A Little Hope

In keeping with my summer writing semi-sabbatical and my vow to steer clear of topics concerning politics, economics and international affairs for a few weeks, last week I wrote a short piece recommending a wonderful memoir that would immerse you in nostalgia for an American society that has almost disappeared.

This week, I want to write about hope, and I want to draw on a couple of personal experiences this week that gave me some hope for the future.  Much is being written about our divided country.  The MSM and social media would lead you to believe that we are nearly at each other’s throats much of the time.  Twitter mobs and Antifa marches and the clash between CNN and FoxNews portray a fraying country on the brink of becoming unglued.

But on the ground where it counts we most often see an entirely different picture.  This week I personally observed a couple of incidents that told me (to paraphrase Mark Twain) that reports of the demise of American society have been greatly exaggerated.

On my way to an industry group golf outing, I stopped at a gas station and convenience store to fill up and pick up a few small items.   The fellow at one of the two registers was a young Indian man and we engaged in a brief conversation about where he was from.  He apparently was from Bhuj, a town near the Pakistan border.   Then pointed to the other fellow that was working the other register and said that he was from Karachi, directly across the border in Pakistan.   He said they should have never partitioned India and Pakistan.   He took a step over to his fellow employee, put his arm around him, smiled broadly and said, “See, we go home and we fight.   We come back here and we best friends.”  Had I been a little more aware, I would have whipped out my cell phone of these two guys working together and grinning and clearly enjoying working together.  And he is correct.  In another context, these guys might well be taking potshots at each other.

And then later in the week, I stopped by the Chicago Botanic Garden to enjoy the scenery and listen to some evening summer music as the season winds down.  I stopped by the beer garden to get a glass of wine and the bartender was a young African American woman. 

“What would you like, sir?”

“A cabernet, please.”

“A glass or a bottle?”

I laughed, “Given the week, I could probably use a bottle, but the police get mad when you do that, so a glass will be fine.  I’m driving.”

She laughed and then motioned over my shoulder and said, “I really hate to see that.”

I turned and there was an old woman picking through the trash bin and pulled out a basket with some potato chips left in it from a previous patron.

The young bartender immediately went to the back, filled a basket with nacho chips, sour cream and salsa to bring out to this woman. 

I took the chips, and said, “Just wait on your customers.  I will take them to her.”

I brought them out and offered them to the bag lady and said, “These are on the house.  If you want a hamburger or something else, I’m buying.”  

She refused me and said, “These are plenty for me, thanks.”

I tried again but she wasn’t having it.

Despite her refusal though, I was moved by the actions of the young black woman that was working the bar.  She cared enough to pay attention to this woman and try to do something about her plight, and at least relieve the woman’s hunger for one day, a person that was a total stranger to her.

This is the America I love.  People from different cultures, different races, and sometimes from places where they would otherwise be sworn enemies working together and assisting each other. 

Ironically, I had just this week started reading Raghuram Rajan’s new book, “The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind.”  Rajan is one of the thinkers I follow closely and he is deeply concerned about the erosion of community in our society.

I am too, but this week I saw some tangible evidence that it is not quite dead yet, and it gave me some reason to hope.  Does bigotry and racism exist?  Sure. But in our day to day lives the proportion of acts of compassion, empathy and kindness to acts of bigotry runs overwhelmingly in favor of compassion, empathy and kindness.

Summer's End

There is so much going on in the world worthy of commentary.  Last week I wrote about the Jeffrey Epstein “suicide.”  There is a trade war going on in China and protests in Hong Kong and Moscow.  Many economists are predicting a recession by the end of 2021.   Antifa is acting up again.  A couple of weeks ago, we had two mass shootings and another swell of calls for gun control legislation.  Child climate change advocate Greta Thunberg took a boat to the U.S.   Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar were banned from entering Israel. 

Lots to write about.

But I will have none of it.

I’m taking a break. Until Labor Day, I’m not going to post about politics, economics or international affairs and I’m staying off social media (except to return messages).   It’s my digital detox.   A mental health break.   A brief respite from a world that seems to have gotten knocked off its axis.  My Twitter sabbatical went pretty well today.  I only slipped once and peaked at a couple of posts while I checked messages.  I'm going to pivot to other topics.

This week I’m going to make a book recommendation—not a full review --- but a strong recommendation.

I loved Lake of the Ozarks: My Surreal Summers in a Vanishing America by Bill Geist.   Geist’s memoir of his teen summers takes us back to a time and a place that no longer exists—a more innocent time (sort of) in his life and in America.  It was a time before cell phones, texts, and the internet.  Before #metoo and summer sports camps and before overstructured teen lives.  It was a time when kids actually HAD summer jobs (at last survey in 2016, only 35% of teens had summer jobs). 

Geist probably had as much fun researching and writing this book as I did reading it.  It’s pretty clear that he found some of the teens that he spent those summers with at the resort to interview them and refresh his recollections (at the end he returns to the site, and alas, the resort itself is gone). His character sketches and descriptions of some of the events are vivid and alive.  There are places in which I laughed out loud.   Those summers must have been a wonderful combination of work duties, freedom from school, vacation and teen hormones. 

Adding to its authenticity is the location.  The summers he recalls center around a resort is in the Lake of the Ozarks and not the Hamptons or Martha’s vineyard.  It is smack in the middle of ordinary America much like Wisconsin Dells farther north (which we used to refer to as the “Polish Riviera”).   It recalls a time when working class America actually had some money to take a vacation.

The book resonated with me personally.  My grandparents bought a farm in central Wisconsin in the mid 60’s and I spent my entire summers in that farm community with long, languid days of fishing, walking in the woods, and hanging out with the neighbor kids (some of whom had jobs in the local resort). 

Perfectly timed, Kim Brooks wrote a thoughtful op-ed in the New York Times on Sunday entitled, We have Ruined Childhood https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/opinion/sunday/childhood-suicide-depression-anxiety.html?).  Our hyper, overstructured culture has led to alienation, an increase in suicide rate and an explosion in opiod use among kids.  In it, Brooks asserts, “For youngsters these days, an hour of free play is like a drop of water in the desert.  Of course, their miserable.”

Geist’s book, much like the film, “Field of Dreams” takes us back to a healthier time for kids, filled with more fun and laughs.  It is the perfect end of summer read.  Don’t miss it.  I promise you won’t be sorry.

Oops, They Did It Again

This one smells to high heaven.

Next to KSM, Jeffrey Epstein had to be the highest value prisoner in our entire system.  Running a pedophile and sex trafficking ring, Epstein apparently shuttled some of the rich and famous in politics, business and academia to his private island.  Escaping a long sentence with a plea bargain the first time around, Epstein was charged again and faced an extended period in the clink.  Bill Clinton took at least a couple of dozen excursions to Pedophile Island with him, flight logs show.

But a funny thing happened on the way to trial.  This billionaire sex trafficker, who was placed on suicide watch after his attempted suicide a couple of weeks ago, turned up dead.

The internet exploded with conspiracy theories, memes and jokes in bad taste.

Within hours of the reports, I received several emails and texts asking what I thing happened.

In an era of fake news, I have learned not to react to initial reports, but it appears that Epstein was taken off suicide watch on the recommendation of the prison warden and a psychiatrist.  Other reports are that the prison staff violated protocol by not checking in on him every 30 minutes.  Another report said that there was a “surveillance camera malfunction.”

I’m no Alex Jones but none of this adds up.

The Wall Street Journal tweeted out this headline yesterday afternoon:  The death of Jeffrey Epstein leaves unanswered questions and diminished hopes for a full accounting of his wrongdoings.

Duh.  I think this was probably the point.

Epstein’s death has Clintonian fingerprints all over it.  

First, both of the Clintons are very, very skilled at obfuscation, and have a long history of having absolutely no inhibitions about straightforward falsifications.  From “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” to BleachBit and smashed Blackberries, the Clintons have acquired “a particular set of skills,”  telling bold lies and then covering it up, muddying the waters and throwing enough dust in the air to string out the investigative process, and then saying “oh, that’s old news.”  They are experts at layering defenses, throwing underlings under the bus, and changing stories as investigators get close to the truth.  They are world class operators.

The chances that the warden took the risky step of taking Epstein off suicide watch AND protocol was violated on this high value prisoner without outside influence or instruction is very very low.  This was no Podunk jail in some South Carolina one horse town housing the town drunk.  This was no job for Barney Fife.  

Second, the method matches the Clintons.   It has become a national joke that anyone with dirt on the Clintons ends up committing suicide.  Except it’s not a joke anymore.   Killers have patterns and favored methods.  If a political opponent of Vladimir Putin’s ends up with poison in his system, who jumps to mind as the responsible person?   If there are simultaneous bombings in 3 London cities and bearded young Middle Eastern are reported to have yelled “Allahu Akbar” at the sites, what is the first thing you think of?   Someone close to the Clintons ends up “suicided” and you think, hmmmm.   These people think we just fell off the turnip truck yesterday.

Third, and most troubling is that as a consequence of Obama’s weaponization of the DOJ, FBI and IRS, we have lost faith in the ability of those agencies to investigate fully and fairly.  The arrogance of hyperpartisanship of Jim Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe have left us with little confidence that the agencies charged with unbiased investigative powers will deliver the truth.  The fact that we still do not have answers to the Las Vegas shooting is disturbing, to say the least. 

Was Epstein’s death a result of massive incompetence or was it something much darker and more sinister?

We may never know.  And the Clinton Syndicate will make certain of it.

They've been at this game for a long time.

A Gun Problem- Or Something More?

The mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton last weekend have elicited more howls for gun control.  These are terrible occurrences and provide a convenient and emotional appeal to put constraints around our Constitutional rights.  The “solutions” posed by Democratic contenders range from enhanced background checks, banning “assault weapons,” government buybacks, and “red flag” laws.  The more authoritarian and frightening liberals like Kamala Harris announced that if Congress won’t act within 100 days (of her inauguration), she will act by executive order.  Beto O’Rourke announced that he would be receptive to “mandatory” buybacks.

The more the Left talks openly about flouting your Constitutional rights, and using government force to deprive you of them, the more tightly you should hold on to your weapons.

As they spew these “solutions” to mass casualty events, protesters in Venezuela, Hong Kong, and Moscow are at this very time wishing they had the same rights as you do to counter government thuggery.  

Ironically, liberals, who are fond of attacking “root causes” when discussing other social maladies dismiss “root causes” when a mass shooting occurs and go straight for your Constitutional rights.

Here are my four biggest reasons for being very skeptical about the Left’s push for gun control:

·        Learn from the experience with abortion.  For years, the Left has been repeating the mantra of “common sense gun control,” arguing that they just want to have protections against people that should not have access to firearms, such as those with sever mental illness or a long criminal history.  And that’s how they get you on board.  Who could be against a denying a deadly weapon to someone with severe paranoid schizophrenia? 

The Left has learned that with sacred things, you have to go slow.  Life is sacred, so the Left argued for years that abortion was to be “safe, legal and rare” and limited to the first trimester.  Who would countenance going back to the days of unsanitary back alley abortions?   Visions of some scared 16 year old girl ending up in a garage with some fat, hairy pseudo-doctor with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and unsterilized utensils is a powerful persuader.  But then, all of a sudden you wake up an New York and Illinois legislatures are cheering and smiling as they approve of abortions up to the moment of birth and the governor of Virginia is talking about a live baby placed in a tray and the mother has “a decision to make.”

How do you get a piano off the third floor?  You disassemble it first, silly.  And that’s what they will do.  Chip, chip, chip.  They will persuade you that each of these little measures they have in mind don’t materially infringe on your rights.  Until one day you wake up and the 2^nd Amendment isn’t there anymore.  They’ve disassembled it in pieces.  Denying social security recipients that get help with their finances.   Denying people that end up on no fly lists (notoriously error prone).  Squeezing gun manufacturers by denying them financing.  Limiting magazine size.  And now red flag laws (who gets to decide, that’s the rub—the American Psychological Association that just decided toxic masculinity needs to be treated?)  Drip.  Drip.  Drip.

·        They Left has explicitly told us where they are going.  The New York Times is a must read for all conservatives and libertarians because, through its choice of editorial content will tell you in no uncertain terms where the Left is headed.  Last year, the Times published an op-ed by Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens entitled: Repeal the 2^nd Amendment (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/john-paul-stevens-repeal-second-amendment.html?searchResultPosition=19).  It doesn’t get more explicit than that.  The Left wants the 2^nd Amendment gone.

·        Despite the fact that the El Paso shooter was from the extreme right, most of the political violence and countenance of political violence is from the Left.   Rand Paul is having part of his lung removed.   Castro doxxed Trump donors.  Antifa prowls the streets of Portland.  AOC has urged social unrest.  Maxine Waters encouraged physical confrontation with Trump supporters.  Reporter Andy Ngo was severely injured by an Antifa mob.  In an era in which bitterness and rancor has become pervasive and the threat of mob violence is growing, the last thing you want to do is to leave yourself exposed and vulnerable without protection.

·        Finally, they are solving the wrong problem.  The Leftist narrative is that there is a growing white supremacist movement.  I see little evidence that it is a  burgeoning movement and that it represents a greater threat to social cohesion than Islamist supremacism, Leftist supremacism (Antifa) or BLM.  There always have been fringe kooks around and the white supremacists couldn’t get their act together to gather up more than a couple of dozen people to do a second rally at Charlottesville.

I do think these mass shootings are symptomatic of a society that is not healthy right now.  And it is only one of the symptoms.   Dozens of our children are dying every day from opioid overdoses across the country.  Every weekend in Chicago is a bloodbath on the South and West sides, so much so that last weekend a hospital had to stop taking in gunshot victims.  Our birthrates are at the lowest level in over 30 years.   Taken together, these pathologies suggest that something is going on that merely taking away a chunk of 2^nd Amendment rights won’t fix. (Hint: I will be reading Raghuram Rajan’s new book about the crisis in community, The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind for his insights

The Iron Law of Reciprocity

I stopped into my local independent bookstore last week to hear Geoffrey Stone speak on his book, Sex and the Constitution.  I have heard Stone speak on several occasions and have had great respect for him as the engineer of the Chicago Principles, The University of Chicago statement regarding free speech on campus, which has been adopted by 35 schools (at last count) across the country.  The Chicago Principles is a counterweight to the propensity of universities to restrict free speech on campus, enforce “safe spaces,” issue “trigger warnings,” with a particular emphasis on controlling free speech by conservatives.

But my regard for Stone plummeted last year when he buckled to the demands of an Iranian student who implored him to stop using the “N” word to illustrate as an example in class.  I find the “N” word hateful and abhorrent, but I find attempts to constrain free speech more abhorrent and dangerous in a free and open society.

But this week, the bottom fell out during his presentation.  He talked about the Griswald decision (birth control) and marriage equality (Obergefell) but most of his discussion centered on Roe v. Wade.  It is his firm belief that this court will overturn Roe, and that 60% of the states will follow by banning abortion (even if Roe were to be overturned, I think that is wildly off the mark. No more than 5 states would ban the procedure).  He bemoaned the politicized court, and stated that with a few exceptions, five justices now vote in a block—as Mitch McConnell would want them to do.

But what really got my attention were two things.  First, was his open contempt for Evangelical Christians (but refrained from mentioning opposition to Roe by the Catholic Church).  But second, and most disturbing was this statement. When asked what could stop Roe from being overturned, Stone jokingly replied, “You could have a couple of justices assassinated.”  Afterward, even my progressive friends admitted they were taken aback by his comment.  

 I have come to call this a violation of the Iron Law of Reciprocity. 

The comment  by Stone, made flippantly and in jest, caused me to think about what would have happened if a similarly situated academic such as Victor Davis Hanson would have said something analogous, “You know, Oberbefell could be reversed if someone pushed Ruth Bader Ginsburg down the stairs,”  or, “Gerrymandering could be handled if someone put arsenic in John Roberts’s coffee.”  The uproar wouldn’t stop and Hanson would be forced out of his position.  But coming from the Left, things like this pass without comment.

While Evangelical Christians are regarded as troglodytes, folks like Ilhan Omar (who, as if on cue retweeted a tweet celebrating the assault on Rand Paul), and Islamism more generally are afforded a deference not available to other religious groups in the U.S.  Geoffrey Stone wouldn’t dare speak in the same contemptuous tone about Muslims as he does Evangelical Christians.  Omar’s remarks about Jews and white men would get her pilloried in the press if someone else on the right said similar things about gays or blacks.  But Democrats couldn’t even bring themselves to condemn her remarks.

I have developed my own aphorism for this phenomenon.  It is this—you may wish to tolerate Islam, but it has yet to demonstrate that Islam is willing to fully reciprocate.  As one Polish lawmaker put it, “Sure, you can build mosques in Poland, as soon as we can build Catholic churches in Saudi Arabia.” Likewise, I observed that Christianity has been the object of satire in comedic works like Monty Python’s The Life of Brian and Mormonism was skewered in the musical The Book of Mormon.  No sane person would attend opening night of Muhammed the Musical with dancing girls in burkas.  We all know what would likely happen.  Until Islam can comply with the Iron Law of Reciprocity—that is, we should be free to satirize it without fear of physical harm, we should be wary of importing it wholesale and giving it equal stature.

My grandmother often used to say, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”  That principle still holds true.  If one abhors language of violence toward public officials, it should be not be used even in jest by someone like Geoffrey Stone.  If you joke about having a gun at the airport check-in, you know what happens.  Likewise, Islamism should not be afforded any greater protection from criticism or satire than any other faith.  You don’t get a free pass from suggesting or joking about violence and your religion doesn’t get accorded a special exemption.  Perhaps I should start a campaign for a new Constitutional amendment—the Iron Law of Reciprocity.

American Heroes

We’ve had the anniversaries of the two greatest American achievements of the 20^th century this year.  In June, we marked the 75^th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, which marked the beginning of the end of the Third Reich.  Last week, we commemorated the 50^th anniversary of the moon landing and Neil Armstrong’s first step onto the lunar surface.

While we passed these milestones, I happened to be reading two wonderful books:  Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb and Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.

This all got me to thinking of what makes an American hero. In this crazy, divisive, hyperpartisan time, it would do us well to consider that question.

The actions of the men that withstood the hellfire of the Nazi regime and took the beaches at Normandy speak for themselves.

In considering that question, I was struck with the parallels between Aldrin and Douglass.  Different men. Different times. Tackling different problems.  But both true American heroes.

I heard Buzz Aldrin speak in person two years ago at the Printers Row Lit Fest and heard and met Kenneth Morris, Jr. the great great great great grandson of Frederick Douglass at the American Writers Museum last summer.  Morris beamed that he remembers his great grandmother so he touched the hands that touched the hands of Frederick Douglass.  So I was able to touch the hands that touched the hands that touched the hands of Frederick Douglass. 

Both took great physical risks and displayed great physical courage.  Aldrin was propelled in space and landed on the moon with only seconds of fuel left.  No one knew for certain what the outcome of this trip would be.  Douglass took great risks and put it all on the line numerous times over the course of his life.  He escaped slavery.  He suffered several verbal and physical assaults throughout his career.  And in the ultimate demonstration of “skin in the game,” his son fought with the famed 54^th Massachusetts colored regiment so vividly depicted in the film Glory.  Neither of these men shrank from physical challenges.

Both lived fully.  At 89, Buzz Aldrin is still lecturing, flying and being vibrant late in life.  Likewise, Douglass worked into old age and never really stopped.  Both Aldrin and Douglass continued to write late in life.  Aldrin published another book in 2016-- his 7th.

And both had messy personal lives, suffered family turmoil and suffered setbacks.  Aldrin was thrice divorced.  Most recently, he was involved in lawsuits and was accused of having dementia.  Frederick Douglass was always bailing out family members financially, lost a son and several grandchildren to early deaths.  Like Aldrin, he was subject of a lawsuit and led the Freedmen’s Bank when it collapsed. 

After spending some time thinking about it, I was struck with the parallels of these two men.  One black one white.  One helped to solve a 19^th century problem, one a 20^th.  Both men were patriotic and believed in self-reliance. 

Both lived fully and never stopped.  At 89, Buzz Aldrin is still lecturing, flying and vibrant late in life.  Likewise, Douglass worked into old age and never really stopped.  Both Aldrin and Douglass continued to write late in life.  Aldrin published another book in 2016, his 7^th.    And having accomplished their primary goals, both men continued to advocate for new frontiers.  With emancipation, Douglass moved on to equal rights, enfranchisement, and ending lynchings in the South.  Aldrin has continued to push for space exploration and a manned excursion to Mars.

But after reading Taleb’s book,  I realized that what really cements them as icons in my mind is that they had skin in the game.  Both sacrificed greatly for their achievements.  Both risked bodily harm and death for their cause.  Douglass did this throughout his life and his son put himself on the front lines of freedom.  Most importantly, their causes were much more than a pursuit of heir own self-aggrandizement.

In my mind, what made Frederick Douglass and Buzz Aldrin so special---true heroes is the risks that they took.  They put themselves on the line for the causes they pursued.

Quick Hits

 As I close out my 50’s this week (yes, 60 is a big number), here are a few random thoughts and observations in a wild week --- and it’s only Thursday.

·        Leana Wen, director of Planned Parenthood is out after eight months, prompting a twitterstorm of comments about terminating her before full term.  Ironically, she was allegedly terminated for advocating the expansion of health services at the organization.   But the board decided that it needs to be singularly focused on abortion.  The NRA likewise has had leadership problems because it, too, is trying to expand into other pet right wing causes instead of sticking to its primary purpose—defending the Second Amendment.   The difference between the two is that the NRA never denied that it was primarily in the Second Amendment business.

·        Continuing with irony, on this 50^th anniversary of the moon landing, arguably one of the greatest and sole achievements of government in the last century, the new vision of these Democrats is providing free health care for the entire Western hemisphere and giving them all the keys to our house.

·        Also in the irony category, Mike Collins visited the launch pad of Apollo 11 for the 50^th anniversary.  Neil Armstrong passed away seven years ago and Buzz Aldrin canceled. So, just as he was alone 50 years ago while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon, so again was Collins for the 50^th anniversary.

·        And in yet another stroke of irony, House Speaker Pelosi was temporarily relieved of her duties for violating house rules by calling Donald Trump a “racist.”

·        In a poll, 87% of Jews in the U.K. believe that Jeremy Corbyn and the Labor Party are anti-Semitic, which is, as one commentator noted, “is quite an accomplishment for Corbyn, since it is impossible to get 87% of Jews to agree on anything.”

·        After all the hoopla over the Mueller investigation and hush money payments, a judge ended the investigation into the hush money payments.  Put a pin in it.

·        Closer to home, several acquaintances agreed that the most durable and least likely leaders to be deposed over the next five years are Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China, Kim Jong Un of North Korea and Michael Madigan of Illinois.

·        Also close to home, Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot approached Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker about having the state take over the city pensions (which are 23% funded).  Pritzker declined (for now) but look to that issue to be raised again.  A consolidation would make it easier to go hat in hand to the feds for a bailout.  You can almost hear the rhetoric, “You did it for Wall Street.  How about us?”

·        And finally, Chance the Snapper, the alligator captured in Chicago’s Humboldt Park, is moving to a sanctuary in Florida.  He also sees the writing on the wall.

·        Lastly, after the Nike decision to go woke on the Betsy Ross flag, I combed my wardrobe and found one nice Nike golf shirt.  Thanks to Amazon, I was able to order a Betsy Ross flag patch and fix the shirt (see above), sewing the patch over the Nike swoosh.  Never let a good golf shirt go to waste.