JOHN GLENN’S AMERICA

By Edwin Cooney

It was sad to learn last Thursday, December 8th, 2016 of the passing of John Glenn.  It wasn’t really unexpected by me or probably anyone else.  After all, the former Marine, astronaut, and U.S. Senator was 95 years old!  The heart of the discomfort for me was the realization that Mr. Glenn’s death was another sign of the end of an era.  I see it as the era between 1933 and 1969 when Americans, reasonably sure of who they were and where they were going, gave this nation the best of their talents and their patriotism.

John Glenn was a product of small town America and its most sterling values: family, church, school, and neighbors.  Born on Monday, July 18th, 1921 to John and Clara (Sproat) Glenn in Cambridge, Ohio, he was raised to expect the best of himself, an expectation inherited from his parents.  His father was a railroad conductor who also owned a plumbing business. He moved the family to Concord, Ohio when John was very young.  Gifted with a healthy and highly functioning physique, John was an energetic, capable, and industrious lad.  From college on, young Glenn not only participated but would excel in practically everything he did whether it be football and tennis or space exploration and politics.  He deservedly earned recognition and rewards along the way.  Even more significantly, he conducted himself in such a way that all who knew of him never doubted that he was a genuine gentleman which was the foundation of his national status as a hero.

From Muskingum College which he entered in 1939 as a chemistry major, through flight training at the Naval Sea Cadet program, and on into  the Marine Corps, Glenn was an achiever.  He participated in 59 combat missions in World War II and 90 combat missions in Korea where one of his fellow pilots was baseball’s Ted Williams.  In 1957, he flew a F8U Crusader from Los Angeles to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds.  Then, in April of 1959, he joined Alan B. Shepard, Virgil I. Grissom, Walter Schirra, Scott Carpenter, Donald (Deke) Slayton, and Gordon Cooper as America’s Mercury Astronauts.

It was only natural that Colonel Glenn hoped to be the first man shot into space, but that honor went to Al Shepard.  Perhaps Robert Gilruth, the head of NASA, saw Glenn as far more valuable to the program and the nation if he were put on the orbital flight rather than the suborbital flights of Shepard and Grissom.  Glenn’s flight aboard “Friendship Seven” had a huge impact which placed Glenn in the category of “national hero” along with Charles Lindbergh.  That assessment may be legitimately debatable but only among scholars and historians.  To most Americans, John Herschel Glenn Jr. was and remains a national hero.

What makes a man worthy enough to be called a national hero?  Achievement has to be the basis, but there are inevitably elements of personality and circumstance that make a person worthy of heroic status.  In John Glenn’s case, his lack of personal presumption had a lot to do with how much mid 20th century Americans came to love him.  Always reluctant to talk about himself, he always insisted that his national prominence had more to do with the tenuous circumstances in which Americans thought they were living.  He asserted that anyone who was assigned the orbital flight would have been viewed with the favor he enjoyed.

Of course, John Glenn had an ego; without one he could hardly have achieved what he did.  His twenty-four year Senate career and his 1984 quest for the Democratic presidential nomination attest to Glenn’s healthy self-esteem.  However, there are two aspects of his personal life that stand out.

Anna Margaret (Castor) Glenn was John’s sweetheart almost from birth.  As babies, the two often played in the same playpen.  Known as the “doctor’s daughter,” Anna, whom Glenn always called Annie, had a severe stuttering malady.  John, who was exceedingly articulate, was never in the least put off by Annie’s struggle.  He loved her and she was a vital part of his being.  Eventually, Annie had therapy which enabled her to conquer her stuttering to the extent that she was able to give speeches.  Gone were the days when her husband, children, family and friends had to take messages for her or deliver her essential messages to the outside world.  For the Glenns, Annie’s triumph was theirs.

Another perhaps less significant element in Glenn’s character was his rather low-key advocacy of military needs.  His pronouncements lacked that sharp authoritarian military urgency.  His public statements and addresses lacked the biting advocacy and dramatics of most military experts.

John Glenn’s America did what it had to do to survive the perceived Russian threat, but it didn’t panic about it.  America in the late 1950s and early 1960s, John Glenn’s era of prominence, was dutiful in the face of challenge, but it lacked the self-righteousness of today’s patriotism.  John Glenn did his duty. He didn’t revel in it and he most certainly didn’t brag about it.

I’ll never forget the night of Monday, July 12th, 1976 at Madison Square Garden when John Glenn, who was considered a possible vice presidential candidate on Jimmy Carter’s ticket, was assigned to give the first of two keynote addresses to the Democratic National Convention.  Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, a brilliant speaker and the first black woman ever to give a keynote address at a major party convention, would follow Senator Glenn.  Senator Glenn was very articulate, but he was no orator.  Nevertheless he stood on that platform and doggedly performed his assignment.  Many thought that Governor Carter would be watching to see which one of them gave the best address. They thought that Senator Glenn had much more to lose than Barbara Jordan.  In fact, she did give the superior address that night, speaking eloquently to the prevailing urgencies of 1976.  Still, John Glenn, as he usually did, presented practical priorities. His speech may not have had the urgency of Ms. Jordon’s presentation, but it was, after all, reflective of John Glenn’s America.

John Glenn’s America was far from perfect.  The lifestyles of minorities as well as their civil rights were too often the subject of derisive humor. Republicans and Democrats in Congress were very often fast and loyal friends.  Lyndon Johnson often drank scotch in the White House after 5 o’clock with GOP Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen.  Jerry Ford of Grand Rapids, Michigan, would support legislation in Democratic Congressman Carl Albert’s Oklahoma district in exchange for Albert’s support on GOP-sponsored legislation.  Elvis was King.  Muhammad Ali was on the way to being boxing’s king.  Most Americans could go to college without breaking the bank.  Hit songs had tunes and the lyrics were often understandable.  The “British invasion” was still preparing its American onslaught on the Mersey.  Most significant and important, there existed in John Glenn’s America an expectation of public civility that is mostly lacking today.  To suggest that a political opponent ought to be jailed or that a war hero wasn’t really a hero because he was captured by the enemy would have resulted in the certain defeat of such a candidate in John Glenn’s America.

As for the goals of John Glenn’s America, there were several: the successful and peaceful containment of communism; overcoming Jim Crow in the South; the perfection in the packaging, quality and marketing of consumer goods; and putting the American flag on the moon by 1970.  Astronaut Glenn would never get to the moon himself although in 1998 he would become the oldest American to fly in space at the age of 77.  (We’ve since learned that President Kennedy, John Glenn’s friend, kept him from participating in additional space travel because he was simply “too valuable to lose.”)

Of course, John Glenn didn’t create John Glenn’s America, he merely personified it. He made it so memorable that it has become the bedrock of some of our fondest memories!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

GOD BLESS AMERICA - A PRAYER OR A COMMAND?

By Edwin Cooney

In the wake of a clearly aggressive administration forming at Trump Tower in New York City, it’s increasingly frightening for me to fathom why in the world God should bless America.  It isn’t that God is anti-Republican or anti-Donald Trump. (May God never be forced to be either!)  However, there’s little about either the president-elect or the party he finally appears to be in control of that indicates that he —or they — represent Christianity’s strongest attribute: love for and tolerance of all God’s people. Before going any further, I should note that President Barack Obama, who ended many  of his addresses with “may God bless America,” never convinced me of America’s worthiness of God’s special blessing.

The first ten words of the Bible say it best:  “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.”  Holy Writ makes no reference, except to the early Jews, as a special people.  Yet we know that, again, according to Holy Writ, God subjected His chosen people to periods of punishment for the errors of their ways.  So the question remains, at least in my mind, what does it mean for God to bless America?

There is an implication in the very wish that God should bless America above other nations.  Thus the question: why would the Creator, the Father of all nations and the ground they rest on and live from, not be equal in God’s sight?  Of course, many nations have been created since the Bible was written and these nations have been largely born of the desires of men whose motives have not always conformed to God’s will, or indeed according to any spiritual virtue.

America is naturally a part of a whole, with humankind being the whole!  Therefore, shouldn’t we be more concerned about constructively contributing to the well-being of the whole rather than asking for special blessings from the Almighty?

As an American citizen, I want America to be safe and prosperous, to balance tolerance and righteousness in both our domestic and international affairs.  However, over the years it seems increasingly to me that our ongoing request that “God bless America” has become more of a command by the politically ambitious than a prayer from the humble citizen.  Even more to the point, how do we gauge God’s response to that request or prayer, call it what you may?  Let’s examine some recent world developments so that we might grasp God’s role in them:

(1.) The Korean war (1950-1953 ) ended as a truce, not a peace. Did God have a favorite in that “police action?” After all, it cost some 30,000 American lives! To make matters worse, North Korea is now a nuclear power seemingly anxious to try out a missile or two on her southern neighbor and perhaps on our west coast. Thus, Ike’s truce, rather than a peace, has spawned Kim Jong-un as Kim Il-sung’s benefactor. 

(2.) The Vietnam War and the “peace with honor” that ended our part in it. Since 1975, Vietnam united has existed quite benignly within the world community. It’s all communist, but it’s hardly the threat we insisted it would be at one time when we sacrificed over 58,000 young Americans.

(3.) The Camp David Accords. On the surface, it would appear that God would more than likely bless Jimmy Carter’s noble quest, but practically every effort on the part of American administrations to expand on it have been met with very limited success.

(4.) The fall of the Soviet Union and America’s triumph over communism seem to have only turned into another set of less than satisfactory conflicts between American and Russian values. Under Putin, a former KBG agent, communism has melded into gangsterism gobbling up, as did Stalin before him, all of its opponents.

(5.) The capture and execution of Osama bin Laden would again seem to be within what we perceive to conform to God’s righteous wrathful justice. The question is, what tangible evidence is there that the Almighty was the least interested in President Obama’s successful venture. Some Americans, myself included, wonder if the practice of stealthily invading another nation’s sovereignty didn’t set a dangerous precedent for future international relations. 

All of us, in one way or another, are understandably in search of encouragement or approval.  For many of us that means God’s blessing or approval.  Abraham Lincoln wasn’t worried as much about whether God was on his side as he was about whether he was on God’s side.  If a man of Abraham Lincoln’s stature can be humble enough to wonder if he was acting according to God’s will, shouldn’t 2016 America show some humility and seriously wonder if we’re on God’s side doing things according to God’s will rather than demanding that we have God’s blessing?

A dear friend of mine and a subscriber to these weekly musings, I’ll call him Mr. Kentucky, is a man deeply devoted to God and American Conservatism as he perceives it.  I’m sure he’s delighted about the recent election results.  Anytime Mr. Kentucky was about to engage in a questionable venture he’d say: “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is permission!” Then he’d often do exactly what he wanted to do anyway.

There is no certain way that any one of us, let alone a whole nation of us, can ask for and receive God’s permission.  Thus we seek God’s blessing, the evidence of which invariably we discern long after the request.

I’ve reached the following conclusions which I cordially invite you to challenge:

(1.) Since we do not live in God’s world we must find God’s blessings within our own ability to follow God’s command that we love our neighbor as ourselves.

(2.) Since we do not live in God’s world we will not even begin to grasp who God is or what God is all about until we live within God’s dimension.

(3.) God has granted that man and woman run this world. God has given men and woman the essential talents to create, nurture, understand, and apply concepts on a continuing basis for their growth and benefit. Some of these gifts are as old as humanity while others have emerged with time. Medical and other sciences emanate from God’s original gift to human beings. The world in which every person abides is a physical rather than a spiritual world.

(4.) You and I may legitimately ask God’s blessings for ourselves or people we love so long as we realize that God’s response may disappoint us. We may ask for healing, but death may be the only path to healing until the day that men and women have utilized God’s gifts to create and apply the God-given forces that result in healing.

(5.) If I correctly interpret some recent scripture reading, Jesus’s divinity was challenged by one of the Pharisees on the grounds that the Messiah would be sent to free Israel from the domination of the Roman Empire. Jesus’s response was to remind the Pharisees that they lived in man’s world not God’s and if He were to free Israel from Rome, Israel itself would become as dominant as Rome itself according to man’s understanding of justice. Thus, “render therefore to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”

As we enter what seems to be the world according to Trump, I would sing Irving Berlin’s song a little differently. In fact, I would call it “God Guide America.”

I’m no different than anyone else. I’d like America to be forever safe and prosperous, abiding in peace at home and abroad. However, God will surely require America — as God requires of every other nation — to earnestly administer justice with equity and mercy toward all.

For Mr. Lincoln, the task of reuniting an angry and divided nation was far from easy. 

In fact, it was humbling and ultimately cost him his life.  Mr. Lincoln himself proved to be a blessing from God not because he sought God’s blessing, but because he ultimately met God’s second command “to love thy neighbor as thy self.”

It’s my contention that whatever may be your faith or state of spiritual doubt, if you expect the world to be a domain of justice and equity, you’ll discover that you’re a blessing from God!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE OLD MAN SPOKETH

By Edwin Cooney

I bumped into an old man the other day.  I didn’t have anything else to do so I thought I’d chitchat with him for a bit.

“What brings you to this watering hole, old boy?” I asked.

“Good beer, good company, and good conversations,” he said. “For instance, I have two good friends Lunkhead and Dunderhead who drop in now and then. They’re your typical conservative and  liberal know-it-alls. That’s always stimulating, because I just listen to them talk for a few minutes and I realize how much smarter and better informed I am than they are,” said the old fellow.

I know it wasn’t politically correct, but I asked him his age.

“I’m turning seventy-one this very day!” he exclaimed.

“That’s great,” I said.”You don’t look seventy-one!” I insisted. 

“Tell me, who does look seventy-one? What does seventy-one look like compared to 70 or seventy-two?” he shot back.

“So,” I asked him, “What reflections do you have about your life on your seventy-first birthday?”

“Of course, I think quite a bit about the past, but mostly I think about the future because, like everyone else, that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my days.  After some twenty-five years between marriages, I finally have a lovely wife to think about.  I think about my two lads in California and hope that they’ll take good enough care of themselves to outlive me in safety, prosperity, and peace of mind. 

“In recent years, I’ve become especially interested in life patterns. For instance, your birthday will always be on the same day of the week that you were born every 28 years. Thinking of that pattern makes me realize that I’m probably in the final third of my life. Twenty-eight years ago, it was 1988 and I was supporting Michael Dukakis over George H. W. Bush for President. Now, here’s another presidential year in which I backed two losers, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Twenty-eight years from now I’ll be ninety-nine which means that although I could still be around, it’s unlikely that I will be. So, I need to make the time I have as fulfilling for me and those I love as I possibly can. That I’m still in a position to do that is a gift. 

“As for my spiritual well-being, I’m a Christian, but being a Christian today doesn’t mean to me what it once meant to me. Up until recently I thought being a Christian was about proving to God that I am faithful and worthy of His regard. I’ve since stopped treating God in my mind and heart as though He were Henry VIII, a jealous, insecure and vengeful Heavenly Monarch. I think God merely wants me to be curious and interested in the love God offers to me and people all over the world.” The old guy took a sip of his beer. “You know,” he said, “I’m convinced that God loves good beer! As for religion being the cause of most world conflicts, you can find a pattern and a danger there, but I’d say money is probably just as great a cause for both domestic and international conflicts. Yet seldom, if ever, do you hear anyone suggest that they can do without money! ”

“Here’s one for you,” I said. “Are things worse off, about the same, or better than they were when you were growing up?”

“A lot of little things aren’t as good as they once were, but most fundamental things are much, much better than they used to be,” said the seventy-one year-old birthday man. “I’d like to be able to smoke wherever I want to as I once could, but it’s much healthier as things are, so I can’t seriously kick. I’m old enough to remember 78 RPM records and tube radios. You had to wait for the radios to warm up. I remember most people owned only one telephone and you often had to run across the house to answer it. The receiver was hardwired into the phone base and the phone was hardwired into the wall, so there was little convenience or portability from Ma Bell. As for today’s music, I prefer the stars of the 50s, 60s and 70s, but I’m perfectly comfortable with letting today’s music be what it is. I remember when Elvis Presley was regarded as “the voice of the devil” back in the mid and late 1950s. The small town I lived in had a chime system set up in one of the Roman Catholic churches and the chimes would go off at 6 am and 6 pm, I think.  One day, someone substituted the musical chime record for “You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog.” It was something of a scandal, to say the least!” 

“How about the state of the nation and that of the world compared to the time you were growing up?” I asked him.

“Life will always be what it always has been: both good and bad, secure and dangerous. I’ve read too much history to buy this nonsense of “making America great again.” No sane American would turn the clock back to relive Watergate, Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, fear of Soviet Russia, Jim Crowism in the South, or the annual fear of polio, just to name a few crises that supposedly made America “great.” There’s nothing fun or inspiring about the process of overcoming our domestic and international insecurities. Of course, no politician or president is going to make America great again. We’re not good because we possess great natural resources or human smarts or superior creativity. We’re great, when we’re good and we’re good when we provide  more opportunity to more people, at home and abroad. We come nearest to greatness when we feel secure enough to be tolerant. We’ve never been adequately tolerant of ourselves or of others, but we come close.”

The old man paused to order another libation and then said, “I think more than anything else we must keep several things in perspective. First, except perhaps during the years 1933 to 1969, we’ve always been led by the rich and by and large we’ve benefitted from their profits. Second, don’t let big business off the hook on regulation. We all need umpiring from time to time and intelligent regulation is essential to our welfare. Third, remember, you’re more than a taxpayer. You’re a consumer, a customer, a client, and, perhaps, a patient, and in these positions you can so easily become a victim of someone’s greed and recklessness. Fourth, patriotism has its proper place, but don’t assume that patriotism is about settling scores with other nations. Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo tried that and all three were dead in short order. Finally, however much you and I prefer our personal social, political and spiritual values, our children and grandchildren are going to alter them to suit the world they inherit from us. After all, we shaped our society to meet our own demands.”

“Well, old man,” I said, “you don’t seem very afraid as you approach what Frank Sinatra sang as the “autumn of our years.”

“I’m a tad apprehensive about my ultimate fate. After all, it’s not only natural but even  wise to attempt to fathom the uncertain or the unknown! All the apprehension in the world won’t change the reality that I’ve been here much longer than I will be here.  When I became 28 years old on Wednesday, November 28th, 1973, I was in graduate school.  When I became 56 on Wednesday, November 28th, 2001, I was in Alameda, California trying to recover from the loss of a sweetheart. I could reach Wednesday, November 28th, 2029 in fair or even good shape. Today is a good time for me to think about that,” the old man remarked.

“You’re a pretty wise old man,” I said as I reached to shake his hand.

Then, suddenly, without warning, I realized I hadn’t bumped into any old man at all:  I was the “old man.”

What made me realize that, you wonder? The answer’s simple. I fell right out of bed!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

SING A SONG OF MIKE PENCE!

By Edwin Cooney

I grew up singing “a song of six pence, a pocket full of rye.” Last Friday, November 11th, right in the middle of celebrating the valor of our veterans, President-elect Trump replaced New Jersey Governor Chris Christie with Vice President-elect Mike Pence to head his transition team. Thus, for the next four years and perhaps beyond, Mike Pence will invariably “trump” six pence!

Of course, anyone who proposes to know the significance of that appointment, unless his initials are DJT, is only guessing, but guessing is one of the activities Americans do most frequently.

A “conservative” governor of Indiana when he was selected last summer to run with Mr. Trump, Michael Richard Pence insists that he’s “a Christian, a Conservative and a Republican in that order.”  Born in Columbus, Indiana, on Sunday, June 7th, 1959, Pence was raised a Roman Catholic but became a “born again Christian” while at Hanover College.  He, his wife Karen, and their three children (Mike, Charlotte and Audrey) now attend an evangelical megachurch.  Young Mike Pence is now serving in the Marines in Afghanistan. (Note that Mike Pence is the third Indiana governor to be elected vice president.  The first was Thomas A. Hendricks in 1884 under Grover Cleveland and the second was Thomas R. Marshall under Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and 1916.)

As I see it, the Pence appointment to head the transaction team was the single most significant decision President-elect Trump has made since the election for the following reasons:

(1.) It suggests that Vice President Pence is going to be a major factor in the Trump administration.  This implies that President-elect Trump feels the need for the assistance of a professional politician at the highest level of the administration.

(2.) As a “Tea Party Republican” with both legislative and executive experience, what he is asked to do will be a strong indicator of what path the Trump administration may be taking regarding any one plan or problem.  There are three types of Republicans struggling for dominance in Washington these days.  They are “Paul Ryan Republicans,” “Freedom Caucus” or “Tea Party” Republicans, and “Donald J. Trump Republicans.”

(3.) While the appointments of Lieutenant General Mike Flynn to be Chief of Staff and Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo to head the Central Intelligence Agency indicate that President Trump is sticking to a hardline foreign and immigration policy, it appears his appointments to the positions of Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense may be more moderate choices.  Both Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich, who recently appeared to be candidates for the State Department, seem to have been eclipsed by the name of Mitt Romney who was part of the “Never Trump Club” not so long ago. 

To the extent that he may influence President-elect Trump toward more moderate appointments and positions, Mike Pence can be a positive factor in the next administration. However, Governor Pence’s signing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act last spring permitting merchants and other vendors to withhold their services from LGBT Americans in the marketplace reveals a self-righteous Christian arrogance that isn’t even conservative. Although Governor Pence did ultimately sign an amendment to that bill protecting the rights of LGBT citizens, that was only due to pressure by political moderates and Indiana businessmen and women who feared devastating economic reprisals.

Mike Pence, Indiana’s fiftieth governor, was a mild, smooth-talking candidate during the October 4th Vice Presidential Debate with Senator Tim Kaine. It was a welcome contrast to Mr. Trump’s harsh, crude and reckless debating style.  Pence demonstrated his political prowess from his experience as a conservative talk show host between 1994 and 1999.  His rise to national prominence may well quell the candidacies of Texas’s Senator Ted Cruz and Florida’s Marco Rubio, but Governor Pence may be the greatest threat to civil rights since Alabama’s Sheriff Bull Connor during the 1960s.

Humankind has suffered centuries of repressive governments going back to Medieval Britain’s King John (1199-1216), Henry VIII (1509-1547), and Bloody Mary (1553-1558). The repression of chattel slavery, Indian genocide, anti-Catholicism, the Ku Klux Klan, and anti-immigration during our own era were also thought to be relics of the past.  It’s therefore stunning to have freely selected Mike Pence’s song of human repression in 2016.

I, too, am very concerned about Donald Trump’s lack of knowledge or appreciation of personal manners or of the importance of tolerance in both domestic and international discourse.  On the surface, Mike Pence appears to be an antidote to Mr. Trump’s failings.  In reality, he may be more dangerous. He’s smooth as ice cream, but underneath I think he’s meaner than the proverbial junkyard dog! 

President-elect Trump has indicated some understanding for our healthcare needs, and the wisdom of public works à la FDR to rebuild our infrastructure.  Vice President-elect Pence, meanwhile, belongs to the Tea Party wing of 2016/2017 Republicanism, the kind of GOP elephant who, since President Obama proposed infrastructure improvements, has been concerned only about balancing the books in both Indiana and Washington, D.C.  Individual safety, jobs, and religious freedom for all are an anathema to the Ted Cruz’s and Mike Pence’s of 2016 America.

From what I’ve heard so far, Trumpian cries of wounded outrage are nothing compared to the singing siren song of Mike Pence with or without a pocket full of Paul Ryan and those singing twenty-four Liberal blackbirds baked in Pence’s pie.

Were the choice between Trump or Pence, voting for Trump would have been almost -- but not quite -- easy.

Respectfully submitted,

Edwin Cooney

THE “GREAT REPUBLIC” HAS SPOKEN OUT OF BOTH SIDES OF ITS MOUTH

By Edwin Cooney

I know that the Electoral College has received its instructions from the separate states and will ultimately elect 70-year-old Donald John Trump as our 45th president.  I’m also aware that our newly minted president-elect has not received the majority of votes which would more permanently have sanctified the outcome of last Tuesday’s election.  Thus, divided America shakes like a bowl full of Jello energized by both rage and ecstasy, as you and I struggle to grasp what it all means for our future.

Ultimately, we are left to grapple with realities rather than either hopes or fears.  Should we successfully cope with these matters, America may become great in a way our newly minted president hasn’t even dreamed.  Still, these realities are pretty daunting, so let’s get to them!

(1.) President-elect Trump will become our lawful leader in 65 days.  His character is open to interpretation, just as his opponent Hillary Clinton’s was, and it includes acceptance and denial.  My friend, who I’ll call “stern Steven,” insists that Trump followers take him seriously, but do not take him literally.  Trump opponents, on the other hand, take President-elect Trump literally but not seriously.  Taken together, these two social and political categories of Americans, as I see it, constitute a society paralyzed by its own emotional indolence.

(2.) Unless there’s a dramatic shift in the national mood or circumstance, President-elect Trump will take office with more unchallenged authority than any president-elect since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in March of 1933.  The Congress is all Republican and the states are largely governed by Republicans.  Even more, the judiciary appears likely to turn conservative, conservatism being the ultimate blessing of the GOP since the election of 1980.  This reality may possess a silver lining.  One of the most constant threads in our social and political history is that ideologists seldom stick together very long.  FDR faced considerable insurrection in his party by the late 1930s and even Ronald Reagan faced suspicion on the part of some conservative intellectuals when he became clearly anxious to sign that Start Treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev late in his second term.

(3.) Obviously, President-elect Trump is not a social reformer. Hence, any social benefit that comes from legislation will only be secondary to the practical or monetary rewards or restrictions that emanate from legislation passed by Congress and signed by the president.

