Of Bread Bags and Piles of Shoes

Some of the (many) shoes in our house.  Photo by J. Berta

Greetings All:

Last week, I wrote about that uniquely American tradition known as "The State of the Union Address."  I thought President Obama gave a solid speech.  I also thought he won the "zinger" award of the night when he quipped, "I know, I won both of them." This was to the some grumbling by "The loyal opposition" regarding his comment about being done with elections.

We then moved onto the Republican response.  There were a number of them given.  The official one came from Iowa's own, Senator Joni Ernst.  There is almost a "Hunger Games" quality to the response to the SOTU address.  It's way shorter, given to an empty room sans staff and teleprompter and its watched only by the media, the other party's fans and political junkies (like me). 

Senator Ernst gave, in my opinion, a very good and sincere response.  One part of her speech stuck with me.  Here it is:


"You see, growing up, I had only one good pair of shoes. So on rainy school days, my mom would slip plastic bread bags over them to keep them dry.  But I was never embarrassed. Because the school bus would be filled with rows and rows of young Iowans with bread bags slipped over their feet."

My opinion was not universally shared.  Peggy Noonan has a cleaver blog post calling out the "eye-rollers" who took issue with Ernst's tales of her youth.  I've got the link to her blog post in the credits below, it's worth a read.

As someone who worked in New York City slinging permanent life insurance (er, I mean, being a "financial consultant") and hailing from "flyover country," I can understand their point of reference.  After all, who'd do that?  Wear bread bags on their feet?

People in Iowa, that's who.

I think I might have even done that as a kid myself.  However, I cannot recall.  Truth be told, I had plenty of shoes growing up.  Now, even more so.

I remember as I watched Senator Ernst give say the line about her "...one good pair of shoes," I looked over at the assortment of shoes gathered in our living room.  For our family of four, we're all good, really good with shoes.

We are truly fortunate.

I don't know why, but for some reason as she told her story of the bread bags keeping her one pair of shoes dry, I thought of a pile of shoes.  Not the small collection in my house, but the mountains of shoes many miles away in D.C. and in Europe.

Those piles reside at the National Holocaust Museum in our nation's capital and throughout Europe in the museums that were once killing factories.  

Those piles are shoes, countless shoes!  When I see photos of the piles of shoes, I cannot help but think that the last living person to wear them had but minutes of life left before the steel door slammed shut to the gas chamber.

My God, the horrors man can do.

A pile of victims' shoes, fair use claimed, http://collections.yadvashem.org/photosarchive/en-us/2626.html

Now, lest anyone think I'm now on the Joni Ernst bandwagon from a policy standpoint, I am not.  In her speech, she touched on a number of issues, many I clearly disagree with her on, with a bunch of separation.   Come to think of it, with the exception of her pledge to support Veterans, I probably am on the other side of just about everything else she said last week.  Yet on her story of the bread bags, I believe her, I take her at her word.  

And to those who would mock that story, think about this:  Are you mocking her because you think she's a hick or you just don't like her politics?  Either way, you're befalling a stereotype.  

Stop it.  Please, I'm asking nice.

By all means, challenge her on policy issues.  Get informed, get active, vote, volunteer, read, write a blog (it's easy, even I can do it) and advance your agenda.  Register folks to vote and help them get whatever ID they need to vote (interesting the Constitution says nothing about state-issued proof of ID to vote, yet I digress) and whatever else you can think of.  But please, do not succumb to cheep shot attacks against someone you don't even know.

Here's why:  When people make generalizations, come to assumptions without the facts, or just engage in snarky comments, it does not help our society move forward.  

And we need to move forward, like now!

A few days' ago (January 27th) marked the liberation of evil personified, Auschwitz.  Although this was sadly not the only crime scene of the Third Reich, it is the best, most chilling, ugly image of the Holocaust.  When I hear, "Never again," I shake my head.  Since 1945 there have been plenty of atrocities across the globe.  The grandmother of the last perpetrator of "Walmart-scale" evil has not yet been born.

So if I might suggest, let us all endeavor to look for the sincerity in what others say, offer them the benefit of the doubt.  Let us focus on all we have.  Let us shamelessly and joyfully practice audacious acts of gratitude for that plenty.  Let of never forget that the stiff arm salute became the ashes of Auschwitz.  It didn't happen overnight but happen it did.  

When people ask me, "Could something like that (the Holocaust) happen here, in America?"  I answer, "No."  I say, "no," not just because I'm a perpetual optimist, but because we have systems in place strong as a Spartan shield wall to protect others.  Specifically,  the minority, from the whims of the majority.   I also answer, "No," because unlike the bully regimes that infected the decades of the 20th Century, we respect the rule of law and right to hold both beliefs and memories...including rides on school buses with bread bags strapped to one's legs.  

Be well my friends,
Jeno

Sources:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/white-house/full-text-joni-ernst-s-republican-response-to-the-state-of-the-union-20150120

http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2015/01/26/bread-bags/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30996555

http://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-features/special-focus/liberation-of-auschwitz

http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/detail.aspx?id=8637





 

The State of the Union, Our Union

 

President Obama beginning the 2015 SOTU Address, photo by J. Berta

Greetings All:

Tonight, a political ritual is unfolding in our nation's capital.  As I type this, The President (our President, for those of you who are Americans) is performing one of his many Constitutional responsibilities to report to the Congress.  Article II, Section 3 is where it is found.  I have a link to The Heritage Foundation with the specifics. 

I also have a link to the whole speech below for those want to check it out.  And, of course, there is a full buffet line of cable news networks to chose from for whatever your take is on the current state of the American body politic for commentary.

I would be horribly remiss not to mention that the official Republican response is being given by a fellow Iowan, Senator Joni Ernst.  If you have read my blog during the election, you might recall I spoke of my support for then Congressman Bruce Braley.  Still, I am proud that a freshman Senator from my state and an OIF Veteran added her voice to the discourse of democracy.  My only critique of her speech would be the following:  Senator, there are no "ordinary" Iowans...or Americans for that matter.

Back to POTUS' speech, I thought it was great.  Biased?  Sure.  After all, I voted for the guy twice.  Still, I did think it was the type of speech a leader gives.  I also thought he went out of his way to reach across the aisle to the other side.  And that is good, considering that the folks on the "other side" are in charge.

We have a ton of problems to deal with in our current nation and world.  There is no getting around that.  However, we've been here before, and we've bounced back.  I do have to wonder if one of the reasons we've been (how should I put this...) adrift in our nation is that perhaps we don't have a common cause to rally behind.  Oh sure, there is ISIS.  But as vicious and evil as they are, they are not Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan or the Soviet Union.  Perhaps we haven't gotten along as well as we are capable of because,...well, we have not had to.

I'll submit the following:  We now need to.  We have to find common ground.  We have to view compromise not as an affront to our principles but an example of our principles.  We have to recognize that the state of the Union is based on how we all interact with each other.  It is, in short, our union.  

I believe this union, our union, is strong.

Now, let's make it stronger...together.

Be well my friends,
Jeno

Sources:

https://medium.com/@WhiteHouse/president-obamas-state-of-the-union-address-remarks-as-prepared-for-delivery-55f9825449b2 

http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/2/essays/94/state-of-the-union

Tragédie à Paris

One of the better political cartoons I have seen, fair use claimed, full cite below. 

 Greetings All:

We've all been reeling from the shock, then anger at the events in Paris of the past week.  Over a dozen souls were lost in murder due to the demented logic of a few demented men.  

I have been gently accused of writing blog posts that are w-a-y too long.  To that charge, I plead guilty.  After all, I am an attorney and an only child.  It's a challenge not to go on (and on and on) about subjects that matter to me.

And trust me, this one does.

First off, I'm angry.  I am angry at the cowardly act that occurred in Paris.  There is neither courage nor honor (any effort, for that matter) of walking into a building of unsuspecting, unarmed civilians and emptying the clip of an AK-47.  That's not courage, just a muscle movement.

Second, I'm frustrated.  I am frustrated that we live in a world where such horrors can occur.  I'm frustrated that while the whole world was slugging down the "Big Gulp" of constant cable news of the Tragédie à Paris, there were but a precious few drops of news about the hundreds, if not thousands murdered in Nigeria at the hands of the cowardly thugs known as Buko Horan.  (Not sure if it's spelled right and don't care, they don't deserve spell-check.)

So here we are, about a week removed from the carnage in the "City of Lights."  What have we learned?  That's a question I'll kick back to those with higher GPAs than me to answer.

Here is what I will say:  We're not going to let these bastards win.  We're not going to cower, to give up, to stop living our lives.  I (expletive-deleted) love it that over 3 MILLION people showed up in Paris in peaceful, powerful protest to the bully jihadists and said, "Here we are, do what you will."  

A photo from Paris after that massacre, New York Post, fair use claimed, full cite below.

It is a tragedy that which befell Paris last week.  It is easy to be both angry and frustrated, as I've admitted to.  And yet, let us not play into the terrorists (lower case on purpose) plans and over-react.  Let us not let our anger and rage and grief cause us to lash out against those whom have harmed us not.  Let us not punish those whose only crime is to be Muslim.  And that, my friends, is exactly what the cowards want.  

So yes, let us grieve.  Let us recall this tragedy.  Let us be angry but move forward.  We simply do not have the luxury of seething rage.  Instead, let us fight back with honor and in the spirit of our principles.  We can win and in doing so honor those who fell in Paris...and in the distant jungles of Nigeria.
 
être bien mes amis,
Jeno 

Sources:

Opening cartoon, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11331506/Cartoonists-show-solidarity after-Charlie-Hebdo-attack.html 

http://nypost.com/2015/01/08/je-suis-charlie-message-unites-the-globe-after-paris-attack/ 

A Melancholy Task

The "wrap up" (that was bad, sorry) of our holiday decorations.  Photo by J. Berta

Greetings All:

"All is quiet on New Year's Day."   

U2 from their song, "New Year's Day," from their 1983 (My God, has it been that long?!?) album, War.

New Year's Day, 2015.  Welcome to the new year and farewell to the holiday season, at least in our house.  It's kind of an unwritten rule that come January 1st, the decorations come down, get packed up and returned to the basement.  This was something my Mom did and we've continued the practice in our place.

There's something a bit sad, melancholy actually, about the end of the holidays.  Gone is the season of food, fun, the same songs sung by artists across the generations, and of course, the decorations.

I am a sucker for outdoor lights.  I love looking at them and having them up at our house.  I think I did a not-too-terrible job.  I never figured out how to set the timer on the power strip thing, so every evening and every night I would venture outside to plug and unplug it.  When I turned it off there was something kinda neat about being outside in the cold.  That quickly passed and I scooted back inside to the warmth of the house.  Still, experiencing the cold was worth it to catch a glimpse of the neighbors' lights still on.  (I told you I was a sucker for lights.)

When the holidays end, there is a degree of sadness.  Here's a link to an article that sheds some light on this subject:

http://greatist.com/grow/shake-off-post-holiday-blues

For me, part of the sadness of the holiday season being over is that things need to go back to the way they were prior to Turkey Day.  There is the issue of packing up the stuff and carefully, I might add.  We have a number of things that need extra care.  The one that comes immediately to mind is the nativity scene given to me by my neighbor, Mrs. Van Severn, when I was a little boy.  It's a minor miracle its survived this long.  I'm determined to keep it that way.

It is sad to say goodbye to the holidays.  That is why I am convinced that the best way to deal with the end of the holidays is to pack up stuff ASAP.  Now, full disclosure, it is the evening of th 4th and the decorations have not yet been moved downstairs.  They are packed, however, and that is the important part.  It's important because for me, it's too tempting to leave them up.  I simply love the holidays.

Twenty years ago, Martin Zellar released Born Under, still one of my most favorite albums.  One of the songs is "East Side Boys."  The opening verse contains the following lyrics:

"Well they grew up on the side of town where the Christmas lights hung up all year round, and the sidewalks went un-shoveled, and the dogs barked all night long."

True, you should let your dog in and deal with your snow.  Yet, would it be such a crime to let Christmas stay with us all year long?  No.  Then again, we would not have the joy of the season, the surprise of seeing the lights again if they were up all year long.  They'd just be like the streetlights.  Comforting, of course, yet not unique.

I suppose we have to experience the melancholy task to taking down the decorations to experience the joy the following year.  Perhaps this is "paying it forward" at its finest. 

Be well my friends,
Jeno

“In The Same Light of Day”

http://gadaikansaja.com/winter-sunrise-free-desktop-natural-wallpaper-hd-1920x1080/, public domain

Greetings All:

This is likely my last blog post for the year.  There were many stories that dominated the news.  Perhaps the most troubling is the matter of Ferguson/NYC deaths.  There are no easy answers.  Hell, I don't pretend to even know how to properly frame the question.  Instead, I offer this poem.  It's my way of trying to begin to figure out where we are as a society and where we need to go.

As the year closes, I do deeply appreciate everyone who has read my blog, commented on it, shared it or liked it on Facebook.  I encourage you to share your thoughts.  Blogging has brought a "democratization" of opinion writing to the world.  If you've got a blog, please let me know about it.  If you've ever thought about writing, then, to echo Nike, "just do it."  If you're wondering what to write about, recall the wisdom of Mark Twain:  "Write what you know."  Or how about this:  write what you are feeling.  It's what I have attempted with this poem.

"In The Same Light of Day" by Jeno Berta

A winter morning, wrapped in cold.

Through the murky sky, pale light strains to be seen.

Black gives way to gray.  Gray yields to a feeble beige.

Trees, mere shadows moments ago, stand stout in the birthing light of day.

Stoic in the absence of leaves, they are regal nonetheless.

From my window I see the day arrive, announced by the rising sun.

Feeble beige no more, it is a mighty gold!

Behold the day, our day.

To the south, the same day dawns,

In the city of Ferguson.

And in the East, the same day greets another city.

I wonder if my friend Henry is shining shoes on 8^th Avenue?

If we are a trot, that city is a sprint. 

What city, you ask?

Why New York, of course.

Three places- Ferguson, New York and us, living here.

Our homes, hugging both banks of our river.

Different?  Sure, in some ways.

In many ways, I suppose.

And yet, we have much in common.

We have hopes and fears, dreams and goals.

We work and strive, laugh and cry.

Our hearts break for grieving loved’ ones.

We boil in rage at the senselessness of it all.

We want answers, demand them really.

Why, WHY are things so out of control!

We want justice, we want peace.

But that, like the summer warmth, seems so far away.

Yet perhaps having the sun, the same sun, is enough.

Enough for us to find some common ground,

In the same light of day.

Be well my friends (& Happy New Year!)

Jeno

Keeping The (Most Important) Illustion Alive

The stockings at our house, Christmas 2014.  Photo by J. Berta

Greetings All:

Back in high school, I did a fair amount of drama.  My favorite role was Candy in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.  We performed this show in the round, so the audience was sitting up close and personal.  My friend Reid saw me before the play in costume.  I recall that there was something amiss with my costume and he kindly took a moment to fix it for me.  As he was doing so, he gave me some great advice for an actor:  "Keep the illusion alive."

Fast-forward three decades and I found myself engaged in another form of acting on Christmas morning, that of the fictional arrival of Santa Claus.

Carly, my youngest daughter, is eight.  She still believes in Santa Claus, so that means every Christmas Eve we begin the staging for the most important illusion of the year.  This is no easy feat as our daughter is not one to go to sleep easily.  She even had her flashlight, ready to stalk down the stairs to spy on Santa.  

This caused a delay in the stuffing of the stockings.  I was mildly proud of myself that I remembered to write the thank you note from Santa.  All seemed well, the illusion was in place.

The next morning I woke up before everyone as I had church with my Dad so we had a short window to do the presents, and, of course, see what Santa brought us.

Carly came down stairs and went straight to the stockings.  All started off well.  Then the plans started to unravel.  As she opened her stocking, she found a box of tea packets.  That was meant for her older sister.  

Drat, strike one.

Dawn covered that one well, saying Santa must have gotten the stockings wrong.  Something about him, "...getting into the egg nog."  

In our defense, both Carly and her sister's stockings were almost identical.  Of course, if you're an 8-year-old, you know you're stocking the way a micro-biologist knows all their slides. 

Then there was the smatter of forgetting to dispose of the evidence of the cookies we left out for Santa.    Drat.  I should have done a better job of sweeping the area for incriminating evidence.  After all, I've been a lawyer for two decades... (That's a joke.)  Carly picked up on that too.

Strike two.

I was thinking we'd get out of this, be able to open presents and I would get to my twice-yearly attendance at Our Lady of Victory church with my Dad unscathed.  Then we got to my stocking.

In it, aside from some moleskin notebooks from Target I bought myself a few weeks' back, were some socks that Dawn had gotten me.  She even wrapped them for me, complete with the "To Jeno From Santa" tag.  Nice touch.

Yet there was only one tiny little problem.   Carly pointed this out when she said:  "Hey Dad, you're present from Santa is wrapped in the same paper as those presents under the tree."

Shit.  Strike three.

Carly might have just discovered a brutal truth.  Santa is not real.  I base this on her following comment:  "I still believe Santa is real."

It was obviously not what she said, but her tone, it was soft.  It was as if her heart and her mind were locked in a struggle.  Dawn and I both heartily concurred with her statement.  We then proceeded to unwrap other presents and I slugged down another cup of coffee before heading to church.  

On the way there, Carly's words echoed in my head:  "I still believe Santa is real."  

This raises an interesting question:  Just what makes something "real?"  Is it a medically obese man who magically enters millions of homes one night a year?  Is it a spirit of giving?  Is is an illusion that parents do their best to hold onto until like all good tricks, its secret is learned?

Or is it something more?  Does the illusion of Santa Claus give way to the reality of a season of joy, of sharing, of love?  I believe it does.  

If so, then this most important of all illusions is alive and well.

I hope you do for the rest of your days.


 
Be well my friends,
Jeno

A Royal Commission Denied, a Republic Earned

Painting by John Trumbull of George Washington resigning his commission (on display in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol)
Image courtesy of Architect of the Capitol, originally posted on the U.S. Army's Facebook page.  Fair use claimed.

Greetings All:

On this day in 1783, George Washington resigned his commission as Commander of the Continental Army.  Although he had cemented victory over two years' earlier at Yorktown, it took that long to finally secure the terms of America's victory.  Not quite a #16 seed in the "March Madness" of history, but nonetheless, an huge upset.

Washington's story is well-known to most of us.  The first president, the hero of the Revolution, the "Father of his Country," the boy who cut down the cherry tree, and yes, slave owner.

There are a few lesser-known facts about this man.  One being that he was denied a royal commission in the British Army during the French and Indian War.  As the link below puts it, he "chafed" at this slight.  He had proven himself a superb soldier and stellar leader.  I suppose that was not enough to overcome his less that noble background.  

Another is the death of his son, (technically his step-son) a casualty of the war from "camp fever."  Ironic that he held a supposedly "safe" position as an aide-de-camp to Washington, yet disease knows no front lines.  As was the case in most wars until the last century, disease killed more, many more, than bullets or bombs.

  

The iconic painting of Washington crossing the Delaware by E. Luetze, (Metropolitan Museum of Art) fair use claimed

By 1783, Washington was almost universally beloved.  He had taken a rag-tag group of farmers and merchants and molded them into a capable fighting force.  However, it did not start out that way.  Washington suffered defeat after defeat.  If he would have been a football coach, he'd likely have been fired after the '76 season, even with the win in the "Trenton Bowl," as pictured above.

Yet what he did do was keep the army in the field.  By being able to maintain a legitimate fighting force, the British could not claim victory.  Eventually, the British people grew weary of war far away from home.  (We experienced a similar war about two centuries later.)  

Foreign Policy did an interesting piece entitled, "Founding Insurgents" (link below) Dr. John Arquilla writes:

"In the main, what took shape was an insurgent approach to the war based on "winning by not losing," and it was nowhere better employed than in the South. It was there that the Revolution was won — not so much by the main force as by the inspired blending of conventional infantry and irregular raiders."

Washington was able to secure victory.  His resignation of his command in 1783 might have been surprising to some.  After all, why not hang out for a while?  Keep the gig, the uniform, the sword.  Why give up something that you worked so hard for and was unfairly denied to you all those years ago?

Because Washington realized that resigning his commission was the only thing to do.  Aside from the practical reasons for resigning (no need for a big standing army) he understood the critical importance of the citizen-soldier.  

A "royal" commission might be forever.  He no longer sought such a thing.  He had traded it for something far better, a new country, a new republic. 

And the only way to keep that was to give up his command.   

Washington saw just how good a trade that was and took it.

I'm glad he did.

Be well my friends,
Jeno

Sources:

http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/french-indian-war/ten-facts-about-george-washington-and-the-french-indian-war/ 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Parke_Custis 

http://www.mountvernon.org/research-collections/digital-encyclopedia/article/crossing-of-the-delaware/ 

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/03/founding-insurgents/