Reading

Let's back off a bit and turn to some still serious, but less intense matters. 

How about reading?  I don't watch much television, very very little.  That's how I justify so much time I spend on my computer, sending e-mails, reading opinions, and, yes, blogging.  But I also read a lot.

I'm on pace to read my usual five or six books a month.  I still read some nonfiction, but not as much as I used to read.  Most of my nonfiction now comes from review books.  But I'll still pick up a book, any book, about Lincoln.

I've read about 50 or more books about Lincoln, including two more this year.  Two of my favorites are actually novels about Lincoln's life.  One, Gore Vidal's Lincoln, goes roughly 1,000 pages, with footnotes!  Yes, footnotes in a novel.  Also having footnotes is William Safire's novel Freedom, which leads up to the Emancipation Proclamation.  Because they are novels, the authors can speculate about Lincoln's thoughts, motives, etc.  Thus, they offer insights and food for thought about Honest Abe.

For my money, the best single-volume biography of Lincoln is Stephen Oates' With Malice Toward None.  Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals is terrific, too.  It is a great demonstration of how Lincoln and his personality, his lack of ego, helped him to grow as a President and as a person.  He listened to others and, if their ideas were better than his, he took them.  Father Abraham by Richard Striner is hard to read without being moved by Lincoln's "struggle to end slavery."  There was a reason the former slaves called him "Father Abraham," the Biblical analogy intended.  And there are many other top-flight books.  Maybe I'll explore them later.

If you are interested in nonfiction about the Founders and the early US, pick up any and all of Joseph Ellis's books.  Especially good is His Excellency, the biography of Washington.

Fiction is what I read most now. Daniel Silva, I think, is terrific.  I've read all of his novels with Gabriel Allon as the protagonist, an unbelievable, yet believable Israeli agent.  Silva is a wordsmith of the highest caliber.  Nelson DeMille ranges from good to great.  The first two novels of his that I read were my favorites.  The Gold Coast and its sequel The Gate House were hard to put down. 

I also like spy/adventure novels.  Ben Coes (Dewey Andreas and Rob Tacoma) and Brad Thor (Scott Harvath) stand out, as did the late Vince Flynn (Mitch Rapp).  Lee Child and his Jack Reacher are tough to top.  Not only are the characters very likable, good guys; the writing from these authors is very good.  Their writing is noticeably better than most of the spy/adventure novelists.  There are others, too, who I like and will explore them in a future blog.

The Danish author, Jussi Adler-Olsen, has written some really good crime fiction.  His Department Q novels are well-written and full of suspenseful twists and turns.  I've read about half of the series and look forward to the rest.  Peter May, a Scottish television writer, has also attracted my attention with some good books.

Scott Turow has written some terrific legal thrillers.  His first, Presumed Innocent, might be my favorite.  But it's still tough to top others, such as Identical, Innocent, and Pleading Guilty.  While I'm stuck on Amherst alumni, Harlan Coben is always good reading, especially his Myron Bolitar series.  So is Dan Brown.  Although his noted DaVinci Code is wonderful, I still enjoyed a couple of others even more, especially Inferno.

Perhaps next month I'll post some other authors and their books which I have enjoyed.  I hope these have helped you pick out some good reading.  I think it beats he boob tube hands down.

Yard Signs

Can we finally insist those teachers whose yards bear the signs "Home of a Hero!" or "A Hero Lives Here!" remove them?  For many of them, I think "A Proud Teacher Lives Here!" should be removed.  How "proud" can one be of running from the very minuscule chances of catching the Corona Virus, an even much smaller chance of dying from it?   I won't argue that, say, grocery store workers are "heroes" or not.  But if stocking the food shelves, running a cash register, etc. constitutes being a "hero" in the face of CoVid, how do we then classify equally as "heroes" teachers who are refusing or at least resisting returning to face-to-face classes in a few weeks?  They are using their unions to fight normal returns.  It sure gives pause to the oft-repeated, "We're here for the kids," doesn't it?

I don't remember where I saw the photograph of the Los Angeles teacher who was urging the school district not to open schools.  She carried a sign that read, "I Can't Teach If I'm Dead."  No doubt she and her teacher friends thought this a profound statement.  She was, to those other teachers, a modern-day Kant or Heidegger, very deep.  Ha Ha Ha.  "I Can't Teach If I'm Dead."  (Shame on me.)

I do understand there is some concern among teachers, especially those with youngsters, that day care can't be found.  At least that is the situation here in Michigan.  The governor's authoritarian, capricious and arbitrary, and harmful executive orders have reduced the number and capacity of day care facilities.  But what makes teachers so special?  Other people who have had to return to work also might have to find day care for their kids.  And with so many teachers insisting on remote/online classes, how is that going to work out?  Do your online schooling at day care.....

I think anyone who believes or argues that, for the vastly overwhelming majority of students, online learning/classes are quality education is delusional.  Several years back, I spoke with a college guru of online courses and asked him, "Are these online classes the equivalent of regular, traditional in-person classes?"  I barely got the question out of my mouth when he blurted, "Oh, good heavens no!  They're not even close."  And, apparently, this was a guy who taught and advocated for them.

Where are all those politicians and corporation who dumped all over the schools and teachers for the rotten products (Students became products!) they were turning out?  Why aren't they leading the charge for a return to full-time, traditional classes, from Kindergarten through to higher education?  After all, if they are so concerned with quality......

I know, I know.  "But what if a child gets the virus?"  People have been very selective in what "science" they have chosen to believe.  Policy has been set based on this selectivity.  Fear has been instilled in people (parents?) based on this, too.  A considered rethinking of data is required.  We can start with the fact that the median age of those dying from the virus is 80!  That means 50% of the CoVid deaths are of octogenarians.  And only about 6% of those are listed solely as Corona deaths, with no comorbidity factors.  Compare the deaths of children from the regular, seasonal flu with those from CoVid.

OK, I'm willing to make a concession here.  There have been so many lies, so much disinformation and misinterpretation of data, I really don't know what or who to believe.  But I know who I don't believe, not for one instant.  I don't believe those who say we are putting our children's lives in jeopardy by putting them back in school.

I'm not advocating "business as usual."  Obviously care must be taken.  If masks are deemed necessary or even just desirable, I can live with them.  Continue to wash hands often.  If it makes folks more comfortable/at ease, spread the kids around.  Be careful.

To those who might claim I don't care about kids, that I'm sending them to their deaths, I would suggest looking at some views other than what we get from our politicians and media.  Check some opposing views from scientists, even Nobel winners, views that disagree with the quarantine and shutdowns.  Many noted pediatricians, child psychologists and social workers, etc. have expressed the irreparable damage being done to our children, not only educationally.  They are being scarred socially, psychologically, and even physically.

Fraud

Fraud:  "wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain."  I would add, perhaps, "deliberate" and "political gain."  Criminal fraud, which must be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt, in Michigan can result in a prison term of up to 14 years.  A civil conviction requires a less strident standard and normally results in financial restitution.  Regardless.....

I've posted about this before.  But it was reawakened by the extortion tactics being used by some of the "peaceful protesters."  They are making "demands" of often small businesses.  "Comply with our demands or we'll shut you down."  Well, in some places like Louisville, the "peaceful" groups have, in effect, already shut down businesses with their violence.  But if these businesses agree to demands, some of which might be noble in spirit, the violence will cease.  Or, if some of the demands (in the form of quotas) are not met, the businesses will be required to make involuntary contributions to groups of the protesters' choosing. That sounds like the old neighborhood shakedown, almost like protection money.

 

What about politicians?  We call them "campaign promises" and routinely accept them as likely nothing more than lies.  We don't hold politicians to their promises.  I am surprised, but it was only a couple of years ago that one of my students introduced me to this question.  "How can you tell when a politician is lying?"  I didn't know the punchline and didn't even know it was a joke, regardless of its veracity.  I burst out laughing when she answered, "When his lips are moving."  

Obviously that's not true of all politicians.  And just as obviously there are some political roadblocks for some of the campaign promises.  But far too often we are just bombarded with known lies.  So, then, aren't those campaign promises really fraud?

Perhaps one way to get our politicians to behave more honestly is to prosecute for fraud.  Of course, many of the district attorneys/prosecutors are elected officials themselves; that is, they too are politicians.  So what are the chances of any prosecutions?

Maybe a more realistic solution is to vote against the worst of the liars.  We can whittle our way down, from the worst to the little less bad to the little less.....  I wonder, though, if they'd get the message.  I doubt, too, that voters would do that.  They are hung up on voting by political party, based on their unions' endorsements, how they are expected to vote because of their inclusion in this group or that, etc.

I don't really see a solution.  Voters have proven time and time again they are  more than willing to vote for, not good candidates, but "the lesser of two evils."  It seems the best "liars" are rewarded.  It's very disheartening.

I guess I'm still living in my little dream world.

Censorship

Censorship is becoming a big problem in this country, in more ways that one.  I'm not a Libertarian as far as censorship goes.   But I think we need to be very, very careful in restricting freedom of expression.

There was a reason the Founding Fathers made the First Amendment the one protecting freedom of expression.  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or the press or the people peaceably to assemble......"  These men were wise and they realized that once a government ("Congress shall make no law......") can control people's thoughts, self-rule is all over but the shouting.

We encounter today two variations of censorship.  Both are included in this sentiment, "I may disagree with what you say," or write or....., "but will fight to the death your right to say it."  It's a misconception that the French philosophe (yes, philosophe, not philosopher) Voltaire wrote this.  He almost assuredly didn't, but he also most assuredly believe it.  Federal and state governments have, over the years, attempted to curtail certain speech.  Often it's in the name of national security, in wartime, etc.  But citizens can also exercise censorship through a variety of means--ostracism, boycotts, and today, peer pressure under the guise of being "woke," "cancel culture," and other current evils.  (Oh, there I did it.  I spilled the beans as to my views.  Ha Ha Ha.)

Freedom of expression means, above all, protecting the right to say things that are not popular, indeed, things that are despicable.  (I'm not talking here of slander, pornography, etc., but the expression of ideas.)  It's easy to allow people to say and write things that we like or support.  It's the ideas we hate that need to be protected.  Laws and social pressures are not the ways to combat such hated ideas.  That includes views that favor fascism and communism.  Those views need to be, not censored, but defeated in the arena of ideas. 

I wonder, in schools today, if students are taught about Frank Collin and his American Nazis in the late '70s.  They wanted to hold a march, a demonstration, ("peaceful" of course) in Skokie, Illinois.  Skokie was the target because of the sizable number of Jews who lived there.  Some of the Jews were relatives of survivors of the German Nazi extermination camps; some were survivors themselves.  I won't go into the history of the legal battle, but it is worth studying.  Ideas we hate......

Today, although I am still very wary of Big Government's penchant and abilities to control what is said, printed, and even thought, I think a bigger danger comes from the "woke" and "cancel culture" people.  This has come to the utterly ridiculous.  We've all read or heard of people who have been forced to resign or even been fired, who have issued apologies to snowflakes, er, people who have been "offended," for what they have said.  Locally, a teacher was dismissed for, it now appears, several tweets/twits (I can't help myself with that!) he made.  One was, "Liberals suck!"  (My aversion to that word, "suck," is well known.  I hate it and always have.  But, if the shoe fits......)  Another was simply, "Trump is our President!"  There have been other dismissals and forced resignations nationally at big-name companies, newspapers (Isn't that the epitome of irony?), and television networks.  I imagine liberals might take offense at such a characterization "suck!", but aren't conservatives often called names, too?  Aren't conservatives--or so I've read and heard--"greedy" and "selfish," "bigoted" and "racist," and "white supremacists," among other things?  (I don't know where that leaves people like Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Walter Williams, Kira Davis, Candace Owens, and others.)  In fact, one of the e-mails the local school district received urging this teacher's dismissal called the President "a fascist."  (OK, no doubt like a majority of those throwing around the word "fascist," the letter-writer likely has no real idea of its meaning and its historical context.  But they heard--probably didn't see it as that would entail reading, Ha Ha Ha--it somewhere and it sounded good and got a desired reaction, so......)

Intelligent people I know, ones who have been educated to examine different viewpoints, to listen to all sides, before making judgments have also jumped on the bandwagon of intolerance.  I was struck a while ago by a guy who was very tentative in expressing to me the beginnings of an opinion that wouldn't fly with the woke folks.  In a way, I was offended.  (Ha Ha Ha!)  But my initial response was not at all critical, but open and tolerant, and he eventually said a lot more that the woke folks wouldn't tolerate.  I agreed with all of it.

This, the woke censorship, the cancel culture, and the like is what we need to combat.  I wonder how loudly these self-ordained censors would cry if their ability to yell and scream was, ahem, "canceled."

Chris Columbo

Christopher Columbus.

Statues of him have been toppled all over the US.  Others, I'm certain, will join them.  OK, he kidnapped people, enslaved Native Americans, and was dishonest.  Without a doubt, though, he was a terrific sailor and salesman, especially in his relations with Ferdinand and, in particular, Isabella.

Timing is everything.  Columbus received financing from the Spanish monarchs in 1492.  ("In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue......")  It was no accident.  About half a dozen years before, he had approached the Portuguese, the leaders at the time in exploration of the world outside of Europe, about sponsoring his voyages.  They knew he was wrong about his claims of reaching the riches of Asia (India, China, Japan) by sailing westward and turned down his request.

The Muslims were expelled from Spain, The Reconquest, in 1492.  That freed up money (Wars are expensive!) for Ferdinand and Isabella to invest in Columbus's venture, to catch up with their neighbors the Portuguese.

OK, enough of that.  People now blame Columbus for the ensuing slavery, genocide, ecocide, etc.  The anti-Columbus movement started years ago.  In 1992, the 500th anniversary of his first  Atlantic crossing, popular posters were selling.  They read, "Christopher Columbus: Wanted for Grand Theft, genocide, racism, rape, torture....."  Columbus may have been first, the one who initiated the Europeanization (for better or worse) of the American continents.  (And when will we hear the calls for renaming the "Americas?"  After all, they were so named after Amerigo Vespucci, a European.)  But he was not the one who was the most egregious.  Many others followed him.  And, had Columbus not "discovered" the Americas, does any reasonable person think no other Europeans soon would have?

And are these people ignorant of all history?  "Canceling" it, or at least what many of these ignorant people seem to want to do, will not purify it.  There is no absolute purity to history.  To try to make it so is creating fairy tales. 

History is the story of the conquest, slavery, etc. of some peoples by other people.  The list is practically endless.  In Africa, we can start but not end with Shaka Zulu.  In Asia, there were the Chinese and all their emperors, native and adopted (Manchus, Mongols).  Let's not forget Genghis Khan and his grandson. Kublai Khan.  Perhaps we can ask the Eries (if we can find any!) and Pottawatomis what they think of the Iroquois.  I wonder what the Cheyennes thought of the Sioux, those same Sioux from whom the protesters claim the US stole Mt. Rushmore.  And speaking of the indigenous American peoples, the Aztecs, among others, practiced human sacrifice.  

One lesson we can learn from Columbus is asking the question:  Hero or Villain?  

Hero?  Columbus' deeds introduced American foods and medicines to Europe.  How many lives were saved?  The wealth from the New World helped to finance European growth n culture, the arts, business, technology, and ideas.  (And, note below, it was Western Europe, through the Englightenment, which began the process of abolishing slavery, to the extent it has been abolished.)  Opening the two American continents led to wider settlement, eventual population growth, and the consequent spread of a more complex civilization.  In turn, that led to advances in health, industrialization, etc. all over the globe for the next centuries.  (When the "woke" people are critical of this, ask if they are willing to give up their cell phones, their televisions, their computers, their cars, their indoor plumbing, their great life-expectancy, etc.  If they are, then they aren't hypocrites.)  There's more, but.....

Villian?  Europeans decimated the Native American population; some claim as much as 75 to 90% of it.  I have no idea how that number was reached given the times, no census, etc.  Maybe someone threw out that number at one time and it stuck.  We'll never really know.  But the Indian population, especially in the Caribbean was devastated.  Likely, the Europeanization led to the African slave trade, when the native source of slaves disappeared.  But, again, slavery was not initiated by the Europeans after Columbus and the African slave traded was aided and abetted by Africans and Muslims--that's where the trade started. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of native plants and animals were destroyed, no doubt.  The actual number will also never be known.  Some say the precedent for colonization, not only of the Americas, but the entire globe was established, its odious residue lasting to the present.  Remember, too, the Europeans weren't the first or only people to dominate others through colonization.  

Was all this the fault of Columbus, rather than Europeans who followed, from Spain and Portugal to Britain and, eventually, Americans of European descent?  Was this merely (and I don't say that lightly) the march of history, weaker peoples from all over the globe being dominated by more powerful peoples from all over the globe?  Had Columbus not "discovered" the New World, no doubt some other European would have.  Were the atrocities that followed foreseeable?  Maybe, maybe not.  But are they all to be laid at the feet of Columbus?

To recognize this is not to condone it.  But people should get their facts straight.  It was, after all, Western Civilization (if not the US, coming late into the picture) that began the process of ending the African slave trade, well, to the extent it's been ended.  And the American Founders, I think, realized that slavery was evil, that it was something that needed to be eradicated.  That they didn't is shameful, but, in some ways, understandable.  But that's something for another post.

A Speech That Will Never Be Given

Here is something I've been mulling over in my mind for about a week.  I shared some of this idea with others in an e-mail. 

Perhaps Trump should finally make a speech, to the nation on prime time television, bypassing the biased media.  He should address the protests/demonstrations that continue, directly talking to the American people.

First he should condemn the violence in no uncertain terms.  That would appeal to, I think (or at least hope), the vast majority of Americans.  He should point out the destruction being done to people's businesses, homes, and cars.  He should strongly condemn the beatings and killings of what some of the media have called "peaceful demonstrations."

Second, he should question the actions of the protesters, specifically the destruction of memorials and monuments.  Not all of the attempts to topple them are in the least bit warranted.  Do these ignorant demonstrators know anything about US Grant and the Civil War, the winning of which led to the practical emancipation of the slaves?  (I am not downplaying the Emancipation Proclamation or the 13th Amendment, nor Lincoln's and others' roles in ending slavery.)  If their goals are what they claim them to be, Trump should ask (and not rhetorically) why memorials to Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and other abolitionists are being defaced, ruined, and destroyed?  Should ignorance be the driving force behind these demonstrations and violence?

Third, and this one would be difficult to finesse, but it's needed, he should ask the demonstrators why they have never protested the black-on-black murders in places like Chicago, Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, etc.  Doesn't/Didn't the life of Mekhi James, the three-year old who was shot in a drive-by last weekend in Chicago, "matter?"  (I know, I know.  There is a difference between police brutality and shootings by thugs.  But the end result, to the families, is the same--a wasted life.) "Why haven't the 60+ shootings in Chicago just last weekend alone, the 100+ shootings in NYC just last week alone, etc. attracted your anger?  They haven't even attracted your concern!"

Specifically,  he could then call out the hypocritical and cowardly corporations, which have become too numerous to name individually, who have sided with and financed BLM.   Also, "Hey NFL and its players!  Why haven't you taken knees for the likes of Mehki James or any of the three teen-age girls shot and killed last week in Chicago, too?"

Then he could address the college kids and their professors, you know, the ones who know everything and aren't afraid to tell us.  "Why aren't you upset enough to demonstrate against murders like Mekhi's?"  (Yeah, I'm fixated on Mekhi James, but the murder of a three-year old breaks my heart.)

Before going on national television, though, Trump should invite Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and others to sit with him as a show of unity for the black community and its lives.  I have no doubts they would decline, making up all sorts of excuses.  But then Trump could throw that back on them, asking the black community, "Why have your self-anointed black leaders," he could name them, "refused to sit in support of my anger at so many black lives lost in Chicago, New York, Detroit, Los Angeles.....?"

This is a speech that will never happen.  I think such a speech, while ticking off the left, Democrats, and the Lamestream media (as does everything "Trump") would show leadership from the President.  I'm talking real leadership, not bullying.  Too many of Trump's followers still equate his bullying and juvenile tweets/twits with leadership.

I think a problem is that Trump has been so adolescent that few people other than his die hard supporters would listen.  That is, in part, their fault.  But it's also, in part, Trump's.  Only the Trumpsters would listen--and they listen no matter what he says.  But it's not them he needs to convince.

I also don't think Trump is capable of a serious speech.  He lacks the ability to deliver one.  And he doesn't recognize the messages that need to be sent.

Just a thought or two on this:  the demonstrations and violence, the troubles in the black community, real Presidential leadership.

Razing, redux

With all of the pandering done by Democrats to garner support from the iconoclasts, when will they move to rename the Richard Russell Senate Office Building?  A staunch segregationist and bigot, Russell not only filibustered in an attempt to block the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but along with a dozen or so other Southern Senators boycotted the Democratic National Convention later that year to protest after Lyndon Johnson signed the bill into law. 

It's quite an honor to have one of only three Senate office buildings carry one's name.  I think there have been about 2,000 US Senators in history, going back to 1789.  Three out of 2,000!  And there was nobody with a cleaner record than Richard Russell?  

As a point of fact, if I recall, the only Senator to vote against naming the building for Russell was--Michigan's own "Conscience of the Senate," Philip Hart!!!!!!  Now, regardless if I agreed or disagreed with Hart's politics, there is a man to admire.

 

For that matter, what about the noted Klansman Robert Byrd, a long-time Dem leader honored by the party at his death.  He served in the US House and Senate for almost 60 years.  At his funeral, a certain President eulogized him as "a true champion" and "a voice of principle and reason."  Granted, maybe the man changed over the years.  But if he could change, why in the eyes of so many are others with questionable pasts not allowed to change?

 

I believe any attempts to censure either man was met with the rationale from Democrats, "He was a product of his times."  So, then, why weren't Washington, Jefferson, et al, even Columbus, "products of their times?"

 

If I recall correctly, too, aren't there statues of Lenin in NYC, LA, and Seattle?  What about the statue of Che Guevara in NYC?  Real friends of democracy there, both of them.

Of course, maybe like the British demonstrator who didn't know Winston Churchill, these American protesters don't know the history of their country either.

 

Just askin'.