Sitting
Sitting
Mat on floor
Cushion on mat
Ass on cushion
Legs crossed.
As far from the center of the world
As could be.
Bob Schwartz
January 19, 2016
January 19, 2016
Glenn Frey
Glenn Frey of The Eagles died yesterday at the age of 67. David Bowie died a few days ago at the age of 69.
Q: Does it seem that we are losing rock stars all at once? Will there be more?
A: We are all, rock stars or not, living in an actuarial table.
My favorite Eagles song is not one that Glenn Frey or Don Henley wrote. It is Ol’ 55, written by the also great Tom Waits:
Well my time went so quickly, I went lickety-splitly out to my old ’55
As I drove away slowly, feeling so holy, God knows, I was feeling alive.
Now the sun’s coming up, I’m riding with Lady Luck, freeway cars and trucks,
Stars beginning to fade, and I lead the parade
Just a-wishing I’d stayed a little longer,
Oh, Lord, let me tell you that the feeling’s getting stronger.
January 18, 2016
Bernie Sanders as John the Baptist
The Democratic Party is in trouble. Politically, philosophically, spiritually, demographically. Bernie Sanders won’t save the party or win the presidency. But he is setting the scene for the party’s reform and renewal.
John the Baptist was a terrible candidate to lead a religious revolution. He was a wild-eyed radical who seemed to be crazy. His people skills needed work. But his cause found a much better spokesman and leader, who took it to the next level. And then some.
When you think carefully about the party and its recent Presidents and leaders, you look hard for real radical inspiration. Bill Clinton was affable and politically adept, but his was the politics of radical compromise, to the point of digging a rut in the middle of the road that invited neo-conservative disaster and greed. Barack Obama was genuinely inspirational, and has helped the cause of humane Americanism as much as politics would allow. But circumstances and inclination led him to solid pragmatism.
One problem with pragmatism is that it makes a terrible anthem and cause. Another is that it allows all sorts of accommodations that look to the would-be believer like nothing but surrender.
That’s where Bernie Sanders and John the Baptist come together. When the stakes are high, and the troubles are deep, that’s when you have to invoke big visions. That’s what gets people who have fallen into both practical and spiritual malaise to answer the call and start working for real change.
There are few in the Democratic Party willing or able to do this. Whether or not Hillary Clinton wins the nomination or the election, it is not her. If she wins the nomination but loses the election, the party will do some typical superficial soul searching. If she wins both, she may consolidate her power, and the power of the establishment, but the Congress will be even less effective than it is now.
Either way, it is possible that Bernie Sanders is unleashing something bigger than the Clintons or any tepid self-inquiry the party may pretend to engage in. He may not be heir to the spirit of Bobby Kennedy, but he might as well be saying this:
“There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
When Bernie Sanders is done with this election, another Democratic reformer and revolutionary will come along, and another. At that point, if we are lucky, millions of previously unengaged and disappointed people may come to the party dreaming and asking “why not?” And Bernie, like John the Baptist, will have prevailed.
January 16, 2016
Hillary in Iowa 2008
“Character is destiny.”
Heraclitus
Will Iowa 2016 be Iowa 2008 for Hillary? Here are her thoughts back in 2008, as documented in Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin:
The problem was, she hated it there. Every day felt like she was stuck in a Mobius strip: another barn, another living room, another set of questions about immigration (from people who were anti-) and the war (ditto). She’d get back on the plane, slump into her seat, heave a deep sigh, and grunt, “Ugh.”
The Iowans didn’t seem to be listening to her, just gawking at her, like she was an animal in a zoo. Hillary would hear from her staff the things voters were saying about her: “She’s so much prettier in person,” “She’s so much nicer than I thought.” It made her ill. She found the Iowans diffident and presumptuous; she felt they were making her grovel. Hillary detested pleading for anything, from money to endorsements, and in Iowa it was no different. She resisted calling the local politicos whose support she needed. One time, she spent forty-five minutes on the phone wooing an activist, only to be told at the call’s end that the woman was still deciding between her and another candidate. Hillary hung up in a huff.
“I can’t believe this!” she said. “How many times am I going to have to meet these same people?”
Over and over, she complained about the system that gave Iowa so much power in selecting the nominee. “This is so stupid,” she would say. “So unfair.” She bitched about Iowa’s scruffy hotels and looked for excuses to avoid staying overnight. But among the sources of her frustration and bewilderment, the absence of connection was paramount. “I don’t have a good feeling about this, guys,” she told her staff on the plane. “I just don’t have a good feeling about this place.”
January 15, 2016
Why should the President be born in the United States anyway?
We are asking the wrong and less interesting question about the Constitution and presidential qualification.
A lot of people are talking about Ted Cruz’s birth (the place, not the biological event). The better question is whether the requirement, however interpreted, is in our best interest.
It isn’t. There are plenty of brilliant and capable non-native American citizens who would be terrific at trying to run this country with some vision and imagination. (Though most of them are too smart to want to get involved in the thankless insanity we are now witnessing.)
We have rules, and if any rules deserve respect, the constitutional ones do. But just because it’s in the Constitution doesn’t mean it’s the best idea.
I am not suggesting that we amend the Constitution, especially not for Ted Cruz. But we should at least be talking about maybe expanding the talent pool. Because if most of the current crop of candidates is what we get when we limit ourselves to natural born Americans, we could definitely do much better.
January 14, 2016
The History of My Sweater Vests
A number of years ago, I wore buttoned sweater vests for a while. They were kind of colorful and designed, and I thought pretty cool. Not everybody liked them, not everybody who mattered liked them, but I did.
Then buttoned sweater vests disappeared. In their place were the equally traditional pullover sweater vests. So I swung that way, mostly solids in the core colors (grey, brown, blue), but a few with designs. It went like that for years, though I never gave up looking—mostly unsuccessfully—for the next generation of buttoned ones.
The low point was probably Rick Santorum attempting to “rock” his pullover sweater vests during his 2012 campaign for President. Every time I went out wearing mine, I was moderately embarrassed, as people affirmatively mentioned Santorum when they saw me. He and I share nothing, then or now, except our belief in sweater vests. This didn’t stop me from wearing them.
Buttoned sweater vests arrived again this past year. Actually, all kinds of vests arrived on the racks, along with three-piece suits. I was able for the first time in a while to have some new and attractive buttoned sweater vests to wear casually, or under a sport coat, or whatever. Awesome and attractive, to me at least. Others, as mentioned above, are not so sure. Or are vocal dissidents. Oh well.
The photo above shows an example of one of my new sweater vests. That is not me, just some model for Macy’s, but you get the idea. Honestly, I think I carry it off just as well. My watch isn’t that big or clunky, but I can cock my left eyebrow just as insouciantly. Of course, he got paid for wearing his, while I had to pay for mine. Totally worth it.
January 14, 2016
Two Kinds of Conservatives: The Reasonable and the Cowardly
There are two kinds of conservatives.
One says that we might take a pause, even a small step back, while we consider how to boldly move forward.
The other says that we should take a giant step back and stay there, because that is where the successful future lies. Boldly going back where others have gone before, with mixed results.
The first kind are rare, are not to the liking of some, and are not appropriate for all circumstances, especially ones that call for immediate forward thinking. Overall, though, it can be seen as a reasonable approach.
The second kind may be disguised to look bold, but are actually timid, even cowardly. If their way looks like retreat, that’s because it is. It is also the kind of conservatives that are dominating much of our national discussion these days.
So the next time you hear one of those conservatives promoting back to the future, think of them as defeatists, cowards rather than heroes. Because they want support for their plans to actually just surrender.
January 12, 2016
“Wrong Direction” Is the Wrong Question: A Nation Lost
Seventy-five percent of Americans say the country is moving in the wrong direction. But that isn’t the problem they actually perceive. It isn’t that they think we should go East when we’re heading West. It’s that, like an unprogrammed GPS, we have no idea where we want to go.
Americans love their GPS. They love it not because it can tell heading North from South; any compass can do that. They love it because when you put in a particular location, it will, mostly, direct you there. But that presupposes that you have a particular destination in mind.
America was least lost in the years following World War 2. There had been two very specific objectives, both of which had been achieved. We wanted to restore a failed economy and introduce renewed prosperity. Done. We wanted to defeat the most evil threat the world had ever known. Done.
We proceeded on autopilot for decades, though there were bumps on the road. It was about prosperity and freedom. When there were obstacles to either, we eliminated or overcame them. There were recessions here and there, but they passed. There was global Communism, which we fought wherever we found it, and found it sometimes where it wasn’t.
Then some things happened. A new generation was born, which had no native knowledge of any of that. A new economic generation was born, with money machines on a scale that dwarfed anything in history. A new technological generation was born, transforming the nature of human experience. A new threat to freedom and security emerged, though it didn’t much look like the Communism we had come to know, hate, and fight. Whereas only two countries had world-destroying weapons after WW2, the list was now long and growing.
And then, on top of all that, the prosperity we had depended on for more than sixty years was put into question. It wasn’t that it was taking a break. Maybe it would never come back again, ever, at least not the way it had been.
Which brings us back to the ‘wrong direction” question. If we say that 20th century-style prosperity and that freedom and security are what America is living for, is our personal and national direction, there is nothing wrong with that. But what if that is something we can’t program into our national GPS because it is not a destination we can reach, at least not fully and unconditionally?
We can keep saying we are moving in the wrong direction. Politicians and leaders are more than happy to exploit this, telling us who to blame and how they can fix it. But maybe we are lost, and should admit it, and should spend our energy figuring out, very specifically, without vague ideas of “prosperity” and “freedom”, where exactly we want to go, and then how we might get there.
January 11, 2016
The Weight of Light
You catch me
Head cradled gently in my hands
As if in pain.
You might even ask:
Are you okay?
Is something wrong?
When I release my hands
Raise my head
And you look closely
You are not so sure.
No lines of worry
No clenched brow.
No smile, it’s true,
Instead a convoluted calmness.
The light is in tiny pieces
Arriving and out of reach.
Visions, memories, hopes
That neither burden nor comfort.
I hold my head
As I see and stretch.
Nothing else but an exercise
In near sweetness
Lifting my way
To the rest of the day
To the rest of the days.
January 11, 2016
“Didn’t Occur to Me That David Bowie Could Die”
Of the thousands of messages after David Bowie’s death, none seemed truer than this from a fan: “Didn’t occur to me that David Bowie could die.”
There are rooms in our life/culture houses for people and things that joyed us a little or influenced us a lot. For many of us, the David Bowie room was pretty big. Even though we may not have visited that much anymore, we knew it was there, we knew what was in it, and we knew we would always find David Bowie there—getting older, as must be, but there.
Whether you call it re-invention or evolution, and even though most of us in any one version won’t be what he was in multiple versions, we could all share in the possibility of growing and changing. If the Rolling Stones have been doing the same thing for fifty years, David Bowie seemed not to be doing the same thing for fifteen minutes.
No lyrics excerpts here, no album recaps, no discussion of his life, loves, and death, all of which will be found in infinite number elsewhere today. But of all the tracks, especially for those unfamiliar with Bowie, it is worth mentioning Heroes. We can do anything.
Bob Schwartz 