Between Shades of Gray

Men, women and children herded into cattle cars with no food, water, or sanitation. Lice. People shot on sight for slight transgressions. "Snitches" granted favors by guards for betraying friends. Brutal cold, long workdays, scurvy, beatings, malnutrition. Death.

Auschwitz? Bergen Belsen? Dachau? No. The atrocities of the Holocaust have been well documented and memorialized in books, film, plays, and museums. The Illinois Holocaust Museum is here in Skokie. We have all seen Steven Spielberg's masterful film Schindler's List. More recently, there have been films about Hitler's accomplices, like Sarah's Key. And, of course, just about every teen has read the heart wrenching Diary of Anne Frank. The crimes of the Nazis were hideous and provide context to our foreign policy to this day as we close ranks with Israel to confront an Islamo-fascist regime in Iran that promises a second Holocaust.

But while all this was going on, there was a second "silent" Holocaust in places like Lithuania, Latvia and the Ukraine perpetrated by Josef Stalin. While Hitler murdered 6 million Jews, Stalin and his henchmen murdered almost 3 1/2 times as many.

"Between Shades of Gray" by Ruta Sepetys reminds us that as bad as Hilter was, there was a second monster brutalizing, torturing and killing millions. While Stalin did not single out a group or industrialize his death machine as Hitler did, the scale of death and dislocation was, in fact, greater. Between Shades of Gray tells the tale of a family forced from their home, separated and shipped to a work camp in Siberia. Like Anne Frank's diary, the story is told through the eyes of a teenaged girl, and tells the story of survival and death under the cruelest, harshest circumstances imaginable. It is a story of courage and strength and sometimes betrayal and death.

For me, the Ms. Sepetys's novel brought to life the culture and people I grew up with. I was raised in an Eastern European community on the Southwest Side of Chicago and attended a Lithuanian Catholic grammar school. Many of the kids I went to school with were sons and daughters of D.P.'s (short for displaced persons) and this book reminded me of exactly what that meant. As a youngster, I failed to grasp what these people experienced. One of my best friend's parents were school teachers in Lithuania and escaped one of the work camps where they surely would have been killed. After reading Ms. Sepetys's book, I now understand the terror they must have experienced as they tunnelled under the fence and ran through the woods with guard dogs on their heels. The father of another friend of mine witnessed the KGB shooting his best friend in the head when he was a young man in the Ukraine. Such were the stories in my neighborhood.

Ms. Sepetys's book had special meaning for me. It was a vivid reminder of where I came fro and what a special place America has been for peoples of all nationalities and religions that have escaped from out-of-control, unchecked state power. It was also a reminder of why I am such a fierce defender of individual liberty for my peers were descendants of people that ran from authoritarianism.

As another authoritarian state, China, rises, Islamo-fascism threatens the West, and our own country elects a president that clearly values "fairness" over liberty, Ms. Sepetys reminds us of the horrible consequences of extreme state power.

Between Shades of Gray is a compelling read, and if you are of Eastern European extraction, it is an essential one.

Voting With Your Feet

My mama used to say, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." She correctly observed that often out-of-control kids had families that were dysfunctional. That aphorism is particularly true in politics. If you want to understand President Obama, just take a peek at the state that provided him his training and background.

Illinois is an absolute fiscal catastrophe. One survey had it rated the 2nd worst run state. A Forbes survey just ranked Chicago as the 6th most miserable city (but evidently committed to being number 1.

It's an open secret that Illinois is in the top ranks of corrupt state, lavishing state workers and unions with fat paychecks and even fatter retirement benefits. The Chicago Tribune has had several investigative articles about favored individuals being put on payrolls for minimum periods simply to get retirement benefits. And, if you lose and election, like Dan Seals (an unemployed guy before losing to Robert Dold in the 2010 congressional election), not to worry. Quinn put him on the Illinois payroll at a six figure salary to be an assistant director in the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, a position for which I'm sure Mr. Seals is well-qualified.

