It is Memorial Day 2008 and the nation remembers the sacrifice of those who gave "the last full measure of devotion".

As a Democratic voter, I am witnessing what I feel is the most divisive primary campaign since 1980, when Ted Kennedy challenged then President Jimmy Carter in the primaries. Carter pledged to "kick his ass" and did, although Kennedy helped Carter quite a bit. The turning point came when a reporter asked Kennedy why he wanted to be president, and Kennedy sputtered out a fairly incoherent and certainly unconvincing rationale. After Carter gave his acceptance speech at the DNC in 1980, Kennedy turned his back on Carter and refused to shake his hand. The signal was clear to Kennedy supporters. And Carter went down to Ronald Reagan in a humiliating defeat.

Now, we has two firsts going at it. Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and now Senator from New York, is the first serious female contender for any major party's presidential nomination. There have been other females who declared their intention to run for the nomination: Shirley Chisholm and Elizabeth Dole come to mind. But Hillary entered the race as the front runner, although certainly not the favored when it came to the press and what would come to be known as The Movement.

The other candidate is the first serious African American contender for a presidential nomination, Barack Obama, a first term Senator from Illinois. Barry, as I call him, took advantage of the Internet not only as a tool to raise money but as a networking tool that enabled his campaign to set up effective ground games in most of the states in contention. He was most effective in caucus states and in states where the African American population was a significant part of the population.

Now, Barry has what appears to have an insurmountable pledged delegate lead, while Hillary Clinton is fast approaching overtaking him in the overall popular vote. In the end, the nominee will be decided by so-called super delegates who come from Congress, Democratic leadership positions around the country, and, for some reason a couple of very young college students, who have done God knows what for the Democratic party.

So there is a great divide between the two camps. Barry lays claim to African Americans (90%+ vote), the affluent and college educated, including a substantial youth movement.
Hillary has the core constituency of the Democratic party, minus the African American vote, and an edge among white female voters of all stripe.

The rancor has come, in the final analysis, as a result of calls for Hillary Clinton to end her campaign, and of a persistent pattern of distortion and false accusations in the media and by the Obama campaign. On the blogs. Barry's Kids have fallen victim to Clinton Derangement Syndrom (CDS, the Democratic variation of Bush Derangement Syndrome), calling Hillary everything from a "fucking whore" to a psychopath who is hoping Barry will be assassinated so that she can get the nomination.

We are in a situation where many of Hillary Clinton's supporters, including I, have reached a tipping point as a result of the aforementioned "assassination scenario" that was pulled kicking and screaming from an innocuous statement Hillary made regarding previous primary campaigns that have been active in June, including RFK's primary, which ended with his assassination in June of 1968 after winning the California primary. To read legitimate newspapers, let alone CDS bloggers, distort Hillary's words as referencing the possibility of Barry's death by assassin is, to use one of the accuser's own words, beyond the pale. That accuser would be Rep. James Clyburn, an African American Democratic representative from South Carolina, who has previously disapproved of Hillary's historical statement that it took a president to get the civil rights legislation which for MLK Jr had marched. That was considered by Clyburn and other blacks to be a diminishing of King's preeminent role in the fight for civil rights for African Americans. And when Bill Clinton referenced Jesse Jackson's two primary wins in SC as a way putting the thumping Hillary took into an historical perspective, of course the worst possible inference was taken.

So, the Clintons - and by extension all of their supporters - are race-baiters, if not out and out racists. And Hillary is Lady Macbeth, except that in the CDS world, she is looking to get blood on her hands rather than wash it off. Again, we, her supporters, take the accusation personally, as we support Hillary with the same degree of passion that Barry's throngs manifest in their gargantuan rallies.

There is much talk on the boards about voting for John McCain, the Republican nominee, or voting for a third party or not voting at all if Barry gets the nomination. The pundits think the party will unite around Barry is he is the nominee and the Obamanistas feel that they can get their Golden Boy into the White House without Hillary's supporters. Although I am one who is inclined to leave the presidential selection untouched in November, I suspect a lot of Hillary supporters will consider that even Barry is better than John McCain. How that will all shake out in November is anyone's guess, as McCain and Obama are in a statistical tie at this point. That, of course, does not augur well for Democrats in a year when the Republican incumbent registers about 25% approval rating among the American public. Hillary runs better against McCain and in some swing states she beats him at this point.

But 6 months is a couple of lifetimes in politics, so a Democratic win with Barry heading the ticket is a possibility, even without my vote. A while back, after the 2000 fiasco, I read an article by a statistician who argued that those who say "my vote doesn't matter" are correct. It's statistics and I resisted the notion at the time, but I can accept it now, even if I can't articulate his argument.

Again, it's been a while since I've posted. It usually takes a "head explosion" to get me riled enough to come here, especially when the catalyst for said explosion does not offer a posting response. For the record, "head explosion" involves a cerebral event, not a....well, you know.
So, what's set me off is Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Daily Dish. In general, I find Sullivan to be Tory-esque in his thinking and hidebound to his beloved Oakeshott, or at least his understanding of Mr. Oakeshott. Now, I won't say I'm an expert on Oakeshott or any philosopher, but there is always a problem attempting to apply an Old World philosophy to the ongoing American experience. Something to be learned from everything, but to be looking for evidence of "your guy's" philosophy in practice leaves a lot out of the picture...like, "the humanity", for instance.

Well, Sullivan is off on his honeymoon, having taken advantage of Massachusetts' enlightened approach to marriage equality, and he has left his blog to...others. I don't know who any of them are, but I suppose they're Sullivan's buds in some way, shape or form.

Anyway, some kid named Jamie Kirchcik, after the appropriate ass kissing of the host blogger, speculates on the idea of killing Robert Mugabe. Despite my opposition to the death penalty, I don't think assassination of dangerous psychopaths, e.g. Hitler, fall into the "seamless fabric" theory of life. Kirchick points out that Mugabe's military is quite a deterrant to assassination and would probably continue his policies anyway, given their status under his regime.

What, IMHO, is gratuitous on his part is Kirchick's slap at the UN as "feckless". While the UN has, indeed, declared that Zimbabweans who've fled to South Africa do not have refugee status, Kirchick leaves out (although it can be found in his link to the Mail&Guardian) that South Africa itself does not consider Zimbabweans to be refugees. Is it feckless for the UN to demand that a sovereign nation set up refugee camps for those fleeing even a place like Zimbabwe? Kirchick conveniently leaves out this item from the Mail&Guardian article: "The UN said it would support South Africa in its initiatives, but a contingency plan had been made in anticipation of thousands of Zimbabweans fleeing their country's worsening political and economic situation" The president of South Africa is said to be working to mediate solutions to Zimbabwe's problems, out of enlightened self-interest, viz., an economically healthy Zimbabwe is good for South Africa. Mugabe's reign of terror is, of course, intolerable but it is likewise intolerant to hurl epithets at the UN for upholding South Africa's right to determine what will happen within its borders. Kirchick misses the bigger picture in that region. And his use of the "special status" of Palestinians extending to the grandchildren of those displaced by the creation of Israel - a UN sanctioned occurrence - is...typAIPACal. Oy. Fucking neo-cons in pseudo-liberal clothing.

Well, to say I've been inconsistent at blogging is an understatement. My last entry was January 20, 2007. I supposed because I write so much in my various Word documents, e.g., journal, poetry, stories, story lines, political opinon, that I'm all written out when it comes to this blog. So, I'm going to blog about what everyone really wants to read: me.

Let's start with the basics today. I'm 59 years old...yes, 59 for real, and like Jack Benny that is the number at which I have ended any further revelations of my age. If it's all that important to you in the future, do the math. I'm a white male, separated from my wife for the past six years. We were under the same roof for almost 18 years but I had to move out for several reasons, which I may or may not write about at some point. We have two daughters, 21 and 18. Yes, I know what some are thinking: this guy is pretty old to have daughters that young. He should be a grandfather by now. Well, hopefuly the grandfather part, which I'm looking forward to happening, will hold off until my daughters are ready to handle their own children. At this point, they are struggling to handle their own lives.

My older daughter is a junior at a prestigious and totally-out-of-our-financial-capabability-to-pay school in Boston. Can you say "paying off student loans for the rest of her life"? She's home for the summer, working at a restaurant out on Philly's "Main Line", having paid her dues over the past two years at the original Cheers, f/k/a Bull & Finches, in Boston. She's not very happy being home, because her childhood friends have been replaced by new friends at college, only one of whom lives in the area and she spends most of her summer at Bible camp. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Her only other friend in the neighborhood is working all summer at the south Jersey "shore", as we Delaware Valley natives call it. My daughter - let's call her E - had the opportunity to work there with free housing provided but she's not a shore person.

So, home for only a week she is trying her best to adjust for the 2 months or so that she'll be here, before she and a her college friend drive cross country for a fall semester/internship in L.A. That might give you an inkling of the field in which she is hoping to find a career. After a semester in L.A., she returns to Boston for her final semester. The wife and I - we're only separated, remember? and we're still good friends - will get out to see her in L.A. at some point, calling it a "parents' weekend" kind of thing. We've done that for the past 3 years in Boston and have come to love that town, cow-path street plan nothwithstanding. I grew up in Philly, so I've seen some of the nation's most historical sites. Yet, maybe because it's my hometown, Philly doesn't have the feel of history for me the way Boston does.

