Preface: Baseball, our self-defined but probably accurately national pastime came back to us last night albeit in a single game: the New York Yankees vs. the Boston Red Sox. Fittingly though it hurts to admit it, the Sox came back from what appeared to be a sure loss to win, 9-7, due in some part, perhaps, to it being opening day in venerable Fenway Park.
No other team played yesterday, a startling difference from the historic opening days that I remember as a young man: Cincinnati and Washington, DC. The Queen City fixture commemorating the birthplace of the major leagues and the capital city of the Republic, replete for the last hundred years (excepting when there was no team) with the President throwing out the first pitch. What would we have done without William Howard Taft?
Returning to the present-day, well almost present, I recalled an occasion somewhere between the Sox winning the American League Pennant in 2004 and their trying to win their first World Series in more or less four-score and something years. They would be playing the Cardinals and strangely I found myself rooting for Boston, ghosts of The Babe aside.
In 2004, I commemorated a personal historic happening with a missive, a writing based on something I do not believe I had ever done before, at least not knowingly. I shook hands and offered congratulations and good fortune against the St Louis team to a Red Sox fan. I was not struck down by bolts of lightning nor visited by specters more normally to be found in Iowa.
Boston did prevail and to show it was not a fluke did so again 3 years later.
It must also be admitted that my conversion could in large part be attributed to my living in St Petersburg where our local team, The Rays, compete each and every year in the same division as do the Yankees and Sox.
It seems fitting that I should post that missive here as once again the cycle of we call spring has, as happens every year, brought out cries of “Play Ball” throughout this wonderful land of ours.
SHAKING HANDS
I did something the other day that I have not knowingly done in my sixty-two years or at least since gaining what was then euphemistically referred to as the “age or reason”.
I shook hands with a Boston Red Sox fan and said congratulations!
The Red Sox fan in question, somewhat half my age, accepted my gesture graciously then looked me in the eye and questioned: “It hurts doesn’t it?” I acceded it did adding that it was comparable to the 1955 experience of losing to Brooklyn when Sandy Amoros made a catch off the bat of Yogi that even now seems impossible. My new found companion had no idea of the incident in question so we parted, he to watch and wait for the Series to begin and me to wonder how this had happened.
You see, I come from New York and the operative phrase is “come-from”. Like so many others coming from that landing place for immigrants, I have not lived there for forty years, distinctively since graduating from Fordham, a fine University and perhaps as important, situated only a few miles from the “Big Ballpark in the Bronx”, Yankee Stadium. My father first took me there from our home in Queens when I was six. The occasion was the lying in state of Babe Ruth. Babe was the raison d'être for the Stadium; the dynasty started with him; he is also according to many the reason the Red Sox have not won a World Series in what Lincoln would have calculated as four score and six years.
Recollections are clear. I remember the late 40’s and early 50’s and the improbability of Jerry Coleman’s triple and Phil Rizzuto’s suicide squeeze bunt; I remember we somehow always won. Reynolds and Raschi, Lopat and Ford; Henrich, Keller and DiMaggio I remember being in Nashville in the 70’s and taking the afternoon off for the playoff game, again to see the unpredictable, a homerun by Bucky Dent and another Boston defeat. New heroes: Reggie and Nettles, Catfish and Sparky.
Though it all the voice of Bob Sheppard resonating across the years:
“Welcome to Yankee Stadium!”
Even in the wilderness years when my Yankees were in second division wilderness, we always had the fallback of being a fan of not only the Yankees but of “any team playing Boston”. I knew that Jim Lomborg would not be able to defeat Bob Gibson; he didn’t. I remember living in London and seeing the CNN transmission of Bill Buckner’s boot and the Mets next day victory. I watched Carlton Fisk’s magnificent home run, knowing in my heart that surely the next day Cincinnati would rebound; they did. I remembered last year, getting the scores on the internet while living in Tanzania. Yankees Win!
So what happened this year? How could a Yankee team drop four straight games including the last two in the Bronx to a Boston team they had just embarrassed in Fenway? Looking back, perhaps I had a premonition on that final seventh game evening. I remembered that Brooklyn’s Archbishop Molloy had once asked for prayers for Gil Hodges, the Dodger icon who was batting poorly; He went 4 for 5 that day.
Surely God loves the Yankees as much or probably more since that cur O'Malley took the beloved Dodgers west of Philadelphia.
I implored the deity in our dinner prayers to wake up the Babe and Joe and Lou and Mickey (on his birthday) and give us another victory.
They always had; but this year they didn’t.
The Red Sox fan was right: it did hurt.
Yet I am incredulous that a part of me wants Boston to beat the Cardinals. Maybe it evolves from Grover Cleveland Alexander striking out “Push Um Up” Tony Lazzeri in the 20’s or the four straight against the Yankees in the 60’s. Maybe it is for Pesky and Doer; for Dominick and Teddy Ballgame and Yaz. Then again, maybe it is acceptance that even Babe feels enough punishment has been administered. I don't know maybe it is just time, time for their fans to experience what we have so many times.
When Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, the British band played “The World Turned Upside Down.” Perhaps the Yankee Stadium organist could learn the tune for next year’s opening day.
October 2004
April 5, 2010
March 8, 2010
From Gallatin to Ghent to Gag Rules
Prologue: Funny how things happen.
Last week I was in Montana to see my daughter married. The site of the wedding was close to the Gallatin River, one of the headwaters of the Missouri and a place where my daughter and her now-husband “white-water raft.”
Even as a student of history, I only knew of the name Gallatin from a town named after him in Tennessee. So, I looked and researched and thus starts another missive.
Albert Gallatin, Swiss born, Harvard Professor; Senator (till deceitfully removed for not having lived in US for ten years); Congressman; Majority Leader; nemesis to Alexander Hamilton; appointed as Treasury Secretary by Jefferson; reappointed by Madison; began Ways and Means Committee; Ambassador to France and later Great Britain; Founder of New York University. Not too bad a resume for someone about whom I would voice the average American knows little or nothing, until recently myself included.
Important to this discussion, however, is that he, along with Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams formed the American team sent to negotiate the end of the correspondingly little known War of 1812, a conflict ending by signature shortly before Christmas 1814 with the treaty of Ghent and as well before the much more notable battle of New Orleans.
Besides this unfortunate lack of punctuality, two elements are important from the treaty. First: though America had now defeated Britain twice in armed conflict, the trio of Adams, Clay and Gallatin were unable to negotiate solutions to the principal causes of the war in question: neutrality and impressments of sailors.
Of greater potential consequence was the inclusion in the treaty, annotated as Article X, of a specific call for the end of slavery. No historian would say that slavery was even a remote cause of this conflict and never before had such language been included in any official American document. Nevertheless, it was and the treaty was unanimously approved by the Senate and signed by the President with these remarkable words enduring:
“Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of humanity and justice, and whereas both His Majesty and the United States are desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire abolition, it is hereby agreed that both the contracting parties shall use their best endeavours to accomplish so desirable an object”
This was a mere twenty five years after the Constitution had for most purposes excluded even recognizing slaves as anything more than property and yet here, in a treaty to end a war having nothing to do with slavery, we, the American we, agreed to use our “best endeavours” to “promote its entire abolition”. Pretty strong language and pre-dating the 13th Amendment by some fifty years.
So: what happened to stop the implementation of Article X of the Treaty of Ghent?
Well, for twenty odd years very little except constant fighting over states rights, free and slave states and Henry Clay’s Missouri Compromise. Finally, it appears Congress, both houses had enough and from that came a unique piece of congressional gamesmanship called the Gag Rule.
Since the Constitution came into effect, pro-slavery forces had barred any discussion of slavery in Congress. Using their First Amendment rights, anti slavery groups, believing that since there was a clear right to petition the government, de-jure such petitions and consequently slavery itself, would have to be discussed. Numerous petitions for the abolition of slavery were submitted year after year. Congressional leaders had no interest in bringing these matters to the floor so devised Gag Rules.
Utterly ignoring the First Amendment right to petition the government, the initial Gag Resolution was enacted in 1835. The United States House of Representatives and Senate ruled that all petitions to Congress about slavery would not be read or discussed but would be tabled without consideration. In so many words they were filed in the trash bin or whatever the equivalent was then. The gagging of anti-slavery petitions by Congress continued until 1844.
In effect, Gag Resolutions / Rules permitted Congress to abridge its own First Amendment right to petition the Government. Furthermore, by doing this, Congress countermanded the specifications contained within Article X of the Treaty of Ghent requiring that both nations attempt to end slavery. All this was ignored.
Two House resolutions passed in the spring of 1836. The first stated that Congress had no constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in the states and the second that it "ought not do so” in the District of Columbia. Amendments to the contrary were tabled.
Former President John Quincy Adams, himself a signer of the Treaty of Ghent and after his presidency a congressman from Massachusetts, fought these Gag Resolutions every year as they were being re-introduced. To stop his use of parliamentary procedures to virtually hold up Congress from its scheduled efforts, the House passed the Twenty-first Rule (1840), which banned even the acceptance of anti-slavery petitions. As a House Rule it took precedence over any petition or resolution and thus stopped Quincy Adams.
Today we question signing statements and the sixty vote rule in the Senate or the right of a single senator from Kentucky or Alabama or Florida to literally stop critical government functions but that is what our Constitution allows. Article I, Section 4 says:
“Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”
We look today at the inability of Congress to enact meaningful legislation whether it be on healthcare or jobs or financial reform. In each generation our forebears have expressed their equivalent frustrations with Congress. Where are we now on Social Security Reforms? This is the “third rail” today; in the 1840’s it was slavery. In time the matters are solved and they are solved by patience and not by “going to the mattresses”. These ae not new issues; the pandering by members of both houses to TV cameras is in fact a vast improvement to the 1800’s unabridged use of the print media. At least today members are aware that cameras are on.
Oh, and if you think that Gag Rules are old history consider this: The Mexico City Policy, comes close to a reincarnation of a Gag Rule, though this time from the Executive branch. It is a discontinuous executive policy enacted in 1984 by President Reagan that required all non-governmental organizations in other countries receiving US funding to cease performing or promoting abortion services as a method of family planning. This non- law policy was continued by President GHW Bush in 1989; ended by President Clinton(1993); reinstituted by President GW Bush (2001) and retracted (2009) by President Barack Obama. I expect that Quincy Adams would rile against this use of executive power as well.
More to the point: how would we react today knowing that a momentous clause in a treaty approved by not only the required two-thirds of the Senate but unanimously was completely ignored for 50 years? Hopefully as we always have with editorials and speeches and finally with our ballots and not our bullets. Sadly of course it was left to bullets to end slavery.
Someone said “History is the same garden entered into from different gates”; I suppose that is correct and as evidence: that is how while driving to a wedding, seeing a river in Montana, named after a politician I did not know and reading a treaty ending a fairly inconsequential war, this missive was written.
By the way, the wedding was wonderful.
Last week I was in Montana to see my daughter married. The site of the wedding was close to the Gallatin River, one of the headwaters of the Missouri and a place where my daughter and her now-husband “white-water raft.”
Even as a student of history, I only knew of the name Gallatin from a town named after him in Tennessee. So, I looked and researched and thus starts another missive.
Albert Gallatin, Swiss born, Harvard Professor; Senator (till deceitfully removed for not having lived in US for ten years); Congressman; Majority Leader; nemesis to Alexander Hamilton; appointed as Treasury Secretary by Jefferson; reappointed by Madison; began Ways and Means Committee; Ambassador to France and later Great Britain; Founder of New York University. Not too bad a resume for someone about whom I would voice the average American knows little or nothing, until recently myself included.
Important to this discussion, however, is that he, along with Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams formed the American team sent to negotiate the end of the correspondingly little known War of 1812, a conflict ending by signature shortly before Christmas 1814 with the treaty of Ghent and as well before the much more notable battle of New Orleans.
Besides this unfortunate lack of punctuality, two elements are important from the treaty. First: though America had now defeated Britain twice in armed conflict, the trio of Adams, Clay and Gallatin were unable to negotiate solutions to the principal causes of the war in question: neutrality and impressments of sailors.
Of greater potential consequence was the inclusion in the treaty, annotated as Article X, of a specific call for the end of slavery. No historian would say that slavery was even a remote cause of this conflict and never before had such language been included in any official American document. Nevertheless, it was and the treaty was unanimously approved by the Senate and signed by the President with these remarkable words enduring:
“Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of humanity and justice, and whereas both His Majesty and the United States are desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire abolition, it is hereby agreed that both the contracting parties shall use their best endeavours to accomplish so desirable an object”
This was a mere twenty five years after the Constitution had for most purposes excluded even recognizing slaves as anything more than property and yet here, in a treaty to end a war having nothing to do with slavery, we, the American we, agreed to use our “best endeavours” to “promote its entire abolition”. Pretty strong language and pre-dating the 13th Amendment by some fifty years.
So: what happened to stop the implementation of Article X of the Treaty of Ghent?
Well, for twenty odd years very little except constant fighting over states rights, free and slave states and Henry Clay’s Missouri Compromise. Finally, it appears Congress, both houses had enough and from that came a unique piece of congressional gamesmanship called the Gag Rule.
Since the Constitution came into effect, pro-slavery forces had barred any discussion of slavery in Congress. Using their First Amendment rights, anti slavery groups, believing that since there was a clear right to petition the government, de-jure such petitions and consequently slavery itself, would have to be discussed. Numerous petitions for the abolition of slavery were submitted year after year. Congressional leaders had no interest in bringing these matters to the floor so devised Gag Rules.
Utterly ignoring the First Amendment right to petition the government, the initial Gag Resolution was enacted in 1835. The United States House of Representatives and Senate ruled that all petitions to Congress about slavery would not be read or discussed but would be tabled without consideration. In so many words they were filed in the trash bin or whatever the equivalent was then. The gagging of anti-slavery petitions by Congress continued until 1844.
In effect, Gag Resolutions / Rules permitted Congress to abridge its own First Amendment right to petition the Government. Furthermore, by doing this, Congress countermanded the specifications contained within Article X of the Treaty of Ghent requiring that both nations attempt to end slavery. All this was ignored.
Two House resolutions passed in the spring of 1836. The first stated that Congress had no constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in the states and the second that it "ought not do so” in the District of Columbia. Amendments to the contrary were tabled.
Former President John Quincy Adams, himself a signer of the Treaty of Ghent and after his presidency a congressman from Massachusetts, fought these Gag Resolutions every year as they were being re-introduced. To stop his use of parliamentary procedures to virtually hold up Congress from its scheduled efforts, the House passed the Twenty-first Rule (1840), which banned even the acceptance of anti-slavery petitions. As a House Rule it took precedence over any petition or resolution and thus stopped Quincy Adams.
Today we question signing statements and the sixty vote rule in the Senate or the right of a single senator from Kentucky or Alabama or Florida to literally stop critical government functions but that is what our Constitution allows. Article I, Section 4 says:
“Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”
We look today at the inability of Congress to enact meaningful legislation whether it be on healthcare or jobs or financial reform. In each generation our forebears have expressed their equivalent frustrations with Congress. Where are we now on Social Security Reforms? This is the “third rail” today; in the 1840’s it was slavery. In time the matters are solved and they are solved by patience and not by “going to the mattresses”. These ae not new issues; the pandering by members of both houses to TV cameras is in fact a vast improvement to the 1800’s unabridged use of the print media. At least today members are aware that cameras are on.
Oh, and if you think that Gag Rules are old history consider this: The Mexico City Policy, comes close to a reincarnation of a Gag Rule, though this time from the Executive branch. It is a discontinuous executive policy enacted in 1984 by President Reagan that required all non-governmental organizations in other countries receiving US funding to cease performing or promoting abortion services as a method of family planning. This non- law policy was continued by President GHW Bush in 1989; ended by President Clinton(1993); reinstituted by President GW Bush (2001) and retracted (2009) by President Barack Obama. I expect that Quincy Adams would rile against this use of executive power as well.
More to the point: how would we react today knowing that a momentous clause in a treaty approved by not only the required two-thirds of the Senate but unanimously was completely ignored for 50 years? Hopefully as we always have with editorials and speeches and finally with our ballots and not our bullets. Sadly of course it was left to bullets to end slavery.
Someone said “History is the same garden entered into from different gates”; I suppose that is correct and as evidence: that is how while driving to a wedding, seeing a river in Montana, named after a politician I did not know and reading a treaty ending a fairly inconsequential war, this missive was written.
By the way, the wedding was wonderful.
March 6, 2010
A Ride In The Desert
Prologue: I experienced the terrible happenings of 9/11 in Palembang, Indonesia. To that extent I was probably among the least informed due to the shortcomings in South Sumatra of electronic communication as well as the bias of local print media. Leaving Indonesia towards the end of October that year, I arrived in Egypt to complete a project begun the previous spring. As I had lived in Cairo for several years in the middle 90’s, I had the opportunity of once again seeing old friends. This is a commentary I wrote on October 26, 2001.
I had a date this morning with a beautiful lady named Nour. I had not seen her for a long while and it was a very special time. Some of you have seen a picture of the two of us and that picture has become my screen saver. You see, Nour is the lovely white mare that I have been riding for many years whenever my labors bring me to Egypt. Maybe it is that in this misguided world, a world getting more fanatical each day, the simple act of riding a wonderful horse into the desert is reassuring.
I rode with Osama, my Bedouin friend of many years. He is one of the people I am closest to in this ancient land and it was indeed good to be back in the desert with him, just the two of us, riding and laughing and remembering. Over the years we have seen friends come and go, shared experiences, sought advice, told many stories, but always trusting in each other's honesty. In a way that is a one way street because Bedouins cannot lie; it is not a part of their character.
I had not seen Osama since the terrible events of 11 September. Life is important to Bedouins and the specter of thousands of people dying in moments is as unthinkable to them as perhaps it was to us before we watched that horror unfolding.
We slowed our horses to a comfortable walk and crossed a sand-dune. There in front of us stood the Pyramids. In many ways the WTC Towers were the Pyramids of our age. Now they are gone. We shared our mutual horror and disgust. He asked me who committed this act and I responded with an unequivocal: Bin Laden. There, in the shadows of millennia, in this meeting of two cultures, I immediately realized we held different views. There was not anger in our discussion; there never is. What there was is reciprocal tolerance. The conflict is not between he and I as persons but between what we are. I can lament with Osama but I cannot feel the frustrations of the Muslim people nor can they feel ours.
Perhaps we don't want to admit it but realistically our respective cultures are presently in conflict and pragmatically they have been for centuries. Was not and is not our response to 11 Sept that of outrage? Can we not feel in our wrath some of what they have felt for so much longer? Or is it that we do not care to feel? Maybe what we are seeing in Pakistan and Indonesia is but the beginning of a ground swell of their outrage, a fury built up for so long and, yes, exacerbated by happenings in Palestine, but having roots in our different views of history.
Have we looked at the alternatives to what we are told is history? We sometimes do when it is to our benefit; we reviled apartheid though we were guilty of it ourselves. Is there some measure of truth in history seen through the eyes of others? If there is, then we must study this and search inside ourselves for answers and find them before those answers become moot.
This is what I learned today, on a wonderful horse, in the desert, with a friend I cherish and who I know is searching as I am for answers to the same vexing questions.
Please God grant Osama and I wisdom, the wisdom that all of us need to live together so that as he and I did today, all people can ride into their deserts and ride together.
Cairo, Egypt
Friday 26 October 2001
I had a date this morning with a beautiful lady named Nour. I had not seen her for a long while and it was a very special time. Some of you have seen a picture of the two of us and that picture has become my screen saver. You see, Nour is the lovely white mare that I have been riding for many years whenever my labors bring me to Egypt. Maybe it is that in this misguided world, a world getting more fanatical each day, the simple act of riding a wonderful horse into the desert is reassuring.
I rode with Osama, my Bedouin friend of many years. He is one of the people I am closest to in this ancient land and it was indeed good to be back in the desert with him, just the two of us, riding and laughing and remembering. Over the years we have seen friends come and go, shared experiences, sought advice, told many stories, but always trusting in each other's honesty. In a way that is a one way street because Bedouins cannot lie; it is not a part of their character.
I had not seen Osama since the terrible events of 11 September. Life is important to Bedouins and the specter of thousands of people dying in moments is as unthinkable to them as perhaps it was to us before we watched that horror unfolding.
We slowed our horses to a comfortable walk and crossed a sand-dune. There in front of us stood the Pyramids. In many ways the WTC Towers were the Pyramids of our age. Now they are gone. We shared our mutual horror and disgust. He asked me who committed this act and I responded with an unequivocal: Bin Laden. There, in the shadows of millennia, in this meeting of two cultures, I immediately realized we held different views. There was not anger in our discussion; there never is. What there was is reciprocal tolerance. The conflict is not between he and I as persons but between what we are. I can lament with Osama but I cannot feel the frustrations of the Muslim people nor can they feel ours.
Perhaps we don't want to admit it but realistically our respective cultures are presently in conflict and pragmatically they have been for centuries. Was not and is not our response to 11 Sept that of outrage? Can we not feel in our wrath some of what they have felt for so much longer? Or is it that we do not care to feel? Maybe what we are seeing in Pakistan and Indonesia is but the beginning of a ground swell of their outrage, a fury built up for so long and, yes, exacerbated by happenings in Palestine, but having roots in our different views of history.
Have we looked at the alternatives to what we are told is history? We sometimes do when it is to our benefit; we reviled apartheid though we were guilty of it ourselves. Is there some measure of truth in history seen through the eyes of others? If there is, then we must study this and search inside ourselves for answers and find them before those answers become moot.
This is what I learned today, on a wonderful horse, in the desert, with a friend I cherish and who I know is searching as I am for answers to the same vexing questions.
Please God grant Osama and I wisdom, the wisdom that all of us need to live together so that as he and I did today, all people can ride into their deserts and ride together.
Cairo, Egypt
Friday 26 October 2001
February 20, 2010
The Dance Card
Nineteen Hundred and Three: an insignificant year compared to others. Even the important headlines seemed, with a few exceptions, to be not awesomely significant: the Wright Brothers flew 120 feet; the Panama Canal was constructed; the Red Sox won the first World Series beating the Pirates; Henry Ford sent his first Model T down the assembly line; and telegraph messages were sent between San Francisco and Manila.
Far beyond our seemingly protective oceans, France and England signed the “Entente Cordiale”; the King and Queen of Serbia were assassinated by their own people; and in news sadly long forgotten, the Russian town of Kishinev was the scene of a massive pogrom against the Jews while at the same time thousands of Bulgarian men, women and children were killed by Turkish troops.
Terrorism was not conceived in our times.
Historians would later note the births of George Orwell and Bob Hope.
Unchanging into the late Spring, 1903 was by all accounts a pretty ordinary year at Fordham, a relatively small University in The Bronx, New York, then sixty-two years old, having adopted its name from a 17th century Dutch Plantation.
George A. Pettit, SJ, Rector of Fordham’s tree- lined Rose Hill Campus was preparing to dispatch a contingent of young men into society. Unquestionably they attended Mass at the University Chapel, beckoned daily to worship by the unchanged clarion that inspired Edgar Alan Poe to pen ‘The Bells” during his short tenure on campus.
Perhaps they thought of the football team coached by Harry Ely that had beaten Rutgers but was crushed by Lafayette. The following year they would go undefeated.
Perhaps some of the men let their thoughts return to April fifteenth, a Wednesday Evening spent at their Prom at the Waldorf Astoria. We know the names of the Chairman and Treasurer and the Members of the Executive, Reception and Floor Committees for that event and we know that there were 20 scheduled dances: eleven Two-Step’s; seven Waltzes’; and two Lancers’ and an evening-ending romantic waltz, Macy’s Good Night Little Girl, an 1898 hit.
We are denied the names of the young men who nattily attired in the Edwardian fashion of the day reveled that night in April. Those details are lost, important then, yes but now, a hundred years later, even knowing their names would probably be no more than that, names, like the lines from Gray’s Elegy Written In A Country Church-yard: “Full many a Flower is born to blush unseen”.
Obligingly the mists of history do allow us a brief glimpse of that evening: we know that for one man, a Miss Farrell was his partner for two dances and Misses Reilly and Butler for one each and that a certain Miss Hamilton was his partner for six, including the first and the afore-mentioned last waltz.
We know these things from his Dance Card, that anachronistic element of Victorian times, a survivor, perhaps the only one, of that night a century-ago. The gold embossed logo on the leather cover states Collegium Fordhamensis. Opening reveals a charming packet with an attached ivory colored – maroon tasseled—pencil. The pages are not as bright as that night one hundred years ago but the pictures they connote are of vibrancy and happiness, the exhilaration of a young man leaving the shelter of university, entering adulthood and, for that evening, dancing at the Waldorf.
The questions beg:
Who was he?
Was it simply an enjoyable evening?
Was she a sister of a classmate?
Did they meet again?
Perpetual questions.
Fittingly we are denied answers, for the shadows of a century ago stretch far and the riposte will not be found nor perhaps should it be.
What we appreciate is that he preserved the Dance Card and with it the memories it held for him. Perhaps it was that last waltz and then the carriage ride back to Rose Hill.
He has departed this life, though we know not when, and so did all his Fordham Class of ‘03 classmates and, at some time, Miss Hamilton.
Men of Fordham and their ladies - Rest in Peace
Far beyond our seemingly protective oceans, France and England signed the “Entente Cordiale”; the King and Queen of Serbia were assassinated by their own people; and in news sadly long forgotten, the Russian town of Kishinev was the scene of a massive pogrom against the Jews while at the same time thousands of Bulgarian men, women and children were killed by Turkish troops.
Terrorism was not conceived in our times.
Historians would later note the births of George Orwell and Bob Hope.
Unchanging into the late Spring, 1903 was by all accounts a pretty ordinary year at Fordham, a relatively small University in The Bronx, New York, then sixty-two years old, having adopted its name from a 17th century Dutch Plantation.
George A. Pettit, SJ, Rector of Fordham’s tree- lined Rose Hill Campus was preparing to dispatch a contingent of young men into society. Unquestionably they attended Mass at the University Chapel, beckoned daily to worship by the unchanged clarion that inspired Edgar Alan Poe to pen ‘The Bells” during his short tenure on campus.
Perhaps they thought of the football team coached by Harry Ely that had beaten Rutgers but was crushed by Lafayette. The following year they would go undefeated.
Perhaps some of the men let their thoughts return to April fifteenth, a Wednesday Evening spent at their Prom at the Waldorf Astoria. We know the names of the Chairman and Treasurer and the Members of the Executive, Reception and Floor Committees for that event and we know that there were 20 scheduled dances: eleven Two-Step’s; seven Waltzes’; and two Lancers’ and an evening-ending romantic waltz, Macy’s Good Night Little Girl, an 1898 hit.
We are denied the names of the young men who nattily attired in the Edwardian fashion of the day reveled that night in April. Those details are lost, important then, yes but now, a hundred years later, even knowing their names would probably be no more than that, names, like the lines from Gray’s Elegy Written In A Country Church-yard: “Full many a Flower is born to blush unseen”.
Obligingly the mists of history do allow us a brief glimpse of that evening: we know that for one man, a Miss Farrell was his partner for two dances and Misses Reilly and Butler for one each and that a certain Miss Hamilton was his partner for six, including the first and the afore-mentioned last waltz.
We know these things from his Dance Card, that anachronistic element of Victorian times, a survivor, perhaps the only one, of that night a century-ago. The gold embossed logo on the leather cover states Collegium Fordhamensis. Opening reveals a charming packet with an attached ivory colored – maroon tasseled—pencil. The pages are not as bright as that night one hundred years ago but the pictures they connote are of vibrancy and happiness, the exhilaration of a young man leaving the shelter of university, entering adulthood and, for that evening, dancing at the Waldorf.
The questions beg:
Who was he?
Was it simply an enjoyable evening?
Was she a sister of a classmate?
Did they meet again?
Perpetual questions.
Fittingly we are denied answers, for the shadows of a century ago stretch far and the riposte will not be found nor perhaps should it be.
What we appreciate is that he preserved the Dance Card and with it the memories it held for him. Perhaps it was that last waltz and then the carriage ride back to Rose Hill.
He has departed this life, though we know not when, and so did all his Fordham Class of ‘03 classmates and, at some time, Miss Hamilton.
Men of Fordham and their ladies - Rest in Peace
Postscript: I acquired the actual dance card some ten years ago and wrote and published this story originally for the hundredth anniversary of the prom, 2003.
Since then I have uncovered the name of the gentleman; he was a member of a prominent New Jersey political family. I know he married and fathered a number of children. I also know his first wife passed away at a young age. Was she one of the young ladies listed in the card?
Try as I might I have not answered that question.
Perhaps it is best not to.
Thomas I Hayes
2010
February 17, 2010
This is my published letter as it appears in the St Pete Times today. The original editorial by Daniel Ruth follows. Hope you agree with my sentiments.
Tom
Unneeded admissions
Both as a former Scout and as the father of an Eagle Scout with three Palms, I was incensed at Daniel Ruth's use of editorial space in the St. Petersburg Times to share his seedy experiences in an organization that for 100 years has helped millions of young men worldwide.
I fail to see what purpose his revelations might advance except to cast negative aspersions on his fellow Scouts and their parents from those many years ago as well as the leaders of the troop he actually had the temerity to identify.
He admits to stealing, though he uses the word "pilfering," specific brands of cigarettes, in addition to scotch, gin, vodka and bourbon in a bragging way. He appears proud of the fact that he and his fellow adolescents broke numerous laws, something most adults would be ashamed to admit except as an example to help young people. Rather, he is self-satisfied in his actions and fully places blame on the organization of Scouting.
If Ruth feels the need to make known his shortcomings there are better places to do so — including the confessional at the church he has maligned — but not the editorial pages of the Times.
Thomas I. Hayes, St. Petersburg
My merit badge in martini mixology
By Daniel Ruth, Times correspondent In Print: Friday, February 12, 2010
It is probably safe to say that all my years as a Boy Scout in Troop 96, camping in the rain, the snow, the muck, the mire, served me well for a lifetime appreciating the charms — of room service.
This week marks the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America, a proud and noble institution in our national life. And while Scouting honors some of the more famous in its ranks — Hank Aaron, John F. Kennedy, Neil Armstrong, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates and Barack Obama — alas, there are some of us of whom it can probably be said we never were quite prepared.
Or to put it more succinctly — I was sort of the Beetle Bailey of Scouting. Certain questions haunt my life, never to be understood, or answered.
I'm not sure why I ever joined my Boy Scout troop in Akron. This was a bit like Paris Hilton deciding to move into an Amish community. At first, things seemed to go along just fine. The uniform for an 11-year-old was sort of spiffy, and the meetings in the school cafeteria at St. Sebastians were nice.
Who knew we had to go camping, too? Why? I was just getting comfortable. I have never figured out the camping thing. Why should people leave the warmth of their homes and conveniences to schlep into the woods to sleep in dirt and run the risk of being eaten by some annoyed beast? Please? Anybody? Any help with this at all?
It wasn't as if I was unaccustomed to the outdoors. I had spent many summers at a Catholic Youth Organization camp. But at least we had a roof over our heads and a bed and a bathroom to use and the only thing one had to worry about was fending off the odd randy seminarian camp counselor.
The Boy Scouts insisted on a more traditional Lewis and Clark form of camping. On weekends I'd find myself being carted off to the woods to commune with nature and eat Dinty Moore beef stew out of a can. I was informed this was supposed to be fun.
Many former Scouts can point to their merit badges for canoeing, or astronomy, or bugling, or bird study, or climbing. I learned to drink and smoke. And I was good at it, too! Unfortunately there was no merit badge for hangovers. Otherwise, I would have been an Eagle Scout for cocktails.
I was hardly alone. Before each camping trip many of my fellow Scouts would pilfer a few cigarettes from their parents. One kid, whose father apparently had drinking issues, would abscond with some of his parent's hooch. Then we would all assemble in a tent and pass a canteen around with our own unique concoctions.
Here's what I learned. Filtered Marlboros were preferable to nonfiltered Chesterfields. And it is a really bad idea to mix scotch, gin, vodka and bourbon together. Life lessons, life lessons.
You are probably wondering right about now — where were the Scout leaders while all this was going on?
We wondered that, too.
During my two or three years as a Boy Scout I do not remember going on a single weekend camping trip where it did not rain, or snow, or both. This was Akron, Ohio, after all; Mother Nature's idea of practical joke.
I've often thought my years roughing it out in the middle of the wilds would have prepared me for a life as a Navy SEAL, just as long as the commando raids involved Paris, London or New York's Upper East Side.
Finally — FINALLY — Sunday morning would arrive and my worn and weary Scouting brethren — smelling like Sasquatch meets the boat people — would be delivered back to our families. I had to re-enter the house through the basement to deposit all my musty clothes into the washing machine to be properly deloused.
I still carry with me a souvenir of my last Scout outing. As a bumbling, stumbling, accident-prone child, I probably spent more time in the emergency room getting stitches for one mishap after another than I ever did taking in the wonders of the woods.
It was called a "Leadership" camping weekend. About the only thing I was capable of leading was the proper ratio of vermouth to gin in a martini. Okay, I have arcane skills. But there I was.
Walking through the campsite as dusk descended, I tripped over a rope and landed on a tent stake, ripping open a gash on my knee. Not exactly a Walden Pond moment.
Instead of spending the weekend once again turning myself into Jeremiah Johnson, it was back to the ER. Darn.
I left Scouting shortly afterward. But I still have the scar on my right knee — my own personal and well-earned merit badge for klutziness.
Tom
Unneeded admissions
Both as a former Scout and as the father of an Eagle Scout with three Palms, I was incensed at Daniel Ruth's use of editorial space in the St. Petersburg Times to share his seedy experiences in an organization that for 100 years has helped millions of young men worldwide.
I fail to see what purpose his revelations might advance except to cast negative aspersions on his fellow Scouts and their parents from those many years ago as well as the leaders of the troop he actually had the temerity to identify.
He admits to stealing, though he uses the word "pilfering," specific brands of cigarettes, in addition to scotch, gin, vodka and bourbon in a bragging way. He appears proud of the fact that he and his fellow adolescents broke numerous laws, something most adults would be ashamed to admit except as an example to help young people. Rather, he is self-satisfied in his actions and fully places blame on the organization of Scouting.
If Ruth feels the need to make known his shortcomings there are better places to do so — including the confessional at the church he has maligned — but not the editorial pages of the Times.
Thomas I. Hayes, St. Petersburg
My merit badge in martini mixology
By Daniel Ruth, Times correspondent In Print: Friday, February 12, 2010
It is probably safe to say that all my years as a Boy Scout in Troop 96, camping in the rain, the snow, the muck, the mire, served me well for a lifetime appreciating the charms — of room service.
This week marks the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America, a proud and noble institution in our national life. And while Scouting honors some of the more famous in its ranks — Hank Aaron, John F. Kennedy, Neil Armstrong, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates and Barack Obama — alas, there are some of us of whom it can probably be said we never were quite prepared.
Or to put it more succinctly — I was sort of the Beetle Bailey of Scouting. Certain questions haunt my life, never to be understood, or answered.
I'm not sure why I ever joined my Boy Scout troop in Akron. This was a bit like Paris Hilton deciding to move into an Amish community. At first, things seemed to go along just fine. The uniform for an 11-year-old was sort of spiffy, and the meetings in the school cafeteria at St. Sebastians were nice.
Who knew we had to go camping, too? Why? I was just getting comfortable. I have never figured out the camping thing. Why should people leave the warmth of their homes and conveniences to schlep into the woods to sleep in dirt and run the risk of being eaten by some annoyed beast? Please? Anybody? Any help with this at all?
It wasn't as if I was unaccustomed to the outdoors. I had spent many summers at a Catholic Youth Organization camp. But at least we had a roof over our heads and a bed and a bathroom to use and the only thing one had to worry about was fending off the odd randy seminarian camp counselor.
The Boy Scouts insisted on a more traditional Lewis and Clark form of camping. On weekends I'd find myself being carted off to the woods to commune with nature and eat Dinty Moore beef stew out of a can. I was informed this was supposed to be fun.
Many former Scouts can point to their merit badges for canoeing, or astronomy, or bugling, or bird study, or climbing. I learned to drink and smoke. And I was good at it, too! Unfortunately there was no merit badge for hangovers. Otherwise, I would have been an Eagle Scout for cocktails.
I was hardly alone. Before each camping trip many of my fellow Scouts would pilfer a few cigarettes from their parents. One kid, whose father apparently had drinking issues, would abscond with some of his parent's hooch. Then we would all assemble in a tent and pass a canteen around with our own unique concoctions.
Here's what I learned. Filtered Marlboros were preferable to nonfiltered Chesterfields. And it is a really bad idea to mix scotch, gin, vodka and bourbon together. Life lessons, life lessons.
You are probably wondering right about now — where were the Scout leaders while all this was going on?
We wondered that, too.
During my two or three years as a Boy Scout I do not remember going on a single weekend camping trip where it did not rain, or snow, or both. This was Akron, Ohio, after all; Mother Nature's idea of practical joke.
I've often thought my years roughing it out in the middle of the wilds would have prepared me for a life as a Navy SEAL, just as long as the commando raids involved Paris, London or New York's Upper East Side.
Finally — FINALLY — Sunday morning would arrive and my worn and weary Scouting brethren — smelling like Sasquatch meets the boat people — would be delivered back to our families. I had to re-enter the house through the basement to deposit all my musty clothes into the washing machine to be properly deloused.
I still carry with me a souvenir of my last Scout outing. As a bumbling, stumbling, accident-prone child, I probably spent more time in the emergency room getting stitches for one mishap after another than I ever did taking in the wonders of the woods.
It was called a "Leadership" camping weekend. About the only thing I was capable of leading was the proper ratio of vermouth to gin in a martini. Okay, I have arcane skills. But there I was.
Walking through the campsite as dusk descended, I tripped over a rope and landed on a tent stake, ripping open a gash on my knee. Not exactly a Walden Pond moment.
Instead of spending the weekend once again turning myself into Jeremiah Johnson, it was back to the ER. Darn.
I left Scouting shortly afterward. But I still have the scar on my right knee — my own personal and well-earned merit badge for klutziness.
February 11, 2010
This Is the Africa I Know and Love
It is somewhere between African Queen and National Geographic;
This is the Africa where I have lived and worked.
It is an abundant yet tired land teeming with struggling and tired people; it is a place of plenty for the few and poverty for the many. It is a people who sold their own into slavery and by doing so perhaps lost the ability to resist empire building by the powers of Europe. It is a land rich in minerals, from the copper and tin of the Congo Basin to the gold and diamonds of southern Africa to the flawlessly purplish-blue gems we call Tanzanite from the savannahs of the Sub Saharran. All these and countless others, scratched-out by Africans from mines and rocks and for but a fraction of their market value.
So often, the wealth leaves Africa as it always has, be it from the slave trade of the past or the minerals of today.
The plantations of Mississippi have not metaphorically vanished with the wind as in Margaret Mitchell’s annals; indeed they have been re-born in lands whose names we barely know: Botswana and Swaziland, Zambia and Malawi; Namibia and Mozambique.
Names may have changed from colonial days: found only in history books are the Rhodesias; the Gold, Ivory and Grain Coasts; Dahomey and Nyassaland; Togoland and Upper Volta, but name changing does not transform reality; sadly it too often replaces foreign colonialism with domestic corruption.
The coast of East Africa where I called home has witnessed the flags of many nations from Arab to German to British and finally Uhuru – Freedom! Tanganyika’s freedom arose from its dusty roads and savannahs and from its jungles and rivers; it swam ashore from lakes named Victoria and Albert and Nyassa; it descended from the snow-capped rim of the volcano we call Kilimanjaro. It fused its future with the Arabic dominated spice island of Zanzibar and the land called Tanzania took its place in the family of nations. It did so freely and without violence.
Problems were myriad and so they remain. Draft animals that turned the European and North American plains and the vast steppes of Asia into arable farm land are not to be found here: they fall to the tsetse fly. Malaria killed millions; it still does. Cholera and typhoid and yellow fever and so many other maladies that we eradicated elsewhere live-on here, testimony on the one hand to human perseverance but yet on the other to the shame of those whose chose not to do here what they did so easily elsewhere.
Whatever you do for the least of my brothers……
Slavery – Utumwah – that chronicler of squalor and havoc; it speaks in the language of Kiswahili, the East African dialect whose sentences are interspaced with Arabic words, a reminder of those who purchased the millions of slaves, dragged from the rain-forested interior by their brothers to be transported to the hellish world of Arabia to toil there till death brought them their only freedom.
I don't know but perhaps there is a blurred but sadly logical bond between Utumwah and Uhuru: cause and effect; quid pro quo? Or perhaps the ying and yang of the latest trespasser.
My Africa is found in the grass hut villages of Mtwara and Massasi; found in the toil of women whose one and only purpose is to bring water back to the village, water carried on their heads from miles away. It is found in the young girls fetching firewood, training for the day that they will replace their mothers as an African Gungha Din. It is found where there is no electricity; where the rainfalls are welcomed with the fervor of religion. It is found in the simple happiness of children and in the utter bleakness that only hopelessness begets.
Because of why I was there, I am in the present tense compelled to see the people of Africa in other ways: the people of leprosy and tuberculosis; of schistosomiasis and river blindness; of dysentery and parasites; of pneumonia and measles; of women dying giving birth and the despondency of skin-and-bone children.
And then there is HIV………but that story must wait for another day………
For now it is sunset in Dar; soon the moon will rise; seemingly born from the very nadir of the Indian Ocean. Africa will bid adieu to another day and welcome again the hours of its darkness, the darkness of Conrad shrouding the mystery of its heart.
Remember this land; pray for its people. Remember as I do.
February 3, 2010
A BOX COMPASS
What do you give to a four-score plus seven man?
What can you give?
More importantly what should you give?
Sweaters…he lives in Florida;Shirts, socks…heaven knows he has ample;And as for ties…humorous at best;
The man is an engineer, an engineer of distinction; retired for more than thirty years, nevertheless he still thinks like an engineer. He understands computers, relishes in e-mails, analyzes new buildings and bridges and sadly recognized on September 11 that the buildings could not stand even before they fell.
Engineers are like that.
Sixty-years earlier, on a Sunday afternoon in December, as the duty engineer at US Steel in Pittsburgh, he took the orders for thousands of tons of special steel plates......plates that joined together would form barriers against the sea.......barriers allowing sunken battleships to be raised and fight again. Three days later the plates were designed, made, and on their way to Pearl Harbor.
He did not get a medal for that; He would not have wanted one; it was his job and he did it.
Steel might have been his life's work but this man's soul was and is that of a man of the sea; in his heart a son of Norway like his father who came to America in 1905. He was raised on the sea – not in the fjords of Scandinavia as his ancestors - but in a boat-yard on the Jersey shore.
But what of the gift? We found a box-compass in a store – a copy to be sure – but still it functioned. Buying it was an impulse……..what would he say? How would he react?
He opened the Christmas wrappings and struggled with the clasp on the box – his hands are still those of a Norwegian sailor and Pittsburgh steel man – more attuned to heavy lifting than fine manipulation.
It opened and the look in his eyes broadcast that our idea was right.
Minutes went by….he held the compass…turned it to and fro…. and remembered…..his eyes misting….remembering back to a time long in the past….more than seventy years ago.
He was fifteen when his father sent him by train from their boat-yard to New York and up the Hudson to bring back a boat. He gave him a box compass with which to navigate… back down the Hudson.....across a foggy New York harbor..... around Staten Island and Sandy Hook .....down the Jersey shore to the rock-lined inlet his Father had built, the inlet leading to their boat yard in Brielle and home.
He was fifteen and his sole companion a box compass.
It has been lifetimes since that day – no one knows where the old box compass went – but for moments on this Christmas Day seventy years later it was in his hands again. His eyes told the story….his father…the train ride….the boat..navigating……finding the tiny inlet. And his reward for sure was a dinner from his Mother, Gerda, and a perception from his Father that he was right about his son.
He spoke to us of that day long ago…of his Father and of the pride he had in being trusted to do this task…… and we knew………we knew our gift was welcome.
It sits on his desk now…….the memories are fresh……the gift was time-honored.
He once again has a box compass.
He is my Father-in-law, John Haakan Hansen.
Postscript
The Box Compass was originally written in London, England a week after that Christmas in 2001. It was written out of joy for the life of a man who himself gave so much joy.
Along with his slide-rule, the compass resided on his desk until he passed two years later. It now has its home on my desk.
In accordance with his wishes his body was buried at sea, in the blue waters of the Atlantic that he knew so well. His spirit lives with his father, Haakan and all the other Vikings in their Valhalla.
Thomas Ignatius Hayes
At sea on Queen Mary II
What do you give to a four-score plus seven man?
What can you give?
More importantly what should you give?
Sweaters…he lives in Florida;Shirts, socks…heaven knows he has ample;And as for ties…humorous at best;
The man is an engineer, an engineer of distinction; retired for more than thirty years, nevertheless he still thinks like an engineer. He understands computers, relishes in e-mails, analyzes new buildings and bridges and sadly recognized on September 11 that the buildings could not stand even before they fell.
Engineers are like that.
Sixty-years earlier, on a Sunday afternoon in December, as the duty engineer at US Steel in Pittsburgh, he took the orders for thousands of tons of special steel plates......plates that joined together would form barriers against the sea.......barriers allowing sunken battleships to be raised and fight again. Three days later the plates were designed, made, and on their way to Pearl Harbor.
He did not get a medal for that; He would not have wanted one; it was his job and he did it.
Steel might have been his life's work but this man's soul was and is that of a man of the sea; in his heart a son of Norway like his father who came to America in 1905. He was raised on the sea – not in the fjords of Scandinavia as his ancestors - but in a boat-yard on the Jersey shore.
But what of the gift? We found a box-compass in a store – a copy to be sure – but still it functioned. Buying it was an impulse……..what would he say? How would he react?
He opened the Christmas wrappings and struggled with the clasp on the box – his hands are still those of a Norwegian sailor and Pittsburgh steel man – more attuned to heavy lifting than fine manipulation.
It opened and the look in his eyes broadcast that our idea was right.
Minutes went by….he held the compass…turned it to and fro…. and remembered…..his eyes misting….remembering back to a time long in the past….more than seventy years ago.
He was fifteen when his father sent him by train from their boat-yard to New York and up the Hudson to bring back a boat. He gave him a box compass with which to navigate… back down the Hudson.....across a foggy New York harbor..... around Staten Island and Sandy Hook .....down the Jersey shore to the rock-lined inlet his Father had built, the inlet leading to their boat yard in Brielle and home.
He was fifteen and his sole companion a box compass.
It has been lifetimes since that day – no one knows where the old box compass went – but for moments on this Christmas Day seventy years later it was in his hands again. His eyes told the story….his father…the train ride….the boat..navigating……finding the tiny inlet. And his reward for sure was a dinner from his Mother, Gerda, and a perception from his Father that he was right about his son.
He spoke to us of that day long ago…of his Father and of the pride he had in being trusted to do this task…… and we knew………we knew our gift was welcome.
It sits on his desk now…….the memories are fresh……the gift was time-honored.
He once again has a box compass.
He is my Father-in-law, John Haakan Hansen.
Postscript
The Box Compass was originally written in London, England a week after that Christmas in 2001. It was written out of joy for the life of a man who himself gave so much joy.
Along with his slide-rule, the compass resided on his desk until he passed two years later. It now has its home on my desk.
In accordance with his wishes his body was buried at sea, in the blue waters of the Atlantic that he knew so well. His spirit lives with his father, Haakan and all the other Vikings in their Valhalla.
Thomas Ignatius Hayes
At sea on Queen Mary II
January 31, 2010
Listening to Plato and Madison
Someone has to tell our congress, both parties, that the sentiment Mr. Lincoln spoke of: government of, by and for the people, applies today just as it did 150 years ago. In our day, we see politicians ignoring the will of the people and voting yea or nay simply to stand with their party or with a particular base of that party.
I have never liked the symbolism in deliberative bodies of the term “whips”, it conjuring up Dickensian images of cajoling or bantering members of the House or Senate to vote a certain way because the party demands it. Even worse are those who agree to vote in the proscribed way in exchange for pet projects or bills that benefit a few people who parenthetically may well be major contributors. Inducements like that may come terribly close to corruption to “we the people” but they are merely Washington’s brand of insider trading.
Consider Mr. Nelson of Nebraska and his similarly named colleague from Florida at the critical moment of the healthcare debate. Shameful is not the word for their actions.
Are we really so naïve as to believe that pharmaceutical and petro-chemical companies, insurance and banking interests really believe in the precepts of either major party? Hardly: as their donations indicate: they give money for one thing only: votes.
It is not an accident that our key legislative branch is called the House of Representatives. Indeed it is what separates a democracy from a republic. These individuals were elected to be our spokespersons. Unfortunately, the reality is not that. The cost of remaining in office dictates that money is the major factor. Major donors, major companies, major industries call the shots much more than individuals or groups of individuals. Political action groups get on the evening news but do not come c lose to the power wielded by lobbyists and their funding sources.
James Madison who wrote much of our Constitution fully understood the difference between a democracy and a republic. Sadly, many citizens today do not.
The republic form of government he and the founders gave us empowers the people with the responsibility to elect representatives at all levels from local government to Washington. Idealistically and no doubt at times naively, we vote for these individuals because they are intelligent men and women who should be able to reason their decisions based on evidence presented to them, their personal understanding of the matter, and also, expectantly, the views of the people who elected them.
The theory is that we should not elect anyone simply because they have taken the party line consistently nor because they passed some litmus test. Madison would recoil at the very thought of that. He envisaged individuals who had the capacity to think and reason and not to be tools of the leadership, irrespective or party allegiance. The House votes on legislation not the parties but sadly this has changed.
Can individual congressmen challenge the current format? Regrettably they and therefore we are often compelled to follow these edicts because the party leadership will summarily withhold funding for those candidates who don’t toe the line or pass these tests. That is why we see the Republican Party crumbling: Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, Lincoln Chafey in Rhode Island, even General Colin Powell: not acceptable to the Republican “base”. This is the same base that reportedly denied Senator McCain his choice of a running mate and in doing so probably cost him any chance he had of winning. This is the base that will not listen to what even the majority of the people even in their own party say. Rather they listen to demagogues and ideologues.
Litmus tests for Roe v Wade, sanctity of marriage, stimulus packages, global climate change are hauled out and if not agreed without question, the wrath of conservative pundits crashes down on potential candidates. There is a new term: “primary them”: and it is not the sole prerogative of the Republicans. Ask Joe Lieberman.
Even as the minority party, The Republicans would rather fund a primary challenge than support a party incumbent who is opposed to the death penalty or is pro choice. This is the base speaking.; not the vox populi but a small contingent of self appointed individuals who feel they are chosen to lead their party and at some point the country as a whole to a imaginary world of happiness as evidenced by wealth, power and status.
Republicans do not have a corner on this market. Democrats have similar one-sidedness as evidenced by actions of the Majority Leader and Speaker adding hundreds of pages to a healthcare bill before anyone can read them and expecting the faithful to vote on trust while failing to communicate in a meaningful way with the party in opposition.
I purposely did not use the term “loyal opposition” as it does not apply. Neither party appears to be loyal to the people and if not to them, then to whom? Pharmaceutical industry? Labor Unions? Oil and Coal interests? The lists are long but it is from these groups that money, the only fuel that really drives politics, comes. Loyalty to those who elected them takes a very distant back-seat in most processes except when it is election time.
Today the American people, two out of three in some polls, are saying we need meaningful changes in how we pay for healthcare. The Republican Party “base” cries socialism to scare us and sadly it does many. Presidents back to Truman have been trying to change healthcare to no avail. Yet the people entrusted to do this have wonderful policies for themselves, their families, and their staff and they are not losing their health insurance. However, by their adamancy not to modify the current system, they are proving they care little for those who could benefit from universal coverage.
Returning to Madison and his use of Plato as one of the foundations for our government: Plato believed that morality must be based on objective truth and must be reconciled with self-interest. That is, morality must be in the interest of the individual. This simple premise is all but absent in the unbending doctrinal approach of party politics today. Politicians speak of the “Founders” but truly they take little or no notice of what these brilliant men foresaw when they gave us our Republic.
Degeneration of leadership is brought about by leaders focusing on the interest of their own offices and with their own profit and not as both Plato and Madison envisaged with the welfare of the individually governed, the very people that elected them. Further, economic self-interest and political power must be kept separate and not be allowed to work in combination to the disadvantage of the state or the people the state represents.
Harmony, Plato believed, is in the remuneration both of the state and the individual. Conversely, a dictatorial government with a disenfranchised people will fail. Division fostered by the conflict between the interests of individuals with those of the state is the cause of this failure.
History has shown this to be correct. Will our grand experiment be next or are we in truth a work in progress that can self correct. Let us hope it is not too late.
Today, the American people are looking to their government to listen to them, not to lobbyists; not to political donors; not to talk radio pundits; not to party spokespersons but to who the first three words of our constitution proclaim: We The People.
I have never liked the symbolism in deliberative bodies of the term “whips”, it conjuring up Dickensian images of cajoling or bantering members of the House or Senate to vote a certain way because the party demands it. Even worse are those who agree to vote in the proscribed way in exchange for pet projects or bills that benefit a few people who parenthetically may well be major contributors. Inducements like that may come terribly close to corruption to “we the people” but they are merely Washington’s brand of insider trading.
Consider Mr. Nelson of Nebraska and his similarly named colleague from Florida at the critical moment of the healthcare debate. Shameful is not the word for their actions.
Are we really so naïve as to believe that pharmaceutical and petro-chemical companies, insurance and banking interests really believe in the precepts of either major party? Hardly: as their donations indicate: they give money for one thing only: votes.
It is not an accident that our key legislative branch is called the House of Representatives. Indeed it is what separates a democracy from a republic. These individuals were elected to be our spokespersons. Unfortunately, the reality is not that. The cost of remaining in office dictates that money is the major factor. Major donors, major companies, major industries call the shots much more than individuals or groups of individuals. Political action groups get on the evening news but do not come c lose to the power wielded by lobbyists and their funding sources.
James Madison who wrote much of our Constitution fully understood the difference between a democracy and a republic. Sadly, many citizens today do not.
The republic form of government he and the founders gave us empowers the people with the responsibility to elect representatives at all levels from local government to Washington. Idealistically and no doubt at times naively, we vote for these individuals because they are intelligent men and women who should be able to reason their decisions based on evidence presented to them, their personal understanding of the matter, and also, expectantly, the views of the people who elected them.
The theory is that we should not elect anyone simply because they have taken the party line consistently nor because they passed some litmus test. Madison would recoil at the very thought of that. He envisaged individuals who had the capacity to think and reason and not to be tools of the leadership, irrespective or party allegiance. The House votes on legislation not the parties but sadly this has changed.
Can individual congressmen challenge the current format? Regrettably they and therefore we are often compelled to follow these edicts because the party leadership will summarily withhold funding for those candidates who don’t toe the line or pass these tests. That is why we see the Republican Party crumbling: Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, Lincoln Chafey in Rhode Island, even General Colin Powell: not acceptable to the Republican “base”. This is the same base that reportedly denied Senator McCain his choice of a running mate and in doing so probably cost him any chance he had of winning. This is the base that will not listen to what even the majority of the people even in their own party say. Rather they listen to demagogues and ideologues.
Litmus tests for Roe v Wade, sanctity of marriage, stimulus packages, global climate change are hauled out and if not agreed without question, the wrath of conservative pundits crashes down on potential candidates. There is a new term: “primary them”: and it is not the sole prerogative of the Republicans. Ask Joe Lieberman.
Even as the minority party, The Republicans would rather fund a primary challenge than support a party incumbent who is opposed to the death penalty or is pro choice. This is the base speaking.; not the vox populi but a small contingent of self appointed individuals who feel they are chosen to lead their party and at some point the country as a whole to a imaginary world of happiness as evidenced by wealth, power and status.
Republicans do not have a corner on this market. Democrats have similar one-sidedness as evidenced by actions of the Majority Leader and Speaker adding hundreds of pages to a healthcare bill before anyone can read them and expecting the faithful to vote on trust while failing to communicate in a meaningful way with the party in opposition.
I purposely did not use the term “loyal opposition” as it does not apply. Neither party appears to be loyal to the people and if not to them, then to whom? Pharmaceutical industry? Labor Unions? Oil and Coal interests? The lists are long but it is from these groups that money, the only fuel that really drives politics, comes. Loyalty to those who elected them takes a very distant back-seat in most processes except when it is election time.
Today the American people, two out of three in some polls, are saying we need meaningful changes in how we pay for healthcare. The Republican Party “base” cries socialism to scare us and sadly it does many. Presidents back to Truman have been trying to change healthcare to no avail. Yet the people entrusted to do this have wonderful policies for themselves, their families, and their staff and they are not losing their health insurance. However, by their adamancy not to modify the current system, they are proving they care little for those who could benefit from universal coverage.
Returning to Madison and his use of Plato as one of the foundations for our government: Plato believed that morality must be based on objective truth and must be reconciled with self-interest. That is, morality must be in the interest of the individual. This simple premise is all but absent in the unbending doctrinal approach of party politics today. Politicians speak of the “Founders” but truly they take little or no notice of what these brilliant men foresaw when they gave us our Republic.
Degeneration of leadership is brought about by leaders focusing on the interest of their own offices and with their own profit and not as both Plato and Madison envisaged with the welfare of the individually governed, the very people that elected them. Further, economic self-interest and political power must be kept separate and not be allowed to work in combination to the disadvantage of the state or the people the state represents.
Harmony, Plato believed, is in the remuneration both of the state and the individual. Conversely, a dictatorial government with a disenfranchised people will fail. Division fostered by the conflict between the interests of individuals with those of the state is the cause of this failure.
History has shown this to be correct. Will our grand experiment be next or are we in truth a work in progress that can self correct. Let us hope it is not too late.
Today, the American people are looking to their government to listen to them, not to lobbyists; not to political donors; not to talk radio pundits; not to party spokespersons but to who the first three words of our constitution proclaim: We The People.
Ranting of Revered Robertson
The Reverend Pat Robertson, he who claims to converse one on one with God, now says that the tragedy in Haiti is retribution for a deal reached with the devil centuries ago by the forebears of the current stricken Haitian people.
From what I have heard and read from this man of the cloth, this should be categorized as a cross between dangerous and ludicrous with more than a little narrow-mindedness, bigotry and senility thrown in.
It sounded to me like a re-make of The Devil and Daniel Webster or more recently The Devil Went Down to Georgia.
His nonsensical claim however is shoddier as it endeavors to explain away the horrific death and destruction of a helpless poverty stricken people by introducing a fallacious claim that two hundred plus years ago their Haitian ancestors made a contract with the devil to throw out the French.
Assuming the Deity chose to get involved in human tragedy: you would have thought He would have had some previous reaction to Genocide in Africa, the Holocaust in Europe or the Tsunami catastrophe in Asia. And yet history, modern and written, does not bear this out: not since Joshua at Jericho at least.
Moreover, the esteemed Reverend’s ranting if considered logically would align the Creator with slaveholders and that, even to real fundamentalists, must, by definition be anathema. Well, maybe not to all of the Revered Robertson’s flock.
Or did Robertson forget God's Covenant with Noah never to destroy the world again; or perhaps he thinks that only applies to floods? Perhaps he believes the Mississippians and Louisianans had a similar contract and therefore Katrina and its aftermath was truly a quasi-legal matter? Now that is predestination!
On the other hand, any time you can make an argument that ends up with blaming the French, there just might be a scintilla of reason!
But I’ll leave that discussion for some other time.
From what I have heard and read from this man of the cloth, this should be categorized as a cross between dangerous and ludicrous with more than a little narrow-mindedness, bigotry and senility thrown in.
It sounded to me like a re-make of The Devil and Daniel Webster or more recently The Devil Went Down to Georgia.
His nonsensical claim however is shoddier as it endeavors to explain away the horrific death and destruction of a helpless poverty stricken people by introducing a fallacious claim that two hundred plus years ago their Haitian ancestors made a contract with the devil to throw out the French.
Assuming the Deity chose to get involved in human tragedy: you would have thought He would have had some previous reaction to Genocide in Africa, the Holocaust in Europe or the Tsunami catastrophe in Asia. And yet history, modern and written, does not bear this out: not since Joshua at Jericho at least.
Moreover, the esteemed Reverend’s ranting if considered logically would align the Creator with slaveholders and that, even to real fundamentalists, must, by definition be anathema. Well, maybe not to all of the Revered Robertson’s flock.
Or did Robertson forget God's Covenant with Noah never to destroy the world again; or perhaps he thinks that only applies to floods? Perhaps he believes the Mississippians and Louisianans had a similar contract and therefore Katrina and its aftermath was truly a quasi-legal matter? Now that is predestination!
On the other hand, any time you can make an argument that ends up with blaming the French, there just might be a scintilla of reason!
But I’ll leave that discussion for some other time.
The Humanity of Rush Limbaugh
I refer to of Roger Ebert’s 'You should be horse-whipped’ comment to Rush Limbaugh following Limbaugh’s twisting American Haitian refugee assistance into a defamation of President Obama. It reminded me of H. L. Mencken who defined a demagogue as "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."
I think there may be a better way to quiet this particular demagogue using Florida law to do so. The Baker Act declares that people who are “a harm to self or harm to others” may be involuntarily committed. As we already know that Mr. Limbaugh meets the test of the former though his admitted prescription drug abuse and we can now attribute his Haitian relief ranting as self declared evidence of the latter.
If nothing else it may compel this modern day Joe McCarthy to move elsewhere - assuming anyone would have him.
One last note, my tongue in cheek rhetorical taunting could be an example to Mr. Limbaugh. Sadly however, the use of irony which makes otherwise rude criticism appear somewhat more polite necessitates a degree of second-order interpretation, a sophistication often lacking in people with dementia.
I think there may be a better way to quiet this particular demagogue using Florida law to do so. The Baker Act declares that people who are “a harm to self or harm to others” may be involuntarily committed. As we already know that Mr. Limbaugh meets the test of the former though his admitted prescription drug abuse and we can now attribute his Haitian relief ranting as self declared evidence of the latter.
If nothing else it may compel this modern day Joe McCarthy to move elsewhere - assuming anyone would have him.
One last note, my tongue in cheek rhetorical taunting could be an example to Mr. Limbaugh. Sadly however, the use of irony which makes otherwise rude criticism appear somewhat more polite necessitates a degree of second-order interpretation, a sophistication often lacking in people with dementia.
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