeau Field.

As a victim, knowing victims, I agree

2015-05-31T06:51:00.001-07:00

A most excellent piece today from CBS's Bob Schieffer on the death of local news reporting, especially of the print variety.

Obviously, as a former news editor, city hall reporter, etc., I agree with him. But I also agree with what he has to say about the effects. Schieffer may be a network legend but he knows his stuff from his days in newspapers and local TV in the DFW area.

Let's be honest - newspapers can make money if well-run but they are a labor-intensive business that cannot only focus on the bottom line. And broadcast news does not have the personnel, time or attention span to do the investigative work that stories like the ones Bob mentions require.

Today is Bob's last day hosting "Face the Nation." It's a much bigger loss than that goofy looking guy in the late-night spot.

Annnnnnd ... I'm back

2015-05-19T18:25:00.002-07:00

It seems like all I can do before I go to sleep is think of the past.
I need to get to sleep - some weeks, I do have to be up at 6 a.m. - and I think of ... well, the past 58 years. I try to think about something more contemporary, and darned if it doesn't drive me back there again.
By now, I am starting to fear I will end up like the guy in the Twilight Zone episode who, on his nightly commute home, always sees the stop at Willoughby, a town he had once lived in, and eventually gets off the train there ... but I shan't spoil that one.
Don't worry - Steph and I are still quite infatuated with each other, the cats are a constant amusement ... but I no longer have the best profession in the world to work in, and I can't help but remember when I did.

So maybe I will use this space and tell some of those stories. Talk about some of the people I've met, the incidents that happened, the funny stories and the places I have been. If you're interested, let me know.

Today’s political hatred, seen through an old book

2013-11-22T14:27:00.001-08:00

Here's a column that I wrote back in 2003, the 40th anniversary of the JFK assassination.

I’ve been told that a person should read a book three times: once when young, once when middle-aged and once when old — and if you do, you’ll read three different books.
The idea, of course, is that we look at the book through different eyes, from the unknowing youth to the old person, filtering the book’s message through one’s own life.
I’ve been doing a bit of that recently, after hitting both the University Women’s used book sale and the Brown County Library’s used book sale.
Some of what I picked up was, well, unusual. I found a paperback, “Baseball Stars of 1963,” that might just fetch something on eBay if I ever get around to it.
And somebody was selling an encyclopedia year book from 1961, covering the year 1960. More than you ever needed to know about that wonderful year. Did you know motels are becoming more and more popular?
And then there’s the unusually timely, something you don’t expect to find on a used book table. It was a copy of William Manchester’s “The Death of a President,” the story of the weekend 40 years ago when John F. Kennedy was killed.
I’m a bit surprised it hasn’t been reissued to cash in on the 40-year anniversary. We humans do that; we like numbers that end in zero to remember things. Goodness knows, you found everything you’d ever wanted to know about JFK and his death on TV this week, from sober analysis to lurid autopsy photos to draw the “CSI” crowd.
But it was interesting to reread the book. The first time I read it, I read it as someone who was interested, wanting to learn about this piece of history.
Now, I look at it through other eyes, ones that have had to look at the modern political system.
The extreme right wing in Dallas in the early 1960s was every bit as virulent as it is today, if not more so. It’s doubtful today you’d have seen, say Madeline Albright getting hit on the head by a picket sign, as Adlai Stevenson was in 1963.
And while Ann Coulter — the conservatives’ pin-up girl — writes books about liberals committing “Treason,” a poster in Dallas the day before the assassination showed Kennedy, mug-shot style, with the line “Wanted for Treason.”
There were political dirty tricks then as well. Gov. John Connally, who later bolted the Democrats for Richard Nixon, got back at liberal Sen. Ralph Yarborough by keeping him in the background at key events. (It was splits like this in the Texas Democratic Party that brought Kennedy to Dallas in the first place).
But overwhelming in the period was hatred. Kennedy was vilified by the right wing not only his politics, but his personality, his religion, his family. The publisher of the Dallas Morning News accused him of “riding Caroline’s pony” rather than serving as a leader — to Kennedy’s face. Even after his death, people cheered the attacker.
And, sadly, that hasn’t changed. It faded for a bit, in the horrors of the assassinations, of Vietnam, of Watergate. But then it came back, matched spit for spit by Democrats angry over the success of Ronald Reagan.
And that’s where we are today.
So things haven’t changed; that hatred has always been there, and I was reminded of that while reading the book.
Of course, the generally accepted view of the killing — Lee Harvey Oswald, the Book Depository, the whole bit — was light-years away from that hatred. But in a way, that hatred might have fed on it. Oswald was not sharp. He wanted to lash out, Manchester says, to prove himself after a lifetime of failures. Kennedy was the popular political target — why not make him a real one?
And the targets continue today. I just hope we can calm down the national discourse to save ourselves from another weekend like that one 40 years ago.

And the choice is...

2012-11-03T15:59:00.000-07:00

Since I started voting for presidents in 1976, there has been at least one good reason for me to vote for somebody.

Not this year. I want a do-over in the worst way.

We have two candidates who have as much business running for President as Honey Boo Boo. And they're almost as qualified. (Remember, Honey Boo Boo's only disqualification is that she is not yet 35 years old.)

Barack Obama is something of a fluke in high office, a one-term senator who caught a tailwind after a great speech back in 2004, then went through a weak field in 2008 because of his speaking skills, his novelty and the fact that most Americans wanted another Clinton in the White House about as much as they wanted another Bush. Still, his victory was not assured until John McCain bowed to the nutjobs who have taken over the Republican Party and picked their pinup girl, Sarah Palin.

Obama has proven to be ineffectual. He can point to two achievements - Osama bin Laden was killed on his watch, and he got a health care bill through. Both are mixed blessings. It would have been better to capture OBL and put him in a Nuremburg/Eichmann style trial, showing his evil to the world.

As for health care, the bill doesn't do what most Americans want - provide a safety net for those unable to afford or get insurance, and simplify everything surrounding it so that people can get the treatment they need. Instead of attacking those problems, the bill is a list of what one group of people wanted to see. It had good intentions but doesn't do the job.

Presidents don't fix the economy single-handed - not even FDR - and Obama has at least tried things. The last time we had a depression, Herbert Hoover just waited for things to right themselves, and they never did.

The true problem is that the economy today benefits only a small part of the populace - those who have advanced through office politics to run their organizations. Those who actually do the work - the employees - are considered to be liabilities rather than assets.

Which brings us to Mitt Romney.

His supporters call him a successful businessman; he isn't. He's a politician. His main business expertise was taking over failing businesses, wringing the remaining money off of them, and then killing them. Yes, he ran the Salt Lake Olympics, but except for sprucing up the ski hills and building a couple of facilities, most of what was needed - arenas, a big stadium for the ceremonies and so on - were in place. Facilities have been the problem with most Olympic budgets; get those out of the way, and you can make money.

As a politician, he has shown no basic beliefs. He is a Clinton in Republican clothing, twisting with the wind. He has joined the right wing because they run the railroad he has to ride on to become president; had the right-wing suddenly decided to make gay marriage and abortion legal, he would have gone out and married Paul Ryan just to make them happy. He is a man without a compass trying to go in a winning direction.

So we have Mr. Ineffectual vs. Mr. Inconsistent. Add to that their VP nominuees - loopy Joe Biden vs. True Believer Paul Ryan - and you have four people who shouldn't be left near a lawn mower, much less The Button.

It is so easy to just want to crawl into bed and ignore the whole thing. But I care enough about living here in America that I cannot.

What bothers me is the hatred. Both sides do nothing but attack the other. This is an old complaint, as old as the Republic, but it seems to have reached new peaks. Many of the lawn signs I have seen don't mention the candidate the lawn's owner is supporting; they just say things like "DEFEAT OBAMA." Haven't seen any in the other direction, but I see enough in the posts on Twitter and Facebook to see it is the same over there.

A pox on both your houses (and their lawn signs).

All I can do is vote for the one who scares me the least. And Romney scares me the most, because of his lack of a basic belief. This is the same person who put a health care system in Massachusetts but is fighting against it to please his party sponsors. His ignorance of other countries is scary. In short, he believes in a ruling class - white, above-average wealth, businessmen (emphasis on men) only.

Obama, at least, seems to realize that the vast majority of Americans don't fall into any of those categories. We are struggling to make ends meet, working in jobs that are available rather than what we can do best, in part because the businesses who support Romney would rather make more profits by sending those jobs to China.

I don't know how sincere he is, but Obama at least makes a show of listening to those who can't do something for him other than vote. Romney doesn't.

And on that small ledge, I cast my vote for Obama on Tuesday.

Eight years later, it's still religion v. government

2012-10-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

I did the following column back in 2004 - it's in the book - but it is active again because of a decision by the Bishop of Green Bay, David Ricken, to urge his parishoners not to vote for "evil" positions. It isn't a direct slam at one candidate and favoring another ... but it does feel like that.

I have no horse in this year's election - Obama hasn't shown himself to be successful in trying to turn around the epidemic of political plague (not to mention he's still from Chicago and a Bears fan), and Romney may change the White House to the Waffle House as he tries to woo conservatives without sounding like a sexist, hypocritical bigot - or worse, Sarah Palin.

Anyway, here's the column which I hope is self explanatory. Oh, and don't forget to buy the book.

---

Decree Ignores Constitution, Political Reality
January 16, 2004

It's not often you can time something this exactly, but Bishop Raymond Burke, formerly of La Crosse, has set politics back exactly 44 years.
By now, you've read about how Burke told Catholic lawmakers in his diocese that they could not receive Holy Communion if they supported abortion.
It's the sort of statement that's going to raise debate. Many, including Warren Bluhm on these pages on Tuesday, believe the bishop is within his rights to make rules for those of his faith; that's what bishops do.
Others believe, as I do, that for any religious leader to try to influence the actions of a lawmaker is out of bounds. We are not Iran or Israel; here, people, not clerics, rule.
The bishop's actions have caused a stir in Missouri, where he will become bishop in St. Louis.
"We as legislators have never faced anything like that from an archbishop or bishop in the state of Missouri," Missouri state Sen. Steve Stol told the Associated Press. "I think there are some citizens out there who would also look at it and question whether they want to elect someone who would change their stand because of certain religious pressure. Telling people they can't receive the sacraments changes the political landscape some."
Rep. Tom Villa, D-St. Louis, said he votes against abortion but doesn't like the idea of a bishop telling him he must. He said he is concerned about the potential for a similar church policy to be adopted for other issues.
"I happen to be right as far as the incoming bishop is concerned on the pro-life stuff. I am clearly wrong on capital punishment," Villa said. "I would have a problem with anybody telling me I can't receive Communion. Your faith is something that's very personal."
Indeed. And to my mind - and I'm not Catholic, not much of anything when it comes to religion really - it borders on extortion, as much as if someone had threatened a legislator's family. "You vote my way, or you won't see your kids again."
Or, in this case, "you won't see your church again."
Granted, it may be that the problem, as Warren suggests, is with the legislators, and that maybe it's time for them to switch. Still, it seems here that is quite a price to pay for voting in a manner that disappoints one man - and that's all a bishop is.
For Burke's action was individual. Bishop David Zubik of Green Bay was closer to the proper way to handle it - talk to legislators you disagree with, try to get them to see the rightness of your cause. But threats? No.
We have representative government in our land. Legislators must continually decide on how to vote, whether by following their beliefs or representing their district. Sometimes, they don't agree with their district.
Sometimes, they vote against their own beliefs for whatever reasons they choose.
That's how government goes. It's human, and riddled with compromises.
Religion isn't. It's strict and inflexible, incapable of allowing another side might be correct. The two are bound to clash.
And that's why the framers of our Constitution sensibly separated the two; Congress (and all lawmakers by extension) can't hamper religion; religion is not required as a test for office. In short, religion can say whatever it wants, but it has no special standing with government.
John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic elected president, knew that. His campaign was targeted by those bigots who said he would make the United States a puppet of the Vatican, and other slanders. And he had to fight it until the day he was killed.
He never did it better than in Houston, in a speech to a group of Protestant ministers:
"I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish, where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source, where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials - and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
"For, while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that led to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today, I may be the victim - but tomorrow it may be you - until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart at a time of great national peril."
He had it right 44 years ago, and the bishop has it wrong now.

Getting it right

2012-03-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

I am not religious - too many untimely deaths of the good (including my brother), too many wars over who owns God, and simple lack of proof. (I have faith in nothing.) But this blog post by a Vermont minister gets it absolutely right. And then, just to hammer it home, a pair of vicious, racist cartoons about the Florida youth murder by a cartoonist who, somehow, is syndicated. And I'm back to being nonreligious, because if this ass is made in God's image, none of us should follow him.

Cassius was right. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, it is in ourselves. More's the pity.

A St. Patrick's sale

2012-03-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

In honor of the land of my ancestors, I have a sale going on the e-book versions of Chronicles. It's been marked down from $10 to $7.50, so if you haven't purchased the e-version yet, now is the time! This is, for now, only good if you buy the book through Lulu.com so please go there today!

Where is this candidate? Do any like this exist:

2012-03-04T13:08:00.002-08:00

My comment on this story (which is a very good summary of why everybody seems think this election stinks):
Let's face it - what is really turning people off can be found in the comments on this story. Neither side is willing to admit that the other side may have good points. We have all gone to the ends of the rope, and the middle is on the ground. We do need to cut government spending, but one big area to cut - perks for elected officials - is controlled by those officials and will never be cut. But the tax cuts should go to all Americans, not just the richer ones. When it comes to government, no citizen is better than another and no politician is better than anyone. What we need is a fiscal conservative who wants to help all the people, not just the rich, and a social liberal who wants to free controls on individuals, rather than mandating their lives from school lunches to the kind of light bulb we use. Show me one of those and I will happily vote for him or her.

Some Leap Year Thoughts on Books

2012-02-29T08:29:00.000-08:00

It was my first Leap Year. My second, actually, but at 3 years old, I couldn't count to 29. At 7, on Feb. 29, 1964, I got my first library card. Thanks for all the books, every librarian ever.

Now, I read them and more or less write them. (See Lulu.com for a Leap Year special!) And that's the end of book plugs for this post.

Recently, two books off the shelf of the Brown County Library came home. Strangely, both have time travel and presidential themes.

The first is a funny little volume called "Taft 2012" by Jason Heller. Its conceit is that William Howard Taft, after being president, disappeared off the face of the earth, only to reappear in 2011, unaged but unknowing of what had happened in the nearly 100 years since. It's big news, of course, but because all anybody talks about any more is politics, Taft gets mixed up in that - while still reconciling himself with the 21st century, his remaining family, and the biggest trial for the heavy weight champion among presidents - modern overprocessed food.

It's fun, if not entirely historically accurate (Taft, of course, later became chief justice, to his great joy, and died in 1930, and he does not have a great-granddaughter in the House). But, as Johnny Carson used to say, "you buy the premise, you buy the bit" and it's surprisingly easy to do so.

Not surprisingly, the other book is darker - it's by Stephen King. "Taft 2012" tells its story over the time it takes Big Steve to clear his throat. But then, King set himself a larger task - saving John F. Kennedy.

It begins, as every King story does, in Maine, where a former teacher is invited to visit the past by the dying owner of an old diner. Go down the stairs and you're in 1958 as your present self. Stay as long as you like, days, weeks, months ... but when you go back to the present, it's only two minutes later. And every time you go back to 1958, you start over again - any previous changes you made are erased.

Turns out saving JFK was the dying man's dream, but he knows he can't do it. So he tasks the new guy with the job.

Jake (the new guy) eventually gets to Dallas on the title date, but it's a long five years, and the bulk of the book is how he gets there. Indeed, you're almost 90 percent of the way through the book before the title date, and once it's all over, there's a surprisingly short (and in retrospect obvious) look at how things changed after the event. (It's interesting that King, at the end of the book, credits others including Doris Kearns Goodwin with helping with that part. It almost seemed like he was trying to blame others for a weak point in the whole thing.)

Still, Steve's got a way of making you want to see what happens next, and while it moves slowly, it moves. (I'm tempted to say it's a cross between "The Stand" and "24" but I won't. Of course.)

What is interesting is that in King's last two books - "11/22/63" and "Under The Dome" - he is going back to ideas he had long before but didn't feel he was ready to tackle. Both, it might be noted, are heavy on political thinking. In "Under The Dome," the book all but blames right-wingers for the problem; "11/22/63" is a bit more nuanced, but again, the liberal area is peaceful and serene; it's the right wing who causes the problems. Personally, I sympathize with that viewpoint; still, it's a lot more political than he had been in the past. Sadly, political venom seems to have seeped into our society - now THERE'S a horror story - and it is probably inevitable that it has even affected all those small towns in Maine where Stephen King makes bad things happen.

Sale through March 4!

2012-02-28T18:44:00.000-08:00

HEY BOOK FANS! 15 pct. off any order (of my book, of course) at http://t.co/DuIypUOb thru March 4! Checkout code: LASSO

Welcome Facebookers!

2012-02-22T06:18:00.001-08:00

Those of you seeing my ad on Facebook, welcome! There are plenty of links here to order my book, or just to learn more. Or e-mail me at ray.columns@yahoo.com. Thanks for visiting!

A bit about that project...

2012-02-19T18:14:00.000-08:00

For now, it's on hold - the person I'm involved with is seeking more ways to fund it. So I'm off to other things.

I wasn't able to get the Feb. 11 surprise going, and I'm sorry about that. Maybe another time.

I do have a couple of backers on Kickstarter for the football book, and would love to have more. If you can't, that's understandable, but maybe mention it to somebody who can...

And as always, tell others about "Chronicles."

Quietude

2012-01-26T07:13:00.000-08:00

I haven't said much about my possible third project because (a) I don't want to jinx it and (b) it's not entirely clear how it's going to work out. But I am working on it. I'll just say it has the potential to be a long-term project and not just one item.

Speaking of one item: watch for a surprise Feb. 11 regarding my e-books. Write it down. And don't forget, getting your tax refund is the perfect opportunity to buy a copy!

Updates

2012-01-17T08:08:00.001-08:00

1. I have a meeting Friday with a contact on my newest project - will know more after that.

2. The Kickstarter.com attempt to raise money for the NFL book is going on. There's a link to it at the blog, for those of you reading this elsewhere.

3. Oh, and "Chronicles" is still out there!

Kickstarting the NFL book

2012-01-11T13:55:00.000-08:00

I have opened an account at Kickstarter.com to fund research and necessary photo purchases for the book about NFL stadium history, "The Fields Where We Used to Run." I'm trying to collect $2,500, which would mostly go to purchase copies of old photos. It would also fund postage for contacting other sources and possibly some travel. I have 60 days...hope I can cross the finish line! (And there will be rewards for some donors!)

No news, but news

2012-01-08T12:39:00.001-08:00

No news: It's been quiet over the holidays. But if you got an Amazon, B&N or iTunes gift card, you can still get a copy of "Chronicles" at any of those site. And, of course, through Lulu.com, or through me (and have it signed!). It's also been quiet because of computer problems at home (in fact, I'm updating this at the library.)

I hope to have news soon on a major project regarding a new book about a notable Midwest tourism site. And that's all I will say for now.

Plans for the future

2011-12-28T08:21:00.000-08:00

Not that I'm not wishing and hoping you'll buy a copy of "Chronicles," but ...

I have two plans for books in the coming year.

One is the aforementioned book on cat naming. I have not had good response from posts on cat message boards, etc., but I have saved what I got, and hope to get more.

The second - and this is my first public notice of it - is a book about the history of NFL stadiums. With so many new stadiums built, it's a good time to start looking back at the old ones. I plan to start a Kickstarter.com account to get donations to purchase some photographic rights, cover postage to contact sources of material, and cover preliminary publishing costs (including sending some copies out to NFL figures for comments for the book cover).

Ideas are also welcome.

Finally, for the first time anywhere, my proposed title, borrowed from the Glen Campbell song "Galveston:"

"The Fields Where We Used To Run."

12 days of coupons

2011-12-14T07:16:00.001-08:00

The good folks at Lulu.com are offering 12 days of coupons on orders. Check it and see if there's one that matches your book-buying needs! (And yes, you NEED my book...I'll be happy to hypnotize you if it will help!)