Last week, The Daily Wire reported that GLAAD representatives tried to smear Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling for her “support of Anti-Trans researcher Maya Forstater”, by saying Rowling “has now aligned herself with an anti-science ideology that denies the basic humanity of people who are transgender.” For the record, Forstater is a biologist who lost her job for stating that changing one’s outward appearance does not alter one’s biological sex. Rowling did not align herself with any “ideology” and neither she nor Forstater said anything about anyone’s humanity. All Rowling said is that Biology is real, and anyone should be free to say so.
GLAAD have thus taken the ridiculous position that the science of Biology is “an anti-science ideology”. Their threats mean little to one of the wealthiest and most popular women on earth. In blasting Rowling, GLAAD have seriously overplayed their hand, injuring the true cause of transgender individuals everywhere. SHAME ON YOU, GLAAD! Don’t you have any real battles to fight?
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Sunday, November 17, 2019
Playing for keeps
To my teenage daughter,
When I was a boy, we played marbles all the time. Someone would draw a circular “pot” on the ground, and everyone would throw in five marbles. We took turns shooting them out of the circle with a special marble called a shooter. If you hit a marble out of the pot, and your shooter also came out, you won that marble, and could shoot again. If you missed, or the target marble didn’t come out, you lost your turn. But if the shooter “stuck” in the pot, you had to leave it there, and if someone else shot it out of the pot, you were out of the game. You took your shooter, and any marbles you had left, and went home. We called this, “playing for fun,” or “funzies,” because, even though you could lose your marbles, you kept your shooter.
We played funzies with little kids, because they couldn’t be expected to keep their shooters. But when only big kids were playing, we played “for keeps”. If your shooter stuck in the pot, you were still in the game, but anyone who could shoot it out of the pot could keep it. Losing a good shooter was a disaster. We also allowed “steelies” (steel ball bearings) to be used for shooters. Steelies are heavier than glass marbles, probably wouldn’t stick in the pot, and any marble they hit would almost always be knocked out. For a younger kid, playing for keeps against big boys with their steelies was a tremendous risk. But if you wanted to graduate from funzies, it was the only game in town. Eventually, when you got bigger, no one would play funzies with you any more. It was “keeps” or nothing.
Life is like that. When you are small, people protect you from making mistakes. As you get older, you are allowed more and more responsibility. In grade school, you are graded on your effort, not your performance. In junior high, performance counts, but nobody remembers your grades from year to year. In high school, grades “count”. They become part of your permanent record, and colleges use them for admissions. You are playing for keeps.
Sometimes, life thrusts you into a “keeps” game before you are ready. You can still lose your shooter, even if you cry and throw a trantrum. The big kids care more about winning marbles than fairness. Your only protection is to have a friend among the big kids who will stick up for you. But even if your friend is the biggest kid on the block, he can’t always protect you from your folly.
Without knowing it, daughter, you got into a life game of “keeps” when you were offered a cash settlement from my auto insurance company. They are the “big kids” who are only in it only for the "marbles:" They don’t care about you at all. I am not in the game, and can’t help you. Neither can your mom. Your only friend among the big kids in this particular game is your step-mom. Now you have offended her, and she doesn’t want to fight the biggest kid on the block for you. I can’t blame her, but it doesn’t matter. The only players are you, your step-mom, and the lawyers, and the stakes are a quarter of a million dollars. That's more money than I have made in my whole life, and the sharks smell blood.
My insurance company offered to settle out of court for $50,000. My lawyer says you could win five times that much by going to court. Technically, you would be suing me for causing you injuries, so I can’t help you, or even sign the papers. I would be suing myself, which is not allowed. You need a legal guardian (besides me) to take legal action for you. In court, the amount of hassle is equal to the amount of money at stake. Your step-mom was offering to fight the biggest kid on the block for a quarter-million bucks, and give it all to you. The law would not allow her to keep any of it; nor could you give it away to her, or to me. The laws are quite specific, to protect innocent kids from greedy parents. See why she’s so angry?
Most likely, here is what will happen to you, without her help: the court will appoint a special lawyer for you, called a “guardian ad litem.” That means they are your guardian only for this case. You will have to pay attorney’s fees out of whatever you win. You will not have a choice about who the guardian is, what the fees will be, or whether you even want a guardian ad litem. The guardian probably does not want to do the work entailed in a big settlement, as their fees are fixed by the court. A private attorney can charge much more, and win much more, but you are not old enough to hire one, your step-mom won’t now, and I’m out of the picture. You’re stuck. You've lost your shooter.
The guardian ad litem will probably settle with the insurance company out of court, but they may offer even less money, because they know the guardian won't fight as hard as a private attorney. Only the judge can make the guardian do his job right, and the judge is more interested in closing the case, than in seeing that you get justice. He gets the same salary, whether he sticks around and hassles the guardian, or just bangs the gavel and goes home.
Any money you do get will likely be in a standard medical trust, which means you can’t touch it except for medical expenses until you are 21. Or maybe 25. Some states say 21, some 25. The trust can be used for ANY medical expenses. So you won’t be eligible for CHIP insurance, and will HAVE to use the trust for medical expenses of any kind, as we cannot afford regular insurance. A lot of your trust may be gone by the time you are old enough to collect it.
Here’s what you passed up: Your step-mom was willing to fight a protracted legal battle to secure a settlement of $250,000 or more, in a trust that would pay you a monthly allowance of several hundred dollars, with clauses that allow you to tap the trust for college expenses whenever you need to.
You can win big when you play for keeps, but you can also lose big, and you are the littlest kid on the block. You badly need a friend in the game, and there's only one player who can help. Think about it.
Love,
Dad
When I was a boy, we played marbles all the time. Someone would draw a circular “pot” on the ground, and everyone would throw in five marbles. We took turns shooting them out of the circle with a special marble called a shooter. If you hit a marble out of the pot, and your shooter also came out, you won that marble, and could shoot again. If you missed, or the target marble didn’t come out, you lost your turn. But if the shooter “stuck” in the pot, you had to leave it there, and if someone else shot it out of the pot, you were out of the game. You took your shooter, and any marbles you had left, and went home. We called this, “playing for fun,” or “funzies,” because, even though you could lose your marbles, you kept your shooter.
We played funzies with little kids, because they couldn’t be expected to keep their shooters. But when only big kids were playing, we played “for keeps”. If your shooter stuck in the pot, you were still in the game, but anyone who could shoot it out of the pot could keep it. Losing a good shooter was a disaster. We also allowed “steelies” (steel ball bearings) to be used for shooters. Steelies are heavier than glass marbles, probably wouldn’t stick in the pot, and any marble they hit would almost always be knocked out. For a younger kid, playing for keeps against big boys with their steelies was a tremendous risk. But if you wanted to graduate from funzies, it was the only game in town. Eventually, when you got bigger, no one would play funzies with you any more. It was “keeps” or nothing.
Life is like that. When you are small, people protect you from making mistakes. As you get older, you are allowed more and more responsibility. In grade school, you are graded on your effort, not your performance. In junior high, performance counts, but nobody remembers your grades from year to year. In high school, grades “count”. They become part of your permanent record, and colleges use them for admissions. You are playing for keeps.
Sometimes, life thrusts you into a “keeps” game before you are ready. You can still lose your shooter, even if you cry and throw a trantrum. The big kids care more about winning marbles than fairness. Your only protection is to have a friend among the big kids who will stick up for you. But even if your friend is the biggest kid on the block, he can’t always protect you from your folly.
Without knowing it, daughter, you got into a life game of “keeps” when you were offered a cash settlement from my auto insurance company. They are the “big kids” who are only in it only for the "marbles:" They don’t care about you at all. I am not in the game, and can’t help you. Neither can your mom. Your only friend among the big kids in this particular game is your step-mom. Now you have offended her, and she doesn’t want to fight the biggest kid on the block for you. I can’t blame her, but it doesn’t matter. The only players are you, your step-mom, and the lawyers, and the stakes are a quarter of a million dollars. That's more money than I have made in my whole life, and the sharks smell blood.
My insurance company offered to settle out of court for $50,000. My lawyer says you could win five times that much by going to court. Technically, you would be suing me for causing you injuries, so I can’t help you, or even sign the papers. I would be suing myself, which is not allowed. You need a legal guardian (besides me) to take legal action for you. In court, the amount of hassle is equal to the amount of money at stake. Your step-mom was offering to fight the biggest kid on the block for a quarter-million bucks, and give it all to you. The law would not allow her to keep any of it; nor could you give it away to her, or to me. The laws are quite specific, to protect innocent kids from greedy parents. See why she’s so angry?
