And now it starts—the taking back of America from what someone has called “the monster of the Republican Party.” Obama has won in a landslide. It was time.
The country that I took citizenship in is not a country of belligerent selfishness nor of hypocritical self-righteousness. The avenue that the country has traveled down in the last decade is not the America I knew—and for some time thought was gone. But it has survived and was just waiting to be reawakened.
Despite the thunderings of religious bigots who so often proved themselves to be the gays or adulturers that they denounced; despite the posturings of free-market zealots who had their hands in the national till all the while; despite the cynical manipulators of patriotism and national pride who sent us into a war that has claimed over 4000 of our young people and countless thousands of the people we were supposedly “saving”—despite all this, America has come back. We have elected someone who seems to have the steady hand and the composure to sort out the lies and tell us what we need to hear and not what America’s vanity might prefer.
In the weeks ahead, I hope that Obama brings us a message of sacrifice and working together. We need to hear it. I was touched by the poll that showed that a majority of people earning over $200,000 said they expected to pay more taxes and that it was all right. America has been good to them. It is fitting that they pay something back. For too long we have all been sipping from the public trough.
Obscene CEO compensation has been merely the tip of the ice berg. We’ve all had tax rebates. Defaulted credit spending has helped drain national capital. We have systematically dismantled our self-sufficiency by sending our manufacturing overseas. We were told to spend, spend, to keep the economy going. But, as my late husband used to say—it’s not possible to spend yourself rich.
Everyone was involved. Short-sighted local governments, dazzled by visions of increased income and an unwillingness to look for the long-term downsides, granted permits to developers to throw up more and yet more of development houses that borrowers could not afford and are now in foreclosure, leaving everyone else, including those who did not default on their mortgages, with devalued houses.
Everyone had a hand in this and everyone will suffer regardless of whether they were financially prudent. That’s not the American ideal—but it is the American reality.
It was one hell of a party with everyone coming dressed as some form of greed. Now it is morning and the room stinks of corruption and last night’s booze.
Anyone who thinks that this election was about abortion and “values” and supporting the military has watched too much FOX. It was about the economy and about the final waking up of the electorate to the fact that we’ve been had.
So, I say to Obama—put us on diet, make us be frugal, remind us about the lessons of prudence and cooperation, and try to get us beyond the easy self-serving answers that require no thought. We need to think more than ever.
Above all, though, I would say to him: I am delighted that your generation—the one we have stuck so cruelly with the bill for the party—has the chance to take the leadership away from the people who have messed up so royally. Go for it! But I also send you my most ferevent hope that you be safe from those who fear you and the change you must bring us.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
I Just Want it Over
Anyone else as sick of this election as I am? I can't even remember when this all started. I just remember an array of people in both parties putting each other down. Then the ridiculous sight of candidates behind a row of desks on stage trying to answer stupid questions intelligently (anyone else think of the Miss America pageant?). Then the barbs sent from one front runner to whoever appeared to be the competition. Now the last ditch efforts at name-calling and trying to dredge up scandal to convince the "undecided." Undecided?? Pullease--are these people just waking up from comas?
Come on. Enough already. Most of us have known for weeks if not months whom we're voting for. I want this thing over. I'm worn out with hanging up on recordings and muting the political ads. I've voted already. I just want some peace.
But even as I say that I realize that peace may be elusive. I read the other day that Ms. Palin is thinking about announcing her candidacy for the presidency in 2012should John McCain not make it. Does that strike fear into anyone else's heart besides mine? If she starts running the day after the election, we can look forward not only to an election season that never ends--bad enough--but to four more years of the wink and the smug anti-intellectualism.
The anti-intellectualism really troubles me because it seems to make a triumph of not thinking just at the time that we need to think harder than ever. The Puritans brought anti-intellectualism to American life. Thinking was counter to God, the pulpits thundered, and if you want to know the wages of thinking, just look at the lost Eden. It shows up now and then usually promoted by authoritarians, people who don't want others to think. Intellectuals are often the bad guys (for the religionists, it's the humanists)because they think, want proof, and aren't docile. They generally speak out when someone is just blowing smoke.
I'm an intellectual (if I don't sound too arrogant) and a pragmatist. I measure success by outcome and not by whether it makes me feel good that I am forcing someone else to conform to my personal set of beliefs.
I voted for Obama (early voting) because I want someone calm at the wheel and not the continuing bunch of carpetbaggers who have destroyed the economy. Sometimes I shake my head in disbelief as I listen to people. Can't they get beyond abortion and "palling with terrorists" to look with cool eyes on where this country is headed? Can't they get beyond emotion to see the policies that have led to the economic melt down? Can't they become informed partners in running the country and not rely on politicians who promise anything to get elected? This race shouldn't even be close.
When I taught writing to college freshmen, I used to warn them about "primary certitude." This is when you believe you have the absolute truth on something and refuse to listen to any other arguments. When you raise your voice and yell vehemently that you are right, you are generally falling into it.
There's been a whole lot of primary certitude--too much for my books--of it this election. I just want it over.
Come on. Enough already. Most of us have known for weeks if not months whom we're voting for. I want this thing over. I'm worn out with hanging up on recordings and muting the political ads. I've voted already. I just want some peace.
But even as I say that I realize that peace may be elusive. I read the other day that Ms. Palin is thinking about announcing her candidacy for the presidency in 2012should John McCain not make it. Does that strike fear into anyone else's heart besides mine? If she starts running the day after the election, we can look forward not only to an election season that never ends--bad enough--but to four more years of the wink and the smug anti-intellectualism.
The anti-intellectualism really troubles me because it seems to make a triumph of not thinking just at the time that we need to think harder than ever. The Puritans brought anti-intellectualism to American life. Thinking was counter to God, the pulpits thundered, and if you want to know the wages of thinking, just look at the lost Eden. It shows up now and then usually promoted by authoritarians, people who don't want others to think. Intellectuals are often the bad guys (for the religionists, it's the humanists)because they think, want proof, and aren't docile. They generally speak out when someone is just blowing smoke.
I'm an intellectual (if I don't sound too arrogant) and a pragmatist. I measure success by outcome and not by whether it makes me feel good that I am forcing someone else to conform to my personal set of beliefs.
I voted for Obama (early voting) because I want someone calm at the wheel and not the continuing bunch of carpetbaggers who have destroyed the economy. Sometimes I shake my head in disbelief as I listen to people. Can't they get beyond abortion and "palling with terrorists" to look with cool eyes on where this country is headed? Can't they get beyond emotion to see the policies that have led to the economic melt down? Can't they become informed partners in running the country and not rely on politicians who promise anything to get elected? This race shouldn't even be close.
When I taught writing to college freshmen, I used to warn them about "primary certitude." This is when you believe you have the absolute truth on something and refuse to listen to any other arguments. When you raise your voice and yell vehemently that you are right, you are generally falling into it.
There's been a whole lot of primary certitude--too much for my books--of it this election. I just want it over.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Who Benefits?
Cassandra was a Trojan princess given the gift of foresight by Apollo who, since she rejected him, accompanied it with the curse of not being believed. I don’t claim Cassandra’s flawless pre-knowledge but at this point in my life and America’s history, I think I understand how she must have felt.
Let me picture her for a moment. She has offered the prophecy that Troy is going to fall to the besieging Greeks. She pleads with the Trojans to listen. They don’t of course—that’s her curse after all. Troy falls and she is doomed to live the rest of her short life as a Greek prisoner, trapped in the guilt that if perhaps if she had only been more persuasive, if she had only couched things in better terms, if she had only chosen different words, that perhaps she might have been heard and might have saved her city and family. Apollo indeed had his revenge.
We all live with what-ifs. When you’ve lived as long as I have and have been around power, as I was—on the sidelines admittedly but I could see there from where I was—most people develop a wise and seemly skepticism—or at least ought to.
One of the things you learn is that the ways things are spun are seldom the way they are. The wise person approaches every proposal with the question “Who benefits?” So often otherwise altruistic leaders succumb to the loudest voices among their constituents. Nothing then can get done unless somebody benefits and it is not always the people in whose name some contract or program is funded.
This principle applies as much to contracts to build schools and roads as it does to wars and nuclear-non-proliferation treaties. It particularly applies to groups wanting approval of constitutional amendments. Someone is benefiting. Is it whom you believe it to be? Find out and you find out what really is happening.
Eight years ago, I found myself faced with a presidential candidate appealing to patriotism and the “American Way.” My bull meter turned on. Who’s benefiting? The candidate wanted to lift all “interference” on business. He said removing all restraint would enhance competition and would create jobs. He promoted the ideal of a world in which business unimpeded by government would raise all boats.
I didn’t have to be Cassandra to predict what was likely to happen given the reality of human and corporate greed. He may have been wedded to the idea of a free economy but his supporters were committed to profit. Who benefited was every corporation and entity that could afford a lobbyist and wanted to feed at the public trough. I was perplexed and still am: how could anyone not understand the greed and public damage such a policy would inevitably arouse?
Through the years, I’ve learned to be skeptical. I’ve watched money change hands supposedly for some noble purpose but actually for personal ego and future favor. I’ve watched people not in the know think they have “won” some benefit without understanding how they have been pawns in some process far larger than they. Sometimes it’s been so obvious that I’ve had to conclude that people were being willfully ignorant.
Above all, I’ve learned that human nature doesn’t change. It was just as greedy and willful in Greece and Troy as it is today. Even the Church has had to reign in unruly human beings: the Ten Commandments are basic rules for people who have to live together.
As of October 2008, what frightens me most, though, is the possibility that the lessons of controlling human greed have apparently not been learned.
Cassandra today might tell us to move beyond phony idealism and old, comforting “truths” and accept that we are just as prone to error as the Trojans. She might challenge us to grow as a nation by allowing ourselves to recognize that pride is blinding us to those who cynically profit from it. We ought collectively to be able to look into the mirror and shudder at how we tolerate personal attacks, name-calling, appeals to emotion and prejudice, flag-waving, half-truths, and the artificial us-versus-them. On the contrary, we need to be clearheaded to recognize where the power really is and what it’s being used for.
Power is hard-edged, silent, and unemotional. I’ve seen it. It’s a coiled snake waiting for opportunity. It uses patriotism and vanity as the venom to remove its opponents. It never believes in intangibles like patriotism. It hisses with pleasure when people waste their time squabbling over lapel pins because they never ask the real questions. It shakes the rattle in its tail to panic us into feeding it. And until we as a nation are mature enough to confront and control this power, it will continue to distract us from our responsibility of determining and taking responsibility for our future.
Let me picture her for a moment. She has offered the prophecy that Troy is going to fall to the besieging Greeks. She pleads with the Trojans to listen. They don’t of course—that’s her curse after all. Troy falls and she is doomed to live the rest of her short life as a Greek prisoner, trapped in the guilt that if perhaps if she had only been more persuasive, if she had only couched things in better terms, if she had only chosen different words, that perhaps she might have been heard and might have saved her city and family. Apollo indeed had his revenge.
We all live with what-ifs. When you’ve lived as long as I have and have been around power, as I was—on the sidelines admittedly but I could see there from where I was—most people develop a wise and seemly skepticism—or at least ought to.
One of the things you learn is that the ways things are spun are seldom the way they are. The wise person approaches every proposal with the question “Who benefits?” So often otherwise altruistic leaders succumb to the loudest voices among their constituents. Nothing then can get done unless somebody benefits and it is not always the people in whose name some contract or program is funded.
This principle applies as much to contracts to build schools and roads as it does to wars and nuclear-non-proliferation treaties. It particularly applies to groups wanting approval of constitutional amendments. Someone is benefiting. Is it whom you believe it to be? Find out and you find out what really is happening.
Eight years ago, I found myself faced with a presidential candidate appealing to patriotism and the “American Way.” My bull meter turned on. Who’s benefiting? The candidate wanted to lift all “interference” on business. He said removing all restraint would enhance competition and would create jobs. He promoted the ideal of a world in which business unimpeded by government would raise all boats.
I didn’t have to be Cassandra to predict what was likely to happen given the reality of human and corporate greed. He may have been wedded to the idea of a free economy but his supporters were committed to profit. Who benefited was every corporation and entity that could afford a lobbyist and wanted to feed at the public trough. I was perplexed and still am: how could anyone not understand the greed and public damage such a policy would inevitably arouse?
Through the years, I’ve learned to be skeptical. I’ve watched money change hands supposedly for some noble purpose but actually for personal ego and future favor. I’ve watched people not in the know think they have “won” some benefit without understanding how they have been pawns in some process far larger than they. Sometimes it’s been so obvious that I’ve had to conclude that people were being willfully ignorant.
Above all, I’ve learned that human nature doesn’t change. It was just as greedy and willful in Greece and Troy as it is today. Even the Church has had to reign in unruly human beings: the Ten Commandments are basic rules for people who have to live together.
As of October 2008, what frightens me most, though, is the possibility that the lessons of controlling human greed have apparently not been learned.
Cassandra today might tell us to move beyond phony idealism and old, comforting “truths” and accept that we are just as prone to error as the Trojans. She might challenge us to grow as a nation by allowing ourselves to recognize that pride is blinding us to those who cynically profit from it. We ought collectively to be able to look into the mirror and shudder at how we tolerate personal attacks, name-calling, appeals to emotion and prejudice, flag-waving, half-truths, and the artificial us-versus-them. On the contrary, we need to be clearheaded to recognize where the power really is and what it’s being used for.
Power is hard-edged, silent, and unemotional. I’ve seen it. It’s a coiled snake waiting for opportunity. It uses patriotism and vanity as the venom to remove its opponents. It never believes in intangibles like patriotism. It hisses with pleasure when people waste their time squabbling over lapel pins because they never ask the real questions. It shakes the rattle in its tail to panic us into feeding it. And until we as a nation are mature enough to confront and control this power, it will continue to distract us from our responsibility of determining and taking responsibility for our future.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
America's Political Super Bowl
With the Wall Street bailout debacle going on, I feel like a failed lemming who doesn’t know which cliff to jump off. I have no idea who to believe: the group that is predicting that we will all lose our jobs through lack of available credit, or the one that says this is just another rip off. I’m not invested in the stock market precisely because I don’t pretend to understand it. All I know is that someone—make that a whole lot of someones—failed in their jobs.
The Washington Post says that a major part of the problem was not the usual culprits we’re hearing about but instead was the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who decided their role was profit and they used their money—our money—to hire lobbyists to tear down any regulation imposing controls on them. I suppose grab and run sums up corporate philosophies these days. I sure hate to see them rewarded by further mortgaging our children.
This whole affair, coming as it does with that period of insanity known as the election, provides a double whammy, meaning that there’s no one left to trust. Everyone’s become corrupt and a special interest—even organized religion. I am left to wonder what it is that I am watching.
The closest I can come to describing the spectacle is to call it the American Political Super Bowl. This seems appropriate because people are not choosing candidates—they are choosing sides, and they are prepared to defend their team with flag waving and loud shouting that says absolutely nothing except “Go Team.”
On the one side, we have Team America. They are known for loud foot stomping while chanting USA, USA. They wear American flag pins. They want things to remain as they were: comfortable and predictable and flattering to their vanity. They do a lot of talking about values (their own), standing on their own two feet and not taking hand-outs, and building fences to keep out illegal immigrants. They still want to dominate the world through military force (“Americans love a war,” said General Patton, the team owner of Team America), and they love to kick butt. Corporations love them because Team America believes in the almighty (although now devaluing dollar) and tries to remove all restraints on raising that buck. They tend to look on minorities as mostly illegals, encroaching on the American dream, and better off out of the country if they aren’t willing to work for less than minimum wage. Their hero is Ronald Reagan, the head coach and author of trickle down economics.
On the other side, we have Team Future. These are people who are chanting “Cut us in. Cut us in.” They distrust corporations because they are making money and not offering benefits. They like to picket Wal Mart because they think it doesn’t pay its workers enough. They may be part of America’s growing minority future and have an attitude problem toward Whitey or the Man or Gringos, or whatever they call the shrinking Caucasian population. They are likely to favor Affirmative Action programs but get resentful if someone suggests that they or anyone else might not have succeeded without them. They like to blame lack of opportunity for their lack of progress and talk a lot about raising the minimum wage. Many of their parents look back with nostalgia to the days when unions meant something. They like social programs and are more likely to favor choice when it comes to what they call reproductive rights. John Kennedy is the owner of this team and its coach is Ted Kennedy.
Trying to referee, somewhere in the middle of the field, is a bunch of Independents who are endlessly courted by either team and who stand, like me, dazed in the glare of the headlights of the two on-rushing groups. These Independents are something of a mystery to the two teams who either feel that if they aren’t part of the solution they’re part of the problem, or that they should either love America or leave it. While the teams line up along the sidelines and the cheerleaders kick up their thighs to loud cheers, the Indies are likely to be in the end zones and wondering what the hell is going on.
What IS going on? In the end it is only a game, after all. Presidents can’t do that much without majorities in Congress. Bush’s trouble was that he had a Congress in which his party had the majority in both houses. He might have been a more successful president if he had encountered opposition and been forced to defend his policies. I see him now as a tragic figure as Aristotle described that figure in The Poetics: a man who does what he believes is best and is destroyed by it, destroying others around him in the process.
Personally, I would like to see both teams cool it a bit. All the cheerleading, the name-calling, the posturing, and the ticket selling is turning me off—and I’m one of the people in the middle so supposedly I’m desirable. I want both sides to quit telling me they are absolutely right. I want them to talk about issues rather than spin me slogans. And I PARTICULARLY want them to stop sending me passionate e-mails that are false, misleading, and full of crap. Do they think because I’m independent I am also stupid?
I nominated myself for Vice President because I was tired of this nonsense. I want someone to come forward who is not an ideologue, not zealous, and not a messiah.
I want someone to acknowledge the fact that dealing with Middle East has no easy answers because there are thirty-five hundred years of history that most Americans don’t bother to learn before they rush in with fix-its such as democracy. These are people who live two thousand years ago as if it is yesterday. Now we are part of what they will remember in another 2,000 years.
I want someone who will understand that governments balance and protect for the sake of fairness and the national interest; they do not promote one group over another except in exceptional cases such as ensuring fairness and civil rights, which are part of what this country prides itself for.
I want someone who will understand that the rule of law is not something to be manipulated to someone’s pet point of view. Either we have a nation of laws or we have a nation of constitutional amendments that serve special interests.
My God—what I really want in a president is intelligence, objectivity, judgement, education, and compassion. Does such an animal exist? I hope that America is the winner when the referee calls, “Play Ball.”
The Washington Post says that a major part of the problem was not the usual culprits we’re hearing about but instead was the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who decided their role was profit and they used their money—our money—to hire lobbyists to tear down any regulation imposing controls on them. I suppose grab and run sums up corporate philosophies these days. I sure hate to see them rewarded by further mortgaging our children.
This whole affair, coming as it does with that period of insanity known as the election, provides a double whammy, meaning that there’s no one left to trust. Everyone’s become corrupt and a special interest—even organized religion. I am left to wonder what it is that I am watching.
The closest I can come to describing the spectacle is to call it the American Political Super Bowl. This seems appropriate because people are not choosing candidates—they are choosing sides, and they are prepared to defend their team with flag waving and loud shouting that says absolutely nothing except “Go Team.”
On the one side, we have Team America. They are known for loud foot stomping while chanting USA, USA. They wear American flag pins. They want things to remain as they were: comfortable and predictable and flattering to their vanity. They do a lot of talking about values (their own), standing on their own two feet and not taking hand-outs, and building fences to keep out illegal immigrants. They still want to dominate the world through military force (“Americans love a war,” said General Patton, the team owner of Team America), and they love to kick butt. Corporations love them because Team America believes in the almighty (although now devaluing dollar) and tries to remove all restraints on raising that buck. They tend to look on minorities as mostly illegals, encroaching on the American dream, and better off out of the country if they aren’t willing to work for less than minimum wage. Their hero is Ronald Reagan, the head coach and author of trickle down economics.
On the other side, we have Team Future. These are people who are chanting “Cut us in. Cut us in.” They distrust corporations because they are making money and not offering benefits. They like to picket Wal Mart because they think it doesn’t pay its workers enough. They may be part of America’s growing minority future and have an attitude problem toward Whitey or the Man or Gringos, or whatever they call the shrinking Caucasian population. They are likely to favor Affirmative Action programs but get resentful if someone suggests that they or anyone else might not have succeeded without them. They like to blame lack of opportunity for their lack of progress and talk a lot about raising the minimum wage. Many of their parents look back with nostalgia to the days when unions meant something. They like social programs and are more likely to favor choice when it comes to what they call reproductive rights. John Kennedy is the owner of this team and its coach is Ted Kennedy.
Trying to referee, somewhere in the middle of the field, is a bunch of Independents who are endlessly courted by either team and who stand, like me, dazed in the glare of the headlights of the two on-rushing groups. These Independents are something of a mystery to the two teams who either feel that if they aren’t part of the solution they’re part of the problem, or that they should either love America or leave it. While the teams line up along the sidelines and the cheerleaders kick up their thighs to loud cheers, the Indies are likely to be in the end zones and wondering what the hell is going on.
What IS going on? In the end it is only a game, after all. Presidents can’t do that much without majorities in Congress. Bush’s trouble was that he had a Congress in which his party had the majority in both houses. He might have been a more successful president if he had encountered opposition and been forced to defend his policies. I see him now as a tragic figure as Aristotle described that figure in The Poetics: a man who does what he believes is best and is destroyed by it, destroying others around him in the process.
Personally, I would like to see both teams cool it a bit. All the cheerleading, the name-calling, the posturing, and the ticket selling is turning me off—and I’m one of the people in the middle so supposedly I’m desirable. I want both sides to quit telling me they are absolutely right. I want them to talk about issues rather than spin me slogans. And I PARTICULARLY want them to stop sending me passionate e-mails that are false, misleading, and full of crap. Do they think because I’m independent I am also stupid?
I nominated myself for Vice President because I was tired of this nonsense. I want someone to come forward who is not an ideologue, not zealous, and not a messiah.
I want someone to acknowledge the fact that dealing with Middle East has no easy answers because there are thirty-five hundred years of history that most Americans don’t bother to learn before they rush in with fix-its such as democracy. These are people who live two thousand years ago as if it is yesterday. Now we are part of what they will remember in another 2,000 years.
I want someone who will understand that governments balance and protect for the sake of fairness and the national interest; they do not promote one group over another except in exceptional cases such as ensuring fairness and civil rights, which are part of what this country prides itself for.
I want someone who will understand that the rule of law is not something to be manipulated to someone’s pet point of view. Either we have a nation of laws or we have a nation of constitutional amendments that serve special interests.
My God—what I really want in a president is intelligence, objectivity, judgement, education, and compassion. Does such an animal exist? I hope that America is the winner when the referee calls, “Play Ball.”
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Writing to be Read
Hello to my loyal readers: all dozen of you! If you are enjoying this blog, how about forwarding it to your friends? I'm human and just as egoncentric as everyone else. I'd love to be read. You can reach me at dianamdeluca@aol.com if you want to comment or argue. But there is also a place at the end of each entry for you to comment more publicly. Thanks for reading this! Diana
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Me for Vice President
The wisest political commentary I’ve received lately comes from my hair stylist. She’s a single woman, earning her living the hard way, paying her taxes and not seeing that she’s getting much in return. “Calm down,” she told me as she cut my hair. “Now that the Wall Street thing has happened, people are reminded of what’s important. They’ll see through the cute stuff with Palin. We’re smarter than they think.”
Her calm confidence made me wonder why I am so personally offended by the selection of John McCain’s Mini-Me, the trophy Vice President, Sarah Palin. I think part of it may be because many other women—including me—appear better qualified to be a heartbeat away other than just being women, handy, and agreeing with John McCain.
Wow--you may be thinking. She thinks she's qualified to run for such high office? Well--if Ms. Palin is the yardstick, I think I am. And why not? I've been in public life for a lot longer than she has and I'll stack my university experience against her state experience. The budget and infrastructure of most big public universities are larger than Alaska's and I'm willing to bet that our students and faculty are just as independent and unruly as her citizens. So please bear with me and allow me to provide you with the following checklist of our qualifcations.
People Skills: In my younger days, I went out on the picket line for women’s issues. We didn’t get it all (the Equal Rights Amendment) and women still earn less than men but we got some of it. In fact, it was quite exciting to think that the FBI might have files on us all—alas, when I applied to see my file, the FBI claimed not have one. I bet Ms. Palin doesn’t even think about what we went through to make sure she could have a career. Score: one point for me for social activism.
Overcoming Adversity: My doctorate got earned the hard way—even though I was a good student the scholarships went to the men (they had families to support, don’t you know?) so the burden of graduate school fell on me and my family. Score: one point for me for proven determination.
Administrative Experience: My most salient experience, of course, is that I have been a cabinet member on the staff of the president of the University of Hawaii. I was, in fact, listed as one of three most powerfully placed women on the president’s staff. We worked with a budget about $1 billion (fifteen years ago), so it probably compares well with Alaska’s state budget today which is around $8 billion. Administering a university system has to be equivalent of being the mayor of a small town. Score: Let’s be generous: one point for each of us.
Dealing with Difficult People: The president sent me out as a trouble shooter to wherever trouble appeared. This included dealing with fraternities (who liked to send their pledges on a nude run round the campus after dark--the Honolulu Police Department loved that), the Athletics Department and the NCAA, which I am sure Ms. Palin has never been faced with. Score: One point for me although anyone who has dealt the NCAA might say this was worth two.
Federal Policy: Then there were the legal problems. I worked with the state attorney general to manage the university’s unending law suits (usually with the university as a defendant)—everything from people cutting their feet on sprinklers to equal opportunity and sexual harassment complaints. Ms. Palin probably knows about the employment policies given the brouhaha with her ex-brother-in-law, but I doubt she has dealt with a student complaining about being stalked by a professor. Score: One point for me.
State Legislature: When I left the university, I had two commendations from the State of Hawaii Legislature and a personal commendation from the governor. Now, I admit that I did not run for office but my office supervised the university’s lobbyists and I was named by the governor to commissions and task forces. I was part of the hands-on, direct process for establishing international agreements with Viet Nam (prior to normalization of relations), Russia, and Thailand. I figure my international experience (got her there) makes up for at least some of her public experience. Score: I’ll give myself a point here, but I’ll concede her three points.
The grand total then is six points for me and four for Ms. Palin. The only real advantage I see that she has over me (besides getting herself elected) is her hobby of shooting wolves from aircraft. But since I feel that even a wolf deserves a fair chance, I will concede that one to her. Forgive me if I don’t award any points.
Wal-Mart Mom: I’ve been told that Palin’s strength is with Wal-Mart Moms—apparently these are votes that McCain can’t get by himself. Now, I don’t know who they mean by Wal-Mart Moms— Cindy McCain may not shop at Wal-Mart, but I do. My step-granddaughter works there and if the economy keeps sliding, I might be glad of a job there myself. I therefore believe I can counter Ms. Palin’s advantage by arguing that I too am a mother and that I do indeed shop at Wal-Mart.
Therefore, given my obvious advantage, may I ask for your support of my nomination for Vice President of the United States? As I hope I have demonstrated, I have the requisite experience and will stand by my pledges to you (as long as they are useful). But I do make one promise that I intend to keep. I promise faithfully that I will not go out and buy new eyeglasses no matter how cute they look on my opponent.
Her calm confidence made me wonder why I am so personally offended by the selection of John McCain’s Mini-Me, the trophy Vice President, Sarah Palin. I think part of it may be because many other women—including me—appear better qualified to be a heartbeat away other than just being women, handy, and agreeing with John McCain.
Wow--you may be thinking. She thinks she's qualified to run for such high office? Well--if Ms. Palin is the yardstick, I think I am. And why not? I've been in public life for a lot longer than she has and I'll stack my university experience against her state experience. The budget and infrastructure of most big public universities are larger than Alaska's and I'm willing to bet that our students and faculty are just as independent and unruly as her citizens. So please bear with me and allow me to provide you with the following checklist of our qualifcations.
People Skills: In my younger days, I went out on the picket line for women’s issues. We didn’t get it all (the Equal Rights Amendment) and women still earn less than men but we got some of it. In fact, it was quite exciting to think that the FBI might have files on us all—alas, when I applied to see my file, the FBI claimed not have one. I bet Ms. Palin doesn’t even think about what we went through to make sure she could have a career. Score: one point for me for social activism.
Overcoming Adversity: My doctorate got earned the hard way—even though I was a good student the scholarships went to the men (they had families to support, don’t you know?) so the burden of graduate school fell on me and my family. Score: one point for me for proven determination.
Administrative Experience: My most salient experience, of course, is that I have been a cabinet member on the staff of the president of the University of Hawaii. I was, in fact, listed as one of three most powerfully placed women on the president’s staff. We worked with a budget about $1 billion (fifteen years ago), so it probably compares well with Alaska’s state budget today which is around $8 billion. Administering a university system has to be equivalent of being the mayor of a small town. Score: Let’s be generous: one point for each of us.
Dealing with Difficult People: The president sent me out as a trouble shooter to wherever trouble appeared. This included dealing with fraternities (who liked to send their pledges on a nude run round the campus after dark--the Honolulu Police Department loved that), the Athletics Department and the NCAA, which I am sure Ms. Palin has never been faced with. Score: One point for me although anyone who has dealt the NCAA might say this was worth two.
Federal Policy: Then there were the legal problems. I worked with the state attorney general to manage the university’s unending law suits (usually with the university as a defendant)—everything from people cutting their feet on sprinklers to equal opportunity and sexual harassment complaints. Ms. Palin probably knows about the employment policies given the brouhaha with her ex-brother-in-law, but I doubt she has dealt with a student complaining about being stalked by a professor. Score: One point for me.
State Legislature: When I left the university, I had two commendations from the State of Hawaii Legislature and a personal commendation from the governor. Now, I admit that I did not run for office but my office supervised the university’s lobbyists and I was named by the governor to commissions and task forces. I was part of the hands-on, direct process for establishing international agreements with Viet Nam (prior to normalization of relations), Russia, and Thailand. I figure my international experience (got her there) makes up for at least some of her public experience. Score: I’ll give myself a point here, but I’ll concede her three points.
The grand total then is six points for me and four for Ms. Palin. The only real advantage I see that she has over me (besides getting herself elected) is her hobby of shooting wolves from aircraft. But since I feel that even a wolf deserves a fair chance, I will concede that one to her. Forgive me if I don’t award any points.
Wal-Mart Mom: I’ve been told that Palin’s strength is with Wal-Mart Moms—apparently these are votes that McCain can’t get by himself. Now, I don’t know who they mean by Wal-Mart Moms— Cindy McCain may not shop at Wal-Mart, but I do. My step-granddaughter works there and if the economy keeps sliding, I might be glad of a job there myself. I therefore believe I can counter Ms. Palin’s advantage by arguing that I too am a mother and that I do indeed shop at Wal-Mart.
Therefore, given my obvious advantage, may I ask for your support of my nomination for Vice President of the United States? As I hope I have demonstrated, I have the requisite experience and will stand by my pledges to you (as long as they are useful). But I do make one promise that I intend to keep. I promise faithfully that I will not go out and buy new eyeglasses no matter how cute they look on my opponent.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Los Alamos Mon Amour
When I was an undergrad at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa campus back in the early sixties, there was a tavern called The Blue Goose in Mo’ili’ili, the small town below the campus. I had a husband and child at home so I didn’t get to spend much time there, but I did have lunch now and then. I remember it mostly as dark and somewhat noisy, but one thing remains vivid. On one wall, there was a large poster about what to do in the event of a nuclear attack on the Hawaiian Islands. There was a list of what sounded like fairly prudent precautions (stay away from windows, don’t look at the blast etc.) but it ended with the advice to get under a table, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.
The question of surviving a nuclear attack was intensely interesting to us in Hawaii because of the many military targets in the chain. We knew that if the main island of Oahu came under attack, very few would be left to kiss anything goodbye. This realization was underlined by the fact that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had happened less that twenty years before, there was a mad scramble among nations to amass as many weapons as possible, and even our own government was occupied blowing up empty land somewhere in the deserts of Nevada and New Mexico. I know every generation loses its innocence at some point, but I also have to believe the new power to blow up the world made our angst uniquely poignant.
All during the time I was in college, we lived under threat. It was the 1960s version of today’s terrorism and just as real. We watched the Cuban Missile Crisis unfold and held our breaths. Even when that passed, the threat didn’t. With time, we developed a cynical ability to laugh at what we feared—a point of view brilliantly reflected in the movie “Dr. Strangelove” in 1964. Some of us became activists against all wars, others tried not to think too much about it, yet others—like me—became morbidly curious. I found myself wondering why this monster had been developed, how it came about, and where it had all happened. This is what took me recently to Los Alamos—a city on a plateau high above Santa Fe, the site of the Manhattan Project that developed the bomb and still home to the Los Alamos National Lab.
I think I went to Los Alamos looking for a piece of the youthful joy that we of my generation lost. But as Sid and I drove down the main street of modern research facilities—still secure but not surrounded as they once were by barbed wire designed to both enclose and exclude—I realized I was seeking the wrong thing. All of a sudden it was 1942. The war could still be lost. The Axis allies were said to be working on a new weapon of catastrophic power and if this nation were to survive, the Axis had to be beaten to it. The most brilliant scientific brains were gathered on this muddy mesa with no less a mission than to develop a weapon that would end the war. Among those who literally “disappeared” from civilian life, there was a real sense of mission and excitement. The Los Alamos historical museum housed in one of the few surviving buildings used by the original project shows just how uncomfortable the setting was and what little reward there was except for contributing to the national effort. And yet that was enough. The scientists and the graduate students stayed and did the job.
I am quite sure the scientists didn’t think at first about the consequences of what they were achieving. Their focus was on solving the various technical issues associated with fission and implosion—a chain reaction that they weren’t even sure would work. They certainly weren’t thinking about students at The Blue Goose twenty years in the future. The awareness of the bomb’s potential came after the Trinity test and as the implications of nuclear weapons became more obvious and the post World War II world began to take shape. There were to be protests around the world. There were to be recriminations. There were to be the true horror stories of what happened at Ground Zero. There were to be accusations of disloyalty made against some of the scientists who wanted to harness the power of the atom for peaceful purposes and discourage its use as a military weapon. There was, in other words, to be the luxury of hindsight.
Los Alamos reminds me of the controversy surrounding WWII Bomber Command. At a time when Britain stood alone and at one point had only two-weeks’ worth of food for the island, the niceties of bombing only military targets seemed beside the point. No one wanted deliberately to bomb civilians, but in the struggle for survival they died on both sides. When the RAF and then the RCAF and the USAF took the war to Germany, the point was to win. Looking back on the bombing and the incredible loss of life both among the aircrews and those on the ground, some revisionist historians have tried to rewrite history to the intense annoyance of the surviving aircrews who risked their lives and watched their comrades—my father among them—drop to a fiery death. But nothing is clear-cut during wartime. I remember bomb craters in the roads in my hometown of Brighton on England’s south coast. I heard how adults still talked about the Blitz in London and how they said bombing Germany was getting a bit of our own back. It’s only natural that perspectives change with time and victory.
Much the same has happened at Los Alamos. When it comes to how we view the Manhattan Project and the scientists working on it, it seems to me that we have a choice. We can look only at the devastation caused by the splitting of the atom and decry the waste of the arms race that ensued. Many have done that and I can recall protesters in London waving placards saying ‘Ban the Bomb.’ Or we can marvel at the fact that the work was achieved at all, let alone under conditions of extreme security and haste, and understand that it was part and parcel of the time that spawned it. Perhaps we need to do a bit of both. But however we choose to view the work conducted at Los Alamos, we need to acknowledge that it changed our world forever.
The question of surviving a nuclear attack was intensely interesting to us in Hawaii because of the many military targets in the chain. We knew that if the main island of Oahu came under attack, very few would be left to kiss anything goodbye. This realization was underlined by the fact that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had happened less that twenty years before, there was a mad scramble among nations to amass as many weapons as possible, and even our own government was occupied blowing up empty land somewhere in the deserts of Nevada and New Mexico. I know every generation loses its innocence at some point, but I also have to believe the new power to blow up the world made our angst uniquely poignant.
All during the time I was in college, we lived under threat. It was the 1960s version of today’s terrorism and just as real. We watched the Cuban Missile Crisis unfold and held our breaths. Even when that passed, the threat didn’t. With time, we developed a cynical ability to laugh at what we feared—a point of view brilliantly reflected in the movie “Dr. Strangelove” in 1964. Some of us became activists against all wars, others tried not to think too much about it, yet others—like me—became morbidly curious. I found myself wondering why this monster had been developed, how it came about, and where it had all happened. This is what took me recently to Los Alamos—a city on a plateau high above Santa Fe, the site of the Manhattan Project that developed the bomb and still home to the Los Alamos National Lab.
I think I went to Los Alamos looking for a piece of the youthful joy that we of my generation lost. But as Sid and I drove down the main street of modern research facilities—still secure but not surrounded as they once were by barbed wire designed to both enclose and exclude—I realized I was seeking the wrong thing. All of a sudden it was 1942. The war could still be lost. The Axis allies were said to be working on a new weapon of catastrophic power and if this nation were to survive, the Axis had to be beaten to it. The most brilliant scientific brains were gathered on this muddy mesa with no less a mission than to develop a weapon that would end the war. Among those who literally “disappeared” from civilian life, there was a real sense of mission and excitement. The Los Alamos historical museum housed in one of the few surviving buildings used by the original project shows just how uncomfortable the setting was and what little reward there was except for contributing to the national effort. And yet that was enough. The scientists and the graduate students stayed and did the job.
I am quite sure the scientists didn’t think at first about the consequences of what they were achieving. Their focus was on solving the various technical issues associated with fission and implosion—a chain reaction that they weren’t even sure would work. They certainly weren’t thinking about students at The Blue Goose twenty years in the future. The awareness of the bomb’s potential came after the Trinity test and as the implications of nuclear weapons became more obvious and the post World War II world began to take shape. There were to be protests around the world. There were to be recriminations. There were to be the true horror stories of what happened at Ground Zero. There were to be accusations of disloyalty made against some of the scientists who wanted to harness the power of the atom for peaceful purposes and discourage its use as a military weapon. There was, in other words, to be the luxury of hindsight.
Los Alamos reminds me of the controversy surrounding WWII Bomber Command. At a time when Britain stood alone and at one point had only two-weeks’ worth of food for the island, the niceties of bombing only military targets seemed beside the point. No one wanted deliberately to bomb civilians, but in the struggle for survival they died on both sides. When the RAF and then the RCAF and the USAF took the war to Germany, the point was to win. Looking back on the bombing and the incredible loss of life both among the aircrews and those on the ground, some revisionist historians have tried to rewrite history to the intense annoyance of the surviving aircrews who risked their lives and watched their comrades—my father among them—drop to a fiery death. But nothing is clear-cut during wartime. I remember bomb craters in the roads in my hometown of Brighton on England’s south coast. I heard how adults still talked about the Blitz in London and how they said bombing Germany was getting a bit of our own back. It’s only natural that perspectives change with time and victory.
Much the same has happened at Los Alamos. When it comes to how we view the Manhattan Project and the scientists working on it, it seems to me that we have a choice. We can look only at the devastation caused by the splitting of the atom and decry the waste of the arms race that ensued. Many have done that and I can recall protesters in London waving placards saying ‘Ban the Bomb.’ Or we can marvel at the fact that the work was achieved at all, let alone under conditions of extreme security and haste, and understand that it was part and parcel of the time that spawned it. Perhaps we need to do a bit of both. But however we choose to view the work conducted at Los Alamos, we need to acknowledge that it changed our world forever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
