Talking Race, Part I

I’ve started this piece about a dozen times in a dozen different ways, but have come to the conclusion that 500 words are not enough to make my point without coming across as some kind of Neanderthal. So instead, I’ll break it into pieces and start with a story I’ve told countless times, just to point out why it’s been so difficult.

It’s a little slice-of-life tale I tell whenever I want to demonstrate how unprepared I was for Houston’s heat, humidity and traffic when I moved there in 1983. If you’ve been there, you know that “ninety-five” refers to both the temperature and the humidity. You also know it’s not unusual to wait three or four cycles through a traffic signal to get through an intersection. So coming home from work one day, while sweating though the third red light in my non-air conditioned, Michigan-plated Toyota, I hear someone shout, “I see you didn’t know what to expect either!” I look over and see this big guy in the same boat as me – tiny, blue, non-air conditioned, Illinois-plated Plymouth Horizon, sweating in his white shirt and tie. We two displaced Northerners just looked at each other and laughed at the joke fate had played on us.

But there’s one detail I’ve left out that I’ve often struggled with - whether I should point out that the other driver was black. I always mention the color of his car and the color of his shirt. Why not the color of his skin? Mentioning his skin color isn’t an editorial, it’s just a fact, just one more detail to help paint the scene. Would I hesitate to say it was a freckle-faced kid, a big farm boy, an attractive blonde? Probably not.

But I hesitate to point out skin color for fear of appearing too aware, too concerned about such a detail in a racially sensitive world. Perhaps I’m afraid of sounding as though I felt his skin color mattered. But the truth is I feel I should be able to mention it precisely because it doesn’t matter.

Which is why I found the column I intended to write so difficult. I want to talk about race relations in America, but how to do so openly and honestly when I’m afraid to mention race under even the most innocuous of circumstances. And how can we, as a nation, have the dialog so many say we need to have when we’re afraid to ruffle feathers in the slightest, or when feathers are ruffled so easily?

Well, we’ve got to start. And people of goodwill on all sides must be willing to share thoughts, hopes, fears and concerns without fear of reprisal. Perhaps if we understand that the dialog is undertaken with good intentions, we can get somewhere. Of course, we know where the road paved with good intentions often leads. So be it. I’m ready to take my first tentative steps.

Let's Lighten Up On Young Athletes

I once calculated that my daughter fell about once a minute when she was learning to walk. Step, step, kerplunk. Using advanced math, I figured she was falling sixty times an hour, or about 720 times during her twelve waking hours each day. Sometimes she’d look at us with a proud gleam in her eye that asked, “How am I doing?” And like every other parent in the known universe, we’d reassure her that she was doing great. Eventually she stopped falling.

But I’ve often wondered if we could have sped up the process by being a little harder on her: “Come on, you know how to walk! We’ve shown you a thousand times! Just get up you crybaby! Billy can walk, why can’t you!?!”

Alright, maybe not such a good idea. Not only would we be poster children for world’s worst parents, but she’d have probably developed some strange aversion to walking and come to despise my wife and me.

Which is why I wonder why it is that the latter approach – the yell and berate approach – is so often the one we choose when it comes to youth sports. I’m not talking about the tough coach with high expectations. I’m talking about the tyrants. The ones who offer not encouragement and instruction but insult and embarrassment. And when coach and parent are one and the same, the result can be downright painful for child and onlookers alike.

In just this past month I’ve witnessed dads yelling at sons, moms yelling at sons, dads yelling at moms, sons yelling at dads (should we be surprised?), parents calling their kids names (including the aforementioned "crybaby") and even watched a dad turn his back on his son for the unforgivable sin of striking out.

What’s sad is that these kids turn to their parents for feedback just like my daughter did when she was learning to walk, but instead of a look that says “tell me how proud you are of me” or “tell me it’s alright,” it’s one that asks “have I let you down again?” That’s a horrible burden for a kid of eight, nine or ten to carry, believing their worth in the eyes of their parents is determined by how well they shoot a free throw or field a groundball. It’s enough to make one cry.

And in fact, it does. Over this same period I’ve seen kids cry, hyperventilate and vomit on the field of play because of the pressure we put them under. And for what? So we can brag about them to our friends? So they can be stars in high school, college or beyond?

The irony is that the best way for a kid to improve – and at this age there’s plenty of time to improve – is to love playing the game. Otherwise, it’s a chore and kids despise chores. Not only will they never realize their full potential, they’re likely to come to despise something else. I’ll let you guess who that might be.

Rev. Wright's Counterproductive Anger

If what Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches really is mainstream thought in black churches and the black community, as Adam Clark (April 8, 2008) and Nicholas Kristoff have suggested, then perhaps it would be wiser to change those thoughts than try to justify them.  Letting them simmer would seems to be counterproductive.

The rage reflected in Reverend Wright’s preaching reminds me of an interview with an elderly veteran in Ken Burns’ WWII documentary The War.  The vet recounts how it took thirty years to realize the hatred he had for what the Japanese had done to him in a prison camp was hurting no one but himself.  The Japanese he so despised certainly weren’t being hurt by it, but it had ruined his career, relationships and life.  Only when he realized that truth was he was able to retake control of his own life.

Is it possible that the same dynamic is taking place in parts of the African-American community?  Whatever injustices blacks have faced past (many) and present (far fewer), is it possible that the fury that boils within some is more damaging than the injustices themselves?  That would appear to be especially true when it comes to the false injustices regarding the origins of AIDS and crack cocaine espoused by the Rev. Wright.

Rather than justify such claims as conventional wisdom, wouldn’t it be better to repudiate them, lest a large swath of the black population find their lives consumed with pointless rage like the WWII vet?

The Upside of Rising Fuel Prices

To paraphrase an old quote about the weather, everyone complains about gasoline prices, but no one does anything about it. Which is exactly how it ought to be. As painful as filling up might be today, it is nothing compared to the pain we’ll feel when the pump runs dry.

Granted, that won’t happen for decades or longer, but rising demand in the developing world will certainly put further pressure on worldwide oil supplies. As any Economics 101 student can tell you, when demand rises faster than supply, higher prices always follow. Since we are dealing with a finite resource, today’s higher prices are like the proverbial canary in a coal mine. Eventually demand will outstrip supply and when there’s no longer enough oil to go around – unless we’ve come up with alternative energy sources – the price countries are willing to pay to fuel their economies will likely be measured not in dollars, but blood.

But therein lies the solution because there is no shortage of energy, only petroleum. Wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric and nuclear, as well as biofuels, can provide all the energy we’ll ever need. The problem is that these are neither user-friendly nor cost-efficient on the scale needed to replace oil. Getting them up to speed will require vast investments in time, technology and infrastructure – investments no one will make if they have to compete against lower cost petroleum.

Which is why we should not tamper with escalating prices at the pump. They are the single best way to spur the investment that will bring new, more environmentally-friendly energy sources to market, while encouraging the conservation that will bridge the gap until they arrive. By paying the price today, we can start developing those alternatives now and avoid a steeper and far more traumatic price tomorrow.

Who's Really in Charge of Climate

Bloggers and talk radio have had a field day with recent reports that Earth’s average temperature has fallen to its lowest level in twenty years, representing perhaps the biggest decline in nearly a century.  But don’t pull out the thermal underwear just yet.

This report should be viewed the way we look at the daily weather this time of year - we know in March that it's going to be warmer next month than it was last month.  But we also understand that tomorrow may be far colder than yesterday, so we know better than to take one day's worth of data and proclaim that summer will not arrive.  Variations occur, and a single data point does not a trend make.  We might still be cooking our own goose.

On the other hand, assumptions that the recent cooling is due to reduced solar activity should serve as a reminder that we have a 27 million degree furnace burning at our sun's core.  It doesn't take much of a change in the sun's thermostat to have potentially profound effects on Earth's climate.  We can pump all the CO2 insulation into the atmosphere we want and it will be of little consequence if the sun decides to turn down the heat.

But perhaps there’s a larger force behind all of this.  It wasn’t that long ago that we ascribed all manner of natural disaster - flood, drought, hurricanes - to the power of God.  Today we ascribe them to the power of man.  I don't know if that says more about changes in how we view God’s power or how we view our own..  Either way, the change in solar activity could just be the man upstairs' way of having a little fun and reminding us all who’s really in charge.

Mythbusters - The Most Important Show on TV

It’s been nearly three years since I graced these pages on a regular basis (some may question whether “grace” is the appropriate word).  But now I’m back and here’s what I’ve decided in the time I’ve been away:  

Mythbusters may be the most important show on television.

Before I explain, let’s look at how things were when my last column appeared in June of 2005.  Back then, the general consensus was that the $2 we were paying for a gallon of gas was outrageous, the surest way to financial security was to invest in Florida real estate and that Katrina was the name of someone who sang of walking on sunshine.

Political pundits were certain the Democrats were toast after falling further into minority status following Congressional losses the previous November and Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in to become their next presidential nominee.

Banks were convinced that interest-only and adjustable rate mortgages were a way to make homes affordable to people of modest means, McMansions affordable to almost everyone else and profits a certainty for themselves.

And who among us would have predicted an Oscar was in Al Gore’s future.

Which brings us back to Mythbusters.  There’s a tendency to make blanket statements – the Democrats are dead, you can’t go wrong investing in real estate – which often turn out to be misguided.  Such statements may be based upon something we’ve read or heard.  They might be part of the conventional wisdom, where an opinion is repeated so often that it crosses the chasm from mere opinion to accepted fact.  Or they might just be things we think to be common sense.  In any case, they tend to be ideas we accept at face value without question and without considering alternate possibilities.

But that doesn’t fly on Mythbusters.  We should be forever grateful that they have reintroduced the scientific method to an over-opinionated society.  Rather than accept conventional wisdom or what appears to be common sense – i.e., a truck filled with birds weighs less if those birds are in flight than if they’re standing on the truck’s floor – they will test it.  And testing those myths – those opinions – requires an open mind and the ability to think outside the box.  Moreover, it requires an emotional detachment from the outcome.  They don’t care what the answer is, just that they get it right.

Contrast that with the way so many issues are discussed today.  Rather than asking what’s the best way to achieve an objective, we ask how we can best prove ours is the only way.  Too often, that requires us to disregard any argument or evidence that might prove us wrong.  It’s the equivalent of sticking our fingers in our ears and chanting, “I can’t hear you.”

We’ll never solve the issues facing us, from healthcare to Social Security, from school funding to soaring energy costs, if we don’t listen to each other and openly consider viewpoints contrary to our own.  My objective with this column will be to encourage an open dialog.  I’ll offer opinions, but I’ll consider them also.  And if I leave you wondering on which side of the political fence I stand, so much the better.  I look forward to the discussion.

Oh, and if you were wondering, the Mythbusters say the truck weighs the same whether the birds are flying or not.  Of course, they could be wrong.

Count All the Votes (Except in Florida & Michigan)

It seems irony is not limited to one side of the political ledger. Last week saw conservative national talk show hosts doing their best Al Sharpton impersonations, using principle as pretense while defending one of their own in a flap with Senator John McCain, when in fact, they were concerned only with proving their own relevance.

This week finds the Democratic party performing principle-challenged gymnastics, as they struggle over what do about the Michigan and Florida non-primaries now that this past Tuesday’s results have left them without a clear nomination frontrunner. This wouldn’t be an issue if the Michigan and Florida votes counted, but alas, the party has determined the voters there have no right to choose their party’s nominee.

Let’s get this straight. Aren’t these the same people who argued so vociferously that every vote must be counted during the 2000 presidential election? The same party that claims to be for the working man and woman? Yet they’ve decided to punish rank-and-file voters in two of the most important swing states simply because each state’s party elders decided to hold their primaries earlier than the national leadership desired.

Hillary Clinton now wants those votes to count. Not surprising, given that she won both states. Never mind that both she and Barack Obama agreed not to campaign in either (Obama wasn’t even on the Michigan ballot). Wanting to claim the delegates now is akin to accepting your playing partner’s wager after you’ve already made the 40 foot putt.

Whatever the party decides, it should be noted that Democrats hold no moral advantage when it comes to enfranchising voters. It’s clear they want all votes to count, so long as they are the votes they want to count. Not unlike in 2000. Maybe it’s not so ironic after all.

Bill Buckley, A Lonely Nation Turns It's Eyes to You

Where have you gone, Bill Buckley? A day after the death of the man who made it possible to use the words “conservative” and “intellectual” in the same sentence without provoking howls of laughter, we find local Cincinnati talk show host Bill Cunningham feigning shock at reaction to his use of Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein, at a John McCain rally. I can imagine Buckley uttering one of his many memorable quotes.

“I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence.”

Cunningham is disingenuous when he says he doesn’t understand the uproar over his remarks. To believe him – to take him seriously – one must accept him as rather dim. To assume he knows better is to expose him for what he really is – a self-promoting huckster more concerned about publicity than principle, conservative or otherwise.

Before Bill Buckley came along, few questioned essayist Lionel Trilling’s 1949 assertion that conservatives do not express ideas so much as they share “irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” Nearly sixty years later, Bill Cunningham has returned conservatism to the realm of those irritable mental gestures.

Which is a shame, because it means Bill Buckley’s legacy – transforming conservatism, and in turn the Republican party, from a reactionary backwater into a movement of ideas and intellectual rigor – outlived him by less than twenty-four hours. Whereas conservatism was once powered by concepts of limited government and self-reliance, thanks to talk radio it now risks becoming the domain of limited thought and self-aggrandizing.

Meanwhile, it’s Barack Obama, the man in Cunningham’s crosshairs, who has noted the power of ideas inherent in Ronald Reagan’s ascendancy. For Bill Buckley, a man with a keen sense of irony, such a turnabout would have been rich fodder for his acerbic wit.

Too bad the wits are getting dim.

My Son the Gun

Time out for a little fun. I coach a 3rd grade youth basketball team and this past Saturday my son provided the highlight of the week.

Why the War Over "The War"?

Fifteen hours of Ken Burns’ WWII documentary on PBS, yet not a single mention of the contributions my ancestors made to the war effort. You can’t tell me that Poles made no contribution. In my family alone, I had uncles serving in the Army, Navy and Marines, a grandmother who helped build military vehicles and a great-uncle who assembled tanks.

That from just one of hundreds of thousands of Polish families who called America home during the war. Still, not a single specific mention of Polish-Americans. Nor was there much mention, come to think of it, of Irish-Americans, Chinese-Americans, German-Americans, Slavs, or any other ethnic group, save for those of Jewish, Japanese or African descent who suffered distinct injustices during the war.

Why no outcry from these groups like we’ve heard from the Hispanic community, who argue they’ve been slighted by Ken Burns? Could it be that Poles served and fought and died like all other ethnic groups in America at the time? In other words, is it possible that Ken Burns saw no real distinction between immigrants called to fight?

Perhaps a better question is why an outcry from Latinos and Hispanics at all? Is it due to some special circumstance they experienced during the war, or is it due to some special circumstance that exists today? Could it be that the sheer number of current Hispanic immigrants has instilled a sort of group-think that has long since faded for most of the other immigrant groups that served at home and abroad during WWII?

No, Ken Burns didn’t slight Hispanics. He honored them by treating them for what they were – Americans. Just like every other American who came from somewhere else and willingly sacrificed to defend the one ideal that should unite, not divide us - liberty