A Farewell to Barack Obama

AN EDITED VERSION OF THIS POST IS SCHEDULED TO APPEAR IN THE RECORD, A BERGEN COUNTY NEWSPAPER


Long after the echoes of his last words had died, the crowd remained. As if by holding fast in that great arena they could stop the passage of time. As if it was Chicago, 2008, not 2017. As if, instead of the promises of yesterday, it was the promise of tomorrow.

As Barack Obama left the stage for one final time, as we fear that all the good he has done will soon be but history, as we lament the passing of the torch to one who casts a shadow of ugliness on this great nation, as we sense we are becoming less than we can be, less than we should be, less than we must be, as the light recedes and the dark reality descends, our hearts are heavy.

We listened to what he had accomplished in the face of unrelenting opposition. We struggled as he told us that a democracy and all it offers is not an absolute, but something we must be ever vigilant to protect. We cried as he saluted those who had made his life and ours fuller.

He was not perfect. No man is. Not all the blame for his failures lays at the feet of others. But he was relentless in pursuit of his task, noble in his effort, and pure in his desire to see that the basic promise of this country,that all are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, be fulfilled.

Tomorrow we will awaken to a new world, one in which the contrast between the current President and the next could not possibly be starker. And we wonder how we could have fallen so far in our vision, in our concept of the qualities that we revere and the qualifications that we demand in the one chosen to lead, to be our example to those scattered across the globe of what America is and what it means.

And so we wish we could press the pause button, or more accurately, rewind. And that we could awaken tomorrow with a sense that the day filled us with excitement, not dread, that the hours passed with joy, not pain, and that the President was someone  to whom we could point with pride, not disdain.

We will sorely miss Barack Obama for everything he intended and everything we dreamed.

Breaking News on the Wall

Donald Trump announced what will be the first major infrastructure project during his presidency. It came as little surprise. The Wall.

But there was an apparent significant change in the specifics. Where Mr. Trump had earlier been insistent that the Mexican government would pay for the cost of construction, that no longer appears the case. Last week, Mr. Trump stated that he could not wait for Mexico to agree to fund this work. Now he said he has a new approach.
 
"I will round up illegal immigrants, thousands and thousands of them and give them a choice: either immediate deportation or building the Wall, without any charge for their work."

"It is going to be great", Mr. Trump stated, "we get what we want and don't have to pay a penny for it."

When it was pointed out to Mr. Trump that slavery was abolished in 1865, he dismissed the argument. "You and your political correctness. Illegals will make America great again."

PS- the above events did not happen, but they definitely could have (or maybe will)

 

Another Letter in the New York Times - But This One Comes with an Asterisk

On early Friday afternoon, a comment of mine appeared in the on-line version of the New York Times letters to the editor (an unedited version is set forth below).

But owing to the fact that Mr. Trump is, well Mr. Trump, what he once said was the truth about the total incompetency of our intelligence agencies was "modified"after a Friday briefing (quite an accomplishment since Mr. Trump has an allergic reaction to briefings) and his subsequent conversation with the New York Times.  By late Friday afternoon Mr. Trump had conceded that Russia might have, could have, possibly did have something to do with the hacking epidemic that preceded the election, but still steadfastly maintained that this absolutely, positively, certainly had nothing to do with his ascension to the throne.

Anyway, as a result of his semi- flip floppery, my letter (and the others that castigated Mr. Trump for castigating his intelligence - no not castigating his intelligence, castigating his intelligence) disappeared from the Saturday hard copy of the Times.

Just another example of the illusion that is Mr. Trump.

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("Donald Trump Casts Intelligence Aside")

If the truth get in the way of Mr. Trump's narrative, then the truth must go. It is the world according to Trump. No agency is going to control his thinking.

From the first, his alternate reality prevailed. When he questioned Barack Obama's place of birth, Mr. Trump invented a non-existent secret trove of documents that buttressed his fabrication. Last week he spoke of the fictional information he would soon reveal that supported his denunciation of the conclusion of the intelligence agencies, and by extension, the agencies themselves. Why rely on experts when the answers within your head are all you want or need?

For most of us, facts dictate our determinations. For Mr. Trump, his determinations dictate the facts.

Eternity

"You missed the exit for Route 23".

That was not true. I had actually missed the last three exits.

It was a trip I had taken literally hundreds of times before. I could say it was night, that I was distracted by our conversation, but those are not reasons, only excuses. The truth is I was just being me, always a half step from some head shaking error.

I could feel my son furiously texting this latest disaster to his sister. "Are you ok" he asked?     "Should I be worried?"

Just earlier in the day, I had jokingly asked my wife why she was not as emotionally invested in me as I was with her.

"If you had been married to you for 40 years, how would you feel?" 

I got it.

The next exit was about six miles up the Taconic. Thanks to the latest mapping ap,  my son was advising me of all the back roads that would cut a corner on our return route.

From the first turn off the main road, it felt like an awful mistake. It was not just dark back here, it was DARK. The paved road ended, the width of our passageway narrowed to what seemed but a sliver to my old eyes and our course meandered through ever denser forest.

"Go slow. Watch out for the deer" my wife warned.

"Don't worry", I replied, "it is far too remote out here for deer."

"That's right", my son said, "you should watch out for the bear."

You know that feeling when a minute seems like ten and a mile seems like infinity. This was exactly what this moment seemed to be. It was not that there were no houses here. It was that there was no sign of life.

"Doesn't anybody live out here?" 

I drove along, noting how beautiful it probably was in daylight, but I was as far from daylight as I think I had ever been.

I could tell my wife was worried. How? She said so. But there was no retreat, no turning back, because this was theoretically the fastest way home. If we ever got there.

After about 15 minutes, or as I like to refer to it, eternity, we spotted lights coming from the trails set up for night skiing at Catamount, a local ski area. It was as though god himself had cast a beam from heaven. 

Did you ever experience a moment where you were driving but distant objects appeared never to get any closer? 

"Catamount seems to be moving at the same speed as we are" I advised as time passed but the car had somehow frozen in place. I knew we were closing in on civilization but I couldn't figure out how to actually get there.

Suddenly a car appeared traveling towards me. I wanted to get out of my slow moving vehicle    and hug it, as if I had been stranded on a desert island and had spotted my rescuer. We were going to make it after all.

Finally, the road was paved beneath us. The forest disappeared and we were released by our captor. When we came upon Route 23 joy and exhilaration exuded from me, as if I were Moses and just stepped out of the desert.

"That wasn't so bad", I exclaimed, "it probably only cost us about 20 minutes." 

I wondered what my son's follow up text would report to his sister. As for my poor wife, I think she long ago gave up hoping for anything more than she was now saddled with. Just ask her about each minute seeming its own eternity. I dare you.

Three Billion Seconds

My mom begins her journey into her hundredth year on Sunday. She has now breathed the air on this planet for over three billion seconds. Billion is a number that attaches to vast wealth, to the population of China, to far away galaxies and to national debt. But to a single life, how can that be?

 

What lives have been changed by her presence among us? For my sister and me, we owe her our every breath, every laugh, every tear, every sunrise and sunset. For my dad, she stole his heart and kept it tucked neatly against hers until the day he died. For her grandchildren, she is the sun.

 

For her sisters and brother, they were as one being, sharing each other's joys and pain as their own.  For their offspring, she was the glue holding us tightly together.

 

For her students, she taught lessons that went far beyond the reach of any classroom.

 

And for her friends, far too numerous to count, and each one seemingly the most important, she was always a person of substance and compassion to whom they could turn.

 

Emanating from each of the lives she has touched in her 99 years, the ripples have gone far and wide. Her beauty, grace, intelligence, warmth, strength and joy has impacted all who have entered her sphere. And in turn, all she is has radiated outward from each person changed by her very being.

 

So I suggest that my mom may have altered the course not of a few lives, but of thousands, millions or maybe even billions.

 

And thus billions is not such an overwhelming number after all. For, as big as it seems, it all actually starts as just one. My mom.

What Makes Football Good Makes Football Bad

("Can Football Be Saved")

It is a tale of the yin and the yang of the sport. Of life lessons taught, of bonds forged, of strength, endurance and love. Yet the setting is one whose central theme is violence, mayhem and destruction. Not a sport for the faint of heart or body.

It is the clash of these two universes that makes this story so compelling. Much like Buzz Basinger's "Friday Night Lights" we are drawn into this world where the game is to be both revered and questioned.

Will we legislate away concussions from football? The NFL protects quarterbacks like the league itself is an extra blocker. And the popularity of the sport has not suffered. But at its core, football is and will forever be about big men beating each other up for our entertainment.

So though we can legislate around the edges, and try to pacify it's harshest critics, football, for all the good it has to offer, will now and forever be an undertaking replete with broken bones, damaged brains and shattered dreams.

Chauncey Gardiner, President

("Secret Admirers")
 

Is it Trump's ideas or the idea of Trump that is the appeal? As Trump's thoughts are but enigma, borne not of intellectual pursuit but sleepless nights, it is hard for any diligent observer to weave a cohesive and coherent pattern from his mental peregrinations.
 

Maybe, owing to the lack of core, those who find merit in Trump create their own logic to his words. We have been advised that voters took him seriously but not literally, and recently we were informed by a member of his transition committee that Trump should not be taken literally but symbolically. In the huge space that exists between what he says and what we say that means seems to lie the very essence of a non-ideology ideology.
 

Trump is Chauncey Gardiner, full of statements without meaning that others infuse with a seriousness that does not exist, or at least did not exist without straining every muscle in one's brain to the point of exhaustion. And so some Republican intellectuals try to fit Trump's round peg into a square hole, convincing themselves that there is something of substance brewing behind the incoherent  tweets and the teleprompter speeches.
 

But in the final analysis, as in the final words to your article uttered by Mark Bauerlein, I fear that all of us, supporters and foes alike, will have to "suck it up" and deal with the uncertainties and inconsistencies of a President making it up on the fly.

The No Rules President

("The Snapchat Presidency of Donald Trump")

He is fundamentally incapable of meeting the dictates of his office. He lacks vision, knowledge and understanding of the maze of complexities that lay before him. He has no intellectual curiosity, and an undeniable antipathy to study and reflection. He is easy to incite and hard to calm. He is unpresidential in every fiber of his bearing and his being.

He has said he wants to keep his enemies guessing, but what about his friends?  There is no agenda for him, merely tweets and slogans. No central theme except using the office to perpetuate the myth of Donald Trump. No rules to follow except that there are no rules to follow.

This is him, this is us for better or worse til death (impeachment or the 2020 election) do us part.

The Blind Eye Entry into the Hall

("Shunned Stars of Steroid Era Are on Deck for Cooperstown")

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were the two most dominant ballplayers of their era, their mind boggling statistics among the best this game has ever seen.

But this sport is about more than numbers, it is about the integrity of the undertaking itself. From the time of Shoeless Joe, to the days of Pete Rose, there was a code written into the very DNA of this endeavor. These players were cheating the basic beauty and the fundamental pledge of baseball, it's ode to purity and to perfection without taint. Their actions reflected not a lack of moral strength outside the lines but rather within them.

The Hall of Fame is the ultimate shrine for those who have met the highest of all standards in performance. If use of performance enhancing drugs does not act as barrier to enshrinement then an integral element of what make baseball great will have been lost, and the Hall of Fame should come with an asterisk, a/k/a the Hall of Shame.

The Carrier (Pigeon) Explosion

("Trump Promises a Revelation on Hacking")

"It's very important, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered the old fashioned way, by courier because I'll tell you what, no computer is safe"

There was a huge uptick in the value of the Carrier Pigeon Company today. President-elect Trump's ringing endorsement of couriers for crucial messages sent the stock soaring.

After completely resolving our vexing "job deportation" dilemma with his masterful work at the "other" Carrier, in which a few jobs were to temporarily remain in Indiana at a cost of only, well kind of a lot to our government, Mr. Trump now has reinvigorated the dormant carrier pigeon industry. Mike Tyson has been named by the President-elect as the new czar of the fly by night industry.

I also have insider information that "Smoke Signals Are Us Inc." is launching a new ad campaign featuring the President-elect (he apparently has an undisclosed interest in the company).

And you wonder how anyone could not have voted for this genius.