Absent Friends

            The holiday season is a time when we tend to think of absent friends and loved ones.  And we call to mind a toast, which has been aft attributed to Robert Burns:

To absent friends

To those we have met

To those we have yet to meet

To those who have left us for a while

And to those who have left us forever

Let us lift our glasses

And drink a toast

That they may abide in our hearts

Forever.

To absent friends

            To Ted, Frank, Esther, Don, Don, Merk, Carroll, George and Melba, Bernie and Ila, Ray and Eleanor, Florence and Leo, Mike and Kyle, and many others, absent friends and loved ones!  We remember and we miss you, and we are grateful for the part of you that remains in our hearts.  Hard as it is, we recognize that you have fulfilled the purpose for which you came, and you have moved on.

            Around here we are no strangers to these feelings.  They are part of the price of loving.  And we must never fall into the trap of thinking that we are alone in missing loved ones.  As surely as it happens to us, it also happens to people everywhere in the world.  No home is immune, whether a mansion or a tent, a cabin or a cardboard box.  So as once again we gather to celebrate spiritual renewal in the joy of our chosen faith, let us all raise a toast to, and perhaps set a plate for, absent friends.

The Spell of Words

            Sometimes words just don’t make sense.  Words like ‘politician’ and ‘hemorrhoid’, for instance.  They seem to have incredible literary flourish for things that are a pain in the…anatomy.  Whereas ‘pie’ and ‘dance’, two of life’s thoroughly delightful things, are relegated to one-syllable sadness in a language otherwise bursting with potential.  I’m not calling for a march on academe here, but a little consideration for the manner in which we refer to certain things would go a long way toward making language intuitive. 

            I know this approach can lead to some controversy.  Opera and heavy metal rock.  Need I say more?  Still, when you compare the ‘smell’ of roses with the ‘redolence’ of roses, you can sense some possibilities.  And I’m fine with a Yugo being a car while an Aston-Martin is an automobile.  Bucket?  No problem!  However, a T.V. commercial is way too elegantly named.  It should be a crud.  Infotainment should be slop.  And lite beer?  Well, why even use that phrase?  But enough of that.

            Book is a word that far and away deserves syllabic enhancement.  Poe understood this with his “…quaint and curious volume(s) of forgotten lore…”  You get the idea—if it’s good, give it a little literary festivity.  For instance, around here ‘asthma’ seems a pretentious way to spell something ugly.  It should be spelled Azmuh.  Save the fancy pretense for words that signify finespun, delightful things, like a brightly colored sunset, or Tiramisu at Ruby Tuesday’s!  Things that deserve a little pomp and puff.

“…my old friend John…”*

            Fifty years after John Kennedy was killed, the memory still brings tears.  Yes, I remember when I heard the news I was on my way to class at UNL.  And I remember it took a while to sink in.  It was 1963.  We didn’t shoot presidents in America in the middle of the twentieth century.

            But it sank in, and brought along some emotional depression to keep us company.  I remember thinking, ‘We finally got a good one and some moron kills him!’  Of course, the story wasn’t nearly as simple as my thinking.  Revelations in the intervening years have clouded the clear Camelot sky, and there has been a bumper crop of buskers with the one true tale of who and what and why.

            We know that Lyndon Johnson accomplished many things under the aegis of JFK’s martyrdom, things that his predecessor wouldn’t have walked to fruition.  In the shadow of Kennedy, it is easy to forget that LBJ was a good one too.  He showed us that Texas wasn’t as reprehensible as it seemed to us in 1963.

            Kennedy’s assassination took away America’s childhood.  It scattered some cherished hopes into shards and hurled us toward the way things really work.  Who among us cannot grieve that?

            “Anybody here seen my old friend John?”*                                                                            *–“Abraham, Martin and John” –Dick Holler, 1968

Who In Blazes Was Saul Alinsky?

            If you are ever drowsy and turn to talk radio to avoid caffeine pills, you will hear the “Right’s Reverend Mr. Bluster” disparagingly refer to Saul Alinsky as if everybody who is conscious knows he was the personification of evil.  This always makes me smile, and here’s why:

            Saul Alinsky was a champion of the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, the poor, and the politically excluded.  He wrote Reveille for Radicals.  You should read it.  In that book he contends that people can solve their own problems if they will just work together.  He goes on to describe how to organize local people into powerful working groups that get things done.  Alinsky was a 20^th Century organizational superman.  Many of today’s leading corporations use his concept of bringing diverse opinions together to achieve success.

            He also wrote Rules for Radicals.  You’ll find the tactics it describes in wide use by conservative legislators and interest groups as they pursue their objectives.  (The “haves” have hijacked Alinsky’s methods from needy “have not” Americans.)

            Unlike anyone you will suffer on talk radio, Saul Alinsky was a great American, who taught underdogs how to overcome evil.  And he did it without preaching that the wealthy of our country are abused by our tax system.  He helped ordinary people cope with the political and economic abuse they encountered in their hard daily lives. 

Around here, Saul Alinsky was a blessing.  Strutting martinets notwithstanding, anyone who is conscious, and paying attention, smiles with me.    

Feckless Followers*

            Liberals are fond of stating that political nihilism in congress is driven by about sixty (some say ninety or more) radicals who are dragging the remainder of their party’s people along, out of fear of primary challenges if they don’t cooperate.  There is some reason to accept this explanation, especially with the Hastert Rule dominating Boehner’s management of the House.

            This leads to the sad possibility that most Republican Representatives in the House are merely feckless followers of a bully minority.  If ever there was a need to end bullying, it is in the kindergarten we know as the House of Representatives.  Too many are simply napping with their heads down on their rugs.  When they are not doing that they are mouthing talking points that reflect the mean-spirited selfishness the House has portrayed for years.

            While they push for austerity, hunger remains an obscenity.  While they stridently slash costs, unnecessary sickness is still obscene.  While they grab for more business perks, the deterioration of the world’s climate, the depletion of our resources, the abandonment of crumbling infrastructure, and the excuses for high unemployment are obscene.  They are offensive to decency. 

            If you elected a feckless follower, one who will not stand up for decency, who meekly mouths others’ words, keeps a low profile, and goes along with the bullies, you should be demanding answers.  And you should be finding her or his replacement.   Around here we think taxpayers pay these people way too much to accept mediocre performance. 

feckless followers: those who go along with congressional radicals for personal benefit.  --rrclark

feckless: 1.weak; ineffective; spiritless; 2. thoughtless; careless; irresponsible.

                                                                                                --Webster’ New Twentieth Century Dictionary

West Nihil Virus*

            These days, you hear from a lot of politicians who have The Answer.  Some of them will tell you the only way to put things Right is to do away with the Department of Education.  Nobody with any sense, they seem to suggest, needs the government to supply educational standards.  What self reliant American can’t independently learn all he or she needs in order to find personally rewarding minimum wage work?    

The Answer also includes doing away with Social Security.  The investment returns are so shamefully low, albeit consistent.  Those who didn’t suffer in the Great Recession or know about the Great Depression, think it should be commercialized.  Everybody should be in the Great Roulette Game called Wall Street.  If nothing else, it’s good for Wall Street (and sadly, nothing else is exactly what investors can expect from this scheme).

Food Stamps, the S.N.A.P. part of the Farm Bill, are another absolute waste of taxpayers’ money for those with The Answer.  SNAP must be slashed, but not the noble subsidies that provide some in agriculture with multimillion dollar gifts.

Those with The Answer are sorting through all of our stuff.  Unemployment insurance?  Dumpster.  National Parks?  Garage sale.  Congressional perks?  Keep.  Health care?  Dumpster.  National infrastructure?  Dumpster.  Natural Resources?  Garage sale, or give away.  Government services?  Dumpster.  Whew!  Time to cut taxes.

Around here, we call this the West’s version of political nihilism that captivated Russia from the late 1800’s to 1917.  We all know how that virus worked out. 

           

*The intellectual sickness that single-mindedly seeks to dismantle large parts of our government. --rrclark

nihilism:  in politics (a) the doctrine that all social, political, and economic institutions must be completely destroyed in order to make way for new institutions; specifically (b) (N-) a movement in Russia (c1860-1917) which advocated such revolutionary reform and attempted to carry it out through the use of some terrorism and assassination.

                                                                                                  --Webster’ New Twentieth Century Dictionary

Sending Out For Starlight

            “I work for a big retailer,” the guy said.  “Minimum wage, paid by debit card.  It costs me $5 to transfer it into my checking, but bank accounts are rare.  It’s $1 just to get the balance on your card!  There’s a fee if you take cash.  Lots of us wind up spending $25 on fees each pay period.  Keeps the merchandise cheap, I guess, and my living standard low.  My wife’s unemployment was cut, and we’re afraid we won’t get food stamps soon.  We don’t pay income tax.  With the kids, we don’t earn enough.  But we’ve got skin in the game.  That’s what they say about us—everybody should pay taxes—have skin in the game.  For them it’s a game.  For us it’s just hard work till you’re sick sometimes.  And no, I don’t vote.  If I’m lucky, I’m too busy working.  The kids got bumped out of head start, so we need every dime and every minute…”

****

“I’m not worried about any of that,” Crumb said.  “Obamacare is ruining this country!  Life was great once.  Oil companies would fly you anywhere in the world.  Insurance would arrange luxury golf weekends.  Lobbyists would take you fly fishing and hunting.  Those days, we had our way in Congress.  We had stature.  Now you worry about reelection till you’re sick sometimes. 

“How do you keep a positive attitude,” I asked?

“When you’re this deep in a hole,” Congressman Crumb observed, “sometimes you have to send out for starlight.