By Edwin Cooney
Let me guess -- You believe that we’re living today under the most corrupt and immoral leadership in our history. Is that a good guess or a poor one?
Most of the time when teachers, preachers and, of course, politicians, refer to our “Founding Fathers” (a phrase created by the much berated Warren G. Harding, our twenty-ninth president), they are represented as not only collectively brilliant and wise, but gifted with super morality. After all, the argument goes, “they founded a Christian nation -- did they not?” Be that as it may, they also visited raw and unchained liberty upon themselves and their “posterity.”
Liberty, of course, is the “Holy Grail” of America’s expectation and faith. However, with liberty comes responsibility and accountability. Even with the much-vaunted system of constitutional checks and balances to defuse power within the national government, there were few rules beyond the common law and the Ten Commandments to check the behavior of its new leadership.
President Washington needed little governing, of course, because he was above politics, but others did.
The two most prominent political antagonists of the 1790s and early 1800s were Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. These men, against the devout wishes of “the Father of our country,” deliberately, with malice of forethought, established two political parties.
In 1791, while serving as Secretary of State, Jefferson hired Phillip Freneau as a clerk in the State Department. His real duty, at taxpayer’s expense, was to publish and distribute the National Gazette—the newspaper of the Democratic - Republican Party. Today, that would be both illegal and a conflict of interests.
Although Alexander Hamilton didn’t use the Treasury Department to fund the Federalist Party’s Gazette of the United States, he surrendered to a much more traditional lure.
In 1790s Philadelphia, there resided an attractive lady named Maria (Lewis) Reynolds who was married “unhappily” to a former commissary officer in the Revolutionary War Army named James Reynolds. With her husband’s compliance, Maria charmed Alexander Hamilton into a three year affair. During that affair, James Reynolds blackmailed Secretary Hamilton even as Hamilton continued sleeping with Maria. Finally, in 1793, after he was indicted for illegal speculation with money appropriated to pay benefits to Revolutionary War veterans, Reynolds implicated Alexander Hamilton in the crime.
A discreet congressional investigation conducted by House Speaker Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania and Senator James Monroe of Virginia (later our fifth President) absolved Hamilton of wrongdoing, but the investigatory process forced him to reveal the numerous love letters sent to him by Maria Reynolds.
There were two unsettling outcomes of this scandal. Though the investigation was private, James Monroe revealed its evidence to his good friend Thomas Jefferson —Hamilton’s bitter political as well as personal enemy. In 1797, Vice President Jefferson, for political advantage, made public the details of the investigation revealed to him by James Monroe.
On Wednesday, July 11th, 1804, another political feud, that between Alexander Hamilton and Vice President Aaron Burr, came to a head. Burr, who was hated by both President Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, continuously (however discreetly) goaded Hamilton over his marital infidelity. In turn, Hamilton implied extramarital malfeasance on the part of Vice President Burr. Burr, while still Vice President, had sought the New York governorship in 1803 and Hamilton, who hated Burr more than he did President Jefferson, successfully blocked Burr’s ambition. Thus, Burr challenged Hamilton to the duel that killed the brilliant former Treasury Secretary and destroyed Aaron Burr’s political career.
All of the above -- plus the entire Georgia State Legislature’s 1796 land speculation fraud -- occurred in the first fifteen years of our republic. It might be said that America survived largely because there was no “24/7” news coverage, but this observer suspects that our survival in the face of political corruption and ambition is due to something as precious as liberty.
Just as Americans are at liberty to realize financial and political ambitions, they’re also free to discipline themselves. The laws of physics and human nature clearly demonstrate that no human activity or virtue standing alone and acting in its purest form can bring about or sustain our prosperity, peace or fulfillment. Thus, opposites, for the good of all, must find common ground.
Good business management requires a happy labor force. A prosperous health care system requires customers or patients who can afford it. Good politics requires compromise far more than it does self-righteous outrage.
Yes, indeed, just as opposites often attract in business and marital bliss, so we have at our command America’s two most powerful forces — liberty and discipline.
