Category Archives: Celebrating

Is This What A Peaceful Election Looks Like?

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Two years after every Presidential election we have another one where we choose all 435 members of the House of Representatives, 33 (or 34) members of the Senate, and a host of state governors. These elections are newsworthy but don’t garner the attention (or votes) that we see for a Presidential election.

But many of us feared this one for a few reasons:

I spoke in my last post about how Republicans expected a “red wave.” It didn’t happen, though it appears they will have a razor thin majority in the House.

This has been well documented but in 2020 President Trump loudly and consistently announced that he won the election and it was stolen from him. This was clearly untrue but he’s never seen the truth as an obstacle. In this election he handpicked several candidates for different offices. He demanded only loyalty and instructed them to refuse to accept defeat. Fortunately they didn’t follow his lead and many who loss did indeed concede.

The January 7th attempted coup d’etat clearly emboldened Trump supporters. Many of us feared they would use intimidation and threats of violence to suppress voter turnout. I’m not sure why but they didn’t.

Related to this I haven’t found widespread calls that the 2022 election was fraudulent. I’m pleased but a little puzzled.

Yesterday Mr. Trump announced he will run again in 2024. I’m a good 18 months from starting the Election 2024 Chronicles but it appears the groundwork is being laid.

Fasten your seatbelts. This will prove to be a rocky ride.

Thoughts On the Midterm Elections

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It’s practically a tradition that the President’s party does poorly in the election after the Presidential election. This is partly due to the fact that virtually no President can live up to our expectations and partly due to the fact that those out of power feel more motivated to vote.

Given that and the fact that we are all dealing with inflation (ignoring the fact that the President can do very little to curb it) many of us assumed the 2022 elections would be a bloodbath for the Democrats. We were already on the razor’s edge. This Senate was divided 50/50 and Democrats hold 220 of the 435 seats in the House. Since it takes 218 votes to pass legislation this gave the Democrats only a 2 vote majority.

It was generally assumed that Democrats would lose the House, perhaps by as many as 20 or 30 seats. The final results aren’t in yet but it appears that if the Republicans do take the House it will be with only a few seats. Republicans hoped to pick up 3 or 4 seats and gain control of the Senate. Tonight it appears all but certain that the Democrats will hold the Senate and has a chance of picking up 2 seats.

So what happened? Well, a few things. Here are my thoughts:

  1. For years the Republicans ran on a platform of reversing Roe v. Wade that guarantees the right of a woman to have an abortion. In June the Supreme Court reversed Roe in Dodd v. Mississippi. This decreased many abortion opponents because, frankly, they got what they wanted. On the other hand it emboldened those who believe that women should have choice over their bodies and they turned out in large numbers to vote Democratic.
  2. The polls were simply wrong. That’s happening with some frequency and there’s an excellent story on NPR’s Planet Money. Simply put since most polling is done by phone and most people don’t answer the phone or wish to talk with pollsters it’s getting hard to acquire the necessary data.
  3. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of the Trump era. Since his election in 2016 former President Donald Trump has worked hard to make himself the leader of the Republican party. He’s been wildly successful but his ongoing eagerness to lie about the 2020 election and many other issues may have run its course. He backed several extreme and unqualified candidates who just weren’t able to win. Turns out absolute loyalty to Trump isn’t enough

Full disclosure I’ve been predicting the end of the Trump era for several years now and this may also be premature. But the dissatisfaction
I’m seeing appears real.

Also this doesn’t mean the next two years will be easy for President Biden and the Democrats. But it could have been worse.

Vin Scully 1927 – 2022

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I don’t normally write obituaries or tributes, mostly because other writers do a better job. But a few days ago we all learned the sad, if not expected, news that Vin Scully passed away at the age of 94.

Full disclosure, I didn’t grow up a baseball fan. I grew up outside of Washington D.C. and it was a football town. There wouldn’t be a basketball or hockey team until 1974, and baseball didn’t return until 2005.

But I moved to San Diego in 1995 and in 1998 I married a diehard, lifelong fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers, I soon learned that their legendary sportscaster, Vin Scully, had been in the broadcast booth since 1950 and would stay there until 2016. Those who grew up with the words “It’s time for Dodger baseball!” will never forget how he made them feel.

It’s a cliche to say this but Vin made you feel like he was sitting next to you and there was nobody else there. He was a wealth of information but he wasn’t just a trivia buff. While all broadcasters know the names of the superstars, Vin knew about everyone. He made a point of knowing the names and stories of those making their debuts. He spoke about them as if he had known them since high school and had been rooting for them all along.

He was also a classic gentleman. Those who knew him spoke glowingly of a man who was just as kind and generous in person as he was in the broadcast booth. Without saying it you could tell that his integrity informed everything about him.

He will be missed. Rest in peace Vin.

Portland, Oregon In July: It Was Still A Great Time

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Yesterday Nancy and I returned from 5 days visiting friends in Portland, Oregon. It was ghastly hot and the heat limited some of our activities but it was a wonderful trip and I pray we can go again soon.

It hasn’t been easy for the past few years to get away and COVID hasn’t helped. But with Nancy’s retirement in June it’s time. I would have liked it to be a few days longer but there’s always next time.

Our friends live in an older part of the city and their house was built in 1906 but has (mercifully) been updated all along. It was within walking distance of nearly everything and I think we walked the entire neighborhood. We saw the Japanese Garden, the Oregon Zoo, and I believe nearly every restaurant within walking distance.

If you have a chance to visit Portland, take it.

July 4, 2022: It’s Been 246 Years. How Are We Doing?

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It was a temperate 72 degrees on July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia, not the image we often get of oppressive heat and stuffy rooms. On that day, in that place, something incredible happened. Fifty six British subjects signed a document that declared that they were no longer part of the British Empire but were instead an independent nation.

From the point of view of King George III (1738-1820) it was nothing short of treason. He saw this as a rebellion that he would put down and punish harshly. This document would be Exhibit A on executing these men.

These 56 were not a diverse group, at least by modern standards. They were all white, Christian (including one Catholic), and men of some wealth. Some were farmers, some were lawyers, some were merchants, but all had the wealth to gather in Philadelphia. They all had a great deal in common, including their belief in revolution.

Previous generations were told that their ultimate loyalty rested with the king (or queen) and they had the power of life or death over everyone. But a 33 year old farmer and scholar from Virginia wrote this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

.

In other words we are primarily subject to God, not the king. We have rights that not even the king can violate.

We’ve made a great deal of progress in the last 246 years, but we’re far from done.

  1. We ended slavery in 1865. This was perhaps the largest task of all. The framers of the Constitution (13 years in the future) recognized that there would be no United States unless slavery were allowed to continue in the South. Slavery constituted our greatest challenge and it led to a conflict that nearly destroyed us. Today, 157 years after the abolition of slavery, we’re still reckoning with full racial equality. But the fact that most of us recognize this gives us hope.
  2. We have never reverted to governance by royalty and we have never come close. Several of our Presidents have been jeered at with the epithet “King.” If you watch the 2012 movie Lincoln he is referred to as “King Abraham Africanis I.”
  3. Freedoms of press, speech, religion, and assembly are entrenched. We think nothing of writing to the local newspaper criticizing our leaders, often not even thinking that citizens of other nations wouldn’t dare. We need to look over our shoulder when we walk into our place of worship.
  4. When we see discrimination we’ve done what we can to stop it. Women now vote. People of color can now live where they choose. Recent conflicts over marriage equality, once thought impossible, are now the law of the land.

And yes, we still have a long way to go. Today we are divided in ways we haven’t seen in our lifetimes. Good people on each side accuse others of wanting to end our democracy. But our history gives us great reason for hope.

Next year I hope I’ll be commentating on our 247th birthday. I’m confident I’ll still be hopeful.

Baseball’s Hall Of Fame, Class of 2021

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We recently got the news that David Ortiz was selected to join the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

David is often known as “Big Popi” and I celebrate his election to the Hall of Fame.

But today’s Hall of Fame news isn’t about David Ortiz getting in, but those who didn’t. When a player retires from playing baseball he is eligible for the Hall of Fame as long as he has played for ten seasons and has been retired for five.

In the early 2000s baseball produced several players who produced incredible numbers, particularly in home runs. It didn’t take long for the public to suspect or assume that their numbers may have been enhanced by steroids that artificially built muscles that inflated their statistics. When we discuss this we naturally look at Barry Bonds, Curt Shilling, Roger Clemens, and others.

This raises an interesting question: Does a baseball player earn his place in the Hall of Fame only because of his record or is it more complex? Do morals matter?

Ty Cobb (1886-1961) was inducted in the first class of the Hall of Fame in 1936. He grew up in Georgia and played for the Detroit Tigers and never lost his hatred for African Americans. Civil Rights and Racial Equality never mattered in his life and it never mattered in his election to the Hall of Fame.

Conversely, Shoeless Joe Jackson (1887-1951) was denied. He had an extraordinary career but was accused, along with seven other teammates, of conspiracy to purposely lose the 1919 World Series. It’s often called the Black Sox Scandal. He was banned from baseball for life and denied entry to the hall.

Also, Pete Rose (b.1941) was also banned from baseball and denied entry into the Hall of Fame for betting on baseball games while managing the Cincinnati Reds.

I think morals matter. We have halls of fame to inspire future generations. Members show the rewards of hard work and discipline, but I also believe they should model leadership. Everyone on this list put up Hall of Fame numbers but were also good people.

  • Christy Mathewson (1880-1925) was often called the “Christian Gentleman.”
  • Babe Ruth (1895-1948) showed us that even though his father gave up on him and placed him in an orphanage, he could work hard and never lose his affection for sick children.
  • Jackie Robinson (1919-1972) proved not only that a Black man could play major league baseball but he could do that while not responding to the racial discrimination he experienced.

I could go on and on. But I support the exclusion of Barry Bonds, Curt Shilling and Roger Clemens because I don’t want future generations of baseball players to believe that you can cheat you way into the Hall.

Thoughts On Thanksgiving

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For as long as I can remember I’ve loved Thanksgiving. Full disclosure, as a child I didn’t much like turkey as I found it a dry version of chicken but that was before turkeys were engineered to taste better. But I liked the fact that it gave me a Thursday and Friday off from school.

And like many children of the 1960s I was heavily influenced by the Peanuts “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” and more to the point, Linus’ account of the shared meal between the Pilgrims and the Indians in 1621. Alas, like many historical events, our image has little to do with the actual events. If you want the true story of the first Thanksgiving, let me steer you to Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick.

Nevertheless Thanksgiving has become a time to recognize gratitude. Thanksgiving became a national holiday in 1861, instituted by President Lincoln. He proclaimed it during a time of great suffering, when the future of the nation was in doubt.

Now, near the end of 2021, we have a great deal to fear. Many of our leaders continue to ignore the devastating realities of climate change and our role in its creation. Here in the United States many of our citizens have used victimization to ignore the simplest of truths and the most obvious of events.

And yet we give thanks. Thanksgiving does not depend on optimism, the preponderance of evidence, but on hope. There is darkness in even in our best days but more to the point there is light even in our worst days.

Years from now we will look back on Thanksgiving 2021 and recognize not only what was wrong, but what turned out right. Gratitude (Thanksgiving) allows us to celebrate that now.

Thoughts On America’s Declaration of Independence

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I’ve been ruminating and thinking about this post since the 4th of July (our annual celebration of alcohol and pyrotechnics). We celebrate this day, and we should, but in some circles it comes with a certain amount of anger and division.

Some groups think we should feel gratitude for our freedom and any criticism equates to a lack of patriotism. Others steadfastly insist that our nation continues to fall short and celebrating our freedom is premature as it’s not complete.

Let me, once again, take the middle ground and hopefully shed some light instead of heat. By the way, if you’ve never read the Declaration of Independence it’s worth a read. You can find the text here.

The document makes two declarations: we are no longer a colony of Great Britain, but instead we are an independent nation; and we are all created equal, given our rights by God and not a King.

The first was easy: we are no longer British subjects. Of course the British didn’t agree to this until 1783 when they signed the Treaty of Paris and acknowledged our independence. That was the easy part.

When Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) agreed to write this document he was only 33 years old, but was well read in philosophers of the time. His most famous phrase, our entitlement to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” actually came from John Locke (1632-1704).

Mr. Jefferson also declared that “all men are created equal” even though he would continue to own slaves for the rest of his life. He and the rest of the signers recognized that the survival of this new nation depended on the continuation of the institution of slavery.

I believed Mr. Jefferson struggled with these two aspects of his life. I believe he wished this new nation didn’t depend on slavery but he was aware that it did and was aware that there was no way he could have run his plantation without slaves. I’ve formed this opinion after reading Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves by Henry Wiencek. It’s less than 300 pages and it’s worth a read.

I believe we can equate equality with the ability to vote; if you can’t vote you can’t fully participate in how our nation is run and are always subservient to those who can vote.

But in the late 1700s only a few Americans could vote, basically white, male landowners. Children couldn’t vote (and still can’t). Women weren’t able to vote in all elections until 1920. Residents of Washington D.C. couldn’t vote for President until 1964 and still don’t have representatives in Congress.

And, of course, adult, male, newly freed slaves were guaranteed the right to vote by the 15th Amendment to the Constitution in 1870 but their actually ability to vote was spotty at best (and nonexistent at worst) until civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s.

In short, a look over our history in the last 245 shows that the those eligible to vote has gradually increased. I say this with some irony as I am a white, male, landowner myself.

Several states are passing legislation that I believe intends to discourage voting among certain groups, and I believe that we need to fight against this. And sadly there is reason for discouragement in the short run.

But the phrase “all men (sic) are created equal” has always been inspirational. I believe that if Mr. Jefferson came back to life he would be pleased that the institution of slavery was gone and I hope he’d be embarrassed that his long term relationship with Sally Hemmings, one of his slaves, was known.

In the end I believe we should celebrate the 4th of July while at the same time recognizing that the phrase “all men are created equal” continues to challenge us.

Happy Juneteenth

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On this day in 1865 the last of those enslaved in the former Confederate States of America learned they were free. It happened in Galveston, Texas when Major General Gordon Granger proclaimed General Order Number 3.

Interestingly enough, those enslaved Americans had been technically been free since January 1, 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

President Lincoln never believed the Confederacy was a valid nation but were instead states in rebellion against the country. Because of that he insisted that they were subject to our laws and the Emancipation Proclaimation decreed that anyone enslaved in those rebellious states were automatically freed from bondage.

Obviously slaveholders in the South disagreed and declined to tell their slaves of their freedom. At the time they still expected to win the war. But on April 9, 1865 General Robert E. Lee surrendered and ended the Civil War.

But still, slaveholders in Texas refused to free their slaves. It wasn’t until June 19, 1865 that word got out to everyone.

Juneteenth reminds us not only that freedom can never be taken for granted. Juneteenth ended legal slavery but it didn’t end racial discrimination. Today we find many of these same states passing laws that make voting more difficult (disproportionately affecting people of color) and demanding school history curricula that downplays slavery.

So while we celebrate let us continue to remain vigilant.

Thoughts on Turning 61

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Earlier this week I celebrated by 61st birthday. I confess I keep hearing about people who hit the birthday that makes them feel old and launches a midlife crisis (to say nothing of hair plugs and convertible sports cars) but I’ve never experienced that.

And yet for some reason this birthday has caused me to reflect on what it means to be living in my 7th decade and it’s been an interesting exercise. Let me share a few observations:

  • I’m far beyond a midlife crisis. If my life is only halfway over I’ll live to be 122 and I don’t want that. I enjoy life as much as the next guy but if God wants to call me home when I’m 70 or 80 I’m down with that. I’ll miss everyone and I hope I have enough time to make sure I don’t leave any complications for my loved ones. I’m also aware that the older I get, the more people I will miss.
  • My body is definitely on the decline. When I was 15 I participated in a 25 mile walkathon to raise money for charity and I did it without any preparation. The next year I roller skated for 12 hours (11PM to 11AM) and when I was 23 I rode 100 miles in one day on my bicycle (it’s called a “century”). For many years I contented myself with the belief that if I spent time training I could do any of these things again. I now know those days are gone forever. No matter how long or hard I train I won’t be able to replicate these events. And that’s OK. Those are good memories and I have no desire to do them again. I’m happy with my ability to walk the hills at the San Diego Zoo and enjoy what I experience.
  • Even as a teenager peer pressure wasn’t much of a problem for me (and spared me the horror of wearing a leisure suit) but it’s less so now. I’ve learned that doing something stupid for a short term gain ends up costing much more in the long run. I don’t remember standing up for a principle or another person and regretting it. And I do regret all those times I didn’t.
  • I no longer feel a need to have an opinion on everything. We live in a society of pollsters and customer service surveys that seek our opinion on everything from Presidential approval to flavors of dental floss. I’m certainly not without opinions but a few years ago I realized that it was OK to not have an opinion on everything. At the time I saw a news report on chocolate milk being served in school lunches. Some thought this would lead to an increase in milk consumption and that was good. Others felt children shouldn’t be given chocolate at school. Me? I have no opinion.
  • Related to this, I’m fine with people disagreeing with me. After an animated discussion I told a friend this: “I know how you feel and you know how I feel. You won’t change my mind and I have no desire to change yours so let’s stop talking about it.” I think he’s still baffled by this but I’m fine with that too. I guess I find less power in my opinion than I used to.
  • I don’t have to do something because someone tells me so. I don’t have to see the new movie that changed your life and I don’t have to taste your recipe for liver because “you’ll like my liver.” If it changes your life for the better, good for you. But leave me out of it.
  • On a related note, if I don’t share you anxiety or panic over something you’re going to need to live with that. And while I’m aware that we need to do more to reverse climate change and rising extremism I don’t think the world is going to end. When my parents were children they feared Hitler and Mussolini; my childhood lived under the shadow of the Soviet Union’s nuclear capability. These threats were valid, but in the end good won over evil and I’m convinced we will do so again.

I recognize that some of these things come back to bite me, but that concern ran too much of my life when I was younger. My future has always been finite and every day “the rest of my life” gets one day shorter.

As a friend of mine says: “Don’t piss of an old person. The threat of a life sentence doesn’t mean as much as it used to.