Saturday's Heroes

There is the heat of battle.



Even when they are little, children understand what competing is about.



They can run like the wind.



They can abandon the game in a second for a good scrum.



They know how to be a good sport.



They know the joy of victory.



They battle against the odds.



The know the agony of defeat. Luckily, after a tough loss, there can be a younger brother, who always understands, as they make their way along a path away from the crowded Polo Fields.

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What's in a Day?

I almost always wake up early, with the sun.



The newspapers at (or near) my front door, can be brought inside and read, perhaps with tea or coffee.



Then, still hours before most people report for work, I take a walk. I see lovely plants growing everywhere in my neighborhood. Evidence of life here in the middle of a big city.

Now and then, I stop, mesmerized by Nature's loveliness, set against humanity's foolishness. These cement sidewalks are meant to make my stroll easier, but, given their cracks and buckles, all they reveal is their inadequacy.

Much as we, as a species, appear before God, if you happen to believe in that kind of idea. Simple, foolish, arrogant apes, oblivious of our essential powerlessness against the powers of Nature, poised in the shadows of our reality, waiting to take us out.

A Midwesterner's Dreams

It's time for me to make some amends, with a few of my readers in the Midwest, who took offense at my description of Gary, Indiana, as an "industrial wasteland" the other night. To begin with, I invite you to review the Comments from Danogram and from Dave Yaros. You may also wish to visit Dave's Den, for an alternative view of Gary.

Funny thing is both commentators reacted as if I were part of the coastal elites, who look down on the Midwest (and the South), and frequently refer to them as the "flyover zone." But I'm not like that, and I've always resented the phrase myself.

Working primarily for employees based on San Francisco and Los Angeles the past four decades, I've taken many business trips. Although some have been to Chicago or Atlanta or Winston-Salem, the vast majority have been to New York and Washington.

East Coast-West Coast. West Coast-East Coast. That's the routine.

For one stretch I lived on both coasts simultaneously; my job out here and my home back there. I'd commute home every weekend.

But, I've never lost my love of my roots. The deciduous trees and berries of the Midwest make me feel at home. The pan fish and bass from freshwater lakes still taste best to me. The way that you can make a friend, and count on that person to remain a friend over time is a poignant memory in the more transient coastal cities, where friends tend to come and go, some clearly driven by whether you are "up" or "down" at the moment.

That said, I've managed to form lasting friendships with all kinds of wonderful people in the Bay Area, as well as in New York and Washington. Nothing is gained, however, without something else getting lost.

I remember one stormy night, years ago, flying to New York. The route was full of turbulence. At one point, the pilot came on and reported that through a break in the clouds, we could see the city of Flint, Michigan, below. I rushed to a window and stared until it had long passed out of sight.

My parents were down there. They lived and worked in Flint. Their backyard had the most delicious raspberries I'd ever tasted. But I was in a hard-charging point in my career, and I had not been able to visit for a long time.

The nostalgia hung over me all the rest of the way to New York. As I took a taxi into my hotel, I was struck by a terrible loneliness. I really wanted nothing more than to go home to Mom and Dad, but I had a job to do, and a family out west depending on me to do it well.

You can take the boy out of the Midwest, but you can't take the Midwest out of the boy. I'm sorry I offended my Midwestern cousins; despite certain surface differences like politics and style, we are much more similar underneath than different.

Family, friendship, loyalty, honesty, trust, belief in hard work and personal responsibility. Those are among our shared values.

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Riding Out the Wind Currents

It's not easy for an old, discarded plastic bag here in San Francisco. Due to new local regulations, they no longer are welcome at local supermarkets; thus, the local population is in steep decline. They may not be on the endangered species list quite yet, but that's only a question of time.

The few who persist on our mean streets get whipped around mercilessly by our biting winds. Today, I watched one such victim rise and fall in a wind tunnel next to the brick edifice of a warehouse-turned-loft apartment building.

The winds were having their way with this bag. It was flipped wide open, upside down, handles flapping uselessly in the cyclone's grasp. The bag had no hope of flying away gracefully (as would an escaped balloon). Its only option was to put up with the abuse, while waiting to find out its fate. Would its next resting place be high (tangled in a tree or in the wires), or low, (squashed and dirty in the gutter.)





This park is actually the site of former Seals' Stadium, where 50 years ago this spring, the first-ever major league baseball game was played. (The Giants beat the Dodgers.)

***


I can always tell when my luck's about to change. The night before, the sky is colorful and inviting. Typically, I get a premonition. I'll imagine, say, finding money in the street.

This morning, I found an old folded $5 bill in the street.

***




One of the better parts of business travel can be getting home. The exceptionally talented photographer Chris Hardy captured the greeting I got from my twelve- and nine-year-olds Saturday. This kind makes everything else worth while, from my POV...