Oh! By the way, James and Maria Reynolds eventually did divorce. Guess who Maria Reynolds’ attorney was during her divorce court proceedings! You’re exactly right—Aaron Burr!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, May 31, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
MEET AMERICA—YA GOTTA LOVE IT!
By Edwin Cooney
I know it’s a little intimidating to admit love. To admit love for America is pretty hard these days for people at all points along the political spectrum. Conservatives, who are most vocal about their love for America, love it best when its military might and its economic engine are both well fueled. Liberals or progressives love America best when its leadership focuses on improving the lot of workers and minorities.
We’ve become used to the idea that America is “a government of laws and not of men.” That statement as well as a far more famous one, “all men are created equal,” aren’t so much statements of fact as they are statements of the ideal.
One of the most constant threads running through our history is that government “of and by the people,” is exactly what it’s all about.
The question therefore is what “people” -- rich or poor, successful or not successful -- is government by and about?
It seems to me that the answer to that question is suggested by your reading and experience. If you read the types of history books I read growing up, you learned that America’s government was about noble founding fathers, hardy pioneers, the freeing of the slaves, citizen soldiers who were brave and patriotic, and — just when we needed them the most —- wise statesmen named Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan and…and…and—you fill in the names I left out.
Although I am familiar with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, I didn’t fully realize until lately that the Declaration of Independence is the more idealistic and hence speaks more to morality than the Constitution. Throughout his entire career, Abraham Lincoln emphasized the equality of all the people far more than he did the sacredness of the legalistically constructed Constitution.
The Declaration of Independence addresses the stress of a people oppressed and outraged by the tyrannical Great Britain of George the III’s day as it lists our grievances and enunciates our determination to be a free and independent people.
On the other hand, the 1787 version of the Constitution is a document that primarily provides the structure for free government. Except for the Preamble (which acknowledges the welfare of the people and the importance of the blessings of liberty to the lives of its founders and their posterity), the Constitution has little to say about humanitarianism or morality. In fact, it allowed the slave trade to continue through 1808 and referred to Indians and those in servitude as “three fifths” of a human being for purposes of representation in the popularly elected House of Representatives.
It’s hard not to conclude that the people who run America aren’t primarily people with money and position. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, back in the 1790s, used to argue whether bankers and merchants or planters and farmers ought to run America. This debate eventually became the real root of the Civil War. The agricultural South depended on low tariffs and slave labor for its economic wellbeing. The North’s economy was largely dependent on high protective tariffs and paid (as cheap as possible, if you please!) labor. War occurred when the South lost all belief that the North was sympathetic to its economic security.
In FDR’s day, government became more directly involved in the day-to-day lives of Americans as a large proportion of its people became convinced that those in charge of commerce and industry (whom FDR called “economic royalists”) were determined to make money at their expense.
Most of us, most of the time are comfortable in this land of plenty and promise. The things that we fear most, economic dislocation and the terror of war, are the psychological weapons politicians and talk show hosts tease us with these days to make themselves important.
Just like our siblings, our spouses, our friends and even our children, America often worries and even disgusts us.
As President Richard Nixon told CBS news reporter Robert Pierpoint when he was asked if he was angry with the press during an October 1973 press conference, “one can only be angry with someone that he respects.”
Politics in America! Ya gotta love it—-sometimes, that is!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
I know it’s a little intimidating to admit love. To admit love for America is pretty hard these days for people at all points along the political spectrum. Conservatives, who are most vocal about their love for America, love it best when its military might and its economic engine are both well fueled. Liberals or progressives love America best when its leadership focuses on improving the lot of workers and minorities.
We’ve become used to the idea that America is “a government of laws and not of men.” That statement as well as a far more famous one, “all men are created equal,” aren’t so much statements of fact as they are statements of the ideal.
One of the most constant threads running through our history is that government “of and by the people,” is exactly what it’s all about.
The question therefore is what “people” -- rich or poor, successful or not successful -- is government by and about?
It seems to me that the answer to that question is suggested by your reading and experience. If you read the types of history books I read growing up, you learned that America’s government was about noble founding fathers, hardy pioneers, the freeing of the slaves, citizen soldiers who were brave and patriotic, and — just when we needed them the most —- wise statesmen named Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan and…and…and—you fill in the names I left out.
Although I am familiar with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, I didn’t fully realize until lately that the Declaration of Independence is the more idealistic and hence speaks more to morality than the Constitution. Throughout his entire career, Abraham Lincoln emphasized the equality of all the people far more than he did the sacredness of the legalistically constructed Constitution.
The Declaration of Independence addresses the stress of a people oppressed and outraged by the tyrannical Great Britain of George the III’s day as it lists our grievances and enunciates our determination to be a free and independent people.
On the other hand, the 1787 version of the Constitution is a document that primarily provides the structure for free government. Except for the Preamble (which acknowledges the welfare of the people and the importance of the blessings of liberty to the lives of its founders and their posterity), the Constitution has little to say about humanitarianism or morality. In fact, it allowed the slave trade to continue through 1808 and referred to Indians and those in servitude as “three fifths” of a human being for purposes of representation in the popularly elected House of Representatives.
It’s hard not to conclude that the people who run America aren’t primarily people with money and position. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, back in the 1790s, used to argue whether bankers and merchants or planters and farmers ought to run America. This debate eventually became the real root of the Civil War. The agricultural South depended on low tariffs and slave labor for its economic wellbeing. The North’s economy was largely dependent on high protective tariffs and paid (as cheap as possible, if you please!) labor. War occurred when the South lost all belief that the North was sympathetic to its economic security.
In FDR’s day, government became more directly involved in the day-to-day lives of Americans as a large proportion of its people became convinced that those in charge of commerce and industry (whom FDR called “economic royalists”) were determined to make money at their expense.
Most of us, most of the time are comfortable in this land of plenty and promise. The things that we fear most, economic dislocation and the terror of war, are the psychological weapons politicians and talk show hosts tease us with these days to make themselves important.
Just like our siblings, our spouses, our friends and even our children, America often worries and even disgusts us.
As President Richard Nixon told CBS news reporter Robert Pierpoint when he was asked if he was angry with the press during an October 1973 press conference, “one can only be angry with someone that he respects.”
Politics in America! Ya gotta love it—-sometimes, that is!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, May 17, 2010
THE TRUISM THAT GRABBED ME
By Edwin Cooney
A few days ago, under the heading “Of Low Importance,” a friend sent me a set of some thirty-plus “truisms.” She was right: most of them were true enough, but only of the slightest significance. Two of the better ones were:
“I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.”
“I would rather try to carry ten plastic grocery bags in each hand than take two trips to bring my groceries in.”
There was one, however, that grabbed me, because thinking about it brought me pretty close to the root of human nature. Here it is in all its glory:
“Poor decisions make good stories.”
It’s hard to argue with that one! Recently, I was listening to a commercial advertising a new book by a noted American author. It’s a horror novel about a gentleman (I use the term advisedly, of course!) who is in trouble -- big time. We hear him on the commercial saying something like:
“My girlfriend was just murdered and now they’re saying that I murdered my wife.”
Wow! Did he really do that? Maybe I’d better buy that book!
What do we like to read about? Well, there’s murder; there’s divorce, there’s kidnappings (that was really popular in the 1930s after the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped), there are “good” wars like World War II, there’s Watergate and, of course, there are catastrophes like a nuclear holocaust. White House mistresses are still a popular topic — you get the point.
The question is, of course, why do poor choices make good stories? If I had a panel of sociologists, psychologists, or clergy persons to ask, I’d do that, but I’ll leave this discussion between you and me.
I don’t know about you, but from the time I was young and began listening to good stories, I enthusiastically identified with the hero. It didn’t have to be Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn of adventure book fame. It could be the Shadow or the Lone Ranger on the radio. It might be the Adventures of Peter Rabbit. The story of the Tortoise and the Hare was also quite exciting. Invariably, I got used to picking sides as you may well have. The “pickles” most of these characters were thrust into were due to the circumstances of their existence.
Tom and Huck couldn’t help it: they lived on the Mississippi River and no self-respecting American kid (except perhaps young Abe Lincoln and one or two others) had any use for books. The Shadow had a rare gift he had to show off: the ability to cloud evil men’s minds so that they could not see him. As for Peter Rabbit and the tortoise, as denizens of the forest, it was only natural that some other creature or some terrible man like Farmer McGregor would make life difficult for them.
As we get older, however, spies, criminals, crafty politicians (some say there’s no difference between the last two types), and desperate spouses hold our attention. They compel us to watch all those TV programs brought to us by life insurance companies and tax accountants who assure us that they can rescue us if we make poor choices such as cheating the government or driving too recklessly. (Of course, not long ago, these same programs were brought to us by cigarette and beer manufacturers — so perhaps American society is making some progress!)
Still, there are good decisions that also make good stories. We’re all encouraged by the stories of people who overcome their poor choices, who conquer disability or who discover the power of religion. There’s the story of the astronauts of Apollo Thirteen who came home by way of the moon following an explosion inside their spacecraft shortly after launch. Then, there’s the recent heroism of Sully Sullenberger, the pilot who saved his passengers from disaster by setting his aircraft down in the Hudson River that cold day in January 2009.
Nevertheless, the truth is that you and I are most interesting to most people (minus our friends and those who love us best) when we’ve been at least a tiny bit bad.
As the French would say, “n’est-ce pas?”
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
A few days ago, under the heading “Of Low Importance,” a friend sent me a set of some thirty-plus “truisms.” She was right: most of them were true enough, but only of the slightest significance. Two of the better ones were:
“I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.”
“I would rather try to carry ten plastic grocery bags in each hand than take two trips to bring my groceries in.”
There was one, however, that grabbed me, because thinking about it brought me pretty close to the root of human nature. Here it is in all its glory:
“Poor decisions make good stories.”
It’s hard to argue with that one! Recently, I was listening to a commercial advertising a new book by a noted American author. It’s a horror novel about a gentleman (I use the term advisedly, of course!) who is in trouble -- big time. We hear him on the commercial saying something like:
“My girlfriend was just murdered and now they’re saying that I murdered my wife.”
Wow! Did he really do that? Maybe I’d better buy that book!
What do we like to read about? Well, there’s murder; there’s divorce, there’s kidnappings (that was really popular in the 1930s after the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped), there are “good” wars like World War II, there’s Watergate and, of course, there are catastrophes like a nuclear holocaust. White House mistresses are still a popular topic — you get the point.
The question is, of course, why do poor choices make good stories? If I had a panel of sociologists, psychologists, or clergy persons to ask, I’d do that, but I’ll leave this discussion between you and me.
I don’t know about you, but from the time I was young and began listening to good stories, I enthusiastically identified with the hero. It didn’t have to be Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn of adventure book fame. It could be the Shadow or the Lone Ranger on the radio. It might be the Adventures of Peter Rabbit. The story of the Tortoise and the Hare was also quite exciting. Invariably, I got used to picking sides as you may well have. The “pickles” most of these characters were thrust into were due to the circumstances of their existence.
Tom and Huck couldn’t help it: they lived on the Mississippi River and no self-respecting American kid (except perhaps young Abe Lincoln and one or two others) had any use for books. The Shadow had a rare gift he had to show off: the ability to cloud evil men’s minds so that they could not see him. As for Peter Rabbit and the tortoise, as denizens of the forest, it was only natural that some other creature or some terrible man like Farmer McGregor would make life difficult for them.
As we get older, however, spies, criminals, crafty politicians (some say there’s no difference between the last two types), and desperate spouses hold our attention. They compel us to watch all those TV programs brought to us by life insurance companies and tax accountants who assure us that they can rescue us if we make poor choices such as cheating the government or driving too recklessly. (Of course, not long ago, these same programs were brought to us by cigarette and beer manufacturers — so perhaps American society is making some progress!)
Still, there are good decisions that also make good stories. We’re all encouraged by the stories of people who overcome their poor choices, who conquer disability or who discover the power of religion. There’s the story of the astronauts of Apollo Thirteen who came home by way of the moon following an explosion inside their spacecraft shortly after launch. Then, there’s the recent heroism of Sully Sullenberger, the pilot who saved his passengers from disaster by setting his aircraft down in the Hudson River that cold day in January 2009.
Nevertheless, the truth is that you and I are most interesting to most people (minus our friends and those who love us best) when we’ve been at least a tiny bit bad.
As the French would say, “n’est-ce pas?”
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, May 10, 2010
WAR? TERROR?—IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?
By Edwin Cooney
I suppose one of the things that makes me a bit strange is that I enjoy confessing. There’s something cleansing about it. So, here we go!
For nearly five years after the events of September 11th, 2001, I believed in the War on Terror.
Why, you ask? Well…well…well…after all, Lyndon B. Johnson (“Daddybird)” had waged a War on Poverty, hadn’t he? (A war, incidentally, that Republicans gleefully point out LBJ couldn’t win).
Politicians, movie actors, and other celebrities have appeared in countless commercials over the years to wage war on Communism via Radio Free Europe and diseases such as cancer and diabetes (which were merely extensions of FDR’s “March of Dimes” to conquer polio). Additionally, Harry Chapin and other musicians waged individual and even laudable battles or wars on hunger. Hence, if poverty, disease and communism were worthy objects of war, why not terrorism?
Slowly, it dawned on me. War is terror. The fact was that I’ve spent much of my life terrified about one thing or another and much that I was terrified about was the prospect of war.
During the early fifties, it was a bit frightening to be called to an air raid drill designed to protect me from “communist bombs.” In the fall of 1957, my World Series dreams were interrupted on Friday, October 4th — between the second and third game of the series —by the announcement that Russia had launched Sputnik. (Note: the Milwaukee Braves subsequently obliterated my World Series dreams by beating the Yankees in seven games.) Shortly after Russia demonstrated its rocket prowess, some senators began to speculate that Russia’s real reason for a space program was to construct a successful “FOB” (Fractional Orbital Bomb) which would enable the hot-tempered vodka-swilling Nikita Khrushchev to destroy “America the Beautiful” from space. We were defenseless against such a possibility it was asserted.
Between 1959 and 1961, an ongoing Berlin crisis dominated the news. Although tensions were lessened when Khrushchev visited the United States at Ike’s invitation in the fall of 1959, Khrushchev’s temper snapped the next spring after Francis Gary Powers was shot down just before a May 15, 1960 scheduled “summit meeting” of the leaders of communist and free Europe.
Finally, there was the blood-freezing terror of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Over and over again, there was talk that World War III could begin if the U.S. Navy were forced to destroy a Soviet vessel laden with military supplies that refused to stop for inspection at a checkpoint in the American blockade of Cuba.
All of the above events came to mind as I learned a week ago of Faisal Shahzad’s attempted act of terrorism in Times Square. Talk show hosts and callers understandably worry about our security. United States Senators Lieberman and McCain seem to think we’ll be safer if a terrorist suspect is automatically stripped of his or her citizenship and thus tried by a military tribunal rather than being tried in federal court. Obviously, some believe in due process until it is tested.
Inevitably, the democratic processes of our splendid though far from perfect system will reveal the reasons why Faisal Shahzad was almost able to flee to Dubai. With time, the incredulity that Shahzad was read his Miranda Rights as he was taken into custody will fade away. Perhaps someday Americans will find a way to really and truly depoliticize immigration reform. The fact that we’ve been terrified since 9/11 is obvious in that newly passed draconian Arizona immigration law.
Of course, we must protect ourselves against actions designed to spread terror within our society. My guess is that’s exactly what we’ll do. However, it’s also important to understand that the real cause of our dilemma is ignorance on all sides of what it takes to live peacefully with one another in this world. Our enemies are far less equipped than we are to manage a prosperous society. Thus, I insist that if we calmly think things through and avoid panic or -- if you prefer – terror, we will prevail.
Yes, indeed, terror psychologically plays a huge role in war, but terror, one of many human frailties, extends way beyond war. World War I, “the war to end all wars,” should have taught us that war doesn’t end war. War and terror are forever linked. Terror may even be the father of war as fear is the father of anger. Our leadership is honor bound to protect us. Hence, it is vital that they state the case that exists rather than the case that causes its own brand of soul-destroying terror.
Many years ago, I read and contemplated for the very first time a quotation the great author Herman Wouk placed at the beginning of his novel “The Winds of War”. It states as follows:
“Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is a state of mind.”
That’s the way I see it! What say you?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
I suppose one of the things that makes me a bit strange is that I enjoy confessing. There’s something cleansing about it. So, here we go!
For nearly five years after the events of September 11th, 2001, I believed in the War on Terror.
Why, you ask? Well…well…well…after all, Lyndon B. Johnson (“Daddybird)” had waged a War on Poverty, hadn’t he? (A war, incidentally, that Republicans gleefully point out LBJ couldn’t win).
Politicians, movie actors, and other celebrities have appeared in countless commercials over the years to wage war on Communism via Radio Free Europe and diseases such as cancer and diabetes (which were merely extensions of FDR’s “March of Dimes” to conquer polio). Additionally, Harry Chapin and other musicians waged individual and even laudable battles or wars on hunger. Hence, if poverty, disease and communism were worthy objects of war, why not terrorism?
Slowly, it dawned on me. War is terror. The fact was that I’ve spent much of my life terrified about one thing or another and much that I was terrified about was the prospect of war.
During the early fifties, it was a bit frightening to be called to an air raid drill designed to protect me from “communist bombs.” In the fall of 1957, my World Series dreams were interrupted on Friday, October 4th — between the second and third game of the series —by the announcement that Russia had launched Sputnik. (Note: the Milwaukee Braves subsequently obliterated my World Series dreams by beating the Yankees in seven games.) Shortly after Russia demonstrated its rocket prowess, some senators began to speculate that Russia’s real reason for a space program was to construct a successful “FOB” (Fractional Orbital Bomb) which would enable the hot-tempered vodka-swilling Nikita Khrushchev to destroy “America the Beautiful” from space. We were defenseless against such a possibility it was asserted.
Between 1959 and 1961, an ongoing Berlin crisis dominated the news. Although tensions were lessened when Khrushchev visited the United States at Ike’s invitation in the fall of 1959, Khrushchev’s temper snapped the next spring after Francis Gary Powers was shot down just before a May 15, 1960 scheduled “summit meeting” of the leaders of communist and free Europe.
Finally, there was the blood-freezing terror of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Over and over again, there was talk that World War III could begin if the U.S. Navy were forced to destroy a Soviet vessel laden with military supplies that refused to stop for inspection at a checkpoint in the American blockade of Cuba.
All of the above events came to mind as I learned a week ago of Faisal Shahzad’s attempted act of terrorism in Times Square. Talk show hosts and callers understandably worry about our security. United States Senators Lieberman and McCain seem to think we’ll be safer if a terrorist suspect is automatically stripped of his or her citizenship and thus tried by a military tribunal rather than being tried in federal court. Obviously, some believe in due process until it is tested.
Inevitably, the democratic processes of our splendid though far from perfect system will reveal the reasons why Faisal Shahzad was almost able to flee to Dubai. With time, the incredulity that Shahzad was read his Miranda Rights as he was taken into custody will fade away. Perhaps someday Americans will find a way to really and truly depoliticize immigration reform. The fact that we’ve been terrified since 9/11 is obvious in that newly passed draconian Arizona immigration law.
Of course, we must protect ourselves against actions designed to spread terror within our society. My guess is that’s exactly what we’ll do. However, it’s also important to understand that the real cause of our dilemma is ignorance on all sides of what it takes to live peacefully with one another in this world. Our enemies are far less equipped than we are to manage a prosperous society. Thus, I insist that if we calmly think things through and avoid panic or -- if you prefer – terror, we will prevail.
Yes, indeed, terror psychologically plays a huge role in war, but terror, one of many human frailties, extends way beyond war. World War I, “the war to end all wars,” should have taught us that war doesn’t end war. War and terror are forever linked. Terror may even be the father of war as fear is the father of anger. Our leadership is honor bound to protect us. Hence, it is vital that they state the case that exists rather than the case that causes its own brand of soul-destroying terror.
Many years ago, I read and contemplated for the very first time a quotation the great author Herman Wouk placed at the beginning of his novel “The Winds of War”. It states as follows:
“Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is a state of mind.”
That’s the way I see it! What say you?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, May 3, 2010
JUST BETWEEN YOU AND ME
By Edwin Cooney
I’m a little sensitive, so if you can help it, don’t let this get out of the room! Something happened to me today that kind of makes me feel old.
Don’t misunderstand: I’m not complaining about it. Actually, it gives me a sense of awe. The thing is, it’s happened to me before and I mention this because I suspect it’s also happened to you. Earlier today, I heard Leslie Gore singing “It’s My Party and I‘ll Cry If I Want To.” What grabbed me was the realization that Leslie’s first big hit was out forty-seven springs ago—wow! What will I be thinking three short years from now when Leslie’s smash hit is fifty years old? I can’t imagine what I’ll do; can you imagine what you’ll be doing? (What do you suppose Leslie will be doing?) It’ll be exciting, won’t it?…or, perhaps it won’t be exciting at all. Sometimes I get ahead of myself.
It was on Monday, September 25, 1972 that I felt this sense of awe for the first time. I was twenty-six years old; I’d be twenty-seven that November 28th. I was student teaching at Greece Athena High School near Rochester, New York. One of my students was a lad named Jeff. Jeff was twelve years old in age, but more like sixteen in both mind and body. Jeff read books beyond the seventh grade level and stood over six feet tall. When I asked Jeff what his date of birth was and he replied June 12th, 1960, what grabbed me was that I vividly remembered where I was and what I was doing the very day Jeff was born!
June 12th, 1960 was the first Sunday I spent in a foster home in North Fenton (which is near Binghamton, New York) with a family named Jones.
I’d attended services at the local Methodist church that morning. It was the same church in which I’d been baptized back in 1954 when I was living in that community with another foster family named Baker. I don’t remember what the Yankees did that day, but I do remember that I found a book of matches in the grass. I wanted to light one, but lost my nerve and finally took the matches into the house and turned them over to Marj or Lloyd Jones—both of whom were smokers. That’s what was happening in my life the day Jeff was born in Rochester, New York.
The ability to remember stimulates the capacity for wondering and even speculating. The worlds of 1960 and 1972 were exciting and transitory times.
That summer of 1960, which I spent with the Jones family, was the only time I’d be with them. The Democrats would nominate the youthful John F. Kennedy and the Republicans would nominate the youthful (but less obviously so) Richard Nixon for President of the United States. JFK was forty-three and RMN was just forty-seven. It was the summer of the Moscow trial of CIA U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers who was shot down that May first over Soviet Sverdlovsk His fate was by no means certain. He could have gotten life; he could have even been sentenced to die. After all, we’d electrocuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 for Soviet espionage—and everybody knew that the Soviets were really cruel. (Francis or, if you prefer, Frank Powers’ sentence would be seven years of hard labor). Powers’ ultimate fate would be more tragic than his Soviet sentence. On Saturday, February 10, 1962, he would be exchanged at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin, Germany for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy we’d tried for espionage in 1957. Powers would return less than a hero, but would be cleared of misconduct and praised for not having revealed any secrets to the Soviets. Powers died in 1977 returning from covering a brush fire in Santa Barbara County, California. His helicopter ran out of fuel and crash-landed in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area several miles east of Burbank Airport.
Like 1960, Jeff’s birth year, the fall of 1972 was a time of transition. As Jeff began seventh grade, the tragic terror attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics was taking place; RMN was running for re-election and would win forty-nine states -- but Watergate, Nixon’s “Waterloo” was gestating in America’s political womb. It was inadequately detected by “All the President’s Men” including Nixon himself. Jeff was just twelve and I was just…well…I was just young, that’s all.
Today, Jeff -- wherever he is -- will soon be fifty. What the summer just ahead holds is anybody’s guess. Our current president, Barack Obama, is forty-eight, the same age Richard Nixon would have been in his first year as President had he beaten JFK. What makes aging awesome rather than merely debilitating is one’s perspective. It’s like being on a high mountain peak where one can observe life as it progresses and speculate about life as it transforms the observer to a dimension beyond earthly comprehension.
“Be not afraid, neither be dismayed,” were perhaps the wisest words of JFK’s acceptance speech that summer of Jeff’s birth and my youth. Awesome, isn’t it?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
I’m a little sensitive, so if you can help it, don’t let this get out of the room! Something happened to me today that kind of makes me feel old.
Don’t misunderstand: I’m not complaining about it. Actually, it gives me a sense of awe. The thing is, it’s happened to me before and I mention this because I suspect it’s also happened to you. Earlier today, I heard Leslie Gore singing “It’s My Party and I‘ll Cry If I Want To.” What grabbed me was the realization that Leslie’s first big hit was out forty-seven springs ago—wow! What will I be thinking three short years from now when Leslie’s smash hit is fifty years old? I can’t imagine what I’ll do; can you imagine what you’ll be doing? (What do you suppose Leslie will be doing?) It’ll be exciting, won’t it?…or, perhaps it won’t be exciting at all. Sometimes I get ahead of myself.
It was on Monday, September 25, 1972 that I felt this sense of awe for the first time. I was twenty-six years old; I’d be twenty-seven that November 28th. I was student teaching at Greece Athena High School near Rochester, New York. One of my students was a lad named Jeff. Jeff was twelve years old in age, but more like sixteen in both mind and body. Jeff read books beyond the seventh grade level and stood over six feet tall. When I asked Jeff what his date of birth was and he replied June 12th, 1960, what grabbed me was that I vividly remembered where I was and what I was doing the very day Jeff was born!
June 12th, 1960 was the first Sunday I spent in a foster home in North Fenton (which is near Binghamton, New York) with a family named Jones.
I’d attended services at the local Methodist church that morning. It was the same church in which I’d been baptized back in 1954 when I was living in that community with another foster family named Baker. I don’t remember what the Yankees did that day, but I do remember that I found a book of matches in the grass. I wanted to light one, but lost my nerve and finally took the matches into the house and turned them over to Marj or Lloyd Jones—both of whom were smokers. That’s what was happening in my life the day Jeff was born in Rochester, New York.
The ability to remember stimulates the capacity for wondering and even speculating. The worlds of 1960 and 1972 were exciting and transitory times.
That summer of 1960, which I spent with the Jones family, was the only time I’d be with them. The Democrats would nominate the youthful John F. Kennedy and the Republicans would nominate the youthful (but less obviously so) Richard Nixon for President of the United States. JFK was forty-three and RMN was just forty-seven. It was the summer of the Moscow trial of CIA U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers who was shot down that May first over Soviet Sverdlovsk His fate was by no means certain. He could have gotten life; he could have even been sentenced to die. After all, we’d electrocuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 for Soviet espionage—and everybody knew that the Soviets were really cruel. (Francis or, if you prefer, Frank Powers’ sentence would be seven years of hard labor). Powers’ ultimate fate would be more tragic than his Soviet sentence. On Saturday, February 10, 1962, he would be exchanged at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin, Germany for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy we’d tried for espionage in 1957. Powers would return less than a hero, but would be cleared of misconduct and praised for not having revealed any secrets to the Soviets. Powers died in 1977 returning from covering a brush fire in Santa Barbara County, California. His helicopter ran out of fuel and crash-landed in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area several miles east of Burbank Airport.
Like 1960, Jeff’s birth year, the fall of 1972 was a time of transition. As Jeff began seventh grade, the tragic terror attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics was taking place; RMN was running for re-election and would win forty-nine states -- but Watergate, Nixon’s “Waterloo” was gestating in America’s political womb. It was inadequately detected by “All the President’s Men” including Nixon himself. Jeff was just twelve and I was just…well…I was just young, that’s all.
Today, Jeff -- wherever he is -- will soon be fifty. What the summer just ahead holds is anybody’s guess. Our current president, Barack Obama, is forty-eight, the same age Richard Nixon would have been in his first year as President had he beaten JFK. What makes aging awesome rather than merely debilitating is one’s perspective. It’s like being on a high mountain peak where one can observe life as it progresses and speculate about life as it transforms the observer to a dimension beyond earthly comprehension.
“Be not afraid, neither be dismayed,” were perhaps the wisest words of JFK’s acceptance speech that summer of Jeff’s birth and my youth. Awesome, isn’t it?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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