All this largesse has come at a price. The state's pension funds are only 45% funded and Illinois is teetering on the brink. But, instead of addressing its spending binges, Governor Quinn and the Illinois legislature elected to crank up the tax man, increasing the state income tax by nearly 50% on indivuals, businesses and nearly doubing tolls. Increase taxes by 50% and you get 50% more revenues, right?

Well pols seem to forget that humans respond to incentives. The selfish beings that they are, they fail to respond to measures taken for the "common good" (translated: Democratic supporters). I don't have a full survey of the damage that the tax increases have done, but I have a bit of anecdotal evidence:

• Aon Corporation announced that it was moving its corporate headquarters to London. Think about that. A major corporation is going to undertake the expense, trigger a tax liability for its shareholders, and make some people move, to change its headquarters to London? When Great Britain is a tax haven compared to you, you're in real trouble.
• The Chicago Tribune has reported that people are taking all kinds of circuitous routes to avoid the tollway system. The Trib calculated that the increase in tolls will cost an average driver $750 per year. Again, the Dems smack the working man, the guy they claim to help.
• A friend of mind who has been working part time out of his Florida home office changed the proportion of time he spends there to comply with requirements to change his domicile to Florida. "F**k Illinois," he said flatly, "I'm not giving them any more. I work too hard and I have to think about MY retirement, not some union guy." I can only guess that there are thousands of people like him- smart, hardworking, industrious that will simply leave.
• At a roundtable of business executives recently, I posed the question to the group, "Assuming that you wish your children to be happy and prosperous, would you counsel them to stay in Illinois and if not Illinois, where would you suggest that they move to give them the best chance of that happening?" The answer to this two part question was unanimous--- NO! and Texas.

Quinn's response last week was to propose even MORE spending, leaving the Illinois legislature (not the most frugal bunch) scratching their heads. Similarly, in his State of the Union address, President Obama promised to use 1/2 of the money spent in Iraq to pay down the debt.

Democrats never stop their spending addiction. That's why raising taxes doesn't work. Tax $100 and they spend $125. And they forget that people change their behavior in response. They stop investing. They move. They avoid the roads. They buy less. They stop working. Economic activity dries up.

Quinn and Obama. Same guys. Same program for growth.

Best (and Worst) of 2011

As 2011 closes, a summing up is a necessary compulsion for all commentators, just as the resolve to lose those 20 pounds. Last year, I limited my list to the best fiction and nonfiction books of the year, but this year, I thought I'd expand my list a bit beyond the literary.

• Best Nonfiction: Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne. There were several strong contenders in this category, including two great biographies of great American competitors: Endgame by Frank Brady, a masterful biography of the enigmatic Bobby Fischer and Wonder Girl by Don Van Patten, the captivating story about Babe Didrikson Zacharias, who may be America's greatest all time athlete. Empire of the Summer Moon, however, tops my list. It is about the Comanche tribe and the American West. It brings to life the difficulties of life on the frontier and the clash between the European settler and the warrior culture of the Comanche. The book dispels the mythical image of the Comanche as the "noble savage" and there are strong parallels between the Comanche and today's Islamic jihadists and the brutality of the conflict on the Plains.
  
  
• Best Fiction: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. This was the best of a weak field this year. Patchett's book was part mystery, part science fiction, part autobiography. The book centers on the journey of Marina Singh, a scientist that travels to the Amazon jungle to attempt to find the cause of the sudden death of her lab partner. She confronts an uncivilized local tribe, the hostility of the jungle and a rogue scientist along the way. Patchett is at her best describing the stifling, buggy and remoteness of the Amazon jungle.

• Best Album: 21 by Adele. Adele blows the field away. Her rich, soulful, strong voice reminds me of a refined, trained and modern version of Janice Joplin. This woman sings from the heart and her hit "Rolling in the Deep" may be the best work I've heard in years.
  
  
• Best Film: Okay, I admit that I don't go to as many films as I should. But of the films I did get to see, "Of Gods and Men" was clearly the best. The film is based on a true incident that occurred in Algeria in 1996 where Islamic militants murdered several Christian monks. In the film, the monks, leading a quiet, Christian life in which they tried to help the local Islamic community (but did not try to convert them). The movie raises important questions of what it means to lead a good Christian life, the extent of Christian courage, and the clash between jihadism and Christianity.

• Best News of the Year: In 2011, we had a trifecta. Three bad actors were removed from the world stage-- Osama bin Laden (by the U.S. Navy Seals), Mohamar Gaddafi (by his own people), and Kim Jong Il (by God). Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are still around but 2011 put a good dent in the bad guys' starting lineup.

• Worst News of the Year: Tough call. We had the Euro crisis and the bankruptcy of MF Global (led by super-Democrat Jon Corzine, who proved that he could do to shareholders what he did to the taxpayers of New Jersey. The Obama Administration served up the downgrade of the credit rating of the U.S., Solyndra and Fast and Furious along with the hasty retreat from Iraq. But my vote goes to the Penn State scandal, in which an administration, much like the Catholic Church, permitted young people to be violated in the most despicable way.

• Best of America: Steve Jobs. The announcement of his death brought a tear to my eye. Jobs was an American icon and embodies what is best about this country. A self made man. A maverick. An entrepreneur. A paradigm buster. A quirky guy that would have failed in a large company. He rewrote rules and turned industries upside down. He took products that didn't exist and made them an indispensable part of the landscape. Probably the most creative mind since Thomas Edison (whose lightbulbs the liberals are trying to ban, by the way).

• Worst of America: Occupy Wall Street. Sure, no one was happy about the fact that some people had their wealth unjustly protected in the financial collapse by the government bailouts. That was an unfortunate by-product of keeping us from bread lines. However, the OWS crowd-- that gross, unhygenic, gaggle of rabble rousers wanted more than that. Their demands basically amounted to a bunch of free stuff--- free education, free health care, free this, free that. One of America's most famous slogans, "Give me liberty or give me death," gave way to "Where's mine?" and, like their British counterparts earlier this summer, disrupted the lives and businesses of many small entrepreneurs and shop owners. On full display for all to see was the ugly reality that the term "economic justice" is code word for "government guaranteed middle class lifestyle."

For all that, the economy showed slow but steady signs of improvement, no major international crises broke out (other than the "Arab Spring" and that has yet to play itself out), and Barney Frank announced his retirement. In the end, on balance, 2011 wasn't all bad at all.

Nice Shot, Mr. President

This blog has been critical of President Obama's administration since its beginning. His wrongheaded handling of the economy has contributed to a European style high unemployment, no growth economy. His inverted approach in foreign policy has emboldened our enemies (see recent Iranian moves to put warships off our coast) and left our friends, particularly Israel, adrift. After castigating the Bush administration for its handling of the post invasion phase of Iraq, we are now left wondering where 20,000 surface to air missles went after our participation in the Libyan civil war.

But I give credit where credit is due. Despite hand wringing and caterwauling from quarters, we bagged another big one. Drones took out Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen and the person from whom the "underwear bomber" and the Fort Hood killer drew their inspiration. This blog congratulates this administration for persevering despite his putative status as an American citizen. The message now is clear, almost Bushian, "No matter what jersey you wear, no matter where you are, no matter how hardened you think your security circles are, we will find you and we will turn you into a little charred spot in the road if you plot or encourage others to kill our citizens."

Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Atiya Abd al-Rahman (al Qaeda #2 guy). No hesitation. No long legal process. No appeals. No media circus. Just a buzz in the sky and a smoking hole in the road.

Nicely done.

Musings

*The Left has been blasting Rick Perry's affinity for evangelical Christianity. But did you notice that a short time after announcing his candidacy, Washington, D.C. was hit by an earthquake, and a hurricane is now bearing down on the capital. I'd be fidgity if I saw locusts starting to gather. Fortunately, Obama has no first born sons to worry about.

*My liberal friends are gloating and giving each other high fives over the fall of Libya, which they assert is a vindication of the wisdom and judgment of President Obama. Would someone remind them of the dangers of unfurling the "Mission Accomplished" banner too soon? And, by the way, I haven't seen any kudos bestowed on George W. Bush, for paving the way by incenting Qaddafi to give up his nuclear weapons program.

*The Left has attacked Rick Perry's "treasonous" remark about Bernanke and his attendance at a public prayer revival. Fair enough. But they needed to be reminded that in addition to the downgrade of U.S. debt on his watch, job creation under Obama would have been downgraded from "miserable" to "catastrophic" without Rick Perry's Texas.

*Can someone tell me where those Green Jobs are?

*Am I the only one to see the irony in President Obama's charge that the Tea Party Congresspeople are "ideologically rigid?"

*Has anyone ever actually heard President Obama use the word "liberty" in a speech?

*The EPA has put forward new regulations that will effectively shut down 20% of the nation's electrical capacity within a couple of years. In the interest of debt reduction and fairness, maybe we could reciprocate by shutting down 20% of the EPA. That, by the way, would take us to about 2007 levels at that bureaucracy.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

Happy birthday, Mr. President. Welcome to the 50 plus club.

You must be pleased. You have, in a very short period of time, made a great deal of progress toward achieving your transformational goals.

I admit that I underestimated you (and George Soros). When you first came to office, I was underwhelmed by your achievements. No legislative accomplishments. No academic accomplishments. No business accomplishments. Just the an exotic background and the ability to deliver a silky smooth speech. You made them oooh and aaaah.

But you took over the steering wheel during a crisis---the most formidable financial crisis in a couple of generations. America was arrogant, you said. You believed in American exceptionalism, you said.....just like everyone else believes in their country's exceptionalism. America couldn't go it alone anymore. It needed to "spread it around," you said. In other words, become more like Europe.

Happy birthday. You must be pleased. In 2 1/2 years, you've gotten us there. Yesterday, our financial standing was downgraded from our pristine AAA rating, largely as a result of your accelleration of spending from 20 to 25% of GDP. You waged a war (ignoring the War Powers Act) against a tin pot dictator--a war by committee with your European allies. "Leading from behind," I think your staff called it. Months later, the tin pot dictator is still in power and your committee doesn't know what to do next. How European. And you took THE signature project of America, the single crowning achievement that demonstrated that government could do something right, a source of pride of a couple generations- manned space flight--and killed it like one would step on a bug. Instead of exploring new vistas and creatively thinking of new goals for NASA, you made multiculturalism a part of NASA's mission. Celebrate the math and science achievements of Islam, you said (notwithstanding the fact that Islam hasn't given us much of note since algebra).

No, President Obama. I did not think that you were capable of accomplishing so much in such a short period of time. Destroy America's credit rating. Demostrate collective impotence in warmaking. Turn one of America's most successful projects into a bureaucratic department of multicultural excellence.

The country that put man on the moon, turned back Hitler, stood up to Communism, that beacon of freedom, rugged individualism, where if one worked hard, showed initiative and got a little lucky could get rich is disappearing on your watch.

You will, no doubt, blame the Tea Party. "Intransigent," "Unsophisticated," "Irresponsible," "Jihadist," "Hostage Takers," is what the folks in your party called them.

They had the audacity to try to stop this runaway train. Perhaps they're too late.

We're now right there with Belgium.

Hope you and George enjoyed your cake.

The Miracle of Capitalism

Five or six years ago, I remember reading an article mourning the death of letter writing. The gist of the article was that cell phones had made communication via the written word obsolete. Not only were we losing the skill of communicating through the written word, we were in danger of losing a precious historical record since most historians compile information through digging through archives of letters. This important method of connecting with the past was in danger of being lost as the spoken word replaced the written word.

The other significant change in our modern society over the past century has been our mobility. A Couple of generations ago, we would have stayed in the same town as our parents and grandparents. Today, families scatter quickly. While our willingness and ability to move enhanced our ability to make a living, it also had a serious drawback. We became disconnected from family and friends. We became more urbanized and more alienated. The fictitious town of Mayberry still pulls at our emotions because most of us feel at least somewhat nostalgic for a time and place where we lived in a community in which people were close and knew each other for a long time. In our urban, fast-paced lives, we lack the comfort, stability and support that predictable relationships bring. Moreover, many of us are disconnected from our families that are often spread out over the country and sometimes over the globe. There is a basic human need to share old stories, and follow the progression of the people that have known us our entire lives. Many a Phd thesis has been written on this trend.

Enter social media (along with email, text messaging and Skype). In less than a decade, the information age has transformed our society and helped to assuage this longing in us. Facebook in particular has become a primary vehicle for meeting this basic human need. While Facebook has had its controvercies and its detractors, I believe that on balance, it has been a very positive force. Started as a social networking site at Harvard and then the entire Ivy League, Facebook has exploded from a site used primarily by high school and college kids to the population at large. I can attest that Facebook has enriched my life immeasurably.

I warily signed on about a year and a half ago, and pretty soon I was "friended" by family members (that has its own set of issues), old college friends, high school friends and, more recently, even grammar school friends. Some people post quite voluminously. Others are more sparing, but I enjoy quick little updates from these people. It has been fun to catch up on how my old friends have progressed in their careers, raised their kids and muddle through life. It's fun to get updates on the athletic careers of my niece and nephews, and hear about the latest setback from my friend that operates a small farm in the South.

One of the true joys of using Facebook in middle age is reconnecting with people that you hadn't thought about in years. One thing that became apparent quickly is that I really didn't appreciate some of these people as much as I do now. I don't know if it's because in my early contact their personalities were not fully formed or whether I was just not paying close enough attention. But it has become clear to me that I have come across some pretty remarkable people along the way. Facebook gives you a second shot to get to know them a little better.

About a year ago, I and several of my teammates organized a reunion of our college football team. In the 30 years since we played together, this formerly close-knit bunch had scattered into the wind. By using Facebook in addition to our own networking, we were able to track down all but a few people and organized a once in a lifetime event. We had people come in from all over the country (one even flew in from Indonesia) to eat, drink and tell old war stories with old teammates. It was pretty astonishing to see people pick up right where they left off 30 years ago. As a result, we are all in touch with each other more frequently now, get updates periodically and little groups of us occassionally get together for a lunch, a beer, or a ballgame. This all was facilitated in part by the advent of Facebook.

Recently, I reconnected with some classmates from my old Catholic grammar school, and they provided me with a stark reminder of why I remain highly ambivalent about Catholicism. Yes, all those stories about the harsh nuns with their rulers, paddles and wagging fingers were true and not exaggerated. Still, it was great fun to trade memories with people I had not seen in nearly 40 years, and hear about how they ended up. I was suprised by the number of people that connected with me that knew me when I was young and did stupid things, yet wanted to correspond with me anyway. Human beings have a great capacity for forgiveness and acceptance.

Of course membership in Facebook needs to be managed. It does have its annoyances. Some can't help but vomit their political views on a regular basis (I save that for my blog). I sometimes get requests to be "friended" by people I don't remember (or who I do not care to remember). Others use it solely as a worship wall for their children (o.k., I've been guilty of some of that, too). One woman even reminded me that I proposed to her when we were in 1st grade (she has no clue how luckey she got by turning me down). But on the whole, the influence of Facebook has been a hugely positive.

These connections have also nudged me to correspond with more people. I have several friends now that I exchange emails with on a regular basis. I have spoken with many people that do the same thing. So it seems that the art of letter writing has been reborn, albeit electronically in lieu of pen, ink, and the U.S. Postal Service. Query whether historians will be able to access these messages centuries from now so they can tell the story of what our society was like.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is said to be worth $13.5 billion (at age 27) and is in the top 100 billionaires in the world. He deserves to be. He is emblematic of the miracle of capitalism. He found a powerful human need.....the need to connect and be part of a community, and found a way to fill that need for millions of people at a reasonable price (essentially free). No government program brought this to us. No cabinet czar came up with the idea. No blue ribbon panel was involved in it. Just a kid in his dorm room. It's what capitalism is all about. It's certainly made my life richer.