Politics

Personally, I like William Jennings Bryan. Even with all the baggage. Bring back the Agrarian Populists! Where is today's Tom Watson? Red-headed lawyers who want to represent the unrepresented. Wow, that does sound familiar.

Where do these guys come from?

Yesterday I finally wrote down my ideas on politics for the world to see. I expected to get some response from my relatives and Kate. Ever since I posted same, I have been waiting for some comment on my blog. I know that a number of my relatives do read my blog (mother, brother, sister, wife, daughter), to the point where I can't call my mother up without repeating some news to her that she has already read on my blog. It does make for a short conversational universe.

However, imagine my surprise, when I finally noticed a comment on my blog and found that someone had directed me to the Modern Whig Party blogspot. Not Kate, not my brother (whose comments are usually worth reading) but some guy trying to revive a political party that disappeared when Abe Lincoln left to become a Republican in the 1850's.

So, I followed his reference to the Modern Whig Party and I must say that it was rather interesting little website. Most of it was references to people who had evinced a problem with modern political parties and/or a wish for a new party. I always thought the Whigs were interesting in American History. Alexander Stephens started out as a Whig. He was a contemporary of Lincoln. Of course, he couldn't last in Georgia as a Whig, so he ultimately became a Democrat, and finally, reluctantly, a Confederate.

Henry Clay was the most famous of the Whigs, other than William Henry Harrison and John Tyler. He came from the Jeffersonian Democrats and became a Whig later on when he was a Senator from Kentucky. The only problem with Clay was the same problem with the Whigs. He couldn't resolve his conscience with his politics. The issue of slavery was too problematic for a slave-holding lawyer from Lexington, Kentucky.

The problem with the Whigs was the same thing that gave them their allure: the ability to think and compromise. Ronald Reagan could never have been a Whig. It would have required too much thought. The polarizing parties of today would not suffer too many Whigs.

But at the same time, we all must understand and recognize that it is the middle of the roaders in this country who ultimately turn the tide toward one party or the other. Those independent thinkers in the middle, the ones who were Whigs in an earlier time, and were more recently represented by the Yellow Dog Democrats in the South and the Liberal wing of the Republican Party still carry a heavy hand of political power, even if it is a true silent majority.

At the same time, I do tire of hearing Democrats say that Republicans are fascists or hear Republicans saying that Democrats are Communists. Narrow-minded, War-Mongering Right-Wing Republicans and Bleeding-heart, Tax and Spend Left-Wing Democrats. Its no wonder that neither party seems to really represent the majority of us.

The economy and consolation of the weekend

Boy. I have to deposit some funds into Kate's Wachovia account to ensure she has enough money to pay some fees and buy groceries. The news is saying that Wachovia is the next bank which is suffering from the credit crisis. It makes me wonder if it is better to find a different way to get money to Kate. Of course, her little account is covered by the FDIC, but it still gives you second thoughts.

Now I understand that Britain has lost one of its big banks. There is no doubt that we are all tied together in this global economy. Everyone profits from the financial strengths of the others.

I hope that Congress passes this bill soon. We need to get off the roller coaster and find some level ground. It is a shame that the economy is so tied to perception. Sports is so much simpler. You go into a tough game and lose at home. You look in the newspaper and see that you are still in the top ten. With a lot of time left in the season. That is some comfort.

But the economy is a little more complicated than Division 1 football rankings.

It is nice that W&L and Dunwoody won this past weekend. I'll grab consolation anywhere I can get it.

Why I am still a Democrat

I have been thinking about this for some time and wanted to write something down which explained myself to my friends and family. Most of my friends and family are Republicans. I don't hear too many people defending Democratic candidates in the elections down here in Georgia, or anywhere else I go these days. The days of the Solid Democratic South are long gone, replaced by an even more Solid Republican South. There are probably more racial and economic differences between the parties than anything. And the Democrats of eight years ago in the Georgia Legislature are now Republicans.

But I still consider myself a Democrat and this is why: The basis of the Democratic party in this country can be found in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." In my mind, that is the foundational truth of our country and the Democratic Party which found its genesis in Jefferson and Jackson.

Jefferson saw a country made of simple, yeoman farmers, who took hold of their new-found freedoms to establish lives unencumbered by the rules of their "betters". Jefferson founded the University of Virginia to educate not the wealthy and high-born, but the common citizens of Virginia. The University of Georgia, the first land grant university, was also established on these simple principles. These were common citizens, travelling westward, both independently and collectively, to establish a country based on that simple concept of equality and liberty.

And as they passed over the Appalachians and across the Piedmont, they found new voices for political power, away from the wealth and traditions of coastal America. Jackson, Calhoun and Clay were the new voices of America. The Democratic Party of Jackson and Calhoun demanded a new place in Congress and the White House for those brothers, sisters and cousins who passed over the geographical boundaries of our country and demanded equal status with their eastern relatives. Ironically, they demanded the preservation of their personal liberties, even as they expanded slavery west across the mountains into the new heartland of this young country.

The Democratic Party of the Nineteenth Century bristled at any attempt at control, both through tariff or tax. The best government was the government which governed least. That was the motto of the Democratic Party of that era. I often think that the "Don't tread on me" sign continues to be a meaningful symbol for our country.

It was the Whigs who demanded taxes for new roads and bridges to build the new country. It was the Whigs who struggled with the desire to limit or end slavery. It was the Whigs who ultimately merged into the Republican party of 1856 and 1860, demanding abolition and the preservation of the union. This new Republican Party sent federal troops into the Southern states and ultimately made the slavery issue one of moral right and wrong. The Democrats attempted to argue that issues of slavery and secession constituted simple issues of sovereignty and property rights but the argument was ultimately decided by the moral high ground of the Republican Party.

Ultimately, the Democratic Party had to evolve and change to deal with the issues and cares of the growing nation. The present Democratic Party has changed considerably from its roots. The Democratic Party has even changed considerably from my youth to my adulthood. But I do still believe that the fundamental creed of the party holds true. We are all created equal. In some sense, the history of our country is the struggle of its citizens to make that statement apply to all of us.

And while I probably vote for Republican candidates equally as often, or maybe even more than I vote for Democrats, I still consider myself a Democrat.

Just like the symbol of the party, I am hard-headed and stubborn. Amen.

I'll try better next month

I have not been a good steward of my time this month. Or last month either. Business has been up. I have been busy trying to order the chaos of people's lives.

You know, a lawyer is a confused mixture of Priest Penitent and Janitor. Listening the woes of the parish, pronouncing absolution on their sins. Cleaning up the mess they leave. Trying not to create anymore than I clean.

Its a hard job sometimes.

A lawyer friend told me that the practice of law is not that hard. Either he's much brighter than I, or he is lying to make me feel better. Perhaps you need to cut your heart out of it and carry on. Chase the dollar and worry about the consequences from a beach somewhere. Or a mountain cabin.

At least I know that the statute of limitations is four years.

REM daydreams

Kate,
I am south of Athens, somewhere
And the narrow road takes me
From faceless, dying small town
To another kudzu-ridden hamlet
And I am searching for the way
Back to Georgia sixteen and home.

The road passes from tree-dappled shade
To dry September sunshine
Past an abandoned service station,
With Good Gulf Gasoline,
Rust on the old metal pumps
Bleached like skeletons in the front
Prices painted permanently on the signs,
Grape Nehi advertised on the vending machine,
Drink coca-cola, take a long, cool sip
Through a dip in the road
And here I am in Rockville.

I have got to call you
And let you know what I have found.
And what is your response?
What could you say but
"Don't go back to Rockville, dad."

What else?

Sundresses and cowboy boots

On a hot September day
On top of "the mountain",
Watching the W&L-Sewanee game,
All the pretty little girls
In their pastel sundresses
Passed me by and
Made an odd match
For the boys in their oxford cloth
And cut-off shorts and kilts and khakis
But no odder, perhaps, than the two
Young ladies, smartly dressed
As they passed our seats in the visitor's stands
In their cotton sundresses and sunglasses,
Accessorized by some fine boots
Made of Texas leather.

If what we wear is an attempt
To communicate to others,
Then I am not quite sure I got the message.

Then again, the message wasn't really meant for me, anyway.

Ethics in the extreme

My brother sent me a 'spork' several months ago. A spork is a half fork, half spoon. Frank was afraid that the measure of a man was how he ate his cole slaw. He was afraid that my humanity might be adversely affected by my lack of the appropriate tool.

This issue arose when I confessed that I had eaten a helping of cole slaw with my fingers when the waitron at Captain D's served me my meal from the little window in the side of the restaurant and omitted a proper eating utensil for the cole slaw. Or any eating utensil, as far as that goes.

At any rate, Frank sent me a spork, and I have not been utensil-less while driving in my car since that time. Thank you, Frank.

I have a mug which I bought in the MLK Museum in Atlanta. The mug has a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. printed on the side. The quote discussed the ethical measure of a man. I will paraphrase: The measure of a man is more acurately taken in times of stress.

The sense of that quote, of course, is that the ethical actions of a human being are more accurately measured when that person is called on to respond to a situation in a time of stress rather than at his leisure.

If I am sitting in my chair at home and consider what I might do when confronted by an ethical quandry, the exercise is purely academic, since there is no outward pressure seeking to affect my actions in one way or another. If I ask myself whether or not I would steal from my neighbor, while sitting in my chair in the comfort of my home, my answer that I would not is not worth as much as if the question arose when something of my neighbor's possession was near at hand and it was within my power to take it from him without harm to myself. Tangentially, If my neighbor's possession is within my grasp and others are attempting to convince me that stealing the same is the right thing to do, my determination that I should not do so is also quite different.

In the 60's, the decision to support an African-American's civil rights, when my neighbors were attempting to justify the effort to hinder same, was quite a measure of the ethics of a European-American. In 2008, however, the decision to support these rights has a different character when it is basically universally accepted. I believe that this measure is what Martin Luther King Jr had in mind when he made the statement.

On the other hand, I am reminded of the ethical question as to whether or not stealing to feed one's family is morally wrong. In Les Miserables, Jean Valjean steals to feed his family, to save his family from starvation. He is imprisoned for his theft. The question becomes whether or not he should have been punished at all. Was the theft ethically wrong in its context?

One might argue that a theft enacted in an effort to protect one's family from starvation was not ethically wrong under certain circumstances, just like one might say that a murder is not ethically wrong if enacted to protect oneself or another from the threat of deadly harm. Most of us believe that a killing in defense of one's self or others is not a murder at all.

So the ethical question of how factual circumstances effect the ethical nature of our actions might have two completely different effects on how we define or consider the act. To use King's example, an ethical decision made in the comfort and leisure of our ease is not worth nearly as much as the decision when there is countervailing pressure to act unethically. On the other hand, I think it is universally accepted that an unethical act may be considered appropriate, and maybe even ethical under certain fact situations where the circumstances allow us to act to preserve the safety of ourselves or others.

Sewanee and my first game in front of my family

Cindy and I drove up to Sewanee today. So much nostalgia. We were caravaning with George and Kim Berry. Kind of. They were about twenty minutes behind us by the time we made it to the Blue Chair Restaurant in Sewanee. We were excited about getting together but the service was abysmal. If we hadn't had a lot of catching up to do, and if there were other places to eat in Sewanee, I think we would have gone elsewhere.

We finally finished our meal and drove down to the playing field (I say playing field, because calling it a stadium is not exactly accurate). That place suffers from a bad case of resting on their laurels. I thought W&L was covered up in the past. Sewanee may be worse.

I did see young girls in sundresses and cowboy boots. I kind of thought the sundresses were the odd part of the ensemble. I kind of think the girls were more comfortable in the boots. Cindy says she thought that was odd to the point of innapropriate.

Fortunately, W&L won. I got a chance to see a few folks I knew. I got introduced to the head football coach, as a stranger, which was odd, since he was one of the coaches when I was a Senior in college. Put that together with seeing George Ballantyne and getting ignored the first time he came close, and I felt a little like the odd man out.

Forget that we were linebackers together for four years, live in neighboring communities and my wife and daughter have both been patients in his office. Well, he used to ignore me when we were fellow students on the collonade at W&L.

Perhaps the best example of George ignoring me occurred when we were seniors and were practicing blocking field goals. George lined up behind me and in his single-mindedness, ran me over, placing his knee in the back of my head and causing me to suffer a concussion and the odd experience of only being able to see through a box in front of my eyes for about an hour.

That was wierd.

I guess the best memory of football at Sewanee was my first trip there, when we were freshmen. We had been reduced to six remaining linebackers and I was finally dressing out for the home games. But I still hadn't broken in to the group that dressed out for away games. That honor fell to Ed Tutak, a player from New York who was being courted by the coaches. Hindsight is 20/20 but Ed quit football after being allowed to letter as a freshman. Meanwhile, little quick linebackers from Dunwoody High School hung out until their senior years and fell three quarters short of lettering as a freshman (and thus for all four years).

Anyway, I attended my Freshman Psychology class on the Friday afternoon before the Sewanee game in Sewanee. As class let out, I was heading back to my dorm room when I found a note on my door in the dorm from Don Crossley telling me to pack and get dressed for the trip to Sewanee. It turned out that Ed Tutak had been fooling around in the freshman dorms before getting dressed for the trip to Chattanooga. In his playing around, he cut his foot and suddenly wasn't available for the game. So the travel opportunity fell to me who was next in line on the depth chart.

So, I quickly dressed in a coat and tie, ran to the locker room and got my equipment bag on the bus to travel the short airplane ride from Roanoke to Chattanooga. I didn't even have time to contact my parents, who were at my brother's high school game with Henderson High.

That evening, we checked in to the Holiday Inn in Tiftonia, Tennessee and I finally got to call my parents and let them know I was dressing out for the Sewanee game. I asked them if they could come up for the game in Sewanee.

Well, of course they could. I remember sitting on the bus in the Holiday Inn parking lot in Tiftonia and seeing my family drive up to the bus as we pulled out for the short ride to Sewanee. I couldn't see them until after the game was over.

Sadly, we lost. But the linebackers led the defense in tackles, each of us getting our chances to tackle the Sewanee ballcarriers, and I finally got to see my family after a college football game.

There were four years of football to play and watch. But that was the first game in which I got to play in front of my family. I have always had a place in my heart for the Sewanee game. A lot more significance than the others we played.

September musings

Sometimes matters swirl around you and eliminate your ability to cope with the day to day callings of life. Sometimes circumstances cause you to flip the switch on your brain so that you are no longer capable of handling the stresses of your life. Today may be one of those days.

I have a ton of matters to deal with. They are all looking for attention. In the mix, I have clients calling me who are changing their minds about the matters for which I am providing assistance. Today, I have a new appointment in which I am dealing with a divorce case which has begun, terminated, begun again, terminated and now is attempting to begin again. Who knows where it may land.

Fortuna's wheel continues to spin.

Cindy and I are still looking to drive up to Monteagle for the W&L vs. Sewanee game on Saturday. We intend to enjoy the day in the Tennessee mountains and followup with a visit in Chattanooga on Sunday. This would be our first trip as a couple in a long time. Knock on wood that there will be gas left at the tanks along the way to get us up there and back.

I don't know what I think about Sarah Palin for VP. I like her. She is quite articulate, even when she is providing her own thoughts, rather than reading a prepared speech. I like the Alaska aura.

But I am not sure if I like her as a Vice President. She suffers from the same problem that Barack Obama suffers from. I am just not sure she is seasoned enough for the office. They are both articulate and intelligent. They are very similar in many ways. I would like to see a one on one in basketball between them. That would be interesting.

But neither one of them has a whole lot of experience at this point in their lives.

We don't get candidates who are this youthful these days. We seem to get ones like Senators McCain and Biden most of the time.

I really think we should swap running mates and let McCain run with Biden and Obama run with Palin. Now that would be a real choice.

The electorate is broader, seemingly, than it was when I was younger. It seems much younger. I believe that more younger people are showing interest in the elections this year. Maybe that's the old bark on this tree showing.

I was reading about John Adams and Thomas Jefferson last night. They were both quite young when they met in Philadelphia. Very different people, but both intelligent and articulate, in their ways. The more I read about Jefferson, the more similarities I see between us. Or is that wishful thinking.

I mean, I am red-headed, a lawyer, shy in company, not extremely forceful, musical, interested in nature, educated in Virginia, a Virginian by genealogy. But I am not six feet whatever. I have blue eyes, not hazel. I don't own thousands of acres in western Virginia. I don't own slaves (Patti notwithstanding). I haven't designed and built my house. I haven't founded a college. I haven't had an elicit affair with one of my servants. My wife is still alive.

I guess, other than a few strands of DNA, we might not have that much in common.

But everybody wants to claim Thomas Jefferson. I guess it is good that his political party was known as the Democratic Republicans.

The "N" word

It was my grandmother's idea:
This word would not pass our lips
And so offend those among us
Who might have tender ears
And find offense in the hearing
And so, despite the common use
Of the word in less polite company,
In my grandmother's presence
We refrained from its use,
And so it passed from our conversations,
A word deleted from the text,
A volume omitted from the canon.

Some might call it silly;
Others use it with impunity.

In our home, it wasn't spoken.

Philadelphia

I watched a story this morning on television
About a man in Philadelphia,
The City of Brotherly Love,
Where people are called to brotherhood
But, instead, boo Santa Claus.

But today, I watched a man
Attend to his son on a subway train
Carefully directing him with fatherly care
To a seat for their journey
Beside a welcoming neighbor,
Then, reaching into his school bag,
Pulled out a claw-hammer
And began wailing on a sleeping passenger.

There was no rhyme or reason;
There was no connection
To present an underlying plot
To the story:
Just two passengers on a train.

Leaving the scene, he sent his son back
Inside the subway car for the bag.

Nobody seemed to care
In this Quaker city.

Someone did steal his cellphone,
So all got to take a part.

The agreement

The streetlight is the only light this morning
The sky is still dark at six oh eight
The sound of my dog
Rustling in the un-mown grass
Is the only sound I hear.

A neighborhood car passes the house
The dull roar of its engine
Passing on into the cover
Of the retreating street

An odd sense of peace
Passes through my shoulders
As I encounter an unanticipated feeling of safety
In my alone-ness with my dog

It is not the enforcement of the peace
But the unspoken compact
Between my neighbors and myself
At this early morning hour
Which allows sleep to lay claim
To our collective awareness.

There may be evil walking the streets
Somewhere in the sleeping city,
A dark presence in the shadows,
But here in my front yard
The efficacy of the agreement
Retains its gentle grasp on the moment at hand.

Roadside recreation

At the South end of Harris County,
Tucked among the folds of Pine Mountain
Flow the quiet waters
Of Ossahatchee Creek.
No insignificant body of water
Has found so much merit
Since Thoreau built his habitation
On the banks of Walden Pond,
For hard on the eastern shore
Of Ossahatchee Creek
Sits the humble cinderblock edifice
Of the Oassahatchee Oyster Bar.

There, in the shade of the longleaf pines
You might find yourself sitting around a wooden picnic table
Under the whirr of a welcoming ceiling fan
Slurping down a dozen oysters or more,
Washing down their salty goodness,
With a cold, sweet lager from Milwaukee or St. Louis,
Watching the orange sun fade down below the hills
Toward Muscogee County and Columbus,
Later, you could tread gingerly
Through the parking lot among the pickup trucks and cars
To take your seat in Luke's Pub,
Where there you might enjoy a charcoal charred, bloody beefsteak
And share another round of beers to the coolness of the evening,
Sampling the fruits of turf and tide
Under the velvet canopy of a clear September sky.

Lord, if a place to lay my head were situated close by
Or a chauffeur to take me home, or even a nearby host
Other than the police chief
Of Waverly Hall,
I might pull into the busy parking lot
And satisfy my appetites,
Rather than continue my path eastward on the highway toward home.

After all, September has an 'r' in it.

Memories of snowball fights

I was watching a youtube recording of Bill Cosby on the Dean Martin Show (boy, does that age me, thinking about that). Of course, I started watching Bill Cosby on the Jack Parr Show, which was even earlier in the history of American television. Mr. Cosby looked kind of nervous and his patter wasn't as slick as it was in the later recording on the Dean Martin Show.

At any rate, Bill Cosby was telling a story about snow ball fights on the streets of Philadelphia in his childhood. He was describing the various types of snowballs: the dry, fluffy type which does little damage and the slushball which can hurt because it contains ice.

I remember one Winter in Dunwoody when a bunch of us got involved in a snowball fight and I got hit in the eye with a slushball. Those things out to be outlawed. It caught me right in the corner of my eye and stung quite a bit. I don't think the guy who threw that thing was much of a gentleman.

When I was really little and lived in Indianapolis, we had a huge snowfall which put several feet of snow on the ground. The Hintz boys next door built an igloo topped with their sandbox. But apparently, I was too young to be allowed inside the igloo. My response was to build a three foot high wall of snow across our back yard. Kind of the 'great wall of Indy', I guess. I remember a short snowball fight between the igloo inhabitants and the walled neighbors.

There is no doubt that the greatest snowball fight I ever participated in was in Athens in 1982. A serious snow storm hit the area and left a heavy layer of ice and snow on the ground which lasted four or five days. We had power, but the weather was so cold and icy that you didn't want to go out for the first several days.

Class was canceled, so I stayed in my small apartment from Monday through Thursday. Finally, on Thursday, brother Frank appeared at my patio door on my apartment. I quickly put on my heavy coat and walked out to inspect the remainder of the snow and ice.

As we stood outside my apartment, two guys started throwing snowballs at us. We responded and soon our group was a foursome. We walked around the apartment complex to find some other inhabitants at which to throw snowballs. As we maneuvered around the apartment complex, we continued to take on other groups of guys who were ripe targets for our snowballs. Each time we found a group to fight with snowballs, the group ultimately became bigger.

We soon left the apartment complex and looked for others to pelt with our snowballs. We were a pack of marauding snowmen, looking for a fight. As we ran across the campus, we encountered, defeated and incorporated more and more snowmen. As we headed up the hill where the high rise dorms were located there must have been somewhere between fifty and a hundred of us running up the Baxter Street Hill, looking for a fight.

As we encircled one of the last dorms on Baxter Street, we came upon a group of students equally as numerous as ours. Suddenly, we were trapped in a running battle where either side tried to take the high ground. The battle became a reenactment of the battle of the Little Big Horn, with both groups playing the part of the Cheyenne, Sioux and Crow, running in circles, taking the top of the hill.

Of course, there was a sincere difference in our group and the group we were taking on, since they all seemed to be athletes, specifically football players from the Athletic Dorm. Their abilities were somewhat hard to overtake.

As the snowball fight degenerated into a continual circle, Frank and I lost heart for continuing with the snowball fight and headed back to our apartments. Later, we found out that the remaining snowmen had ended the battle by throwing snowballs at trucks driving up Baxter Hill, causing some damage to the windshields of the trucks. Thankfully, that happened long after Frank and I had gone home.

It was a great lesson in group dynamics.