Reminiscence: Getting Settled in Grenoble, 1970

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So there we were, A----- and I, married less than a week, there in our new home a quarter of the way up Mt. Moucherotte, above Grenoble, France.  It was early October 1970.

1

Everyone seems to find it interesting to discuss "Where were you when ... ?"  In my generation the events discussed have traditionally been when JFK was killed (or RFK or MLK...), when Lyndon Johnson announced he wasn't going to run for re-election, when the Democratic Party Convention met in Chicago in 1968, and when Neil Armstrong in 1969 made his giant leap for mankind.  All but the NASA news was bad, but the tipping point for me was the election of Richard Nixon, November 5, 1968.

I'd met Eugene McCarthy, along with Cesar Chavez, out in California that spring as the Viet Nam unrest was coming to a boil.  I helped campaign for McCarthy, although until his assassination I was a little distracted by admiration of Robert Kennedy.  Until Hubert Humphrey had parroted LBJ for so long as his Vice President, I'd always liked  him too; but of course, as the Convention neared, he was tainted for me as for so many others by his defense of the status quo.

During the Chicago uprising, I began to think maybe this was not the America where I wanted to live anymore.  Despite my vote for the disappointing Humphrey, the night Nixon was elected sealed the deal.  

I'd taken my little portable TV to a friend's house that election night.  One or two other friends had brought their little TVs as well, so that we could follow coverage by several different networks as the party progressed.  I didn't usually drink much, but that night as the electoral picture darkened, I got plastered.  I don't know how I got home, frankly, but in the morning my car was in its usual place in the parking lot and my TV was beside my bed, still on, tuned to the best news channel in northern California (though the news was still bad).

By then, I'd decided that as soon as I finished up my graduate work - which would probably be in July or August of that year (1969) - I was going to emigrate, probably for good, to France.   I'd had a fine experience my Junior Year in Paris in 1962-63, so I thought I could feel more "at home" in that country than in what my native country had become.

2

But then, on the ship to Europe in September, I met A-----.  Leaving the U.S. for good didn't seem so certain or so attractive after that.  By the time we married a year later, back in her home state, I would for sure be coming back to the U. S. at the end of that year with her in Grenoble.

When we had met, I was on my way to a job I'd been lucky enough to find in Lyon, south of Paris halfway on the road to Marseilles on the banks of the beautiful Rhone River.  That job was for only a year, and I hadn't lined up anything back in the States to come home to, so in mid-June I was again lucky to find the next year's job in Grenoble.  A----- knew that was where we would be heading if she married me.  Maybe it even seemed like it would be fun.

Even when I knew it might be just for myself, or for the two of us, I knew in late June that I had to find a place to live in Grenoble in 1970-71.  The run of good luck continued when I learned that Mme. D-----, who lived in a flat downtown, liked to rent out her summer house through the colder months of the year to visiting Americans; it was in Seyssins, a small village up on the Alp where the 1968 Olympic Ski Jump had been in another village much higher up called St. Nizier.

I - or we - would need a car.

But I flew out of Nice to A-----'s home state, met her family and some friends, and asked A----- to marry me; we went down to Texas to meet my family; returned north to plan the wedding and to get married on October 3.

After a three-day honeymoon, we climbed on a plane to Grenoble.

3

The trip was long.  We had to change planes three times.  The last leg was bumpy and hot, and we arrived in Grenoble in the middle of the day - after having little sleep for most of two days.  We got into a hotel pretty efficiently, but awoke - starving hungry - about 2 a.m. ...   We had to find food, but there was no one to tell us where we could. Then too we were lucky; after only about 20 minutes in random wanderings, we found a little neighborhood restaurant across the street from the local newspaper offices.

I hadn't thought to worry about changing planes, adjusting to the changing time zones, getting sleep, or finding food in the middle of the first night in Grenoble.  But all that luckily turned out well enough after all.  On the other hand, I had been a little concerned first about getting into our house for the nine months ahead and especially about the peculiar French complexities of buying a car.

First, A-----'s and my visit with Mme. D----- went very well, and she gave us our house key.  Then we set out to look for a car.  I didn't know even where to begin.  We found a taxi, and I just asked the driver where we - of modest means - should go to look for a car.  He took us to a Simca dealer.

4

We arrived at the dealership around 1 p.m., I think it was.  I thought it might take all the rest of that day and at least the whole of the following day to get through all of the red tape.  But not a bit of it!  Right there on the floor was a four-door, stick-shift sedan that we could afford.  That would be fine.  The purchase went smoothly too.  And the salesman had assumed it was his responsibility to walk us through the insurance and registration complexities.  He sent us off in a taxi to an insurer whom he knew; that and the registration went off without a hitch, and by 5 p.m. we drove away in our own car!  Wow, my getting happily married had improved the whole world, even French bureaucracy!

5

So, with surprisingly little trouble, there we were in Mme. D-----'s chalet, having had no trouble finding it in the little village up on the side of a mountain and having a key that worked.  The electricity was on, the telephone was hooked up, the gas stove - strange as it was - worked, the heat seemed to be fine... We could settle right in.

The house was set into the side of the mountain, with a steep road coming straight up from the highway from town that seemed far below.  If you drove beyond the house on your left and turned left, you could turn around and park outside our little gate.  If you kept going on that little street, you could zigzag back down the mountainside, winding slowly - and less steeply - down to the highway.  Oh, the house was called and its address was "Les Fenouilleres," the fennels.  We didn't see any fennel bushes, but there was a lovely string of raspberry bushes along one side of the house.

The second floor was not open to us.  Mme. D----- had explained that she kept her summer clothes and things in the bedrooms up there.  We still had plenty of room for us at that time: the kitchen just inside the door from the road on the high side of the steep hill where we were perched, the large formal dining room with its heavy dark furniture beyond it; the bedroom beyond a little half-bath on the right of the kitchen as one entered the kitchen from the little road on the high side, and beyond the bed and bathrooms - next to the dining room - was a little den looking out into the sky behind the little house toward the impressive "Chaine de Belledonne" (the Bella Donna mountain range).

The garage was beneath the den and bedroom.  Access to it was from a little unpaved alleyway off the steep road up.  You could turn left there and immediately right to mount our steeply paved driveway into the garage.  From there, you could enter the basement and go up the stairs to the kitchen.  There was nothing distinctive about the garage.  In the dank, dark, spider-webby basement there was one, distinctive feature: the "Salle de Bains," the bathroom - with no toilet but the one place in the house where you could bathe.

The bathtub itself was tall.  You had to climb inside by using steps.  It was narrow and deep.  You couldn't lie down, far from it; you had to sit with your knees at least level with your waist.  But the water was deliciously hot, and you could fill the tub up to your armpits.  I got in the habit of taking with me for my leisurely bath several copies of The Sporting News (to which I had subscribed while back in the States), where I would pore over all that week's box scores...

6

But I hadn't been entirely mistaken about the complexities of moving into a foreign country.  It was weather that ultimately brought this home, first an episode with fog  and then... snow!

I had a job, of course, although I could do much of my work at home; pretty soon A----- was coming with me down to work.  There was a little American library nearby, and A----- quickly struck up a friendship with the head librarian, as well as with one of the other patrons.  One foggy morning I accidentally left the fog lights on when we arrived in the morning, so when it came time to go home in mid-afternoon, the battery was dead.

I didn't know what to do, but A----- went right to her librarian friend for advice.  Mme. V------ happened to be nearby too.  She volunteered to drop us at the nearest service station about a mile away.  So far, so good.  But no, the service station people did not drive to dead cars and give them a jump, especially so near closing time.  That was apparently how it was done in France in those days.  I was welcome to bring the dead battery to them, and they could charge it right up.  I believe they even were kind enough to loan me a screwdriver.

A----- and I trudged together through what was now a constant cold drizzle back to the Simca sedan, me worrying all the way if we could get the damned battery out without electrocuting ourselves in the meantime.  By the time we had it out, it was growing dark.  The service station was about to close!  The battery was pretty darn heavy too.  I hoisted it onto my shoulder as we hurried back.

But they were able to recharge the battery in jig time, and I was able to haul it all the way back and even hook it up again.  Crisis overcome!  (And at least I never left the headlights on again.)

7

As for the snow...

We knew, of course, living on an Alp after all, that there would be snow to contend with.  That would have been true down in the city of Grenoble itself, site of the 1968 Olympics.  So we knew that at home we would need a snow shovel.  At least we knew that once we discovered that the only tools in the garage were for gardening.  At least there was a rake.

We set out to find a snow shovel soon after arriving at Les Fenouilleres, first casting about for a good-sized hardware store, which we eventually found.  I asked if they had a snow shovel.  There was some confusion, maybe because at first I hadn't known how to say "pel de neige" (shovel for snow), but then the man said Yes they had one, seeming to believe this was an exotic request.  He brought us a little camp shovel that as a Boy Scout I might have used to dig a little rain trench around the outside of my tent.  It folded up.  He must have thought I wanted something for digging out my car from a deep drift.  When I said we needed something larger, he said they couldn't help us.

I could tell now this enterprise was going to be tricky, but when we got home I got out Mme. D-----'s phonebook and started calling the hardware stores one at a time.  A----- and I knew exactly what we wanted, of course:  a metal handle on a wooden pole, with a curved aluminum blade at the other end.  From our first sally into that first shop, I now knew to call this a pel de neige... When greeted with a long pause on the phone, I usually jumped in to explain that I would need to clean the snow off the driveway to my garage.  The usual answer was No, they didn't carry those, maybe when the snow season actually started...  We weren't not feeling comfortable doing that.

Fortunately someone at work told me (or maybe it was Mme. D----- herself) that it would be wise for us who lived on a mountain to have chains for our rear tires, and we were able to find those with a minimum of trouble.  And I did have to use them often later on, clipping them on for the steep climb up or to go down from the main town highway and taking them off (for down) or putting them on (for up) at the foot of the hill.  I got reasonably adept at that, even in my good suit.

One evening coming home, I found it snowing harder and harder as I zigzagged up the back way to our house and decided not even to try to get up into the garage.  I parked on the street by our little gate.  Next morning, sure enough, the car was buried under about a foot of snow.  It was bitter cold too.  But using just my hands and feet, I managed to unearth the Simca and clear a pathway into the street ... before realizing that the car wouldn't start.

Well, there was this steep road going downhill just a few feet away.  If only A----- and I could get the Simca around the corner, I could pop the clutch on the way down and the car was sure to start.  A----- gamely bundled up and came out with me, and the two of us got the car headed out in the right direction.  I got inside to guide it and realized that the mailman had presented himself as a volunteer to push with A-----.  It worked like a charm, and I was right on time for work.

8

But the snow shovel saga continued.  When I got back home after that first snow, I parked again on the street and went down to the basement from inside.  There were several pieces of lumber.  I used one board to just push the snow down the driveway all the way to the other side of the little alley below.  So I could make it then to the garage... having used the end of a board instead of a shovel.

After ten calls or so, someone at one of the stores said brightly, Yes! they had a pel de neige!  I couldn't believe it.  "For removing snow?" I asked skeptically. Yes! "From my driveway?" Yes!  We headed down into the city to search for this magical shop.

It turned out to be big, brightly lit, and modern, even if it had been hard to find on a windy little back street.  What a relief.

Yes! you called about the pel de neige! said the young man inside, evidently the fellow I had spoken to on the telephone.  He scurried out back into the storage area.  After a few minutes, he came back with an iron coal shovel!  Even empty, I could barely lift this monstrous thing, let alone with a load of snow inside its ample scoop.

We did make a purchase in that store, though.  I bought a hammer and a few nails.  When we got home again, I nailed a small board across the top of the longer board, in a T shape.  That turned out to be my snow shovel for the whole season.

***

The Abortion Debate: The Unalienable Right to Life and to Liberty [essay]

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1

Most so-called "social conservative" ambitions are anti-libertarian, seeking to limit or eliminate individual freedom in order to impose behaviors most extreme Christian conservatives approve and prohibit behaviors they abhor.  The majority of Americans continue to reject such restrictions on individual liberty and remain loyal to the most basic rights valued by the founders of the United States.

The standard principle has been and continues to be that an adult individual should have the liberty to do whatever he or she wants, unless doing so would harm someone else.  No one would claim that an individual should have the right to murder his or her enemy, but individual liberty - we seem to agree - should be abridged or eliminated only if the behavior desired would harm another person.

The abortion question is more complex than most issues raised by the social conservatives.  It is also a highly emotional issue that has generated more passion than rational discourse.  For these reasons, we should be especially motivated to bring to bear on the abortion issue some cool reason, based on fundamental American values.

2

Near the end of life, we agree, the individual has the right to refuse extraordinary efforts to prolong her or his life.  Others have no right to prohibit the individual from making such a choice since it would harm no one else.  For example, if an 80-year-old man learns he has colon cancer, he is free to tell his doctors not to operate and not to start chemo- or radiation therapy, but merely to keep him as comfortable as possible as the cancer kills him.

We agree, that is, that society does not have the right to intervene in such a personal choice and to dictate that a life - even an undesired, tortured, intolerable life - should be prolonged.  Only the individual himself or herself can make such a free choice, even if some or even most of us were to think the right thing to do from a moral perspective would be to continue the suffering.

Now, if that same man were facing colon cancer while also suffering a significant level of senile dementia, he would have already lost the freedom to make a responsible choice about his own health.  His liberty would have been significantly lessened, not by others but by "nature" or " chance" or even "God."  So, we also agree that if before losing the capacity to make responsible choices, this poor man had given his daughter the right (the responsibility, the freedom) to make health decisions on his behalf, then she - not he and not society - would have the right to say that her father should not have surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation; and it would be wrong for others to try to intervene, even if they disagree with her decision on religious or any other grounds.  The action chosen could be considered "harming" the Dad, but since he had freely opted for his daughter to make such choices for him, it would be wrong for others to limit or eliminate her freedom to do so.

3

This daughter's legally established freedom to choose her aging father's medical treatment has a parallel near the beginning of life.  If an otherwise healthy one-year-old were severely injured in an automobile accident and could survive only after prolonged, extraordinary medical procedures and if the youngster were unlikely to be able to function independently at any future time, then we agree that the unfortunate child's parents would have the responsibility (the right, the freedom) to decide whether extraordinary medical measures would be continued or the child would be allowed to die naturally.  This is not a matter for legal intervention, or for a public vote; it is a private matter between the parents and their child's doctors.  We seem to agree on this principle just as we do about the end-of-life decision-making.

Incidentally, if the child had been born illegitimately and the biological father had never had any role in the birth or care of the child, then it would also be reasonably clear that the mother alone would have to make the life-or-death decision.  She could consult anyone she wished, but she would decide whether or not her child was to be allowed to die.  This would be her responsibility and her right.

We should acknowledge, however, that a public responsibility is felt for the safety of children in general.  Doctors, school teachers, counsellors, day care workers, and others are often formally required to report signs of possible child abuse, the suspected abusers often being the parents themselves.  In such instances, we think the parents cannot be trusted to make appropriate free choices for their own children.  And we seem to agree that public intervention is warranted in cases of such child abuse.  So, couldn't one reasonably claim that public intervention in a single mother's decision to "let nature take its course," not undertaking extraordinary medical procedures in order to preserve life, is also warranted?

Since intervention in the relation between a parent and her or their child is recognized as a violation of what we usually consider an inalienable right, the liberty to make choices for those for whom we are responsible, unusual safeguards are imposed.  Signs of child abuse must be documentable, repeated, or severe; once reported, a complex process of investigation is begun, and even in a case of abuse it is only after a high level of proof is achieved that the parents' decision regarding the child is contravened.  Such questioning of the person's judgment who is responsible for the well-being of another is recognized as a momentous, extraordinary, and rare event.

4

"Social conservatives" might believe that the mother with a severely injured child would be sinning against God's law if she were to allow the child to die without taking advantage of all possible medical procedures, but while they may have the right to say so, they may not intervene between her and her child's doctors as this decision is being made.

Such conservatives do wish to intervene in some personal decisions.  They clearly think for example that if two men want to marry each other, or two women, they should not be free to do so.  Such an action is so contrary to their religious beliefs that they would have our very legal system prevent it from happening.  They would prevent the two gays or two lesbians from freely choosing to marry, even though doing so would harm no one.  But to intervene would violate the unalienable right to liberty that has been one of the principal cornerstones of our culture. 

"Social conservatives" would do it anyway, if they could.

5

Some of these extremists would go so far as to prohibit the sale of birth control devices to minors and to support the refusal of a pharmacist to sell birth control devices to anyone.  Prevention of conception, however, does not harm anyone, and so in America one has an unalienable right to freely choose to take measures to prevent impregnation.  An individual or even a highly vocal group may believe that to protect oneself from unwanted pregnancy is a sin against divine law, but it remains the individual's own choice whether or not to do so.  (The child who might have been conceived if a woman and man had engaged in unprotected sex obviously does not exist and cannot be said to "have been harmed" by the free choice to use birth control.)

Social conservatives generally also want to prevent an impregnated woman from freely deciding to end her pregnancy by having an abortion.  They might even want to claim that such a prohibition is not a violation of the woman's unalienable right to liberty because in the case of an abortion there is a "child" who does exist who would be harmed by the abortion.

Because this claim could be made (rationally), it is worth our considering whether or not it has any more merit than the desired prohibition of same-sex marriage or of birth control (either of which has little or no merit).

6

Until late in a pregnancy, a fertilized egg or a foetus inside the mother's womb is not only incapable of making a choice for itself.  It is not even capable of surviving without the mother's choice to nurture it inside herself.  It is not reasonable to claim that such an organism is an existing person; thus, it is not reasonable to maintain that it would be criminal for the mother to freely choose to end the pregnancy at such an early stage of gestation.

At some point during the pregnancy, however, the foetus will have developed enough that, if  born, even prematurely, extraordinary "neo-natal" medical devices and procedures could be employed in attempting to save the new-born's life.  At such a late stage of gestation, in other words, it becomes somewhat more reasonable to think of the new-born as "an existing child."  If for some reason such an infant should actually be born prematurely, surely it is the parents' responsibility to decide if such extraordinary procedures should be undertaken or if the underdeveloped new-born should be made as comfortable as possible as nature takes its own course.  This situation would be essentially the same as the decision about the seriously injured one-year-old discussed above and is comparable to the daughter's deciding her father's treatment when he is so near the end of life that she has been given the responsibility of making this momentous decision for him.

In fact, at such a late stage of her pregnancy, for the mother to decide to continue nurturing the foetus inside her is really the same decision; i.e. the choice as to whether the means needed to create a living person will be provided (or continued).  This would be the mother's free choice, it would seem, just as it would be primarily her choice as to whether or not to use extraordinary neo-natal procedures to extend the tenuous life of an underdeveloped new-born.

7

Here is an outline of the argument presented here:

1. An adult individual in America has the inalienable right to the liberty to do whatever he or she wants, unless doing so would harm someone else.
2. Near the end of life, for example, the individual has the right to refuse extraordinary efforts to prolong her or his life, and if she or he has delegated the authority to another in case of his or her own incapacity, the designee is free to do so.  This is not considered "harm" to the aging individual.
3. If an infant can survive an injury or disease only after prolonged, extraordinary medical procedures with little hope of ever achieving true health, then the child's parents may choose whether the child will be allowed to die naturally.
4. If some individuals' choices are contrary to another's values, the second person (or group) does not have the right to prevent the first person from doing what she or he wants unless it harms another.
5. Questioning the judgment of a person who is responsible for the well-being of another is recognized as an extraordinary and very rare event.
6. A mother's choosing to terminate an early pregnancy cannot be considered "harm to another" any more than preventing pregnancy either by use of birth control pills or devices or by abstention from sex can be so considered.
7. The parents of a child born so prematurely that the chances of what they consider "normal life" are small  have the freedom, the right, to tell doctors to withhold extraordinary, neo-natal procedures.  This is parallel to the end-of-life decision of an older person's designee.
8. A mother's choosing to end a pregnancy even late in the gestation period, when medical authorities are doubtful of the foetus's capacity to survive on its own without extraordinary measures, is also the same, isn't it?

The truth or relevance of any of these statements may be questioned, and the logical relations among the statements may also be challenged.  But to make emotional pronouncements about one's religious beliefs would not be convincing or relevant.  And, furthermore, the most complex social issues - including all those relating to our inalienable rights as American citizens - are the most important for us to discuss logically, exercising the very coolest and soundest reason of which we are capable.

***

The 99% - 1% Question: the National Interest

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The cardinal American values are peace and prosperity, equality of opportunity, liberty, and justice for all. These values should be pursued, supported, and honored above all others. Actions that threaten or diminish them should be avoided or prohibited, vilified, or at least highly taxed. Public leaders praising these essential values should be supported; those whose decisions undermine them should be hounded out of their positions of influence.

Peace and prosperity, equality of opportunity, liberty and justice for all: the most persistent threat to these essential values is the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. Equality of opportunity is not possible when power – social, political, or economic power – is highly concentrated. Justice is undermined. Liberty is diminished. Peace too is endangered when power is concentrated, because a means of perpetuating the hold on power by few is demonizing so-called enemies, promoting fear, and pursuing social conflict at home or war abroad. Prosperity depends on peace and equality of opportunity. Concentration of power – as the Founding Fathers clearly understood – threatens our pursuit and attainment of all that we value.

When political and economic leaders are forced to admit that failure of this or that individual company threatens the viability of the entire national economy, it is clear that such companies have become too large and too powerful, in other words that wealth and power has indeed become too concentrated. Care must be taken to prevent such concentration of corporate power, through rigorous fiscal and taxation policies and through prudent management of the economy in general.

*

The value of a nation’s economic system is measured by the degree to which the system benefits the nation including its public institutions, its businesses, its workers, and its families. A prudently managed capitalist economy has proven its ability to benefit a nation more effectively than any other kind of economic system. Capitalism is the most reliable means of making progress toward our essential values; to continue functioning efficiently and effectively, a capitalist economy must find a right balance between (a) reward to the most successful and (b) protection for all from a high concentration of power – economic or political – in the hands of the few. One might say, for example, that if the richest 5% or fewer of the nation’s population controls 50% or more of the nation’s economic assets, then the capitalist system is prevented from sustaining the most consistent and effective achievement of equality of opportunity, prosperity, justice, and liberty for all, as well as the stablest peace possible in an uncertain world.

High-minded and unselfish people do exist, but as our founding fathers realized, the most common motive for one’s actions is self-interest. As the wealth of a nation becomes overly concentrated in the hands of the few, experience has shown time and again that members of the wealthiest group, acting rationally, use their economic power to insure the continuation of their own financial advantage, including even that of future generations of their families. Although a relative few rich people give generously to those needing help, many – perhaps most – grow more and more motivated by selfishness, greed, and the pursuit of political power. Also, a nation in which a significant number of its poorer citizens are held in a perpetual state of dependence on charity is clearly not experiencing what might be accurately called prosperity.

*

As Lincoln wrote, “Labor precedes capital.” In a healthy capitalist economy, workers make products and provide services. Owners of the firms employing the workers are paid by customers for the goods or services they purchase, and earn profits according to the ratio between the price paid and the cost of materials and labor employed. In this system most individuals receiving income are either business owners or their employees; a relative few use money itself – rather than goods or services – as a means of earning income; in a healthy capitalist economy, those few make their money by providing loans to or investments in the businesses that make the goods or provide the services. Their role is solely to facilitate the efficient production and exchange of goods and services.

The long-term health of an economy and the prosperity of a nation depend in no small measure on the degree to which income earned results from the production of goods or services, rather than from the manipulation of money. The greater the proportion of income earned resulting from money manipulation, the more vulnerable the economy is to disruptive cyclical swings from times of great prosperity, created by money’s making money, and great privation resulting from the distortion of the healthy capitalist economy caused by such a high level of dependence on money itself to generate income, rather than on the production of goods and services.

A high level of concentration of wealth in the hands of the few makes it inevitable that the economy will be characterized by a relatively high degree of dependence on income from money manipulation rather than on producing goods and services or directly facilitating such production. This is true because, in this unhealthy system, the few controlling the economy have a surplus of money that they control directly, in contrast to the businesses manufacturing goods or providing services that they control somewhat less directly. When wealth and power is highly concentrated, it is to be expected and rational for the wealthy to find it more and more convenient and vastly more efficient to make their additional income more and more from finance than from production. But in excess, this practice has disastrous consequences.

Concentration of wealth thus creates distortion of a capitalist system that threatens the nation’s prosperity.

*

A capitalist economy is a tool for achieving the highest level of prosperity possible for a nation and its citizens; the value of our economy lies in the cleverness, the skill, and the wisdom with which it is managed to the benefit of a nation’s citizens. As a complex and always changing tool, our capitalist economy requires careful and skillful management in order to create enduring and widely shared prosperity. Over-managed or over-controlled, a capitalist economy has the tendency to stagnate, to impede technological innovation, and to bog down in paperwork and bureaucracy. But, left without sufficient managerial control, a capitalist system has the tendency to create greater and greater concentration of wealth and economic power and to produce greater and greater dependence on finance rather that production. In any case, the economy must be considered a tool which can be used, consciously and deliberately, rather than a force of nature which can only be observed and endured.

*

For a democracy to work as it is intended, creating the conditions under which the citizenry – through elected representatives – may govern themselves, it is necessary for citizens to learn the facts, not merely to exchange opposing opinions or hear others do so . The most critical function of the public media is to acquaint the citizenry with the facts, which those in the media must come to know and to report as objectively, as fully, and in as disinterested a manner as possible. This is insured by the media’s taking seriously its core mission as conveyor of fact rather than opinion and by a diversity of individual media outlets which when taken together can cancel out the subjective residue that may remain in each other’s reporting despite good-faith effort.

When economic, political, and social control of the media becomes concentrated in the hands of a relative few, the chances of such disinterested reporting of the facts and actual conditions is significantly reduced. Social and political diversity will be diminished, and narrow partisanship will be increased. Biased readers, viewers, and listeners will come to use the media as the drunk uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination.

Seeking arguments for support of one’s bias or for opinions supporting one’s self-interest is not to seek the truth in order to make reasoned decisions, which is the approach needed for a successful democracy. Concentration of media control thus undermines the effectiveness of democratic processes themselves.

*

The greatest thing about our great nation is the ideals upon which it was founded. If we are to continue America’s noble tradition and live up to our great mission in the world and in human history, we must do everything in our power to nurture, sustain, and pursue our essential values. Highly concentrated wealth and power threaten all that we hold most dear in the United States of America: peace and prosperity, equality of opportunity, liberty, and justice for all.

Note: This essay was first posted with the title: "The Too Big To Fail Discussion" in January 2010.

 ***

Wise Sayings 8 from Ron Lucius

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1

Playing is joyful.  Working is the greater joy.

…………………………………………………………………… Ron Lucius

2

Doing the work is more fulfilling than having done it.

…………………………………………………………………… Ron Lucius

3

Better to fall on your face than on your ass.

…………………………………………………………………… Ron Lucius

4

Words speak louder than thoughts.

…………………………………………………………………… Ron Lucius

5

"Actions speak louder than words," they say; but "The pen is mightier than the sword."

 Both are true: Which is true today?

(Who decides these things?)

…………………………………………………………………… Ron Lucius

***

...And Much (Poem)

***

... and too

much depends
upon

fingers punching
tan keys

made of hard
plastic

above the black
spacebar

***

Wise Sayings 7 from Ron Lucius

***

1

Use the cleanest gloves for the dirtiest task.

…………………………………………………………………… Ron Lucius

2

Don't polish glass with black wax.

                   (OR don't read Ionesco)

…………………………………………………………………… Ron Lucius

3

When you see an unhappy person, do not think, "How unfortunate!" Ask yourself instead, "How can the suffering be relieved?"

When you see something ugly, do not shout, "How ugly that is!"  Ask instead, "How can that be made agreeable?"

……………………………………………………………………Ron Lucius

***

Poem: July Twilight

***

Violet
Glowing
Glowing violet
Blossoms
          violet glowing from tiny hill blooms

Dust
          thick air
Rolling down
And
And rolling down through dust and thick, filled air

Rocks
Stones
          pink
Grass
Grasses

Across pink-purple stones and lying grasses--
Where I
Where my feet
             are my feet are
             are strings under
             white-warm
             canvas,

Thin
             and hard
             as twigs.

***

Poem: Indian Summer

***

Lying immobile on the silent earth
Full and ripe, round, beautiful
Resting quiet among the leaves.

Waiting unknown in the soft, dank bed,
Warm, sun glancing through the branches
Hoping, still, in the smelling autumn wastes.

Sitting timid in the damp dirt
Waiting, slowly dying in warm winds,
Round, tired, ripe, smothered

Full, sweet, unseen, soft,
Lying immobile on the silent earth
Rotting, mute, in the sun.

Humor

***

"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous."

*

"I'd give your right arm to be kinder to others."

*

Sartre:  Do so you can do

Camus: Be so you can do

Sinatra: Do-be-do-be-doo...

*

"Better is not good enough."

***

Reminiscence: Childhood Reading Part 2

***

Note: I organized the exploration of my memory in Part One of this reminiscence about my childhood reading in terms of places: libraries, the family living-room, and so on.  This time, I'll try to include recollections organized around the reading materials themselves.

1

I don't associate any one place, for example, with my parents' biggest splurge in supporting my sister's and my interest in reading.  I can't remember where we stored it, but we had a large, carefully organized, multi-volume collection of poems and stories for children called The Bookhouse books.  The series was organized so that literature the editors thought appropriate for children of different ages was available in separate volumes, youngest to oldest.

There were ten or twelve volumes, starting with one having lively, colored pictures and Mother Goose and Robert Louis Stevenson verses as well as childhood versions of fairy tales.  This first volume had "the Nursery" in its title, appropriately enough.  The stories and other things in the last volume were longer, more serious and more complicated, with few illustrations (unless I am mis-remembering).  Knowing my childhood self, I expect at some point I set out to read every word in all the volumes, poem or story, one after the other until I had finished the whole collection.  But I don't think I stuck with the plan.

I'm sure I would not have waited very long before I tried to read the pieces in the final volume, something like wanting to be "all grown up."

I can almost remember Mother reading the nursery rhymes to me (to us, perhaps), helping us memorize them: "To market, to market...," "Baa, Baa, black sheep, have you any wool?," "Little boy blue...," "Diddle, Diddle, Dumpling,/my son John...," "Georgie Porgie...," etc.  Maybe it was in this volume that I first saw, "Peas porridge hot!" and wondered how in the world something to eat called porridge could possibly get to be "nine days old."  But I mainly associate that particular rhyme with another thin but wide book we had somewhere in the house with stylized drawings (silhouettes, perhaps) of black people - mainly big-breasted women - and almost naked little children, going about ordinary tasks like sweeping up or cooking or washing clothes.  These, I believe, were supposed to be African folks.  Many of these children's rhymes were little songs, but I don't think we sang "Peas porridge."

In terms of the stories, in this first Bookhouse collection I remember "Cinderella," "Billy Goats Gruff" (the troll captured my imagination), "Rapunzel," "Little Red Riding Hood." Was "Rumpelstiltskin" in this volume?  That one particularly fascinated me, though I didn't know why...

We were listening to "Let's Pretend" on the radio in this period, where many of these classic stories were acted out.  It was great.  One didn't tire of hearing, or reading, such stories over and over again...

This is probably a good place to mention as well that we had at home what I presume were all the A. A. Milne books, the ones with the original (Shepard?) illustrations: Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, as well as the books of verses: When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six.  These were on a small book case behind my bedroom door when it was open. 

I knew all these books by heart, and loved Pooh and Piglet, Owl and Eeyore, Kanga and Roo (and the others).  I could recite several of my favorite poems, including "Halfway Down the Stairs" (...is where I'm at), "Lines and Squares," "Butter for My Bread," and "Bad Sir Brian" (ting-ling, rat-tat).  It was a great surprise to me to discover years later, when exploring the living-room bookshelves with Dad's old books, that Milne was primarily a playwright and novelist for adults.  I thought a sweet little novel with Two People in the title was very good, and when I told Dad how surprised I was to find it, he said something like "Oh, yes.  The Pooh books were just a little sideline."

From the later volumes of My Bookhouse, I remember especially liking "Casey at the Bat" and the verse about the railroad hero "Davy Jones."  I think I also was introduced by this collection to authors like Dickens, Hawthorne, Browning, and Poe.  But I can't recall any more details than that.  I wish I could.

We also had a color-illustrated Aesop's Fables that I knew well, and at some point I read (but never owned) the popular children's novel set in the Revolutionary War, Johnny Tremain.  That was not unlike the Meader historical novels for children, and I thought it was terrific.

2

When I was a youngster, some feared that reading comic books - oops, graphic novels - would reduce a child's motivation, ability, and inclination to read, really read, printed material with no pictures.  My own parents did not seem concerned about that but, as usual, they were concerned that none of us spent more than necessary.  Eventually my sister and I got a weekly allowance - 50 cents - just for spending money, and sometimes I spent some of my allowance on comic books.

It's a little hard to sort out which comics I became familiar with from the common custom of sharing comics with friends... at least when they visited their friends at home.  But one way or the other I was quite familiar with the best-known favorites, like Archie (and Veronica, Jughead, Reggie, and others... Betty?), Li'l Lulu, Donald Duck, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Superman, Hopalong Cassidy, Spiderman, Tarzan, Bat Man and Robin, and so on.

Among all the many comics cowboys, I tended to buy for myself - not Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, or even The Cisco Kid - but Tim Holt, Lash Larue, and Johnny Mack Brown.  One of my favorite cowboy stars used to say to his horse, "Come on, Paydirt!  Scratch gravel!"  That was about as memorable to me as the radio Sergeant Preston's "On, King! On, you huskies!" or the masked man's "Hi-Ho, Silver! Away!" and Tonto's "Get 'em up, Scout!"  Alas, I don't remember who it was that had the fast horse named Paydirt.

One of my favorite superheroes was Plastic Man.  I remember his catching a gang of bad guys by rushing ahead of them and turning himself into an elevator!  I thought that was brilliant crime-fighting.

When Billy Batson said "Shazam!" he turned into Captain Marvel, another of my favorites (you know, not Superman).  I sent in a quarter or some coin and became a member of the Captain Marvel Club.  I had my special code ring and everything.

And what about the amazing speed of another favorite, Flash?  He was sometimes featured in his own comic but was also a member of a team of some kind, a team of superheroes.  I think Wonder Woman may have been one of the good guys on the team.

For some reason, I also bought war comics from time to time.  The Korean War was going on; I remember hearing Paul Harvey on the radio telling thrilling and uplifting stories about it (maybe it was in "Page Two!")  From the comics, I remember learning about "Screaming Mimi's" (I suppose they were incoming mortar rounds) that seemed to terrify the men.  There was a comic I liked to get now and then about a team of "special forces" called The Blackhawks.

It seems now like many of these "boy comics" with a good bit of violence, patriotism, courage, and honor featured full-page ads for either of two body-building programs.  The most common ads were for the Charles Atlas program.  Those were the ones about the 90-pound weakling getting sand kicked in his face. ...But since that was the more common one, I was naturally more interested in the other program: George F. Jowett's program.  Again for a quarter or a dime I bought a brochure with a few exercises illustrated in it.  They were simple and required no equipment.  Where is that brochure now when I could use it?

3

But the comics I remember the most fondly of all were Classics Illustrated.  As a parent myself, I think I would have had serious reservations about my children perhaps limiting themselves to such simplified versions of the real gems of literature, but I don't remember my own parents saying Boo about that or anything else.  It was remarked that these Classics cost more than the comic comics, and it is true that I had to manage my little allowance carefully to be able to afford them.

Here are some Classics Illustrated that I remember reading.   By the way, I suspect my friends did not collect the Classics, so I probably owned all of these at one time or another:

Bring 'Em Back Alive

Joan of Arc

The Time Machine

Lorna Doone

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The Red Badge of Courage

Robin Hood

Master of the World

War of the Worlds

Moby Dick

The Man Without a Country

Poe stories, including The Pit and the Pendulum and The Fall of the House of Usher

The Last of the Mohicans

The Prince and the Pauper

Cyrano de Bergerac

The Master of Ballantrae

Green Mansions

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Pudd'nhead Wilson

I remember the graphic look of each of these.  There were other classics (classic books, not the comics) that I read from the library - like Tom Sawyer, White Fang, and Captains Courageous - and there were others, of course, that I saw as movies which may well have existed in Comics Illustrated versions: such as Song of the South, Kim, Ivanhoe, and Around the World in 80 Days.  Also, some of the Classics Illustrated that I remember clearly as such were also movies, like Lorna Doone and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

 4

I mentioned in Part One the many books owned by my parents on shelves in our living-room.  Besides those I mentioned specifically were dozens of others.  I read a number of them too.  But as I moved into the teen years, Christmas and birthday presents tended from time to time to include books.

One I remember fondly and wish I could see again, to indulge my nostalgia, was a small book about baseball heroes.  There were photos, some key statistics, and short biographies with reasonably detailed career histories.  That was easier then because players did not move from team to team very often.  Perhaps there was information about the early greats like Honus Wagner, Nappy Lajoie, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, and others, but what I remember most vividly is the older but then current and the more recent players.

Maybe I already had my favorites from listening to the Game of the Day on radio and from reading the box scores in the morning paper.  Or maybe this little book helped determine who my favorites were.  But, however they were set in my imagination, I certainly did have my favorites, and what I remember most clearly about each of them is the pictures and information in my little book.

Among these favorites were the Yankees Yogi Berra, and especially Phil Rizzuto.  More of them, like Rizzuto, were infielders than pitchers or outfielders: Johnny Evers, Nellie Fox, Eddie Stanke, Pee Wee Reese, Al Rosen, George Kell.  Others were Mel Ott, Bob Feller, Hank Greenburg, Stan Musial, Lefty Gomez, and Bill Dickey.

It may be obvious that missing from this list of my childhood favorite baseball heros were some legendary players, like Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson,  Joe DiMaggio, Mike or Mickey Cochrane, Lou Gehrig, and Ernie Banks.  I don't know why I don't remember my little book's treatment of these heroes as well as the others.

There were other books I owned, of course.  As I entered junior high, among the socks and pajamas, "boys' books" began to appear in my Christmas and birthday presents.  I had two books by Ralph Moody about growing up on a ranch out west; I remember thinking the first one, Little Britches, was pretty good, but the other one wasn't.  It had been a present, though, so I didn't tell anyone.  I had gotten a puppy for my tenth birthday (Sox, half collie and half chow), and had a few dog books.   I remember thinking that the one I had by Albert Payson Terhune was stodgy, at least compared to the Jack London books I'd read from the library and my two favorites about Kazan the Wolf Dog by James Oliver Curwood.  (I didn't notice the "cur" part of his name!)

I had several Hardy Boy mysteries, and I remember kind of enjoying several boys' books I had found at my grandparents' house about 200 miles north: coming from two series, one about "Scouts" (including one about fighting in World War I) and the other about "the Rover Boys."  These had belonged to my uncle as a boy, which means they must have been written no later than 1920.  I had been given books in several other series too: Chip Hilton sports adventures (I remember the phrase "a high hard one" figuring in one of those), and mysteries about Ken Holt or John Blaine.  I liked the Hardy Boys best, though, even if they were the best known and most popular.

5

Until I indulged myself in this nostalgic review of childhood reading, I didn't fully realize how many of my favorite books and comics were those considered designed for boys' boys.  It's true that every so often now - 50 years later - I enjoy reading Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Robert Parker, Len Deighton, and John LeCarre...

What can I learn from this... (if anything)?

***



More and Less (essay)

***

1

At any time in a person's life, he might consider what things or qualities he needs more of and what he needs less of.  For instance, a middle-aged professional man might think he needs to be more "spontaneous," not so often thinking and rethinking even relatively unimportant choices like whether to go out for dinner (and where) or whether to "eat in."  More such spontaneity, he thinks, might bring a missing element of freshness and creativity into what threatens to become a rather hum-drum and uninteresting life style.

Change is facilitated by emphasizing either the need for more X or instead the need for less Y, depending on the quality involved.  For instance, in the case of the man described above, if he identified his goal as "being less careful, cautious, or thoughtful," then when next faced with a rather unimportant choice, he is apt to wonder just what lack of caution would look like?  What would I do in order to be less careful in this instance? he would have to ask himself. 

On the other hand, if he identified his goal as "being more spontaneous," then when faced with that minor question, he could more easily visualize the kind of happy-go-lucky man who would think, "Oh, what the hell, I'll choose X" in a casual and cheerful manner.  In the case of spontaneity as opposed to caution, in other words, it is better to accentuate the "more side" of the issue.

On the other hand, if an individual were to realize that her health will be endangered if she doesn't begin to eat less in general, and to eat less fatty or sugary food in particular, then there is no need for such an act of imagination.  "That donut is fatty and sugary; I'm not going to eat it" is all the person needs to say to herself (which doesn't mean resisting the temptation is easy; it's only knowing what should be done that's easy). 

If she thought of her goal as "eating more healthy food," on the other hand, then the required action would be somewhat vaguer and more difficult to visualize concretely.  It would be at least a little more difficult to know, at the point of decision-making, just what to do.  In other words, in the case of eating more or less fatty foods as opposed to healthy foods, emphasis on the "less side" of the matter would be more effective.

*

With those perceptions in mind, then, let us consider our nation, the USA, or our American culture today.  Of what elements and qualities do we now need MORE, and of what do we need LESS?   Here are my lists:

2  MORE

In our America of today, I would say we need more:

• More respect for others' values, customs, and opinions
• More sense of responsibility for society, not only for oneself
• More honesty with oneself about weaknesses or failings
• More media attention to issues, rather than to individuals or to election prospects
• More commitment to tell others the truth
• More support of the poor
• More emphasis on serving current economic and social needs (while respecting a long-term need for avoiding too much public debt for too long)
• More tax revenue from the wealthy
• More emphasis on long-term benefits or happiness instead of on instant reward or gratification
• More economic and political power among mid- and low-income owners
• More investment in infrastructure
• More competition in such areas as: health insurance, banks and financial institutions, media outlets, et al.
• More public support of small business
• More reliance for economic success on production of goods as well as services
• More separation of financial speculation from banking (i.e. borrowing and lending)
• More good public schools
• More law enforcement officers, conservationists, teachers, fire fighters, preservationists...
• More support of independent research
• More support of labor unions who champion quality of work over job security
• More accessibility to good and affordable health care
• More consumer protection
• More commitment to public decency in language, entertainment, and personal appearance
• More protection of public safety

3  Less

In our America today, on the other hand, we need less:

• Less inclination to intervene abroad
• Less attempt to control others' morality and spirituality
• Less inequality of opportunity
• Less greed (or, as Jefferson called it, "heedless self-interest")
• Less overlooking the effects of national initiatives (including wars) on the long-term need for balanced national budgets, while not jeopardizing the nation's duty to serve immediate social and economic needs
• Less dogmatism, whether in politics, religion, public discourse, or personal affairs
• Less tax breaks for the wealthy
• Less government support of big corporations
• Less control of the mass media by big business
• Less dominance of big money in elections
• Less attention to possible defects of the individuals with whom one disagrees than to the fallacies in his or her arguments
• Less emphasis in business on short-term profit ("the fast buck")
• Less corporate control of prescription drugs
• Less emphasis on sex in public discourse and entertainment and in private language and behavior

4

The next question is whether one should think of each of these issues on the more side or the less side in the way I have done it above, i.e More X or Less Y where Y is the opposite of X (or does it matter?).

For instance, I said we as a nation and as a culture need more of a "sense of responsibility for society."  Couldn't we equally well say, instead, we need less "selfishness"?  Isn't it the same thing to act less selfishly as to act more responsibly for others as well as for oneself?

Well, no.  Whether or not to feel and act selfishly is an issue simply of an individual's morality (not to say that is unimportant, just different).  Showing more of a sense of responsibility for others is, instead, both an issue of individual morality and an issue of the nation's and our culture's characteristic attitude and policy toward all people, rather than only toward a certain group (such as the rich and powerful, for example, or those from a Judaeo-Christian background, or some other group).  

And what about the "attempt to control others' morality"?  Isn't that the exact opposite of "respect for others' freedom of choice"?  If it were, then we could say the need today is for more respect for freedom, instead of less attempt to control others' moral choices, and we might just as well seek the one as the other.

Well, again I don't think so.  The reason it is better to say our culture today needs less will to control others' morality rather than more respect for freedom is that it seems that many of those today who are most ready to claim that they highly value freedom are the very people most likely to devalue the freedom of others different from themselves.  If they were fully honest with themselves, these people would say, "We want to be free to do as we think best, and we want you to do what we know you ought to do." This is not only logically inconsistent: it is wrong.

It seems natural to some of us today, in other words, to want to outlaw behavior that we think it would be wrong for us to engage in ourselves, whether it be birth control or same-gender sexual partnership or something else we find morally abhorrent to think of doing ourselves.  It is not right for a person to say, for instance,  he should be free to own any kind of weapon he might want, while at the same time he attempts to deny someone else's freedom to engage in any behavior she or he might want. (Note: in all these examples, the assumption is that no real threat to public safety is involved.)

Saying that we need less temptation to control others' morality makes it easier to see what to do in practice in regard to others' behavior (or rather in this case, what not to do).  When I am tempted to support public prohibition of any particular behavior, it's easier to stop myself from attempting to control someone else's moral behavior, than it would be in general to imagine what I could do in order to show my respect for others' freedom to choose their own actions.

5

Aren't there cases where saying we need "More of X" and saying we need "Less of Y" (opposite of X) would be equally effective?

I have also said we need "More commitment to tell others the truth." It does seem much the same thing to say instead that we need "Less lying." But all of us know that conventionally in our culture, it is considered immoral to lie, and it is considered moral (as well as "best policy") to tell the truth. So it would be hard for any of us to acknowledge that in practice we might obscure the truth, or exaggerate the truth so much as to give an outright false impression, or state as  true something that supports our opinion but that we don't actually know, or - in order to achieve a sufficiently significant objective - flatly and knowingly state an untruth. So, it is more likely to be effective in this case to emphasize the positive goal: telling the truth, reminding us all of this basic home truth in the hope that, so reminded, we are more likely to avoid lying or anything approaching it.

A similar point might be made about my saying above that we need "More economic and political power among mid- and low-income owners." Couldn't we just as well say that what we need in fact is "Less economic and political power among the very wealthy"?  The meaning might indeed be much the same, but it seems more likely to change our public morality today to ask ourselves when considering any policy or proposal, "Will our doing this undermine the strength of mid- and/or low-income earners?" than it would be to determine ourselves to avoid doing anything that might add to the increasing power of the high-income earners.  It would be better in this matter for all of us to agree to avoid a harm than to pursue a benefit, albeit a benefit for only a relatively few.

Also, wouldn't it be just as effective to say we need "More generosity" than to say, as I do above, that we need "Less greed"?  This is like the example cited above of the ease with which one can know that eating a donut will hinder weight loss, while it is harder to know what exactly it might be to "eat healthy."  In this case, it is easier to know what it would be to act greedily, and thus avoid doing so, than it might be to know what it might be to behave generously.


And, in one final example, why wouldn't it be just as good to say that, in public discourse and in belief, we need more of a positive virtue than to say we need "Less dogmatism"?  

Maybe again the root meaning of both the more and the less statements would be the same; but I for one understand what dogmatism is (and I see it at work in the partisan debates in the media and in Congress).  Instead of providing evidence to support one's position on X or Y, all too often an abstract general principle is cited as though that proves the point.  A current dogma among many today, for example, is that it is an urgent need for the USA to cut government spending, when many of the facts we see all around us show that the even more urgent need is to invest in the economy so that people can go back to work and financial institutions can go back to lending to responsible borrowers.

So what dogmatism is, is clear.  But what words would we use to describe its opposite?  "Flexibility"? "Pragmatism"? "Thinking for oneself"?  Those are at least close to what we need more of in our nation today, but no one positive word or phrase identifies what we must always avoid doing: applying to any related new development an abstract principle, fervently believed, without thinking through whether doing so will produce a good result in the particular case.

6

It should be acknowledged that my list above of those qualities of which we Americans need more and less, as indicated, is not complete.  Perhaps anyone could add other ideas to the one or the other category.  Let us acknowledge too that, even though I have thought carefully about whether we should say we need more of this or that rather than less of its opposite, there may be a few issues that could just as effectively be moved from the one list to the other.

For instance, I say here that we need "More protection of public safety." Maybe it would be equally effective to say that what we need is instead "Less acceptance of policies and actions jeopardizing public safety."  One phrasing in this case may indeed be as effective as the other.

And what about saying that what we need is "Less inequality of opportunity" (as I do) instead of saying we need "More equality of opportunity"?  The point here is that our nation is supposed by all to be the land of equal opportunity, for those from one race or from another, from one culture or another, one religion or another, one family background or another, one economic status or another... while in fact today our country sternly limits opportunity for freedom of choice and opportunity for prosperity to the rich and the lucky, excluding the poor and the unlucky. 

And matters are getting worse.

***