Before the world lit itself up like a Christmas tree on every corner we could stand in our backyards and view the Milky Way. Now, the stars are blocked, locked away behind the haze of nights ablaze in light. We can no longer mark our place in the universe, feel the smallness of our being, as we watch the movement of stars across the sky. We can no longer mark time throughout the night. I miss the stars. As a child I spent hours lying on my back in the grassy yard watching the stars move through the sky. We begged to be allowed to sleep outside on warm nights, stringing blankets like a tent over the clothes line. We seldom slept inside the tent. It was more for Mom’s benefit than our own.
I loved the sky, the way clouds moved across it. I sometimes let myself feel earth’s rotation through the passage of stars and clouds. I recognized that stars were fixtures, and it was I who was being moved about while standing on Earth’s surface. Such thoughts were dizzying, electric, compelling. One night, my Father and his brothers gathered all of us cousins in Uncle Frankie’s yard, out beyond any city lights that we might watch the passage of The United States’ first satellite Explorer 1, a year after Russia’s Sputnik 1. Its passage times were charted daily and printed in the newspaper. We stood in a single row with parents standing behind; children and adults both in awe. I was hooked. I was 8 years old. I am still hooked at 74.
Each autumn I made a leaf book. I collected the most beautiful and perfect leaves I could find from the trees along the neighborhood alleys and iron them between pages of wax paper to preserve their color and form, then sew together the pages into a book. I preferred to pull leaves from the tree before ground insects, soil and trampling feet marred their full beauty. The autumn I was 12 I was reaching up for a bright yellow oak leaf when I noticed an object brighter than any star in the afternoon sky. It was three times as high as the jet streaking across the sky, a tiny form one-tenth its size, far below. Such discrepancy in what I had ever seen in the sky startled me. I pointed it out to the neighbor children who were following my progress and searching for leaves. We stopped and simply watched in wonder for perhaps 30-40 minutes. For the first 30 minutes or more it did not move. It simply hung there, huge and brilliant in the sun reflecting off its surface. Everything else in the sky shifted as time passed. It stayed in place. That was confusing.
The shape was also confusing. It appeared as two curved plates turned toward each other, with a smaller curved plate in the center, below the main body of the object. It was a perfectly formed “flying saucer.” We could not believe what we were seeing. Yet, we could not take our eyes off the image. Suddenly, the object moved upward in a straight line faster than we had ever seen an object move in the sky. It was not flying at any speed we could comprehend. It lingered in its position for several moments then moved even more rapidly at a right angle directly right, stopped and immediately flew straight up again. We were not strangers to how planes or even helicopters flew. This was clearly neither one of those. We gasped at each strange move, entranced at its uniques pattern. Then whoosh! It flew so fast it literally disappeared from view. The breathless chatter of our group became a crescendo of need to know what it was we had witnessed. One friend, Paula, remembered a brochure in the box her telescope came in. It had a phone number we could call. She found the brochure and we read about Project Blue Book. It included a phone number. I called.
Project Blue Book was housed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in nearby Dayton, Ohio. An officer there took my call and said he would call back. My Mother was surprised the next day when she received a call from the officer to ask if she would allow me to meet with him and another officer at the Public Library the following day. She and Paula’s mother agreed we could meet. The two officers in military uniform met us and immediately separated us for interviews. I told my story, answered every question and drew photos to illustrate its form, position in the sky, altitude and movements. Then, I answered the questions a second time before the officers switched places. The interview resumed with repetitive questioning. At the close of the interview both officers sat with Paula and me and explained that were checking to see if our stories were consistent and true. They agreed we were truthful. They admitted we had seen what the Air Force called an unidentified flying object or UFO. The next step would take some time. More than 90% of such sightings turned out to be identifiable objects. They told us they would be checking for weather balloons, experimental flying objects of our country and of other nations.
Sometime later, the officer called to tell me what we had seen was a true UFO. They could find no explanation for what we had seen. He began sending me a monthly newsletter covering sightings around the country, some explainable, others not. I wish I had kept it. From that time on I paid attention to what we were putting up in our skies, and into outer space. I have watched the commercialization of space with concern, as the skies have become crowded without clear rules of operation worldwide. What goes up must come down and the duration of satellites and their eventual demise is a real concern for those of us on Earth below. The space race which began in 1957 has only picked up speed and, unfortunately, mass. Fortunately, NORAD, a joint effort by The United states and Canada, monitors those skies from the North Pole to Central America.
Events of the past week are not truly surprising. They are inevitable. The strategy behind the positioning of the Chinese spy balloon is interesting and worth considering. Unfortunately, Americans pay more attention to sci-fi thrillers than to facts and are more interested in movie scenarios than reality. The usual suspects are already claiming aliens are landing, one more group of “the other” to fear so white America votes hard right. Perhaps the Chinese strategy is not so inscrutable after all. Perhaps these events will awaken the world to the need to regulate the space where satellites and weather balloons claim dominance over those of us below. Keep looking up. There are challenges ahead and we must unleash imagination to meet those challenges. But, never fear. The best is yet to come.
Do you remember diagramming sentences. Your answer will tell me how old you are. It is a part of the human condition to believe what we know is the full truth. That what we perceive is full reality. My first science project in school led me to state finals and a blue ribbon. The title was “Seeing is believing ?” I studied optical illusions and, created activities demonstrating how what we see is not what really is. It was a mind-opening experience for me and for those who came to my table display. It started a need within me to open minds and challenge thoughts.
My second science project was the new (then) study of genetics. I was particularly interested in how RNA carried messages from the DNA throughout the body. Planaria have an ability to regenerate themselves. Cut off the upper half and it regrows a new upper half. The implications from that study left me in awe of possibilities such as regenerative limbs, eyes, body organs. It also made me question leadership and political growth and regrowth of political parties. For example, I wondered what the Asian subcontinent would have looked like if the British had embraced Ghandi rather than destroy him. Cutting off the leadership of a group may simply create regrowth one finds even more difficult to deal with. What if Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had been embraced instead of assassinated?
Of course, those RNA studies also prepared me to be first in line for Covid vaccination using MRNA technology. Medicine is on a new frontier since the human genome was mapped. Continued research opens up myriad possibilities for human health. As usual, when I think of physical health it also stirs an interest in emotional and psychological health. RNA is on the forefront of research of mental health as well. Then, I wonder what lessons such research teaches us about the social health of our communities, institutions, political structures and all groups.
The United States is singular as a nation which daily adds new DNA to its mix through immigration. Immigration is our RNA carrying new ideas, new ways of perceiving, new challenges to our perception of reality and opening our minds to previously unthought-of possibilities. Immigration is the source of our American body’s innovation and intellectual wealth which fuels our national economy.
Years ago I read articles decrying our education system because our students did not perform so well as Chinese students on standardized tests for comparison of intellectual status. What those articles seldom mentioned was that American students far outpaced students from other nations when creativity and innovation in problem solving was being measured. Instead of recognizing where our strength lies and enhancing teaching methodology to accommodate and pursue such strengths, politicians inserted their nationalistic noses into education and began requiring more standardized tests, more frequently, with worse results. Teachers now “teach to the test” instead of “to the student.”
Now, under the guise of American nationalism, Republicans push to control education even more by banning books, firing and un-licensing teachers who teach about racism, sexism, gender, and anything that even hints at a non-monolithic American (read white-male)identity and belief system. Such arrogant and ignorant intervention will not only destroy our educational system and those who are educated by it; it will destroy our national economy, Indeed, it will destroy our very nation itself. Such fools admire autocrats such as Turkey’s Erdogan, Belarus’ Lukashenko, China’s Xi, Russia’s Putin and Hungary’s Orban ; and American governors such as Florida’s DeSantis, Texas’ Abbot and others like Ohio’s DeWine who play footsie with such autocrats as Trump, McCarthy, Jordan et al. Republican politicians pay state visits, dine at their table, and praise them for their “strong” (iron-fisted) leadership; offering them as examples of the type of leadership America needs.
Voters should be wary of what they see in paid political ads, many funded by dollars given to fake charitable organizations (PACS) which are in fact propaganda machines, often carrying talking points prepared by foreign governments intent on undermining American democracy. Why would foreign autocratic leaders want to undermine democracy? Money! Autocrats do not simply control the lives of the people they rule. They control the means of production, the salary levels and profit margins, the wealth of their nations is their personal wealth. It no longer belongs to the people. The people have no say in how wealth is garnered, stored, maintained and spent. Its only purpose is to serve the autocrats. Undermine the examples of countries where the people rule their politicians, not vice-versa, and political leadership means greater wealth for the politician, but not the nation. The power of the gun lobby over republicans is an example of putting economic gain over public benefit here at home. We, the American voters, are the greatest threat to autocrats world-wide. They would destroy the example we set when we vote out corruption, and assert our control over our government. We do that peaceably by voting. Voting is our greatest strength and best protection.
Now, Republicans, more than ever, seek to undermine the power of our vote. They lie about election fraud, poll workers, election outcomes. They fuel distrust in fellow voters. They suppress the vote of those who challenge their leadership. They accept funding from foreign governments to boost such lies. The seek to place election deniers in Secretary of State offices, on county election boards, as poll workers etc. in order to control school board, local, state and nationwide elections. Republicans are now openly autocrats. How do they get away with this ?
I taught law as an Associate Professor in the colleges of Business, Medicine, Education and Social Work while also acting as Assistant Attorney General and Associate Director of Legal Affairs for Ohio University before retiring. I always started with discourse on the Declaration of Independence, The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights before I even began to use the casebook we would be using for that particular academic field of study. When I began, I was looking through the lens of my own educational experience. The students soon opened my eyes to new ways of looking at their readiness to understand law. I had summed they had been given a sound background in principles of democracy, civics, government and American history. I was wrong to assume so. Such courses were no longer “mandatory for graduation” course requirements. Very few of my students even knew there are three branches of government and that each branch creates law. I first had to teach American democratic principles, policies, structures and history before the cases I would teach them to decipher. I also scheduled a second classroom two nights per week to teach English grammar and writing to those who wanted a prayer of passing my essay exams. The first batch was unintelligible, lacking sound sentence and paragraph structure, and grammar. When I wrote a sentence on the board and asked for a volunteer to diagram it, no one volunteered. Instead I faced a class full of quizzical looks. They had no idea what a diagram was and had never heard of such a thing. I only did this for my first year of teaching, when my class size of 30 plus students still allowed for the time required. Soon, my glasses grew to 200-300 and I, ashamedly, resorted to multiple choice tests.
I know how so many Americans are duped by the Republican party today. They have been undereducated for several decades. We stopped supporting public schools since integration required us to face the results of our history of racism face-to-face, with real people instead of the racial tropes we had devised to assure us of our noble humanity. Recognizing equality was a slap in the face of white America. No one likes to take a hit. Better to pretend and create the illusion of superiority, instead of openly investigating our true historical reality. The Republican party was cut in half and has regenerated a disturbing adherence to autocratic rule, even if it requires divorcing itself, and us, from reality. This is not a true political party, but a cult, based on optical illusions and fear of facing the reality that no one is superior in a true democracy. No vote is superior in a true democracy, unless Republicans gerrymander those votes. Ah, yes, that they did! It seems, they still fear that even gerrymandering is not enough. How far will they go? To armed insurrection at our Nation’s Capitol and beyond ? Guess we know the answer. Go vote.
My earliest memory of Labor Day was being lifted by my father from the stroller and placed on his shoulders. I remember feeling I might fall back and my mother’s hand holding me in place while she warned my Dad, “Be careful, honey.” Dad still had on his apron. He left work with his wife and children to watch the parade striding past his restaurant. I have no idea if the doors to the restaurant were left open. My guess is, knowing how the family business functioned, some uncle stayed inside to keep company with those already sitting at the bar this early in the morning. We never missed a parade.
Labor was honored in this Ohio factory town surrounded by farms. The parade was huge. The parade started a block away from the restaurant so we watched the parade walkers gather and assemble, the floats line up, the horses struggle against the urge to run, held pacing in place by their riders. We kids rejoiced in the front row view with insight into parade warm-up.
Every workplace, it seemed, had a float and/or groups of walkers. Factory workers carried their union flags and smiled as they passed out candy to the kids. Flags were in abundance. Everyone in town participated in some way. Boy scouts and bands, dance and gymnastics academies, florists and glass blowers…farm equipment, police cruisers and fire trucks…politicians in cars, their wives and children smiling and waving.
The parade queen was slightly less popular than the military and VFW contingent led by soldier, sailor, airman and marine cadres, followed by equipment from the local National Guard Armory. The soldier most vivid in my post-World War Two memory wore an unusual uniform. Dad explained he was one of the last living Civil War Union Army survivors. I shall never forget that man, ancient and proud of his service to country. He was bigger and better than the tanks, to me.
When I was about four or five years old I was considered old enough to sit on my dance school float. We were placed between two high school bands. It was deafening, if jaunty. I always got nosebleeds in the hot sun. Thus, I held a handful of increasingly bloody tissues in my hands; so, I could not wave at the crowd, nor wave away my humiliation. That never stopped me from climbing aboard the float. I simply learned humiliation should never get in the way of trying something new, and being part of the community. The ability to embrace humiliation cannot be underestimated. It has gotten me through every stage of life.
Farmers and factory workers lived and worked together in my small town. On Saturday afternoons farmers’ trucks and factory workers’ trucks were parked side by side on the town square while their wives shopped, kids sat on benches eating ice cream, and the men stopped into my dad’s restaurant for a quick drink. Later their families would join them for dinner there. Many of the farmers also worked in the factories, the unions protecting them both. A strong middle class grew in strength recognized by politicians as crucial to the country’s national defense. Post-war workers and politicians valued the middle class and encouraged its growth.
As I left for college the town was changing. A conglomerate was formed to shut down and take over local dairies, United Dairy Farmers was not a union protecting dairy farmers. It started the downward slide of strong family farms, substituting investor controlled farming which has usurped most of American farm production despite the current interest in “farm to table”. for centuries Farm to Table was firmly in place; until, investors saw a way to make money off the labor of farmers. Factories eliminated Research and Development divisions, relying on the easy gain to pay investors profits rather, than plowing profits into future gains which would ensure job growth and livable wages. Workers and farmers became serfs to investors. Today, even doctors and hospitals have become serfs. Wall Street investors now control their schedules, their workplace conditions, their decisions while practicing medicine.
To make such a return to serfdom succeed unions had to be undermined and destroyed. After a short time, the parades ceased. Celebration of serfs’ labor made no sense. Companies which no longer invested in future growth and sound wages certainly would not invest in parade floats. Undermining union strength and avoiding the growing recognition that regulation of pollutants, safety for workers, and labor rights was accomplished by moving factories overseas. Acres and acres became ghost towns where workers mourned lost jobs.
Brown fields blocked recommissioning the use of these acres to other uses. The costs to small towns was monumental. Politicians no longer valued workers but investors. Labor day lost it meaning. It simply became another day to sell hot dogs and potato salad, and lawn tents for family picnics, to those underemployed or out of work; cheap food for those no longer receiving a living wage.
There is a resurrection going on. Over a million Americans have died in the Covid pandemic. The ongoing endemic and threat of more pandemics to come with global climate change disclosed a reduced work force. The broken immigration system, refusal to acknowledge existing refugee laws, and racial prejudice have further reduced our workforce. Supply chain issues have exposed the flaws in sending production of goods overseas, only to get stuck and threaten economic growth.
These insights are giving rise to re-unionization of the American workforce. Our young workers have had it with wages so low they must have two to three jobs, cannot afford training or retraining to higher paying jobs, and must live in their parents’ basements. Workers refuse to remain serfs, working for Wall Street instead of Main Street. Workers have reason to hope this Labor Day. I only hope the parades can resume someday before I am gone. I eagerly await an epic Labor Day Parade as wonderful as those I attended as a child. It would mean labor is once again recognized and properly valued. I wish the same for workers everywhere. Higher wages, more parades. Workers unite!
I cannot write carelessly about the Law. I am a retired attorney-at-law, former State Assistant Attorney General and former Associate Director of Legal Affairs for a university. I love the law with a passion. I am dedicated to the protection it affords individuals, my state, my country, my world.
The Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States are foremost in our minds when speaking of the treasure which is our Democratic republic. Brave documents written by men who had had enough of autocratic rule by a king out of touch with his subjects’ concerns an ocean away. Self-rule advanced eons by the declaration and constitutional reign of this nation of laws and not men. But, this new form of governance was at terrible risk of failure as it sought to establish itself among the colonists in the many states of the new nation. In 1789 George Washington signed into law the firs act of the new congress, the Judiciaries Act. The Judiciaries Act established a three-part judiciary made up of district, courts, circuit courts and the Supreme Court, out-lining the duties of each branch. It also defined the role of Attorney General and the Dept. of Justice. It has been amended over the years, but never up-ended. The rights of appeal and the ultimate supremacy of the highest court to assure the constitution and the principles of the newly established republic were upheld in every state of the new union. Cases decided under this new system cemented the Rule of Law as the authority over its citizens. We have no king. We have no prince. We have political parties; but they have been given no authority to rule us. Let me repeat. Political parties have no legal authority over a free people. Only the law does so.
There have always been citizens seeking a king, or a party to undermine the Rule of Law. This is not new. What is new is a party which would be king. What is new are judges on our courts willing to acknowledge that party as king.
A judge by definition must be an independent arbiter, looking to the American law and its principles to guide her decisions. No judge should EVER comment before all parties to a lawsuit have even filed their briefs; nor that she in “inclined” to decide in favor of a party to the suit. No judge should ever place party interest above the rule of law, its principles, and the security of the nation she serves.
Judges, like all public servants, serve the people.
There is a principle at work in legal ethics supported by courts to protect an individual’s conversation with his attorney regarding a legal issue. There is a principle at work supported by courts to not reveal through the normal exercise of court transparency those secrets of the nation which, if exposed, could cause irreparable harm to the very nation and its people’s national security. There is a principle at work supported by courts to protect witnesses and keep them safe.
In this case, an about to be charged criminal who stole the most desperately protected top secret documents, and it appears those likely including nuclear weapons secrets, hid that evidence of his crime amidst personal papers. Thus, we the people represented by the Department of Justice and FBI are faced with trying to sort the evidence of the crime for two reasons: to successfully prosecute a treasonous ex-president, and to protect our own national security and those who act on our behalf to do so every day.
Let me be clear, this case should have been disposed of by summary judgement the first day it was filed by the ex-president. He should have been re-directed to the court which handled the case from its inception, and this argument reviewed by the judge who already was handling the search and its legal issues. Or, it should have been dismissed since he had no standing to contest anything since the papers were seized as evidence of a crime. Not just any crime. A crime that endangers an entire nation, and other nations within our alliance. His criminal act of hiding documents should not then be used to further his and others’ crime. The delays caused the moment this judge accepted, and now continues to delay the efforts to unravel the crime and shut-down the threat to each of these nations, furthers the crime. A Special Master appointment furthers the crime. Justice delayed is Justice denied. The people of this nation deserve justice.
My guess is that the attorney-client communication at issue likely is more evidence of criminal activity affecting the survival of the country, which the attorneys should have reported, not argue should be protected. We are putting the interest of a single criminal over the interest of the continuing existence of the United states of America, and the republics around the world who strive to be equally free of kings, princes, autocrats and thug parties.
Individual interests are sacrosanct within our courts. This situation reminds me of the philosophical question about three people in a life boat with only enough food for one to survive delayed rescue. Who is sacrificed as the danger continues and prompt rescue is unlikely? Do we sacrifice one to save more? Who could decide such case? Judges face difficult situations every day. Solomons are not that rare. I once had a case where the divorcing parties last remaining dispute was who got the parrot. The Judge ordered the parrot split in half unless an agreement was reached in 10 minutes. Opposing counsel and I were thrilled to carry that message since nothing we said had moved either party over months of discussion.
Judges must be decisive. It is implied by their title, right? “Under consideration” is a dodge where the legal issues are is clear as they are here. This judge seems to be looking for a way to satisfy the party which holds her future appointments in their hands. Or, perhaps she was just not so qualified as she needed to be to decide cases at this level, or perhaps she has the nation’s interest at heart. But, if so, is she blind to the cost to the nation by her non-decisive action? Is she struggling to find some way, any way, to defend and support her “inclinations”?
The Rule of Law, the Judiciaries Act, are the cement holding together the foundation of any democratic republic. Our foundation is crumbling before our eyes, Silence is not an option.
Poetry saved me once thirty years ago when CFS laid me low. So low, I could no longer stand, sit up, kneel, walk nor talk. In fact, speech made no sense to me. When others spoke I heard noise, not language. Exhaustion over took every cell and the energy needed to operate cell function. It was an “all systems fail” experience that lasted for decades. Speech slowly returned after several months, as bits and pieces dropped from my lips, grammar-less and word substitution raising eyebrows when I attempted communication. It took one and one-half years to complete a single Easy Crossword puzzle. One puzzle, not the entire book. I relearned numbers and their relationships playing solitaire as I lay in bed. I learned to stand, then walk again; first with a walker, then years with a cane. I learned to read and write again, haltingly at first.
Poetry saved me. It gave me my first words. One morning I woke and picked up the empty journal by my bed, lifted the pen by its side and for the first time in more than a year I wrote nonsense for two pages until a poem suddenly appeared. This is the poem:
Snippets
like puppets
of the imagination
strung together
in the mind,
all mine.
With you they dance
in the breeze
of conversation.
Disjointed,
unanointed by grammar.
Flailing, distracted
emotion woodenly enacted.
Words tossed
together and apart
from the wound that is my heart.
what a performance!
I walk without aids now, 1-2 miles at a time. I garden. I paint. I write a blogs of poetry, commentaries, political essays. Before health restricted my ability to engage in personal contact with others I was able to be socially and politically active, personally. Now, I rely on words to show love and move others to action. Words I once lost are now my only connection to a fully lived life.
I worry for Covid long-haulers and what they will go through. At least they will be believed. Those of us with CFS(sometimes called ME, CFIDS etc) have seldom been believed. Only within the last year has my illness been given an ICD code although it has been a recognized disease by the CDC for decades. The reason this happened is because researches recognize the same symptoms in Covid long-haulers and thought it prudent to look at those with CFS. However, no data was organized enough to research since without an ICD code there was no effort to track patients like myself. Our medical histories are hidden and untraceable. My records will show only “easily fatigued.” That is the least of the symptoms; the result of the struggle against the underlying systems fails. Fatigue is not the disease itself. My hope is that we will not dismiss nor diminish the long-haulers who seek medical care in the decades to come. My hope is they will find the words needed to connect them to more fully lived lives. Life is good. The struggle is worth it. I pray they never lose hope. I pray they find the poetry of their lives.
I began my work-life in the neighborhood. My brother and I collected newspapers, bottles and cans to recycle for pennies at the corner store or at the junkyard across the street along the alley. We were 4 and 6 years old pulling our wagon along behind us. I have been earning a living since then. As I got older I washed woodwork and carted groceries for older ladies who could no longer stoop, bend nor carry. I used a spoon to trim borders as my brother cut their grass. By age 12 I was babysitting. By age 14 I was teaching summer religion class to kids who did not attend our Catholic school. I was assigned the first graders. At 15 I got a work permit to run the Little League snack bar. At 16 I worked after schooI and on week-ends at a local dry cleaner.
My grandparents were Italian immigrants. My parents worked through their childhoods to help support the family, so what they expected of me was part of our family history. We working children never doubted our self-worth. We did not need certificates of achievement or trophies to tell us we could be proud of our accomplishments. Yet, I earned those too in my academic life.
I had a rich academic life taught by Dominican Sisters whose goal was to elevate our intellect and secure our souls. The arch stones above either side of the door to enter our school read, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free,” and “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Those words still guide me.
My mother was the only one of her siblings to attain a high school diploma. She skipped two grades to graduate at age 16. Her first job was Society Editor at the local Staten Island, NY newspaper. Impossible to believe, but true. Two years later she became the Executive Assistant to the CEO of chemical company, running the plant in his absence during world war two as he focused on raising war bonds.
My dad and his brothers were high school graduates. No one in Newark, Ohio would hire Italian men at that time so the day after graduation he hitchhiked, with five cents left in his pocket , to enlist at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. He learned to swim thrown into a tank of deep water and was soon on board a destroyer escorting Lend Lease supplies to Great Britain across the north Atlantic, dodging U-boats.
Two years later, assigned to the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii his ship was one of two out on maneuvers when the base was attacked by Japanese aircraft. He never forgot the screams of the men drowning in the oil fires as his ship returned to the harbor. Within hours his ship was headed to the South Pacific, where he served for the duration of the war.
After an ambush on a U.S. convoy through the straits between islands his ship was so badly damaged it lay dead in the water. As night fell, his destroyer lay dark and silent, and undetected by the Japanese. They retreated, not realizing the ship was still afloat. It was towed back to the New Jersey naval yard for major repairs.
Dad met Mom at a Catholic Youth dance and courted her during the time his ship was in dry dock. He also got a job at a factory to supplement the income he was sending home to his mother. After marrying Mom, he also shared his income with her mother. This is what family meant to Mom and Dad; everyone working to help each other, sharing all they had.
I was the first girl in my entire extended family to attend college. On the day I left, Dad gave me $20 of the $50 he earned each week. A huge sacrifice, I knew. My education was to be financed by work-study (I became a resident advisor),a federal loan, and a federal grant. I had little savings since what I had been earning paid for my Catholic high school tuition and books, dental and health care, and once in awhile a vinyl album of classical music.
I read every assignment in the time before classes started and the three weeks after, returning the assigned textbooks at the last minute in which I was eligible for a complete refund. I relied on the notes I had taken and those taken during the lectures. This practice got me through undergraduate, graduate and law school. I worked a second job as a part-time clerical worker off-campus, and worked full-time wherever I could find work during breaks. During finals week, I used packets of sugar and hot chocolate, pads of butter, and cartons of milk from the cafeteria to make batches of fudge in my soup pot and sold it to fellow students once the snack machines in the dorm ran out of “study aides.” I made the money I needed to buy the books for the next quarter.
My frugality was limitless. Even to me this sounds like an oxymoron. But to anyone who does not have a family able to pave their way with financial assistance, this makes total sense.I still could not afford to pay for the one dinner not covered by the cafeteria food plan I was eligible for as a resident assistant. When the cook who ran the cafeteria food line every Sunday night realized I never ordered food, and simply walked through with my roommates she questioned me. I explained I was a scholarship student, so came only for company, and the free coffee. She decided I needed to eat and gave me a free hamburger and fries…every Sunday that entire year. The kindness of strangers should never be underestimated. I try to emulate this woman every chance I get. I know the power of such generosity and risk-taking. I always feared she might lose her job. Still, hungry, I ate.
The discussion of the Biden decision to partially forgive student debt is distressing in its ignorance. Wealthy students do not rely on student aid. Even upper middle-class students whose parental assistance is supplemented by student financial aid, do not face the same challenges those who entirely rely on financial aid when it is time to repay those loans. People rely on the connections within their economic class. Guess who benefits. I am happy to pay my taxes. I know they enable the common good and keep my nation strong. We all win when we are all strong. We all have time to raise strong families when we can all earn living wages. When we have a single job we have time to study issues, vote, make wiser decisions about where we should be headed and who shall lead us. Who gains by weakening the economic hopes of our young people?
In 1978 I completed law school and took my first job owing $87,000 despite working full-time my entire academic career. The 5% cap on repayment would have made a world of difference for a student like myself. I finished paying off my loan. But, delayed marriage, child bearing, buying a home. I chose a law career in public service, earning less than if I had found work in the private sector. At that time, women were not easily accepted in the male-dominated practice of law. Graduates with family ties to the profession, personal connections to job offerers had an easier time, but the women still faced more obstacles than the men. They still do. African-American students, even more so. Those struggles continue. The class-status of those who take out loans matters. We all know this. Will this Biden plan help women and people of color? Yes. Will it help the working poor? Yes. Does this matter? Of course.
I finally bought a home. I will die before it is paid off.
If the limit on repayment had been in place for me, and others like me, I would have been able to escape the bondage of that loan and contributed even more to the economy of this country. I could have been financially secure enough to purchase a home and build wealth. I could have helped my parents more, to live more prosperous lives, not rely on food programs, buy a new car, replace broken appliances, move to better neighborhood, get better health care. I and my family would have been lifted up, not held down and held back. That is what I hoped for with a college degree. That is what I eventually achieved, after my parents had died, once my loan was paid off.
Other nations invest in their young people and provide universal education through college. Are their taxes higher? Yes. Their millionaires pay their fair tax share. Ours should, too. We are the richest nation…ever…on the face of the earth. We can do this. What Biden proposes is a moderate effort to at least alleviate the burden enough, on those in greatest need, that they will be able to more fully participate in building full lives and building real wealth. That builds a stronger middle class. That makes the nation stronger for all of us.
Forgiving student debt, capping repayment levels will encourage more people to attend college. They will no longer fear being crippled by debt. There will be a real pay-off for graduating. It will enable students to attend full-time and graduate sooner. It will encourage students to pursue advanced and professional degrees. It will build a momentum of economic growth for future generations. The economic momentum, undercut by tax cuts for the wealthy and attacks on social support programs since the 1980s, will be resurrected. Parents will no longer wonder if their children will be able to reach the same, or even surpass, their own economic achievements.
Finally, framing this discussion as one facing off working class against the elites is an old and hateful trope. Technical and vocational training beyond high school also creates student debt. Arguments that helping college students hurts non-college students is inane. Do you really think all those young people working in restaurants would not prefer better paying jobs? Who could afford college on tip money?
And what makes one job “classy” and another “trashy”? For such a discussion implies that not all work is equal. But, all work is equal. If we learned nothing else about the value of workers during the pandemic we did learn this one thing: Every single task has value, every worker has value. Hope itself has value. Biden’s plan gives young people hope. This is the truth. And the truth shall set us free. It should make college free; but, I am happy we at least have this new plan.
I just ate an entire bag of Milano double dark chocolate cookies. Better that than crying in outrage that separation of church and state has overcome our constitutional rights as white politicians within the Republican Party exploit the personal faith of voters to retain their control of government. Why? Because of their racism and sexism, and gender fears. And, to allow corporate and private wealth to stay in power through them, personally rewarding them financially and supporting filling their campaign chests.
These protagonists blocked the Equal Rights Amendment for women in my youth. Women finally got the right to vote but it and other civil rights have never explicitly been assured. This is one reason the privacy rights under the constitution was used to explain why women have a legal civil right to decide their health care rights and family planning rights.
This same reasoning was used to protect a couple’s right to use birth control. That right is now also facing elimination according to Justice Thomas’ dissent.
The Supreme Court is our greatest and final protector of our freedoms and civil rights. Today, the court threw women to the wolves. They invaded the privacy right of a woman to her own body. They destroyed a woman’s right to safeguard her mental and physical health. Her rights no longer belong to her. They belong to state legislatures. women no longer have rights equal to men in this nation.
We have been here before. Despite the end of enslavement of African-Americans recognition of their civil rights took another 100 years to secure. And, those rights, including the right to vote are again, still, under siege. The Voting Rights Act has been eviscerated. Will the supreme Court’s States Rights Rule now be applied to any individual’s right to equality and freedoms? This case opens that door. The decision today directs us through that door.
The violence and intimidation against women is now supported by our Supreme Court, using its judicial powers. I fear it will soon be the same for people of color, LGBTQT community … indeed any group the white supremacist leaders supported by our churches think they have a right to control.
Today’s decision is far worse than overturning abortion rights. It overturns equal rights. I fear it is not only women who are under threat. Our very identity as a free society , as an American society, was destroyed today.
I am out of cookies. Out of words. Only tears remain. Fascist Court? Not usually 2 words that go together. They do now!
SKY WARS
Before the world lit itself up like a Christmas tree on every corner we could stand in our backyards and view the Milky Way. Now, the stars are blocked, locked away behind the haze of nights ablaze in light. We can no longer mark our place in the universe, feel the smallness of our being, as we watch the movement of stars across the sky. We can no longer mark time throughout the night. I miss the stars. As a child I spent hours lying on my back in the grassy yard watching the stars move through the sky. We begged to be allowed to sleep outside on warm nights, stringing blankets like a tent over the clothes line. We seldom slept inside the tent. It was more for Mom’s benefit than our own.
I loved the sky, the way clouds moved across it. I sometimes let myself feel earth’s rotation through the passage of stars and clouds. I recognized that stars were fixtures, and it was I who was being moved about while standing on Earth’s surface. Such thoughts were dizzying, electric, compelling. One night, my Father and his brothers gathered all of us cousins in Uncle Frankie’s yard, out beyond any city lights that we might watch the passage of The United States’ first satellite Explorer 1, a year after Russia’s Sputnik 1. Its passage times were charted daily and printed in the newspaper. We stood in a single row with parents standing behind; children and adults both in awe. I was hooked. I was 8 years old. I am still hooked at 74.
Each autumn I made a leaf book. I collected the most beautiful and perfect leaves I could find from the trees along the neighborhood alleys and iron them between pages of wax paper to preserve their color and form, then sew together the pages into a book. I preferred to pull leaves from the tree before ground insects, soil and trampling feet marred their full beauty. The autumn I was 12 I was reaching up for a bright yellow oak leaf when I noticed an object brighter than any star in the afternoon sky. It was three times as high as the jet streaking across the sky, a tiny form one-tenth its size, far below. Such discrepancy in what I had ever seen in the sky startled me. I pointed it out to the neighbor children who were following my progress and searching for leaves. We stopped and simply watched in wonder for perhaps 30-40 minutes. For the first 30 minutes or more it did not move. It simply hung there, huge and brilliant in the sun reflecting off its surface. Everything else in the sky shifted as time passed. It stayed in place. That was confusing.
The shape was also confusing. It appeared as two curved plates turned toward each other, with a smaller curved plate in the center, below the main body of the object. It was a perfectly formed “flying saucer.” We could not believe what we were seeing. Yet, we could not take our eyes off the image. Suddenly, the object moved upward in a straight line faster than we had ever seen an object move in the sky. It was not flying at any speed we could comprehend. It lingered in its position for several moments then moved even more rapidly at a right angle directly right, stopped and immediately flew straight up again. We were not strangers to how planes or even helicopters flew. This was clearly neither one of those. We gasped at each strange move, entranced at its uniques pattern. Then whoosh! It flew so fast it literally disappeared from view. The breathless chatter of our group became a crescendo of need to know what it was we had witnessed. One friend, Paula, remembered a brochure in the box her telescope came in. It had a phone number we could call. She found the brochure and we read about Project Blue Book. It included a phone number. I called.
Project Blue Book was housed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in nearby Dayton, Ohio. An officer there took my call and said he would call back. My Mother was surprised the next day when she received a call from the officer to ask if she would allow me to meet with him and another officer at the Public Library the following day. She and Paula’s mother agreed we could meet. The two officers in military uniform met us and immediately separated us for interviews. I told my story, answered every question and drew photos to illustrate its form, position in the sky, altitude and movements. Then, I answered the questions a second time before the officers switched places. The interview resumed with repetitive questioning. At the close of the interview both officers sat with Paula and me and explained that were checking to see if our stories were consistent and true. They agreed we were truthful. They admitted we had seen what the Air Force called an unidentified flying object or UFO. The next step would take some time. More than 90% of such sightings turned out to be identifiable objects. They told us they would be checking for weather balloons, experimental flying objects of our country and of other nations.
Sometime later, the officer called to tell me what we had seen was a true UFO. They could find no explanation for what we had seen. He began sending me a monthly newsletter covering sightings around the country, some explainable, others not. I wish I had kept it. From that time on I paid attention to what we were putting up in our skies, and into outer space. I have watched the commercialization of space with concern, as the skies have become crowded without clear rules of operation worldwide. What goes up must come down and the duration of satellites and their eventual demise is a real concern for those of us on Earth below. The space race which began in 1957 has only picked up speed and, unfortunately, mass. Fortunately, NORAD, a joint effort by The United states and Canada, monitors those skies from the North Pole to Central America.
Events of the past week are not truly surprising. They are inevitable. The strategy behind the positioning of the Chinese spy balloon is interesting and worth considering. Unfortunately, Americans pay more attention to sci-fi thrillers than to facts and are more interested in movie scenarios than reality. The usual suspects are already claiming aliens are landing, one more group of “the other” to fear so white America votes hard right. Perhaps the Chinese strategy is not so inscrutable after all. Perhaps these events will awaken the world to the need to regulate the space where satellites and weather balloons claim dominance over those of us below. Keep looking up. There are challenges ahead and we must unleash imagination to meet those challenges. But, never fear. The best is yet to come.
Leave a comment
Filed under COMMENTARY, POLITICS
Tagged as ALIENS, CHINESE BALLOON, NORAD, SATELLITES, SCI-FI, STAR WARS, UFO, weather