The Opinionator

Marketing the Constitution: The Federalist Papers

They became the basis for "e pluribus unum."
Historians have figured out who wrote most of them

They are called "The Federalist"  or "The Federalist Papers" and they were written by three Americans in 1787-88 for eventual publication in newspapers throughout the country.  Their purpose was to help educate the American people as part of the ratification campaign for the proposed Constitution of the United States. 

These papers, 85 of them, considered a variety of issues, both pro and con, facing the new country. Their central focus was roles of states and the federal government. They became the basis for "e pluribus unum." and give us a view of the difficult and comprehensive challenges of nation building. While they ended up in the newspapers, some of them appeared in bound volumes and in pamphlets as well.  They spawned a body of literature consisting of columns and pamphlets written by those who opposed ratification, the "anti-Federalists,"

 The unpaid authors of the Federalist Papers were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay.  Hamilton was 30 years old, Madison was 36 and Jay was 42.  The men used the name "Publius" and never disclosed that they were the authors nor divulged who wrote which of the papers.  Historians have figured out who wrote most of the papers, although 12 of them are disputed.  Hamilton, who wrote the largest number went on to become the first Secretary of the Treasury, Madison became the fourth President and John Jay became the first Chief Justice of the United States.

 The original impetus for the project was Hamilton who felt the written arguments were needed to sell the citizens of his state of New York.  They were circulated throughout the state and exported to the other colonies.

 One notable aspect of the Federalist Papers was Number 84 which was opposed to what later became the Bill of Rights..  Hamilton, the author, believed that if a list of rights were identified, that would suggest that only those rights were important.  He preferred to have the Constitution talk about the powers of government, leaving what was left to the states.

 Over the years, Federal judges, when interpreting the Constitution, have  looked to the Federalist Papers as a commentary on the intentions of the framers of the constitution.  They constitute a rich source of information on a variety of debate topics which were fundamental to the founding of the United States.  The following is a sample of the issues taken from topics covered in the papers.  Virtually any one of these could spawn a library full of books or an entire body of historical/political literature:

 § The relative importance of direct and representative democracy.

• § The relationship between self interest and the common good.
• § Why we are a safer nation if we are united.
• § Relationships between separate states and foreign powers.
• § Disagreements among states.
• § Barriers to factions and insurrection.
• § What are the consequences of war between states?
• § The value of a union to commerce.
• § The balance of state and national powers.
• § Checks and balances.
• § Power of taxation, states and national.
• § Election of the President
• § The courts as guardian of the constitution.
• § Why do we need a senate and what should be its involvement in treaties with foreign powers.?

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A Nation at Risk: 25 Years Later

    Twenty five years ago last week the US Department of Education released the landmark education report "A Nation at Risk." This single document captured the imagination of the US public and secured the future of the United States Department of Education. Aa a cabinet level agency, the department  was slated for removal by the Reagan administration..  Although the report is on "education" and "the schools" the unspoken focus has been on the public schools of America, not independent ones or the home schooled.

      When the "A Nation at Risk" bandwagon rolled out almost all politicians scrambled to get on board.  Since advocating improvements can usually mean spending money, it was a delicate balancing act inflicted upon those riding the bandwagon.  Inspired by Rush Limbaugh and a few Reagan apparatchiks to keep saying "You don't solve  problems by throwing money at them" the accelerating bandwagon appealed to many zero tax increase advocates.  The issue became one of testing kids whenever possible and the mantra to support this obtrusive obsession was "accountability."  The unspoken spirit of this was that the schools were screwing up because no one had the courage or resolution to lean on them.

      What is astounding to me in the past 25 years, is that so little has changed.  Urban schools are still doing terribly, riddled with violence and replete with tales of heart-breaking failure.  Drop out rates are still high, higher than ever in some places because the introduction of "rigor" has lifted the bar causing fewer to get over it. Just in the past few weeks Uncle Sam has mandated the definition of drop out rate so that schools cannot make themselves look like they are holding more kids by spinning the statistic. The instances of defeated school budget proposals have never been higher and school officials in recent years have described themselves as captains of sinking ships, forced to decide who to throw overboard every year as sacrifices to budget reductions. The public could care less.

     The eternal issues of dispute in public education seem to be unresolved.  People will always argue whether the better way to learn to read is by sounding out syllables, or by focusing on meaning.  Another debate is whether children should be grouped by those of similar ability or by mixed abilities.  There are many who still yearn for the days of spelling bees and repeated drills in penmanship.  In short, we don't seem to have learned much in 25 years of "pilot projects," and the cataloging of "best practices."

       There are still the ubiquitous debates about what constitutes basics and what constitute frills. To some basics must include religious values.  To others it is patriotism. To still others basics must include practical and useful things like filling out a resume, operating a cash register or filing tax returns. I keep running into about the same number of sluggish kids at cash registers having trouble making change as I did a quarter of a century ago.

      For many advocates of educational improvement the answer is testing students again and again. I remember the farmer in the Midwest who observed that where he is from, if you want to fatten the pig you feed him, not weigh him.  In spite of our best efforts to use testing as a way to instill knowledge, it is unclear if we really have figured out what to do with what that tells us. As we gather more testing data than ever before, we learn that colleges are doing away with the Scholastic Aptitude Tests as predictors of Academic excellence.  They argue that they are looking for qualities which can't be measured on a paper and pencil test.

      Almost all politicians ride the easy horse of "Quality education at a fair price." Will it take another twenty five years to conclude that scolding schools has very little to do with improving them?

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Olympics Problems: Where's Mitt Romney?

From Athens to Hitler to Carter to Bush

Now that the Olympic flame has been doused by nervous police and angry protesters concerned about human rights in China, I guess we need to think about canceling the Beijing Summer Games, or at least not going to them. Probably nothing will happen because no politician wants to look like Jimmy Carter in 1980. President Bush says he'll be there.

In the beginning the flame had to be physically carried from Athens to the ceremony at the Olympic Stadium on opening day, and Virgins in white robes started it off.Human rights in Tibet may be a little more general than cheating ice skating judges or Tanya-like knee capping, and the enormity of it all takes something from the integrity of the games as a celebration of Chine in the 21st Century.

I had thought the flame had to be physically carried from Athens to the ceremony at the Olympic Stadium on opening day. Virgins in white robes started it off. Apparently it is fake symbolism because it can be snuffed out now and then and re-lighted along the way. It's not really a non-stop trip from Mt. Olympus. The games have used the idea of the Olympic flame since 1928. The idea of using a relay for the flame started in 1936 in Berlin and was the brainchild of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, to glorify the Third Reich.

Remember the drama in Los Angeles a few years ago? Runners streaking through the streets, vans and photo trucks whirring along photographing it for posterity, television network coverage of literally every moment, dramatic chords of background music playing as the stadium loomed on the horizon, triumphant young athletes running it along in unforgettable moments of their lives, into the tunnel way to the stadium, thousands waiting, hushing, waiting, around the turn onto the track comes the young flame bearer, who will do the last lap, passed off to an athletic biggy, then another, there he is! Muhammad Ali grabs the torch while thousands roar, he lights the big torch, welcome to the Olympics!

We just can't say "So what?" to the flame going out. They're making billions in China and hold the mortgages for much in the good old USA. You'd think they could have figured out a way not to let the flame die. I sure hope they care as much about eternal flames as they do building skyscrapers in downtown Shanghai or investing in US real estate. Why not put the torch in a little Pope Mobile and let protesters throw their rocks and lunge at police lines as it rolled by. Let them try fire extinguishers and fire hoses to snuff out the light. The torch would be as safe and dry as the Holy Father rolling through St. Peter's Square.

Maybe it's a job for Mitt Romney, given his fast rise to fame in the 2002 Winter Olympics and the fact that he is supposed to be good at economics. From what I gather, China is becoming one large MasterCard or ATM card. My daughter was in Hong Kong last month. She said that if you can accept the environmental damage they are doing over there, you can see a sky scraper go up every couple of days. Sometimes I think the world tries a little too hard to use the spirit of sports competition as if it were some kind of substitute United Nations.

 

There is an interesting piece by Serge Schnemann called "Olympics Protests: Then and Now" in today's NYT.  Check it out here.

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Marathon Monday

On Monday, Patriot's Day, about 20,000 runners, men, women, wheel chair people and hundreds of unregistered participants will run 26.22 miles from Hopkinton to Boston while the whole world watches.  It is the oldest annual marathon in the world, has been going on since 1896 and is the third Monday in April of every year. The biggest year for the event was the 100^th running in 1996 which had 38,000 runners. This year the prize for both the men and women winners is $150,000. This is the 112^th year of the race.

Cape Cod's Marathoner Kelly
John Kelly was a two-time Boston marathon winner. Kelly also represented the US in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and the 1940 Olympics in London.While my family, including ancestors are the most sedentary and non-athletic people in the world, we have always had great fascination with the Boston Marathon.  It put the city on the map and truly made it the "Hub." and the high point of lifetime achievements for these runners.  When I was a child growing up in Northern New Hampshire, my grandfather would talk about the marathon for weeks.  He would pour through old copies of the Boston Post for all the stories he could find and would pronounce repeatedly the names of the Korean runners who seemed to win every year back then just as athletes from Kenya win all the time these days. The names Clarence Demers (six time winner) and Johnny Kelly (from Dennis, ran 61 times) became well known in our household.

 As my children were growing up I tried to establish a tradition in our family of following the marathon and exposing my children to the runners and the impressive phenomenon of people setting an almost unattainable goal for themselves and then achieving it.  I would take the kids into Kenmore Square to watch the runners enter the last mile of the race. We would be among the 500,000 spectators. The kids loved to observe the BU students sitting on window sills and guzzling beer as they waited for the runners.  I can see it now, the wild cheering, the sense I got that yes, the shouting and clapping behind the yellow police ribbon barriers was really sustaining these exhausted people. I remember the police motorcycle escorts thundering along beside the leaders, preceded by the press truck, bristling with cameras and reporters and microphones, whirring by us to announce that the champions were entering Kenmore on the home stretch. The crowd always got louder at that point because the Red Sox game, next door in Fenway Park, was starting to empty. We always stayed around to salute father and son team Dick and Rick Hoyt when they ran by. When we left the square, we would stop by the Boston University bookstore and pick up souvenir marathon T shirts for the kids.

 One year I took the kids and some of their friends to the starting point in Hopkinton rather than to Kenmore Square.  It took all morning and part of the afternoon.  In those days you parked outside of town and rode a yellow school bus into the village square where thousands of runner, all decked out in colorful running togs were sitting, or leaning against trees around the park stretching muscles and getting ready for the big run.  You also saw the media, fully engaged in reporting important news. I saw WBZ radio personality Dave Maynard standing on the roof of their mobile broadcasting bus. I was startled to realize how tiny most of the runners were.  If you topped 125 lbs you were a large person.

 Let me recommend making a big deal of the Marathon whether or not you are athletic.  The kids will love it and you will all be mingling with real heroes.   Check out the race by looking at the Boston Athletic Association web site here.

What's a Marathon and why is it called that?
The marathon is a long-distance running event with an official distance of 42.195 kilometers (26 miles 385 yards) that is usually run as a road race. The event is named after the fabled run of the Greek soldier Pheidippides, a messenger from the Battle of Marathon to Athens. It was one of the original Olympic events in 1896, though the distance did not become standardized until 1921. More than 800 marathons are contested throughout the world each year, with the vast majority of competitors being recreational athletes. The larger marathons can have tens of thousands of participants.
The event was made famous by the Robert Browning poem below:

Pheidippides by Robert Browning

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock!

Gods of my birthplace, daemons and heroes, honour to all!

Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal in praise

--Ay, with Zeus . the Defender, with Her deg. of the aegis and spear!

Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, deg. praised be your peer,

Now, henceforth, and forever,--O latest to whom I upraise

Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture and flock!

Present to help, potent to save, Pan .--patron I call!

Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return!

See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no spectre that speaks! 10

Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you,

"Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid!

Persia has come, we are here, where is She?" Your command I obeyed,

Ran and raced: like stubble, some field which a fire runs through,

Was the space between city and city: two days, two nights did I burn

Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks.

Into their midst I broke: breath served but for "Persia has come!

Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth

Razed to the ground is Eretria. deg.--but Athens, shall Athens sink,

Drop into dust and die--the flower of Hellas deg. utterly die,

Die with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by

Answer me quick,--what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction's brink?

How,--when? No care for my limbs!--there's lightning in all and some--

Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!"

O my Athens--Sparta love thee? did Sparta respond?

Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust,

Malice,--each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate!

Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood

Quivering,--the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood:

"Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate?

Thunder, thou Zeus! Athene, are Spartans a quarry beyond

Swing of thy spear? Phoibos deg. and Artemis, deg. clang them 'Ye must'!"

No bolt launched from Olumpos deg.! Lo, their answer at last!

"Has Persia come,--does Athens ask aid,--may Sparta befriend?

Nowise precipitate judgment--too weighty the issue at stake!

Count we no time lost time which lags thro' respect to the Gods!

Ponder that precept of old, 'No warfare, whatever the odds

In your favour, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take

Full-circle her state in the sky!' Already she rounds to it fast:

Athens must wait, patient as we--who judgment suspend."

Athens,--except for that sparkle,--thy name, I had mouldered to ash!

That sent a blaze thro' my blood; off, off and away was I back,

--Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!

Yet "O Gods of my land!" I cried, as each hillock and plain,

Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again,

"Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honours we paid you erewhile?

Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash

Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!

"Oak and olive and bay,--I bid you cease to en-wreathe

Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian's foot,

You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave!

Rather I hail thee, Parnes, deg.--trust to thy wild waste tract!

Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain! What matter if slacked

My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave

No deity deigns to drape with verdure?--at least I can breathe,

Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the mute!"

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge;

Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar

Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way.

Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across:

"Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse?

Athens to aid? Tho' the dive were thro' Erebos, deg. thus I obey--

Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No bridge

Better!"--when--ha! what was it I came on, of wonders that are?

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he--majestical Pan!

Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof;

All the great God was good in the eyes grave-kindly--the curl

Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe

As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw.

"Halt, Pheidippides!"--halt I did, my brain of a whirl:

"Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?"! he gracious began:

"How is it,--Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?

"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast!

Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old?

Ay, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me!

Go bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith

In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, 'The Goat-God saith:

When Persia--so much as strews not the soil--Is cast in the sea,

Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least,

Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and the bold!'

"Say Pan saith: 'Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!'"

(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear

--Fennel,--I grasped it a-tremble with dew--whatever it bode),

"While, as for thee..." But enough! He was gone. If I ran hitherto--

Be sure that the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but flew.

Parnes to Athens--earth no more, the air was my road;

Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor's edge!

Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare!

* * * * *
Then spoke Miltiades. deg. "And thee, best runner of Greece,

Whose limbs did duty indeed,--what gift is promised thyself?

Tell it us straightway,--Athens the mother demands of her son!"

Rosily blushed the youth: he paused: but, lifting at length

His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his strength

Into the utterance--"Pan spoke thus: 'For what thou hast done

Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee release

From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!'

"I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my mind!

Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel may grow,--

Pound--Pan helping us--Persia to dust, and, under the deep,

Whelm her away forever; and then,--no Athens to save,

Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave,--

Hie to my house and home: and, when my children shall creep

Close to my knees,--recount how the God was awful yet kind,

Promised their sire reward to the full--rewarding him--so!"

* * * * *
Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day:

So, when Persia was dust, all cried "To Akropolis!

Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!

'Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout!" He flung down his shield,

Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the Fennel-field

And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through,

Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine thro' clay,

Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute

Is still "Rejoice!"--his word which brought rejoicing indeed.

So is Pheidippides happy forever,--the noble strong man

Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, whom a god loved so well,

He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell

Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began,

So to end gloriously--once to shout, thereafter be mute:

"Athens is saved!"--Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed.

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Singing for the Pope

Pope Benedict XVI will be visiting the US from April 15 to April 20 and much of his itinerary will consist of saying public Masses which hundreds of thousands will attend and millions will watch on television.  When he arrives at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers on April 19, American Idol Kelly Clarkson will be serenading the youths awaiting him. There will be heavy use of youth music, Christian rock bands and alternative rock. Baptist raised Texan Clarkson will sing Schubert's "Ave Maria," something which she says has been a dream of hers.  The popemobile will be used to transport the pope through the streets of Manhattan on Saturday the 19^th. Among his first tasks on arriving in New York on Friday the 18^{th; ,}  is to address the United Nations.

 On Sunday, April 20, the pope will pray at Ground Zero and say Mass at Yankee Stadium. Jose Feliciano will sing "Lean on Me," "Que Sera, Sera" and God Bless the USA." Feliciano is a lector in his home parish and his wife is a Eucharistic minister.  He has already performed at the Vatican and appeared in 1997 with Andrea Bocelli. The Yonkers program, four hours in length, will feature more than two dozen entertainers, many of whom are drawn from the parishes and schools of the Archdiocese of New York. At the two hour event, Met Opera tenor Marcello Giordani will sing the Puccini Aria "Nessun Dorma" and "Panis Angelicus" by Franck. He will be joined by Irish singer Dana who has sung at several papal events before. Harry Connick Jr., who attended Jesuit High School in New Orleans, will perform two pieces he is composing for the event. Choirs will include the Harlem Gospel Choir and West Point Cadet Choir.

 Stig Edgren is the producer of the New York events. He is no stranger to these projects having done Pope John Paul II's visit to Dodger Stadium and the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1987 and Central Park in 1995. He said, "I wanted to stick with the orchestral feel and not make this a parade of stars.

 On April 17 the pope will say Mass in Washington D.C. at the Nationals Park. Placido Domingo will sing Franck's "Panis Angelicus" and mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves will be on the program. The day before, Wednesday the 16^th, he will see President and Mrs. Bush at the White House.

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Flu Epidemic of 1918

The worse in history

Flu season is here and the media reports that an epidemic is going on in every state except Florida. We get the flu when someone around us has it and they cough or sneeze. We breathe the germs in or touch our nose or mouth with the germs. Repeated hand washing helps prevent it. Somehow it gets to our lungs. It's a simple little virus with eight genes and it can only live in humans, where it attacks the machinery of a cell and forces it to make new viruses. While the original may die, there are many replacements and some escape to infect others. We usually get the flu in the winter because we are indoors and the air is dry.

As many as 100 million died worldwide

They say there are strains of influenza which the vaccine shots don't guard against well, but shots are still encouraged as they'll minimize effects. There's enough vaccine to go around this year, so if you are old or have some health problems, come and get it

Take a moment and think about epidemics.  I remember growing up in the 40's and 50's how terrified our mothers were that we could catch polio.  Polio even afflicted the president of the United States, and if you, as a child of that time, thought you could spend your time in carefree splashing in the old swimming hole or down by the river, you had another think coming.  Then in 1954 Dr. Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine, and we were all vaccinated at school.  Almost overnight, this fear our mothers had vanished and we could go swimming again.

When I was growing up in that era, I recall frequent references to long gone friends of the family, departed cousins and distant aunts and uncles.  There seemed to be frequent mention of this widow or that widower. When I looked closer, I discovered that many of these deceased friends and relatives had died 30 to 40 years before. Specifically, they had fallen ill and perished in the great influenza epidemic in 1918, a year before the end of WWI, in which an estimated 50 to 100 million people worldwide lost their lives. Known as the "Spanish flu" by some, it might have taken more lives than the Black Death or Black Plague of the mid 14^th Century. The number of deaths is unclear and historians keep ratcheting it upward. It seemed as if everyone knew at least one person and usually more who had died. In October of 1918 alone, 195,000 Americans died from influenza, and before the epidemic was over, half a million had died.

The flu epidemic of 1918 was first spotted in this country at Camp Devens, Massachusetts (later, Fort Devens) when it affected hundreds of G.I's.  In those beginning days, it would come on you fast, fill your lungs with fluid, and you could be dead almost overnight. Young people would start to feel sick and in a day or two would be gasping for breath.  People wondered if this was some kind of germ warfare perpetrated by the Germans and there was a rumor of a toxic cloud hovering over Boston Harbor and containing the deadly virus. When the suspicion was germ warfare, the would put quotes around the word "influenza."  The photo is at an Army emergency flu ward.

Today in flu season approximately 0.1 percent of those who are infected will die and this population will usually be people who are very old or have chronic diseases.  In 1916 the vast majority of victims were under age 65, and 2% to 20% of those who were afflicted lost their lives.

There are many stories of courage and heroism by the doctors and scientific researchers who worked at treating the sick, diagnosing the disease and isolating the virus.  Their efforts included exhuming the bodies of victims to get samples of lung tissue and, many years later examining frozen tissue to affirm that the virus was still present. In a sense, the work of many of these people were like a detective sleuthing a crime.  These kinds of extremely dangerous activities have contributed to the existence of flu vaccines today.

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Krazy Glue: What Sticks and What Does Not

 

Matt Bai, a reporter for the New York Times, wrote a piece recently called "Krazy Glue Moments" in "The Caucus" on-line blog of that publication.  He points that sometimes gaffes, mistakes, or just unpopular things stick to politicians as if they were covered with Krazy Glue.  Other things don/'t stick, as if the politician had a Teflon covering, as people used to say about President Ronald Reagan.  His theory is that the things which stick the most are those which are the closest to the central idea of what the candidate is all about. Sometimes politicians get a pass on their gaffes.  Sometimes they do not. 

There were several dozen reader comments following this article and they were heavy on blaming the media regarding deciding between Krazy Glue and Teflon.  Some comments were incredibly hateful toward Hillary Clinton.  One commenter reminded us that she was not Bill Clinton, he was a Rhodes Scholar, she failed to pass the DC bar the first time!  Here is a partial list of some of the incidents that I culled from the article, some of the responses and my own memories. You can check out the article and the responses at: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/krazy-glue-moments/#com

Bush arrested for DWI

Clinton crying in NH

Clinton landing in Bosnia

Craig in men's room

Dean scream

Kerry voted for it before voted against it

Kerry botched joke about veterans

McCain and religious radicals Hagee and Parsley

McCain citing Al Quaida training in Iran

McCain on being in Iraq 100 years                                          

Obama and drug use

Obama grandmother as typical white person

Obama's and Rev. Wright's sermons

Obama's Rezko contact

Patterson and drug use

Patterson and infidelity

Spitzer and prostitute

Vitter and prostitute

 

 

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Smarty Pants

As the oldest sibling in my parents' family, I've always known I enjoyed certain advantages over my two younger sisters, A recently  completed landmark  study has confirmed that oldest siblings can have as many as three more IQ points than their younger siblings, a slight, but nevertheless significant difference. When I started seriously thinking about this, the thoughts moved to the general ramifications of place in the family structure and how that may give boosts or handicaps to certain people.

Years ago I attended a seminar which considered place in family among siblings.  The psychologist asked the oldest in the family to raise their hands.  Then he wanted to know who the youngest were and then the in-betweens. Only children were treated as oldest ones.

Then he asked the three groups identified to move to three circles of chairs set up in three of the four corners of the room. The psychologist gave the same instructions to each group.  Talk about your experiences as children in your family and pick someone in your group to take notes and report back to all of us in about thirty minutes. He then asked the groups to begin their discussions.

The gist of the discussions was "What is it like to be an oldest/middle/or youngest child in a family?  The reports back to the large group revealed interesting similarities in what we learned about each other.

The group of oldest children were generally self assured and confident. Parents almost always had a mess of photos of these kids and meticulously kept baby books containing locks of hair, dates of developmental milestones. These children were the pathfinders in their families.  The first to college, first to marry, first to have children and so on.

The middle kids were revealed to have formidable negotiating skills.  They were often playing the oldest/youngest off each other. They did not enjoy the comfort of a relatively static position in their families and sometimes had to take care of themselves by making deals and paying special attention to issues of favoritism and equity.

The youngest were the "babies" in their families.  Everyone in the family looked out for them and tried to give them whatever they wanted. If someone was going to end up "spoiled" (whatever that means) it would be the youngest in the family.

Into adulthood these traits established by birth order tend to continue. If you are an "oldest" it is likely that you will write the checks and pay the bills in your marriage. To you may also fall first responsibility in taking care of aging parents.  Middle children when adults may be the organizers and brokers in the family.  At the cook-out they will send out the e-mail suggesting who should bring the salad, the hot dog rolls, and the beverage.  The youngest may be late to the cookout and his or her kids may be the noisiest but that's just fine.  They are doing the best they can.

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The Prince

Memories of Running a High School in the 1960s

I was watching television the other day and they were interviewing this mid-sixtyish guy on the red carpet show before the Grammies. His face looked familiar but I was thrown off by his haircut which was extremely short, like what you might see on an Army recruit or an inmate in the state penitentiary. Then I realized the man they were talking to was Ringo Starr, but all I could see on his head was the floppy mop of hair he wore in 1964 when he and his three bushy friends got off the plane to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show. Our parents looked at these guys in amazement and became convinced that the world, as they knew it, was coming to an end. This encounter with Ringo Starr, senior citizen, got me thinking.

I was a high school principal in the sixties, barely older than the kids in my school. I had just finished up my Masters' degree program at the University of New Hampshire and asked my adviser if I should pursue a job as a principal in a small high school or as an assistant principal at a large high school.  His advice was, "Become a principal when you are young and idealistic."  I took his advice and had no regrets.

These were the wild sixties. Pot smoking, demonstrations, petition signing, sit ins, you name it. It was almost an every day thing to be visited by a delegation of teachers demanding something like the Army recruiter being kicked out of school.  One class was in charge of putting up the flag every day.  On the Viet Nam moratorium day the kids flew the flag at half-mast.  It took about three minutes for the phone to start ringing with irate citizens demanding we fly the flag the right way. Everyone in town was involved in the schools. They watched us closely and were not averse to criticizing.

We had an attic full of obsolete textbooks and didn't dare to throw them away. People would pour through things at the local landfill (we called "the dump" then) and retrieve old books and accuse us of waste.  We had so many old ones in the attic that they were becoming a fire hazard.  I ended up having them transferred out of state to another dump.  Some of these books didn't mention the invention of penicillin and had Franklin Roosevelt as the current president.

I had friends among fellow principals who used to walk around their schools carrying a small plastic ruler in their shirt pocket to measure how many inches above the knee a girl's skirt could be and how many inches over the ears a boy's haircut could be.  I used to say, "Worry about what is in their heads, not on their heads." Many of us, in spite of best efforts became the prototypes for Asst. Principal Ed Rooney in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

The Beatles were seen as an evil cultural influence.  At least as bad as the shaking pelvis of Elvis ten years before.  The boys all started letting their hair grow over their ears and eyes.

Once I returned from a meeting at the office of the superintendent and was confronted with a group of students sitting on the steps in front of my office protesting something about Viet Nam.  I calmly picked my steps through the sprawled student to return to my office.  They used to call me "Prince." That was short for "Principal" but I had convinced myself they thought I was royalty.

Those days as a young principal were my salad days.  It was a small school; we'd graduate 18 or 20 kids a year. We didn't have any guidance counselor.  The school board told me I was the guidance counselor. I could get the entire student body into the school library and I did from time to time to preach little sermonettes about the importance of respecting each other and avoiding put-downs.

High school graduation was the main social event of the season in our little town and I, as master of ceremonies and all purpose introducer (no small job as almost everyone in town had a speaking role) was kind of the high priest of the entire liturgy. Gregorian chant in St. Peter's Basilica had nothing on Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" in our little gymnasium.

We would work so hard on graduation.  Crepe paper, flags, gold tassels and lecterns. I think we may have spent more time practicing the march in and out of the gym then we did on Shakespeare's sonnets. One of my roles was to discourage some of the enthusiastic kids and faculty members who would have turned the thing into one of those Nuremberg Rallies in the mid-thirties.

I recall one year we had worked especially hard to make our graduation as solemn and impressive as the coronation of a king.  Everything was in place, it seemed so perfect.  Then I spotted the husband of a school board member elbowing his way through the crowd headed clearly for me. I took a deep breath and greeted him.  He said, "Why in hell don't you make those boys polish their shoes before they get up on the stage?"

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Should Kids Be Invited to Weddings?

  Over the years, I have been to and paid for more than my share of weddings.  One of the topics that always comes up in the planning of these events is the question of whether children should be invited to the reception.  For some brides and grooms with perhaps a combination of 25 cousins below the age of 13, this is a major issue.  Additionally, if any adult guests are the parents of young children, the issue of whether children can come to the wedding is a major one. While they make for good photographs and don't run up the liquor bill, no one wants to plan 20 additional plates for children who will fall asleep before the meal or decide that the entrée is something they cannot eat without getting sick.

You would think the etiquette books and the literature on wedding planning might contain helpful information on the subject.  That doesn't seem to be the case.  It can be very entertaining watching the kids dance at a reception; maybe someone can amuse them with balloon animals as Vince Vaughn did in "The Wedding Crashers."  For those who think the attention should be on the bride, not the kids, this is a problem.  For the bride who says her wedding is "all about me," sharing the spotlight might be undesirable. Others feel that they would decline an invitation if their children cannot go to the festivities.

Children belong at wedding celebrations more than anyone else. They are  a central reason for couples to marry.  Who but those among the most selfish of us would restrict children from wedding celebrations? Clearly, it is a family celebration, not just an adult fling. What a lost opportunity to shape the future to shut kids out of weddings. In another time, in most other cultures, it would be seen as outrageous to exclude kids from weddings.  Weddings need to promote children, not marginalize them.

Alternative menus and seating arrangements to accommodate children are impressive innovations to deal with the reasons why some wedding planners may not welcome kids. It shouldn't be out of the question to negotiate for free food be supplied to children at a wedding.  Don't wait around for restaurants or caterers to come up with child friendly options, there's money to be lost in being this accommodating. Brides and other wedding planners are the ones who can bring this child alternative about widely. Evening weddings, of course, are harder for the very young and perhaps wedding people will have to make a decision about time of day vs. child inclusivity. 

Some might argue that having children at a wedding will restrict the enjoyment of adults who think their kids need to be watched like hawks. This problem could be handled, at least partially, by supplying a children's room and employing a sitter or child supervisor.  The role of overseeing the guest book and the punch bowl is usually seen as an honor.  Could we add the role of childcare coordinator?

Of course one way to handle the problem of kids at weddings is to do what you want. The RSVP process isn't followed very strictly by many people, anyway, and there are instances where couples stick a lengthy list of uninvited children names on the return invitation or simply just show up with a flock. You'd think that might tell wedding planners something.

I hope child free weddings will become a thing of the past.  My memories of attending weddings of aunts and uncles many years ago stand out as peak events of my youth.  It is, indeed, a very big deal for an eight year old boy to be asked to dance with a beautiful bride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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