One of Our Own

I was watching that big European soccer match Saturday when I noticed something, and realized I had seen it before, pretty recently. Athletes who mess up, miss a shot, get caught in the wrong place or lose the big game now can be seen doing something that seems a little...odd. They reach for the top of their jerseys, and stretch them to cover their faces, as if this would make them disappear in front of a huge crowd.
I can sympathize a little, because I now recall doing almost the exact same thing over forty-five years ago. I was a competitor in high school debate tournaments. At one event, we, ah, failed to win any of our contests. I was so embarrassed that I spent the 150 mile drive home with an overcoat over my head. For what it's worth, my partner and I did manage to recover somewhat before the season ended.

When it was revealed that Robert Byrd, as a young man trying to jump start a political career, joined the KKK in his home state of West Virginia, voters didn't hold it against him even though the "hate radio" industry tried to exploit it. Bill Clinton's sexual transgressions got more notice, but not so much as to brand him unfit for the White House. Barack Obama's long association with a pastor who sometimes cut loose with what sounded like anti-white rants didn't keep Obama from being elected in 2008.
In light of all these examples, I don't think that Mitt Romney's youthful conduct as an anti-gay bully in a private school almost 50 years ago will carry much weight in the next election.
Even so, I find myself, as a Romney co-religionist, wondering about some things that wouldn't make any difference to non-Mormons.
The LDS Church is not the only one to urge members who have made mistakes to take advantage of the opportunity to repent, but it's spoken about pretty often. Even little children know that this involves trying to make things right with the offended party, consulting with a local leader, normally the "bishop" of a "ward", a local congregation of usually several hundred members, if the offense is a serious one, and resolving to not repeat the offense.
Members wishing to attend the church's most sacred services, held in temples around the world, must qualify through two interviews regarding personal worthiness. These interviews always include the question of whether there are offenses in the past which have NOT been repented of. Interviews are required every two years, so it's certainly not automatic that a member will always qualify.
Mitt Romney was once a "stake president" in the Boston area - the presiding local church officer for several thousand members. He no doubt gave many such interviews, and would know all about LDS standards of conduct.  Bullying isn't on any list of sins for Mormons, but causing others to suffer pain certainly goes over the line except perhaps in war.
Romney, when asked about the incident, knew that there were already five witnesses who recalled him leading a group against a young man thought to be gay, then, while others held him down, cutting his hair with scissors. He had the chance to talk about a youthful mistake, and what he did in order to repent. He could have, in the process, showed himself to be more compassionate than his image.
But if he had any such inclination, it was overruled by the campaign handlers. There was that nervous laugh we've come to cringe when hearing. No, he didn't remember the incident, but he was sorry if anyone was hurt or offended. Anyway, it was so long ago that no one even knew there was such a thing as a "homo-sexual". Heh heh. Any questions on my record as a "job creator"?
As I say, this long-ago incident would not keep Mitt Romney from being elected president. But am I, wrong to wonder about his words when asked about it today? After all, he's one of our own.
            

Clutch Time

Another week of "who could have predicted THAT?" political machinations. Obama makes public his change on gay marriage, which may or may not help the campaign, Mitt ends the week speaking to a crowd at Liberty University, a group who normally wouldn't have given him anything more than the backs of their hands and, in the strangest if not most memorable line of the week, Mitt tries to take credit for the GM/Chrysler comeback. I'm taking this last one and putting it next to "I'm not a crook",, "I invented the internet". "I did not have sex with that woman" and "Water boarding is not torture". If these fail to stand the test of time, there's always "I do not recall, your honor."

I hope people are taking time to watch sports drama unfold before their eyes. It's the NBA playoffs, where the best players on earth and some of the best athletes anywhere go mano a mano to see who's got what it takes to advance from the eight remaining teams.
The league of course puts on good shows all through the season, shortened this year because of a "labor dispute", but when it's playoff time, the defense gets tougher, the rebounds more hotly contested, the points decline and the pressure mounts. Last year's champs (the Mavs) are already gone, while in the east, ancient rivals the Celtics and 76ers are paired against each other again. Early favorites the Miami Heat have just lost one of their stars to injury, while the same problem led to an early exit by the Bulls. Meanwhile, lots of players are emerging from vicious scrums checking their faces for blood, with cameras just a few feet away. Everyone in the league makes tons of money, so this isn't about money. It's about being at your best when it counts the most.
But, naturally, not everyone likes the NBA. Some of it I can understand. Not everyone cares about any sports, and are baffled by people who do. Some people prefer college basketball, which is sometimes like the NBA without money, but usually just not as good. Some folks demand violence, and tune in to NASCAR or those ugly mixed martial arts guys.
But then, there are NBA objectors who will say things like "The pros make TOO MUCH money", or "They're too selfish" or " They're showoffs" or some other gripe about the way the game is officiated or coached or dominated by the players instead of management.
You have my word on this. When someone says things like the above, they are hiding their real complaint, perhaps even from themselves. Because what they may not say, but nevertheless believe, is that the NBA is too non-white.
There it is, folks. Ask the same people who their favorite player is, and they will reply "Larry Bird". Older ones may pick Jerry West. And both are excellent picks from among the top players ever to lace up sneakers. But ask them about Jordan, Chamberlain, Magic or any other nonwhite player, and they'll be back talking about some character flaw or other.
Of course, it's just a game, part of the entertainment industry, and there's nothing wrong with rooting for someone who looks or talks more like you. So we're not talking mortal sins here, but there it is. So who do we root for as clutch time is upon us? I just haven't decided.   

Celebrate, Celebrate....

I read something over the weekend that made me shake my head in amazement. The EPA, a creature of the Nixon administration, had been doing some studies in Wyoming. The aim of their research was to see if the practice of chemical "fracking" in the search for natural gas had caused any changes in local water quality. The Agency was set to report their findings last fall, but were persuaded to hold off the announcement because of objections from Wyoming state officials.
Do you catch what's happening here? The state bigshots are so worried that something could threaten the flow of money from the oil and gas industries that they are willing to take sides with the frackers against the health of THEIR OWN CITIZENS. And the citizens themselves, if past results are any indication, are so accustomed to having their state treated like a third world resource that they'll continue to vote Republican. Lots of tough, independent cowboys there - at least, until someone gets sick.

It was a decent week for news, but I'm always looking for things that reveal, often by accident, the newsmakers as they really are. The GOP was fussing about the Democrats, who noted that the successful raid on the bin Laden compound had taken place one year ago. As I recall, the White House was originally pretty low key about it, although they didn't intervene to stop anyone from dancing in the streets. I felt that it was the correct way to handle it.
But it's another year, and an election looms in the fall. The Mittstir decided to weigh in. To no one's surprise, he found this anniversary stuff to be in bad taste, as though it would have slipped Al Qaeda's minds if those darn Democrats could have just kept their mouths shut. Of course Mitt was also on board with the decision to conduct the raid - after the fact. A SLAM DUNK, though not described with that particular phrase.  Anyone would have done it, even, in what sounded like a gratuitous sneer, Jimmy Carter. Finally, there was the comment that such successes just shouldn't be used as fuel for our political campaigns.   
So, there they go again, hoping that we're too dumb to remember certain events from the not-too-distant past. Whose idea was it, for instance, to land the president on an aircraft carrier from which he made the big announcement that we had kicked Iraq's uh, behind? The big banner didn't say "Round One to Us" or "Years of Expensive Occupation Coming" or even "Time to Buy Stock in Military Contractors". It said "Mission Accomplished". During the same time you would never hear a speech from a Republican anywhere that didn't start "9-11, 9-11, 9-11". By the time 2004 rolled around, Dick Cheney had the inside dope claiming that Al Qaeda was all for a John Kerry win, because it would allow another, bigger attack on a US target. Four years later, McCain was saying roughly the same thing about Obama. And Romney? He tossed his jeans into the presidential ring in 2007, but his comments about bin Laden THEN seem much less gung-ho than now - after it's all been done.
The Democrats' hands might not be completely clean in having the president in Kabul exactly a year after taking out bin Laden, but please, PLEASE don't try to make us believe that a foreign policy success can't be a campaign issue. It's only off limits, it seems, when the OTHER guys were the ones who got it done.

Wordsmiths at Work

I really feel for people who started life using another language, who are then required to be up to date on every nuance introduced into their adopted language from dozens of different sources. I almost go woozy myself listening to people describe new phone apps or internet sites.
The political world does more than its share of this kind of linguistic riffing. For instance, there's the comeback of  "etch-a-sketch". It was originally a toy which hit the market sometime in the 60's or 70's that presented the user with the challenge of using two dials in conjunction to create a single line which might become a picture. Making a diagonal line was quite a challenge, and making a circle was nearly impossible, but the device's saving grace was the ease of starting over by simply giving it a shake or two. It was a big seller, though I can't explain just why.
Now, decades later, a Romney staffer uses the term "etch-a-sketch" in a kind of cynical way, suggesting that convictions expressed during the GOP primary season, when the audience skews hard (hard!) right, can be simply dumped in the general election campaign, when a broader range of ideology is needed to get elected.
Is it really that easy, especially when there are cameras and recorders whirring every moment the candidate is on stage making his pitch? Sure, almost all people contradict themselves from time to time, but getting caught in the act isn't a political candidate's favorite moment. Naturally, the quicker the flip happens in real time, the more damning. I've even heard "etch-a-sketch" used this year as a verb, as in "He can etch a sketch his way out of this". I don't suppose you have to pay a royalty to the toymaker when referring to this phenomenon. Still, it makes you wonder if "hula hoop" will ever have a political meaning. "Slip 'n Slide" might have some potential.

The political wordsmiths are always trying to spin a term that gives a little edge. The right (and this is meant as a compliment) seems especially adept at this. Terms like "job creator", "death tax" and "pro-life" are just a few examples. "Obamacare" has become so common that it gets used by both sides.
The most used term, though, seems to be the tried and true - "war". There was the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, and new skirmishes, hinted at but not proven, against Religion, Families, Women, and the entire Middle Class. That's a lot of wars, all looking for recruits to "fight" either for or against something. Gosh knows we use the term all the time in church, though the battles and casualties are largely symbolic in nature.
I think it does no harm to point out something that's actually aimed at either defending or changing something. Just looking at some numbers tells us that there is, for instance, far more energy directed at restricting certain medical procedures used exclusively by women than was the case just a few years ago. Could one cite what several states have tried to do in restricting the legal rights of public employee labor unions? I don't think it should be ignored. Still, I can't help thinking that real war is so horrific in nature that using the term in another context is a slap in the face of anyone who has ever faced enemy fire. Call something a "conflict" or a "controversy" or a "clash" or a "debate" if you must, but let's leave "war" as it is, the word that identifies the worst thing one society can visit upon another, before this unmistakable word loses all meaning.   

  

Surprising People in Our Midst

The election that caused the Republican Party, or at least one section of it, to go off the rails into full paranoia, producing the abuses we remember as Watergate, is now forty years behind us. Given the passage of time, it's inevitable that we remember less and less about the whole complicated mess and the people involved. In some countries they never forget things, while Americans can't seem to think of a way to make remembering pay off, other than to make and sell bumper stickers. We don't really bother to remember at all unless the information is going to be on a test.
I mention this because another of Nixon's old crew, Charles Colson, passed away over the weekend at the age of eighty. At one time, Colson was seen as perhaps the most ruthless of the Nixonites, and his role in Watergate got him a modest prison term.. Unlike some of his cronies, however, Colson got the message of imprisonment, and became a clergyman, with a special interest in prison reform and the redeeming of some of our worst citizens one at a time. As to his eternal judgment, I can't say. But I can say "Rest in peace, Mr. Colson. Your battles are over."

I've mentioned my association with Toastmasters before. It continues, though my own role in our club has become more advisory than competitive. Last week's meeting was a reminder that people can spontaneously reveal some pretty surprising stuff if the circumstances are right. Here are some things we learned about each other - in a one hour meeting.
A younger woman gave her first speech as a toastmaster. From somewhere she has been given the gift of being able to say a great deal without using many words. With almost no details, she spoke of being born in a kind of commune in New Mexico, and that this had an effect on even her childhood play. At one point, she simply said, "My mother kidnapped me." This led to years of short stays in places which she nevertheless learned about firsthand. She spoke about learning about the Mississippi River - by crossing it. She broke into tears twice, but then soldiered on, giving a fine introductory speech which lasted just under FOUR minutes. Well done!
One of our older members has all kinds of experiences in life, and he told the story of how a mysterious wedding invitation, which came to him as a teenager, opened the door to a long association with , of all things, Italian royalty. Fascinating.
A diminutive woman in the club who's always smiling told us how deciding to take up hiking with a local group, something she had never done before, led to all kinds of new knowledge and skills, AND was the way she met the man who's now her life partner.
A woman still in her thirties talked about the turn her life took during a previous marriage. When he didn't quickly get his way, her former husband evidently had the habit of  aggressively asking "Do you want to get a divorce?" He must have overplayed this hand, because the last time he threw out the question, his young helpmeet simply reached for a pencil and paper and replied "Shall we just divide up everything NOW?" Yikes.     
We've all been in situations which force us to listen when the real message can be given in one minute or less, but, in fact, IS given in an hour or two. BY contrast, NONE of the last three accounts above lasted more than two minutes. Today's unsought advice? If you've ever bored anyone or find yourself going on and on about less and less, do yourself a favor and find your way into a Toastmasters meeting.
You might be seen someday, if you are not already, as a surprising person.
  

Still Crazy...

Let's start with the announcement I promised a couple of weeks ago. I'm starting a new blog entitled "People in Scripture". It will be aimed at people who want a better understanding of why the ancient (and even the modern day) prophets, kings and their contemporaries may have thought and acted the way they did. I stress that this is undertaken without the approval, aid or endorsement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I take full responsibility for this blog, and urge anyone with an interest in the Church to make contacts with local members or contact LDS.org, where inquiries are welcome and treated with respect. I expect the new blog to be available this week, and will announce the event on this space. And, just so you'll know, I plan no changes in this blog, and hope to continue weekly entries.

Now, to more typical matters. I don't know how such things come about, but in the last election, a black Republican, Allan West, was elected to the House of Representatives from Florida. He's either a genius at getting people to know his name, or just a crazy guy destined for little more than his allotted fifteen minutes of fame. Right now the jury's still out.
Mr. West has a reputation of standing politically with the more far-removed from the mainstream of the Republican Party, which, gosh knows, means you have to say some pretty weird things. He was somewhere in the Sunshine State last week attending a town meeting when someone blurted out a question regarding the number of "card-carrying communists" in the US Congress. Some of the audience chuckled or groaned. West should have said that while being a communist is not against any law, and that members of Congress are not required to be members of any party, there are, in fact, NO members of Congress who identify themselves as communists.
But that would have been truthful, but a little boring for West, and so, with a straight face, he said that there are "between 78 and 81" communists in Congress. When asked for a name or two, West said that the Pinkos were easily identified, simply by their membership in the House Progressive Caucus, one of the largest of the subsets of congressional membership. Still dropping not a single name, a West staffer confirmed the statement the following day.
So there we are. No names, but a very specific number, and a ticket to temporary fame, exactly like Joe McCarthy did it back in the 1950's. Did any of this year's remaining GOP presidential candidates say West was over-the-top looney to make such an accusation (How could you run for office without lots of good ole capitalist cash ?)? That would be "NO", since GOP candidates this year are hard-pressed to keep up with the stuff coming soon to a megaphone near you courtesy of a Super-pac with WAY more cash than ethics. Remember, we still have six months plus to go to Election Day.    

And the NRA had their annual convention last week in St. Louis. One of the lobby's bigshots, Wayne LaPierre, who's not exactly French, gripped a huge lectern and took sides. There was never any doubt that the big guy would land on the GOP side of  the election, but the way he dragged out the gloom and doom scare words to describe what a second Obama administration would be like made me wonder if the two of us lived in the same country. All this vitriol aimed at someone who hadn't made a single legislative proposal to limit gun ownership or use. I couldn't see what the audience looked like, but would have guessed that the non-white faces were few, with lots of large weapons casually pointed their way. La Pierre didn't sink to race talk, but if he felt compelled to pump up Mitt Romney, who, as governor of Massachusetts backed more than one gun control proposal, then you have to wonder just how frightened by our president some folks are.
I don't know why the NRA chose St. Louis as the site of this gathering, but it's a city with a large violence problem, much of it involving guns. I'm guessing that not a single person at the conference addressed the question: Can the price of our "gun freedom" be TOO high? And no, I don't think anyone there thought about it, either.   

Meanness Makes a Comeback

Does anyone know the name Amy Goodman? Ms. G. is just like Rush Limbaugh, except that she's a woman (and that's a HUGE difference to El Rushbo), is frequently heard on NPR affiliates, and so she doesn't have to do commercials, and is (dare I use the word?) a liberal.
So Goodman's content differs from that of the FOX News crowd, and so does her approach to the news. There's none of the hand-waving, desk-pounding, mascara-slathering style that the FOX "news babes" have become so known for. No sneering condescension, no yelling, just facts delivered in a sort of understated way.
Our local paper runs Goodman's column once a week on Sundays, and this last one had me truly amazed. A police dispatch in White Plains, New York went out last November to answer a possible emergency at the home of  Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., a 68 year-old Marine veteran with a heart condition. Chamberlain had inadvertently sent a signal on his heart monitor device.
His heart didn't give out on him, but the officers sent to help Chamberlain ended up killing him, using a taser, a beanbag gun and finally, two bullets from a police service revolver. I can't write everything that Goodman included on Sunday, but found the column at the top of the list under Google search "white plains NY man shot in home by police". I must be stupid, but I can't see how these things keep happening. And, yes, Chamberlain was African American.

The last presidential campaign that I recall without much meanness was in 1996, when Bill Clinton found himself challenged by Bob Dole. There's no point in trying to remember the issues that year, which were few. The truth was that Clinton had no real animosity towards Dole, and Dole, in turn, was too old-fashioned to want to play the "Heavy". Sure, a good number of people hate Clinton to this day, but not because of anything from that campaign.
All that's over. The nominating process for this election isn't even over, but the accusations are flying thick and fast, and not just, to be fair, in one direction. The Citizens United decision has opened the gates to campaign spending that King Solomon himself couldn't match. The presidential contest alone will generate spending over $1 billion before it's all over.
But will we be more informed from all this campaigning? I fear we won't be, because much of it will go to the political "dark side" - negative ads long on accusation and short on explanation. The word "failure" gets thrown at the Obama administration as though no other possible word will do - and it's only April! GOP faithful in Congress have only one goal - winning the next election. This means secretly rooting against economic success, hyping any Obama plan that doesn't succeed and making accusations about the future (in which nothing has happened and anything could) that touch on anything from gun control to illegal voting to euthanizing the elderly, shutting down oil wells, letting Iran have their way, and imposing mandatory sharia law on the states. Many of these slurs won't come from the mouth of the candidate himself, but all that money could get some people to say just about anything, including that the upcoming "war on religion" will result in locked churches.
Today's bottom line: if you're tired of the 2012 campaign, get ready to reduce your news media consumption time or you'll be much more tired by the time it's over.