I've been to and through Independence Hall and the other sites in "Olde City", as well as to Valley Forge. I'd say the most alive historical site in our area that I've visited is the Gettysburgh battlefield. I was lucky enough to go with a friend who is a Civil War buff and on a day when there were very few tourists. I stood at the spot where Pickett gave the order to charge and at a spot where Confederate soldiers breached the Union line. We stood atop Little Roundtop -- or was it Big Roundtop -- and looked down on the battlefield from this prime Union held position. One of my most prized photos is a shot of my friend and me sitting atop a boulder on what is probably the most important hill of the whole Civil War, my inabilty to recall its name notwithstanding. For me, Gettysburgh was, indeed, what Lincoln called it: ground consecrated by 'the brave men, living and dead, who fought here, (they) have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract." The Gettysburgh battlefield and cemetary breathe with the cries of men wounded and dying, and with the simple, disciplined words of the soon-to-be martyred President.

I had a similar feeling when we walked to the Old North Church one evening when we were visiting Boston. It is brightly lit at night, yet standing and staring up at the tower, I felt the darkness of that night when one of the most important beacons in the struggle for liberty was held aloft. A poem from elementary school days came to life for me. My wife and daughter are not necessarily taken by such sights the way I am, which may be just due to my general lunacy. As of today, I've been able to see the Old North Church only from the outside. Perhaps on our next, and possibly final, visit to Boston I'll get to go in and, if it's permitted, stand in that belfry on the spot where history was not only made but where it becomes animated.

As much as any city or town that has been home to great historical events, you can walk around Boston and almost literally stumble upon something that helped shape our country's foundations. For me, one of those sites was Paul Revere's house. The three of us were out for a walk, doing a little shopping. My daughter, now an old if somewhat blaise hand at the sites of Boston, said that Paul Revere's house was a couple blocks away. So, we followed the signs and soon we were standing in front of Revere's Boston home. He'd lived in a few different places, but I believe this was the house that he, a former silversmith, settled into and from which he conducted some of the affairs of his up-and-down copper foundry business, which became in the end quite successful. It is in this house, I think, that Revere died. Now, forgive the "I believe" and "I think", but the fact of the matter is that we didn't do the whole tour of the house as the line was rather long. I'm remembering off the top of my head some of what I read on plaques and signs and cheating a bit via Wikipedia.

There is a vibrancy in Boston beyond the history that saturates the city. It is home, of course, to some of the country's finest colleges and universities and it is also quite a tourist hotspot. My daughter E. has told me that at Cheers (she works there, remember?) the place is pretty much just tourists. They have a souvenir shop, peddling lots of things tied into the TV show as well as some simple Boston memorabilia. When I was there, there was a large cardboard cut-out of Norm, sitting on a barstool holding a mug. Needless to say, I had to have my picture taken beside ol' Norm. Yeah, "turista!!!" Anyway, my daughter tells us that all the servers get asked the question, "Do you know my name?", playing off the show's theme song that lyricizes about a "place where everybody knows your name." E. says that the servers often say no but also frequently attempt a "Yes, of course. You're Sue (or Mike)". The law of probability gives them the occasional correct name, which of course stuns the customer. But E. also says that some customers actually seem offended that the server doesn't know their name. Is it possible that these people think that the words of a TV theme song are factual? It kind of reminds me of when I worked at TV Guide and people would write to the magazine demanding to know "why did you took my favorite show off the air?!?" I take it for granted that people can separate reality from fiction, but then again this is a nation that twice overwhelming elected a master of blurring those lines in the form of Ronald Reagan. Nice guy, funny man but...well, I won't go into politics at this point but you can probably get some sense of my political sensibilities. I'm a radical moderate just to the left of center.

In an opinion published in the Washington Post of 12/12/2006, Michael Kinsley criticizes former President Jimmy Carter for using the term apartheid in his new book to describe the situation of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Now Kinsley might be right that, as the term is Afrikaaner used to describe a state policy enacted in South Africa, Carter is wrong to apply it to the Palestinian situation. He might be right, although many Palestinians no doubt feel that the idea behind the term is more than appropriate.

Kinsley states that since the earl 1900s, there have been one and a half ideas regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict worthy of consideration. The one-half idea is the so-called road map, which Kinsley endorses because he feels that incremental small steps are far more achievable and realistic than the expectation that the parties will trust each other enough to embrace a comprehensive settlement of their dispute. On this, I think he is probably right, because human nature is not inclined towards easy settlement of long standing disputes.

The "one idea" that Kinsley cites as worthwhile is Ariel Sharon's decision to build a wall, which is one of the main elements that Carter cites in his application of apartheid to the Palestinians' situation. How Kinsley can see the Israeli built wall as the singular great idea put forth in the past 100 years of the Israeli-Palestinian and NOT see it as something at least very close to apartheid indicates that, unlike Carter, Kinsley probably hasn't been to the occupied territories since the construction of this other "wailing wall". In some cases, the wall separates people from their farms. In one case that Carter cites, Palestinian Christians have their church walled off from them. If this isn't apartheid, it surely is also not a good idea.

In his defense of this wall, Kinsley cites Robert Frost's poem, Mending Wall. Just as some Senators used that one line, "Good fences make good neighbors" in their argument for The Fence on the US-Mexican border and ignored the rest of the poem, so Kinsley misses Frost's point. The poem begins with, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall", and goes on to question "Why do they make good neighbors?" Although the poet ascribes the question to Spring's mischief, he also wants to "put a notion" in his neighbor's head. That notion is found in the poet's declaration that "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in and what I was walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense." As Kinsley noted Sharon's role in the massacres at two Palestinian refugee camps, I hardly think the "philosophical" Sharon gave much, if any, thought to whom he was "like to give offense" in his wall plans.

Supposedly, this wall is temporary and will come down when the parties have come to terms, meaning when the Palestinian government eliminates the scourge of suicide bombers. So far, it would seem that Sharon's wall has succeeded in virtually eliminating suicide bombings, but a closer examination shows that the recently ended Hamas cease fire may have had just as much to do with the cessation of human IEDs. That it is called temporary by Israelis brings to mind Keynes quote about long term results of short term policy. "In the long term, gentlemen, we will all be dead", and in the meantime cutting people off from their farms or churches could scatter the seeds of hatred wider and cause them to take even deeper root.

There is no question that the primary responsibility of the Israeli government is to protect its citizens, just as securing its borders is part of the United States' government's same responsibility. But ends do not justify means. Once upon a time, the US government put American citizens in prison camps solely on the basis of their bloodline and the fear that bloodline would trump patriotism. As I recall, reparations were made for that action. And today, we are a nation divided over the extra-judicial means being used to wage the War on Terror, even as our Congress has recently shredded the notion of habeas corpus.

Kinsley and others can criticize Carter for his appropriation of the term apartheid. In Carter's view, Sharon's wall and other Israeli practices amount to at least de facto apartheid. In Carter's critics' view, the democratic state of Israel is incapable of such a practice. What Carter and his critics hopefully will achieve is a renewed focus on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, resulting in the renewal of two party negotiations along the lines of the good "half-idea" called the road map.

Finally, whether it be Kinsley or US Senators, I'd like to recommend that Frost's poem be declared off limits as an allusion to support their pro-barrier arguments. For when a person takes that one line out of context, then "he moves in darkness as it seems to me, not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.' " A little poetry is a dangerous thing...

Monday, December 11, 2006.

Well, it's been so long since I've written anything that it disappeared! Of course it was so long ago that the Catholic priest scandal was at its apex, at least here in Philly. I think I wrote something about the Grand Jury report. That was a pretty upsetting thing and the diocese' response was even more disturbing. The diocese pretty much conveyed the idea that the Jewish D.A. had it out for the Church. Crazy.
One thing to note about all that is that there was only one priest actually prosecuted for a sexual crime; the rest had the statute of limitations on their side, although a few were tossed from the priesthood. But the priest who was prosecuted is a man I knew pretty well. No, he didn't do anything sexual with me. But he did have a fairly long term "affair" with a (now) young man, which began when the fella was in high school. Obviously, it had a negative impact on the kid.
They were able to prosecute this priest because he had left Philadelphia while the statute of limitations was still open, so time in effect was stopped. I certainly think he was wrong to do what he did, having myself been similarly victimized by a much older religious. But the sad thing is that this priest was essentially a good man. I feel that, like the man who seduced me, Father N. was blinded by his strong feelings, which resulted in his refusal to look at the situation clearly and see it as the manipulative thing it was. I don't let him off the hook, but I understand how he could do it. And I really understand how the kid went along with it. You can not imagine the emotional paralysis that sets in and the feeling that, in your shame, you are to blame for what happened and that there is no one who can help you out of the situation. That shame stays with you forever, I think, and requires a lot of work to be able to forgive yourself and go on with your life, wounded as you are. I know we all have our wounds but I think the situation that produces this kind of wound is particularly devastating.
Not to cut such a serious topic short, but all I wanted to do was fill in what I remember last writing about. There's a whole lot, both personally and in the larger world, that has happened since that last posting. I hope to continue posting on a more regular basis and hope that some dialogue will occur.