Wednesday, April 28, 2021

"Creating Problems to Secure Elections"

 


Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Creating Problems to Secure Elections”

April 28, 2021

 

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s

cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for

our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

                                                                                                                  C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

                                                                                                                  God in the Dock: Essays on Theology, 1970

                                                                                                                  Published posthumously

 

A problem endemic to successful countries is the need to create issues that get people excited when things are going relatively well. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, except for a few years following 9/11, the United States has not faced a major crisis that galvanized and unified the nation. In 2008, we faced a credit crisis. It could have undone the global financial system but, truth be told, the crisis was over by the end of calendar year 2008 when the TED spread – a calculation used to measure risk in financial markets – narrowed sharply from its October-November highs, and high-yield bonds began to rally. The pandemic caused by COVID-19 last year was seized by politicians and called a crisis. A (deliberate?) confusion of correlation with causation regarding reported deaths was used as an excuse to expand governmental power and curtail individual rights. Despite conventional opinion, however, we do not know if shutting down the economy did more harm than good. 

 

The United States has achieved high living standards and diminished poverty because of capitalism and individual freedom. Is everything perfect? No. Should we rest on our laurels? Of course not. There is always more to be done. But the world, and especially the West, is richer and more at peace than at any time in history, which is a problem for politicians whose campaigns are all about needed change. 

 

It is true that external problems lurk. China threatens peace in the western Pacific. Russia is flexing its muscles along borders of its old empire in Ukraine. Iran, an impoverished state with little to risk and much to gain, is disrupting the Middle East with a revival of its nuclear program. North Korea, another state so impoverished it has little to lose, is led by a man who in a normal country would be committed.

 

However, in this time of relative prosperity and peace, Progressives convert addressable issues into partisan crises. While there are several, two, in my opinion, are forefront: race and climate. Others include policing, guns and immigration, with the latter having become a serious problem on our southern border. Methods used to create and promote crises are insidious: claim the moral high ground, censor speech, disallow gender-specific pronouns and cancel history. A consequence is the intimidation (and worse) of those in academia, corporate offices, entertainment, and professional sports who do not hew to an approved narrative. 

 

There is no question that there are racists in the United States. A country of 330 million people harbors every conceivable type of good and bad individual. Has racial equality been achieved? No. Bias against race is embedded in all societies, including in parts of ours, and change always happens more slowly than proponents would like. But positive change has occurred. In 1970, according to U.S. Census data, 60% of all Americans had a high school education, while only 30% of blacks did. By 2020 those trends had almost converged, with 90% of all Americans having a high school diploma and 88% of blacks. Interracial marriages have increased. In the 1967 decision Loving versus Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that anti-miscegenation marriage laws were unconstitutional. It is hard to believe today, but 54 years ago such marriages were illegal in seventeen states. Since that decision there has been a five-fold increase in interracial marriages, so that today, according to a Pew Research study, one in six marriages is interracial. Race is still an issue, but the situation is miles from where it was half a century ago. We are not systemically racist, and Critical Race Theory is derisive to blacks and disruptive to society. The assumption that blacks are victims and cannot compete against whites is an insult to the black community. Consider the success of black Americans in every field, from finance, medicine, politics and law to literature, the media, sports and entertainment. The term “victim” is tossed out too freely, as when LeBron James (worth an estimated $500 million, according to Forbes), Tweeted “Your next,” beneath a picture of Columbus, Ohio police officer Nicholas Reardon, to his 50 million followers. When followers complained his message was inflammatory, he asserted he was a victim. What kind of a country do Progressives want? Do they believe Reverend Jeremiah Wright was on target to preach after 9/11: “No, no, no, not God bless America! God damn America!” No true American has ever claimed we have achieved perfection. But we should all be able to say we are a better Country today than we were 200, 100, even 50 years ago. We must take care that we continue to move forward, not backward. The teaching of Critical Race Theory is guaranteed to foment discrimination and segregation, pushing us backward into the Jim Crow era. 

 

The public debate over climate is another issue Progressives have cynically seized for political purposes. Their arguments ignore knowledge and promote advocacy, which was clear a few years ago when “global warming” became “climate change.” An apocalypse has been falsely predicted by many. In 2006 former Vice President Al Gore, who sold his cable channel company Current TV to Al Jazeera for $500 million in 2013, said that unless drastic measures were taken to reduce greenhouse gasses within ten years the world would reach a point of no return. Led by China and India, greenhouse gasses have continued to increase, yet no apocalypse has arrived. Nevertheless, like the problem of race, there is truth in the fact we face climate change. And there is no question that man has affected what has always been the case – that climate is in a constant state of flux. The Earth has warmed and cooled over the millennia and will continue to do so. In his new book, False Alarm, Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish economist who has been studying and writing about climate for twenty years, quoted the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that had studied flooding around the world and “found that it’s not clear whether it’s getting more or less frequent, [or whether] there is a human fingerprint involved.” Lomborg points out the value of wealth and adaption in addressing climate concerns. (Wealthy people prefer to live in a clean environment yet continue to build homes in flood-prone areas). A review of the book in Forbes noted: “In the 1920s, climate-related disasters killed almost 500,000 people each year. Today the number is lower than 20,000.”

 

President Obama’s Under Secretary for Science in the Department of Energy Dr. Steven Koonin recently published Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t and Why It Matters. In an op-ed about his book, published in the New York Post, Dr. Koonin made certain points that would shock those who believe we are headed for catastrophe: “…Heat waves in the U.S. are now no more common than they were in 1900…The warmest temperatures in the U.S. have not risen in the past fifty yearsHumans have had no detectable impact on hurricanes over the past century…Greenland’s ice sheet isn’t shrinking any more rapidly today than it was eighty years ago.” Man’s impact on climate has been real, but, despite claims by Progressives, it is unclear what exactly that impact has been. To add perspective, in his op-ed Dr. Koonin quoted a former colleague at Caltech, Professor Richard Feynman (1918-1988), a theoretical physicist known for his work on quantum mechanics who gave the 1974 commencement address: “Give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution, not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another.” Humility among politicians is a rare, but treasured, commodity. What is ignored is that, like the problem with race, we are moving in the right direction. With natural gas substituting for coal, U.S. per capita carbon dioxide emissions declined 24% between 2000 and 2017, while U.S. GDP rose 94 percent.  

 

A hundred and fifty years ago, in the December 1870 magazine, New and Old, James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888), an American theologian, penned words whose wisdom still applies: “A politician thinks about the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.” “Woke” Progressives claim the moral high ground, but it is passion, not reason, that motivates them. Passion may help win elections, but thoughtfulness and reason help politicians become statesmen. In his poem “The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats wrote: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.” Bertrand Russell, in his 1945 book A History of Western Philosophy, expressed similar sentiments: “the whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always sure of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubt.” Beware politicians whose promises lead to the tyranny C.S. Lewis warned of in the rubric that heads this essay.  

 

Win at any costs has become the mantra of Progressives. In a recent interview with Mathias Döpfner of Germany’s Axel Springer, Henry Kissinger commented on the belief that American society has been immoral from its beginnings: “It’s a revolutionary view in the sense it aims for victory, not compromise.” The cost is societal division. A lack of civility has become common. People are not held accountable. Rules of behavior are not taught at home. Schools don’t demand respect from students. Great books are no longer required reading, and civics and history are no longer emphasized. Equity, as a goal, has replaced equality. Victimization has been substituted for personal responsibility. The crises Americans face are ones of behavior and epistemology, not structural racism or a climate apocalypse.

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Saturday, April 24, 2021

"Photos, Children's Books & the Passing of Childhood"

 


Sydney M. Williams

 

Essay from Essex

“Photos, Children’s Book & the Passing of Childhood”

April 24, 2021

 

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

                                                                                                                C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

                                                                                                                The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, 1950

 

A framed photo sits on my desk. Taken two years ago at the Seabright Beach Club in New Jersey, it shows our ten grandchildren, cousin alongside cousin. They range in age from ten to eighteen. Recently, looking for a missing picture, I opened the back and out fell half a dozen photos of earlier Christmas cards. The earliest was for Christmas 2003 when there were five grandchildren. The most recent, 2013 with all ten. Looking at the photos, I choked up, filled with a sense of loss – the passing of their childhood. 

 

As a grandfather, I am having my third go at childhood. But now, as my youngest approaches her thirteenth birthday, that most wonderful of all human experiences is about to fade away. My wife and I were fortunate that our three children produced ten grandchildren within eight years, which meant that their childhoods – from the birth of the first on July 10, 2000 to the youngest turning thirteen, which she will do on June 24th of this year – lasted twenty-one years, or 20% of my life, too short a time for the joy they bring. Being a grandparent means you get the pleasure without the responsibility. Grandparents bring treats, read stories and take them on Thomas the Train. Parents must make them brush their teeth, put them to bed and tell them to turn off their i-Phones. Now, looking at the photo taken in 2003 with my daughter and two daughters-in-law holding their babies, and knowing that today all five are in college, I ask, where has the time gone?

 

One’s own children provide a second shot at childhood. Our first arrived in 1966, and the last (the third) turned thirteen in 1984. Those eighteen years represented 40% of my then life. While my wife and I were the “heavies,” in that we were the ones to discipline our children, we were rewarded with the joys that can only accrue to a parent, in seeing awe in young eyes when first seeing Santa. On Christmas morning 1972, our oldest was six, his sister four, and the youngest not yet two. Around five o’clock that morning the two oldest snuck downstairs, having first made sure that pillows were tucked under the covers of their beds, so that a night-wandering, parent might think they were still asleep. Their mission: to see if Santa had come. Wrapped presents under the tree and filled stockings hung from the mantle gave assurance they had not been forgotten. But the temptation was too great and the time before breakfast too long; so down came the stockings with a crash, which awakened their mother and father. Expressions of wonder and delight on the children’s faces turned rudely-awakened Mother and Father into forgiving Mom and Dad.

 

It is our own childhood to which we return as we grow older. During those dozen years before the teens arrive, time, like desert sands, stretched toward infinity. It was the only life we knew. Grown-ups are, of course, necessary. They provide food and shelter, offer shoulders to cry on and have arms to hug with. But they don’t, as we constantly told them, understand us. My mother would admonish me: “Grow up!” How was I to know what she meant? I was a child and spoke and acted as a child. Now, from a vantage point of almost seventy years, I look back, aided by childhood books and faded black-and-white photographs of people and animals long dead, and I mourn the loss of the innocence of childhood. But I am thankful for memories. I have dozens of pictures with my older sister, younger brother and sometimes baby sister Betsy. Many were taken during the war, most with our mother – on the beach in Madison, Connecticut or playing with goats in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Time has erased hurt feelings, the scare from once being locked in a bath house, recurring nightmares, and the pain of getting my finger caught in a car door. It is the happy times I remember. Riding horseback with my mother, skiing with my father, and doing both with my siblings. 

 

We lived four miles from the village and a mile from the nearest neighbor, so we entertained ourselves. Our house was filled with books, some of which I still own: Miltiades Peterkin Paul by Charles Remington Talbot, writing as John Brownjohn, and An Island Story by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall. In the introduction she wrote that the book is “not a history lesson but a story-book.” Daddy Jake by Joel Chandler Harris (1889) and Two Little Confederates by Thomas Nelson Page (1889) belonged to my Tennessee-born maternal grandmother. Proud Pumpkin was written and illustrated by Nora Unwin in 1953. She moved to Peterborough from England in 1946, to be close to her friend and collaborator Elizabeth Yates, author of Amos Fortune, Free Man and several other children’s books. When we moved, these books came along. They include The Allies Fairy Book, published after World War I and illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Clement Moore’s The Night Before Christmas, also illustrated by Rackham, was read by my mother and has been read by us to our three children and ten grandchildren. As children, we laughed when my mother read: “He had a broad face and a little round belly, that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly.” Today, upon hearing those words, I smile. 

 

Over the years I purchased others that I knew as a child: Mother Goose, illustrated by Arthur Rackham, Ginger and Pickles by Beatrix Potter, Barnaby by Crockett Johnson, who appeared in comic trips, Crock of Gold by James Stephens and illustrated by Thomas McKenzie. I have original editions of Uncle Remus by Joel Candler Harris, E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and the four Pooh books by A.A. Milne. My copy of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass were published in 1946 and include the John Tenniel illustrations. I can still recite the poem “Jabberwocky”: “‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/Did gyre and gimble in the wabe…” Who does not get nostalgic for their childhood when re-reading the opening sentence in Winnie-The-Pooh: “Here is Edward Bear, coming down stairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin.” And who does not weep when Charlotte dies: “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.” I could go on. There are over three dozen such books on my shelves. I pull one out, glance through it, and the images that appear are of my own childhood, when there was no past, and the future was indistinguishable from the present. 

 

One’s childhood lasts about a dozen years – not long in the average person’s lifetime. But memories emerge as we age. And we realize how quickly those years passed by. Childhood cannot be restored but it can be reclaimed through quiet moments spent alone, sifting through old photographs, and turning the pages of a favorite, childhood story. C.S. Lewis, as quoted in the rubric that heads this essay, was right. I am now old enough to read his magical Narnia tales, which I did three years ago.

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Wednesday, April 21, 2021

"The Derek Chauvin Verdict - Three Lessons"

                                                                  Sydney M. Williams 

Thought of the Day

“The Derek Chauvin Verdict – Three Lessons”

April 21, 2021

 

This is spontaneously written; so please excuse it if it is not well expressed.

 

The first lesson is that police, if they use excessive force that turns lethal, will be held accountable. The police operate in a milieu that most of us would find difficult, if not impossible. Decisions, often, must be made in split seconds. But they are human, and mistakes can be made. And, as in every other profession, there are “bad apples.” But how many of you would want to swap professions with a policeman? Without a police force anarchy would reign. Nevertheless, they must be held accountable and, whenever possible, exercise restraint.

 

The second lesson is for the youth of our country. Avoid the use of illegal drugs, for they lead to crime and crime to apprehension by police. George Floyd would not have been arrested had he not been on drugs and had not tried to pass a counterfeit bill. Young people must develop a purpose; they must recognize the value of diligence, hard work and respect for others, including the law.

 

The third lesson is for politicians and the media: Trust the jury system and don’t interfere in its process. Interference can lead to a mistrial. Of course, there are rigged juries, corrupt lawyers and judges. But, on balance our system of a jury of one’s peers has worked well. Members of the jury are the only ones who have listened to the entire trial and then debated the merits of the prosecution and defense. Trust them to do the right thing. Trust them but watch them.

 

Everyone charged with a crime deserves a defense. In 1770, John Adams, then a thirty-four-year-old lawyer in Boston and a committed patriot, agreed to defend eight British soldiers and their officer in charge for murdering five colonists in what was called the “Boston Massacre.” The British soldiers were acquitted. It was the law that acquitted them. Our Country is not perfect, but it is more equitable, just and fairer than most any other. Most of us, no matter our origins, would rather live here than in any other country.

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Monday, April 19, 2021

"Backlash"

 


Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Backlash”

April 19, 2021

 

You must have known the storm was coming

When the clouds appeared.”

                                                                                                                                Lyrics

                                                                                                                                “The Tempest,” 2008

                                                                                                                                Pendulum (Australian band)

 

The arc of a pendulum carries its bob in an equal and opposite direction from which it starts. Metaphorically, it describes our country, as politics is subject to the same laws of physics. 

 

In 1937, Albert Einstein, then living in Princeton, New Jersey but thinking of the Europe he had left four years earlier, issued a warning: “Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perennially rejuvenated illusions.” Even without those extremes, political power in the U.S. has vacillated between Democrats and Republicans. In the seventy-six years since the end of World War II, Democrats have held the White House thirty-six years and the Republicans forty. Thus, political extremism has been contained, not by politicians but by the wisdom of voters. Even today, a balance exists. While the Presidency is held by Democrats, conservatives dominate the Supreme Court. And the Congress is divided, with the Senate split 50-50, and the House with Democrats up by 218-212, with five seats vacant. We are a divided nation, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as minority voices are heard and unafraid to speak out, and as long as extremism remains confined. 

 

In February 1788, Thomas Jefferson looked hopefully at the incoming Presidency of George Washington, the only individual to win election (and re-election) without being a member of a political party. He wrote William Stephens Smith, a Federalist Representative from New York: “We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest, finally, in the middle.” That turned out not to be true in the post-Washington years, and it is not true today. In the nation’s most extreme backlash, a Civil War broke out in 1861. A hundred years later, from the mid-1960s to the early-1970s, Civil Rights and the Vietnam War caused a backlash of protests that turned bloody.

 

Today, we are in the midst of another such turmoil. The difference, in my opinion, is that this time the causes are politically manufactured. There is no question that inequalities exist. They always have and always will. We are not equal in athleticism, intelligence, looks, aspirations or diligence. But today’s “victims” have little in common with those held in bondage a hundred and sixty years ago, with women who were denied the vote a hundred years ago, with blacks who had to comply with the lie of “separate but equal” public schools of sixty years ago, or with gays who were shunned two decades ago. We have come a long way, which is reason to celebrate, but we also acknowledge that all democracies are works in progress. Differences should be aired, respectfully and with tolerance for those whose opinions differ.

 

But that is not the case. Progressives have become intolerant of any disagreement with their orthodoxy. Progressive judgements are nurtured in schools and colleges, where diversity is championed except when it involves thought and ideas. Censorship of conservative opinions are justified on the basis that one should not express anything that might be deemed hurtful to so-called “victims.” Social media organizations, despite their claim to the contrary, do not offer open platforms for debate, and the newsrooms of mainstream media groups have become propagandists for favored politicians. 

 

Progressives are hypocrites. They erroneously say we are “systemically racist.” Their words have reversed the slow march of a people who were evolving toward multiracialism. Their claims are an anathema to all that Martin Luther King stood for – that we be judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin. Progressive Democrats in “blue” states would like to reinstate SALT (State and Local Taxes) deductions to pre-2017 levels – a move that would benefit the wealthy, not the middleclass families they claim to represent. They would like to have student loans forgiven to the amount of $50,000, something that would help college graduates but do nothing for those with only a high school degree. As well, such a move would destroy the concept of personal responsibility, something a democratic society needs of its citizens. Progressives offer rebates for those who can afford a Tesla or solar panels, but nothing for the family who has to make do with a gasoline-consuming Ford or who must buy electricity from the grid. All these are costs that must be paid for with higher taxes.

 

Because progressivism is inculcated in our students, starting in elementary school and the media has largely become a propaganda machine for left-wing politics, the divide between the “favored” and “unfavored” has widened to dangerous proportions. To Progressives, skin color is more important than character. Students are taught a language that no longer allows for gender differences. Personal responsibility has succumbed to “victimization.” Progressives in gated communities would like to defund the police, with little effect on their lives, but devastating to residents and business owners in inner cities. Illegal immigrants, who take jobs from low-income Americans and who provide cheap labor for wealthy “woke” suburbanites, are welcomed by Progressives, hoping that when they become citizens their vote can be bought. Policy goals of “packing” the Supreme Court, federalizing election laws and ending the filibuster reflect a desperate reach for power, not for a fair and open democracy. The hypocrisy is as thick as molasses.

 

Politics should not be so divisive. Elected officials should think of what is right for the Country, not what is best for themselves. Parents and schools should instill in their children and pupils an honor code. Old fashioned traits like hard work, honesty, respect for the law and tolerance are not peculiar to whites but are universal traits that lead to success. Schools should teach civics, so young students will realize that voting is a privilege and a responsibility, not simply a right conferred on one’s 18th birthday. We should curtail illegal immigration but expand legal immigration. We should not divide ourselves into oppressors and oppressed but view ourselves as fellow travelers, fortunate to live in this land of opportunity. We should judge people based on character and merit, not on race, religion, ethnicity or gender. But will we? Progressives believe division leads to power – a dangerous and combustible conclusion.

 

It would be wrong, in my opinion, to suggest the United States is ready to explode. But the pendulum has been pulled far back by “woke” elitists. From their ivory-towered college classrooms, their sound-proofed newsrooms, their glitzed-up Hollywood studios, and the inner sanctums of their corporate offices, they seem unaware of what constitutes the typical American, what they think and how they feel. They are ignorant of the consequences of what they have wrought. Accusations of systemic racism and the teaching of Critical Race Theory foment divisiveness, and divisiveness leads to hate and hate leads to violence. A backlash will accentuate the segregationist tendencies of Progressives and make meaningful integration more difficult. These elitists remind one of Marie Antoinette in early 1793 who was allegedly told by her seamstress: “There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.” Storm clouds are gathering. They could be dispersed, but if not, a backlash, when it comes, could be worse than anything we now imagine.

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Saturday, April 17, 2021

"George Washington," David O. Stewart

                                                                    Sydney M. Williams

George Washington, David O. Stewart

April 17, 2021

 

That gift of judgement, steeped in the moral obligations that

come with possessing power, allowed him to inspire a nation.”

                                                                                                                                David O. Stewart

                                                                                                                                George Washington

 

When we think of George Washington, the image is Gilbert Stuart’s portrait, or standing as he crossed the Delaware on Christmas Day 1776. We think of Washington myths created by “Parson” Weems, on which many of us grew up. We think of Mount Vernon. And we ask: Do we need another biography? Ron Chernow, author of Washington, A Life (2010), puts the number about our first President at nine hundred.

 

But, just as Job had his trials, so did George Washington. Nature endowed him with a good mind, height, strength and resolve. He was fortunate to have a family connection with the Fairfaxes, a wealthy Virginia family. But his father died when he was young, and near poverty deprived him of the education he so ardently desired. The subtitle is “The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father.” This biography spends less time on the Revolution and his Presidency and more on earlier years. “Washington’s story,” Mr. Stewart writes, “is not one of effortless superiority, but one of excellence achieved with great effort.” After years on Virginia’s western frontier, including defeat at Fort Necessity in 1754, a self-doubting Washington wrote to John Robinson, Speaker of colonial Virginia’s House of Burgesses, on August 5, 1756: “I am wandering in a wilderness of difficulties, and am ignorant of the ways to extricate myself.”

 

In 1759, Washington traded his surveying tools and military career for a legislative job. Lessons were learned that served him in future years. “In place of the impetuous colonel would arise a patient leader…Years of colonial politics would teach him to measure words and consider actions, while gauging the consequences of both.” Years spent in Virginia’s Burgess helped him understand and defend American rights and taught him that the military should take instructions from the people’s representatives. The role of Commander in Chief of the Continental Army during the Revolution made him favor a strong national government, with ability to impose and collect taxes. Shay’s Rebellion, during the period between the end of the War for Independence and the formation of an American government, taught him that unification of the states would be critical for independence. Stewart writes: “Washington had matured in a political culture built on consensus within a small elite.” In his Farewell Address, Washington warned that partisanship was inevitable: it is “inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind.” The author adds: “For the pragmatic Washington, reciprocal checks on the government’s centers of power preserved popular control and individual liberty.” 

 

We who live in the United States today are fortunate that George Washington became our first President. In naming him Commander-in-Chief, the Continental Congress recognized Washington’s extraordinary talent for winning the confidence of others…” He knew he must help steer the Revolution past the Charybdis of anarchy and the Scylla of authoritarianism. He set a standard for a citizen-led government, that for a people to live freely, government must subordinate itself to the will of its citizens. He had faults, among them slave ownership. He recognized it as a sin but could not extricate himself from its economic binds. However, his will stipulated that his slaves be freed upon his and Martha’s deaths. David Stewart has written a valuable addition to the pantheon of Washington biographies. 

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Friday, April 9, 2021

"Return from Sabbatical"

 


Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Return from Sabbatical

April 9, 2021

 

There is a certain clarity on a high roof…One’s perspective, at that altitude, is unusually good.

Who has the longer view of things, anyway, a prime minister in a closet, or a man on a barn roof?”

                                                                                                                                E.B. White (1895-1985)

                                                                                                                                “Clear Days,” October 1938

                                                                                                                                One Man’s Meat, 1942

 

Three months ago, I wrote what was to be my last Thought of the Day. Two reasons were cited: fear that my voice was (or would become) angry, and the necessity of being able to laugh – to put away the mendacity of political commentary for the joy of life. However, I decided cessation need not be permanent. Sabbaticals are healthy. Hiding is not. Sober words, I have been told, are necessary to keep the lamp of liberty lit. 

 

What is concerning is “Woke” culture: an insistence that “equality” refers to outcomes, not opportunities or equal treatment under the law; the “canceling” of history; the rise of Critical Race Theory, with its unintended consequences; and the dismemberment of our Judeo-Christian heritage, which abandons faith and family. It is not politicians I find disquieting – since time immemorial they have always served their self-interests – it is their enablers in the mainstream media and entertainment industries, in churches, schools, universities and corporate board rooms, including Major League Baseball – except, in the latter, racial and gender diversity does not apply to players, where talent still reigns.

 

Why do we insist public schools for the gifted and talented should reflect race, not ability? Why do elite colleges provide different (read higher) standards for Asians than for blacks, Hispanics and whites? Why do corporations, owned by millions of shareholders – usually indirectly through mutual funds, ETFs or pension plans – not want the most able to sit in their boards? Do they really believe that long-term holders of businesses are not aware of all stakeholders when valuing a business? People are not equal in physical attributes, mental abilities, or aspiration. Why the discrimination? Would you attend an NBA game if the team reflected the City’s racial and gender profile instead of its best basketball players? Do you believe pilots should be selected on the basis of ability, or should they reflect the nation’s racial and/or gender make up? Attempts to make equal what can never be equal is not only insulting; it detracts from the far more important mission of providing equal opportunities for all to succeed, in whatever field they choose. Yesterday’s political correctness has worsened into today’s “Wokeness.”

 

In The Life of Reason, George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Today, our past is either ignored or condemned as racist, sexist or homophobic. Yet our Founders, for all their faults, produced a nation that became the envy of people everywhere. People across the globe are freer, richer and safer because of the United States. History is a continuum, a work in progress. One can remove statues or destroy textbooks, but that does not change what happened. To best know the past, we should be made to understand what knowledge and moral principles existed at the time. Of course, mistakes were made, especially when measured against today’s values. In The Island of Doctor Moreau, H.G. Wells wrote: “Man is an imperfect animal.” That is true. There have been times when we slid back. But the forward progress has been remarkable, as anyone who has studied the past 2000 or even 200 years knows.

 

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is based on the idea that race, “instead of being biologically grounded and natural, is a socially constructed concept that is used by white people to further their economic and political interests at the expense of people of colour.” It incorporates “the view that the law and legal institutions are inherently racist…” While the United States was built on optimism, CRT reflects pessimism. It suggests that Martin Luther King’s dream of a world where people will be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, will never be realized. It is a theory demeaning to the people it alleges to help. As Jason Riley asked in a recent Wall Street Journal column: “Why treat the black electorate like helpless children?” As a movement, CRT, with its Marxist view of racial/economic division has extended that distinction to women’s and gender issues. While compartmentalization may make for more focused political campaigns, it is degrading to the individuals it claims to help, discourages social and economic mobility, and it is the principal cause of societal unrest.

 

Perspective is needed. What were common values in pre- and post-Revolutionary times? We know about slavery on these shores, but what about slavery as practiced by African slave traders? What about New England abolitionists? What about the Jim Crow era and Reconstruction? Or the treatment of Irish in the late 19th Century? What about attitudes toward Jews in the 1930s and ‘40s or blacks in the 1950s? What rules of conduct were generally accepted back then? Have we not improved? Do we really believe that Georgia today is “Jim Crow on steroids,” as some have claimed? Can we not be honest? Should we not judge our forefathers by the standards of their day, rather than by those under which we live? Do we want to be judged by our great-grandchildren based on principles a hundred years hence? Has truth been revealed to those who sanctimoniously attack the failings of our ancestors? Are today’s moral values sufficient for all eternity? Also, how does Western culture compare to other cultures? Has any other culture given individuals more freedom and opportunities to advance, offered more prosperity and happiness than our Judeo-Christian one? Do those who criticize the U.S. stand up against slavery where it exists today, in Africa, the Middle East and Asia? Do they protest human trafficking on our southern border, or the treatment of Uighurs by the Chinese Communist Party? Without a knowledge of the past and without seeing the world through a clear lens, how can we be assured that today’s policies will provide a fairer, richer, more equitable society tomorrow?

 

At bottom, it is freedom that concerns us. We should not be ashamed of our faith, dedication, perseverance, hard work, loyalty, generosity and tolerance, characteristics not confined to one race, but qualities that define us as a people and a nation. By definition, the greater the presence of government in our lives, the less individual freedom we have. On the political spectrum that spans from anarchy to totalitarianism, it is the right balance between government control and individual choice we seek. While political ideologies differ, it is the job of elected representatives to find accommodation. But where are we today? Cancelled history and censorship are practiced in schools, colleges and the workplace. Critical Race Theory, with its neo-Marxist façade, divides people into oppressors and oppressed. It is experienced in government and corporate offices. Where are the open forums at universities that once welcomed dissenting opinions? Where is the once-dispassionate newspaper that still carries as its slogan: “All the News That’s Fit to Print?” 

 

E.B. White wrote an essay in June 1940, titled “Freedom,” which was included in One Man’s Meat. It was at a time when German Nazis, a political party birthed in socialism, had, with the exception of Switzerland and Sweden, conquered mainland Europe. England was vulnerable to invasion. White wrote: “The United States, almost alone today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of freedom. In this land the citizens are still invited to write their plays and books, to paint their pictures, to meet for discussion, to dissent as well as to agree, to mount soapboxes in the public square, to enjoy education in all subjects without censorship, to hold one another, to compose music, to talk politics with their neighbors without wondering whether the secret police are listening, to exchange ideas as well as goods, to kid the government when it needs kidding, and to read real news of real events instead of phony news manufactured by a paid agent of the state.” How far we have strayed from that ideal. We must be a nation where such freedoms are encouraged, else the democratic Republic, formed in the crucible of the post-American Revolution, will no longer exist. Talent knows no bounds Whether intellectual, creative or physical, it is not limited by race, sex, gender or ethnicity. A fair society encourages talent wherever and whenever it appears.

 

About fifteen years ago, I started writing Thoughts of the Day. Initially, they were brief comments on markets and came out every day. In time, they morphed into longer, political commentary, with reduced frequency. The past three months have shown me that by avoiding televised news and spending more time reading for pleasure, one may gain clarity without having to climb onto a barn roof. Those of us who like to comment should spend more time in reflection and less time listening to bloviating blowhards on TV. Going forward, I make no promises other than to write whenever events move me. It is likely to be issues rather than personalities that attract my attention.

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Sunday, April 4, 2021

"Laundry"

                                                                   Sydney M. Williams 

Essay from Essex

“Laundry”

April 4, 2021

 

Maybe a good rule in life is never become too important to do your own laundry.”

                                                                                                                                Barry Sanders (1968-)

                                                                                                                                Former running back, Detroit Lions

 

During my first seventy-five years, I never thought about what happened to dirty clothes tossed on the floor. I just knew they would reappear in a few days, cleaned, folded and placed in a bureau drawer. When in boarding school, dirty laundry was mailed home, a foul-smelling gift to my mother. In college and in the army, memories of doing laundry have disappeared. Perhaps I never changed my clothes? Or perhaps that nightmare about a laundromat was not a dream? 

 

Things changed when we moved to Essex Meadows. Caroline was recovering from a fractured pelvis incurred six months earlier. And I had retired from a job as a stockbroker in New York. Our laundry equipment, now a stacked washer-dryer, was stuffed into a former closet that is filled with paper towels, toilet paper, toolboxes, cleaning fluids, soap, napkins, extra food (cookies, especially), a shredder and a spare vacuum cleaner. There might even be a grandchild left behind from a pre-pandemic visit. But I suspect not. I think we would have heard from her or him.

 

At any rate, given our changed circumstances, I volunteered to be washer-person. Through trial and error, I mastered the complexities of how much and when to add detergents. I learned the drying cycle and, with my wife’s verbal assistance, came to know which clothes should be dried on a line strung between two cabinets. Now healthy as a horse and with a beatific smile on her innocent face, she has domesticated me in other matters. I was disabused of the notion that meals arrive on the table without preparation and that cleaning up afterwards was performed by mysterious, ghost-like creatures. Army basic training had taught me to make my bed, but in years of rising before the sun that talent had been lost and had to be re-learned.

 

We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy,” wrote E.B. White, “even if it is only picking grapes or sorting laundry.” Joy is not the emotion I feel when I dump the still-warm, dried clothes on the bed, preparatory to sorting. It is satisfaction of a job well done, and I like the feel and the smell. The poet and author, Kathleen Norris has written that doing laundry, like taking a walk by oneself, is a good time for contemplation. I agree. The job is mechanical, requiring little thought, leaving room for ideas to bounce around in what is left of my brain. When poaching an egg or tucking in a disobedient bed sheet, attention must be paid, but sorting laundry can be done on autopilot. Tee shirts belong with tee shirts and boxer shorts with boxer shorts. My inner Walter Mitty has my mind wander, sometimes in creative directions.

 

For one who anthropomorphizes all living things, from toads to skunk cabbage, who believes fairies lurk under leaves and who makes book on which ice cube will be the last to disappear down the drain, it was easy to once marvel at how dirty clothes could become clean without effort. The last five years have taught me to appreciate the effort it takes, and to better understand the job my wife once performed and which my daughter and daughters-in-law now do, along with millions of other women.

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Saturday, April 3, 2021

"Chickens, Gin and a Maine Friendship," E.B. White & Edmund Ware Smith

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

Burrowing into Books

“Chickens, Gin and a Maine Friendship,” E.B. White & Edmund Ware Smith

April 3, 2021

 

And there you have it: spreaders of good news and cheer, early risers,

carpenters, keen observers, and friends who enjoyed a well-written

letter in the mail and a late afternoon drink, especially along the coast of Maine.”

                                                                                                                                Martha White, Editor

                                                                                                                                Introduction

                                                                                                                                Chickens, Gin and a Maine Friendship

 

While E.B. White needs no introduction, Edmund Ware Smith might. White wrote according to rules laid down by William Strunk in the little book he later updated, The Elements of Style. Smith wrote in the vernacular of the Maine sportsmen he came to appreciate. He wrote half a dozen books, including The One-eyed Poacher. He worked for the Ford Motor Company, where in the early ‘50s he edited “Ford Times.” He split his time between Detroit and Damariscotta, Maine, the “oyster capital” of New England, a village just north of Brunswick and about ninety miles west and south of Brooklin, home to E.B. White.

 

The letters begin in November 1956, with salutations to Mr. White and Mr. Smith. However, a year into the correspondence, White began a letter: “Why don’t you, at this juncture, call me Whitey and I will call you Smitty? Then we can gradually adjust these tags as the years roll and the rockets mount.” Smith responded a few days later: “Okay, Whitey, if that’s the way you want it, but with the new tag my vocabulary will change to Diversity Avenue and Delancey Street.” Their lively banter continued to the end. In his last letter to White on August 29, 1967, Smith wrote: “Had ahold of death’s door a couple of times but was not admitted. Spirits fine; getting best of care at home with Mary.” In response, two weeks later, White acknowledges Smith’s illness: “I was distressed to hear your news, and would have sent off a letter sooner but haven’t been too sharp myself of late – my head seems increasingly to be stuffed with old tomato paste and wired for sound.” Martha White, E.B. White’s granddaughter, tells us that Smith died a few days after receiving her grandfather’s letter. His wife survived him by thirteen years. After her death, E.B. White gave the letters to the Skidompha Library in Damariscotta.

 

For me, the treat in this collection was to read fresh material from E.B. White, while being introduced to Edmund Ware Smith. As the title suggests, much of the content revolves around gin and chickens. In a letter dated December 11, 1960, Smith writes of his plan to build a henhouse: “…so I went into Perley Waltz’s drugstore where the following dialog took place:

            Smitty: ‘Gimme enough Bandaids to build a henhouse.’

            Perley: ‘How big is the henhouse?’

            Smitty: ‘Twelve by twelve.’

            Perley: ‘Better take three boxes.’”

 

A month later, White thanks Smith for photographs. “Your henhouse is less beautiful than Chartres but almost as intricate…I can discover hardly an inch of available wall space, and I don’t know where your hens are going to hang their pictures.”

 

The book was published in 2020 and concludes with four essays, two by White and two by Smith. Any fan of E.B. White, Edmund Ware Smith, chickens, gin and/or Maine will want to get a copy.

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