Winter Solstice, Planets Align, and Advent

 

America needs you to take vaccine

 This post was printed in the Dec. 18 edition of the Wilson Times

There! We got that taken care of. The United States and the world have a tested an effective vaccine against the COVID-19 corona virus that has disrupted our lives, destroyed our plans, ruined our vacations, increased our anxiety and caused mental health problems. And killed more than 300,000 Americans in less than a year.

            The first vaccine shots were given to health-care workers Dec. 14. Vaccine shipments are to be distributed to health care facilities across the country, giving relief from worries and renewed confidence for millions.

            But … there might be a problem. In a recent survey, 40 percent of American respondents said they would not take the vaccine. This is important because the goal of this vaccine is to create “herd immunity,” in which so great a portion of the population is vaccinated that the virus has no place to go, no new victims to infect.

            Herd immunity is achieved by having a critical mass of 87 percent of the population vaccinated. If 87 percent of the population is not vaccinated, there will be no herd immunity. Large numbers of the population will still get sick and some will die from COVID-19.

            One person’s refusal to participate in the vaccination program will affect the whole population. Attending school, going to work, going to movies and concerts, as well as church services and political/governmental events will remain risky without herd immunity. Essentially, 40 percent of the population can hold hostage 60 percent of their friends, kin and neighbors. Without herd immunity, the virus might not go away.

            Some people don’t want the vaccination because they’re squeamish about needles and shots; my late brother, for example. Diagnosed with pre-diabetes, he told his doctor, “just don’t make me take shots; I’d rather die first.”

            This is understandable, though extreme. The pain of a vaccination is usually not severe, and severe side effects are rare. Even vaccine-phobic people should be able to endure a shot. But in recent years, a people around the world have decided vaccines are dangerous. Measles vaccines were blamed for autism, although medical professionals said that was false. Still, enough parents refused to vaccinate their children that measles outbreaks returned. Some Muslim extremists in Pakistan declared polio vaccines unacceptable and violently prevented health care workers from vaccinating people.

            Wild rumors about the COVID vaccine have already begun, making it more likely that herd immunity might falter. Americans have become distrustful of federal agencies that oversee vaccine safety and myriad other matters. Public reluctance about the new vaccines is just the latest example of public distrust of government.

            Americans should be overjoyed with the distribution of the COVID vaccines. Don’t let this chance for herd immunity to a disease that has already killed 300,000 Americans be squandered.

            Think of the “common good,” the notion that some things benefit everyone and should be accepted and supported by all.

            Get your COVID-19 vaccination for your own health, for families and neighbors, for nationwide herd immunity. Just get it.

An Electoral College education

This post was published in the Wilson Times Dec. 11, 2020 

Early in my career as a newspaper editor, commentator, columnist and opinion sharer, I defended the complicated, bewildering presidential election system known as the Electoral College. My thinking was, after all, it’s been around for more than 100 years and has produced mostly unchallenged elections and mostly competent chief executives.

But this year’s presidential election has gone into double or triple overtime, and election officials have been exhausted, accused and threatened. This has led to a reconsideration of the arcane procedures set forth in the Constitution to unravel a disputed election, as well as a new look at the efficacy of the Electoral College.

The Electoral College was conceived as a way of preventing unsophisticated, perhaps ignorant, rank-and-file voters from electing the wrong man (female candidates were unheard of in those days). The Electoral College would protect the republic from a terrible mistake brought about by crass emotions. Instead of basing the election on what ordinary voters decided, an elite group of knowledgeable men (no women) would consider the vote results but then cast the only votes that really mattered, the Electoral College’s vote.

Attention to the Electoral College has been spurred by three recent presidential contests that installed someone other than the winner of the popular vote. One of the claims favoring the Electoral College in debates decades ago was the idea that the Electoral College vote forced candidates to campaign in states they might otherwise ignore. The claim was that a nationwide popular vote would ensure that candidates would spend all their time and attention on the most populated states — California, New York, and Texas, for example.

But, as former Jim Hunt aide Gary Pearce pointed out in a recent column, the focus on “battleground states” that swing the Electoral College has had the same effect, limiting the attention given to certain closely competed states. North Carolina, a “battleground state,” was one of 17 states that held 212 presidential election campaign events in 2020, according to a tally by the National Popular Vote group cited by Pearce. The other 33 states were ignored by the candidates.

The Electoral College also skews the impact of the popular vote because each state gets two Electoral votes just for being a state, regardless of population. That constitutional provision, assigning an electoral vote for each senator and congressman, inflates the impact of less populated states.

Both parties have some interest in eliminating the popular vote: Democrats have lost presidential elections despite winning the popular vote; Republicans see the popular vote as an effort to undermine the political power of traditionally GOP states.

But the Electoral College is embedded in the Constitution, meaning two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of all state legislatures would have to approve the change. I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Supreme letdown, democracy prevails

    "The  Supreme Court really let us down" was Donald Trump's reaction to Friday's U.S. Supreme Court decision rejecting an appeal led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, joined by 17 other states and 106 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives, to invalidate the presidential election results in four "battleground" states. Twenty-two other states filed a brief challenging the premise of the lawsuit, asserting that Texas and its allies were attempting to disenfranchise voters in legally held elections in other states.

  The Supreme Court, including three of the nine members appointed by Trump himself, turned down the case, which Trump had declared was "the Big One," unlike the previous dozens of lawsuits challenging Joe Biden's election victory by a comfortable margin. Nearly all of the earlier lawsuits were dismissed by state and federal courts, often with harsh rebukes of the basic premise of the claims of election fraud, which were trumpeted without credible evidence.

    The unanimous dismissal of the "Big One" had to hurt Trump. After all, he nakedly expedited a Supreme Court appointment of a conservative Republican because he believed the Supreme Court would ultimately determine the winner of the presidential election. Only justices Alito and Thomas offered a concern, a conservative one — that the case should not have gone directly to the Supreme Court but should have been tried in lower courts. Neither justice objected to the dismissal of the case.

     It now appears likely that no future lawsuits will endanger Biden's claim to the Oval Office. Barring a military coup or armed insurrection by angry Trump loyalists, Biden will be inaugurated Jan. 20, 2021. The unnecessarily extended vote counting, appeals, recounts and partisan dismissal of legitimate voting results may finally be at an end.

    After the Supreme Court ruled, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut declared on the Senate floor that Republicans who supported the president's election lawsuits and his support for efforts to delay or deny the results of a fair and free election should be called out for their anti-democracy actions. "You cannot, at the same time, love America and hate democracy," he said, adding that Democrats should hold the anti-democratic traitors accountable for their attempt to overthrow a legally elected government.

    If the Democrats are smart enough to follow Murphy's recommendation (an iffy proposition), they will make the actions of those who have blindly followed Trump's authoritarian, president-for-life strategy the theme of the 2022 and 2024 elections. That strategy, wisely delivered, would decimate the Republican Party.

A Christmas Season like none before

 

This post was published in the Wilson Times Nov. 27, 2020

 

            This is the strangest holiday season of our lives. Thanksgiving had to be celebrated without the dining room full of family and friends. Rules imposed by a deadly pandemic limited our gatherings and our opportunities for travel. There were no group shots of all the family and guests gathered at the table or on the porch.

            The Centers for Disease Control has strongly urged people to stay home for the holidays, and some states have created obstacles to interstate travel, such as quarantine of people arriving from another where the pandemic roars. Air travel is down sharply. Who would want to confine themselves in a metal tube for an hour or more with dozens of strangers, not knowing whether they are infected?

            Christmas shopping in 2020 will be unrecognizable compared to previous years. Many people will limit their gift shopping to online only rather than search through malls and stores for that special gift. “Black Friday” sales still exist, but without large crowds jostling before displays and checkout counters. Masks are required, and social distancing makes the crowds less hazardous.

            Even Christmas’ religious roots will be challenged by this pandemic year. Churches that are usually packed for Christmas Eve services will be less crowded this year, if they are still offering in-person services at all. The pandemic has devastated churches as civil authorities imposed restrictions on crowd size. In a year when congregational singing is forbidden because of singers’ likelihood to spread the Coronavirus, will we forgo beloved Christmas carols? Will anyone “go a-caroling”?

            Many households, including mine, are curtailing Christmas decorating. The Evening Optimist Christmas tree lot, where I picked out and bought a tree year after year, is in business again but on a diminished scale. The Optimists are less optimistic about sales; they ordered fewer trees this year.

            In a year of dark pessimism, some people are fighting back with light. Daylight-Saving Time has just ended, and the earlier darkness hangs over us like a dust storm. Lights in windows, on trees, on porches, on tables, in front yards, in stores are an antidote to the bleak sadness of a holiday season lacking in brightness and joy.

            This Sunday, Nov. 29, is the first Sunday of Advent, a too-often overlooked season of the church year. It celebrates the birth of the Christ Child and offers a time of calm reflection before the excitement and stresses of Christmas Day.

            This year, Christmas gatherings will follow Thanksgiving’s pattern — canceled or greatly limited.

            Churches will celebrate the sense of anticipation during Advent, awaiting arrival of the Messiah. Advent wreaths and Advent calendars give children and adults a means of counting the days until the wait is over.

            We veterans of a pandemic that killed a quarter-million Americans will be waiting, too, waiting for the holiday seasons of 2021, by which time vaccines and therapies should have Covid-19 banished or under control, and we can gather again, sing again and feel joy again.

Senate in the spotlight, with its odd history

 

This post was published in the Wilson Times Nov. 24, 2020

 

            The climactic runoff in Georgia for two U.S. Senate seats will likely determine partisan control of the Senate. If two Democrats win, that party will, with the vice president’s vote as Senate chair, give the Democratic Party control of that chamber. If a Republican wins one of the two seats, that party will maintain control of the Senate’s agenda.

            It might be time for a refresher course on U.S. Senate history and, perhaps, a reconsideration of the Senate’s structure. The 1789 U.S. Constitution’s Article II states: “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof … .”

            That is how the Senate was structured for 124 years, until the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified in 1913. The new amendment changed how senators were elected, stating: “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof.” This amendment was born out of the “Populist Movement,” aimed at making individual voters the center of political power.

            Originally, the Senate essentially represented the states, which were considered sovereign and nearly equal to the federal government. The balance of power James Madison and others developed gave half of Congress to the states and half to the people.

            The Seventeenth Amendment changed that balance of power, but the slice of power reserved for the states was consumed by the popular vote. State legislatures were left without representation in Washington. Most people, especially the Populists, thought that was as it should be, foreshadowing the 1960s slogan of “All power to the people.”

            In the 21^st century, some progressive politicians saw a major flaw in the selection of senators. They see the Senate as an amplifier of power of less populated states, each of whom is rewarded two U.S. senators, regardless of the state’s population. California, the most populace state, has no more clout in the Senate than Montana or Rhode Island. That seems to conflict with the Supreme Court’s 1964 ruling that congressional districts (reflecting voter population) must be roughly equal to comply with Fourteenth Amendment’s “equal protection” clause.

            Some conservatives, such as the late James J. Kilpatrick, argued that the Seventeenth Amendment was an unwarranted change to the constitutional structure because it took away state sovereignty and elected two legislative bodies from the same electorate. Liberals dislike the Senate for a different reason: it amplifies the clout of less-populated (and more conservative) states.

            The Senate’s selection structure, critics say, is unfair to the most populated states, with millions of unequally represented voters. That Senate is able to stop legislation from the more democratic-structured House of Representatives. Because the Electoral College is allocated from the number of members of Congress plus the two senators every state gets. In this century, several presidents have won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College (the only count that counts).

Both sides can agree that something’s amiss, but as long as national politics remains sharply divided, the chances of reform are near zero.

Trump's selfish fight threatens democracy

This post was written for the Nov. 13 print edition of the Wilson Times.

 

           The Trump administration’s four years have given America numerous new precedents — things no other president or administration officials had ever done. With the announcement a week ago that Democrat Joe Biden has won the election, both in the determining Electoral College tally and in the popular vote, Trump appears to be putting his name in American history in another way.

            For the first time in history, an outgoing president might prevent a peaceful transfer of power to the newly elected president. President John Adams set the precedent in 1800 when he conceded the election to Thomas Jefferson, his political opposite and long-time rival. Every president since then, for all 220 years, has accepted “the will of the people” and stepped down to make room for the new president. The peaceful transfer of power is considered the fundamental test of a working democracy. Will we still have one?

            Trump has refused to concede the election, which was “called” when it became mathematically impossible for the trailing candidate to catch Biden, who already had more than the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. Instead, Trump has persisted in proclaiming the election was “rigged,” “unfair,” “crooked,” “horror stories,” and so on. He has claimed that the election was stolen by Democrats who counted fake ballots or threw away ballots for Trump. He claimed the vote counting, which went on for five days after the Nov. 3 election day, was a fraud.

            But ballot counting has always gone on after an election. Trump hurt his own cause by telling his followers they shouldn’t vote by mail, which he claimed was fraudulent. He continues to criticize the counting of ballots, although this year’s counting was probably the most transparent in history. Philadelphia, for instance, placed the non-partisan counters in a glass-front room, where passers-by could watch the process, and closed-circuit TV links allowed citizens to watch the count from home.

            State laws, which govern elections, require that observers from both parties observe the casting of ballots and the counting of those ballots. The president’s myriad lawsuits over the counting have been tossed out, except for one in which the Supreme Court decided ballot observers could move closer to the counters — from ten feet to six feet — and the counting resumed.

            The only confirmed false ballots incident involved a pair of Virginia men, Trump supporters linked to QAnon, CNN and other news outlets reported. The men were arrested after arriving in Philadelphia with loaded guns and a truck full of counterfeit ballots.

Trump will retain presidential powers until noon on Jan. 20. This gives him time to take revenge on his perceived enemies. He has already fired the director of USAID, a career diplomat and manager, and his defense secretary. He has also threatened to fire Anthony Fauci, the career epidemiologist who earned Trump’s ire by contradicting his erroneous statements at COVID news conferences. This ten-week interregnum will allow Trump a second chance to settle scores and clean house. Don’t think he won’t use it. He may also pardon more of his loyal friends and maybe even himself.

            It appears that, despite all of Trump’s bluster, the election vote will be certified, and Biden will be inaugurated on Jan. 20. If Trump mellows (is that possible?), he might not go down in history as the only president to be physically removed after losing an election. Some members of his own party have warned him that he doesn’t want that to be his place in history.

 

A holiday season spoiled by the pandemic

 This post was published in the Wilson Times Nov. 6, 2020

The coming “holiday season” will be like none we’ve ever experienced before. Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2019 came and went before a Coronavirus became part of our vocabulary. Thanksgiving and Christmas this year will be remembered as the pandemic holidays, the times when getting the family together will be much more difficult than ever before.

It’s always a challenge to get a far-flung family together each year, but most of the time, we find a way. One year might find our children and grandchildren at our house; other years one of the younger generation volunteers to host the gathering. Sometimes additional family members are included — parents-in-law, brother- or sister-in-law, nieces or nephews. New significant others of these relatives can also be added, or neighbors without relatives close enough to share a holiday together.

But the Coronavirus this year will disrupt our Thanksgiving and Christmas traditions, just as it has disrupted so many other aspects of our lives. Those who have to board an airplane to get to the family Thanksgiving location might be reluctant to board a sealed capsule with dozens of strangers whose medical conditions, health and personal responsibility are not known. News media will announce the crowded conditions at airports and the number of flights that are in the air. Did I say “crowded”? That’s not a good adjective in a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans.

Those who can gather with family members without taking a plane or a train are not home free. The traditional Thanksgiving dinner (think of the Norman Rockwell painting) will be more difficult than ever to pull off this year. Government guidelines recommend face masks and social distancing with a limit of no more than 25 people in one indoor space. For many families, 25 is not nearly enough. The descendants of my parents (who died in 2006), that is, their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren, now total around 40 people from babies in arms to my brother and me, both in our 70s.

For about 30 years (no one is sure exactly when we started, but it was about 1990), the family had met in Charleston, S.C., for a meal together. We won’t be doing it this year. The Coronavirus has put an end to that tradition, at least temporarily.

Family members worry about being infected despite the precautions everyone is taking. They worry about staying in a hotel room (who slept here last? Did they have any symptoms?) and eating in a restaurant (close contact with servers and the sanitation standards in the kitchen are worrisome, even in the best restaurants).

America’s restaurant habits might not survive the pandemic. For most of my life, we have celebrated birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, graduations, and most happy moments with a restaurant meal. But the Coronavirus has many Americans worried about potential infections from eating in a restaurant with dozens of other people in the same room.

If this pandemic lingers, where will we go to celebrate joyful events in our lives?

Digital picture frame filled with memories

 

This post was published in the Wilson Times Oct. 23, 2020.

When our daughter and son-in-law gave us a digital picture frame a few years ago, we received the gift gratefully but without great enthusiasm. The gift is a simple video screen, about the size of a 5x7 enlargement, that displays each of the photos loaded onto a thumb drive that plugs into the back of the picture frame. At the time, it was the latest technology.

For the next few years, the ever-changing picture frame provided some amusement and distraction as we sat casually and watched the photos take their turns across the screen. We changed the photos loaded on the thumb drive from time to time to incorporate photo collections of my father-in-law after his death and a collection of pictures spanning my life for my 60^th birthday. We grew accustomed to the collections and gave the photos little attention. They were, as the digital expression goes, “wallpaper.”

Recently, however, I find myself stopped in mid-step as I catch a look at the photo-of-the-moment. I am nearly dumbfounded by a photo of a grandson seated in my lap, sometimes two grandchildren seated in my lap as I read a picture book to them. In another photo, I am seated in a little red wagon with one grandchild while our oldest grandson, just a toddler, attempts to pull the wagon around the yard. I know these grandchildren have aged ten years since they were as young as the picture shows, but I can’t help feeling transported back to the day the picture was made.

We are blessed with six grandchildren and have had the good fortune of spending time with each of them as they left the cradle and developed their own personalities. We took them on short trips, and we gallivanted with them in our back yard, playing games and inventing new games to spark their laughter and excitement. Moments so special they still bring a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes are preserved on that picture frame with the power to stop me in my tracks and make me stare, taking in the moment frozen on that small screen.

The technology on that screen is more common now. Everyone has “slide shows.” TV commercials use them. Convention venues incorporate them. Political ads use that power of pictures. A lifetime ago, I shot pictures with film and inserted the developed photos into a slide projector to shine on a screen for viewing. In a closet somewhere, I have a slide projector that was, in its day, the ultimate in home entertainment, and two dozen boxes of slides that are only useful when paired to that old slide projector. Our children and grandchildren got a few good laughs when we gathered them at a vacation cottage and had them watch many of the trays full of slides. The audience thinned rapidly after the first few minutes of grandchildren’s laughter at seeing their parents as small children.

If our children and grandchildren even glance at the digital photo frame on their rare visits to our home, I have not noticed. The pictures that stop me in my tracks are only uninteresting wallpaper to them.

My wife and I have discussed how quickly or grandchildren changed from the cute, cuddly, loving and altogether wonderful toddlers in those pictures to the teenagers who have their own schedules and interests and who now see us at eye level with our sagging skin, ancient ideas, out-of-touch thoughts and lost hair. We realize that the days of grandchildren’s visits and their wonder at our lives and stories are at an end.

I well remember two decades ago lamenting that the child I had held in one hand was now taller than I. But grandchildren are different from your own children. Parents are responsible for their children — providing food, shelter, moral principles, future college costs, etc. Grandchildren are more pure joy, delightful little people for whom you do not have ultimate responsibility.

A biblical blessing (Psalm 128) offers this: “May you live to see your children’s children.” I am living that blessing.

Turning over a new leaf: Early Voting

 This post was published in the Wilson Times Oct. 16, 2020

This year, for the first time in my existence, I am voting early. Early voting has become a part of the routine for every election year, and many people I know have said they enjoy voting early and enjoy the convenience of it.

While I have waited to vote on the official Election Day in the traditional manner, others would tell me, “I’ve already voted.”

A traditionalist, I found it satisfying to wait my turn on the one day that I and millions of others cast their ballots in a nationwide ritual of American democracy, an exercise as old as the United States. To me, Election Day was as exciting and as important as Independence Day, without the fireworks.

            But this year, with a dangerous pandemic making any large gathering a potential public health hazard, my wife and I decided we would vote early. If the virus didn’t grab us at the polling place, militant, armed “poll watchers” recruited by President Trump might endanger our lives in other ways. We could have voted by mail, but that option seemed less certain than an early appearance at a polling site and physically handing over our ballots for recording. With President Trump claiming mailed ballots are fundamentally fraudulent, I wanted my ballot to count. (Election officials have assured voters that voting by mail is secure.)

            As I am writing this, I cannot say that I have voted early. The first early voting day is Oct. 15, which is the deadline for this column. I fully expect to vote as planned. 

            I do have one experience in voting absentee: While fulfilling my military obligation in 1972, I would not be able to vote in North Carolina, where I was registered. I found out how to obtain an absentee ballot and mailed the completed form to the elections office. My vote counted.

            When I started work at The Wilson Daily Times, the late John Scott, editor at the time, warned me to always vote whenever there is an election. Scott’s thinking was that newspaper editors who failed to vote were leaving themselves open to criticism and ridicule if they urged others to vote but didn’t vote themselves. I don’t think I’ve missed a single election day since then.

            America has a poor record for turning out to vote. Only 56 percent of the voting age population voted in 2016, a presidential election year, which has higher turnout than non-presidential elections.

            Some have suggested making Election Day a national holiday as a way of encouraging and accommodating voters. That idea makes sense to me, but it hasn’t been adopted. Congress sets the date (currently the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November) for national elections. The states control most of the details of elections — the ballot, precincts, machinery, etc.

            And while America can claim its title as the oldest modern democracy, you don’t want to go back to the way our system worked at its inception. Originally, only white male property owners could vote. Women won the right to vote in 1920. The 15^th Amendment, ratified in 1870, extended the right to vote to non-whites whether they owned property or not. 

            It took the 14^th and 15^th Amendments, along with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, to ensure this year’s vote will be open to all Americans. So vote!

The Irony of Trump's Diagnosis

 This post was published in the Wilson Times Oct. 9, 2020

It is hard to escape the irony of the situation: The president who told his citizenry that the Corona virus was nothing to worry about, that “It will soon disappear … like magic,” would find himself infected by this virus that has killed 209,000 residents of the United States.

 

            The president had scoffed at the precautions recommended by his team of physicians and scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He made it clear that he didn’t need a face mask, even after the CDC announced that the simple, cheap masks, along with social distancing, were the most effective means of controlling the virus. He dismissed the threat of the virus as nothing more than the flu or the common cold. Nothing to worry about.

 

            He wouldn’t even say the name of virus — Novel Corona Virus 19 — and the name of the potentially deadly and insidious disease it caused — COVID-19. He insisted on calling it the “China Virus,” a name not used by the scientific community or the worldwide effort to control the raging pandemic. It was his way of laying blame with China; he had declared “I take no responsibility.”

 

            Even worse, President Trump refused to follow local, state and national restrictions designed to prevent the spread of the disease. All health authorities recommended nationwide, comprehensive testing to identify infected persons and trace their contacts. But Trump opposed increased testing, saying, “I don’t want more testing.” He said he told the government to slow down testing because, he claimed, testing caused more infections.

 

            Trump continued to hold large, frequent campaign rallies that did not follow local or state precautionary measures, such as social distancing and mask wearing. Attendees were packed shoulder-to-shoulder in open air or confined venues that gave the virus open paths to new infections. He ridiculed his election opponent, Joe Biden, for wearing a protective mask to events.

 

            At Trump’s goading, refusing to wear a mask became a sign of masculinity and loyalty to Trump. The anti-mask sentiment led to numerous confrontations at retail stores and other places, where unmasked people shoved, threatened and even shot persons politely urging them to follow a mask mandate.

 

            When the virus finally caught up with Trump, he took an unannounced ride to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to get the best possible medical treatment. Few, if any, of the more than 209,000 Americans killed by this disease had access to such good health care. In a final insult to all who had urged the president to observe social distancing, mask wearing and other precautions, on Sunday, the president commandeered an armored vehicle and at least two Secret Service members for a joy ride around the hospital so he could wave at his fans cheering on the street or in their vehicles.

 

            Physicians say Trump should not have left the hospital in his fragile condition and certainly should not have endangered the lives of the other passengers in the air-tight SUV who were confined with a highly infectious patient.

 

            Americans of all stripes are wishing the president a successful recovery from this infection. Joe Biden and others have offered prayers and sympathetic notes to the president and his family. This is a time of irony, of unforeseen turns and shocking developments. It is not a time for ill will.

Pro athletes are leading cultural shift; will politicians follow?

This post was published in the Wilson Times Sept. 18, 2020

The collegiate and professional football leagues started their delayed seasons last weekend, and, if it means anything, I was glad to see the new seasons begin. But the Saturday and Sunday games were eerie and unlike any previous season opening weekend.

            Games were played in nearly empty stadiums following guidelines for preventing further spread of the COVID-19 virus. The roar of the crowd was a subdued whimper of a pre-recorded audio that sounded as bogus as it was.

            College and pro teams have adopted calls for racial equality and restraints on police violence. Banners and slogans on players’ uniforms and helmets repeated the sentiments of worldwide protests. The enlistment of college and pro athletes, most of whom have been silent as calls for justice, equality and fair treatment reverberated across the country, are now taking the lead. Widely admired athletes could be the catalyst that finally creates a reckoning on topics such as white supremacy and racial justice.

            Nationwide protests have brought these issues before the public, but in a democracy it takes legislation to change laws and to enforce the ideals in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Now that burly NFL players have gotten our attention, who will craft the legislation to actually change America for the better?

            It’s obvious that this election season is as divisive as any on record. The violence that erupted in some protest cities has repulsed voters on the right and the left, and political strategists have not hesitated in presenting those flames as the certain result of electing the “wrong candidate.”

            Each year, voters tell pollsters they hate the televised political ads they see every election year. When I was a newspaper editor, I attempted to make the case that candidates should be spending their advertising dollars on newspapers, not TV. Polls showed that newspaper readers were far more likely to vote than those getting their news from TV. But that argument went nowhere. TV ads are unlikely to spark meaningful political discussion, but they do grab attention.

            As these TV ads grow more strident, political rhetoric more apocalyptic, our democracy gets weaker. Russian misinformation and other mischief are intended to sow distrust among voters.

            President Trump has shared in the implied criticism of democratic processes. He seems to want an election that is in as much disarray as his administration. He has ridiculed problems in primary voting. He has proclaimed voting by mail a fraud (although he does it himself). He has said if he loses the election must be fraudulent. Twice in North Carolina, Trump has urged people to vote twice, which is a felony.

            Attorney General Josh Stein has warned voters that voting twice is illegal. Inciting people to violate voting laws is illegal. Stein or a county prosecutor could charge Trump with encouraging fraudulent voting.

Control Nature? Oh, how we wish we could!

This post was published in the Wilson Times Sept. 25, 2020

    I contacted a friend (and former Wilson resident) now living in Oregon last week to ask how he’s faring amid the wildfires near his Oregon home. Wildfires are burning in Oregon, California and Washington. The wildfires are not receiving the attention they deserve as our eastern side of the continent is preoccupied with a presidential election, a COVID-19 pandemic, and a Supreme Court vacancy.

            But the wildfires on the West Coast are frighteningly real and disturbing. My friend is safe so far, but the fire season is not over, and this season is the worst in memory. On the East Coast, we have a multitude of hurricanes threatening the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Before calendars turned to October, the hurricane center had run out of designated names for hurricanes and was turning to Greek letters for subsequent storms. Welcome Hurricane Beta.

            All of this reminds me of John McPhee’s slender book “The Control of Nature” from 1980. McPhee’s lyrical prose can lull the reader away from existential warnings his words convey. The fundamental message of the book is that humans cannot control nature. It is in humanity’s nature to want to control nature, but in the long run we cannot do it. Nature has all the time in the world, and it will ultimately prevail.

            McPhee’s book is divided into three sections, each dealing with a separate attempt to control nature. For generations, Americans have sought to control the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Dikes, levees and canals approved by the Army Corps of Engineers have been installed to force the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya rivers to flow where humans wanted them to go, but the rivers inevitably broke free from the engineers’ carefully laid plans.

            Residents of Iceland sought a way to prevent the flow of lava from active volcanoes from taking over towns and man-made structures. Efforts to cool the lava so that it was merely big, stationary rocks instead of hellishly hot and immediately deadly lava. Good try, but not a winner.

            The third example in this memorable book is the development of luxury housing on the hills around Los Angeles. Wildfires in those hills became a seasonal event where thin, arid topsoil would not support much vegetation, making those same hills the scene of mudslides as rainstorms washed away the thin soil and homes slid down the hills. Los Angeles, with an average annual rainfall of only 15 inches, was never suitable for human habitation without extraordinary efforts to transport water from other sites.

            Los Angeles has another problem: fires. The arid hills are home to chaparral, which McPhee’s book terms “one of the most flammable vegetation complexes there are.” The hills are covered in the volatile shrub. Those hills are a poor place to build a home or a city, but people love the view from those hills and expect nature to accommodate them, instead of vice versa.

            McPhee does not address one control of nature issue: development of barrier islands, such as the N.C. Outer Banks. For generations, people have built vacation homes, roads and towns on shifting sands from Maine to Miami. North Carolina spends billions to keep N.C. 12 open along the Outer Banks, but hurricanes punch holes through the asphalt almost every year.

            McPhee’s book was written before climate change became an environmental catch phrase, but ever stronger and more frequent hurricanes, heat waves, flooding and windstorms testify that things are changing. What hasn’t changed is people’s stubborn belief that they can control nature.

            They can’t.

Nov. 3 might be only the beginning of election

 This post was published in the Wilson Times Sept. 11, 2020

If you’re closely following the 2020 presidential race and eagerly awaiting the results on Nov. 3, you may be disappointed, regardless of which candidate you’re supporting.

This year’s election will be like no other we’ve experienced. It’s not just the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s not just the demonstrations against police brutality, the belated reckoning about systemic racism, the great economic divide between the wealthy (getting wealthier) and the poor (struggling to survive); it’s not just Confederate statues. It’s not just the disrespect between college-educated white-collar citizens and blue-collar citizens without college degrees. It’s not just the deep political divide among the electorate. Some have called this the most divided electorate since the Civil War. Political strategists and candidates vilify the people on the other side. Among many groups, there is genuine hatred for people who are not like them, and that applies to both ends of the political spectrum.

In the age of instantaneous political statements and accusations, voters are being spun at relentless revolutions per minute. Members of Congress would rather make a political point than achieve a bipartisan compromise. They would rather see their party win an obscure election vote than solve the nation’s most challenging problems.

All this makes the 2020 presidential election like no other in American history, a history that has included two elections (1800 and 1824) with no clear winner, sending the election to the U.S. House for resolution. The 1876 election was settled by an electoral commission that decided how to count disputed electoral votes. The Supreme Court resolved another undecided election in 2000.

Nationwide protests are being infiltrated by armed individuals with no authority. Paramilitary-style groups are eager for a fight. Gun sales have gone up again, and many people are taking advantage of a 2008 Supreme Court decision allowing firearms, including military-style, rapid-fire assault rifles, to frighten and intimidate voters who are not accustomed to seeing armed mobs in the streets of America, regardless of whose side they are on.

            The flint that could ignite this volatile mixture is the likely uncertainty of the Nov. 3 vote. Unprecedented numbers of absentee ballots and vote-by-mail ballots are flooding precincts. Many states will not begin counting absentee ballots until after the polls close, so the outcome of the election will almost certainly be in doubt until long after midnight Nov. 3. Some analysts think the presidential race might not be decided until December or January.

            Already, President Trump is raising doubts about the trustworthiness of election results. He has declined to commit to accepting the results of the election if he loses. With presidential authority still in his hands until noon Jan. 22, Trump will be able to sow doubts, rally supporters, command military actions, declare a “national emergency,” fire honest federal workers (which he has already undermined by calling them “the Deep State”). American democracy could be sacrificed.

            If you thought 2020 was bad (pandemic, economic recession, travel bans, etc.), just wait for the final two months of the year.

 

Early adopters are welcome to it.

This post was published in the Wilson Times Sept. 4, 2020

 

        I’ve never been much of an “early adopter,” the bold, techie types who see something new and “gotta have it.” I was more of a late adopter. I wanted someone else to work out all the glitches before I put my money down for the latest cell phone, computer or clothing style (this reluctance saved me from owning a Nehru jacket a month after the style became laughable). Further evidence: I was happily using a manual typewriter well into the 1980s.

            By claiming this distinction, I recognize that I’m the last to do many things. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be one of the last people in Wilson to do away with our “landline” phone.

Perhaps you remember that archaic machine, one that sits there, waiting for you to pick up “the receiver” and “dial” someone’s number (although actual dialing was long ago eliminated in favor of  “touch-tone” calling. Most households abandoned their antiquated dial or touch-tone phones as soon as cell phones became reliable enough to displace our old stationary phones. The phone-in-your –pocket surpassed even the fantasy device (a “wrist radio”) in the Dick Tracy comic strip of generations ago.

Our phones of today provide news, keep our calendars, predict the weather, alert us to hazards, show us how to get to our destinations, replace our tattered address books, allow us to take notes that we won’t lose in the laundry, keep track of time and time events, take pictures and video of events we witness, remind us where we’re supposed to be, and make veritable phonebooks pretty much obsolete.

Just a couple of years ago, a friend who is actually older than I, complained to me about the scourge of young people whose phone numbers don’t appear in the phonebook. Their numbers aren’t in the phonebook because they don’t have a copper wire landline, which is owned by the Phone Company, which also used to publish the Phonebook. My friend was talking about all those early adopters who had left behind the hopelessly retrograde older generation and couldn’t understand how we lived without a cell phone sutured to our hands or why we would ever take the time to look through a Phonebook (some of them thicker than a Tolstoy novel) to find a phone number or even a home address.

“How do they find anybody?” my exasperated and older friend complained about these young people who don’t have their names and addresses listed. “I wanted to send a sympathy card, but they’re not in the Phonebook, so I can’t find their address. What am I supposed to do? Just not send a card? That would be terrible.”

Leaving behind the landline is more about people not finding us than about our finding someone. Robocalls, which neither telephone companies nor Congress can quell, had become such a bother, disrupting meals, naps and conversations as well as being the only calls we ever got on the landline, that we had to do something.

We found some success in turning off the phone’s ringer, directing all calls to voicemail, which we would periodically check. We got through meals and all the other activities that phone calls had disrupted and were satisfied with the results.

Our subsequent decision to drop the landline entirely was prompted by Greenlight’s offer of more bandwidth if we would upgrade our TV connection. If we dropped the phone portion of our contract, our monthly bill would be essentially unchanged. Done deal. Our landline will be officially kaput in mid-September.

 

Quadrennial political conventions were seldom exciting

 This post was published in the Wilson Times Aug. 28, 2020

            You might say that I grew up on televised political conventions. Just as the nation’s two major parties have presented their platforms and candidates for the 2020 elections, I’m remembering what it was like to watch the fuzzy black-and-white, sometimes raucous, seemingly never-ending party conventions of the 1960s and ‘70s.

            The pre-cable television networks of that era staffed the conventions as if they were covering World War III. Sometimes it seemed that they might have been covering a war. The networks aired hours and hours and hours of programming, during which very little was happening on the convention floor and podium.

            There was little drama in most conventions, although in those days before  primaries took over nominations, the conventions actually chose party nominees.

In 1960, the youthful, handsome John F. Kennedy defeated Lyndon Johnson, the most effective and productive Senate majority leader in history, for the Democratic nomination. In 1964, NBC reporter John Chancellor was detained on the Republican convention floor for refusing to give up his assigned stand-up position on the floor so the “Goldwater Girls” could dance through. One of the most memorable scenes in convention history was Chancellor being escorted off the floor. It was amazing enough that Chancellor was suited up with a huge backpack of batteries and electronics that was supposed to keep him in touch with the network anchors in a studio high above the convention floor. He used the new technology to announce as he was led away, “This is John Chancellor, somewhere in custody.”

            The 1964 GOP convention also had another political drama. With Barry Goldwater the presumptive nominee, some “moderate” Republicans (to the left of Goldwater), tried to swing the nomination to former Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton, but the last-minute ruse failed, and Senator Goldwater went on to the largest defeat in presidential history.

            The 1968 Democratic Convention was full of drama, but much of the drama took place outside of the convention hall in the streets of Chicago. Roving battles took place between well-armed police and well-prepared protesters opposing the Vietnam War and grieving over the murders of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Mayor Richard Daley defended police conduct, but Sen. Abraham Ribicoff, inside the convention hall, accused Daley’s police of “Gestapo tactics” on the streets.

            The horror and mayhem of the Democratic Convention helped ensure the election of Richard Nixon. The networks had most of their cameras and reporters inside but managed to show some of the relentless violence sweeping the streets outside the convention.

            Thanks to COVID-19, neither of this year’s conventions will be as exciting as these past gatherings. I watched several swatches of the Democratic Convention last week and found the digital format in some ways superior to the old, in-person crowds. But television in the cable and streaming era can’t spend whole afternoons and evenings on the coverage of an event that everyone knows how it ends before it begins. Hour-long convention speeches, one after another, put Americans’ attention spans into a coma. The COVID-19 convention strategies may become the norm.

            Years ago, I suggested that the presidential State of the Union address had become theater more than political information and should be replaced by the State of the Union email or text message to members of Congress. The public would enjoy reruns of “Father Knows Best” more.

            Democrats this year focused on the experience and empathy of nominee Joe Biden in contrast to President Trump’s frequently unruly reign and his need to disrupt, lie, insult and antagonize. Republicans will claim for President Trump every good thing that has happened in the past four years.

            Voters will get the final say (we hope) in another five weeks.

 

Congress should be able to follow constitutional procedures

 

This post was printed in the Wilson Times Aug. 14, 2020

            During all the times I served on councils, boards and other bodies responsible for churches, nonprofit groups and charities, I always insisted that the board members adhere to the official rules set down in charters, bylaws and other governing documents.

            It’s too bad the U.S. Congress — the “People’s House” of Representatives and “the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body,” the U.S. Senate, frequently ignore the rules and U.S. Constitution, which give them their authority.

            Once upon a time, public school students learned early on in mandatory civics classes about the system of checks and balances among three co-equal branches of government — Legislative, Executive, and Judicial — divisions that make American democracy unique and successful. But these policies and rules set down in the first three articles of the Constitution are ignored or skirted or forgotten more often than not. Civics classes are rarely offered in today’s public schools.

            Last week’s case in point was the second corona virus relief package. The House, dominated by Democrats, passed a relief package totaling $3 trillion (that’s in addition to $3 trillion in the first relief bill), but the Republican-dominated Senate found the House bill too generous and expansive. The House found the Senate’s $1 trillion proposal too stingy to address the crisis. The two chambers were at an impasse.

            The Constitution and generations of civics books have told us that when this happens, a conference committee with members of both houses shall meet to work out the differences. In the current impasse, neither chamber would take up the other’s bill, a sign of the partisan chasm of our politics. Instead of organizing a conference committee to resolve the differences in the two proposals, congressional leaders began negotiating with the Executive branch, not with members of Congress.

            President Trump has “come to the rescue,” as he sees it, with a series of executive orders that partially restores the recently expired $600 weekly federal unemployment benefit. Trump offers $400 a week, but with many strings and barriers attached, along with an order to “consider” a housing foreclosure ban, which the House wanted to implement.

            Trump has ordered that the payroll tax on earned income should not be collected through the end of the year. The payroll tax supports Social Security  (6.2 percent from employees and 6.2 percent from employers) and Medicare (1.45 percent each from employees and employers), both funds face long-term shortages. The temporary tax holiday will have little impact on consumer spending but a potentially large impact on the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, two of the most successful and popular government programs in U.S. history. He also touts the plan as a loan that has to be repaid, perhaps. Trump says he’ll forgive the payroll tax loan, and, hey, if he’s reelected, he’ll extend the loan forgiveness into next year!

            Trump’s announcement was aimed at maximum electoral impact, but the more bothersome issue is the Executive Branch taking over legislative matters. Certainly, the Constitution doesn’t grant a president the right to circumvent what happens in Congress. The president’s only constitutional duty in this process is his right to veto a bill passed by both houses, with the limitation that if both chambers reject his veto by a two-thirds vote, the vetoed bill becomes law.

            Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution clearly states: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress … which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.”

             Modern presidencies (post-World War II) have taken an outsized view of the office, leading to complaints of an “Imperial Presidency.” Congress shares responsibility for its loss of constitutional authority. Members of Congress have negotiated with the president, not with fellow legislators, to get bills passed. Congress has also passed laws that leave to the executive branch the creation of rules and regulations implementing those new laws.

QAnon conspiracy theories make 2020 stranger than ever

 

This post was printed in the Wilson Times Aug. 21, 2020

 

Just when you think politics and Congress can’t get much crazier, you find out they actually can.

            November’s election might put eleven adherents to the way-out conspiracy theory/cult/religion/political movement known as QAnon in the U.S. House of Representatives. Marjory Taylor Greene’s win in the Republican primary for Georgia’s 14^th Congressional District has raised some alarm or second thoughts among some voters and politicians. Greene won the primary in a district that never toys with Democratic candidates. Her primary win was, as they used to say about Democratic primary results in North Carolina, “tantamount to election.”

            Short of a resignation or a major health problem, Greene is going to join the House of Representatives, and she might not be alone. We could end up with a “Q” Caucus in the House.

            The FBI has labeled QAnon a domestic terrorism threat. Facebook has abolished one QAnon group with a reported 200,000 members for violating membership rules. QAnon has not been removed from all social media, however. Estimates of followers on social media are as high as 300 million worldwide.

            These actions have forced QAnon out of the shadows, at least a little. QAnon is still filled with mystery, beginning with the identity of the anonymous leader of the group, a philosopher/prophet whose insights, predictions and allegations are eagerly awaited by followers.

            What’s the conspiracy all about? No one, other than Q himself/herself, knows the details. Loosely, it alleges that there is a “Deep State” conspiracy to overthrow the Trump administration, or something like that. “The Storm,” in Q parlance is an anticipated global war, which is said to be coming soon. The conspiracy is beginning to get some attention from the news media, including a cover story in the June issue of The Atlantic and an article in the Washington Post headlined “QAnon is a menace; ignoring it isn’t an option.”

            QAnon sprang into the public’s attention in October 2016, when Edgar Maddison Welch of Salisbury, N.C., decided to take matters into his own hands after he read about a Q claim that a pizza parlor in Northwest Washington, D.C., was actually a front for a pedophile ring that included Hillary Rodham Clinton. Welch traveled to Washington and barged into the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria wielding his AR-15 rifle and a revolver. Welch demanded to see the children he had been told were part of a child sex ring operating out of the basement of Comet Ping Pong.

            There was no basement in the small pizzeria. Undeterred, Welch fired a few rounds with his rifle and forced open a locked door at the back of the pizzeria. He thought it must be the secret chamber where captive children were being abused. It wasn’t. It was a closet. Embarrassed, Welch laid down his weapons and surrendered to police. “The intel on this wasn’t 100 percent,” he told the New York Times. It wasn’t even 10 percent. Welch was sentenced to four years.

            Q communicates with his followers through enigmatic, official-sounding messages posted online and through brief aphorisms, which are called “crumbs.” (Why does that make me think of fecal incontinence?) Q predicted that Hillary Clinton would be arrested, along with co-conspirators, on Oct. 30, 2017, followed by a violent, nationwide uprising. That didn’t happen, but the Q faithful are still believers.

            The whole QAnon phenomenon is proof of the gullibility of many Americans, whose fertile imaginations cannot settle for bland reality. President Trump could probably put a stop to this ridiculousness with one simple declaration, but he won’t do it. Some followers believe Trump is Q.