"Watch What They Do"

 What sort of a moral sense inhabits the souls of presidents and trustees of some of the nation’s most elite colleges and universities where anti-Semitic student protestors have been allowed to terrify and physically harm Jewish students, block entrances to university buildings, and chant for the annihilation of Israel? These people head institutions that are supposed to help form future leaders. God help us if they do not uphold the values for which they claim to stand.

 

On the other hand, my normal cynicism toward Washington politicians was tempered this past weekend, when the House, under Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) passed three separate bills to support Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and a fourth bill that would seize frozen Russian assets and force a sale of Chinese-owned TikTok. Democrat House Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) deserves congratulations for his help in this bi-partisan show of support for these important pieces of legislation. The United States has been singularly positioned as the leader of the free world for more than a century. With size comes responsibility – not to impose our way of life on others, but to provide a vision of what is possible when the individual is the basis of a “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” If we relinquish that role, the world will be worse off.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Watch What They Do”

April 24, 2024

 

“Don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do.”

                                                                                                                Think Like a Freak, 2014

                                                                                                                Steven D. Levitt (1967-)

                                                                                                                Stephen J. Dubner (1963-)

 

It is said that Diogenes, an obviously odd but intelligent man who lived around 400BC, went about Athens’ marketplace with a lamp during the daytime. He claimed to be looking for an honest man. Apparently, he had little luck. We might well assume that a similarly futile search could be made in the nation’s Capital at any time of day. Politicians lie. So it is what they do that should galvanize our attention.

 

Lying is endemic and not limited to politicians. We all tell lies, or “white” lies as we euphemistically call them. Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf warned that when persistent liars do tell the truth, no one believes them – a lesson that politicians, reporters and others should learn. In the 19^th Century, Carlo Collodi of Florence, the pen name for Carlo Lorenzini, gave us the story of the sentient wooden puppet Pinocchio whose nose grew longer when he lied. Sadly, lying noses do not lengthen among those in Washington today. Rather, they believe Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister who said that if a lie is repeated often enough it is perceived as truth – like telling the public that only adherence to a Democrat-led agenda will save the planet from destruction. Climate change is a fact. The planet’s climate has changed thousands of times over millions of years. It will continue to do so. But people’s behavior is just one cause. 

 

While the media has been filled with Donald Trump’s lies, exaggerations and transgressions – and, certainly, Trump is a notorious liar – lying comes naturally to most of those who become politicians. It was Joe Biden who told the world he was arrested when visiting a jailed Nelson Mandela, that his uncle was eaten by cannibals in the Pacific during the Second World War, that he visited “Ground Zero” on September 12, 2001, and, to a Teamsters meeting, that he once drove tractor trailers. Mr. Biden, of course, has the excuse that he is “an elderly man with a poor memory.”

 

There have been other colorful examples: Nine months before he resigned on August 7, 1974 over the Watergate break-in, President Nixon told a group of reporters: “I am not a crook.” President Clinton on January 26, 1998, referring to White House intern Monica Lewinsky, declared: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” On September 5, 2002, President Bush told the American people that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction.” And President Obama, on June 6, 2009, said, referring to his proposed federal takeover of healthcare: “If you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor too. The only change you’ll see are falling costs as reforms take hold.” 

 

But consider some of what they did: One of the five “plumbers” (James W. McCord) who broke into the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972 was a member of Nixon’s Committee to Reelect the President. Stains on the blue dress worn by Ms. Lewinsky suggested a definitional difference in the words “sexual relations.” Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. And, according to the Peterson Center on Healthcare, the cost for medical care services has risen 49.6% since June 2009, double the rate of consumer prices.

 

Today, we are told that the southern border is secure, yet according to The Washington Post “illegal border crossings have averaged 2 million per year since 2021, the highest level ever.” We are told of extraordinary job creations in the past three years, yet part of the rise has been an increase in part-time employment, as the ratio between full-time and part-time has narrowed since mid-2023. As well, part of the job increases are due to growth in government jobs. J.P. Morgan reported that government jobs gained 56,000 per month in 2023, more than double the monthly gain of 23,000 in 2022. On April 10, President Biden was quoted: “…inflation has fallen more than 60% from its peak…” While that was true, it is also true that in March of this year, the CPI came in at 0.4%, double the Federal Reserve’s benchmark.

 

On September 29, 2023, speaking at the Atlantic Festival in Washington, D.C., Jake Sullivan, America’s National Security Advisor, rattled off a list of positive developments in the Middle East, a result of Biden’s policies: “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” Eight days later Iran’s proxy Hamas, headquartered in Gaza, launched an unprovoked attack on Israeli citizens, raping, mutilating and killing 1,200 civilians. Mr. Sullivan, in his comments, conveniently ignored the devastating withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the pursuit of Obama’s Iran Deal, which has allowed Iran to pursue their atomic program, and the reluctance to pursue the Abraham Accords, which had been leading to Sunni Muslims’ recognition of Israel.  

 

We are told that democracy is at risk, if the despised Donald Trump is re-elected. No one doubts that the continuation of our democratic republic is vital to all Americans. But does the much-watched Trump represent the sole risk to democracy? Is there not a risk from those who have gradually (and insidiously) strengthened the Executive branch, especially from those who believe that government knows best? Democracy has proven to be the most equitable political system ever contrived, largely because it incorporates free market capitalism, which provides the economic growth necessary for a nation’s operations, defense, and its social welfare programs. But markets work most efficiently when regulations do not impede innovation and when taxes do not limit investment. Consider what has been done and what is proposed: Forbes reported on December 29 that 2023 that the Federal Register, the daily depository of rules and regulations, wrapped up 2023 with 90,402 pages, “…the second highest tally of all time.” On March 11, President Biden sent Congress his proposed 2025 budget, which calls for a $5 trillion increase in taxes, to come from corporations and individuals making over $400,000 per annum. Barriers to economic growth, whether from regulations or taxes, have unfavorable consequences for all citizens.

 

Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that lies are sometimes necessary. For example, in time of war lies can deceive the enemy, or they can be used to withhold the truth from those near death and who are emotionally fragile. It may be more ethical to lie to help a friend save face in public; and secrets, whether corporate, institutional or government, to remain secret may involve fabrications or even, God forbid, fake news. There have been times when Presidents have had to lie to the public in the interest of national security.

 

But none of these examples exonerate politicians who lie to curry favor, to harvest votes, to further political careers, or to those in the media who aid their ignoble political friends by obscuring facts. Hannah Arendt, a refugee from the deadliest of European lies, once wrote that perhaps political deception is the greatest threat. In a recent Wall Street Journal review of Richard Sennett’s new book, The Performer, Barton Swaim quoted from Yuval Levin’s 2020 book, A Time to Build: “…the presidency and Congress are just stages for political performance art; when a university becomes a venue for vain virtue signaling, when journalism is indistinguishable from activism – they become harder to trust. They aren’t really asking for our confidence, just for our attention.” Sadly, that seems to be true.

 

In 1969, Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell said: “Watch what we do, not what we say.” We did. You know the rest.

Review - "Mary Churchill's War"

 As for this review, like many Americans, I am a fan of Winston Churchill. In retrospect, it is amazing that he and Britain were successful in standing alone for a year and a half against Hitler’s Nazis – from Germany’s occupation of Paris in June 1940 until the United States entered into the War after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. That they did was largely because of the confidence instilled in them by Churchill. Mary’s diary provides an intimate portrayal of the man.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

Mary Churchill’s War: The Wartime Diaries of Churchill’s Youngest Daughter, 2022

Edited by Emma Soames, Foreword by Erik Larson

April 14, 2024

 

Sunday, 3 September, 1939 – “DECLARATION OF WAR…O God, I thought

I hoped, I prayed that our generation would never see a war and that those who

fought last time would never have to face the ordeal a second time.”

 

Monday, 7 May, 1945 – “Lovely day…At about half past six it was announced 

That Germany had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies this morning.”

 

When the diaries begin on January 1, 1939, Mary, born September 15, 1922, is 16 years-old. When they conclude, September 6, 1945, she is just shy of her 23^rd birthday. The diaries can be appreciated on three levels: One, a portrait of her father (Papa), along with her mother (Mummie), siblings, friends and members of Churchill’s cabinet, from his adoring (and adored) youngest child. Two, the effects of the War on England, as seen by the young Mary Churchill who later served as a captain in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). And three, a coming-of-age story of an intelligent and vivacious young woman who at the start of the War is a typical teenager, but who matures over six-and-a-half years into a thoughtful and respected officer and woman.

 

When the War began, she wrote that she is “determined that the following pages shall contain a true and consecutive record of my life…the life of a girl in her youth.” In the early entries, she is fond of exclamation points and putting important words in capital letters. She fell in love often, as she recounts in her diaries, which prompted Roosevelt’s special envoy to London Harry Hopkins to caution her, in a letter to Ambassador John Winant: “Girls as attractive as Mary should get engaged at least 3 times before marrying.”

 

Of course she was not an ordinary young Brit. Her father was Prime Minister and her mother was the daughter of Sir Henry Hozier and Lady Blanche Hozier. During the War she lived mostly at 10 Downing Street, the Annexe, with weekends at Chequers, the country home for Britain’s Prime Minister. She also traveled twice out of the country with her father, first to Quebec in August-September 1943 and two years later to Potsdam after the War in Europe was over. Consequently, she commented on the politically powerful, like this entry about President Franklin Roosevelt: “Sunday, 12 September, 1943 – To me he seems at once idealistic, cynical, warm-hearted & generous, worldly-wise, naïve, courageous, tough, thoughtful, charming, tedious, vain, sophisticated, civilized.”

 

As an 18-year-old, she enjoyed herself: “Wednesday, 8 January, 1941 – Hospital dance in the evening…Danced a great deal. Oh I do love dancing.” Two years later, the reader detects a change: “Friday, 4 June 1943 – So many thoughts occur to me continually about life. How interesting & thrilling it all is – How can people be bored – and yet I’ve been bored myself sometimes.” And after Hiroshima was bombed: “Friday, 10 August, 1945 – “It strengthens in my mind the conviction that one should expect & hope & pray for very little – except courage. Courage to face & accept & wrestle with life however black & evil.”

 

More than her other siblings, whose lives were disrupted by divorce and cut short by death, Mary Churchill Soames, who died at 91 in 2014, was her father’s (and her mother’s) daughter. And her daughter’s editing of the diaries provides the reader a treat.

"Sixty Years of Marriage"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Sixty Years of Marriage”

April 13, 2024

 

“Marriage, N. The state or condition of a community consisting

of a master, a mistress, two slaves, making in all, two”

                                                                                                                                Ambrose Bierce (1842-c.1914)

                                                                                                                                The Devil’s Dictionary, 1911

 

“There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming 

relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.”

                                                                                                                                Martin Luther (1483-1546)[1]

                                                                                                                                Table Talk

Published posthumously in 1566

 

Two days ago Caroline and I celebrated sixty years of marriage.

 

…………………………………………………………………………………….

 

Winston Churchill once allegedly said: “My most brilliant achievement was my ability to persuade my wife to marry me.” Whether Churchill said that or not, the statement is true of me. I still marvel that Caroline accepted my marriage proposal. I was, at the time, a college drop out with no prospects. Military service was in my future, as was finishing college. Yet, she said yes.

 

Sixty years is a long time. Sixty years before we were married was 1904 – the year construction began on the Panama Canal, the year fingerprints were first used as an investigative tool, and the year Cy Young pitched the first perfect game in modern baseball, as the Boston Americans beat the Philadelphia Athletics 3-0. It was three years before my grandparents were married and six years before my father was born.

 

The last sixty years – because we lived through them – do not carry the same weight as earlier ones, though they might for our grandchildren. When we married Lyndon Johnson had been in the White House less than five months, the first major battle between U.S. Forces and the Army of North Vietnam was seventeen months in the future, the moon was unblemished by human footprints, a postage stamp cost $0.05, college tuition was $1,700, the average cost of a house in the U.S. was $18,900, and a gallon of gas cost $0.30. My starting salary at Eastman Kodak in June 1965, however, was $6,000.00.

 

But marriage cannot be measured by historical events or the effects of inflation on goods, services, and income. It is, when one thinks of it, amazing that so many marriages endure. Courting, even for two years as we did, does not offer the time to really know the other person. In fact, we never stop learning about the person we wed. Sociologists and marriage counselors have long pondered which maxim best applies to marriage: that opposites attract, or whether it is birds of a feather. More likely, it is love, luck, temperament, and tolerance that play key roles. Peering back into the mists of sixty years, I am thankful we never thought deeply about such matters. The future arrived one step at a time.

 

We had grown up differently, Caroline in New York City and I in the small New Hampshire town of Peterborough. But we fell in love, that indescribable (and delightful) condition that defies definition. There is no question that we are different in many respects, but we also share common interests, the most important being devotion to one another, our three children, their spouses, and our ten grandchildren.

 

Our first home was a 500 square foot, $85.00 a month, apartment in Durham, New Hampshire where I was finishing my degree at the University of New Hampshire. Because of my initial conduct in college (completing one year of credits in two years), I had to pay for my room, board and tuition when I returned following military service. So, in the next two years I completed three years of credits – while working three jobs – finishing in February 1965 (proof that the proffered hand is not necessarily as productive as the calloused one). With a job at Kodak[2] starting in June, and as we had had no honeymoon, we took $2,000.00 we had saved, bought round-trip tickets to Paris, and spent eleven weeks traveling around southern Europe in a rented Volkswagen without an itinerary. It was a memorable start for our marriage.  

 

Our voyage since has taken us through five Connecticut towns: Glastonbury (one year), Durham (four years), Greenwich (twenty-four years), Old Lyme (twenty-three years, along with a small one-bedroom apartment in New York for seventeen of those years), and now Essex where we have lived for the past eight years. 

 

We met on New Year’s Eve of 1961 at a ski weekend near my hometown. My sister who had known Caroline at Garland Junior College in Boston introduced us that afternoon. That evening I monopolized her. We saw each other regularly for the next several weekends, until on March 11 in North Conway, New Hampshire I asked for her hand. She said yes. The next day, on our first run down Wildcat Mountain, she broke her leg. At the time I was working in a laboratory outside of Boston. I spoke to my father, who was with my younger sister Betsy who was racing at Cranmore Mountain. I told him what had happened, including my proposal of the night before. He told me my duty was to stay with Caroline even if it cost me my job, which it did; for, as he said, you can always get another, which I did.

 

In his 1922 novel The Adventures of Sally, P.G. Wodehouse wrote: “And she’s got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.” While neither of our fathers repeated those exact words to me, I could tell they were thinking them. We got married on April 11, 1964 in New York’s Church of the Heavenly Rest, in a service conducted by the Reverend Floyd Thomas – to join hands “…till death do us part.”

 

In Adam Bede, George Eliot wrote: “What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life – to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories of the last parting.” Amen.

 

Together we move on, happy and still in love.

 

 

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[1] Martin Luther, once a Catholic monk, married Katherine von Bora, a former num, in April 1523, two years after he had been excommunicated by Pope Leo X.

[2] In the summer of 1967, I became a stockbroker – my career for the next 48 years.