Most likely, here is what will happen to you, without her help: the court will appoint a special lawyer for you, called a “guardian ad litem.” That means they are your guardian only for this case. You will have to pay attorney’s fees out of whatever you win. You will not have a choice about who the guardian is, what the fees will be, or whether you even want a guardian ad litem. The guardian probably does not want to do the work entailed in a big settlement, as their fees are fixed by the court. A private attorney can charge much more, and win much more, but you are not old enough to hire one, your step-mom won’t now, and I’m out of the picture. You’re stuck. You've lost your shooter.
The guardian ad litem will probably settle with the insurance company out of court, but they may offer even less money, because they know the guardian won't fight as hard as a private attorney. Only the judge can make the guardian do his job right, and the judge is more interested in closing the case, than in seeing that you get justice. He gets the same salary, whether he sticks around and hassles the guardian, or just bangs the gavel and goes home.
Any money you do get will likely be in a standard medical trust, which means you can’t touch it except for medical expenses until you are 21. Or maybe 25. Some states say 21, some 25. The trust can be used for ANY medical expenses. So you won’t be eligible for CHIP insurance, and will HAVE to use the trust for medical expenses of any kind, as we cannot afford regular insurance. A lot of your trust may be gone by the time you are old enough to collect it.
Here’s what you passed up: Your step-mom was willing to fight a protracted legal battle to secure a settlement of $250,000 or more, in a trust that would pay you a monthly allowance of several hundred dollars, with clauses that allow you to tap the trust for college expenses whenever you need to.
You can win big when you play for keeps, but you can also lose big, and you are the littlest kid on the block. You badly need a friend in the game, and there's only one player who can help. Think about it.
Love,
Dad
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Do House Republicans actually want Trump impeached?
Gabriel Malor, a Washington, D.C. attorney and conservative writer said in a recent article,
The House Republican strategy thus far is tantamount to declaring "he's innocent, therefore, he doesn't need to put on a defense." This is a bad plan. Ultimately, the Democrats are going to draw up articles of impeachment, and Trump will have to put on a defense in the Senate. If House Republicans want to be of any use in fact-finding for that defense, now is the only time they have to participate. It's time for them to stop playing games and treat impeachment as an actual serious threat.
He might also have added, “unless they actually want Trump impeached, but don’t dare admit it.”
President Trump’s offenses are incontestable and indefensible, leaving House Republicans only the option of obfuscation, unless they are willing to cross the aisle and call him out.
The House Republican strategy thus far is tantamount to declaring "he's innocent, therefore, he doesn't need to put on a defense." This is a bad plan. Ultimately, the Democrats are going to draw up articles of impeachment, and Trump will have to put on a defense in the Senate. If House Republicans want to be of any use in fact-finding for that defense, now is the only time they have to participate. It's time for them to stop playing games and treat impeachment as an actual serious threat.
He might also have added, “unless they actually want Trump impeached, but don’t dare admit it.”
President Trump’s offenses are incontestable and indefensible, leaving House Republicans only the option of obfuscation, unless they are willing to cross the aisle and call him out.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Where are the REAL Republicans?
“President Trump ripped former Defense Secretary James Mattis as ‘the world’s most overrated general’ on Wednesday during a White House sit-down on Syria” because “he wasn’t tough enough”. --New York Post.
A coward who used his daddy’s money to avoid military service dared to impugn the courage of a general nicknamed “Mad Dog Mattis” for his ferocity in battle. Someone who never faced an armed enemy in his life dares insult one of the world’s toughest fighting men.
If that’s not stupid enough, he then proceeded to call House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “a third-rate politician” and a “Communist sympathizer”. A president facing impeachment after only three years calls a thirty-year veteran of Congressional politics who rose to be the first ever female Speaker, “third rate”! A man who consorts with Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un, and who personally congratulated Communist China on the anniversary of their brutal dictatorship, calls Nancy Pelosi a Communist sympathizer!
Who is really the cowardly, overrated, third rate, Communist sympathizer? The facts speak for themselves. Where are the REAL Republicans?
A coward who used his daddy’s money to avoid military service dared to impugn the courage of a general nicknamed “Mad Dog Mattis” for his ferocity in battle. Someone who never faced an armed enemy in his life dares insult one of the world’s toughest fighting men.
If that’s not stupid enough, he then proceeded to call House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “a third-rate politician” and a “Communist sympathizer”. A president facing impeachment after only three years calls a thirty-year veteran of Congressional politics who rose to be the first ever female Speaker, “third rate”! A man who consorts with Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un, and who personally congratulated Communist China on the anniversary of their brutal dictatorship, calls Nancy Pelosi a Communist sympathizer!
Who is really the cowardly, overrated, third rate, Communist sympathizer? The facts speak for themselves. Where are the REAL Republicans?
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Mass Killing by the Numbers
In the last 30 years:
100% of mass killers have been males. "Mass killing" = deliberately targeting 4 or more in 1 attack.
100% of mass killers have broken existing laws and regulations in planning and preparing their attacks. Laws don't stop mass killers.
90% of mass killers come from homes without a male role model to teach boys self-control.
70% of people killed in mass attacks in the last 100 years were NOT killed with a gun.
50% of US families currently have no father in the home.
15% of mass killings could not have been prevented by gun control laws, because they were achieved without using any guns. Includes all three of the deadliest attacks on US soil.
0.00001% of US adults with access to a gun committed a mass killing in any given year. (20 mass killers per year, out of 200 million adults with gun access, or 1 in 10 million.)
0.0000017% of US adults with mental illness committed a mass killing in any given year (1 in 56 million adults with mental illness)
1970s Decade when numbers of US homes without a male role model began to spike.
1990s Decade when US mass killings began. Also when the children born in the 1970s came of age.
Conclusion: It’s not more gun control that is needed, it’s more self-control.
Details:
190 million US adults own or have access to a gun. There have been about 20 mass killing attacks per year since 1990. Do the math: 1 in 10 million US adults with gun access has committed a mass killing.
1 in 7 mass killings (15%) involved a weapon other than a gun. Examples: knives, explosives, poison, automobiles, aircraft, etc. Therefore, sequestering EVERY gun in America would only stop 85% of mass killings AT BEST.
56 million US adults suffer some form of mental illness in any given year. Only 1 mass killer
was diagnosed with mental illness before his mass attack. Therefore, 1 in 56 million US adults with mental disease has committed a mass killing.
The three deadliest attacks of any type on US soil in the last 100 years (total: 5571 deaths):
911 (3000 killed using aircraft commandeered with utility knives--no guns were used.)
Pearl Harbor (2403 killed, mostly by explosive torpedoes. A few may have been shot by attacking aircraft, using machine guns. Exact figures are not available.)
Oklahoma City (168 killed; 500 injured, using home-made explosives in a truck bomb.
No gun was fired in the attack)
In contrast, 2462 have been killed in mass shootings, with the deadliest being 56 in one attack at Orlando Florida. These are terrible numbers, but they pale in comparison to the 5571 non-gun mass killing deaths. Guns are not the problem; violence is the problem.
100% of mass killers have been males. "Mass killing" = deliberately targeting 4 or more in 1 attack.
100% of mass killers have broken existing laws and regulations in planning and preparing their attacks. Laws don't stop mass killers.
90% of mass killers come from homes without a male role model to teach boys self-control.
70% of people killed in mass attacks in the last 100 years were NOT killed with a gun.
50% of US families currently have no father in the home.
15% of mass killings could not have been prevented by gun control laws, because they were achieved without using any guns. Includes all three of the deadliest attacks on US soil.
0.00001% of US adults with access to a gun committed a mass killing in any given year. (20 mass killers per year, out of 200 million adults with gun access, or 1 in 10 million.)
0.0000017% of US adults with mental illness committed a mass killing in any given year (1 in 56 million adults with mental illness)
1970s Decade when numbers of US homes without a male role model began to spike.
1990s Decade when US mass killings began. Also when the children born in the 1970s came of age.
Conclusion: It’s not more gun control that is needed, it’s more self-control.
Details:
190 million US adults own or have access to a gun. There have been about 20 mass killing attacks per year since 1990. Do the math: 1 in 10 million US adults with gun access has committed a mass killing.
1 in 7 mass killings (15%) involved a weapon other than a gun. Examples: knives, explosives, poison, automobiles, aircraft, etc. Therefore, sequestering EVERY gun in America would only stop 85% of mass killings AT BEST.
56 million US adults suffer some form of mental illness in any given year. Only 1 mass killer
was diagnosed with mental illness before his mass attack. Therefore, 1 in 56 million US adults with mental disease has committed a mass killing.
The three deadliest attacks of any type on US soil in the last 100 years (total: 5571 deaths):
911 (3000 killed using aircraft commandeered with utility knives--no guns were used.)
Pearl Harbor (2403 killed, mostly by explosive torpedoes. A few may have been shot by attacking aircraft, using machine guns. Exact figures are not available.)
Oklahoma City (168 killed; 500 injured, using home-made explosives in a truck bomb.
No gun was fired in the attack)
In contrast, 2462 have been killed in mass shootings, with the deadliest being 56 in one attack at Orlando Florida. These are terrible numbers, but they pale in comparison to the 5571 non-gun mass killing deaths. Guns are not the problem; violence is the problem.
Monday, July 29, 2019
A beautiful Insult
I would like to nominate the Baltimore Sun Editorial Board for the very first Jack Hickman Award for Best Insult of the Year. Jack Hickman was an army NCO known for skillfully dressing down his subordinates. He once bawled out an erring crew member by saying, “If your mental stature matched your physical stature, you’d have to stand on a brick to kick a duck in the ass!”
Donald Trump, the self-made master of the sound bite insult, may have met his match. Trump called the whole 7th Congressional District, and specifically the city of Baltimore, “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”
Many have leaped to Baltimore’s defense, but the best salvo in this war of words came from the pros at the Baltimore Sun. Their recent editorial skillfully skewered Mr. Trump with one of the most beautiful insults ever published. They wrote:
“...we would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women’s private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are “good people” among murderous neo-Nazis that he’s still not fooling most Americans into believing he’s even slightly competent in his current post. Or that he possesses a scintilla of integrity. Better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one.”
Beautiful.
Donald Trump, the self-made master of the sound bite insult, may have met his match. Trump called the whole 7th Congressional District, and specifically the city of Baltimore, “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”
Many have leaped to Baltimore’s defense, but the best salvo in this war of words came from the pros at the Baltimore Sun. Their recent editorial skillfully skewered Mr. Trump with one of the most beautiful insults ever published. They wrote:
“...we would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women’s private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are “good people” among murderous neo-Nazis that he’s still not fooling most Americans into believing he’s even slightly competent in his current post. Or that he possesses a scintilla of integrity. Better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one.”
Beautiful.
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Brexit, Venezuela, and the Electoral College
As usual after every presidential election, the losing party has begun finding fault with the Electoral College, that “undemocratic and outmoded relic of the past”, while the winners defend “the wisdom of the Founding Fathers”. Ever since Donald Trump won the election, despite losing the popular vote, it was predictable that the Democrats would seek to do away with the Electoral College, the Republicans would defend it, and the American public would forget that it was just the opposite ten years ago.
Because both are right.
The Democrats say the Founders created the Electoral College as the only practical way to count votes at the time. Now, they say, that’s no longer true, and anything less than direct election of the president is undemocractic. They are right, but it’s not the end of the story.
The Republicans also have a valid point. Concentration of population in large cities could disenfranchise entire sections of the nation in a purely popular election. Whoever wins New York, California, and Texas would always win, and the rest of the country would have no voice. They are also right. But there’s another point that both parties are missing.
The Framers of the Constitution were the same men who’d led the Revolution, and they were passionate about liberty, even at the cost of democracy. The Electoral College is neither a relic of the past, nor a mere defense against regionalism, but a defense against a failure of democracy itself. Had the founders merely been concerned with difficult communications or regional fairness, they would have mandated that electors always vote according to the results of their district elections. They did not. In most states, Electors can change their vote after the first ballot. If there is no clear winner, the Electoral College votes again and again, until there is a clear winner. That’s how Jimmy Carter was elected--on the fourth ballot.
There’s great wisdom in this. Venezuela has been in an election crisis since January, when their National Assembly declared incumbent Nicolás Maduro's reelection invalid, and named Juan Guaidó the new president. Backed by the military, Maduro refuses to step down. Recognized as the rightful winner by over fifty countries, Guaidó refuses to give up. Neither will budge, there’s no legal way to re-run the election, and the country spirals into chaos.
Other democracies have suffered similar pitfalls. The United Kingdom is having such a problem right now. The public voted to leave the European Union. Parliament won’t accept the prime minister’s plan, and the EU won’t allow delays. Brexit may prove the ruin of both the UK and the EU.
The world’s longest-lived democracy, the United States of America, has avoided such crises, because our founders were not wedded to a perfect democracy. They understood that democracy doesn’t always work, and gave us the Electoral College to save us... from ourselves. Yes, it’s clumsy, unfair, and undemocratic. But it works. Long live the Electoral College!
Sunday, January 20, 2019
Changes
Last week I turned 72. I’m no longer a spring chicken, but still well within the life expectancy of most American men. I’ve seen some huge, startling changes in my lifetime.
I was born just as the anti-Communist hysteria of the McCarthy era was getting going. I remember atomic bomb drills in elementary school every month, for eight years. Russia was the enemy. As a teenager, I watched the Cuban missile crisis unfold on the nightly news. After college, I was drafted into the Army, where I was trained to shoot down Russian strategic bombers, using state-of-the-art anti-aircraft missiles. For the first half-century of my life, Russia was THE ENEMY, a constant danger ready to destroy the United States at any moment. Anyone who dared to be “soft” on Russia was a traitor, pure and simple. The best teacher I ever had was fired, simply for daring to teach the Russian language to four interested students. Those who did not live through the “Cold War” can have no idea how Russia-phobia was.
We survived the Cold War, the Soviet Union dissolved, and world Communism collapsed, mostly. The terror and threat of instant annihilation abated, and Russian-American relations became, if not exactly friendly, at least normalized.
Without the constant competition with Russia, it became possible for Americans to start working on our own very real problems: racism, sexism, poverty. America is a very different place than it was when I was first becomming aware of the way things were. During my first three decades, divorce was the kiss of death for any would-be politician. Female legislators were unheard of. Same for female judges. The idea that the US would someday have a black president, or a woman on the Supreme Court bench was not even a joke. The American Red Cross used separate thermometers for Black and White patients, even in the North. Racial and sexual discrimination in housing, employment, and the military was the norm everywhere. Bi-racial dating and marriage was a scandal, and a felony in half the country. Abortion was a felony. Selling birth control to adults was illegal in much of the country. Selling condoms to minors was illegal in most states. Homosexuals were persecuted, beaten, and murdered, and cops looked the other way, or even took part. Orientals, Hispanics, Blacks, Indians Catholics, Jews, and all women were discriminated against with impunity. Air and water pollution were rampant.
Things are very different now, in most ways, but there’s one thing that hasn’t changed. Russia is apparently still our enemy. Their methods of attack have changed, but they still oppose our democracy. They tried, and maybe succeded in influencing our elections. And now, the FBI says they may have corrupted our president. In my youth, such an accusation would have been enough to impeach him. If not worse. Hopefully, we have learned in the intervening half-century to base our actions on facts, not mere accusations. I hope he can clear himself of this accusation. The idea that a US president might be a Russian agent could be enough to take us right back to the bad old days of hate and fear.
I was born just as the anti-Communist hysteria of the McCarthy era was getting going. I remember atomic bomb drills in elementary school every month, for eight years. Russia was the enemy. As a teenager, I watched the Cuban missile crisis unfold on the nightly news. After college, I was drafted into the Army, where I was trained to shoot down Russian strategic bombers, using state-of-the-art anti-aircraft missiles. For the first half-century of my life, Russia was THE ENEMY, a constant danger ready to destroy the United States at any moment. Anyone who dared to be “soft” on Russia was a traitor, pure and simple. The best teacher I ever had was fired, simply for daring to teach the Russian language to four interested students. Those who did not live through the “Cold War” can have no idea how Russia-phobia was.
We survived the Cold War, the Soviet Union dissolved, and world Communism collapsed, mostly. The terror and threat of instant annihilation abated, and Russian-American relations became, if not exactly friendly, at least normalized.
Without the constant competition with Russia, it became possible for Americans to start working on our own very real problems: racism, sexism, poverty. America is a very different place than it was when I was first becomming aware of the way things were. During my first three decades, divorce was the kiss of death for any would-be politician. Female legislators were unheard of. Same for female judges. The idea that the US would someday have a black president, or a woman on the Supreme Court bench was not even a joke. The American Red Cross used separate thermometers for Black and White patients, even in the North. Racial and sexual discrimination in housing, employment, and the military was the norm everywhere. Bi-racial dating and marriage was a scandal, and a felony in half the country. Abortion was a felony. Selling birth control to adults was illegal in much of the country. Selling condoms to minors was illegal in most states. Homosexuals were persecuted, beaten, and murdered, and cops looked the other way, or even took part. Orientals, Hispanics, Blacks, Indians Catholics, Jews, and all women were discriminated against with impunity. Air and water pollution were rampant.
Things are very different now, in most ways, but there’s one thing that hasn’t changed. Russia is apparently still our enemy. Their methods of attack have changed, but they still oppose our democracy. They tried, and maybe succeded in influencing our elections. And now, the FBI says they may have corrupted our president. In my youth, such an accusation would have been enough to impeach him. If not worse. Hopefully, we have learned in the intervening half-century to base our actions on facts, not mere accusations. I hope he can clear himself of this accusation. The idea that a US president might be a Russian agent could be enough to take us right back to the bad old days of hate and fear.
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