Politics

COCKSURE….

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Out of total boredom I listened to a political pundit on the radio. It really doesn’t matter what his name was or which side of the political argument he was on but in regard to truth in advertising, he was a conservative. I live in South Carolina; what else would he have been? What struck me was his sureness…as in his COCKSURENESS. “As sure as a cock!” Isn’t that what the word means? As arrogant and self-confident as a strutting barnyard COCK! For some reason I mentally saw a parading peacock, his feather’s all preened and fanned out as he metaphorically pranced his mating dance to attract his peafowl of a “listening audience.”

I have never been cocksure of anything…until after the fact, and sometimes even then I am not sure. Three marriages will make you less than cocksure. As soon as I wake up in the morning I am cocksure I am alive…well after I have resuscitated myself with my first cup of coffee. You can’t be dead if you ache as badly as I do can you? I am also “cock-of-the-walk sure” if I don’t hurry to the bathroom upon arising there is going to be a flood of “biblical proportions” because it has happened before. If it is snowing outside I am cocksure it is PROBABLY cold or if I zip up too quickly I might have a painful experience. It doesn’t stop me from zipping up the old beany weeny anyway or walking outside to make cocksure THE WEATHER IS COLD!

What I am REALLY not cocksure about is politics, which is a similar experience to zipping up the old beany weeny in my pants as far as I am concerned. My pundit seemed NOT to have my problem. He knew exactly what to do in order to correct all of our country’s ills from transgender bathroom rights to world peace. I got the idea his problem solving involved only our Second Amendment rights and nuclear weapons. He was cocksure about how stupid the present administration was and how it was responsible for everything negative from my colonoscopy this morning to a bird mysteriously dying in the Altiplano.

When I looked up synonyms for cocksure in the Oxford Online Dictionary I was rewarded with arrogant, conceited, overweening, overconfident, cocky, proud, vain, self-important, egotistical, presumptuous, smug, patronizing, pompous, high and mighty and finally, puffed up. I admit I had to look up overweening which means showing excessive confidence or pride. I believe all of the pundits, mine in particular, have some or all of these traits and more. My pundit understands that hatred sells only slightly less well than sex but much better than the truth. Why did the Oxford Dictionary leave out narcissistic?

I decided to give my pundit the benefit of the doubt and looked up his qualifications to be a pundit. Let’s see, a degree in Poly Sci? Economics? Basket Weaving? Now I know why he views all of academia to be “liberal, left-wing, Commie hippy freaks.” He spent very little time in institutions of higher learning except for a football game or two. My pundit has had a long career in radio and TV which I am sure is as much like the real world as is any social media political post. My “peacock” is no more “educated” than I am, except that he knows what sells on television and radio. I thought the word pundit was a Hindu word meaning “an expert in a particular subject or field who is frequently called on to give opinions about it to the public.” Well mine certainly has the opinion part of the definition down. Don’t get me wrong, college educated is not the end all but I would like my pundits to be able to do something more than turn on a microphone and sell advertising. Can you receive a Bachelor of Science in BS? Get it? A BS in BS. Quit laughing it wasn’t that funny.

I mentally see my grandmother approaching the chicken coop next to our old barn, slowly reaching through the chicken wire door and snatching up a young rooster. As she grabbed the cockerel there was an explosion of feathers from wing flapping but to no avail. A short stroke of her ax, followed by an erratic, headless run, and all was quiet. Something the political pundit might want to think about, “You’re only a short stroke of an ax from the metaphorical and silent cooking pot.”

More nonfiction by Don Miller is available at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

THE BURDEN OF FRIENDSHIP-GENTLE RANT ALERT

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The most infamous tow truck owner in the South…maybe nationwide…well on Facebook at least, is a friend of mine. Is…not was…! He is a friend of mine despite my social liberalism and his Trump leanings. Just so we understand his leanings, were he the Tower of Pizza, he would have fallen over into Trump’s lap by now. No I’m not going to divulge his name but I will call him Sampson. My “conservative, Trump supporting, gun toting, Christian values spouting and I refuse to tow Bernie supporters” friend started a wee bit of a furor when “God told him” to leave a handicapped woman on the side of the road because of her “Bernie” bumper sticker. Sampson says he did not know she was handicapped, despite her handicapped sticker, and I believe him. I am sure he didn’t see it because the Sampson I know would not have ignored a handicapped sticker. I am sure he was simply blinded by the light given off from the “Feel the Bern” sticker. Look guys, sometimes I can’t see an elephant sleeping under my nose or the food I dropped on the floor so I am not going to throw stones.

I am very disappointed in Sampson but I’m not going to abandon him. Abandonment is not what friends do even when they disagree with each other or one is disappointed in the other. Sampson has never been anything but kind, straight forward and above board with me and my wife Linda Gail. I’ve bought several cars from him, dined with him, shot the bull with him and borrowed equipment and tools from him. I admit Sampson is a “wheeler dealer” and probably should have named his company “Anything For a Buck!” but wheeling and dealing is not illegal…maybe. Besides, he has not tried to steal my bass boat or woo my wife so I am not going to throw him under his tow truck. Did I write that in the correct order?

I won’t desert him but I won’t defend him either. While I defend his right to leave anyone on the side of the road he chooses, I won’t defend his actual action or his decision. Sampson was out and out wrong. Good Samaritans don’t leave people stranded and the God I worship would not tell me to “leave the lady socialist on the road,” handicapped or not. The situation could have been handled differently and Sampson should make his lack of trust in “communist left wing hippy freaks” known and mention his adversion upfront.

Lack of trust may not be the whole issue but rather out and out hatred. Not necessarily hatred on Sampson’s part but rather the social and cultural atmosphere we find ourselves inhaling. My brother tells me all of the time, “It’s not Trump. People just want change. People are fed up.” I agree with him about being fed up but I fear Sampson’s presidential choice, Mr. Trump, is using our hatred and bigotry, along with the desire for change, to power his campaign. People are no longer nice to each other, especially with the anonymity of social media. Any idiot with a computer can say whatever he wants to without the fear of getting kicked in the crotch. Worse are the creative non-idiots with an agenda to push who play to the folks who think everything on the internet is true. Trump did not create this scenario and may not be a bigoted racist himself but I believe he is using bigotry and racism to his advantage.

Hitler used mass media to create a “Let’s Make Germany Great Again” campaign along with non-Aryans as scapegoats to give “good Germans” someone to hate and a focus for their energies. Mr. Trump has just taken the next natural step, utilizing social media to create a “Let’s Make America Great Again” campaign and has used most every American fear, except our fear of clowns, as a reason to create scapegoats for us to focus our hate and energies. Clowns may yet be utilized as soon as Mrs. Clinton secures her party’s nomination. Before someone points out Godwin’s Law, yes I did compare Trump to Hitler but only his methods and he has had much help from the trolls that lurk near “the bridge” known as social media.(1) Despite Hitler’s track record, I believe Trump to be infinitely more dangerous. After all, if he wins the election he will have his finger on the nuclear trigger surrounded by a group of minions yelling, “Push it! Push it! Push it! We dare you!”

Differences in political opinions can make friendships challenging and interesting but should not end friendships. When I finally talk to Sampson I will tell him that I am disappointed and why. He will listen intently and then defend himself. There may even be a little yelling involved but at the end of the day, I won’t leave until I am sure we are still friends or when the ambulance leaves to take me away. I am guessing I should leave my car with the COEXIST sticker at home. I shouldn’t be taking chances at my age.

(1)Reference is from the Norwegian fairytale “THREE BILLIE GOATS GRUFF.”

More nonfiction by Don Miller is available at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

WHEN PIGS FLY….

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Despite having written about pigs recently, when I left this morning for my daily walk I had no idea that I would have a flood of thoughts about pigs…I was just thinking about the upcoming election I guess. I think about the election a lot. In fact, I pray about the election a lot but as yet I have had no divine enlightenment. The silence is deafening. I wish the debates were…silent, they are already deafening with their stupidity.

“I’m gonna be as happy as a hog in slop!” With the outcome of this election? “When pigs fly maybe!” There are no good choices and I fear whoever wins is going to leave us “smiling like a dead pig laying in the sunshine.” In other words, some of us will be ”smiling” but things will not be as good as we might want to believe they might be…regardless of which party wins. (In case you don’t know, dead pigs go through biological changes that includes their lips pulling away from their teeth giving them a macabre smile. This smile gives them an extremely happy appearance despite they’re being dead)

I have already called the primary process. It’s over. The election will be one of “Macbeth’s witches,” a sullied Hillary versus a Donald who could have been cast as Napoleon in “Animal Farm.” The rest of the candidates are dead men walking. What a choice! I remember my father using a short analogy to make a point about one of my friends he was uncertain about. Dad was famous for using analogies, metaphors or similes to make his points. He said, “Son, do you know what you have if you bathe and shave a pig and put a red bow around his neck?” After I looked at him dumbly for a moment he answered his own question. “A PIG!” As soon as you turn your back on him that old hog will head right back to his mud hole no matter how clean or dressed he is.” Profound and spot on when referring to our presidential choices.

Profound but not true, as I have found out. Pigs are actually much cleaner than our politicians and will pick a swimming pool filled with fresh water over a mud hole any old day. It seems our politicians would rather wallow in a mud hole full of lobbyist, special interest groups and corporations rather than running the chance of staining themselves in the swimming hole that is “We the People.” I am including our entire population as “We the People,” the rich and poor along with those of us swimming like crazy to stay in the middle. It would also include all races, religions and sexual leanings not just the ones the majority believes in. If our presidential winner decides to return to the mud hole that is our political system, I fear he or she will find plenty of company. I visualize Congress making mud pies instead of doing their job…much like the previous seven years.

