Go Down Plato: A Journalist Can't Win

My profession is the most despised in this society. That's right, the Mafia has higher approval ratings than do journalists. Of course, I'd like to think a big reason for this is that the owners of media companies have invited so many frauds and posers and screamers into our business that the voices of those of us classically trained in the work are no longer able to be heard.

In this regard, I'm probably fairly typical. Laboring away here in this obscure blog space, I continue to devote half of my posts to supplying journalistic analysis based on the facts that are available in an intellectual context that is meant to inform, not persuade. Columnists craft logical essays; editorial page writers make arguments; the self-righteous pundits pound their own chests.

Sadly, through my eyes, everything is hazy and uncertain until a path of words emerges to help carry me through the pollution. Tonight, I'm grappling with the news that a bipartisan legislative panel has unanimously ruled that Governor Sarah Palin is guilty of an abuse of power in "Troopergate," the kind of political/personal scandal more often seen in a small town than on the national stage.

But, we're stuck with what we're stuck with. Until I can read this new report, line by line, I will refrain from judgment. It may be B.S. or it may be gospel. Probably somewhere in between.

Equally big, and probably unrelated, is that Palin has reportedly agreed to appear on SNL ten days before the election. As anyone not living in a cave at Tora Bora knows, Tina Fey's return to SNL to portray Palin three times this fall have been the comedic highlights of the campaign.

It boggles the mind to imagine Palin and Fey appearing side by side on SNL, although in this age of blurred boundaries, it has its own twisted logical inevitability. Our people, left as well as right, me as well as you, seem to value show over substance.

The struggle just consumes all of us. Thinking as deeply as I can, it seems possible that McCain may dump Palin from his ticket (due to corruption), but add Fey, who can pull the Palin act off every bit as well, and is much better connected with the media elite and has far better developed political instincts.

Meanwhile, Palin could join the SNL cast, where the pay and the future career path is far more lucrative than being Governor of Alaska. SNL badly needs a replacement for Fey, who has her own show now, not to mention if she (Fey) joins the GOP ticket.

Many other actors would rally to this set of changes -- the Governator out here in California, (soon to be) Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, Gov. Jesse Ventura, and all the other actors, posers, and fakes, including Ronald Reagan's ghost. There's a lot of star power that would embrace this...David Letterman, Jon Stewart, probably even South Park (excepting Cartman).



(I would hope my main crush -- Sarah Silverman -- would also climb aboard this train before it leaves the station, but she doesn't even know I exist.)

I'm not sure where all this is going, it's getting hazy again, which is the classic problem for every writer as he becomes re-lost, but I'm pretty sure if this perfectly logical scenario unfolds, the charges in Alaska, at least, will be dropped, the musical chairs will be shuffled, and we can all get back to the serious job of fixing this god-damned economy, with one eye on the TV to make sure we don't miss the other distractions that help us avoid the iceberg straight ahead in our deadly path...

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Who is/was Bill Ayers?

Since Bill Ayres has become an issue in the Presidential election, I suppose it is time for poeple of my age and background to speak up. I don't think I ever met the man, although our time as students at the University of Michigan may have overlapped.

He and I came to Ann Arbor from different worlds. We probably shared a certain kind of idealistic anger in the '60s, given our government's contradictory policies and interventions in that era.

The guiding document of that period was the "Port Huron Statement," which was the founding manifesto of Students for a Democratic Society. As far as I know, Tom Hayden was the primary author of that document.

Ayres and his colleagues departed from the blueprint for creating a better society laid out in the Port Huron Statement. They embraced violence that very few of the rest of us ever could have supported.

I accept the fact that he later renounced his error, and became a distinguished professor at the University of Chicago. After all, there is nothing like making mistakes to learn how to move forward and become a positive force for change.

Barack Obama, alas, is far too young to know anything about this ancient history. He is just the latest victim of youthful idealism, as a community organizer in Chicago, serving on a board and utterly clueless as to the pasts of his fellow board members, like Ayers.

You know, when life is long, everything that goes around comes around again. To blame a magnificent candidate for President for falling victim to the cycles of life is despicable. And that is what the McCain campaign has sunk to -- down there in the gutter of gutters.

But beware of this tactic. McCain's past associations are so frightening that not even Sarah Palin could support him. Stay tuned.

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Leadership With a Capital "L"

We are facing the worst economic crisis of our time; the worst since our grandparents' time, The Great Depression.

Here is the speech Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered as he assumed the Presidency in 1933. We need our next President to express this kind of vision, hope, and tough-mindedness. This is no time for pandering or delivering absurd attacks on a rival's character or vague associations from his past.

This is a time for the brain power to comprehend the moment, and our desperate need, as a people, for somebody to trust. The market crash is based on fear. We once again are imagining worst-case scenarios, and acting irrationally. Once again, our only real enemy is fear itself.

We've become a nation of me-firsters, people living behind private walls and casting aspersions against those who are different than us. We've become isolated from our natural allies around the world and bluster threatening rhetoric toward anyone who doesn't cow-tow to us.

We need real leadership.

***

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.

Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.

Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.

There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.

Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.

The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States—a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.

With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.

Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.

We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.

Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, as published in Samuel Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volume Two: The Year of Crisis, 1933 (New York: Random House, 1938), 11–16.

The Importance of Decency

Watching Michelle Obama's fantastic interview with Larry King tonight, I was struck by her intelligence, sincerity and her unwillingness to sink to the awful, despicable level of Sarah Palin and John McCain.

No thinking person could fail to appreciate her performance, including her refusal to denounce Sarah Palin.

The contrast between the candidates is clear. The Republicans believe in gutter politics. The Obamas refuse to sink to that level. And that, my friends, is why they will be moving into the White House next January.

Obama is a gifted leader for the ages. I am so very sorry that so many Americans have been resisting his candidacy, because what he offers, and what his wife and his whole family offers, is to turn the page on the ugliest pages of our history and to move into a future that may offer hope for all of us.

Our country and its economy is collapsing before our eyes. We need a new spirit, a new pride.

See? I am an idealist, even now, after all of this.

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Drying the Daily Catch

In early evening last night, just before the debate got underway, I spotted fish hanging from a clothesline in my neighbors' yard. They looked like flounders, sand dabs, or mahi-mahi.



The old lady just stared at them for a long time.



I stared at the last few red apples near the top of our apple tree. City folk staring at food. Maybe you had to be there...

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Presidential Debate #2

Objectivity:

Obama destroyed McCain tonight, it wasn't even close. Perhaps the most obnoxious statement was McCain's overtly racist phrase "that one" referring to Senator Barack Obama. It's hard to overstate how damaging this moment was. What is safe to say is that John McCain and his stupid running mate Sarah Palin have lost this election on the merits, given their ignorance, and their unforgivable racism.

It is over. Obama wins in a landslide. The only swing state left in play is Indiana.

Indiana! Give me a break. If an idiot is fighting to win Indiana, he is an idiot for the ages. Color him this year's Republican Presidential candidate.

R.I.P. John McCain. Obama wins in a landslide, with way over 300 electoral votes. In the process, our country has the possibility of a future, as opposed to the stinking corpse of our recent past.

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Who Needs Words?

Our Song

When my wonderful 14-year-old son was an infant, we used to dance around together to this song. Now he is so big and strong, he could probably lift me up as I once could lift him, effortlessly, and move around a room with love in our hearts.

I don't know that the true depth of a father's love for his children ever gets truly expressed in real time, but thanks to art, there at least these kinds of memories. I'm quite sure that the drum beats of this song resonate in his memory, and will do so long after I am gone...

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San Francisco Sunday

In my boyhood, summertime brought lots of these puffy, creamy cumulus clouds to Michigan's skies. Like most kids, I played lots of imagination games with those clouds, divining shapes and making up stories. I didn't know it at the time, but one of my very few true talents in life would be as a story-teller.



Back then, I could not really envision myself as an adult. Unlike other kids, like my sister Kathy, who knew she would grow up to be a sailboat, my attempts to peer into the future only left hazy images and vague shadows. My fate was indecipherable, perhaps because I had no coherent role models.



My father worked in an office, the only man among women, responsible for handling the numbers for his company, the Borden/SaniSeal/McDonald's milk companies over the years. Earlier, he'd been a factory worker in a foundery, a paint company, and Fisher Body (GM).

Now that I think about it, I am a "numbers guy" for my current company, not handling the books but creating data points for Predictify's "From the Crowd." But, my life has been nothing like my Dad's, just as I suppose, my children's lives do not much resemble mine.



Sometimes, as I watch from the sidelines at their sports events, or the audience at their performances, or just across the dinner table at my children (all of them), I am stunned by their beauty, intelligence, sensitivity, and creativity. I imagine all parents are like this.



Mine is a mind born to ramble. I never seem able to focus on one topic for long, just as I couldn't conjure being an adult because no clear image ever entered my mind.



I'll probably join AARP this week. Now I qualify as an elderly man, my main feeling is one of surprise. I think my illness at 12, followed my other one at 24, pretty much removed the idea of a long life from my expectation list.



There are certain numbers I hate, and I suspected I would die on one of them -- at 35 or 46. But somehow, I've outlived my superstitions, and there is no bad number left for me. I guess all of this passion, happiness, sadness, success and failure, memory and anticipation is really just gravy for me.



I'm one of the very lucky ones. This old and still full of stories, even as I feel physical fraility encroaching in its inevitable manner. Now it is not the future that grows hazy but the past. Who was that boy gazing up at clouds, not knowing who he would turn out to be?

And where did he go?