THE PARADIGM OF AN INSTANT!

By Edwin Cooney

At 12:05 on Saturday, December 12th, 2020, as I was working on that week's column to you, our microwave suddenly caught fire after my wife Marsha moved it from its usual place on the left counter of our sink onto our stovetop while she cleaned the space under the microwave. At her call that something was amiss, I hurried into the kitchen and stood before the burning microwave. Marsha had already unplugged it so we couldn't imagine why it continued burning. After about a minute or two, Marsha called 911 and the fire company was on its way. As the trucks pulled in, the microwave began making a series of popping sounds and we evacuated the apartment as fire personnel came in. Immediately, the fire personnel began shouting for tenants to leave the building and we feared that the fire was progressing beyond our apartment. However, it soon became clear that such wasn't the case, although the cause, the costs, and the consequences were uncertain to us. What had happened still is a bit of a mystery to me, but it does make sense. When the microwave was moved onto the stove, the back part of it came in contact with the knob that controls the burner. Subsequently, we were literally cooking the microwave just as we would boil water or heat up other food on our stovetop. Had I known the stove was on, I'd have turned it off, but I didn't realize such was the case. Perhaps a sighted person would have realized what was happening, but we just didn't notice the cause. Believe me, we'll forever keep this instance in mind when we purchase, utilize and clean around a new microwave!

In my mind and, to some extent, Marsha’s, everything in our thoughts was pre and post 12:05 on Saturday, December 12th, 2020. It seemed clear to us in the wake of the incident that our lives might never be the same.

Of course, both of us can vividly recall other much more serious and lasting instances that have shifted our lives including the births of our children during our previous relationships, the passing of Marsha's father four years ago, our respective divorces, along with the joyful and tragic instances that have happened to others close to us.

History is loaded with instances beyond the anticipation of most of us. Surely our Founding Fathers couldn't have anticipated all of the headaches the people would face in a newly independent nation such as The War of 1812 with Great Britain or even the Civil War, the cause of which was largely due to our own treatment of a significant group of people we had imported to enslave. (Jefferson called slavery our national "fire bell in the night!”)

All of us have experienced joyful and tragic instances in our lives. Our individual task is to strive to recognize both the causes and effects of these instances so that we have a better chance of managing them when they occur.

The most difficult and ultimately devastating tragic instances are those we could have avoided had we modified our behavior before they occurred.

Neither civil law, international law, religious belief or faith, individual or protective wisdom can protect you or me from the forces of nature that can break our hearts. Still, awareness of how our personal activities affect the lives of people we've never even met can potentially modify the severity that those same people will experience in their personal lives.

I believe that the “Serenity prayer” ultimately reflects the surest pathway toward avoiding the "slings and arrows” of outrageous fortune!

May our God-granted intelligence focus our attention towards those attitudes and behaviors that will make the most of all of the opportunities open to us!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

‘TIS THE SEASON!

From December 15th, 2006

BY EDWIN COONEY

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la, la la la la,

Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la, la la la la

It’s that time again—and I love it.  Perhaps a little of the magic dwindles over the years, but only the tiniest bit of it.

I don’t anticipate where Santa might be at any hour on Christmas eve anymore—but I know he’s surely somewhere.

Mary, Joseph and the Christ child, Christmas carols, Santa Claus, stockings, Christmas cookies with hot chocolate or fruit juice are as much a part of my boyhood as the turkey on Thanksgiving, Jack O’Lanterns, doughnuts and apple cider on Halloween, and the importance of the baseball World Series. So since I believe that the history of a nation is the sum of all of our life experiences, I thought it might be entertaining as well as instructive to visit, however sketchily, the history of Christmas in America.

Most of us like to think that Christmas is as American as Christopher Columbus, (who isn’t at all American), the Pilgrims, Ben Franklin and George Washington. However, such is not the case!

As you’ll recall, Massachusetts was settled first by the Pilgrims or Separatists -- who wanted to separate totally from the Anglican Church -- and then by the Puritans -- whose aim was to purify rather than leave the Anglican Church.

The Puritans, who became dominant in Massachusetts over the Separatists, eventually took over in England under Oliver Cromwell during the 1650s. They banned the celebration of Christmas partly because it was practiced by the former royalists and partly because they considered it a symbol of Popery, a leading characteristic of the much unreconstructed and therefore maligned Roman Catholic Church of that day.

By the 1660s, the Puritans had lost power in London and throughout the rest of England, but they were very much in power in Boston as well as throughout the rest of Massachusetts.  Thus, Christmas was officially banned in Boston between 1659 and 1681.  It should be noted however that while Christmas was banned in Massachusetts, it was celebrated in both the Virginia and the New York colonies.

After the British monarchy was restored, Christmas was once again celebrated in England although its restoration in Massachusetts took another twenty one years.  Once William and Mary took over as more or less equal partners as British monarchs in 1688 and Catholicism was on the decline there, Christmas began to be practiced in a more secular way in Britain.

One of the casualties of our Revolutionary War at the hands of our founding fathers, incidentally, was Christmas.  Christmas in the era of Patrick Henry, Ben Franklin, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, et al, was considered an English holiday and was, publicly at least, unwelcome in the hallowed halls of liberty until the mid-nineteenth century.

Three writers, Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore -- both Americans -- and Charles Dickens -- an Englishman -- were primarily responsible for introducing Christmas as a family holiday to the American people.

Washington Irving, who traveled and wrote extensively from both Europe and Britain, published short Christmas stories in “The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon” as well as a story entitled “Old Christmas” during the late 1820s and early 1830s.

Most significant was the 1822 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” attributed to Clement Clarke Moore and Charles Dickens’ 1842 story “A Christmas Carol”.

Americans, with their eternal love of the underdog and sympathy for the reformed, fell hard for Mr. Dickens’ Bob Crachit and the crippled Tiny Tim, and readily forgave old Ebenezer Scrooge once he’d seen the error of his ways and showered the Crachit family with gifts and plenty of Christmas cheer.

As for Clement Moore’s Santa Claus, everyone could identify with a little old white bearded man whose little round belly “shook when he laughed” and whose pipe smoke “encircled his head like a wreath” as he joyfully delivered toys to little children.

Santa was everyone’s idea of Grandpa!

By the 1850s, German and Irish immigration had changed the face of America’s largest cities and had, most notably, tapped the strongest American incentive: the profit motive.

Thus, Christmas was truly on its way in America—led, of course, by Santa Claus!

Information describing how American presidents historically have celebrated Christmas is a bit sketchy.  Apparently, Thomas Jefferson, despite his contempt for Britain and all its institutions and traditions—including Christmas—did privately celebrate Christmas at the White House in 1805.  Andrew Jackson was said to have held private family Christmas celebrations as well.

The first president to set up a Christmas tree in the White House was Franklin Pierce.  Franklin Pierce, the once handsome and energetic Democratic presidential candidate known as “Young Hickory of the Granite Hills”—after the great Democrat Andrew Jackson—was by then a listless, defensive, melancholy and defeated incumbent President.  The year was 1856.  Franklin and Jane Pierce were spending their last unhappy months in the White House.  Tragically childless by now--and heavily burdened by political and administrative misjudgments—President Pierce purchased the first White House Christmas tree for the children of his Sunday school class.

Christmas was declared a federal holiday in 1870.  It would be hard to imagine that President Ulysses S. Grant didn’t have something to say about that, but so far I haven’t found any reference to President Grant in the accounts of the establishment of Christmas as a federal holiday.

In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison installed a tree lit with candles on the second floor of the White House.  He also purchased turkeys and gloves for members of the White House staff.

In 1895, First Lady Frances Cleveland attached the first electric lights to the White House Christmas tree.

In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge began the tradition of a National Christmas tree on the White House lawn.  The following year, sadness prevailed at the White House despite President Coolidge’s re-election, due to the death from blood poisoning of President and Mrs. Coolidge’s sixteen year old son Calvin Jr. the previous July.  Nevertheless, the ceremony was held with the participation of Calvin and Grace Coolidge.

Jacqueline Kennedy began the Christmas theme for the National Christmas tree in 1961 by decorating it with figures from Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker”.

In 2001, Laura Bush’s theme was “Home For the Holidays” which used replicas of the homes of previous presidents.

What, do you suppose, this all means? What do the forces of religion, politics and commercialism say about what we do?  Which one of these forces have had the greatest beneficial effect on our celebration of Christmas?  Which one of these forces have had the most detrimental effect?

The answers to the above questions I’ll leave up to you.  However, I’ll close this week’s effort with my favorite presidential Christmas story.

It was December of 1921 and President Warren G. Harding faced a dilemma, a struggle between his conscience and his need to be politically effective.  A small town Republican, he was sensitive to and even shared the suspicions of his fellow townsmen of what might be called foreign ideologies.

As president, possessing the pardoning power as he did, Warren Harding had received pleas for the release of Socialist party presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs from federal prison.  Debs had been convicted during the “Great War” of sedition for public opposition to the war once it had been declared by Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.

Now the war was over.  Since the League of Nations had been rejected by the Senate in 1919 and again in 1920, the U.S. government, under the direction of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes had negotiated a separate peace treaty with Germany which President Harding had signed during a golf game the previous July.

Thus, Mr. Debs was no longer a threat to America’s national security.  However, many of the president’s closest friends and political advisors were dead set against any sympathy for Debs whom they strongly believed had deliberately undermined the patriotic efforts of those who had made the “supreme sacrifice” in France during the war.  To them, Debs as a labor leader, was little more than a life long trouble maker inspired lately by foreign ideologies and interests.  One of those who drove home that point most vigorously was the president’s personal hometown buddy Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty.  (Note:  Mr. Daugherty himself would need presidential tolerance within a few years once he was indicted  in the Teapot Dome scandal).

For President Harding, however, the question was whether or not justice would be further served by keeping a 66 year old pacifist in jail or whether the spirit of Christmas required him to be charitable.  Earlier in 1921, outgoing President Woodrow Wilson had bitterly rejected pleas for Debs’ pardon.

Christmas was on a Sunday in 1921 thereby giving the celebration of the birth of Christ a special intensity.  About the 20^th of December, President Harding had made up his mind.  Attorney General Daugherty was called in and told to prepare the necessary papers.  They  were prepared and sent to the federal prison in Atlanta.

By lunch time on Friday December 23^rd, Eugene Victor Debs was in President Harding’s office.  Shortly thereafter, Mr. Debs was home.

When asked why he had pardoned Debs, the President is said to have replied in words similar to these:  “At Christmas time, a peaceful man ought to be home with his wife.”

While it is true that the pardon didn’t reinstate Mr. Debs’ citizenship to allow him to vote or seek public office as before, he could act as a political consultant, write, and lecture.  Most significant, thanks to the conscience and humanity of Warren Gamaliel Harding, Eugene Victor Debs was once again a free man.

If any president has given a gift more noble and worthy of the spirit of Christmas, I haven’t heard of it.

Christmas, wow! What a season!!!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE GOP — IS IT A PARTY OR A CULT?

By Edwin Cooney

When one studies the rise and dominance of our political parties, Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Nixon, Reagan, and, finally, D. J. Trump all come to mind. Space for this commentary doesn't allow me to justify why I designate all of the above presidents as party movers and shakers, but I will now compare and contrast the following presidents as examples of what I'm driving at.

Early in the 1960’s, Republicans decided that because of their emphasis on states' rights and limited government, they would never be successful in attracting the "Negro vote." Thus, the party under its then national chairman William E. Miller (whom Barry Goldwater would select as his vice presidential running mate in 1964) adapted its "Southern strategy." By the time Richard Nixon was inaugurated in 1969, he began following the concepts of states' rights, limited government and a hawkish foreign policy which were a tradition of post World War II Republicanism appealing to  Senator Goldwater's 1964 constituency. Almost as significant was the fact that the GOP positions on both domestic and foreign policies were counter to those of Lyndon B. Johnson — the president who had failed in Vietnam and whose civil rights programs increasingly irritated millions of northern middle class mainstream voters. Hence, throughout his presidency and beyond, Richard Nixon (who as vice president under Ike was largely regarded as a moderate mainstream politician) often called himself a conservative. . 

Conservatism began to come into its own during the 1970’s. The 1976 candidacy and the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan brought conservatism out of the fringes of political thinking into the mainstream of American thought and existence. The most articulate and personable president since JFK, Mr. Reagan was a highly successful practitioner of conservatism rather than an elitist Intellectual. Even more powerful was a principle he had been stating since 1966 when he was elected governor of California. It was what he called the Eleventh Commandment: "Thou shall not speak ill of another Republican." One might openly oppose another Republican seeking the same office you were (such as Gerald Ford in 1976 and George H. W. Bush in 1980), but such disagreements were never to be about that Republican's honesty or his personal abilities.

President Reagan's appeal was wide and deep. It extended beyond ideology and attracted Independents and Democrats. That isn't to say that Mr. Reagan wasn't determined to prevail. (After all, Thomas M. DeFrank recorded in his book "Write it When I'm Gone” about Jerry Ford that the one thing that drew Ford and Jimmy Carter together was Ford's resentment of Reagan's attempt to deny him the presidential nomination in his own right in 1976.) However, from the beginning to the end of Mr. Reagan's political career, he was a good politician even through the rough spots in 1976 and 1980.

Until the nomination and election of Donald Trump, the Reagan legacy was at the soul of the Republican party. Now, something else has overshadowed it. Some call it a form of populism. Others insist that "Trumpism" is a prelude to autocracy. (Note that conservatives throughout the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s used to warn about a “steady, deadly drift to the left.” However, Trumpism, as I see it, represents a steady, deadly rush to the autocratic right!) 

What's baffling about the GOP since the election last month has more to do with the party than it has to do with the president himself. Historically, partisans in both parties have insisted that politics should "stop at the water's edge." Exactly where the land ends and the water begins in 2020 and on into 2021 (or perhaps as late as 2024) is the question. Presidents John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush and their contemporaries accepted their political defeats, for the most part, with grace and dignity.

Contrary to both tradition and plain old-fashioned patriotism, today GOP leaders, along with President Trump, appear to believe that the election of a very moderate and traditional Democrat poses a serious and permanent threat to our national well-being.

What does this tell us about today's GOP? What has Mr. Lincoln's party become? Is it still a political party capable of accommodating men and women of a kindred philosophy such as conservatism or liberalism while allowing differences of understanding or approaches to national issues? Should President Trump expect to remain its leader four years from now? Is it likely that possible GOP candidates can afford or would be willing to put their ambitions on hold to accommodate someone of the character of President Trump? Has the Republican Party truly become exclusively Mr. Trump's party? If so, how does that status differ from a social or religious cult?

As 2021 approaches, there are signs both ways. Republican governors such as Brian Kemp in Georgia, and Doug Ducey in Arizona along with election officials and Republican judges and even attorney General William Barr have publicly stated that there is no evidence of significant fraud in the 2020 election results. On the other hand, some pretty prominent Republican leaders are clearly more interested in the president's right to protest the results of the recent election than they are interested in a tranquil and helpful transition from one administration to another for the benefit of a free but vulnerable public during a national pandemic.

In  order to belong to a cult, one must fully endorse and be accountable to a social or a religious philosophy or leader. It's difficult if not impossible to believe that the 21st Century Republican Party isn't rapidly becoming a cult. When political parties become cults they invariably become authoritarian rather than democratic. Anyone who defies the leader of a cult often risks his or her safety and sometimes even his or her life!

The most prominent nations to adopt such cults were led by men named Hitler and Stalin! While you may legitimately insist that President Trump is neither Hitler nor Stalin, he is pretty close to being a David Koresh or perhaps an L Ron Hubbard — neither of whom would be my idea of a president of the United States!

What say you?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY