NOW YOU’VE GOT WHAT I’VE GOT!

By Edwin Cooney

Like you, I am often sent articles or blogs or whatever by friends, I’m supposing, because they believe these cyber messages will in some small way enhance my intellect, my spiritual life or my overall knowledge and perspective on matters great and small.  Occasionally, however, I suspect they enjoy simply confusing me.  Hence, this week I thought I’d pass some of my more pleasurable befuddlement on to you!

Here’s a lexicographer’s set of delights which was sent me some years ago by one of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second’s erudite subjects.  These are my five favorites:

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

Police were called to a day care where a 3 yr-old was resisting a rest.

The roundest knight at King Arthur's roundtable was Sir Cumference.

When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A.

A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France, resulting in linoleum blown apart.

This next is from one of my spiritual advisors, a lady born in Pennsylvania who has moved to the “show me” state of Missouri:

THREE PROOFS THAT JESUS WAS JEWISH
He went into his father's business
He lived at home until he was 33
He was sure his Mother was a virgin,
and his Mother was sure he was God

THREE PROOFS THAT JESUS WAS IRISH
He never got married
He was always telling stories
He loved green pastures

THREE PROOFS THAT JESUS WAS PUERTO RICAN
His first name was Jesus
He was bilingual
He was always being harassed by the authorities

THREE PROOFS THAT JESUS WAS ITALIAN
He talked with his hands
He had wine with every meal
He worked in the building trades

THREE PROOFS THAT JESUS WAS BLACK
He called everybody "brother"
He liked Gospel
He couldn't get a fair trial

THREE PROOFS THAT JESUS WAS A CALIFORNIAN
He never cut his hair
He walked around barefoot
He started a new religion

THREE PROOFS THAT JESUS WAS A WOMAN
He had to feed a crowd, at a moment’s notice, when there was no food.
He kept trying to get the message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it.
Even dead, he had to get up because there was more work for him

This one’s my favorite.  It was sent me some years ago via a lady of the solstice:

A SIMPLE EXPLANATION OF BASEBALL

This is a game played by two teams, one out the other in. The one that's in sends players out one at a time, to see if they can get in before they get out. If they get out before they get in, they come in, but it doesn't count. If they get in before they get out it does count.

When the ones out get three outs from the ones in before they get in without being out, the team that's out comes in and the team in goes out to get those going in out before they get in without being out.

When both teams have been in and out nine times the game is over. The team with the most in without being out before coming in wins unless the ones in are equal. In which case, the last ones in go out to get the ones in out before they get in without being out.

The game will end when each team has the same number of ins out but one team has more in without being out before coming in.

This final one is also from my friend the solstice lady.  She likes to ponder!  Here are my favorite five:

How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?

How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?

Why are you IN a movie, but you're ON TV?

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Perhaps wisely, my solstice lady friend closes by wondering if you’re wondering why you gave her your e-mail in the first place.  As for me, I’m simply wondering if my friends seem as wonderful to you as they do to me!

Next week it’ll be all me!  You may come to realize how much you miss my friends!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE EMAIL THAT NEARLY SCARED ME TO DEATH!

By Edwin Cooney

Okay, here’s the email:

            I think this is a marvelous idea. What say you?

Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 (of the 50) states to convene a Constitutional Convention.

This will take less than thirty seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on.

This is an idea that we should address.

For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform that passed ... in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop.

If each person that receives this will forward it on to 15 people, in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one proposal that really should be passed around.

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States ..."

Exactly what the privileges of congressmen and senators have to do with overburdened states is a little beyond me.  Furthermore, this email is loaded with misinformation.  First, congressman and senators don’t retire with full pay after one term in office.  Second, Congress has not exempted itself from “Obamacare.”  Third, State Attorneys General, not governors, sue the federal government.  Fourth, legislatures, not governors, call for a Constitutional Convention. Only a handful of state legislatures are controlled by Republicans and thus chronically opposed to the philosophy of the national administration.  Fifth, the U.S. Constitution provides in Article I, Section 6:

            The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be

  

            ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases,     

            except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their  

            Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the 

            same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any 

            other Place..            

The above was written into the 1787 Constitution to protect the legislature from ever being harassed by an angry executive as was the case at the time of the American Revolution.  Congress couldn’t possibly be investigating the incident that took place in Benghazi last September without that constitutional provision.   Additionally, the last time I checked, sexual harassment is both a felony and a clear violation of the peace.

As for the proposed 28^th Amendment outlawing congressional self-service, it’s hard to be against it on its face until one wonders how effective a constitutional amendment against drinking might be.  Hmmm! I wonder if we’ve ever tried that before!

My first reaction to the above email, sent me by at least two readers, was incredulity over the misinformation within and the idea of a new constitutional convention.  I regard this email as downright unpatriotic.  It’s loaded with lies. (I insist on labeling them lies because the author surely knows better!  I wouldn’t dare to write a column like this without doing at least some basic research on civil or constitutional law!) I insist that it’s unpatriotic because it is inflammatory in both tone and factual design thus disturbing the confidence of the public in their elected officials.  It’s paramount to crying fire in a crowded theater.

Before getting to my final concern, I invite you to consider the following: The proceedings of the 1787 Constitutional Convention were held in the strictest secrecy. Despite the intense heat of the Philadelphia summer, George Washington, President of the Convention, ordered all windows and doors sealed during the meetings against a curious press.  Additionally, all notes were collected at the close of each session.

That convention, which established the most creative and ingenious civil document up to that time, was seriously flawed insofar as human rights were concerned. The Constitution of the United States is as valuable and ingenious as it is because it provides a structure for laws that can be changed to fit the times in which each generation lives. It has stewardship over our national body politic.  Thus, a constitution is most effective at the start of a nation’s journey rather than as a repair mechanism.

Finally, just imagine for a moment what a constitutional convention called at this quarrelsome time in our history could mean to your legitimate individual civil rights!  Would you dare to bet on the survival of your pension, your mortgage, your job, or your social security?  How about the sanctity of your privacy?

For me, the scariest line of this email wasn’t provided by the mean-spirited author but rather by the well-intentioned, neighborly, ill-informed citizen/reader who made the comment: I think this is a marvelous idea. What say you?

I say I think it’s time for me to go fishing!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

ANOTHER CROSSROADS?

By Edwin Cooney

Let’s see now, as Americans ponder what the Obama administration should do about Syria, it marks the fifth time in the last 22 years that the American people have been faced with the prospect of going to war.  That includes:

1990-91 -- the first Gulf War in response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait;

1999 -- when the United States joined NATO to stop Slobodan Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina;

2003 -- the second Gulf War, due to Saddam Hussein’s possession of “weapons of mass destruction”; and

2009 -- when President Obama decided to send 30,000 American troops to clean up al-Qaida and aggressive Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

Of course, Congress has never declared any of these “wars,” but it has funded all of them (although some will insist that Japan and Saudi Arabia largely funded the first Gulf War).  So the question is: what has been the determining factor in our decision to go to war in the past?  How many wars has the United States engaged in since its founding in 1776?  I count 13 foreign wars and 4 domestic ones. The domestic wars were the Seminole Wars of 1817-18, 1835-42 and 1855-58, and our Civil War which the North never declared, but the South most proudly declared against the United States on May 6^th, 1861.

These foreign wars include the following: the first war with the Barbary Pirates of Tripoli in 1801 (a defensive war undeclared but fully funded by Congress that lasted off and on until 1805).

Next came 1812 when a divided Congress declared war against Great Britain largely due to its policy of economic strangulation. Also, it remained the Royal Navy’s policy to impress American merchant seaman into its service on the high seas.

With the War of 1812 over, there came the second Barbary Pirate War beginning in 1815. It ended with a treaty forever banning the payment of “tribute” for the right of commerce on the Mediterranean.

In 1846,we went to war with Mexico not to protect our sovereignty, but over a border dispute that gained us California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Colorado.

In 1898, we went to war against Spain due to Spanish aggression against our navy battleship “The USS Maine,” but we were glad to accept additional booty such as Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.

Traditionally, historians say we went to war in 1917 due to Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. However, a note to Mexico was intercepted by British intelligence promising Mexico the return of California and the territories we gained after the Mexican War if Mexico would attack the United States.

World War II which many believe was a mere continuance of World War I ("the war to end all wars”) is generally regarded as perhaps the most necessary war in history conducted as it was mainly against a clearly crazed Adolf Hitler.

Finally, there were the Korea and Vietnam wars, both undeclared, which were fought to stop the imminent advance of “world communism."  Add the four wars we’ve engaged in since 1990-91 to these nine and you get a total of 13 foreign wars.

Since the “police action” in Korea was taken by the United States (as the most powerful state under the authority of the newly created United Nations), war critics have been lavish in their criticism that Congress hasn’t carried out its responsibilities of declaring war under the constitution.  However, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II all constitute only five of the thirteen foreign wars in which we have taken part.  These conflicts don’t include our 1954 bombing in Nicaragua, our 1983 invasion of Granada or our 1989 incursion into Panama to take its sovereign leader into captivity for international drug trafficking.

In all 13 or 17 of these incidents (take your pick) our patience has been clearly tried and in some instances our economic prosperity or dominance has been threatened.  However, only in World War II has our actual sovereignty been an issue unless one takes seriously the possible 1917 Germany-inspired attack by Mexico!  Hence, it’s hard to conclude otherwise than that we go to war not so much because we must, but when we think we can.  For instance, we’ve easily survived the debacle in Vietnam but proponents of that war insist that we could and should have won it.  Thus, in their eyes our participation in that war wasn’t so much a matter of survival as it was a matter of will.

Now we’re at another crossroads!  Should we send men and women to die in Syria because we can or only if we ought?  What determines the difference between can and ought?  Have America’s friends and allies always been morally superior to the al-Assad family?  If so, is it our obligation to rid the world of the bad -- starting with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?  If so, where does that obligation stop?  Finally, wasn’t it only 22 years ago when, in the wake of the end of Soviet Communism, we declared ourselves victors in the “Cold War” and clear masters of our international fate?  How well, in your estimation, have we done since then in securing that fate?

So, we may well be at another life and death crossroads!  To paraphrase old Harry Truman, any fool can go out and start a war at any time.  Thus, to fight when we can may be both tempting and easy, but I insist that we should only fight if we must!

Okay, Mr. President, I guess it's your call!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

WHAT’S NEWS -- THE GOOD, THE BAD, OR NEWS WE CAN USE?

By Edwin Cooney

The intense urgency Americans felt in the wake of the April 15^th Patriot’s Day bombing evidenced by the myriad of news stories explaining it all, invites free people to speculate once again on how the news reflects and affects the national mood.  Invariably columnists, talk show hosts of all political stripes, big shots, and everyday folk are expressing their feelings on every aspect of the Boston tragedy.

There are many among us who will insist that the creators of the events which are published or broadcast as news are ultimately the ones who benefit the most.  For years, people have even advocated that we’d be better off if good rather than bad news dominated the headlines. However, the late commentator Paul Harvey asserted on numerous occasions that people wouldn’t buy newspapers that publish only good news.  I totally concur with Mr. Harvey in that observation and assert further that we’re most fortunate that bad news is really good news.  News, after all, is the reporting of the extraordinary, the shocking and the abnormal.  Hence, so long as bad news remains newsworthy, we’re still in pretty good shape if you ask me!

Still, since all our nerves are a bit raw in the wake of such recent news stories as North Korea and Boston, I thought it might be fun and enlightening to examine only the good news that occurred on a particular date.  So, why not go for today’s date?  Here they are, my top ten good news stories from April 29ths past:

1707: The Parliaments of England and Scotland create the Act of Union and Great Britain is born;

1784: Mozart’s Sonata in B Flat premieres in Vienna;

1813: Rubber is patented by J. F. Hummel of Philadelphia;

1845: Macon B. Allen and Robert Morris, Jr. open the first black law firm in America;

1852: Peter Roget’s first thesaurus is published;

1894: “Coxey’s Army” arrives in Washington, D.C. from Massillon, Ohio to protest policies of the Grover Cleveland administration it believes are sustaining unemployment and Jacob Coxey is arrested for trespassing on the grass of Capitol Hill;

1913: Gideon Sundback, a Swedish born engineer of Hoboken, New Jersey, patents the

all-purpose zipper;

1927: Construction of the Spirit of St. Louis, the monoplane Charles Lindbergh will fly across the Atlantic just 22 days later, is completed;

1983: Harold Washington is inaugurated as the first black mayor of Chicago;

1991: Wrecking cranes begin destruction of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate.

So, how do you assess what you see above?  Is any of the above less than newsworthy?  There are plenty of mean, violent and despicable occurrences that took place on April 29^th.  Of course, I’ve just sanitized the news; however it might interest and even please you to know that it wasn’t easy.  There were three April 29^th new stories that I found difficult to keep out of my top ten.

On April 29^th, 1553, a Flemish woman introduced the English to the practice of starching fine linen garments.  Now if you snicker at that, ask yourself the following question: Could British nobility have been nearly as self-important in recent years had they not been able to put starch in their collars?

The second story I struggled to keep out of my top 10 took place in Taylor, Texas back on April 29^th, 1905.  On that mid spring day, Taylorites recorded two separate rainfalls in ten minutes.  Now, that’s some Texas weather, wouldn’t you say!

The third news story it was tough to eliminate took place in 1995 in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.  On that historic day, butchers created the world’s longest sausage.  It was 28.77 miles long.  It would seem that world hunger must have been dealt at least a temporary setback that April 29th!

As for the news worthiness of the topics in the stories I selected (the birth of the United Kingdom, the cultural significance of Mozart’s genius, the vital uses of rubber in our daily lives, the precision of language and literacy, the advancement toward opportunity to those once denied it, the daring of the lone adventurer during the early stages of air travel, and the satisfying destruction of that outrageous tyranny once practiced by the Soviets), there isn’t a doubt.  Each is a story of accomplishment absent meanness or violence, in some cases, in the face of considerable challenge.  Even more, the achievements of all of these stories were and remain in the public interest.  That to me constitutes “good news!”

Since columnists and commentators these days are expected to single out a top news story for the public to consider, I’d select Gideon Sundback’s accomplishment.

The New York Times may publish “all the news that’s fit to print,” but it seems to me, that the very best news is news you can use. Hence I vote for the invention of the all-purpose zipper as the top story of all April 29^th's.  Important as these other topics are to all humanity, everyday and in every way, it’s important that my trousers keep me secure.  Thanks, Mr. Sundback. Your achievement is not only newsworthy, it’s personal.

News I can use trumps anybody’s views if you ask me!

Any takers, my fellow potential newsmakers?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

BOSTON’S LATEST HAPPENING -- WHAT DOES IT MEAN? -- WHAT DOESN’T IT MEAN?

By Edwin Cooney

The outrageous bombing near the finish line of the Boston marathon last Monday can mean many things. It can signify:

just another factor in 21^st Century urban American life; or,

a new and more dangerous phase in “the war on terror”, or

the beginning of Armageddon which we Christians have read about in the Book of Revelation, and the jihad Muslim fundamentalists often eagerly anticipate,

or, if one’s head is really in the sand, it can mean absolutely nothing at all.

The fact that last Monday’s bombings occurred as Massachusetts celebrated Patriot’s Day (the day citizens of New England traditionally celebrate their April 1775 victory over the British) naturally causes students of history to wonder about the significance of last Monday’s tragic event.

Ever since November 11^th, 1620 when, while still on shipboard,  William Bradford drew up the Mayflower Compact that many believe established the first truly representative form of government in America, Boston seems to have been at the forefront of some of the most meaningful events in our history.  Although Jamestown, the oldest colony in English America, was more than a decade old when 102 Anglican Separatist Pilgrims landed on Cape Cod, things after that began to happen fast in Eastern Massachusetts:

In the Fall of 1621, Governor John Carver’s tiny colony of Separatist Pilgrims celebrate “Thanksgiving” with Squanto, their Wampanoag Indian benefactor, and his tribe. They thank Providence for their first successful harvest in the new world.

On Tuesday, September 7^th, 1630, the Massachusetts legislature under the leadership of John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, incorporates Boston thus establishing the first urban society in English America.

In the Fall of 1635, Boston opens Massachusetts colony’s first public school thus emphasizing the importance that Boston Puritans and Congregationalists alike place on education.

In 1636, Harvard College is founded. It is eventually named after John Harvard, a Charlestown minister who left his entire library and half of his monetary estate to its successful development.

Thus, in less than a decade and a half, greater Boston came to represent democratic government, cross cultural cooperation, urban development and higher education.  All of these events took place nearly 150 years before New England’s Minutemen drove the British out of Lexington to light the pathway to America’s national greatness.

For me, one of the most meaningful events to take place in our history occurred in the wake of the Boston Massacre on March 5^th, 1770.  On that cold and blustery Boston night, angry Bostonians set out to protest the loss of their waterfront jobs to British soldiers. Underpaid by the British government, the soldiers were hired to replace already angry and rebellious underemployed Bostonians.  Soon snowballs were joined by musket balls and five “patriots” including a nine-year-old child lay dead.  Nine British soldiers were charged with murder.  That’s when thirty-four-year-old John Adams came to the defense of the British soldiers.  Adams was a candidate for election to the legislature that year, but the idea of equity and justice, especially for those less favored in society, was just as important to him as his political career.

Now, as things have turned out since last Monday, John Adams’ sense of justice or equity could become a factor in the ultimate fate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his family.  Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s resentment and hatred for those he perceived as hostile to someone he loved sealed his fate.  As a son of the Balkans, his cultural heritage may well have dictated that he take on the responsibility for settling any injustice he perceived might have been done to anyone he loved. As for Bostonians or anyone else, no wrong done to the Tsarnaevs justified the taking of innocent lives and the resulting stress to both the community and the nation.  Although our justice system can be both frustrating and disillusioning, most Americans will insist that the Tsarnaev’s grievances should have been settled in the courts rather than in the streets of Boston or any other city.  For those of us accustomed to the idea that liberty and justice are all part of the same package and the responsibility of us all, reliance for protection and justice on our civic and political leadership is almost second nature.

However, what many Americans have feared all week -- specifically that last Monday’s bombing constituted a new phase in the “war on terror”-- appears to be unjustified. Yet, terror, which one might define as an intensified form of fear, is an enemy much older than that noble community in eastern Massachusetts we call Boston.

Thus, after all this week’s trauma, it seems that death, war, taxes and, above all, fear, still remain front and center as the biggest challenge for Boston and all humanity.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

GOOD GOD! I THOUGHT WE’D SCARED ‘EM OFF!!!

By Edwin Cooney

I was pretty young back in the summer of 1953 when President Eisenhower’s United Nations Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge brought news of the Korean War armistice to U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold.  Ever since Sunday, June 25^th, 1950 when President Harry Truman learned of North Korea’s invasion of South Korea while spending his thirty-first wedding anniversary at home with his bride Bess, Americans had been at war under the flag of the newly created United Nations.

For the first time in American history, except for the Civil War, the United States was fighting an undeclared war.  Approximately 36,000 Americans had been killed and considerably more than 100,000 were recovering in Veteran’s Administration hospitals from Maine to California.  Many Americans firmly believed back then that the war had started due to the incompetence of three men, Harry Truman, the failed haberdasher and machine politician, Dean Acheson, the haughty Secretary of State, and George C. Marshall, the Secretary of Defense whom many Republicans considered to be both naive and treacherous.

It was Sunday night, July 26^th , 1953, at home while in Panmunjom, Korea it was already Monday, July 27^th: the armistice was engineered by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, two men who had been in office less than six months, but who were regarded by most as far more experienced, realistic and worldly-wise (almost more patriotic) than Harry Truman.

Of course, no one, except men such as Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, claimed that the Korean War was really over.  Everyone, especially those who have been sent to serve along the demilitarized zone near the 38^th  parallel during the nearly 60 years since that midsummer night, has fully come to realize that no armistice constitutes a peace.

Still, for millions of Americans, this undeclared Korean “police action” had accomplished one vitally important thing.  It had blocked the advancement of world communism.  For decades to come we’d hear stories that Ike had privately made it clear to the North Koreans and the Chinese Communists that they’d either bring the war to a successful conclusion or America’s most powerful weapon might, just might, become a factor.  Thus, we had "brinkmanship," and "peace through strength" in a nice tidy bundle.  Not until May1954, when the French lost to the North Vietnamese Communists under Ho Chi Minh, would world communism again appear to be advancing.

Yet suddenly after 60 years, the North Koreans are now warning the United States and the whole world that they, a reconstituted Democratic Republic and nuclearized power, may be ready to re-issue what they regard as their legitimate claim to rule the whole of the Korean peninsula. 

It’s hard to read about North Korea and even begin to take it seriously.  It’s a nation of only approximately twenty-four million people.  Almost half its people live near the poverty line.  The Kim family, which has ruled the country since August 1945, has a political and almost cultural stranglehold on domestic authority.  It appears to have little to offer the world in either ideas or resources.  Even its stated objective of vanquishing the South Korean government appears to be totally unrealistic.  If it were to use its tiny but lethal nuclear power it could only bring about its own destruction.  So the question is: what’s up?  What’s in it for the North Koreans?

I tossed that very question to a couple of friends of mine in the past few days and one of them may have at least part of the answer.  My friend, let’s simply call him "Unk," suggests that someone, perhaps the Iranians, are paying the North Koreans to distract “satanic America” in the midst of its successful attempts to disrupt the nuclear and economic advancement of Iran. Another friend, we’ll call him "Intrepid" (he loves to prowl the desert land of Death Valley, California) reminded me that the Clinton administration had successfully negotiated with North Korea in 1994 at least temporarily easing that nation’s suspicious outlook toward the United States.  Since then, however, American officials have cast North Korea as part of “an axis of evil.”   So, there you have it. North Korea suddenly finds more international leverage in evil than it does in international cooperation.  Hence another question: is there anything new about that?

A number of years ago, the late CBS commentator Eric Severeid suggested that there is a certain degree of power in “shamelessness.”  Nuclear “stick ‘em up" certainly gets everyone’s attention, but it should never be confused with genuine human power.  Genuine power builds, advances and nurtures.  North Korean audacity may buy the Kim family more worldwide notice than it had since it signed the armistice at Panmunjom, but in the end North Korea can only look silly.

As for those of us in the land of the free and the home of the brave, as long as we believe we can stop another nation’s ambitions by merely labeling or scaring them, we’re bound to be surprised by how resilient they turn out to be!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THEY’RE KNOCKING AND IT’S TIME TO LET 'EM IN!

By Edwin Cooney

Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds first knock at the Baseball Hall of Fame door last January might have been heard, but it was hardly heeded by the Baseball Writers' Association of America which possesses the keys to that hallowed institution.

The reason for the BBWAA’s deafness apparently has to do with the insistence by a significant portion of its membership that by using steroids and/or human growth hormone, the above former superstars cheated their way to baseball immortality.

Two years ago, I began my comments on the 2011 baseball season by asserting the wisdom of French educator and philosopher Jacques Barzun’s observation that anyone who wants to understand the heart and mind of America must learn baseball.  There is much wisdom to this observation, for it encompasses much more of the American character than perhaps even Professor Barzun ever imagined.

Of course, much of America is preoccupied with baseball for the majority of every year.  Americans are rightly proud of baseball’s symmetry, its efforts to free itself from gambling, its meaningful and ongoing struggle with racism, and its perception of itself as morally upright if not absolutely pure.

However, both baseball and American society demonstrate time and time again their capacity to ignore their sins.  Consider the following:

First, in 1920, baseball outlawed use of the spitball by future pitchers. In 1921, its new commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned the eight Chicago White Sox responsible for throwing the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, but it made no move (in fact it resisted until 1945) any move to do away with the unwritten color barrier against black players.

Second, baseball owners, like their brethren throughout American enterprise, have benefitted from the wave of public support any time they have been challenged by any single player.  For instance, back in 1938 when Joe DiMaggio held out against the Yankees for a healthy salary increase, most baseball writers worked for newspapers whose corporate owners sided with the wealthy and mighty Yankees. The Yankees, along with the other major league teams of that era, covered the expenses of newspaper writers on the road.  Thus, although individually sympathetic to Joe DiMaggio, a first generation working class man of Italian heritage, baseball scribes wrote articles supporting the mighty Yankees’ punitive actions against “joltin’ Joe.”  What this demonstrates is that Americans may be influenced by baseball, but they have a lot more on their national plate than whatever appears to be stacking up on baseball’s home plate.

Third, people appear to be more resentful when "nonenterprising types" make a lot of money than when "corporate types" make a lot of money.  This gets especially sticky when those non-corporate big buck earners are of minority and/or Latin American heritage.

Yes, I’m guilty of having just read Jose Canseco’s 2005 book “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids and Smash Hits.”  Canseco clearly understands why he will never be voted into the Hall of Fame despite the fact that he hit nearly 500 home runs in his career.  He believes, and I find it hard to argue with him, that the reason he won’t be voted into the Hall of Fame is the same reason he didn’t hit 500 home runs. As he points out, corporate baseball decided to punish and thus exclude the unashamed father of steroid and growth hormone distribution, even though it benefited handsomely from more home runs, the product of that distribution. Those steroid and human growth home runs, Canseco points out, aided baseball in its highly successful effort to regain popularity and profit in the wake of the 1994 baseball strike. Yet, corporate baseball decided to punish Canseco when knowledge of the use of the substances that created those home runs became controversial.

Consider these two truths!  First, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, and, yes, Jose Canseco were absolutely electric when they came up to the plate.  Roger Clemens was electric on the mound.  That means that almost everyone who saw them perform, even if rooting for the opposing team, was usually mesmerized when each one of these men performed the skill he built his body, mind and nerve to apply.  Second, everyone around baseball including players, owners, and writers (who, after all are in the business of selling books, newspapers and providing for entertaining analysis during highly commercialized media broadcasts) prospered during McGwire’s, Sosa’s, Clemens’, and certainly Barry Bonds’ era of “...wild times, rampant ‘roids and smash hits.”  At the time these men were ingesting steroids and human growth hormone, they were in no violation of the laws or mores of baseball.  In addition, neither the baseball owners nor the officials objected to the distribution of these substances until forces outside of baseball raised questions about use.  Thus, if harm was done to baseball by the distribution and use of steroids and human growth hormone, all of baseball, not just this handful of Hall Of Fame candidates, should be culpable.  Thus, I can find no harm to either baseball or to the reputation of the Baseball Hall of Fame if these men were admitted to the Hall.

America, like baseball, its favorite sport, is riddled with contradictions.  Baseball is pure yet "stealing" is a part of both its tradition and its structure.  America is a democracy but we elect our presidents through the Electoral College, an archaic eighteenth century system of selection that flies in the face of the concept of “popular government” -- yet no part of the body politic is likely to overturn any time soon.  Finally, although Americans almost always insist on consistency in matters both great and small, the fact is that perhaps the most consistent aspect of our character is our inconsistency.  We are the people and the people must always prevail.

Listen, McGwire, Clemens, Sosa, and big bad Barry Bonds are knocking still louder at the door of baseball’s Hall Of Fame.  Perhaps we’d better let ‘em in.  As for Jose, don’t bother. I think he’s already sneaked in through the knothole!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY