Red debris
In a green sea of fall.
Monochrome to color
One at a time.
Herald for the forces
That will come
As they always do
To transform
Forest and field.
Asking us to forget
The green past
And embrace
Yellow brown and gold
And cold.
Bill Clinton is an escape artist. It is fact, not conjecture, that he has gotten away with things that would crush other politicians and public figures.
Hillary Clinton helped enable and engineer some of those escapes, some might say against her best interest and integrity. But doing that, she may have drawn a skewed conclusion. She may overvalue those escapes as feats of engineering and scheming, and undervalue the essential role of Bill being Bill.
Bill Clinton is sui generis in American political history, one of a kind, maybe more so even than Barack Obama. The qualities are hard to describe; charm and charisma fail to completely capture it. He is special, the bad boy who is not really bad, just a little naughty, and no matter what you discover or discover he has hidden, it is nearly always alright. At least alright enough to move on.
Hillary is absolutely sui generis too. But she is no Bill and she is no Houdini. And while it is true that Houdini’s escapes were technical wonders, meticulously planned, that is not what made him the star he was. It was the personality and drama he brought to the stage that enthralled people, so much so that audiences actually wanted him to get into big trouble because they wanted him to get out of it—they needed him to get out of it. In that respect, Hillary is no Houdini. Nor is she Bill.
It is not about angry people, frustrated people, mentally ill people having guns.
It is about the finality of guns. The way they are the period on the end of a life.
It. Is. As. If. You. Took. The. Normal. Length. Of. This. Sentence. And. Broke. It. Up. Unnaturally. With. Too. Many. Periods.
When all you have to do is remove all those unnecessary periods and let the sentence flow.
Too many periods. Way too many guns.
Tell every politico who represents you that if they want to stand on a deadly and unconditional view of the Second Amendment, a view that denies any sensible and humane regulation, they can stand there all day, but without an office and without your vote.
A current thought is that erasing Confederate flags is a small but effective step in diminishing racism in America. More is better, and so if the effort is doubled and doubled again, we will be just that little bit closer to racial harmony and tolerance. Not a complete solution, but at least a sign of enlightenment and progress.
The effort and the self-congratulation that go with it avoid a couple of matters.
American racism is wide and deep. Even as it seems to wane, social media and having cameras everywhere is going to put once private prejudice on bold and sometimes vicious public display. Fully acknowledging it in all its forms is something to do next, but only when finger pointers check themselves and their own for hidden vermin. It is the age of actual glass houses.
The second point is that racism may not and likely will not disappear soon as a major force, no matter how we try. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, but human nature and history give us pause. We can and should shield people from the effects of racism. The rights to do freely or be free of nasty consequence should be guaranteed. But that in no way assures evolution, and in some cases provokes nasty reaction. We might as well learn to live with racism, not so much accepting or condoning it, but digging deeper to learn what we can about the weaknesses that pervade life and self. One day that work of transcending racism may be successful. But that day is not today.
Just as we might acknowledge the prevalence of secret racism, including in ourselves, we might admit that racism is stubborn and intractable. We don’t have to punish ourselves on either count. But the rare process of candid self-examination might ultimately be more valuable than merely basking in the glow of having done the right but very tiny thing.
The Supreme Court has turned back the latest challenge to the legality of Obamacare. Republicans have returned to their mantra of “repeal and replace,” if only they can have the White House and Congress.
This is not to discuss the merits, wisdom or effectiveness of the Affordable Care Act. It is just to ask a basic and obvious question: If after five years the Republicans have replacement plans, what and where are they?
It appears, as is common in partisan politics, that a snappy slogan is meant to preempt any thoughtfulness or inquiry, let alone actual proposals. In this case, it would be great to have seen a comprehensive alternative plan. But that would mean actually devising a plan that would be politically palatable and effective. Which, as far as we can tell, hasn’t yet happened.
It’s a matter of trust, as in, trust us. But it was none other than Republican icon Ronald Reagan who said, “Trust but verify.” And it was the most recent Republican President George W. Bush who said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice……you can’t fool me again.”
Hate is a part of our human experience, as hater and hated. We hope and try to minimize or even eliminate it, but at least a little, there it has been and there it is.
Some will say that its ugliest manifestation is the sort of thing we see in Charleston and in similar incidents. But maybe even uglier, and maybe louder and more common, is the use of hate as a political weapon, sometimes by some very high level and ambitious and otherwise respected political leaders and aspirants.
It may not look like hate. It may be clothed in high-minded rhetoric and ideology. But at its heart, the expressions of how awful, how ungodly, the persons and positions of political enemies are is nothing less than hateful. Hate and intolerance in a good cause, the perpetrators will argue. But hate nonetheless.
We can no more eliminate hate then we can its brighter correlates of love, understanding and compassion. But the least we can ask of those in positions of power and authority, and of those who strive for even higher positions, is to renounce hate as a weapon. They don’t have to go all soft and lovey. But they do have to forego spreading poison and thereby making poison acceptable. It isn’t, and when it becomes so, we shouldn’t be wondering where all the hate comes from. Politician or regular citizen, it comes from us.
The harmony between one god and no god, between this god and that god, is work that has been done and will be done. It is often blocked and prevented by something in each that relies on primary distinctions. The disappearance of those distinctions would appear to make that one god or no god, this god or that god, disappear as a particular.
But that isn’t so, since the distinction is, in all authentic cases, what is sought to disappear itself. Even those with no god will say that those with one god or this god or that god have built artificial walls that prevent them from seeing what really is. Those with one god or this god or that god also say that barriers have been built that prevent us from seeing what really is.
That is a harmony, the surrendering of walls between the believer and what is, which is the ultimate mission of those with one god and those with no god. The particulars take on too much significance, the walls take on too much significance. The surrendering of walls is the common and primary task, shared by all.
Which of these three NFL issues deserves the deepest continuous attention by the league, by fans, by the media, and by the public?
1. Frequent on-field concussions that demonstrably lead to players having permanent brain damage, diminished quality of life, and premature death.
2. Frequent off-field antisocial and possibly criminal behavior by celebrated players.
3. A possibly deflated football.
Note: It is possible that more scientists have been covered talking about the football that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady may have had deflated than about the concussions in the NFL.
The value of quiet is directly proportional to the level of noise. Which means that quiet here and now in this noisy world is exponentially more valuable than it has ever been. Practically priceless.
We lose friends lots of ways. One tragic way is to allow friendship to fade over time.
Friendship is treated and valued differently by everyone. It is personal, individual, no right or wrong for everyone, no better or worse for everyone.
Friendships often begin by chance and happenstance, but then require intention, attention, and maintenance. The easy beginning is one reason we forget that, as we forget many important matters while tending to the inconsequential.
Friendships, of a certain deep kind, are able to seemingly pick up the moment a lapsed connection is renewed, even after years. It shows that the tissue of the original connection was so strong, so almost meant to be, that it could withstand neglect.
But that realization is bittersweet. In it are the lost laughs and mutual mirror and sharing that might have been. And that ultimately, at some point, might be no more.
Is it hypocritical to remind others to cherish and cultivate friendship, when you yourself have left some—many—of those struggling on the vine? Then consider it a morsel of wisdom and cautionary tale. You may have lots of friends or few. They may be friendships that are deep or shallow, new or aged. But if you look inside to see just what kind of friend and friendship it is, you will know. And if it is that special sort of friend and friendship, consider how unique it might be for you, how that friend is a piece of a treasure you maybe stumbled upon and can’t replace and won’t replace.
This Christmas I learned, in reply to a holiday message to a too much ignored friend, that he is dying. I tried hard not to be self-centered, thinking about what I had lost, the years of conversations that could have been had, that I missed, that would have been a joy. He was losing his life, and the petty me was sad for having missed what I might have, with a little more effort, had.
You can rationalize these lapses as the way things happen and the way life goes. You can say, as long lost friends often do, that it goes both ways, that A is just as capable as B of picking up the phone or sending an email. But as with all our sensible perspectives, sense doesn’t matter.
For what it is worth, here is the message I sent out to him that got the reply from his wife. It may sound like I knew something about what was going on in his life, and maybe I did. Maybe I just knew that all of us are dying. Mostly I knew what I know about true treasure and how tricky it can be to find and keep it. So keep it, please.
I don’t know what to say about the passage of time. But we both know, or at least I hold the conceit, that some friendships survive that, even if not well tended. Maybe I’m wrong. Don’t know how much if at all I am any part of you, but you, my friend, are always a part of me.
Bob Schwartz 