Senator Philip A. Hart

No doubt most folks are unaware of Phil Hart whether they are Michigan natives or not. Philip A. Hart served Michigan in the US Senate for almost three full terms, dying in office in 1976. There have been, since 1789, almost 12,000 members of the US Senate and House. There are seven Congressional office buildings, each named after a member of Congress. One of the seven is The Senator Philip A. Hart Senate Office Building. There is a reason for this. I have written before about "character," more specifically to be clear, how good character matters. I recognize my view is likely a minority one, that most people don't agree with me. I stand by my belief. And when I think of good character, the best character, I am often reminded of the late Senator Phil Hart. Hart was a Democrat. I am sure I didn't (and wouldn't today) agree with all of his stances. Others didn't also. But that is the point. Others could disagree with Hart, yet at the time greatly respect him. He was that kind of guy. I believe it was columnist Colman McCarthy who wrote of Hart, "It was not an accident that he was the most trusted man in American politics." In the Second World War, Hart stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. He was wounded, a piece of shrapel severing the major artery in his right arm, severely enough that he was to be sent back to the States. Nope. He refused to leave his comrades behind, sneaked away in the middle of a night, and rejoined his unit. Six months later he fought in the key Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he returned to Michigan, holding a variety of political offices on the state level. He was elected to the US Senate in 1958, being sworn in on Janurary 3rd of the next year. He was an unabashed liberal, one of the most liberal members of the Senate at the time. He was a major factor in the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of '64 and '68 as well as the Voting Rights Act of '65 (serving as Senate floor manager of the bill). In Congress, he didn't belittle or even criticize his opponents or their beliefs. In fact, it was generally accepted that, in debating the merits of a bill, Hart would present his opponents' arguments more clearly than they did! He believed in open, transparent governance. Here's their view and here's mine. Now choose. Somewhat incongruously I think, Hart was a good friend of James Eastland, a segregationist Senator from Mississippi. Despite Eastland's racism and anti-Semitism, neither of which he hid, Hart maintained a social friendship. Yet, when Eastland, due to his seniority, was in line to become President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Hart rose to oppose that--he rose alone! Hart believed Eastland's racism snf anti-Semitism disqualified him from being so close to the White House in the line of succession to the Presidency (VP, Speaker, Pres Pro Tem). And he stated that--friend or not. Conscience and good character mattered. Toward the end of his third term, Hart announced he would not seek re-election although he would have been a sure-fire winner. This was in line with his belief that younger men and women (!) with greater energy and idealism should hold Senate seats. And this was before he was diagnosed with melanoma that would claim his life a few short weeks before his term ended. At his funeral at St. Matthew's Cathedral in DC, well over 1,000 people attended. It wasn't just the number, but who they were. According to a reporter there, "The rich and the powerful were there, dressed in tailored suits and fine furs. So were the poor and the powerless, dressed in jeans and parkas" Hart was known as "The Conscience of the Senate." That other Senators undeservedly were given the same title besmirches the legacy of Phil Hart. At the time, he was the most trusted man in US politics, a man of conviction and integrity even if they potentially clashed with his own political interests. He was still a sitting US Senator when the office building was named after him, the first time a still-serving Senator was so honored. BTW, his wife Jane Briggs Hart was quite a woman, too. She was the daughter of Walter Briggs, one-time owner of the Detroit Tigers (Briggs Stadium before Tiger Stadium). She was a licensed pilot and became the first woman to hold a helicopter pilot license in Michigan. An avid sailor, she crewed on more than a dozen of the famed Port Huron to Mackinac Races. Later, she skippered the first all-female crew and sailed across the Atlantic from Europe to the Caribbean with her sister. At the age of 40, she passed the NASA physical exam, the same one the male astronauts took. She was one of the co-founders of NOW, the National Organization of Women and an opponent of the Vietnam War, even being arrested in one of her protests. Although some of her views and actions might have embarrassed her husband, Senator Hart always supported his wife's right to her beliefs. I hope the next time there is mention of "The Senator Philip A. Hart Senate Office Building" people remember why it bears that name.

Greatest Baseball Player

A month or so back I finished a book, Baseball 100 by Joe Posnanski. It ranks the greatest players ever. What a daunting task, choosing the greatest baseball players of all time ("all times" as Muhammad Ali used to say). How does one evaluate over the years, from dead ball to juiced ball eras, from the high pitcher's mound to the flatter, from bus or train rides to opponents' cities to transcontinental flights, and more? What about the segregated years, with Major League Baseball and the Negro League? Add the Latin and even Asian players later. What carries more weight--hitting and to a lesser extent baserunning (offense) or fielding (defense)? How to rate everyday players compared to pitchers? What about other changes in the game, from the designated hitter and perfectly groomed cookie-cutter fields to starting pitchers lasting only six or seven innings to be followed by a relief specialist throwing upper 90-mph heat? All that said, Ponanski has done a marvelous job of rating and writing. No doubt there will be disagreements. But that's a lot of the fun of such lists. There are no definitive answers/choices, but there really are definitive answers/choices--our favorites! Ponanski rails on Bowie Kuhn's absence at Henry Aaron's 715th. In mocking his excuse, he adds, "Kuhn is in the Hall of Fame. He might not be the least deserving member, but he's in the photograph." I'm still chuckling. Several things caught my eye and are things I have thought about over the years. Willie Mays is generally considered, in almost all rankings, if not the greatest all-time player, at least in the top two or three. Yet, his lifetime batting average was .301, barely above the gold standard for hitters. (I know, I know. Al Kaline, Mickey Mantle, Carl Yaztrzemski, and others didn't have lifetime BAs of .300. Of course I consider them legitimate Hall of Famers. And had he not been injured for much of his career, Mantle might be right up there with Mays!) I'm not knocking Mays at all; I, too, consider him one of the very top players, if not the best ever. But consider this. With his lifetime BA of .301, how great must his other abilities/skills have been? Hitting for power. Baserunning. Fielding/Defense, both catching and throwing. Everyone remembers Mays' catch in the '54 World Series of the ball off the bat of Vic Wertz. It was astounding! Yet, I remember reading somewhere (although I can't remember exactly where) one of his teammates agreeing it was great catch. But he added he saw him make many other better catches. Better?!?!?! Many others?!?!?! Wow! Toss in a black man playing in the Major Leagues in the still often racially hostile cities of the '50s and '60s. I wonder if position players and pitchers should have their own "greatest" categories. Weighing greatness between a pitcher and an everyday player is tough. There are so many different criteria. Sandy Koufax rates position #70 on the list. He only had five really great years. Granted, they were likely the five greatest consecutive years any pitcher ever had. He was virtually unhittable. But it was only five years. Hmmm..... Is that ranking legitimate? I think so. I can see where some might disagree, but I always return to something Mickey Mantle said after striking out for the third or fourth time against Koufax in a World Series game. Koufax threw a three-or four-hit shutout, whiffing about 15 Yankees. Returning in frustration to the dugout, Mantle threw his bat, swearing, "How're we supposed to hit that shit!" I don't think it was really a question. Oh, and from early in the game, the Yankees knew, with a bum arm, Koufax could throw nothing but fastballs! Who was the greatest hitter? What criteria? Power? Average? Both? Of all the hitters I've seen, in person, Ted Williams and Miguel Cabrera are the best. I just remember Williams' last few years, seeing him hit at Tiger Stadium in the late '50s. I remember, at age 39 or so, he parked one off the facing of the third deck in right right field. If I recall correctly, at the time, only two or three balls had been hit over that third deck. I think, his second to last year in his late '30s, he led the league hitting .388. He slumped the next year, a year old, hittig only .328. In those marvelous years Cabrera had with the Tigers, I marveled at how he hit. It was as if he was hitting 95 mph fastballs off a tee. No shifts on him; he was as likely to hit a 400-foot home run to right center as to left center. And then there was the time he caught up with a 99 mph Mariano Rivera fastball, depositing it about 440 feet to straight-away center--to win the game. What about character? It's no secret I think character, good character, matters. That's especially so in government, politics, business, and other areas. What about baseball? Should a player who used PEDs, before they were banned by MLB, be penalized by exclusion from the lost of greatest players? After all, the commissioner who looked the other way when PEDs were helping baseball to revive after the labor disputes of the '90s was inducted into the Hall of Fame. What about someone who gambled on games, perhaps not even his own? Shoeless Joe Jackson? Excluded? So how do we evaluate Gaylord Perry, with him admitting he threw the spitter? As one of my buddies facetiously noted, "I think the spitter was illegal." Does his cheating eliminate him from consideration as "great?" I don't know all of the players Posnanski has in his Greatest 100. I was surprised at the inclusion of several, although Posnanski makes very convincing arguments. I'm not sure I agree. But that's the fun of such lists. One can be wrong, but right at the same time.

Random Thoughts on a Frigid Afternoon

Sounds like the title of a poem or a book of them. Joe Biden criticized the Supremes for striking down his/OSHA's vax mandate for private employees with more than 100 workers. He claimed his/OSHA's regulations were "common sense" approaches to CoVid. OK, this isn't directly about the governments' (federal, state, local) responses to the virus, although I am pretty sure I could argue they haven't been "common sense" approaches. This is about "common sense," the use of the term. It sure seems to me that requiring a voter to present valid identification before casting a ballot is "common sense." Yet, Biden and the Democrats don't think so. How can that not be? It seems as if that is a selective use of the term "common sense." Another such term is "domestic terrorist/terrorism." I read one day last week that the Department of Justice has established a "domestic terrorism unit." OK, exactly what is that? I recall the Attorney General a while back referring to parents who angrily confront (without violence!) local school boards with legitimate concerns as "domestic terrorists." That was at the urging of some national school boards organization with, perhaps, some involvement of the Secretary of Education. How in the world can parents, who are concerned, but not violent, about their children's education, be it Critical Race Theory or even specific instances of their daughters' rape/sexual assault at the hands of boys claiming to be girls, etc. be labeled any sort of "terrorists?" (One school board which endorsed such a policy of boys claiming to be girls having the right to use girls' bathrooms, where the assaults took place, not only tried to cover up the rapes, but tried to silence the concerned father. The father was met with local law enforcement and, if I recall, was beaten while arrested.) Now, consider this determination, this label of "domestic terrorists" while I have seen nothing of the sort applied to Black Lives Matter and Anti-fa rioters, er, "peaceful protesters" who actually did commit many acts of violence. They looted and burned, private businesses as well as government buildings and property. They were responsible for beatings and even deaths. Perhaps I missed it, but I don't remember any "domestic terrorism" emanating from these riots, er, "peaceful protests." For that matter, in a similar vein, how does the FDA continue to allow the term "vaccine" to be used with the products developed by Moderna, Pfizer, and J & J? Why are the government, Big Pharma, and the medical community allowed to call whatever this is a "vaccine?" It clearly isn't a vaccine (nor is the annual flu shot). A vax virtually eliminates a disease. There are practically zero cases now of polio, smallpox, measles, etc. Those have been eliminated by real vaccines, which by definition provide active immunity to infectious/contagious diseases. What Moderna, Pfizer, and J & J have produced might well mitigate CoVid and its symptoms, but they have not eliminated it, not even close. So, what do the people who compared this, early on, to the polio, smallpox, measles, etc. vaccines now say? These real vaccines were used against my "fake vax" criticisms. "Hey, people willingly get the smallpox, polio, [etc.] vaccines. Now we can eliminate CoVid with this vaccine." But CoVid hasn't at all been eliminated. It's like saying, since Mucinex mitigates cold and flu symptoms, it is a vax. No, it's not! And the FDA is complicit in this scam. For instance, it doesn't allow "frozen dairy desserts" that don't use real cream to be called "ice cream." That's because the frozen dairy desserts aren't ice cream. Why does the FDA allow the continued use of "vaccine" with these CoVid shots? Perhaps some would say I quibble. What's the big deal with how terms such as "common sense," "domestic terrorism," and "vaccine" are used? I don't think so. I think words are important and they matter. When we start changing the meanings of them to suit our purposes, we tread in dangerous waters. These are steps toward creating our own version of George Orwell's "newspeak." He used this term to show how Big Brother tried to diminish the range of thought," to blindly and meekly accept was is being told by the powers that be.

Toppling Statues

The woke crowd gets a lot wrong, no doubt. Some of what it does is ignorant, just plain stupid, or even criminal. That the Wokesters get away with so much, legally, historically, and more is a travesty. When government, corporations, and other institutions cave in to demands, if not jumping on the bandwagon, they are pathetic and send a dangerous message. And they and cancel culture are still at work. For speaking their minds, expressing ideas and views contrary to wokeness, people have lost their jobs, been vilified and even physically assaulted. But the woke crowd has got something right, toppling statues. Well, that is, toppling some statues and memorials. To deface or knock down memorials to those like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson is not just criminal, but ignorant. But some statues deserve to go. I am thinking of those memorials devoted to Confederates in the South. (To be fair, there are many streets, parks, schools, and more in other parts of the country named after Confederates.) These Southerners, in the Civil War, took up arms against the United States. I believe that is called treason! Why are so many people insistent on honoring traitors? In fact, folks like Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson are still viewed as heroes. Consider that, even in the aftermath of the war, many of these Confederates held positions as US Senators and Congressmen, state governors and local officials, as well as leaders in business and education. Lee, for instance, became the president of Washington University and later had his name added, Washington and Lee University. Frederick Douglass once wrote, of the Civil War, "There was a right side and a wrong side. It is no part of our duty to confound right with wrong or loyalty with treason." I don't think Douglass or I argue about courage/bravery, but rather sedition and rebellion against the US. Take, for instance, Germany. There are no statues of Erwin Rommel in Germany. Although he welcomed Hitler's rise to power, Rommel was never a member of the National Social Party, never a Nazi. (I will for the time being ignore "The Rommel Myth.") It's as if the Germans are ashamed of Rommel and his role in the Second World War. If so, why aren't Americans, especially in the South, also ashamed of the Confederacy and those who fought for it? Not only did they fight against the United States, they fought to preserve slavery! If that was acceptable then, well, that's one thing, odious as it is/was. That many still find it acceptable now, even vehemently resisting removal, is clearly wrong. Tearing down Confederate statues and memorials is not an attempt to "rewrite history" as their defenders claim. In fact, it's the obverse, trying to preserve history. Why should history preserve the myth of traitors? We can tell the story of the Civil War without glorifying treason.