Suddenly the silence is not so deafening. I believe I will write in a vote for the pig. At the very least I will know what I have if he is elected. “Sooooooie Pig, Sooie.”

If you enjoyed this blog Don Miller has written three books which may be purchased at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM
Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING can be downloaded for $1.99.
“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in FLOPPY PARTS for $.99.
“Southern Stories of the Fifties and Sixties…” in PATHWAYS for $3.99.
All may be purchased in paperback.

DEJA VU….

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Am I the only person who sees similarities between the political division and social protest we are experiencing today and the protest and division related to the Sixties? There was unrest as African-Americans oh so slowly gained SOME Civil Rights and social justice. Protests became violent as civil rights marchers were opposed by fire hoses, police dogs and batons. Inflammatory rhetoric was spoken on all sides – the far reactionary right and radical left…AND BY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES. Both the KKK or Black Panthers resorted to bombs, bank robberies, riots and assassinations in an attempt to slow down or speed up the process depending upon their particular world view. Riots in major cities were sparked by MLK’s assassination. I am sure no one of my age can forget the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Young people violently protested the Vietnam War along with other social issues. They burned draft cards or American Flags while facing down policemen in riot gear and Mayor Daily’s political machine. The drug culture of the Sixties with the “Make love not war” Hippy movement gave our parents pause to shake their heads in dismay. Appalled conservatives believed we had a real problem of lacking respect for authority and law and order.

The names of the wars have changed as have the names of the politicians who wage them and the names of the young people who are dying in their stead. Today we are not fighting over political dogmas but rather over religious beliefs…supposedly. The only people winning are those who are paid off to promote war and those who actually sell the weapons of death. It was the same in the Sixties as it is today- war mongers and arms dealers rake in the cash. Even though the weapons have become more efficiently destructive, death certainly has not changed nor has the sorrow or cost in life and devastation caused by those weapons.

We still do not have a religious, political or economic system inclusive to all. The extremists are either still battling to move things along more quickly or to insure that they move back to the way they were. Even the motion picture industry is under fire with protests and a call to boycott the Oscars over the issue of diversity. I hear the same arguments that highlighted the Civil Rights movement in the Sixties reverberating from both sides. These arguments now include lesbians and gays or Christians and Muslims or gun control. Instead of being about societal concerns, student protests seem to be more “me” oriented. I both hope and fear that my perception is one that has been packaged and perpetuated by the media “trolls” on both sides for a deeper, more ominous reason, perhaps for increasing ratings or possibly to create more unrest. With recent police-involved shootings and the “Black Lives Matter” reactions to them, I can hear the distant cries about “police brutality” and to “barbeque a pig” echoing through the fog of time. Our own population seems to be hell-bent on self-destruction …just as it seemed to be in the Sixties and for many of the same reasons.

The ’68 Presidential election experienced some of the same disunity we see in debates for the upcoming 2016 election. The leading Democratic candidate Bobby Kennedy was assassinated by a Jordanian Arab, Sirhan Sirhan, over Kennedy’s pro-Israel position. The left anti-communist, pro-civil rights liberal Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey attempted to unify a party divided over a “civil rights plank” in the party’s platform and failed to do so. Pro-segregationist and state’s rights candidate George Wallace took five Southern states in the election and many other votes away from Humphrey and helped hand “Tricky Dick” Nixon the presidency. Nixon even had his own “Southern Strategy” to pull Southern Democrats into the Republican fold, expediting the Democratic Party’s “liberalization” that began with Truman’s desegregation of the Army in the early Fifties and which gained momentum after Johnson’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Earlier there was a “liberal” court ruling overthrowing Plessy v Ferguson for Brown v Board in 1954 that wasn’t fully implemented until the late Sixties and early Seventies. It is both interesting and disconcerting that during the past fifty years, we still haven’t moved past division caused by sectionalism, race, executive orders, liberal courts and the Middle East.

I once stood in front of a US History class and remarked that it was my belief that 1968 was the most polarizing and divisive year since the Civil War. Assassinations, Tet, riots over Civil Rights and the war all boiled over and did not conclude during the Democratic Convention. Later the massacre at Mai Lai would come to light and create more discord over the war…justified I would guess. I also remarked that, as I look back in retrospect, I am surprised we were able to survive it as a country. I don’t know if I could make the same statement today about 1968. With things as turbulent as they are right now, I can only hope that we survive until 2018 to celebrate the fifty years since 1968. The scary thought is that conditions may get worse before they get better.

As the Watergate scandal was still a few years down the road after 1968, what do we have looming in our present day world? Will we be faced with a confrontation with Iran or with Russia or with more race riots? Let us learn from history that names may change but the same thing will continue to happen again unless we have a spiritual revolution… Maybe what we really we need is another Woodstock, world-wide, to finally get people to whole-heartedly desire love and peace and harmony!

LIBERATION

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I read that the Buffalo Bills have hired a new assistant coach. Ordinarily news like this would not find its way out of the city of Buffalo but today it is nationally news worthy. And why would that be? Their new, full-time, specialty teams, quality control coach is a female and the first of her kind. Kathryn Smith is the first full-time NFL assistant coach. This comes on the heels of Jill Welter’s internship as she served as an Arizona Cardinal linebacker coach during the summer. Back in April of 2015, Sarah Thomas became the first female NFL official. I guess these would be major steps in women’s rights. It doesn’t seem that long ago women newscasters were arguing with the league for access to the side lines and, GASP, the locker room. My guess is, once the furor and the abusive and stereotypical comments die down, they will be successful in this bastion of testosterone. I do find it interesting many men still believe that “A woman’s place….”

I have been involved with many firsts when relates to Women’s Rights. I taught for the first female principal in Greenville County, South Carolina, coached the first female to be allowed to play high school soccer and the first coed to play football at the varsity level. I was looking for none of these firsts and had the media not made an issue of it I would not have known. Title IX now that’s another story.

I wrote the story “Liberation” for the book FLOPPY PARTS and with the news of the day decided to dust it off. I hope you enjoy.

LIBERATION
Even though Charlotte, NC was close by, we were sheltered from the rapidly changing outside world. It was a long twenty miles to the Queen City on a two-lane blacktop and, by the way we grew up, possibly a decade in time removed. We had gone through the duck and cover drills that assured us that any textbook would protect us from a nuclear attack provided we took all sharp objects from our pockets. We were raised to be stoic and to be seen and not heard. In some ways we were raised to be “un-included.” Words like duty, reverence and respect were a part of our vocabularies. We still believed in the “American Exceptionalism” of the post-World War Two United States despite the warts we tended to ignore. We were decidedly Republican and my grandmother openly worried more about having a Roman Catholic in the White House than a democrat.

Still, being typically male, I was more aware of my floppy parts than world affairs, and, beginning in the late Sixties, they both got tied in knots.
Even though any available female was fair game and a target for our raging hormones, we had been taught to respect women. It was okay to pursue, but you didn’t lay a hand on a woman. You gave up your seat to women and you opened doors for women. As males, we did this not because we viewed women as weaker but as a sign of respect, the same way we were taught to say “Yes, Ma’am” or “No, Ma’am.” Most importantly No Meant No and not maybe. It was easier in those waning days of the Sixties because the girls had been taught the same way… and they didn’t have The Pill. I admit I may be looking through “rose-colored” glasses because I had been surrounded by such STRONG female role models. I believe with all my heart that women who grew up in rural settings during the depression and World War Two were taught to be stronger than their urban counter parts. I remember asking my grandmother to describe the changes she experienced during the Great Depression. She laughed and said, “We were farming on the lien and it was so hard already we never noticed.” That would be that she was out in the fields with my grandfather doing hard “man’s work.”

Regardless of my beliefs, all of them began to change as I welcomed the new decade and my address changed to Newberry. There were many movements spawned by the period. Native American Rights, Gay Rights and environmentalism were a few that joined Civil Rights during the “Age of Love”. Also, there was my favorite – Women’s Rights. There was one positive about the Women’s Liberation Movement – bra burning. Whether they were wearing a bra or not, women deserved to have the same rights as men despite the chauvinist argument “I don’t know why they want to climb down off of their pedestals?” After watching MAD MEN I wonder how high that pedestal actually was and who really had the power. I am sure this portrayal was “exactly” the way it was in the Sixties.
Liberation was a battle ground where if you picked sides you were either labeled a eunuch, if you agreed with the cause, or a chauvinist pig if you didn’t. Most of the Newberry coeds were southern gals (Is my chauvinism showing?) and had grown up under the same Biblical tenants as mine. The “times they were ah changing” and it wasn’t unusual to hear discussions about “Who should pay for the cost of birth control?” or “Who should make the decision about getting an abortion?” Fifty years later I still avoid expressing opinions on those questions because to do so would be to spoil for a fight.

Women’s Lib finally tied me in knots in the early Seventies. I remember walking up to the campus library door and seeing the reflection of a coed approaching me from behind in the door’s polished glass. Her reflection was dressed in bell bottoms and a pea coat, fashion staples of the period for those individuals who took political positions somewhere left of center. I also had time to notice her really short dark hair and the narrow, hawkish shape of her face. Nevertheless, I paused and opened the door for her. Smiling, I nodded my head and then got my ears pinned back. With a face that truly had turned hawkish she spat, “What are you asking me to do? Inviting me into to your male-dominated world? Baby Dicked Chauvinist Pig!” If you are waiting for my snappy comeback, hell may freeze over first. I still don’t have one. I should add, she still managed to enter the library ahead of me through the still-opened door but then so did the next fifteen people as I stood with jaw “slack and agape.” Baby dicked? Where did that come from?

Despite wearing khakis, oxford cloth and penny loafers during most of my adult life, I find myself embracing my “Old Hippy” side with flip flops, blue jeans and tee shirts to accommodate my move to the center left of politics as I have retired. Hawaiian shirts are a far cry from bells and pea coats but I wear them proudly. I believe in equality above all else. Equal rights, whether racial, gender, sexual, religious or economic, should be our goal as a country or as a people of that country. Women should have the same opportunities to succeed or to fail as men and it should be for the same pay. I was again sheltered when I chose teaching as my vocation. Teaching opportunities and pay were always equal and, as far as pay was concerned…Sorry, wrong movement. Now, I don’t know about upward mobility into administration but I do know that if I were ranking principals, women would take the top two positions as the best of the many I have had. The best one asked me during my interview in 1974 if I would have a problem working for a woman. She kind of leaned in as if she were going to tell me a dirty joke when she asked me. I thought, to myself, “I want this job so badly I would work for an orangutan.” To her I simply answered, “No problems whatsoever, I love women. My mother was a woman.”

I think there might have been a price for the equality so deserved by women. I read more about the rise of attacks against women or spousal abuse and see that doors are not opened and seats not given up nearly as often as they used to be even here in this hotbed of Southern chivalry. I guess I should add despite a little hawk-faced witch from 1970. Could that be the price that women pay? Maybe they did knock themselves off of their pedestal.

During the late Seventies, athletics were equalized due to Title IX legislation…except it wasn’t, at least in the school district in which I toiled. Rather than add resources to girl’s athletics, resources were taken away from men’s athletics which left a bitter taste in most male coaches’ mouths. I remember being told that, as a baseball coach, half of any money raised by my baseball team could be spent by the softball team whether they participated in the fund raiser or not. Luckily I had great relationships with my softball coaches and this never happened. Everyone didn’t have those great relationships that I fostered with malice and forethought.

While sitting quietly in a graduate course that included a study of the distribution of monies for athletics, a young female coach commented that it did not matter. “God Football” gets it all and until they fire all of the football coaches, girls would get nothing. At a break I could not help myself and strolled over to advise her that, while her feelings might be warranted, expressing them in an open forum might not be the best idea, especially if she were looking for a job. I also pointed out that football paid the bills and probably was what allowed her to have a job. She said something about having to “audition instead of interview” and that she was not “giving up the cause” just to get a job and that “maybe I should wait until my advice was asked for.” Her bell bottoms and pea coat were showing and no good deed goes unpunished. Several months later as we were looking for a girls’ softball coach, I received a call from my principal informing me that he was sending a prospective coach to be interviewed. Yeah, it was her and the look on her face was priceless. No, she didn’t get the job. Instead, we hired a softball coach who was also an offensive line coach. To her credit, she didn’t back down either, but then I am sure she knew she was doomed from the start. Does this make me a chauvinist? I don’t think so… but I do admit to being a realist.

If you enjoyed this story you may download it and other “STUPID MAN TRICKS” in Don Miller’s FLOPPY PARTS $.99 on Kindle http://goo.gl/Ot0KIu

WORK TO BE DONE

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“In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies…but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Harry Smith, the longtime NBC journalist once posed the question, “If Dr. King was still alive today what would he think about present condition of Civil Rights in the United States?”

I grew up “white” in the Fifties and Sixties in the South. Like most preteens or teenagers, I wasn’t a particularly socially aware person and believe I was somewhat sheltered from the realities of race relations by both my family and the area I grew up in…or it could have been my own form of “white privilege” rearing its head. I have very vivid memories of the stories that played out on our black and white RCA. School desegregation in Little Rock, Freedom Rider buses burning in Anniston and nonviolent marches and protests turning violent in far off places like Selma. I remember wondering why white folk so angry? One outcome was to make me wonder if I should have been angry too.

Throughout these times, filling my TV screen, Martin Luther King was quite visible and the center of much of what was going on. I remember a man with a powerful, yet soft baritone voice and a slow Southern drawl to go with it. I would not fully comprehend the full power of his voice or his personage until I watched a History Channel presentation on his “I HAVE A DREAM” speech, too many years later, as I tried to explain the impact and power of his words to a “lily white” US History class more than twenty years after his death. Sometimes I truly find myself quite late to the dance.

As hard as he worked to promote positive social change, I also remember the furor created when John Conyers and Edward Brooke co-authored a bill to recognize King’s birthday as a holiday. It would be fiercely opposed not only in the South, as one might expect, but also in states like Arizona. Arguments against its recognition included King’s beliefs on “Marxism or Communism” and his stance against the Viet Nam War along with personal attacks that I won’t speak to. South Carolina, my home state, would be the last to recognize it in 2000. I really don’t have to wonder why.

As I finally return to Smith’s question, I would believe Dr. King would be disappointed. He would recognize there has been some improvement in “individual” race relations but would find we still have a framework in place that is systematically discriminatory toward large numbers of our population. I believe he would say that we have lost ground overall and become less willing to cause any type of meaningful change. I also believe Dr. King would point a finger directly at our government shenanigans starting with a President who should have done more for race relations and trailing down to a Congress that would not let him. Dr. King’s biggest disappointment, however, would be reserved for “We the People” because we are ALL still “judged by the color of (our) skin,” (rather than) “by the content of (our) character.” I would also add judged by our creed, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and lately our political orientation. Like Harry Smith, I believe Dr. King would say “There is much more work to be done.”

Don Miller’s authors page https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR1p7QBN-yUWs1bOs47zAoMreKP53kpsAFiOvGMKCjhOffcnqjhHneB4zMk&ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

GUN CONTROL?

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I must be a dumbass. Please feel free to agree or disagree, BUT ON THE SUBJECT OF GUN CONTROL ONLY! Ex-wives need not reply. I’d love to hear from the rest of you. I am watching the President speak to his executive action to close gun sale loopholes and other measures. I must be a dumbass because it makes sense to me. From what the President said, I am not in the minority. Because I trust no one, especially politicians, I looked the numbers up and despite finding little information after 2013, it seems President Obama is correct to the tune of sixty plus percent. THEN I found a 2016 PEW Research Center poll and according to their site 85% of the population agree with background checks for gun shows and private sales. Over 70% agree with laws to restrict gun ownership by the mentally ill and federal tracking. So where is the disconnect? Is it just my own disconnect from reality and, I MIGHT ADD, the reality of at the very least sixty percent of the population…including a majority of NRA members? Are Pew, Newsweek, US News and the Washington Post all lying. Is this simply an opening salvo “to take our guns” despite assurances to the contrary and a Second Amendment? “This is not a plot to take your guns,” said President Obama.

If I decide to go out and purchase a gun and it takes me a few days or even weeks longer. If I am required to be licensed to buy or sell a gun or if an online dealer is subject to the same laws as a “walk-in.” What’s the big deal? Before you say it, “You are correct.” It might not make the difference in even one death but to me, one would be enough. “Good guys with guns…,” “The bad guys are still going to get guns.” I understand the arguments, but I don’t believe they are germane to this argument. Legally and licensed citizens will still be able to buy their guns…as required by the Second Amendment. Am I missing something here? If I am, leave a comment.

Is President Obama overstepping his executive powers? I don’t know… well maybe. Constitutional law scholars seem to be split to. From the USNEWS.com, “Obama’s assertion of unilateral executive authority is just routine stuff. He follows in the footsteps of his predecessors on a path set out by Congress. And well should he. If you want a functioning government — one that protects citizens from criminals, terrorists, the climatic effects of greenhouse gas emissions, poor health, financial manias, and the like — then you want a government led by the president,” wrote University of Chicago Law School Professor Eric Posner. But Michael McConnell, a former federal judge who is now a professor of law and director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School disagrees, writing, “While the President does have substantial discretion about how to enforce a law, he has no discretion about whether to do so. … Of all the stretches of executive power Americans have seen in the past few years, the President’s unilateral suspension of statutes may have the most disturbing long-term effects.”

My counter question is, “If the majority of “WE THE PEOPLE” desire rational and prudent gun control, why didn’t Congress pass rational and prudent gun control?” Again, I may just be a dumbass but as I have said in previous blog posts “there are dark forces at work…” and there may be bigger bulges in our Congressmen’s hip pockets than in the front of their pants because of those forces.

Don Miller is a retired school teacher and coach. While blogging on broad range of subjects, Miller has also written three books which can be purchased or downloaded on Amazon and Kindle.
“FLOPPY PARTS” $.99 on #Kindle http://goo.gl/Ot0KIu
“WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING….” $1.99 on #Kindle goo.gl/dO1hcX
“PATHWAYS” $3.49 on #Kindle http://goo.gl/v7SdkH

WE THE PEOPLE…

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I am being lazy today but since only nine of you read this the first time I decided to reblog.

WE THE PEOPLE….

I hear variations of the same question, “What are our kids being taught in schools today? Why don’t we know MORE about ‘THE LAW’?” I will be honest, after spending over forty years in the profession, most of those years as a social studies teacher, I must answer, “I don’t know.” I would also point out from what I have seen, MANY OF THE PEOPLE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT DON’T KNOW THE LAW either…nor do they know the history behind the law…and they are my age. I do believe we are getting exactly what someone has asked for…A LESS THAN AWARE ELECTORIATE. How else do you explain continuing to elect and re-elect the same idiots…on both sides of the aisle? How else do you explain allowing our constitutional democracy to turn into an oligarchy…not that most of us can even define it. Let’s keep education on the back burner why don’t we. Pay now or pay later I guess…and continue to add to the profit lines of the already very, very rich and corrupt. All righty, that’s the wrong soapbox.

Remember Civics? It was a course I took in junior high school. Now, in my part of the world, we don’t teach it anymore. Instead of Civics, a little Constitution is taught along with South Carolina History in the eighth grade. In high school, US History and Constitution is required in the junior year along with Government and Economics in the senior year. A total of less than a year devoted to the laws and rights we enjoy and Economics taught when Seniors are afflicted with the nearing graduation disease, Senioritis. Why don’t we donate a little more time to our own Constitution? Do we really need to teach World History before the Renaissance again and why DID we get rid of recess?

I have to admit, constitutional law in the eighth grade or during middle school is probably not a good idea. Were it left to me, middle schoolers would be locked up and not let out until high school. From my own remembrances I learned more about the little brunette girl and her rapidly expanding chest than anything about the First Amendment. From my middle school teaching experiences, I would say this hasn’t changed…LAWD HAVE MERCY THE RAGING HORMONES! My junior year? I did a little better with US History and but again learned very little about the Constitution. This time it wasn’t the fault of the much more mature brunette girl. I CAN remember my teacher telling us about dropping an “Atomic Bum” on Hiroshima. “Bum” was the way he pronounced it, “Bum” instead of “Bomb.” I admit to having a vision of a “glowing hobo” falling from the bomb bay a B-29. Not any remembrances about Constitution though.

Kidding aside, may be, I admit Civics in the Sixties was a little akin to “indoctrination.” Despite being taught otherwise in primary school George Washington could not have thrown a silver dollar across the Potomac. It would be several years before I came to that realization as I stood at the edge of the Potomac gazing at Washington a mile or more on the other side. I don’t know about the cherry tree either but have my doubts.

I believe our laws and rights should be taught with an emphasis on how our government really works rather than how it is supposed to work. Maybe this time with a little less emphasis on “my government right or wrong” along with “I’d rather be dead than red,” and more about truth “warts and all.” When I took Civics it was still about “American Exceptionalism” and defeating the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Viet Nam and Watergate changed those dynamics. Maybe we should try to get over Viet Nam and Watergate, not forget them…actually learn from them. Maybe when the politicians and our government learn.

In some ways social studies has become an afterthought in today’s educational environment…along with “related arts.” English, along with the math and sciences, are considered more important because they are what we test on. Despite this and other limitations, if I were to find myself back in the classroom teaching again, SHUTTER-SHUTTER, I would teach US History and Constitution outside of the box. I would start, not at the beginning but, where we are now and work backwards to understand how we arrived at where we are now. War, Social Issues, Civil Rights, and a myriad of other issues, in no particular order, along with a heavy dose of the Constitution would be themes that I would attempt to help the students come to grips with…and possibly myself.

Don Miller has written three books which may be purchased at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM
Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING can be downloaded for $1.99.
“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in FLOPPY PARTS for $.99.
“Southern Stories of the Fifties and Sixties…” in PATHWAYS for $3.99.
All may be purchased in paperback.

TEACHING ISLAM?

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Former students, help me out here. Not just my former students, any former student. Do you remember being taught anything about Islam during “World History before the Renaissance” or Comparative Religion courses? I keep seeing such an outcry against teaching anything about Islam. Do we not need to know our enemy? Wait, I do not want to be misunderstood…I don’t think Islam is our enemy any more than I believe Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism or Judaism are our enemies. I probably should have mentioned Animism and Jainism to because I mentioned them when I taught comparative religion. Okay Confucius taught a way of life based upon mutual respect and technically is not a religion, I guess, but I taught it just like I did the others. It would appear I might have failed with the concept of respect. I also did a unit on modern terrorism. Daesh or ISIS weren’t our enemies then but Al Qaida was, along with several dozen (or more) other terrorist groups running the gambit of all religions along with people who claim to be atheist.

All terrorist are not Muslim nor are all Muslims terrorist. According to multiple sources, all biased I am sure, Muslim terrorism caused less than ten percent of the deaths due to terrorism recorded on US soil since 9/11. One source, http://www.washingtonsblog.com, siting the START Global Terrorism Database, states that since 1970, only 2.5 percent of terrorist acts carried out on US soil were Muslim. But, I digress.

Why would we not teach comparative religions or for that matter comparative cultures? Do we just ignore what we don’t want to understand and refuse to recognize the contributions made by Africans, Asians, Muslims, Catholics, and Mormons…etc.? During the Middle Ages “Western Civilization” was somewhat stagnate and backward…until Christian knights went off to fight the barbarians who called them infidels. Despite losing the “Holy Land” and actually killing more Jews and Christians than Muslims, Crusading knights brought back more than they left with. In addition to unknown foods and spices, they brought back a real concept of medicine based upon science rather than superstition, algebra, clocks, water wheels, and the modern acoustic guitar. Okay I have digressed again but am sure thankful they brought home the guitar and got one into BB King’s hands. They could have left algebra behind.

I’m not a fan of the Common Core and certainly am against lesson plans trying to convert our children to Islam…or any religion which I doubt Common Core does. As a teacher of social studies, conversion was not my function and in my part of the world is not allowed in public schools. However, teaching all religions from a cultural or historical standpoint is…and should remain so. Not teaching Islam would be akin to Nazi’s burning Jewish books, ignoring Protestantism if one were a Catholic or maybe ignoring the contributions of Mormons in our own West. As I have been told repeatedly from certain flag wavers, its history and we can’t ignore it…nor should we. We should also practice what we preach.

BELIEVE….

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BELIEVE IN MUSIC, BELIEVE IN BALTIMORE…AND BELIEVE IN OPPORTUNITIES

I recently watched Meredith Vieira. Ordinarily this is something I rarely do, much less admit to doing. I was not really paying attention until my wife forced me to watch a segment. I am an old, set-in-his-ways, white guy and am rarely moved by anything other than my bowels…AND young people doing well. It is likely to be the retired teacher in me. I was moved this morning as I watched a group of young people of color singing about their belief in Baltimore and their white teacher explaining how they had managed to rise above the fear and hatred derived from the riots which occurred in the Baltimore Protest this past April. Their manner of elevation? Music…and opportunity.

To quote from their web site, “’Believe in Music’ is a Living Classroom’s program that aims to uplift underprivileged Baltimore City students academically, culturally, and spiritually, while promoting self-expression and community awareness through music education. Through the program, students will foster a deep connection with music in their own lives, and gain the tools to be able express their culture, struggles, and triumphs through music. It is our hope that students will come away from the program seeing music as a way to uplift themselves as well as their community.” This program began with seven students in a closet and has grown to over seventy-five per day…no longer in a closet. Someone is doing something right.

These kids are the same “thugs, savages and killers” TO BE who are maligned by racist trolls on social media and quite possibly by certain presidential candidates. These particular children were simply looking for an “opportunity.” This is something that those of us with “white privilege” believe they, the students, already have.

The word “opportunity” continues to resonate in my mind. I had opportunities. Those opportunities were part of my “white privilege.” Before you attack me, my grandparents began their married lives as famers “on the lien” and my parents were textile mill workers. My father actually drew his last breath on a weave room floor. I had a very humble upbringing and had to work to help put myself through college. No one gave me anything other than an “opportunity.” Despite my lack of privilege, I do understand white privilege has nothing to do with wealth…and lack of wealth and hard work does not eradicate it. White privilege has more to do with “opportunity” than with poverty and hard work. I doubt seriously a black kid with my grades or upbringing would have been given the time of day…much less an “opportunity.” According to the Oxford on Line Dictionary: privilege is “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.” White people take their privilege of being white for granted. Being able to take it for granted IS white privilege. We take it SO for granted we ignore the fact our white privilege actually exists. Because of ignorance we believe that all children have the same opportunities when in fact, many don’t. We further invoke all types of aging stereotypes to explain it away instead of working together to provide “opportunities” for all.

Being an old, set-in-his-ways, white man, I also believe that you can’t solve problems by throwing money at something hoping it will go away or by ignoring that a problem exists. I have had plenty of practice ignoring problems and they do not go away, they only get worse. I would ask the question, “What opportunities are we providing?” What opportunities actually help people rise above whatever holds us back, whether it be social, economic, racial or cultural? If some program doesn’t provide for those opportunities maybe we should re-think it and quit throwing money at it in favor of something that does.

We can pay now or we can pay later. There is going to be a price tag on good or bad government, good choices or bad. Investing “good money” in our youth and providing opportunities now may make it possible to invest less “bad money” in the future. I would rather our government invest our tax monies in opportunities that programs such as “Believe in Music” provide rather than investing in new prisons to house those who fall through the cracks because they have no opportunities. But everyone has equal opportunities, our government says so. No that is just our white privilege showing its racist petticoats.