Post mortem to election day

 November 6, 2024

The following was written in response to a comment on a New York Times editorial published earlier this morning. Actually, there were two responses, which I have sewn together into one. And given that nobody really knows how long digital files will exist to memorialize this work, I share it here (and stored in hard copy on human compliant paper) for all to see.  The original comment had to do with Kamala Harris not accomplishing a Herculean list of tasks in her short time on the campaign trail.  What follows is my response:

Earlier today, commenter “Axel” posted that, among the things that Kamala Harris should have done was to “have presented her  own bold program for change, including political institutional change and major constitutional reforms,” But let’s be realistic here - you wanted her to do all that in eleven weeks?!? And even if she did, do you think the Times and others would have given it the coverage it deserved? Trump started running again on January 20, 2021 and never stopped. Harris never had a chance.  Make no mistake - the Democratic Party enabled Trump, most notably by not primarying Biden this year. Then by waiting so long to have him step out. And the Obamas and other “rock stars” of the party laid low too long before stepping up. 

Perhaps Ms Harris wasn’t the perfect candidate but the media and the Times held her to an impossibly blue standard of perfection that certainly Mr Trump could never meet. Once again, the “oh that’s Donald being Donald” has played out - and played - the American people. And this time it looks like it’s a majority of them.  

Perhaps it is those of us who identify as Democrats who are wrong. Maybe the country really is as dark as Mr Trump and the GOP paint it. My city is not on fire, I’m not tripping over illegal immigrants on my way to work, I have a job and food on the table. Maybe I’m the one who is wrong here. Maybe the rest of the country is seeing these things. In which case, it’s the Times job as paper of record to report them. If not, it was their job to refute these claims. 

Show me one NY Times article proving beyond a doubt that the claims about the economy were false, or at least somewhat dubious. They’ve done neither.  The guardrail that was supposed to keep democracy strong - the fourth estate represented by the likes of the Times and the Washington Post - failed miserably in this election. 

Had this type of weak journalism or what passes for journalism these days been around when Nixon was president, he would have served his full two terms and who knows how the country would have turned out. But reporters and editors were, perhaps, more high minded back then. Or maybe we as readers were more demanding. We could actually read back then and didn’t get our news in quick 30 second bites.

And so, as stewards of the First amendment they have failed. But so too have we.

The blood of this nation rests on all of our hands.

• Ocean City, NJ

Election Day - 2024

 November 5, 2024

Today is Election Day in the US and a more contentious election I certainly can’t remember.  And today is a good day for me to practice what I have been preaching to my students for quite some time.  But first a bit of background.

I have spent the last year or so trying to better understand the philosophy of Stoicism. I’m not exactly sure what got me into this, but I discovered a guy by the name of Ryan Holliday and found that a lot of what he was saying was making a lot of sense to me. So I started to dig in a bit deeper and, as the year has gone by, I am actually finding that it is making a bit of a difference in my life.

One of the practices that Stoicism has taught me is that there is really nothing I can do about so many things - I can only control that over which I have control. And basically, as I have come to understand, that over which I have control is my own mind, my own emotions, my own body, and my own thoughts. I can’t control the weather, traffic, or other people for that matter. And I have been trying to get some of my students - especially my former students who are now finding life a bit harder as they get older - to understand that, especially when they are having a hard time getting along with others.

Which takes me back to this election.  I vehemently dislike the Republican candidate, mostly because I find him to be a detestable person.  He has so little regard for others - women, immigrants, middle class people, just about anyone not named Donald Trump - that I just can't fathom how we could elect him to the presidency - again!!

But, in the end, all I can do is vote my heart and my conscience. I’m just one vote - but it’s all I can do. I can’t change the outcome of the election. I can’t change the way people vote. All I can do is accept what is, and pray with all my being that the country will hold together regardless of who wins.  And so that is what I will do. I will vote. I will pray. And I will hope.

• Ocean City, NJ

A World without (printed) Newspapers

 I read the other day that the Star Ledger was going to stop publishing its print edition in February of 2025.  Now, I don’t take the Star Ledger and haven’t for quite some time. I don’t even subscribe to the electronic edition although I am a subscriber to two newspapers - both online - as I truly believe that newspapers are essential to fair and free communications in this world.

The reason that the news hit me so hard had more to do with what I had discovered in the top of my closet, ironically just two days prior.  While searching high and low for a missing Halloween shirt (don’t ask), I came across the box of “stuff” that I keep in the top of my closet. Among the miscellaneous stuff that one accumulates, I found several copies of seminal newspapers that marked several important moments in history.

There were two newspapers reporting the news of September 11, 2001 when the country was attacked and the World Trade Center was toppled.  There were newspapers marking the election of Joe Biden as president, replacing the (in my opinion) dangerous Donald Trump.  There were also newspapers marking significant sports events, such as the Mets winning the 2000 National League Championship (sadly, no New York Jets headlines - a topic for another post). 

As I thought back to this pile of yellowing news print, I started to wonder - how will future generations learn about the major events of our time, if there is no written record of it?  How can electronic news be archived so that those that are still to come can look back and see what was being reported about the major events of our time? (And in case you’re wondering, all of these entries are printed and saved for posterity - who knows how anyone would ever read these electronic musings in the future). 

I know that producing a printed product every day is a great expense, and one that is not easy to accommodate for a newspaper company. But with the need to archive major events, is this something a newspaper can afford to not do??  I guess time will tell - and perhaps replica editions can be archived, much like the microfiche of my generation - but with the major events happening just around the corner, is this a good time to stop producing?

In the end, it’s our fault. We are the ones who stopped buying or subscribing to newspapers. We’re the ones that adopted the electronic medium with such gusto that the publishers had no choice.  Can we turn back the clock? No.  But should we??  A question our future generations will have to answer.

• November 4, 2024

• Ocean City, NJ

Birthday Boy

 So today is my birthday. 59 laps around the sun. Normally, I don't make a big deal out of my birthday. And today is really no exception. Except that there's something that feels final about 59. Because next year is, well, lets just say it's a year that end in a zero and that is always somebody's idea of a big deal.

Anyway, this morning, as I have done every November 14 for the last 30 years or so, I played this song - "Birthday Boy" by Chicago.  But today, the lyrics hit me harder than they have in the past. 

So, I share them here for you to consider. 

"Birthday Boy" by Danny Seraphine and David J. Wolinski

Birthday boy, blow out the candles;
Good friends around you, you should feel O.K.
Don't look so sad and blue;
Don't act forsaken, this day's for you.
Good days are coming, my friend;
Life can be easy 'til the end.
Birthday boy, don't fear tomorrow;
Changes before you; years drift away.
You see life as pictures, frame to frame;
Many years wasted, what a shame.
Good days are coming, my friend;
Life can be easy 'til the end, 'til the end.
That empty feeling won't go away;
Caught up in hurting, day after day;
When will you see the joy in your life?
It's there for you, it's there for you.
Don't look so sad and blue;
Don't act forsaken, this day's for you.
Good days are coming, once you stop running;
Life could be easy, easy for you.

Again. And Again. And Again.

 It happened again. Again, I sit here with my head in my hands as I try to come to grips with still another mass school shooting.  18 lives taken in Texas. 18 more!!

At what point do we finally wake up, America? At what point do we, whether we are "red" or "blue", finally decide that enough is enough. No more. No more mass shootings. No more gunmen in supermarkets.  No more gunmen on subways. And,  dammit, no more gunmen in schools!!  When does it end?

And don't hand me that Second Amendment bullshit either, because there is no way in Hell that our founding fathers ever thought we'd have access to weapons, for our personal use, that had more firepower than any Colonial general ever had at any battle, with ALL of their weapons combined.  So for all of you who are purists to the Constitution, I say if you want guns, get muskets.  And while you're at it, turn off your damned electric lights, and park your F150 at the curb and grab some candles and a horse or two. You want to live by the exact words of 1787? Then live LIKE it's 1787.

I'm a teacher. And tomorrow I have to go into my school. And, once again, I will look cross-eyed at anyone who approaches my building and is not 100 percent familiar to me. Once again, we will have police cars parked outside the building. And once again, I will listen to the bullshit about "thoughts and prayers."  Well I for one am sick of all the "thoughts and prayers."

It's time to get our country back. And don't tell me we can get there on prayer alone.  No, we need some gutsy legislators to put themselves out there and propose gun legislation that makes sense. Gun legislation that will finally do something about all of these mass shootings. Because while we may consider our country to be head and shoulders above all the others - and yes, in many ways we are - we are so far behind on common sense gun legislation it makes my head spin.

The Supreme Court will, in a few weeks, overturn Roe v Wade, which will effectively put an end to abortion in so many states. Why? Because, according to many, life begins at conception and therefore needs to be preserved.  Well listen, geniuses - life is also supposed to continue beyond birth. Preferably to an old age.  So if you want to preserve all life - especially you Conservatives that go on and on about no abortions but how we need to keep our guns - it's time for you all to pull your heads out of your respective asses and put your money where you mouth is.

Gun control. NOW. Not later. 

RIP Beverly Cleary

    Early in my school career, I discovered my favorite of all places in whatever school I was attending at the time - the library. I absolutely loved the library.  What I remember of kindergarten library visits were mostly the picture books (what else can you read in kindergarten) but by first grade,  I remember visiting and being able to borrow a book. For free!! As long as you returned it two weeks later.

    We moved before second grade and that was when my fondness for the school library really took off. Because I was considered “advanced” as a learner - perhaps because I actually paid attention in first grade - I was able to get additional library privileges. This meant I could go pretty much whenever I wanted - which I did.  And I read and read. So much so that, by the time I was in sixth grade, I was asked to help the librarian choose new books by being able to preview the new ones that had just come in.  What a thrill for a library lover like me.

    Later, in junior high school, I ventured beyond the usual fiction and non-fiction fare, and explored biographies of those who were far less known to me. One in particular - Alone by Richard Byrd - stood out. I always wondered what it would be like to live completely alone under the ice.  Perhaps that was inspired by my two brothers and one sister, ensuring I didn’t know what “alone” meant.

    By high school, the library had gotten bigger and I had discovered the music room - a huge room full of records, more than I could ever imagine. I started borrowing them and, thanks to the arrival of a new cassette recorder, I started to expand my own music library - while still stopping by to borrow a book from time to time.

    What inspired this trip down memory lane was the news this week that Beverly Cleary, the creator of my all time favorite character, Henry Huggins, had died at the age of 104. Of all the books I borrowed as a kid, none excited me as much as the Cleary books. I loved them. The stories were relatable, the characters were realistic and funny and they were just a good way to pass the time. I remember wishing I could live with the Huggins family on Kilkitat Street - it just seemed like a better place to live than wherever I was at the time.

    Beverly Cleary was an inspiration to me, and one that I still call upon today as a teacher. I remember buying my own children their copies of the Cleary classics (“Here, read these. You’ll love them” I said. And along came Harry Potter to prove me wrong.)  Cleary was a living link back to my childhood. I thought she’d live forever.

    It’s  been, in all honesty, only a few months since I last read one of her stories. Henry and the Paper Route to be precise. I think I’ll take one down from the shelf tonight and take another trip down memory lane.  Rest in peace, Mrs. Cleary. And thank you for everything.

HR1, School Elections, and the power of a Lollipop

When I was in elementary school, my best friend decided he wanted to run for student council president. Not that he had any experience in being IN student council, but he thought it might be fun to be president of something. I, being his best friend, was enlisted to be his campaign manager.

We spent hours strategizing on how to best win the election. We focused on promises. Lots and lots of promises. We promised better quality of school lunches. We promised more recess time. We promised free ice cream on Fridays. We even promised no homework on days that ended  in Y. In other words, we patterned our campaign after the real political campaigns of the day.

We handed out lollipops, which was only possible because my dad owned a candy store. We even handed out unopened baseball card packs to select “organizers”, who promised they could influence certain groups of voters. Again, just like real political campaigns.

But when the votes were counted, we lost. And, to be honest, it wasn’t even close.  We didn’t ask for a recount - there was no reason to. I realized that all our voters were only in it for the lollipops.

But, if we had run today instead of 40 years ago, things might have been different. Because I would have taken a page from the Republican party and, instead of trying to get AS MANY votes as possible, I would have sought out ways to suppress the vote. Keep the voters AWAY and we would win!!  What a brilliant strategy.

Hey you, third grader. You just moved here 2 months ago. You can’t vote.  You, kid with the accent. How do I know you’re eligible?? Out you go. You, tall kid in the 6th grade - are you REALLY a student here?? No vote for you.  Had we followed this new strategy, we might have actually won. And we wouldn’t have had to promise free Yoo-Hoo to every student on Mondays.

As juvenile as this strategy sounds, it’s actually the Republican approach to winning elections these days. It’s why HR-1 is so vehemently opposed by the GOP. In other words, don’t try to “persuade” voters to vote for you by promising things that they may actually want (or by offering up real ideas to improve their lives - not by promising more pizza on the lunch menu!). No. Instead, keep voters for the opposition OUT of the election process. Make things more difficult. Basically, suppress the vote!

That is the entirety of the GOP strategy. It’s not about bringing “integrity” to the election process. It’s about bringing smaller numbers of Democrats out to vote. It’s not about improving the messaging or the positioning of the party but rather fighting the fact that the Democrats are making more and more inroads with the middle class.  Make no mistake - the GOP is not about improving the election process. It’s about “fixing” the process to their benefit.

Perhaps I should have borrowed some of their tactics. After all, had we forced the third grade to take a spelling test before voting, that may have swung the election our way. Who knows how things may have changed for us?  Yoo-hoo anyone?