ALL YA GOTTA DO IS ASK!

By Edwin Cooney

Okay, it’s confession time!  Sometimes it’s pretty hard to know what to write about every week.  I have no clue as to how to pay off the national debt without starving the people, how to lower taxes enough to stimulate economic growth, how to satisfy the unsatisfiable or to reassure the cynics (especially the professional cynics).  What I try to do, however, is to ask the right question at the right time and hopefully get the right answer.

I know and very much admire a preacher who handles indecision about what to preach in a most forthright way.  He makes indecision the topic of his sermons.  Specifically, he writes an open letter to “the Almighty” about his indecisiveness.  His letter addresses all of the blessings, for which of course he is invariably grateful, and then he tackles the many outrageous injustices and burdensome misfortunes from which so many people suffer.  By so doing, he has his sermon and his obligation to worship accomplished in one fell swoop.

Since writing is often therapeutic, I proceed to get the maximum benefit out of the writing process.  Just as my former pastor Mark prays out loud about his preaching indecisiveness, as I write, I proceed to wonder out loud, so to speak, about some of the wonders of both our past and present.  Here are some examples:

In his book “Don’t Know Much about History,” historian Kenneth C. Davis tells us that Paul Revere never made it to Concord to warn the people that the British were coming.  He and two others, a young doctor named Samuel Prescott and William Dawes made the ride. (Dawes’ great grandson Charles Gates Dawes would become the first Director of the Bureau of the Budget in Harding’s administration and go on from there to become Coolidge’s Vice President and, finally, Hoover’s Ambassador to Great Britain.) 

Revere and Dawes were arrested and held temporarily by the British, but Dr. Prescott was the one who completed “Paul Revere’s Ride” which was written nearly a century later by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  The real purpose of Longfellow’s poem was to inspire the volunteers being called up by President Lincoln to patriotically fight the Civil War.  I wonder why Longfellow made Paul Revere the hero of Sam Prescott’s ride!

How about this ironic historical twist?  Thomas Jefferson, father of the Declaration of Independence, gets all kinds of kudos from conservative “constitutionalists” for being a “strict constructionist” of the Constitution – the document he had no part in writing or even influencing.  Yet his greatest presidential achievement was in clear violation of the Constitution when, as president, he authorized the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.  A strict constructionist will tell you that nowhere in the Constitution is the president granted the power to purchase foreign territory.  Still, he was Thomas Jefferson, not Barack Obama!

Here’s another one.  In his brilliantly perceptive book “Battle Cry of Freedom,” James McPherson relates some pretty slick thinking on the part of Abraham Lincoln who, up until his election, had no administrative experience at any level of government.  Yet, Lincoln had the savvy to let the South be the aggressors in the Civil War.  If Lincoln had pursued the South and had Congress declare war on the newly declared Confederacy, he would have suggested to potential allies of the South that the Confederacy was, in fact, a separate nation.  If the Confederacy had been really slick rather than trigger-happy, they would have been in a better position to force Lincoln’s hand.  Had they concentrated on building their newly created “nation” rather than firing on Fort Sumter, they might have built up their industrial capacity with the profits from their cotton kingdom and thus they would have been in a better position if the North had attacked them.  Come to think of it, however, much of the leadership of the Confederacy was made up of West Point graduates.  I suppose they just had to fight!

There’s a wonderful little anecdote about Teddy Roosevelt’s “purchase” of the Panama Canal, that piece of property that Mr. Reagan insisted we bought rather than stole from the sovereign northern South American nation called Columbia.  Unhappy over Columbia’s rejection of the offer we’d made to construct a transoceanic canal in their northern province of Panama, TR decided to try a different tactic. “Negotiating with those little creatures in Bogotá is like trying to nail currant jelly to the wall,” TR supposedly grumbled at one point.  So, bombastic Teddy stopped negotiating and sent the Navy to Panama in November 1903 while he simultaneously recognized Panama as an independent state from Columbia.  Shortly thereafter, when explaining his actions to the cabinet, he turned to Attorney General Philander C. Knox and asked if he had made a good case for our action.  “No, Mr. President,” Knox is said to have responded. “People have been charging you with seduction in this case and you’ve just convicted yourself of rape!”

Both history and current events provide the reader with a rich vein of wonderment.  To wonder is to ask and be open to the answer whether or not it fits your original view of events.

So, that’s what I try to do especially when I’m stuck.  A preacher prays, a writer writes.  When you’re stuck, ask yourself the kinds of questions that most readily stimulate your capacity to wonder.

Ask a question that gives you an answer.  If it’s the wrong answer, find the right question!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

NIKITA, PLEASE COME BACK – WE MISS YOU!

By Edwin Cooney

It took almost a lifetime for me to think the above let alone write it!  Still, after last Thursday’s debacle over Eastern Ukraine – apparently the work of Russian separatists – I find myself missing Uncle Nikita.

I know Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was a brute, that he served Stalin, that he had blood on his hands, that he was short, bald, pig-eyed, a braggart, a shoe-banger, that he drank too much vodka and that he was an atheist, but he at least governed according to a set of principles that were somewhat predictable.

From what we know so far on the other hand, Vladimir Putin and a number of other 2014 world leaders are responsible for unleashing profitmaking world arms and munitions manufacturers and giving them full rein to sell their wares to separatist rebels in the Ukraine and elsewhere.  In Nikita Khrushchev’s day and even later, the Soviet Government insisted on having complete control of armaments when they were lent out to a Soviet client such as Cuba, Egypt or even Syria.  Russian pilots, answerable only to their Red Army superiors who were in turn answerable to Soviet authority rather than Cuban, Egyptian or Syrian clients manned Soviet-made armaments.  Today armament makers are free to peddle their wares to those who have goals in common with the Russian government, but the Russian government apparently has no control over what separatist groups in places like the Ukraine choose to do with these deadly weapons.

Hence, 295 passengers and crew members who were on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 are dead today and it may well be that “Vlad the bad” is literally innocent of authorizing what happened last Thursday afternoon Kiev time, but who can be sure of that?  At least when things got nasty in the fifties and sixties and even beyond until 1991, we could actually tell who was doing the lying. With “Vlad the bad,” one just never knows who the mischief-makers are.

We, the children of the fifties and sixties, trembled with foreboding, as did our leaders in Congress and of course all potential American presidential candidates when Uncle Nikita went into action.  We suffered many a nightmare when Uncle Niki invaded defenseless Hungary in October 1956, announced the launching of Sputnik in October 1957, threatened to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and ordered us out of Berlin by a certain date as he did in November 1958, constructed the Berlin Wall in August 1961, installed offensive missiles in Cuba in October 1962, or banged his shoe on the table while Britain’s Prime Minister Harold MacMillan was addressing the United Nations General Assembly in October 1960.  (Note: October apparently was one of Nikita’s favorite months!)

With “Godless Communism” now fully discredited if not entirely vanquished, the key to much of this post “cold war” international hostility is in the struggle for worldwide religious supremacy!  Being the atheist and materialist he was, Khrushchev believed that as a citizen of Planet Earth he was enjoying all of the good things he would ever know.  For Uncle Nikita, no post earthly life existence in Heaven awaited him so, within reason, he was perfectly willing to limit himself to what he could get away with during his time on earth. Although I’m not sure what “bad Vlad’s” religious principles are, twenty-first century world leaders seem to be sure that this earth is inferior to where they are going, so they pollute the planet while making a profit at the same time.  Think of it: both financial and spiritual salvation is just ahead for the world movers and shakers of 2014! First they get both righteously and filthy rich and then they abandon “God’s green earth” which they have just trashed and go straight to Heaven.  Can you beat that?

When I was growing up, as scary and sometimes brutish as things were, it was basically a struggle between materialism (or if you prefer materialistic Communist atheism) and God-fearing money-grubbing Wall Street capitalists.  Khrushchev was an enemy you could personally dislike because you got to know him.  After all, we witnessed his temper and his braggadocio when Ike invited him to visit us.  He complained at one point that all we were really trying to do by inviting him here was to rub him in our capitalist cultural sauce. When Khrushchev left us after his ten day visit in 1959, Americans were sure they knew him.  We could personally hate him and it was as wonderful as it was scary.

The question, therefore, is how well do we know today’s potential enemies?  We probably need to bring Assad, Maliki, Netanyahu, Hamas President Mahmoud Abbas, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and, of course, Vladimir Putin here to do as we once did with Khrushchev – rub each of them in our sauce.  We should expose them to all of our talk show hosts and invite Playboy to interview their wives and mistresses.  Then not only would we be in a better position to predict their moves, there would be more about them for us to hate just as we once hated Khrushchev.  Ooh! I can hardly wait! How about you?!

Meanwhile, I’ll think of Uncle Niki.  I’ll recall how he morally incensed Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and how frustrated he often made Richard Nixon.  Nikita Khrushchev was a man of bad manners and crude barnyard humor.  He was loud and short-tempered, but there was a lot of little boy in him.

How we loved hating him! However, what was especially maddening about it all was that he never even really seemed to notice or care!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

IDEALISM – AMERICA’S MAJOR DISTRACTION

By Edwin Cooney

With the socio/political and even spiritual fabric of our country seemingly so severely frayed these days—almost to the point of tearing—it’s time, I believe, to reconsider a basic American understanding. With that in mind, I present in its entirety a letter my dear friend and regular editor of these musings recently sent me.  It’s to the New York Daily News.

The Original Spirit of America

Fort Lee, N.J.: On this Fourth of July, our nation’s birthday, I think the words of a former President born on July 4, Calvin Coolidge, define what we hope to be as Americans. On Jan. 17, 1924, in front of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Coolidge said these stirring words: “It is only those who do not understand our people who believe that our national life is entirely absorbed by material motives. We make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things that we want very much more. We want peace and honor and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists.” Wow. Where have idealists gone in America? Politics seems to be dominated by cynicism today. Gary Schwartz

Mr. Schwartz is right to ask that question especially since most of us were raised and educated to believe that America was founded on “ideals!”  The fact of the matter is that you, Mr. Schwartz, and I have been misled, not by a lie, but rather by a myth.  America never has been anyone’s dream. America, as a result of its colonization, was a socio/political inevitability. America was conceived and given birth for practical rather than for idealistic reasons.

The colonists of George Washington’s, Benjamin Franklin’s, John Adams’, Thomas Jefferson’s, John Hancock’s, and Paul Revere’s day weren’t idealists.  They were practical men of commerce and politics.  They realized that the British King and Parliament were out of touch with the needs and demands of 18^th century colonial society. Idealism didn’t build villages, towns and cities.  Practical necessity established a merchant marine, constituent assemblies, local political justices and sheriffs, banks, colleges, hospitals and even libraries.  These were and remain vital institutions of practical living.  The men listed above weren’t dreamers, they were doers.  Washington didn’t possess a law degree nor did Franklin.  If Jefferson, Adams and Madison steeped themselves in Greek, Roman, French and even English law and philosophy, you can be sure that the force that fueled their rebellion was primarily financial.

Our “Founding Fathers” regarded British taxation as a threat to their livelihoods and their profits.  The Boston Massacre of March 1770 occurred because British soldiers were being compensated for their royal service not by the British government, but by local authorities who otherwise would have employed the good citizens of Boston.  Even more, the “Founding Fathers” knew that the British government was taxing them to pay for a war that hadn’t been waged for their safety as much as it was waged for the supremacy of Britain.  The colonists didn’t need Britain to settle the continent; they knew they could more profitably do it themselves, thank you!

As for Mr. Coolidge, although he was indeed a good and decent man and leader, historians have found little idealism in his public policies.  Stirring as President Coolidge may have been that day before the Society of Newspaper Editors, his insistence that “...America is a nation of idealists” was patently false.  Calvin Coolidge was, primarily and fundamentally, a man of practicality.  Surely the Coolidges of rural New England weren’t above offering charity to a worthy cause, but if they resisted anything more strenuously than charity, it would have to be the plague.  Americans in President Coolidge’s day and even into the Great Depression which occurred ten years later, resisted charity even when they needed it most.  Hence, Mr. Coolidge could and did—in good conscience—twice veto legislation that would have provided assistance to hardworking farmers victimized, not by indolence, but by the cruel extremes of climate.  (Note: I refer to the McNary-Haugen Farm Relief Bill.)

What is needed to cut through the jealousy and resentment that pervades 21^st Century American politics is a new paradigm -- a change in the way we perceive and value our past as well as the future hopes and dreams of our fellow citizens.  If the rich could be admired rather than envied, if the poor could be regarded as customers not inferiors, if assistance could be seen as investments and if we’d allow ourselves to be curious rather than suspicious about our differences in outlook and life style, the fruits of idealism might well become a practical reality.

As I’ve written on several occasions, another president from New England, John Kennedy, put it this way: “…the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie: deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth: persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Mythology distracts us everywhere.”

Yes, indeed, Mr. Coolidge is the only president, so far, born on the Fourth of July.  According to one story, his Fourth of July birth was entirely a natural one, but an ever so slight forward positioning of the hands of the family grandfather clock by the senior Coolidge made it a practical one!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THAT “LUCKY” MAN – REALLY?

By Edwin Cooney

Last Friday, we celebrated the 238^th year of American independence.  That, of course, was patriotic.  However, 75 years ago on July 4^th, 1939, a Tuesday, an absolutely awesome event also occurred.

The time was midafternoon.  The place was Yankee Stadium.  Lou Gehrig, who had just celebrated his 36^th birthday, had been diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic on that birthday with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable and fatal disease that would eventually paralyze and literally strangle him to death. He told 61,808 fans and millions listening over the radio: “…today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth...I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for.”

