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

HELLOS AND GOODBYES -- WE SAY AND DO THEM EVEN AS THEY ARE BEYOND OUR GRASP!

By Edwin Cooney

Hellos and goodbyes, two of the most common and continuing human phenomena, have been uppermost in my life over the past six months.  Yet, as I think about it, hellos and goodbyes, profound as they are when fully grasped, are what we say and do everyday of our lives.

When we are babies almost everyone, with the possible exception of the neighbor in the next apartment, is happy to respond to our delightful newborn squeals and coos!  As for our ultimate "goodbye," that, especially if it is expressed beyond our control, can be quite another matter.  One’s goodbye, whether expressed or inevitably noticed, often reflects all we’ve done or failed to do throughout our lives.

Since approximately mid October of 2012, I’ve been saying hello and offering my all to Marsha -- the mistress of my future.  At the same time, I’ve been saying what I’ll call “proximity goodbyes” to people named Ed, Steve, a bunch of Davids, Peter, Tony, RC, Kat, Sherra, Asher, Justine, Unkee Don, Linguini’s Don, and Reverend Don, a mess of Chris’s of both genders, only one Shadi, of course, Chuck, a couple of Dianes, Kathy, Michelle, Heather, Sam, Denise, at least two Brians, Amanda and a beyond wonderful lady called Bean.  I define "proximity goodbyes" as a recognition of mere absence and a distinct and deliberate rejection of emotional separation.  Certainly my goodbyes to Eric and Ryan Cooney are precisely that.  I’m incapable of saying goodbye to my sons!

What it all boils down to is how what comes to matter in one’s life affects a lot of other circumstances and people who also matter very, very much.  Last fall, I came to the realization that my love for Marsha filled a lingering empty space in my life.  Hence, when I pledged my supreme and hopefully nourishing love and ultimately my all to the most energetic, thoughtful, dynamic, and loving woman ever to open her heart to me, I chose to make a lot of very important people and living conditions second to what I planned to build with her.  In order to best serve her, I had to say a mess of proximity goodbyes to those named above and to a few others whose names may be clouded by the heavy curtain of sadness that flavors this week’s commentary!

Saturday, August 4^th, 1979, the day I came West, was thirty-three years and two hundred forty days ago. On that date, I was thirty-three years old.  Now, I’m sixty-seven and it’s only barely possible that I have thirty-three years to go.  Hence, a brief reflection on the hellos I’ve experienced over the past thirty-three years might be in order.

Two of my first friends in California and the most long lasting -- Tony and Don -- were fans of my five hundred foot blasts during my beep baseball days -- and once you’ve swallowed that, I’ll invite you to visit my plaque at Cooperstown, New York.  (Try not to confuse my plaque there with Babe Ruth’s or Yogi Berra’s!)  I met Peter and David -- two of the smartest men I’ve ever known -- while looking for avenues toward re-employment following my days as a director of a radio reading service in San Francisco.  Chris and his wife Diane I met through a previous sweetheart. They were invaluably supportive in providing me with the venue, their deck on San Francisco Bay, to unite me in marriage to Marsha on Saturday, March 9^th, 2013.  An unforgettable lady called Bean, two gentlemen named Ed and Steve, and Reverend Don (the wonderfully eloquent gentleman who conducted our wedding ceremony) were, -- and remain -- my reward for an extended search for sound thinking and a sense of spirituality.  They gave me wonderful ideas to explore along with one or two solid reality checks.  Additionally, I was blessed with the friendships of Richard, Barbara, Clara, and Mary who were members of a weekly book-studying Friday lunch munching crew.  I accumulated my Brian brigade, my crowd of Chris’s, my David division, Sam, Justine, Kat, Heather, Linguini’s Don, Tim, Sherra, Asher and an incredibly sweet lady named Shadi at my local watering hole.  (Regular readers of these weekly musings understandably might like to know where I met Lunkhead and Dunderhead -- however, that’s a matter of national security.  Dick Cheney and Skooter Libby would be most upset if I were to reveal that watering hole!)

Twenty-eight wonderful people attended Marsha’s and my wedding and, as my son Ryan pointed out later, they didn’t come out of professional, political or even familial obligation.  They came because they wanted to be there.

One hundred and sixty-four years ago, the “Forty Niners” migrated in droves to California, which became known as “The Golden State,” to seek their fortune The friendships of those twenty-eight people who attended my wedding, plus a few more, constitute my California fortune.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: just don’t let it get out of the room!  I wouldn’t have it any other way!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY