FWIW - Stop The Presses!

Today’s regularly scheduled blog, “A Stranger In A Strange, Strange Land” has been rescheduled for a later date to be announced.

Instead, we feel it imperative to report this news, which should come as a welcome sign to other politically active persons who refer to themselves as ‘Progressives’.

If you’re reading this blog, it’s certain that you read others. And, of course, one of the most widely read and, in our humble opinion, one of the best is “Daily Kos” the website of Markos Moulitsas. Here’s some of what was posted by “kos”, as he refers to himself, posted Tuesday, December 19th at 4:57 pm, PST:

“Earlier today I wrote about the great recent news on youth voting, anchored by these observations. The first by Publius:
Speaking as a political scientist…Generally speaking, the “you get more conservative as you get older” myth really is a myth. People’s ideological/partisan identification don’t change much after the age of 30. If someone votes for the same party three times in a row, they’re hooked for life.
…
People don’t get more conservative as they get older, but they do get more rigid. What happens is that ideology acts as an informational screen – people shield out stuff that is inconsistent with their predispositions (which is why FOX News works). So as we get older, our attitudes get reinforced.

And:

In 1984 three exit polls pegged Ronald Reagan’s share of the ballots cast by Americans under 30 at between 57 and 60 percent. Reagan-style conservatism seemed fresh, optimistic and innovative. In 2006 voters under 30 gave 60 percent of their votes to Democratic House candidates, according to the shared media exit poll. Conservatism now looks old, tired and ineffectual.

Democrats are solidifying their hold on the Northeast and should make similar gains in the Midwest in the coming years. After that, I believe strongly that the Mountain West is the next source of gains for the party.

I would urge those who read my humble blog to check out “Daily Kos”.
You’ll find a wealth of informed thought authored by people who obviously care very deeply about our great country. Also, I’d like to recommend another site, “MyDD” (aka My Daily Democracy) for more well-informed commentary.
Without being too preachy, much of America’s dilemma stems from a deep apathy among voters. For there to be an almost 60% response in an off-year election, one must conclude that the nation had shaken off much of its lethargy out of a sense of distress borne out of a disastrous foreign policy playing out in Iraq.
The apathy manifested in our national elections I believe to be borne out of people’s perceptions that their vote really doesn’t count; that the real control of the levers of power rests in secure rooms that are hidden away from public scrutiny. When decisions are made by those whose interests are not in line with our own, and those decisions repeatedly work against the well-being of the national welfare, people succumb to the futility of active participation in our democratic system.

A little levity is in order at this point. Quoted on website Domai.com, (http://www.Domai.com/index.html) the ubiquitous Britney Spears says,
“Sundance (the film festival) is weird. The movies are weird – you actually have to think about them when you watch them.” Thanks, Britney; it always helps to have your input.

Tomorrow: Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas!

Today is December 20th, 2006. 760 days until the end of the Bush Administration.

FWIW – Desolation Highway, or “Gee I Wish I’d Written That Song”

Actually, I’ve no idea what possessed me to pen such a title. The two are really not related. Or maybe they are related.
The other day, remembrance flooded back to a time when I experienced my own personal ‘Desolation Highway’.
Driving home from my job at a little radio station in the middle of nowhere, the red “TEMP/PRESS” light came on. Ordinarily, not critical; this was my Chevrolet Corvair. For those of you who’ve owned one, that light is the one you don’t ignore. Once that light comes on, the driver has about 15 seconds to shut down before the engine seizes. Being air-cooled, the indication is that the fan belt has snapped or come off it’s tension bearings, and without air being forced over the exposed cylinder walls, the engine reaches something like 500 degrees in 10 to 15 seconds.
The second option, of course, is that something has caused the oil pressure to drop to like zero. And, the oil circulation pump also is driven by the same belt that runs the fan. Ingenious engineering, that.
Actually, the design was first used in an airplane engine. Air cooled, horizontally opposed cylinders worked quite well in an environment where the air temperature could be counted upon being considerable cooler than, say, ground level. Nevertheless, the Corvair was generally quite dependable and fun to drive. The rear engine changed the handling characteristics somewhat and Ralph Nader had a field day when enough drivers smashed them up to write a best-selling book (“Unsafe At Any Speed”) and make a pile of money.
So, the light had come on and I coasted to a stop by the side of the two-lane blacktop. To walk back to the radio station, the distance was close to eight miles. That would take, by my, estimate about two and a half hours. Which would mean that I could use the station phone to summon help at One thirty in the morning. This was in a town that effectively rolled up the sidewalks at Nine o’clock.
The other option was to continue on foot, homeward bound, hoping for some driver to pick me up, alone, out in the middle of nowhere, with my thumb out. Yeah, sure. I counted the cars that came past me on the fingers of one hand and had enough left over to pick my nose. One finger left, the other right.
A blister started to form on my right heel about six miles down the road.
About three and a half hours down the road my mouth was a dry as a Steven Wright monologue. At four and a half hours, I felt the blister ‘go’ and the cooling effect of moist sock attended the area. Relief, of course was transitory (about 30 seconds). Blessedly, the sharp pain became a dull ache rather quickly.
Finally, at about six and a half hours the faint light of a highway phone booth signaled that the ‘wye’ intersection of two highways was not far off. By my recollection the little country store which would, of course, be closed, had a drinking fountain. As the sun was just starting to light the eastern edge of the landscape, whether the water was cold or just tepid was the least of my concerns.
And, a phone call into town brought an acquaintance from the all-night truck stop down to bring me the last five miles to my neighborhood.
Since then, any time I’m on some back road I harken back to that night, and if there’s some poor soul limping along slightly, I hope I’ll have the humanity to slow down and offer a ride.
Some day I’ll write a song about “Desolation Highway” and what it taught me about where we are and where we want to go.

Tomorrow: A Stranger in a Strange, Strange Land

Today is December 19th; 761 days until the end of the Bush Administration

FWIW - My Brother Dies

It’s been 20 years since my brother Tommy died. The anger is gone, but a vestige of bitterness remains. Especially now, with this country mired in Iraq.
You see, Tommy did two tours of ‘Nam’. He was only required to do one tour, but he cared so much about these people that he went back to do a second tour. It isn’t certain which tour resulted in his exposure to Agent Orange, the carcinogen that took his life in 1986.
What is definite is that his company was detailed to an area saturated with the defoliant. He wrote us about it; about how the chemical agent withered the flora almost right before your eyes. We, the people, sent 58 thousand, 300 plus of our youngest, best and brightest to fight and die in a wretched little backwater of a country that was no threat to the United States.
We invaded that little country based on a lie, cunningly disguised under the “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution”. And, just like in 2002, Congress cowardly shunned its constitutional mandate to accept accountability for war-making.
Of course, we remember that fateful day in 1975 as the ‘Government’ fell and U.S. helicopters valiantly attempted to airlift civilians off the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. This time, who wants to guess how our ignominious retreat will be recorded for posterity?
Back to Tommy.
In 1977, then President Jimmy Carter issued a blanket amnesty for all young people who had left the country rather than serve in what they considered an immoral war. It (the amnesty) was intended to bind up the wounds to a nation done by a bitterly divisive military operation. Tommy was never particularly given to eloquence, but this one time he wrote a personal letter to President Carter. In that letter, he stated his opposition to such an amnesty, no matter how well-intentioned and framed, as Abraham Lincoln 100+ years earlier, “…with malice toward none…”. Tom wanted to return the medals he had earned in Viet Nam, feeling, as he said, “…betrayed”. Fortunately, Tommy’s C.O. had prevailed on him to not send the letter until he had ‘slept on it’. His C.O. made him realize that the medals he was awarded were in recognition of his own character, not related in any way, shape or form to the actions of others. Tommy had great respect for his superior and sent the letter to us, his family back here in the states. We were all proud of him as Mom read the letter to Dad, Grandma and me.
My own support for the war (the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was craftily ushered through Congress by one of the most savvy politicians of our time, Lyndon Baines Johnson) had been strong at the start. But, revelation of the “Pentagon Papers”, Richard Nixon’s “Secret Plan to end the War in Southeast Asia”, The Tet Offensive, the My Lai Massacre all combined to cause me to lose all faith in our leadership in Washington.
The worst injustice, as I look back, was the shameful treatment of our Viet Nam veterans. Our nation shunned them, treated them like it had been their choice to embark on a fool’s mission. Ostracized from the moment they stepped once again on our nation’s soil, many never recuperated from the trauma of a war that made victims of survivors.
Tommy accepted all of that stoically, chose to remain in the service and made as much of a career of the military as he could.
He did make a career for himself, taking classes whenever possible and advancing as well as an enlistee could. Until January of 1986.
Just a few months short of his eligibility for 20-year retirement, Tommy started feeling ill. He lost his appetite, or if he did eat, he couldn’t keep it down. That’s what multiple myeloma does to you. It’s a really nasty form of cancer. It grows inside you for a number of years, slowly, quietly. Then, like a demon, it goes wild. It jumps through your system the way a tornado jumps through a quiet rural community. Always looking four-square solid, Tommy was a gaunt shell of himself by the time Mom and I got to San Antonio on another cold and windy day.
With Grandma and Dad gone, Mom and I had to put up a good, positive front (as we agreed) so as to keep him in good spirits. We stayed a few days spending hours at the Army Hospital when he was not under sedation. Mom would return a dozen times or more to be with him and reminisce about times in New York and later in Phoenix, when we had moved west. I confess now, I couldn’t handle seeing him drifting in and out of being lucid. I begged off making the plane trips, justifying it with having an increased work load. I’m sure Tommy knew.
Then, on a Saturday afternoon in August, the call came. It was Mom. “Tommy’s gone” was all she said.

Tomorrow: Desolation Highway, or “Gee, I wish I had written that song!”

Today is December 18, 2006; 762 days until the end of the Bush Administration.

FWIW – Tommy

It was a cold and windy night. Additionally, the snow which had begun falling gently early in the afternoon was now showing that it had intentions of making movement difficult for us in the days ahead.
It was a Sunday in Bellrose, Long Island (N.Y.). Our home at 2A Huron Road was two-story. Grandma and Grandpa had the upstairs, while we lived on the ground floor. Of course, in those days, most of their time was spent downstairs with us; us being their daughter Ellen, Son-In-Law Forbes and Grandson, me. Typical nuclear family in the forties.
Dad, Mom and Grandma had left early in the afternoon, before the snow had begun to fall and I was having my nap.
Upon awakening, Grandpa put me at ease and we spent a pleasant afternoon together. Nothing unusual about that, I was not suspecting the change in family dynamics that lay ahead. An only child into my fifth year of life, no suspicions that things could alter in a literal blink of the eye.
Afternoon shadows grew longer; we could see the snow accumulating steadily outside, but inside Grandpa and I were snug and secure.
Darkness then, and together we turned on the television to watch “Super Circus” with Ringmaster Claude Kirshner, a Sunday evening staple. As best recollection comes to mind, it was past 8 o’clock when they came in through the front door, the cold wind and snow attempting vainly to gain entrance as well.
And, there they were, Mom and Dad and Grandma and something wrapped up in a mound of blankets, lightly dusted with a few flakes of snow, issuing wails banshee-like. Taken aback, my face must have shown a variety of conflicting emotions, curiosity, uncertainty, despair, then back to curiosity. “Look, Bobby, we’ve brought you a baby brother!” my Mother said, hoping to engender some sort of positive response.
It hadn’t dawned on me yet, but this interloper was not just a visitor, but was destined to stay; to be integrated into our family as a sixth where previously there had been but five. The more disconcerting realization was to come later; there were now going to be two little boys to lay claim to the energies of Mom, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa. So came the concept of sibling rivalry to an unprepared five year-old.
The first inklings were upon me rather soon, as the wails of the infant kept me awake all through that night, that seemingly endless night. Of course Mom and Dad were up with the new stranger as well. At the time, that was of little concern to me…I wanted to go to sleep but couldn’t with all the racket the newcomer was making!
As time went by, of course, the new family dynamic was established. At first there was denial. Then, betrayal. Followed by rejection (or did rejection come first, or did it presage betrayal?). Finally, at some point, acceptance of the inevitable. Tommy (Christened Thomas Forbes Beck)was my brother.
About two years later I was to learn about the concept of adoption.
My mother asked me one day about that awful night, when they had brought my brother home. At the approximate age of seven and a half, the processes of childbirth had not been that evident to me. Please remember, in 1950 things were different. Pregnancy was much more personal, more private, more adults-only, if you will.
I had responded to Mom’s question cautiously, “Did you know where we got the baby?” saying that I didn’t know. That day I was to learn that she and my Dad weren’t able to have children “the regular way” (a term that would come around again a few years later). She patiently explained that they both wanted another child, another boy to raise. With perhaps a bit of wisdom from who knows where at the age of seven and a half, I did not ask, “Why? Wasn’t I enough for you?” Mom continued, explaining to my immature self that they wanted another child because they had enjoyed raising me so much, they wanted to do it again and that they had chosen to adopt another child, just like they had adopted me.
A seven and a half year-old boy in 1950 has other things that claim his interest, so I just filed it away, figuring that Mom’s explanation was so calm and reasonable that the world just worked that way sometimes.
Of course, the sibling rivalry went on for years, even into adulthood.
As second child, Tom seemed (to me) to be able to get away with more bad behavior (as I judged). And though we were ‘brothers’, it was more of an in-name-only relationship.
Tom was the more athletic; Dad drew closer to him, it seemed to me. On the other hand, I was the more studious, the more disciplined; Mom said that of course she loved us both equally, but she liked me for me being who I was (Are you listening, Tommy Smothers?).
Years went by. Quite a few, in fact. On December 8th, 1980 I learned that my Dad had passed away early that morning. The news pierced my heart like a physical knife, it was so painful. Working in California at the time, I made arrangements with my employer and left back to Phoenix the next day.
The events of that day were somewhat blurred. Tommy and I arrived almost simultaneously at the mobile home where our parents had lived. Later in the evening I turned to Tommy and said, “Hey brother, want to go have a beer?” He agreed and the two of us took our leave assuring Mom that we would not be out late.
Sitting opposite each other that night, I ventured, “Well Tom, it’s just us now…” He said, “Yeah. Looks like it.” I told him how I had been jealous of his relationship with my Dad. He said that it had been good because he
had felt a need to be closer to Mom that never came to pass.
Adopted, the both of us, that night we knew what it meant to be brothers.

Tomorrow: My Brother Dies
Today is December 17th; 763 days until the end of the Bush Administration.