Born to German immigrant parents, Heinrich and Christina Gehrig, on Friday, June 19^th, 1903 in the East Harlem community called Yorkville, New York City, Henry Louis (Lou) Gehrig was their only child to live to adulthood.  (One sister died of whooping cough and the other of the measles while a brother died in infancy.) A dutiful lad, Gehrig assisted his mother throughout his youth with household and other chores as his father, a sheet metal worker, suffered from the intermittent effects of alcoholism.

His baseball skills were first widely noticed in the summer of 1920 when he was just 17.  Commerce High School, from which he would graduate in June of 1921, was playing Chicago’s Lane Tech High School on Friday, June 26^th, 1920 at Cubs Field (now known as Wrigley Field).  In the top of the ninth inning with Commerce already leading 8 to 6, Gehrig hit a grand slam that completely left the park.  It was a feat unheard of by a seventeen-year-old!

Lou Gehrig would sign a Yankee contract on Friday, June 15^th, 1923, just four days before his 20^th birthday.

What Lou Gehrig demonstrated for all to see that day 75 years ago was the root of an awesome nature and character.  His baseball statistics (only a few are cited here) explain his monumental athletic prowess.  Gehrig’s 2,130 consecutive games played, his 493 home runs, his lifetime .340 batting average, his four home runs on Friday, June 3^rd 1932 against the Philadelphia A’s, his five time accumulation of more than 400 total bases in a season, his 15 steals of home and his 12 consecutive years of hitting .300 or better only tell part of his story.

Although equally (if differently) talented than his famous teammate George Herman (Babe) Ruth, Lou Gehrig was content to live in Babe’s shadow.  When asked about it, Gehrig responded: “It’s a pretty big shadow. It gives me lots of room to spread myself.”

Comparisons of the two men were inevitable.  Both men were left-handed.  Ruth was a Roman Catholic and Gehrig an Episcopalian.  Ruth was gregarious and Gehrig reserved.  Ruth was twice married and Gehrig was married only once.  Both were of German heritage.  Ruth was primarily a cigar smoker; Gehrig smoked cigarettes and a pipe.  Ruth never attended college. Gehrig, although he didn’t graduate, majored in engineering at Columbia University.  Ruth was 6 feet 2 inches tall and Gehrig was just 6 feet.  Ruth weighed in at 215, while Gehrig was 200 pounds.  Ruth began his major league career as an outstanding pitcher. Gehrig only played first base as a professional – although he did some pitching for Columbia University.

Perhaps the most amazing comparison is the following description I once read of baseball’s reaction to their powerful swings. Witnesses to the two men’s power assert that Babe Ruth’s home runs, due to the slight upper cut in his left-handed swing, were high soaring majestic drives.  On the other hand, Gehrig’s left-handed swing was more level.  His line drives were “frozen ropes” hit with tremendous force which, more than the Babe’s much higher trajectory hits, were especially intimidating to opposition infielders – especially pitchers and first basemen who stood only 60 and 90 feet away from Gehrig’s awesome left-handed shots.

What the world witnessed that July 4^th afternoon was the combination of Lou Gehrig’s physical, emotional and spiritual strength.  Only Eleanor (Twitchell) Gehrig, whom Lou married in September 1933, would have been in a position to tell us if fear or despair might have attacked Lou in the 23 months left to him after that heart-wrenching and historic occasion.  However, she appropriately kept such knowledge to herself.

Offered lucrative public appearances and other private positions, Lou Gehrig accepted a ten-year appointment by Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia as a youth parole commissioner in the city’s prison system.  The appointment was made in October 1939.  Gehrig was sworn into office on Tuesday, January 2^nd, 1940.  He stipulated, however, that all of his activities should garner no publicity.  Gehrig regarded this assignment as an opportunity to give something back to the community.  He met his responsibilities until physical weakness set in shortly before his death when he quietly resigned.

Lou Gehrig died at 10:10 p.m. on the night of Monday, June 2^nd, 1941 in Riverdale, New York.  (Note: Eleanor Gehrig lived until Tuesday, March 6^th, 1984, her 80^th birthday.  She never remarried and was interred next to her husband at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.)

“Lucky” was of course the word Lou Gehrig chose to describe himself.  However, even as he spoke that afternoon, he demonstrated that he was much, much more than “lucky!”

It might be more accurately observed that Henry Louis Gehrig was perhaps the most wholesome man on the face of the earth.

If there’s a better adjective than wholesome to describe Lou Gehrig, I’m open to suggestions!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY