Imagine That America

BILLED AS A "SHOWDOWN"and possible game-changer, America's first Presidential debate was anything but.  Mostly predictable, often boring, and mainly a shameful time for our country because it showcased the worst we have to offer as if it were the best.

As a people programmed to take sides, we were, and will be until election day, bombarded by pre- and post-debate spin that focused on who won and who lost, who's leading, who's behind, who's scoring, who's not.

As if the two candidates were even comparable in the slightest.  We seem so eager to protect our two-party system that even a supposedly wealthy extremest is not called out for what he is.  The pied piper of an old boys' club and certain Americans who put down people of other races, other religions, other lifestyles for one reason or another. 

If this is the best the Party of Lincoln can do for all Americans, we need a new Party of Lincoln faster than previously thought.  The present one looks spineless and hopeless for America's future.  It has a candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America who cannot be prepared for what would come.  Mr. Fixit is not fit.  Yet there he stands, wound up like a robot to repeatedly repeat loaded and misleading talking points that are nowhere near the subject actually being talked about.  No matter.  He's so programmed and full of himself that he still takes credit for scoring points.  

I sometimes play a game with my three-year-old grand-daughter called Imagine That:   Imagine being a dancer, can you imagine that?  Imagine being a teacher, can you imagine that?  Imagine being Queen of the World, can you imagine that?  The game always brings smiles of merriment and fascination.

What we are being led to imagine now as a country is far from a game. 

Imagine the churning, squirming, sunburning man on stage at the debate with the full power of the United States, not just an old boys' network, in his pocket.   Can you imagine that?

Roller Derby & the Woman in Me

ON A RECENT FLIGHT, I bumped into a roller derby girl, goes by the game name of Terror Nova. A college student, she plays for the Cape Fear Roller Girls in North Carolina.  She's what you call a "jammer", namely the skater who jockeys through the pack of pivots and blockers to score points.

Turns out Roller Derby is written in caps, ranking among the fastest growing sports nationwide for women.  Fans love it.  And why not?  Like Terror Nova, the players get to learn how to skate, pick out uniform numbers and helmets, and choose a game name -- Babe Ruthless, Rosy Sparks, Charli Horse -- that sticks.  Websites now even generate and suggest roller derby names for babies.

If I were a woman, I'd be playing, game name Lotta Luck, and be rolling around the track, jamming, blocking, bumping, maybe even grinding my way through the packs. The sport is locked in my brain, going way back as a kid watching bad girl rollers with my father when the Derby was on TV in the 60s.  The Bay Bombers from San Francisco were queens of the track back then, elbowing, jabbing, punching each other.  Their leader was the Blonde Bomber, a six-foot-tall skater who starred at pro softball on the side.

None of my four sisters ever took to the Derby all that much.  But it brought out the woman in me.

Amigos, Brothers, Sisters & the Flag

BACK IN MY ARMY DAYS in 1973, I was selected to be a moderator for an "equal opportunity" initiative designed to help soldiers of different races work together.  They called me a Human Relations Instructor, sent me to Fort Benning in Georgia for training, and then to the Pentagon to moderate classes filled with mixed ranks and races -- privates, sergeants, captains and colonels.

Few wanted to be there.  All were forced to be there.  Training was mandatory if you wanted to stay in the US Army.  The Department of Defense ordered it, seeing no alternative in an environment of racial tensions that threatened missions.

President Truman had ordered the integration of the armed forces in 1948, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara issued the "equal opportunity" directive in 1963 opposing discriminatory practices. It took years to get off the ground, but became military law.

What I learned in classes surprised and heartened me.  Hardly anyone spoke much during the first sessions.  They listened, they stared, mostly at me.  Slowly many started to speak to each other during classes and breaks, first to those of equal or lower rank, and gradually to others ranked above them.  Even privates to officers.  Talk was about the training, their backgrounds, their views, the civil rights movement and its aftermath in their lives.

Sessions opened much hidden history -- internment camps out west for Japanese-Americans during the war, Indian reservations, the Trail of Tears and Wounded Knee, women in the armed forces but not really (WACs), Buffalo soldiers, Navajo code talkers, Tuskegee airmen, colored troops and Puerto Ricans trained and sent to war in segregated units.  Hardly the stuff of standard history books, it was news to me when I learned it and news to the soldiers in class when they heard it.

The sessions certainly didn't end discrimination in the military, racial or other.  Such training continues today because it is needed.  America's black and other citizens of color learn to live in two worlds, one of which mainly determines their opportunities and future.

Nearly 50 years ago, we were introduced to many new faces, facts, and an American flag of mixed heritage.  We met Grace Wisher, an indentured servant, and Ira Hayes. a Native American soldier.  Grace at age 13 helped Mary Young Pickersgill make the famous Star Spangled Banner that inspired our national anthem centuries ago, and Ira at age 22 became one of the six soldiers memorialized raising the Flag on Iwo Jima in 1945.

Belatedly we saluted them simply by recognizing who they were and acknowledging their contributions to their country.  A start.

Swimsuit Police: Nice Job If You Can Get It

BACK IN THE 1920s, beach police arrested women in America for wearing the wrong kind of swimsuits in public.  Showing too much leg.

Nearly a hundred years later, in France and other countries, police again are tasked to arrest women for wearing the wrong kind of swimming suits.  Showing too little leg, and too much of their Faith.

French courts intervened to stop the "burkini ban".  Their colorfully robed judges don't show leg either.

Neither do they seem to have clout in the frenzied political climate.  Police in Nice and elsewhere ignored the order, and kept chasing down covered women on the beach to enforce the ban.

Very silly situation that goes back more than a century.  If French Inspector Clouseau were around to uphold law and order, at least we would get some laughs watching him take down Cato in his karate robe.

As it is, we are left to ponder visions and voices of troubling times.

(Photo credits:  France 24, National Photo Co., http://jjmccullough.com)

My Mother's Favorite President

MY MOTHER GERDA NEVER CARED much for Hillary Clinton, a woman too much of her own man.  Or Barack Obama, either, a too-smart talker.

The love of her Presidential election life was Jimmy Carter, even though neither she nor my father could vote for him as non-citizens in 1976. 

Gerda liked Jimmy not just because she considered him to be humble and honest, or an especially excellent President.  She liked him because he was once a farmer who lived in Plains, Georgia, a town she visited with my father on the way to their daughter's home in Florida in the 1980s. 

The small town of several hundred people looked a little bit like Tomahawk in the Wisconsin northwoods, where my parents owned a bakery.  And it reminded her of past homes.  Of Dörrigsen, a village in Germany where they had lived after the the Second World War and ran a bakery before leaving for America with four small children in 1954.  And of Palmer, Kansas, a farming town where they made their first American home and their first lifelong American friends.

"Jimmy was a good and decent man," she used to say, and his wife, Rosalynn, was a First Lady to admire.  They were role models to whom she related.

My parents admired the Carters for their love of country and each other.  They are all blessed to have spent a long time together.  My parents celebrated 44 wedding anniversaries on earth and 23 more in our memories of them together.  Jimmy and Rosalynn mark their 70th in August.

My mother passed away in February 2013, nearly 23 years after my father died in July 1990.  It's her birthday tomorrow and I am sending her love for her 95th.  And, as she did whenever she could, a congratulatory card and a contribution to the Carter Center in Georgia.

As for our next President, I like to think my mother, and maybe even all of my four sisters, would be swayed by Jimmy's views.  He endorsed Hillary this week, even though he's been critical of her at times. I like to think that my mother would have followed his lead.

I Miss My Wife

I MISS MY WIFE more today than yesterday.  For family reasons, we've had to spend a good deal of time separated over the past year.  The reasons involve a house in a foreign country, children on the move, a loved one fighting illness, grandchildren we see mostly on a flat screen, and getting on each other's nerves from time to time.  So there, I said it.

Heading into year 44 of marriage, you would think that spending some time apart is not a bad thing. We've heard the lines -- absence makes the heart grow fonder, recharges the juices, makes you appreciate what you may have taken for granted.

Truisms.  I really do miss togetherness, her smile, her touch, her thoughtfulness, her help, and 

Her cooking.  I tried to make spaghetti bolognese yesterday.  So simple but oh so sly in its resistance to adaptation.  With me in the foreign house and my wife stateside,  I tried to follow whatever recipes came to mind.  None did, so I read instructions on the pasta package that my brain translated:

Pour water in pot.  Add some salt.  Bring to boil, throw noodles in pot, turn down heat and stir to your heart's desire for eight or nine minutes. When done, pour the pasta pot into a strainer to drain the water.  Meantime, take the thawed ground beef and spice it up a bit.  Put some olive oil in a pan and heat it up.  Add the chunk of beef and chop it into easily digestible lumps with a spatula or something.  Add tomato sauce to taste and stir it up.

Since I had no tomato sauce, the beef lumped solo.   The lack of key ingredients is one reason why I resist recipes.  There must be thousands on the web for spaghetti bolognese.  And all of them will have one, two or three things that make you go to the store.  No time.  Too hungry.

Two hands are stirring and chopping as the minutes go by.  Everything looks good to go when the clock says it's time. I remembered someone telling me that well-cooked pasta sticks to the wall when thrown.  Not necessarily true.

So I ready the plate.  Fish noodles with a pasta fork, then scoop beef lumps and some natural juices that arose during the cooking process.  This goes to plan,  if you like snowball-sized clumps of pasta topped by lumpy beef and fairly watery sauce.

Which I do.  With ketchup, as my wife knows. She left just enough in the fridge.

My Russian Friend

ONE OF MY RUSSIAN FRIENDS works for a high-flying computer company in Vienna, Austria.  He tells me that his countrymen are superb hackers.  Watch out for you, he smiled, when I asked him about the suspected Russian hack of Democratic Party emails in the States.

We play basketball together a couple of times a week, and have been for years.  Alexander has permanent Austrian residency, something he cherishes.  He left Russia shortly after the Soviet Union disintegrated in the early 1990s, when he was in his early twenties.  He remembers the push for "privatization" that opened the door for deposed communist leaders to carve up property and assets and emerge as ultra-rich capitalists. 

For him and other less fortunate Russians, the future looked dark.  "In the name of privatization, the government gave every Russian a stake in what the government, or actually people, once owned.  We each got a voucher for 10,000 rubles."  About $15 then.

The vouchers were not money but barter, to be collected, traded, and sold whenever possible.  "It was funny, because people literally bought vouchers in one part of town and then sold them for 10 rubles more on the other side of town. That was our introduction to the market economy."

For Alexander and most Russians, privatization just drove up prices and consolidated property, money and power in the hands of the old communist apparatchik.  Including, of course, ex-KGB head Vladimir Putin who runs the country today and whom Donald Trump calls a buddy.

"I used my voucher to buy a bottle of champagne, which is about all it was worth,"  Alexander told me.  And then he left his homeland for good. --for a fuller take on what happened in Russia, check out Kremlin Capitalism: The Privatization of the Russian Economy, written by Joseph R. Blasi, Maya Kroumova, and Douglas Kruse. 

If You Say It Enough Times, People Believe You

TRUE LEADERS OF THE Grand Old Party are nowhere to be seen.  They weren't the main movers at their party's convention that nominated Trump as its presidential candidate.  They weren't on reputable airwaves beaming about the party's adopted  (and changing) platform.  And they weren't in the halls of Congress passing legislation that would fix any of the supposedly critical problems they attribute to President Obama.

Instead we have GOP surrenderists, like Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, joining Trump forces to paint Hillary Clinton as a dangerously driven woman.  McConnell -- who just a few months ago described Hillary as "intelligent and capable" -- now repeatedly is calling her a liar whose word cannot be trusted.  Which words of yours should we believe, Mitch?

Meantime Ryan is standing out as the duplicitous apologist and appeaser (some would say ass-kisser).  Trump's not perfect, but better than Hillary, Ryan says, and he has "good positions".   This from a family man who's been labeled a racist by Trump and who denounces sexism and sophomoric name-calling ("Pocahontas, "Crooked Hillary", "Lying Ted", the list goes on).  Ryan sincerely worries about what kind of America his children will grow up in.  If he's not careful, it will be the Donald's world.  Imagine him on the Bully Pulpit.  Just like third grade....

As most women who've risen to top positions, Hillary is used to being a target. Even Carly Fiorina, the anti-Hillary and Cruz's VP Choice, knows the sexist macho game: "Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?"  Mirror check, Donald.  Don't stand naked.

Hillary's made mistakes, and has been called to account for them, sometimes over and over again.  Yet even crusader Mick Huckabee thinks she's a policy "genius".  Her downside?  She's not all that charismatic.  Like he is.

So Hillary stands a real chance to become President of all Americans, even men.  Which is why the chant is resounding to "lock her up, lock her up, lock her up"

It all sounds so familiar:  "The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."

Thanks for the reminder,  Joseph Goebbels.  Wink  if you think most Americans are too smart for that ploy.

Come to Jesus

IF AMERICA EVER NEEDED a "come-to-Jesus" moment, the time is coming.  A time when deep running differences are settled in a frank and decisive way.  When the game is up and it becomes crystal clear which direction to go.

That moment is coming up on election day in November.  Only a trouncing stands a chance of enabling Americans to move ahead together.  The renunciation of attempts for authoritarian rule.  A close result will not do.  We need a blow-out to begin healing the scars.

My efforts are focusing on people of good faith, intentions and, yes, respect for American ideals to join the come-to-Jesus moment with their vote in November.  To Trounce Trump & Co. in a landslide big enough to make Warren Harding the year's most highly googled ghost.

Historically we've seen where racial hatred, religious fanaticism, and demagoguery leads. We've each been taught to see God and Jesus in different ways.

This year, let's hope the vision leads us to find the lasting message of Jesus in a moment of truth.

Postscript update 12 August:  Trump & Republican Bigs decided to have a come-to-Jesus meeting of their own, arguing about campaign money and the made-up stories coming out of their nominee's mouth.  Trump this week asked pastors to pray for him, in a rare hail-Mary bipartisan appeal.... 

Googling Dead Children

LIKE SO MANY PEOPLE, I can't make human sense of WTF is going on.  Autocrats are in or seeking power in America, Turkey, Russia, the Philippines, and beyond.  Countries are hijacked by extremists who cloak themselves in religious garb and brainwash poor people to blow themselves and others up. 

In the "free world",  nearly everyone blames politicians for the dangerous times. Including the pols elected by you and me who do little more than fan flames.  They stir up fears, hatred and the terrorist spectre at every turn.  We can do better. 

I googled dead children in the Middle East today and found millions of them either buried or suffering under the siege of wars.  A staggering 65.3 million men, women and children are on the move worldwide because of war, conflict and persecution.

Having worked for a global institution dedicated to peace and security, the wonder is why the bad keeps overshadowing the good.  Why the most powerful countries are the world's leading suppliers of guns and ammo feeding conflicts.  Why families live in abject poverty and oppression from one generation to the next.  Why women are degraded and trafficked for gain. Why children suffer in full view of anyone with a cell phone.

Sadly the only answer that makes sense is because we let them.

It's a stance we can change by starting on the homefront.  Help children in your community to learn more about themselves and others unlike themselves, to play more, to dream more, to smile more.  Support good teachers with your voice and your wallet.

Perhaps most importantly, back public schools and work to improve them -- especially the ones most in need.   Dozens of local, regional and national organizations are fighting that fight everyday.

We're fortunate to have men and women in our family that are already on the case.  My sisters, daughter-in-law, nieces and nephews.  Heidi and her girl scouts.  Marita and her foster children.  Kassia and her math stars.  Gerda and her readers. Cesar & fellow Big Brothers.   J&J and their diamond ballers.

There's always room for more.

FB Frenzy

IN GERMAN THE TERM is "Amoklauf".  It means "shooting rampage", like the tragic one that cut short so many young lives at Sandy Hook in December 2012.

Yesterday ten people died and dozens injured when a student opened fire in Munich, Germany.  At a shopping mall on a Friday evening.  The assailant was an 18-year-old German citizen of Iranian descent.  He was born and raised in Germany.

Though police ruled out connections to terrorist groups -- turns out he was a bullied and troubled teen --  it didn't take long for Facebook Frenzy to scare up the fearful.  Even Wolf Blitzer on CNN, reporting from his top-secret Situation Room somewhere in the USA,  fell into the trap of describing the shooting as an act of terror -- well before any facts were in -- but just in time for a commercial break. Alarmingly so did Bill Maher on his HBO show Real Time during an interview with, of all people, a Trump military advisor selling a terrorism book.

Little wonder that when FB Frenzy started to take hold, more than a few posters spread their panic.  "That asshole Obama should be slapped silly..." said one.  Another used multiple exclamation points to register fears that "no one is safe!!!!" Others chimed in wondering where this will all end.

It took friends in Munich to shut down the FB Frenzy.  "Safe in Munich", they posted.  They were living the true Situation Room in real time.

Thank You, Mr. Trump

WOKE UP TODAY in Europe to read about a "new, more presidential" Donald Trump speaking at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.  The news cycle had put a pretty positive spin on what he said.  It carried across the seas. 

Then I read the speech.  Fear and loathing.  Nixonian in a way that Spiro Agnew would appreciate.  We remember Spiro, the vice-president and later-to-be-indicted Maryland governor.  He was Nixon's attack dog and "law and order" advocate.  He pleaded no contest to bribery charges, and resigned as VP in 1973.  A year later, Nixon resigned the presidency under threat of impeachment for covering up crimes his office directed against opponents.

Back then, the main foes of law-and-order were Democrats against Nixon and anti-war demonstrators on streets and on campuses protesting the Vietnam war.  Today the enemies are terrorists supposedly hiding in all 50 US states, gays and lesbians who want to marry, believers who aren't Christians, immigrants who seek to live in America, and everyone like Hillary who disagrees or challenges him.  

Against these and other threats, Trump & Co. have fashioned a constituency that includes love-your-neighbor evangelicals and law-and-order lovers like Trevor Lees from the Ohio Minutemen, a self-described "constitutional militia" on display in Cleveland.  The state's "open carry" law allows anyone to walk around in public with their weapons in full view, even attack rifles.  How comforting to know that Trevor has my back.

I thank Mr. Trump for seeking the best -- or is it beast -- in America as he seeks to make the country great again.  Many people feel empowered to do and say in public what they have thought and felt in silence for years.  Trump said he is their "voice", and they cheer him for headlining their views.  More than a few see the hand of God in all of this.  Part of the Plan.

I see good people of faith and charity going off the deep end.  Stoked by a voice of fear and hate-your-neighbors that sure can't be God's. 

“I’ve heard this sort of speech a lot in the last 15 years,” said Vladimir Putin critic and chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov about Trump's dark words. "Trust me, it doesn’t sound any better in Russian."

Supporters see Mr. Trump march into the White House and on day one unwind everything he has vowed to do:  build the wall, clean up crime, change the Supreme Court, ban Muslims, manufacture jobs for all, and move to put Hillary in jail.

Day two will show how far fearmongering flies. 

Grumpy Old People Should Back Off

ANYTHING SEEMS TO BE possible this election year.  People are really upset.  You hardly hear anyone trumpeting what they like about America.  Mostly you hear grumpy old people complaining about all the social and political changes they cannot stomach.

As a grumpy old man myself, I'm part of the scene.  Complaining about all the hate directed at people we are being told to fear:  Men in turbans and beards, women with headscarves, men holding hands, teens hunched in hoodies. 

But I could be wrong.  We live in a time in which fear and hate could be justified for old people:  Our ways of thinking and lifestyles are being challenged, and we don't like it.  A big reason why the voting rates for older people surpass those of the young.

Yet we frequently hear that all any one of us really wants is a better future for our children.  That's the mantra.  And then something happens to mess it up, to collar youth with prejudicial views. Like what happened with Brexit. 

That's why I've been thinking grumpy old people should just step back.  Forsake their right to vote and stop pushing for a future that longs for the past.  Instead, grumpy old people would get the chance to select and accompany an eligible young person to vote for (OK, and with) them.  Preferably from a cultural group and neighborhood unlike the one they live in.

Might work better.  But who knows?  Encouraging more young people to vote is no panacea.  After all, we got the 26th Amendment for 18-year-olds in 1971 and still got Nixon in '72. 

What You See is What You Get

AMERICAN POLITICS IS LIKE looking in a mirror and seeing yourself all warped and ugly.  With a government for and by the people, the image pretty much reflects what we have become.

Whatever their stance, people have stopped pulling for the country as much as they seem to pulling against it.  Name calling and personal attacks are as normal to see in prime time as a commercial for reverse mortgages or erectile dysfunction.  It all leaves you feeling just a bit less confident about where the country, much less your you-know-what, stands.

Which brings us to the Trumps. The Donald heads a crumbling dynasty. Time for the Trump Transformation.

He has become the flag bearer of a Republican party that, like Syria, really no longer exists and is ripe for the taking.  The party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, et al has grown so many tentacles that nominee Trump can claim the support of gun lovers, crusaders, race bashers, zealous pols like Palin, Christie and Brewer, soccer Moms in affluent suburbia,  Civil War buffs who keep battling on, and evangelicals awaiting the chosen one.

The mix could get toxic for anyone on the outside looking in. Should he win the White House in November, it's my hunch Homeland Security might raise the threat level to Orange -- permanently -- for minorities voicing different persuasions and deemed enemies on the hit list.

The spin now is that Trump's caustic and divisive approach is being toned down, mellowed by political pros and lobbyists.  The candidate reads from prepared scripts that punch all the right buttons.

If Trump should ever get near the big button, remember who put him there.