A Very Bad Year

I believe there should exist an incremental measure of political time which
describes a sixteen year period.
In that way, professionals in politics could possibly study public policy
starts and stops in specific areas, in ways that might more easily lend
themseves to the big changes taking place during specific
"regime" changes.
Conversely, policy undergoing little or no change might be subject to more
cause and effect possibilities for changes in areas affecting daily lives most.
A sixteen year span could give a bird's eye view of two administrations at
once, and could show us more how the rest of the world might be prone to
react to what happens here.
World poliitcal climate seems to be changing more drastically during each
succeeding sixteen year period. It seems political thinking is contracting
so rapidly, globally, that it has become easier and easier to see extremes
as norms, and moderate thinking as uninvolved. Half-century analyses aren't
enough, while decade analysis is not politically precise in U.S. politics.
I would characterize 2001 as a year which continually took us by surprise
because we hadn't had a handle on how violently the rest of the world somewhat
secretly reacted to the U.S. apparently moving away form evolving into a
model of government President Clinton sponsored in order to keep the fragile
peace the world held its breath to preserve during Clinton's eight years.
President Clinton moved in a world he was leading into prosperity.
For the time being, so goes the nation here, so goes the world. This may
continue to be the case until at least mid-century if Americans get the
education and skill sets President Obama and President Clinton want to see
here.
When George Bush was elected in the year 2000, the entire world seemed to
gasp. Whereas we don't really vote to suit them, I think it would serve
us to know where we stand in areas of world panic so we can diffuse
whatever wrong-thinking reactions blossom suddenly as threats.
Bush had barely been sworn in when China shot down a technological marvel
of an American armed forces plane.
I cannot for the life of me ever think of that incident as an ordinary
international blip.
It happened on April Fool's Day, which has never seemed a coincidence to me.
The act was so aggressive because the Chinese knew for a fact we were no
threat to them. That is why I felt the timing was an unfunny joke.
The Chinese then refused to release the expertly-trained, highly skilled
crew for what seemed like months, because there was no reason to keep them
at all.
The Chinese authorities seemed to make things personal by insisting to
President Bush they were releasing no one until he apologized to THEM for
violating their air space - a thing it proved unclear we had done at all!
Finally, President Bush did apologize - under duress of course - to get that
air crew back. Still, they refused to send back that plane. By all accounts,
it was a powerful, state-of-the-art military jewel.
The next thing I knew, planes - yes, planes, were being flown through our own
airspace by amateurs...into the twin towers, into the Pentagon, encompassing
three other numbers well-established in American culture, and in the culture
of panic, 911.
Within days the FBI ran advertisements looking for people who spoke a Chinese
dialect.
I remain horrified.
I am very very thankful to the team who used American airpower to get into
the place where Osama Bin Laden hid, making certain he could plot no more.
I'm so grateful that same team blew up our helicopter in Pakistan.
Pakistan ought to thank us as well. There is no way they could have kept away
other hostile countries or jihadists, who'd have been constantly salivating
over it...even had they wanted to do so.









































model of government President Clinton sponsored in order to keep the peace.















































in a world he was leading into prosperity.
For the time being, so goes the nation here, so goes the world. This may
continue to be the case until at least mid-century if Americans get the
education and skill sets President Obama and President Clinton want to
see here.
When Gerge Bush was elected in the year 2000, the entire world seemed to
gasp. Whereas we don't really vote to suit them, I think it would serve
us to know where we stand in areas of world panic so we can diffuse
whatever wrong-thinking reactions blossom suddenly as threats.
Bush had barely been sworn in when China shot down a technological marvel
of an American plane. I cannot for the life of me ever think of that
incident as an ordinary international blip. It happened on April Fool's
day, which has never seemed incidental to me. The act was so aggressive
because the Chinese knew for a fact we were no threat to them whatsoever.
That's why I thought the timing was as unfunny joke.
They refused to release the expertly-trained, highly skilled crew for
what seemed like months because there was no reason to keep them.
The Chinese authorities were seemimgly making things personal by telling
President Bush they were releasing no one until he apologized for
violating their air space -a thing it proved to be unclear we did at all.
President Bush finally did apologize to get back the crew, but not that
aircraft. That plane, by all news accounts, was state-of-the-art.
The next thing I knew, planes were being flown into our own air space
by amateurs, and into the twin towers, encompassing three other numbers
well established in American culture of course - 911.
Within days the FBI ran advertisements looking for people who spoke a
Chinese dialect.
I remain horrified, and very, very thankful the team who killed Bin Laden
blew up our helicopter in Pakistan. Pakistan ought to thank us as well.
They could not have protected it from countries or from jihadists who'd have
been salivating over it - even if they'd wanted to do so.

Chronic

No, I mean disease! Asthma now affects one in ten U.S. children, and one in
twelve adults in this country according to the CDC. One reason for that could be because allergy treatments for children are expensive, and require a tremendous
time and energy committment from parents.
Our air is not good, our treatments are out of reach for so many 8 -5 workers.
Most doctors are reluctant to diagnose asthma in the first place. Hospitals
refuse to allow private physicians to admit asthma patients. People are
asked to go right to the emergency room; so the diagnosis is professional thorn.
Xolair is a remarkable controller medecine; but most doctors don't even
want to let people know about it as a treatment because it is so expensive.
If these same doctors would use it more often, wouldn't the price come down?
Xolair was developed to supress symptoms between injections, but it also
takes a lot of danger out of an actual asthma attack.
As the air gets worse, our medical community should be much more serious
about preventing asthma illness and death.
A doctor told a medical conference I attended that he became an asthma specialist
in the first place because he saw his dad suffer with an asthma
cough so powerful, while the doc was still a child, that the cough broke
his father's ribs.
Asthma is a bad, chronic, violent disease whose cures can cause diabetes,
high blood pressure, and therefore heart trouble. The attacks can cause
choking, injury, and death within twenty minutes of onset.
We need new committments for the handling of this disease.

Young Adult Black Males

As a group, young black adult males have a lot of family to support when they turn
eighteen. So why are we silent when they get out of high school and immediately sign
themselves up to work on the biggest plantation in America? I don't think we should revile, or ridicule them.
I just think we should have a continual discussion going about how to free them. We are their community, and the NCAA is a tremendously tentacled parasite.
Universities don't compensate these young athletes in any way; but they pay people
millions to coach them. We appreciate the coaching, but these coaches have talented
men on their teams. What is that worth?
These universities reap revenues which help keep EVERYONE's tuition costs down.
I think these young men should consider staying together to form non-official teams. There is no college degree in the world worth the way these guys have to slave on those courts, while still having to study, getting no consideration for how
much money they earn for these schools.
The NCAA has a terrible record of ignoring the attrition rates of these young men besides.
Lastly, when one of them does make it, we need to recognize that they feed, in the main, the actual NBA. Trillions of dollars are in play when yearly revenues of the
NCAA and the NBA are added. I would guess 1.2T minimum.
These young men are collectively are a multi-billion dollar industry. We need to begin to fight for them, because they are young, and they are busy, and they are
already doing the best they know how to do to get ahead. They want a shot. Nothing wrong with that. But let universities starve, and let the NBA dry up for a while.
This country can't afford to do without the basketball industry and its side businesses, I know. But not one of these young men should sign with any of these
universities for less than $500,000. In that way, they can afford four years of college whether they hit a snag or not. If they play just one year, they will earn
thousands for the school. If the student doesn't play the entire, season, pro-rate
him.
If the guys get together to study while working at McDonald's, or mowing lawns or
shovelling snow or playing for crowds at the gym, or whatever, fine.
If we assume the guys will use a high school diploma to earn $16,000 per year, then
the colleges will be putting them ahead of the fray by $436,000 of the 500 I am
suggesting.
Noone already rich in the system is going to like my ideas one bit. But what plantation owner was happy to do the right thing? I have never heard of one. If there was one, I feel sure he knew he couldn't let it be common knowledge among
his (or her )peers.
Hey, I have a college degree. I have had it for years. I am proud of it, yes;
but all I had to do was pay tuition, and pay back my loans. I didn't have to wake up sore when it was time to get to class. If I worked during those years, it was
not to pay the university for my training or education way more than the costs of
tuition and fees.

A Brand New President

A few weeks after the 2008 election, President Barak Obama went to Florida for a
talk with grass roots people.My daughter and I watched on TV.
His talk was outside in the open air. He reminded voters he intended to honor
the campaigning committments he made.
Then the president agreed to take questions.
He called on a lady who proceeded: 'We are living in my car. I have a young son,
and we lost our home, and we just need a place to live.'
Our President took the question in stride, saying he would make sure someone on his
staff heard her out and did what it would be possible to do.
But to my youngest daughter and me, it didn't pass muster as a question on national
policy. We looked at each other feeling for the lady and for the new president - then I had to show some of my incredulity. I started to sing 'see my eyes I can hardly see'. My daughter, an opera singer, helped me out immediately - chiming in -
'see my tongue, I can hardly talk'. We went on together, not really knowing if
the words or sequences in the phrasing was exactly right, 'won't you help, won't
you heal me Christ? I believe you you can make me whole.'
We agreed then just between the two of us that the United States of America was
love-starved, neglected, suffering...and would be a very tough room for an honest
man just tryin' to 'render unto Caesar'.
The next person the President called on bolstered our belief. He was a young man
saying his job at McDonald's wasn't paying benefits, or offering raises. My, my,my...

Tsunami

I flunked college geology. I did well on my exams, but on my practicals, I just could not see differences between igneous and metamorphic rocks to save my life.
Even some sedimentary just looked metamorphic to me because they didn't look igneous and I wasn't sure they were sedimentary. In that class, if you could not get a
passing lab grade, you flunked. Period. When I elected it, I thought, 'the lab will be easier than any other lab I've had'. Oh well. So to comfort myself after grades
came out, I just re-read the book cover to cover. Of course, as another disclaimer
for my geologic opinions, that was in the 70s - and I haven't kept up much.
All that being said, however, I did read a lot of the material my eldest daughter
bought in the 90s for a University of Michigan class called 'Oceans'.
At that time I was amazed to learn that whatever mountain ranges, rivers, lakes, streams, eruptions etc. we have on the earth's surface - there are larger, faster moving, more vast, more volatile counterparts on the ocean floor!
Whatever happens on the surface of the earth, happens in spades on the ocean floor.
So I just have to believe that since climate change has somehow caused more frequent
and larger sink-holes on earth's surface, we may have larger and more frequent
sink-holes on our oceans' flooring. Where they would be in proximity to a tsunami, I would have no idea. How they would be related to earthquake, I could not say.
What I can say, however, is that the polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate
according to Al Gore and most scientists. And I know water is very, very heavy. It
is going somewhere. It is moving quickly if gravity is real. It is causing severe
weather patterns. And obviously that is happening both on land, and at sea. I
think we need a LOT more geography and geology majors in our colleges. I'm just sayin'.

Sargent Shriver

Early this year Sargent Shriver passed away. From then until now I have considered
nearly every day what a profound effect he had on me, on my city, on my family,
through his policy of trusting people to employ their government to grow.
When President Johnson asked Sargent Shriver to head Great Cities, I thought "O wow, another government program. It won't be administerd to benefit anyone I know." I was too wrong! My mother followed the guidelines to apply for funds for the children in her surrounding neighborhood. I was married with a child by then, but my mother told me she was serious about needing me to get involved. Since I was trying to complete an undergrad degree, I initially thought I was too busy to make a committment to a project which would never come to fruition.
In the end, though, I saw the proposal I helped her write actually did get funded. So one day I went down to the church building, which was mainly a donated space to help with the program for children I felt were going to amount to an unruly chore group. Again I was so wrong. The children were young, from around eight years of age to maybe, twelve. Mom had named the program E.A.R.N. and Learn. The kids I met were engaged and engaging. My mother had hired a young art student from a nearby university to give the children art lessons twice per week. Initially, I thought even that was sort of an erudite idea. I visited the program one day, though - during an art lesson.
I felt such amazement at how quiet, how orderly, how eagerly the children soaked up the lesson on color and shading, and perspective. That lesson proved to be the first real art lesson I had ever received myself! The young people were respectful when they asked questions, but were not actually eerily quiet. They were truly working hard on their assigned projects. The teacher was very generous to let me sit in because she at first thought I would be a distraction, or an estimator of some sort for my mother. In the end I had a great deal of fun helping pass out the lunches that day, and helping preserve art for parents to see. I tried to visit the program to help out each day after that.
E.A.R.N. and Learn children did chores for elderly residents in their neighborhood. They swept up lawns, got a few groceries, swept porches, went to the mailbox, little things which could be supervised by the adults in the program. Every week they got paid. Every day they got a lunch. Every week they got a little evaluation by their seniors. Every week a tiny amount was put into individual accounts for them, a savings for program's end.
I just couldn't believe how motivated the very young very blonde teacher was each and every class period, how precisely my dad kept each and every receipt and expenditure in its proper place. The adults were so productive. The children were so industrious. Those getting services were so proud. The parents were so proud. Not from that day until this have I seen such positive governing at work. There was no waste. There was no fraud. There ws no putting children at risk. There were no parental complaints except that a few of them wanted to be more involved. There were no elder complaints.
In the end, Chrysler took the name of the program in a desperate move to garner some government attention at some point. We waved that away, as Great Cities had come to an end anyway by then. I'm not aware of what the name was used for at Chrysler.
Mom died in 1998, but a representative from the city came to her funeral to speak of her loveley achievement during the seventies, and to say there would always be a plaque to commemorate that achievement hanging in a place of honor in the City Hall.
I have seen first hand that children love to be the focus of meaningful education on any subject. I have seen first hand that every teacher is different from every other teacher. I have seen that a tiny church a few blocks east of Mack and Van Dyke on a street corner in Detroit can be a place of immense joy and community.
Forever and ever, I will thank Sargent Shriver for the depth and breadth of his conscience, of his wisdom, and of the gift those both were to us in America's great cities. Thank you Sargent Shriver.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge

Thank you to Congressman John Lewis. Please lead lectures on your view of the movement which details the events you experienced, and all those you
interacted with to make so very much American history. I wish all living civil rights leaders took turns teaching classes at least once a month. I wish a lot of those classes could be taught at the NAACP. I wish we could have a John Lewis Day at least in the black community. Then we would always be reminded how we got "Letter From A Birmingham Jail". The civil rights leadership in the U.S. - both living and departed, both black and white, are a national monument. I wish our children had proper access to them.