Our Times

In retirement, I have a lot of time to think about all kinds of matters.  This election cycle has given me much to ponder.  I need to organize my thoughts.  Hence this post.

First, I find myself struggling with these propositions:

1. There appears to be a new third rail in American politics (or does that make it a fourth rail after Social Security?).  I'm thinking of the military, service personnel, and veterans.  I think there is a tendency to think of them as interchangeable.  The military = service personnel = veterans.  I think that is dangerous and would like to develop that thought.
2. I am concerned about a growing nationalism that I see in the campaigns of Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and, to a lesser degree, other candidates for President from the GOP.  Again, there is a tendency to conflate love of country, patriotism, and nationalism.  I believe we should start to grow beyond all of these.  That probably makes me some kind of "one-worlder".  I'd like to develop that topic as well.  
3. You can hardly talk about a growing sense of nationalism without engaging the immigration issue as well.  The anti-immigrant sentiment that is one of many drivers to the conservative ideology needs to be addressed.
4. I am concerned that education has become devalued by a large segment of our population.  I think I know when it started and I'd like to do something to shed light on this issue.
5. I am concerned that the same campaigns mentioned before have given voice to a segment of our population whose overt racism is suddenly more acceptable than it has been since the 1960s.
6. I am concerned with the degree to which religion has co-opted political discussion.  Barack Obama had to prove he was a Christian.  Ted Cruz wants the US to be a Christian theocracy.  Throw in Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson to the politicians who want our cultural life to be dictated by Christian Evangelicals.  Yet, the United States is apparently undergoing a process of secularization, following what has happened in Europe.
7. What happened to conservatives that I could respect while disagreeing with them?  people like Bob Dole, George H.W. Bush, Everett Dirkson, Howard Baker, even Ronald Reagan at his best.  Where have they gone?  We find conservative commentators like David Brooks and George Will throwing up their hands in dismay at the current crop.
8. I find the whole environment-global warming-climate change debate tiresome and frustrating.  If ever there was an indication of the stranglehold that big business, particularly the fossil fuel industry, has over our political discourse, this is it.

I hope to explore these (and perhaps more) topics in the days and weeks to come.  I'm sure the presidential race will find its place in my musings.

Something to get you started:  Will McAvoy on the greatest country in the world

Abortion -- Where I Stand -- What I Believe

There's a part of me that says I should keep my mouth shut about this topic.  Why?  I lack two X chromosomes.

Having said that, there's some ambivalence in my thoughts.  I don't think that abortion is completely morally neutral.  There are many circumstances that can serve to "justify" the act:  poverty, ignorance, rape, incest, mother's health/life.  Convenience, not so much.  "Not in our plan", not so much.  I have a real problem when the reason for an abortion is that one or two people do not want to take responsibility for their action.

But, I absolutely believe that a woman has the right to make decisions about her own body and health.  Unfortunately, the decision to abort affects a woman and another, incipient life.

Of course, this debate would not occur if we lacked the technology to provide safe abortions to women.  Basically, we perform abortions because we can.

Proud to be

The politicians these days, of course, have to include some kind of national pride talking point in their discourse.  How can you get elected if you're not proud to be an American?

But let's stop and think about that for a moment.  

Usually, we take pride in an accomplishment.  I'm proud of the job I did.  I'm proud of my daughters (although it's arguable to consider how much of what I've done resulted in the persons they are as adults).  I'm proud of  a song I wrote or an essay I composed.  Those are all examples of the pride that results from doing.

But what about those instances when we have pride from being?  I'm proud to be an Episcopalian.  I'm proud to be from Alabama (sort of).  I'm proud of the Alabama football team because I am a fan.  And, of course, with apologies to Lee Greenwood, I'm proud to be an American.

What is it that causes that pride?  I'm an American, not because of anything I've done.  I simply was born in America.  In many respects, it's a matter of luck.  What causes national pride?  Are the accomplishments of the country the source of the pride?  I didn't win World War II.  Other Americans did.  I didn't land on the moon.  Other Americans did.  I inherited the benefits of our revolution and constitution.  I've played no role in defending my country.  Just what is the source of that pride?

I think we should take a different path.  I think we should turn away from pride.  Pride in one's country eventually leads to an ugly nationalism.   I think we've seen that for some time.

At one point we proclaimed that it was our "Manifest Destiny" to conquer the continent.  Who decided that it was God's will that we should subjugate the native peoples and take the land that was their home?  Was it God's will that we should wrest Texas from Mexico?   When we made the "Louisiana Purchase", weren't we really buying land that France had claimed for its own, but in fact, again, was the home of the native peoples?

Because of the place of my birth and rearing, at another time, I suppose I could have boasted of my role in the South's failure in the Civil War.  But wait, we usually don't boast of failure.

_________ and the Constitution

In December 2012, I wrote an entry to this blog called "Newtown and the Constitution".  Now, almost three years later, I find myself experiencing the same emotions, over and over again.  I could write the article with "Chattanooga" or "Charleston" or "Texas" or...you get the idea.

We can wait no longer.  If the second amendment is the major obstacle to taking some kind of action to restrict gun ownership, then we need to revisit that amendment.

I'll repeat my argument from earlier.  The amendment process was created so that the constitution could reflect the changing moral vision of the country in response to changes in the world around us.  So former slaves became citizens, women were given (almost) full rights as citizens, and individuals born on US soil were granted citizenship.  Alcohol was banned; then alcohol was made legal.

Our moral vision and the world were very different in 1781.  We had a very primitive technology available to us in firearms.  Whether rifle or pistol, "flintlock" was state of the art.  It allowed the shooter to discharge one shot at a time, before rearming the mechanism, during which time, the shooter could be disarmed.    Furthermore, the second amendment specifically couches the right to bear arms in the context of maintaining a militia.

All of that has changed.  The technology grew through repeater rifles and revolvers to (semi) automatic pistols and rifles with high capacity magazines and autoloaders.  A person with such a weapon is very dangerous, indeed.

As for a militia, hasn't that long been resolved by the armed forces and national guard?

Furthermore, our understanding of mental illness, its various conditions and their causes, has given us tools for identifying individuals who clearly should not have the "right to bear arms".

I was flabbergasted recently when I learned, following the Oregon shooting, that there are some 300,000,000 guns owned by people in this country alone.  I suspect some of them have arsenals to make up for the number of people that I know that don't own a single gun.  Am I alone or does it seem as though that number constitutes a clear and present danger to the rest of us?

I wish I knew the answer.  I don't agree with people who use their guns for hunting.  But I'll grant them their legitimacy.  As for keeping a gun for self-defense, I'm not sure a gun will actually offer protection from someone who knows what he is doing and is determined to do harm.

I lean toward complete disarmament of the citizenry.  I think that is the only way to eliminate the problem.  But I know that's not going to happen, probably not in my lifetime.

Help me feather my retirement nest!

For the better part of 30 years, I made my living exploring the mysteries of Excel and PowerPoint, those ubiquitous Microsoft Office tools.

Retired but not dead, I recently developed two PowerPoint presentations for my church, involving over 100 PowerPoint slides, charts that were linked to Excel, and Excel files that made use of multiple pivot tables.

It occurred to me that there may be other people or businesses who could use those same skills but who lacked the time to acquire the skills or the resources to have someone else create usable end products.

If I could connect with those people or businesses, then perhaps we could help each other.  I can create Excel spreadsheets based on specifications and/or PowerPoint presentations based on your needs for a modest hourly fee.

Grandfather Coleman

I had such a good response from my recent Facebook post about my grandfather, that I thought I would write a little something about my paternal grandfather, James G. Coleman, Sr.

Unfortunately, I had precious little time with him.  When I was about 3 1/2 years old, we received a call that he had died of a heart attack.  This was before any of my 5 siblings or 3 cousins on my father's side of the family had even been born.

So I am the only one of my generation to have memories of "Pawpaw" Coleman.

There are three that stand out.  One direct, the others by means of photographs.

First, the direct memory.  I remember my grandfather liked to play on the floor with me.  After a certain amount of roughhousing, he would order some warm milk for me, presumably to help me get to sleep.  Because I really have a memory of playing on the floor with him, it must have happened shortly before his death.

Second, there is a great picture that one of my parents must have taken.  It would seem that Pawpaw Coleman was given the task of putting me down for a nap.  The picture shows us both on a bed and guess which one was sleeping.  I was bright eyed and Pawpaw was in dreamland.

Finally, I know there are pictures of me with my grandfather's golf driver (or whatever it was called in those days) in my hands addressing a golf ball.  The club was taller than I was and I have no idea whether I ever hit the ball.

As it turns out, a decade later, I came across my grandfather's golf clubs in a closet or some other storage space.  They were in an old fashioned golf bag.  I asked my grandmother if I could have them and she, of course, agreed.

I would play golf with friends on the 9 hole municipal golf course close to our home.  I remember riding a bicycle to the course with my golf bag over my shoulder. 

The woods were still in reasonable shape.  I had to buy a set of irons from a discount department store.  I could only afford one-half of the irons, so I bought the odd numbers (3,5,7, and 9).  The woods were really made of wood and, if I knew where they were, they would be priceless (at least to me).  I gave up on golf around the time I was 15 or so and I don't know what happened to the clubs after that.

But that leads me to another story told by my father, James G. Coleman, Jr.  My dad would comment from time to time that he hated golf.  When I would ask him why, he told this story.  My grandfather would play golf every Saturday and my father would caddy for him.  Now, it seems that my grandfather was a no better golfer than I am (still waiting to break 100).  He also had quite a temper.  So, if he had a bad shot (and there must have been quite a few of them) he would hurl the offending club into the nearest water hazard.  My father would have to retrieve it for him so the round could continue.  

Sad to say, that temper must have been genetically passed on the Y chromosome to both my father and subsequently to me.  For dad, unruly children would send him over the edge.  For me, errant golf shots and hitting my head in the attic proved to be my undoing.

Good Manners

My fellow boomers and I have reached the age when we look at the world and find a lot that we don't like. My daughters will tell you that one example in my own life is that the grammar their generation should have learned in school has been forgotten. Others see an apparent decline in ACT and SAT scores as proof that education generally "isn't what it used to be." Most recently, another of my generation has observed that good manners seem to be a thing of the past. Or at least something is falling through the cracks as one generation trains the next to be civil.

And civility is the point to manners, isn't it? Good manners don't exist in a vacuum, as though somebody once said, "This is how you're supposed to do things, just because." I think it's a little like agreeing (usually implicitly) to all speak a given language in a social situation. Communications would be extremely difficult without that agreement.

No, politeness and good manners are ways we oil our relationships with other people. It shows that we respect them. If we are confronted with someone who exercises bad manners, we are pretty sure they don't respect us. (Sidebar: I refuse to use the new word "disrespect".) In the same way that good grammar (apparently another lost art) is an indicator that you know how to communicate properly, good manners in a young person show that he or she is learning one of the requirements to live in an adult world. Good manners in an adult show that he or she has learned those same requirements. If nothing else, people are more likely to like you if you exhibit good manners than if you don't.

Here are some examples of seemingly forgotten etiquette. My source is the web site www.emilypost.com. Pretty original, yes?

Party Manners 101

Most of these may feel like news to some of my adult friends as well. At any rate, these are my personal favorites (that is, pet peeves).

• Always arrive on time, never early.
• Turn off your blinkety-blank cell phone.
• Unless invited in, keep clear of the kitchen.
• Thank your hosts on the way out.

From ehow.com. All about meeting new people. Note especially the part about eye contact. In our culture, this is very important. In other cultures, not so much. But if you can't look someone in the eye, you come across as evasive.

Finally, a personal pet peeve that arose when receiving "thank you" notes from recent graduates and newly weds.

Write a real thank you. Something more than just the words "thank you". (Yes, we did receive one of those.) Tell the person why you're grateful, what you plan to do with the gift. If you're going to the formality of writing a thank you note, use appropriate titles (Mr., Mrs., Miss).

I think that's enough for now, at least until I have my next encounter where my instinctive response is "How rude!"