Saturday, December 11, 2004
DE FRAG
There can be little doubt that in recent decades one of the biggest divisive factors working against the unity of our nation has been Immigration.
The irony of it all strikes us particularly hard because we have always been proud of the fact that our nation was founded on the concept of immigration of souls from Europe into the New World. The growing nation depended on oncoming people from all cultures. Now, it is obvious, we need some controls on such a flow.
The need is not new one. We have faced up to that problem in the past especially in relation to the exclusion of specific types. We have tired various ways of doing so by the use of quotas and allotments and percentage charts,and ignored any which did not produce the results we expected. Even when it was obviously not working as planned, we took a certain pride in “protecting:” our shores from less admirable aim migrants.
Since the 1970's it has been increasingly obvious that our national visage was changing dramatically with the steady influx of increasing numbers of Hispanic and Asian immigrants - both legal and illegal. The Los Angeles county area, in California is one which is most often cited statistically because such numbers can be startling. In the 1980's the Hispanic population of that LA area alone increased by 1,300,000 people! Try to imagine that: a new city of one-and-a- third-million citizens dumped into one area many with little or no knowledge of the language and with little, or less, prospects of gainful employment.
There are other causes of division in our country, of course. They became obvious during the recent presidential election and we will face it every time we choose official in the future. We were extremely lucky this time, but cannot afford to ignore our immigration problems much longer without inviting future disaster. Other include marked changes in our moral standards and relationships God and religious beliefs. The are economic problems which must be solved- especially those related to equality of opportunity around the world. We have been torn apart in many ways by the unrelenting demands of technology which insists that we discard or refashion traditional ways and means of doing things. The fermentation of knowledge has created a bulk far in excess of our ability to handle it. The machine has become an essential to our way of life instead of an addition thereunto.
i
A.L.M. December 11, 2004 [c422wds]
Friday, December 10, 2004
EXTREMES AGAIN
When is enough “enough?”
We have seen quite extensive efforts by certain individuals and groups who are seeking to eliminate any mention of the word “God” from every aspect of our national life.
The movement has taken many forms including warped readings of the governmental documents which they mis-quote in attempting to start such an idea or to sustain what they seem to think they have created.
Every time we get a re-run of such talk in the various levels of the media, I am reminded of those literary lunkheads who occur with regularity who feel it is necessary they write a novel without using the letter “e”. It can be done. It has been done. At the end, such authors have had only a book of words they called a novel which did not make use of the letter “e”. I have suggested, in the past, that such “no-e” writers should try something more difficult such as writing a review of their “no-e” novel and of its ultimate purpose without using the personal pronoun “I”.
Eliminating God from our lives would also be an ego thing.
We have, I feel, been blessed by having lived in a nation in which the founder opposed the concept of an official state church. I can't find any convincing statements,or even half-statements or random, out-of-context references which any of them said they favored total elimination of religious faith.
Far too often, those who argue either side of the current “discussion “are either ignorant of the opinion of the founders or they are ignoring its true content.
We are a nation given to the use of labels, too, which complicates the problem. We have a set of people we call “Liberals” and another set we call “Conservatives”. In theory each is separate for the other, but in actual practice, there is a gray area between the two in which individuals control the degree to which they support or demean the labeled guidelines. Far to often these in-between sentiments are ignored by the rabid individuals who are usually self-designated spokespersons for either the Liberal and Conservative groups. We do not get a true report of what the bulk of the people really believe. That shows when the issue comes to a vote of some type ...each side complains of poor support from the rest of us. Too often it is the leadership which is Liberal or Conservative in a strict sense.
Semantic problems exist. If the Conservative sees all Liberals as God-less persons he or she is making a sad error. It is not true that all Liberals are, then, automatically atheists or agnostics. And, for the Liberal person to assume that every Conservative is a Bible-thumbing/pounder hillbilly or desert-rat type is the victim of wrongful thinking. Politicians, wisely, walk with special care on any sure religious areas subject to such unmarked quicksands, swamps, chasms, winds of wild change, torrential storms and life-sapping drought as well.
We need to reform our views, redefine our objectives so we can, at least, meet and talk about them. To continue to stand apart and yell insults at each other is not solving the problem at all.
A.L.M. December 10, 2004 [c553wds]
Thursday, December 09, 2004
RAH FOR HAKLUYT!!!
Let's hear a three-fold cheer for Richard Hakluyt!
Or, perhaps, you'd rather not raise a ruckus on behalf of someone you don't know; possibly never heard about. That's good logic. He certainly hasn't been in the news recently; has run for office, robbed a pizza shop, or been accused of murdering rock concert fans.
You are not alone if you don't recognize the signature of Richard Hakluyt. Like Smucker's fine collection of caloric products he has to have been good with a name like the one. To remember the name just misspell “hack” as “hak” and then append your very best misspelling of “lute” as “luyt.” There! Got it? He was originally from Hereforshire – originally of Welsh background - where he was said to be one of those “Hack-loot” boys.
He was an historical figure.
Because Richard Hakluyt lived back in the time of discovery and early settlement of the new world area. He was the one person who did the most to bring the varied assortment of information available to the attention of the Royal family of England and to the merchants, bankers, and others able to participate in developing commerce with a “new”England he envisioned to be an urgent project. He urged Royal concern for the planned colonial plans which Sir Walter Raleigh, had hoped to establish. Richard Hakluyt, who had worked in Paris for half a decade, was aware of the plans of both the not-so-secret plans by Spanish and French governments to exclude England from the development of the new world.
In 1584 Hakluyt placed before Queen Elizabeth I a copy of his “Discourse” outlining the entire project. He discussed the discovery rights The British held to great expanses the New World and gave basically a twenty-three point analysis of the reasons for undertaking settlement of the new world promptly. One of the maps placed before the Queen was the first in which the name "Virginia" appeared, ...probably intended to met the eye of the “Virgin Queen”. Hakluyt, received a vacant “living”in Bristol in l586, which he held with several other preferments until his death in 1616. It i interesting to note that, so firm was his belief that the colonies in the New World that he, in 1605, applied for and received the prospective living set to become available when James Town became the capital of the new colony in Virginia. The benefice was supplied, too, in 1607 when he appointed one Robert Hunt as Curator at that post.
We owe a great debt to Richard Hakluyt in so many ways. He compiled the information gained by scores of not too thoughtful and methodically-minded explorers, adventurers. fisherman, and a few egotist-mariners among them, as well... and placed the information they had gathered in a useful form before the right people.
Without Richard Hakluyt the French and Spanish intentions may well have taken over the area and we would not be here in Virginia today. He died in 1616 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. In his lifetime, due to the numerous prebendary and living posts he held, Hakluyt died a “wealthy man”. He build a fortune and his son squandered it all. We, probably can be said to squander the wealth of the fine heritage he left to us, as well, by not remembering all that he did on our behalf.
A.L.M. December 8, 2004 [c575wds]
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
ARABIC YOUTH
Do you sometimes get the feeling that the population group we call “Youth” does not exist in Arabic lands?
Our young people form natural levels largely due, I suppose, to a large degree by our system of education by class divisions, determined by the intensity in learning.
As I see children depicted on television and in the media, in general, I find one level we have in abundance - people in the Youth classification but they seem to be missing in Arabic lands.
We have “youths” in this country who are citizens at an in-between, formative stage. Some are still attending High School, some are in a college setting of one type or another, while others in the age group are in business, commerce and industry as learners, beginners, ,and in the jargon of fast food industry, in particular, some are called “management trainees". Some, too, are in the armed forces of nation. Some are married and have children . The age span may run from the late teens, then, into the mid-twenties. They speak and think of themselves as being the “Youth” of America. They can show am amazing control of major sections our economy by their purchases; they can influence the popular view of all aspects of living in the world today, by their sometimes ,outspoken even belligerents voices they can cause a teetering in upper social levels.. They are sensational statistics at times in fanciful charts claiming to show what might become of us as a nation in the future. This vibrant segment of our population may also be said to have been “high-teched” to a point which some critics think is “a bit much”. The youth of our nation is schooled and, by training and experience to use of the Media for a myriad number of purposes many of which are being formulated as they go along to whatever conditions make them viable.
Don't you agree that we do, indeed, have such a group in our society? I can find in other nations as well, but “youth”, per se, seems to be absent in Arabic. Our method of study is television and that may hinder us from seeing all that is to be seen. We see the skinny kids throwing rocks and anything and everything they consider to be hostile. Others, also thin and seemingly undernourished, stand mute and motionless watching bombed-out cars burn. A lanky boy might toss a piece of rubbish on the pyre as if to keep it going and shake his fist gingerly in the air - at whom we dare not guess. All these are urchins, kids, kindergarten and early graders in any school system. You will, occasionally, see a few older boys in the street crowds, milling about, and in groups weaving their arms when told to do so. Since reforms, we now see some young teen-age girls in the schoolrooms scenes but not elsewhere.
I think the male youths of the land - aged late teens to the mid-twenties – are hidden in the crowds of older men. It seems that the young boy, once he begins to grow a more than few hairs his face, abruptly become a full-grown man. He is in those crowds we see - young in enthusiasm but old in appearance. They remain largely arm wavers, stampers, jumpers as they applaud the actions of older, or hairier, men among them.. as hey are more active - firing guns into the air; brandishing weapons and screaming insults at anyone opposite them. Whom ever the older men hate the less hairy will hate as well. One gets the feeling the are managed by oldsters ...puppets.
We look to our youth as tomorrows leaders. I don't see such potential in the hirsute hero of Arabian lands.
A.L.M. December 8, 2004 [c638wds]
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
THE DAY THAT LIVES
Our President Franklin D. Roosevelt told us it would “live in infamy - the day of December 1941.
And it has done so, I think, to a remarkable extent.
I spent most of the day today in rather strange location for the observance of Pearl Harbor Day but very fitting in many ways It happened to be the date of one of my periodic visits to the Veteran's Hospital facility in Salem, Virginia. Yet, walking through - and wheel-chairing, at times - in some of the old buildings there on that spread-out, campus-style installation, I did find myself “remembering” Pearl Harbor – the Day - the sneak attack brought deaths to thousands, injuries of many people in so many tragic ways – and the day which set a pattern which changed the rest of my life and the lives of those I loved, continue to love and will love. It changed everything I ever did.
I noticed on the way into the grounds that one of the major buildings had a banner above the door proclaiming seventy years of service and that's why I spoke of the building as being “old”. I remember when the site was what we called a “flying field” I don't think we ever called “Cook's Field” an “airport” It was simply a field reasonably flat and clear or trees, from which a farmer had evicted his cattle and which visiting airmen used as a place to base their planes with hobby or profit plans in mind. I always assumed the farmer's name had been Cook.
Why should any or all of that mean something to me on Pearl Harbor Day? I suppose it is called “specific reference”; or “association”. I was just a kid and one Sunday afternoon I saw a young man jump from a small bi-plane roaring high above the field and fall to his death on the fare edge of the field. His case was a suicide, and that doesn't “count” for much in my book, but because of Pearl Harbor day in 1941 I have since felt the effect of flying deaths multiplied many times over.
We have yet to solve the complex background which led to the attack on Pearl Harbor, but we have all felt the after-effects deeper than we dare to imagine. Prior to that day, I, for one, was not eager to join, but after Pearl Harbor it was a set thing which was sure to happen and I welcomed it when it came to me. I went where the sent; asked no favors, did as I was told drilled, marched, hiked, underwent thirteen weeks of infantry basic training in swampland with bugs and by some strange quirk I was suddenly - with my entire outfit – into the, then, U.S .Army Air Force. All in all, when I got out I had spent, or mis-spent four or five years in the military mode – more than precise enlistment time, because a civilian could not get a good job if he was “going” and he had to take what he could get when he got back. Mine was an odd military career and we will look at particular aspects in the future, perhaps. but for the moment let me say that the Veteran's Hospital routines remind me, in so many ways, of life in the army. The “hurry-up and wait” element is still alive and well. “Sick Call” is still sick.”
This “infamy” idea F.D.R. used so well. He chose exactly the right word and if you look it us in the dictionary or the thesaurus to see all of the subtle meaning of the term. You will see his choice was a wise one and accurate.
The American people need some reminders. I find young people today who do not respond at all to any mention of December 7th ,or of “Pearl Harbor”, for that matter.
We can't point fingers to establish “fault, either.
This, and other related lapses, are no ones specific fault. It's a collective thing concerning a loss of values with which we are dealing in so much of living today. It is, I fear, a major problem of our era.
A.L.M. December 7, 2004 [c707wds]
Monday, December 06, 2004
EXCESS
People of other nations, so often, seem to see Americans as being a people of excess in almost everything we undertake.
We do a TV special which wraps up a major story in a “complete, finished for all time package”. We tell everything we know about a subject, a scandal, a battle, or a display of pomp and pretense by someone in the public eye. A recent attempt brought the Princess Diane story to the forefront after it had been covered more than adequately not too long ago. Gossipy tid-bits of information surfaced from some crevice which had been missed before – or considered to be reliable or even untrue.
I saw promotional spots about the program but didn’t actually get to see it. I had no desire to do so, to tell the truth, because I felt the story about the Princess and her unfortunate experiences had been given more than full treatment not too long ago. We, as we so often seem to do, went completely overboard with details about the princess and her friends and associates, to put any genuine credence in materials dealing with an alleged indiscretions during her later days. I suddenly realized this morning that I have not heard from a single soul who actually saw “the startling, new revelations.
We are mis-using war stories from Iraq and Afghanistan by repeating them for so many days and nights. This lapse of creativity by TV personnel does the nation a disservice by repeated such stories some the men and women who are on the sites on our behalf. You have no doubt that is is good advice that we refrain from showing our small children the pictures of the Trade Towers being destroyed. Children seeing those photograph and think it is all happening again! They do not see it as something that took place a year at one time – but as another such incident happening at that moment before them! They wonder why we can't stop the enemy form burning out tall building! You have to be automotive expert to be able to identify the vehicle you see burning on the roadside in Iraq. Often it is the same one you saw burning yesterday and the day before. The audio portion of the item doesn't tell you that is the same one you have seen burst into flame dozen times or more! Most adults who see it opt in favor of a new vehicle. “Why can't the marines stop those roadside bombings on that mile-and- a half of highway!” You too may have heard those very words spoken on TV as I have when such a shot was repeated.
Recently deceased Yasher Arafat was an expert at use excess to advantage. I knew two American tourists who were in Arafat-land year ago,who were pleased with his actions. Their tour groups were each was treated to a special, “secret” audience with Arafat. Their travel groups were taken by car through the streets to the leader's “secret hiding place”. He moved freely among them and my two friends were very much impressed with his views and friendly attitude. They were in his presence over one year apart but he presented each with slides of a Palestinian widow picking though stones of her blasted home; two children sobbing at her side. The tourists each told me the pictures had been taken “that very morning” - of the same woman children a full year apart.
Go to excess in the celebration of Christmas, if you must – but let's try to to keep our misery within sensible bounds. Listen carefully to that which you hear; look carefully at that which you see.
A.L.M. December 6, 2004 [c624wds]
Sunday, December 05, 2004
PRESENT TENSE
I sometimes question that which seems me to be a rather shallow “futuristic” attitude concerning the way we live. We become far too much and much too readily concerned about “the way things are going to be tomorrow” and overlook the opportunity we have at hand in the present and often tense moments our lives today.
I mention it now because I also get a kindred feeling that at the same time, we are, thus complicating and weakening our nation.
The present – tense or sedate – is an active one. It builds constantly and it builds on firm foundations and not on the fickle, shifting sands of popular opinion, whims or styles. It is a good thing, perhaps, to keep some ideas of what future living might involve, but to jump over existing barriers thinking that puts us in closer contact with tomorrow, is a false view. The very promise of a bright tomorrow means we must find solutions to problems which make it unlikely to be in sync with our natural dreams of the paradise it might become.
“Now” is here. You can work with it to make “then“ even better.
Make clean break with misdeeds and mistakes of the past and take a firm step upon firmer land for tomorrow. Do those things which need to be done today. Do them now. Don't wait for some indefinite time in the years ahead ...near or far.
Glance at the burgeoning pages of “Help Wanted” advertisements in the newspapers of the land, and in the slick pages of the technical journals as well form all over the world. Rid yourself of silly fears about recessions and depressions by driving among the thousands of developments where new homes or all types and sizes are being constructed throughout our nation! Or, push yourself and shopping cart into the streaming throngs of buyers at your local Mall or Shopping Center. Or, take the whole family and enjoy the day at a leading stock car race; a major league baseball game or some other sport you enjoy! Be an active citizen in your area and you will see Americans “living it up” both at work and at play.
Become part of Now.
Do that and the Future will be secured. “Now” will become the “Past” - a time you will honor and respect because you helped build it.
A. L. M. [c402wds] December 5, 2004
|
