SIMPLE PLEASURES Ted Salins © 1999

A breeze sweeps across the field. On the fifty yard line an honor guard stands three strong, in full regalia, with muskets and flags held upright. A loudspeaker echoes, “Will you please rise for the national anthem”. It seems half the population of Botetourt (pronounced Bot-Ta-Tot) County Virginia rises. There is a long silence.

The football field of Lord Botetourt high School lies at the bottom of a woodsy dell between two mountains and at dusk looks like the bottom a dark bowl. A velvety circle of darkening sky sits on top like a lid closing out the last strains of light. A railroad track rounds the oval at one end of the field and runs the length before disappearing off into the valley. But where is the national anthem? Silence. More silence. The crowd gets impatient. Then more silence.

The voice on the loudspeaker comes on again: “Well… everything is apparently ready for the national anthem except, it seems, the musicians”. Laughter. Then, suddenly, three disheveled teenage boys still buttoning and securing their band uniforms run onto the field towards the honor guard. One is still limping while pulling up his trousers; they all clutch cornets while trying to keep their hats from flying off. Finally, nervous, but in place, the three put the horns to their lips. Too late. Before they release a single note, a freight train circles the field drowning out the sound of the horns. If you came to this game to hear the national anthem, you went home disappointed.

You wonder why they ever built bleachers here. The hills surrounding the field provide a natural amphitheater. This is where the school’s students roam – the ones not on the team or marching band. Watching the game is the last thing on their minds. They are looking for dates or trying to show off new clothes. The bleachers are filled with parents and young children with hot dogs, popcorn and sodas.

This is the battle of the county’s only two high schools and the electricity in the air is discernible. In the first half, Lord Botetourt’s offence consists of rushing plays by the star quarterback. Apparently this team is short on receivers and running backs, but the quarterback is so multitalented he makes the team look dominant. James River’s game plan is to throw interceptions, perhaps in an attempt to wear down Lord Botetourt’s defense, then get some late scoring in the second half.

The half time show is breathtaking. James River Marching Band performs selections from Fiddler On The Roof. This is a major production. A set is constructed right on the field – a small Russian village. The women are dressed as little babushkas and the men carry rifles; but most conspicuous is an outhouse. Two fans in the crowd discuss the meaning of the outhouse. One says that since large sections of Botetourt are in Appalachia, the outhouse is a symbol of the common bonds of poverty in other cultures. The other agrees but feels the piece as a whole is an olive branch to the Jewish families (both of them) in the county. Either way, the kids are terrific, though off key and out of step. Equally as talented, and equally unable to keep a symmetric formation, the Marching Band of Lord Botetourt performs valiantly. Their program is called “Gino Vanelli: The Sound of Jazz”. I have only recently come to remember the singer of “I Just Want To Stop”, but that night I thought the announcer said there is a tribute to Dino Danelli, the flashy drummer of The Young Rascals. How the heck could anybody or any teenager in this rural outpost know who Dino Danelli is? Pretty obscure. A student conductor, a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, in the throes of womanhood, drops her cape midfield, strides to the post with her chin proudly up, climbs high above the others, waits a dramatic silent moment (demurely aware all eyes are upon her) and begins to flail her baton with an enthusiasm and speed for which stage frightened teenage band members are not prepared to march. I didn’t recognize the music and tried to make out “Groovin”. I thought maybe I heard strands of “Good Lovin’”. The band weaves and files in multiple formations as best they can but get tied up in knots along the way. One little fellow doesn’t move at all. He waits at the giant kettle drum, his eyes fixed on the conductor. Nothing is going to distract his concentration. He is the most serious musician on the field and this could be a big moment. He waits patiently, ready for his turn in the limelight. Finally, the flailing conductor turns to the boy and points her baton at him with a flick of the wrist. He pounds the kettle drum and makes thunder clap in the valley. The crowd is heady from excitement.

In the second half, James River, no match for Lord Botetourt, scores their only touchdown on a trick play – a bomb thrown by the halfback. This is the game’s most exciting play – that is, until Lord Botetourt’s halfback comes right back and launches a TD strike to the star quarterback (who has already run in four touchdowns).

I was raised in D.C. Small town life is alien to me; Richmond is the smallest place I ever lived. Perhaps I’m deluded, but I can’t remember having this much fun in the bars and nightclubs friends dragged me to in Manhattan last summer where everyone talked about how much money they make and how many hits their web site took. Last year I was in Big Sur teaching a workshop at Esalin Institute. At dinner one night I asked if anyone had heard if the Yankees had gotten into the World Series. There was a dead silence and one woman chastised me: “Oh. Are you one of those?” One of those what? Sports fans? East Coast meat eaters? Which “those” was she accusing me of being? Everyone was in concert with her on this point and I became the villain because of my baseball query.

On a football field, on a crisp September night, I watch James River High School lose gracefully to Lord Botetourt with a happy crowd enjoying the simple pleasures in life. I am one of “those”.

MECCA Ted Salins (c) 1999

On a recent trip to Atlanta, a friend and I took a pilgrimage to that holiest of American shrines, The Ebenezer Baptist Church. We got off the subway and walked through the Auburn neighborhood where Martin Luther King Jr. grew up and played as a child. We had to ask directions and everyone was more than pleased to show us the way. The neighborhood had seen better days but several of its old red brick factories were being renovated and a badly designed 1960’s high rise apartment project was empty, apparently waiting for the wrecking ball. Then we turned the corner and there it was – the blue sign above the entrance to the church. I wanted to see that sign all my life. To me it is a symbol of what the Founding Fathers intended the struggle for freedom to be in America. The Civil Rights Activists in the twentieth century put Democracy to its greatest test. Rosa Parks, Fanny Lou Hamer, and Martin Luther King Jr. belong in the history book illustrations right next to Madison and Jefferson.

This original chapel is being repaired and cleaned up as a national historic site (services are held in the new Ebenezer complex across the street). The renovated outside gleams, but inside, scaffolding is erected to repair decades old cracks and falling plaster. The tin ceiling is being replaced. Martin Jr.  honed his skills at Ebenezer, and tapes of his sermons are played from huge speakers on each side of the chapel. We sat in our pew enrapt, listening to King cajole the congregation: “The other day I was reading in this here Roget’s Thesaurus – you know that book that has all the synonyms and antonyms – and I looked up the word black.” He goes on to enumerate the negative uses of the word: “Morose, evil, dismal, depressed and – what’s this? –  Negro, African, colored, swarthy. When the stock market bottoms out it’s called a black day. If you got a member of your family who goes awry, he’s called the black sheep.” You hear the laughter in the background as King uses humor to disarm the congregation and make a point. You hear his fingers emphatically tapping the dais in stereo; his words bathe your ears like poetry: “Poverty is a lonely island of despair in a vast ocean of material wealth”. You imagine, with your eyes closed, that you are in the church that day and the cracks and fallen ceiling tiles disappear. His voice slides up and down the register like a violin. If nothing else, he was America’s greatest speaker. We sit there for an hour mesmerized, unable to get enough of his voice and message. I look back to the scaffolding on the balcony and two very rural looking white men – tin ceiling specialists imported from South Georgia – lovingly replace tiles. At the entrance I see a docent staring bemusedly at these four white people – two in the pews, two up on scaffolding – and her face says “We’ve still got a long way to go, but we have come a long way”.

When we finally get up to leave, that docent greets us in the lobby. She is Miss Shirley Barnhart and grew up a few blocks away. She recounts tales of the neighborhood and shows us pictures. One is a newspaper clipping from the New York Times of her and her sister as young girls singing in the choir behind the coffin at Martin Luther King Jr’s. funeral at Ebenezer. Miss Shirley is probably known by many prominent people, but certainly, by legions of tourists who get to meet her if they are lucky to be there when she is. She emphasizes that Martin Jr. was only an assistant Pastor in this church and that it was his grandfather and father, the Reverends A.D. Williams and Martin Luther (Big Daddy) King Sr., who reigned supreme around here for eighty one years. She takes delight in knocking Martin Jr. down a few steps, as if to tell her listeners “He was not the only one in this movement, least of all his daddy and granddaddy”. Auburn Avenue was an early centerpiece of Negro capitalism and “Big Daddy” recruited insurance salesmen as members and had them collect church fees while collecting premiums. He blended religion with financial empowerment and increased his church membership while supplying low premium insurance. The two senior Reverends were stern but used equanimity to forge a congregation knowing in the ways of faith, not afraid to stand up for their rights. It shows in the face of Shirley. These are people who interpret the good book for what it says: practice good works and love mankind. Twisting Bible passages to point fingers and wield anger is the opposite of Christ’s message of tolerance and has no place at Ebenezer.

We roam the neighborhood stopping first at Martin Jr.’s coffin publicly displayed in the middle of the block. We see the house he grew up in and visit the learning center where we see pictures of Rosa Parks and Coretta King uncharacteristically “dressed up”, looking quite pretty in gowns, drinking in the spirit of a party. We need to find a post office and we go, naturally, back to Miss Shirley. We go back and find Shirley several times. We ask her where to eat. “Oh that would be Beautiful”, she said, “It’s right across the street”.

Not The Beautiful, or Beautiful Restaurant – just “Beautiful”.

“Miss Shirley loves Beautiful”, a young woman in the Church bookstore said, “She goes there just about everyday”. We cross the street and feast on catfish, collards, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, lima beans. It is only later I discover, in an Atlanta guidebook, that the food at Beautiful is low in fat. You would never know it. A week later, at the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, we think we see a 1960s photo of a strategy meeting of Movement leaders, King among them, sitting at the very table where we sat.

The King Memorial Site is not a museum. It is a neighborhood. You get to meet people who worshiped with and knew Martin, and fought for your civil rights. When we leave the Auburn Avenue area and head back to the futuristic towers of downtown Atlanta, we feel we have walked out of the twentieth century.

Ebenezer Baptist Church is at 407 Auburn Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30312; (404) 688-5001; http://www.ebenezer.org

SOCIALISM

Ted Salins © 2011

Remember that first time you went home from college or the military? You couldn’t wait to see your mom, your friends, your hometown, your favorite hangouts. That’s how most Americans feel about our country. We love it for what it has been to us.

How many of you felt, “no, instead of going home for Thanksgiving, I want to go Moscow where I’ve never been, have no friends, it’s cold and I can march lockstep with Marxists and give up my freedoms.”

Can we stop demonizing a large percentage of Americans as Soviet style totalitarian socialists? This idea is illogical and absurd.  “Fidel Castro likes Obamacare, but the American people don’t” (Sarah Palin, CNN,  3/26/10);  “Most of the liberals I know want to live in a nanny state” (CSPAN caller) ; “Russia called, they want their socialism back” (Teaparty sign).

In other words, conservatives choose to work hard and take personal responsibility while those who disagree are  lazy and want to be fed and clothed by the government.

Think of twenty people you know. How many of them do not work hard? How many game the welfare system or attend Communist Party meetings? One? Two? None? Where are these lazy Trotskyites?  These accusations are specious: Those who claim Government meddling is “socialism” overwhelmingly voted for politicians who borrowed  money from Marxist China. Those that rail about “lazy” welfare recipients and brag about responsibility do not feel responsible to clean up man made pollution, whether it causes global warming or not.

Furthermore, it was a recent neo-conservative administration that subscribed to torture, passed off taxpayer paid propaganda as news, planted fake reporters in legitimate press corps, put undue pressure on scientists to manipulate research  and spied on the public through telephone lines – actions one can attribute to Soviet style totalitarian models. In another era, I was tear gassed and beaten with a club exercising my right to peacefully demonstrate against the war in Viet Nam. Who attending a “tea party” can say that? 

Recently, someone made the outrageous claim that “Obamacare” was “socialist” because it would deny breast exams for women until they were 50. I asked which specific provision in the proposals said this. In the time it takes to do a “Google” on his I-Phone, he came back with “It was at an HHS panel” (the source changed from a provision). I pressed, “When and where was the panel and who said it?” (I actually knew the answer). His response:  “I’m not your librarian. Do some reading. Don’t be lazy”.

Again, with “lazy”. This person makes a vague claim he did not take the time to justify, yet I’m lazy? Confucius said, “He who thinks he’s superior proves he’s not.”

Columnist and talk show host Mark Joseph asks, “Why is ‘Socialism’ such a dirty word? A government for the people by the people should banish all pejorative definitions of it.”  We have always socialized taxes, military, education, civic pride and protection.  That’s the responsible thing to do.

IN DEFENSE OF JIMMY CARTER

Ted Salins © 2011

If Ronald Reagan had volunteered as a Naval Officer to enter the melted core of the first nuclear accident at Chalk River, Ontario to supervise the clean up, and to expose himself to the melted core of Three Mile Island as President to reassure a frightened nation – monuments would be built.

If George H.W. Bush had personally made dozens of trips to impoverished parts of Africa to oversee the near elimination of guinea worm disease and to start mass inoculations for river blindness, his legend would be mythic.

If George W. Bush had conducted Sunday school throughout his entire presidency, he would be regarded as a true Christian.

If any of the above went to hot spots around the world to monitor democratic elections in unlikely, dangerous places, he would be cited as a tireless fighter for human rights and the spread of democracy.

Yet Jimmy Carter actually did all of the above and many Americans treat him with such vile as can only be explained as partisan hatred. A quick search on the blogosphere to find comments about the former President:

“He should just go away and do what old people are supposed to do.”

“He is a senile old fool who should stay home and watch the grass grow.”

“I am amused by the mental failings of this old man.”

“Maybe if (Carter) would just shut up and go away these stories of his failures would as well.”

“Why doesn’t this old fool just give it up and leave us alone.”

“Jimmy Carter is the poster child for former Presidents who should be seen and not heard. I guess we should be grateful he doesn’t play golf or we all would be ducking for cover.”

There seems to be three themes: 1) Carter is old, 2) old people have no value and 3) he and other older people should leave us alone. Where are these marching orders coming from? Are we to believe that angry posters who sit at their computers spewing venom are more decent and committed than Jimmy Carter? “This man has degenerated into the useless idiot category,” one of them wrote. What is the usefulness of that post? What child will it save from river blindness?

All presidents have their detractors, but none in such an inexplicable, lockstep manner. The theory seems to be that bad things happened during The Carter Administration and as President he made mistakes. Gee. Sounds like every administration – why is his held to a higher standard?

The reasons on the blogosphere that most “explain” why he is “the worst president” are “high interest rates”, “gas lines” and the Iran hostage crises.  By this standard, Reagan should be judged on the outbreak of AIDS, the crack epidemic and the murder of 250 plus Marines in Lebanon; George W. Bush would be responsible for the beheadings of Americans posted for all to see on the internet. Is that not worse than Carter’s high interest rates? Can someone explain the specific date and moment when Carter made the decision to “force” private companies to raise interest rates on the American public? Did the banks beg him, “Please Mr. President, don’t make us raise rates on our fellow citizens!”. Where is the proof that high interest rates during Carter’s term were easily avoided and with what policy? Explain.

Jimmy Carter was not perfect – no one is. Some of his policies did not work. I could easily argue that the beheadings of Americans are directly related to decisions by George W. Bush’s misadventure in Iraq. How many Americans were beheaded during the years of the Carter Administration? If “gas lines” make you want to punch a hole in the wall, the beheadings should make you burn the house down.

Carter made what is regarded as the worst presidential speech of all time, the “malaise” speech, July 15, 1979. Here is a sample:

“…In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communitie­­s, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indul­­gence and consumptio­­n. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning…”

If you have a problem with that, then you probably think old people have no value and should just “go away”.

CAN WE DO BETTER?

One of the three major cable “news” networks came on the TV screen. Under “BREAKING NEWS”, a banner with fast moving words flew by:

…the dismembered body. Police say the victim was hacked up and stuffed into a duffle bag……… In South Carolina an apparent suicide after teen sets himself on fire………New York: Boyfriend arrested for brutal murder of fashion designer girlfriend………Police say mutilated body found near Boston likely fell from airplane………Mortgage rates jump to six month high………

When I was a boy, breaking news meant President Kennedy got shot. Are these ticker tapes edited by morons? Does test marketing precisely calculate that this is how people want their breaking news?

Above two more banners with fast moving numbers, a talking head goes into great detail about the “Narnia” film franchise, the expectations of the investors, the poor showing of the second sequel, how was the target date decided for the new sequel and will it perform? She never mentions the content of the story or C.S. Lewis. The talking head she’s talking to then faces another camera  and announces that The United States is going to borrow 700 billion dollars  and needlessly give it to the already super wealthy.

Are we sure we know what we are doing? Two ill explained wars we can’t exit; Incivility and intolerance among Americans unseen since the 1960s. Yesterday a man stopped his car in the middle of a major intersection blocking all lanes of traffic in any direction; he was texting. Perhaps he was searching for the weekend boxoffice.

Can we do better? First, we need to find out: ………was the mutilated airplane victim near Boston an accident or suicide? Video after this (long) commercial break………

“PICTURING WEALTH”

Five people are shipwrecked and stranded on an island. With tools and wood from their beached, wrecked ship, they can rebuild together and sail home in 30 days. Only problem, it’s a desert island and there is no food.

A food supply is dropped on the island by the government. There is enough food for FIVE PEOPLE, THREE MEALS A DAY for THIRTY DAYS – exactly the right amount. One of the five, however, takes ALL THE FOOD and says “I will now have THREE MEALS A DAY FOR FIVE MONTHS insuring that I will be healthy, have the strength to figure how to save you unfortunate people and get you off this island! No matter how weak you are, I will encourage you. Assuredly, I will survive beyond thirty days in case we don’t finish the ship in time”. Two of the four think his plan sensible making a majority of three over the two who object.

That’s the Bush Tax Cuts.

Weighing tax relief towards the wealthy, or “trickle down economics”, has not worked. It’s really more like dropping a dry rag on a puddle. On the contrary, tax hikes on the top 1 – 4% of America’s wealthiest during the Reagan, first Bush and Clinton Administrations caused growing economies and equivalent reductions in welfare payments and crime. And wealthy people did very well. This happened, by his own admission, to Ronald Reagan in 1982. It happened to the first President Bush – Republicans are right that he should get some credit for the economic boom in the nineties attributed to President Clinton – and it is ironic that he lost the election for this very reason of breaking his “NO NEW TAXES” vow. In Clinton’s first term, his 1993 Economic Stimulus Package targeted only the wealthiest 1% and the economy performed in a way in which more people, even in the lower middle-class, owned houses and had jobs.

Most people don’t really understand how much money the top 3% has. Most people don’t know the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars. Think of it in terms of seconds: a million seconds lasts 11 days, a billion seconds 33 years. Compare a $43,000 salary to 43,000 seconds – one half of a day!

Or convert this wealth to square miles of sea water: The money of the top 3% is the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The rest of us share the Great Lakes and The Gulf of Mexico. In the Bush I and Clinton “tax hikes”, the top 3% ceded The Caribbean Sea to the general good of the country. That sea water evaporated over America and rained down as fresh water swelling rivers and creeks irrigating a dust bowl of an economy.

In the Bush II tax “relief and reconciliation” cuts, the bottom 97% gave back The Caribbean, Lake Huron and now has to borrow the Indian Ocean to pay interest.*

Bush I and Reagan raised tax rates on the wealthiest 4%. Clinton only raised taxes on the top 1%. We’re talking about percentage points in the top tax rates – Clinton raised them from a historic low of 35% up to 38.6% but with good accounting and deductions, the aforementioned top 1% paid on average 15% in taxes after 1993 – not as high as the average worker, but a lot of revenue! The Bush II plan by 2003 lowered the top rate back down to 35%, or about 12.29% after deductions – much lower than the average payroll worker. We are suffering our worst economic downturn since The Great Depression.

Is it fair to make the wealthy pay more? Dick Armey once asked on TV “What’s wrong with rich people?” Nothing. Assuring financial security and clout helps everyone. More people had more money during the nineties – but the wealthy made the most and we all paid less in interest on the decreasing deficits. The more money people have, the more they spend it on services and products, often owned and manufactured by the wealthy.

What is this abstract concept? The “no new taxes” mantra is a meaningless political phrase meant to fire up knee jerk reactions and give the impression that the government is giving away YOUR money and being unfair to the wealthy.

Sensibly, it would be better to allot the food to all five shipwreck survivors. The problem is, fixing the economy with sensible and logical economics is not “sexy” and likely to disappoint TV advertisers and “no new taxes” conservatives.

Ted Salins © 2010

* Sea water sizes courtesy of the “The CIA World Fact Book”; Total wealth of the top 400 U.S. families in 1992 WASHINGTON POST 6/23/03; NEW YORK TIMES 5/25/03.

QUIET PLEASE!

QUIET PLEASE! (2003, Style Weekly)

I was reading a computer magazine with heavy advertising web sites where if your cursor so much as accidentally drags across a particular ad – whether or not you noticed it – the site will keep a record and send you spam in the future.