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From Here Afar: Weirdness in Indiana

Photo by Chris Hardy

Indiana is a strange state. My oldest son and I drove through there some years ago after some meetings in Chicago on our way toward Michigan. We were hoping to find some fireworks, illegal in most of the Midwest but still, at that time, legal in Indiana.

Yet we were most of the way around the bottom of Indiana's Lake Michigan shoreline, nearly to the Michigan border, when we saw it: Rocket Fireworks! We went in and bought our goods. It is still one of the most magical moments in my parental memory, and (I suspect) in my son's as well.



I was reminded of this memory tonight as I watched the strange, slow-moving primary results coming in from Indiana.



At the last minute, Obama started catching up to Clinton. He already won North Carolina, by a huge margin.



If you've ever been to Gary, Indiana, you know it is an industrial wasteland, the leftover of a time when steel was king. People out here where I now live, in sunny California, cannot imagine what cities like Gary used to be like -- with fires from its mills literally shooting into the night sky, turning it foul and orange.



We make no apologies that in our family, we are all Obama supporters. Why? If you listened to his speech tonight, it's easy to understand. Politicians are a dime a dozen. People who bring hope for substantive change in this frustrating society of ours are rare sources of light.



Racists, conspiracy theorists, frightened right-wingers will believe any manner of nonsense about Obama. They lack the character to look at a person of another race with unbiased eyes.



Their views reside on hate and fear, not to mention ignorance. They are the types to blame Obama for a typical black minister's rhetorical excesses, which no more represent Obama than John McCain's rabidly racist minister's comments represent him.

But, unlike Obama's minister, McCain's hasn't yet attracted widespread attention in the media. When he does, McCain will look far worse than Obama. Tonight only confirmed my conclusion that Obama will be our next President.

Get used to it.

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Our Family's Neighborhood

Around here, the best food is Mexican food. We all love it. High overhead, in this as in all urban neighborhoods, north, south, east, and west alike, jets soar.

Down here, at ground level, we have problems. The Crips and the Bloods still are killing each other in the Mission. Therefore, my kids cannot wear blue or red any longer.

In addition, there have been over 75 muggings around here lately, so nobody feels like walking around after dark. The perps are three young black guys with guns in sweatshirts with hoods with a getaway car nearby. Junko says I shouldn't be out, because as an older white man, I am a natural target.

After all, I might have cash in my wallet! (What a naive idea.)

When she's out at night, Junko takes a cab home. Talk about targets! Small Asian women
are especially vulnerable. Sometimes it's no fun to live in a big city.

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A Story for All of Us

Two days ago, I was one in a roomful of people who sat mesmerized as the legendary author Toni Morrison started riffing. She's 77 years old now, but as full of youthful passion as ever. In fact, it would be hard to find any 27-year-old who could hold a candle to her flame.

Ms. Morrison, Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist, author and professor told the rest of us, who sit on the editorial board of The Nation with her, a simple little story.
It goes like this:

She said she has never before endorsed a political candidate. Earlier in this primary season, Sen. Barack Obama called her to ask for her support. She said, "Sorry, Senator, but I don't do that." But she kept watching the same debates and controversies all of us who are paying attention have seen.

Finally, she changed her mind.

She emailed Sen. Obama the letter republished below. He called back, asking her to sign it and mail it to him. When she asked for his campaign's address, he said "no, please send it to my home." So she did.

Here is what she wrote:

Dear Senator Obama,

This letter represents a first for me--a public endorsement of a Presidential candidate. I feel driven to let you know why I am writing it. One reason is it may help gather other supporters; another is that this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril. I will not rehearse the multiple crises facing us, but of one thing I am certain: this opportunity for a national evolution (even revolution) will not come again soon, and I am convinced you are the person to capture it.

May I describe to you my thoughts?

I have admired Senator Clinton for years. Her knowledge always seemed to me exhaustive; her negotiation of politics expert. However I am more compelled by the quality of mind (as far as I can measure it) of a candidate. I cared little for her gender as a source of my admiration, and the little I did care was based on the fact that no liberal woman has ever ruled in America. Only conservative or "new-centrist" ones are allowed into that realm. Nor do I care very much for your race[s]. I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might make me "proud."

In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace--that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.

When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with courage instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country's citizens as "we," not "they"? Someone who understands what it will take to help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what it desperately needs to become in the world?

Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb.

There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time.

Good luck to you and to us.

Toni Morrison


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Note: Even those of us on The Nation board did not know about this letter, although it did find its way onto the web, as everything does these days. I suspect Sen. Obama has this signed letter framed and on the wall of his home. But we cannot know that for sure, because unlike some candidates, he does not exploit those who support him.