(4.) President-elect Trump may be a “business genius” but he’s far from being an international statesman.  Since the core of his international proclamations during the recent campaign consisted of largely barbs to be used against President Obama and Hillary Clinton, figuratively he’s a loose cannon in international affairs.  Obviously, he believes he’s the ultimate master of his lack of predictability, but it’s very possible that he’ll prove President Harry Truman’s observation in the early 1950s that (to paraphrase): “Any fool can go out and start a war. It’s making a peace that’s hard.”  The question is: does President-elect Trump have what it takes to negotiate a peace?

(5.) Unfortunately, President-elect Trump is in denial on the subject of global warming and the necessity for clean energy.  Climate-warming realities invariably clash with the legitimate needs of working people who are more concerned with eating and earning a living wage today. If what enables them to eat and earn isn’t maximized, they will have no future.  Only a few short years ago, these people were Hillary Clinton people.  Since the 1930s, they’ve given Democrats their support.  In 2016, however, their anxiety over the loss of their jobs appeared to them to be of no concern to Democrats who spent most of their time listening to “elitist” climate-warming scientists.  Hillary should have had an advisor like FDR’s Harry Hopkins who, time and time again, reminded FDR that “people don’t eat in the long run, they eat every day.”

At this writing, Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by some 200,000 popular votes.  That would appear to make the public protests that “Trump is not my president” legitimate.  Ah! But if Mrs. Clinton had won the electoral vote and lost the popular vote, would a protest against that outcome be legitimate?  Thus, what is at the core of many people’s unhappiness over last Tuesday’s election results?

Some of us are sorry that Hillary Clinton’s dream of becoming the first woman president is now over.  Others of us are frustrated that the legitimacy of progressive issues was only secondary to the imperfections of the Republican and Democratic nominees.  Hence, here is our ultimate dilemma.

For the time being, most of us with a liberal or progressive political and social agenda are not only shocked, but frozen within the body politic.  We have no majorities and no one seems to want, let alone, need our counsel.  The good news, however meager it may be, is that from now on it is all up to Trump versus Ryan versus Gingrich versus talk show host Republicans or Conservatives.  Today, Republicans possess the brass ring of opportunity, but opportunity is very, very fickle. 

Meanwhile, you the bereft, try and draw distinctions, as you evaluate the incoming political juggernaut between practical and foolish, right and wrong.  When President Trump is right, support him, however hard that may be, despite the GOP’s designed lack of support for President Obama back in 2009.  No reward is certain for that attitude, but at least try to seek the satisfaction of political magnanimity. Magnanimity is not surrender; it is the generosity of the noble and principled loyal opposition in a healthy and free society.

Chins up, gallant progressive liberals! Prepare for that tomorrow, however distant it may seem, to offer our principled applications to the fevered national brow.  Both the Capital Building and the White House await us beyond the interminable horizon.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

 .  

IF IT AIN’T EVER OVER, YOGI, WHAT DO WE DO?!

By Edwin Cooney

It has become tradition for voters to assert right before an election how glad they’ll be when it’s all over. That feeling is especially intense this presidential year with many Americans convinced that the choice is between a “crook” and a “pervert.” 

I’m convinced that the vast majority of Americans have only a marginal interest in either government or politics even though they are affected by the outcome of an election. However, writers have traditionally invented characters from Mr. Dooley to Archie Bunker to reflect the national mood.  I’ve chosen to use a truly national figure, a man whose homely wisdom enthralled millions of Americans.  His name was Lawrence Peter (Yogi) Berra.  Yogi knew and understood things which he explained indirectly in his own inimitable fashion.  I’ll introduce my purely imaginary Yogi Berra commentary later, but first here is my analysis of where we are at as election day dawns.

The situation is threefold.  First, history, which we rely on to inform us as to the significance of past events, reflects a much simpler time when the behavior of small groups of powerful people easily made a difference in the outcome of events.  Hence, Mr. Trump’s promise to “make America great again” doesn’t spell out to the voters what it would cost in pain and in lives to achieve and maintain that greatness.  Historic personalities have already made their mistakes or achieved their successes and are beyond our ability to control.  Current leaders suffer the doubts of an ever impatient public as they seek to achieve America’s safety and security.  Largely absent from our awareness are the doubts faced by even America’s greatest leaders.  Historical events may still influence what we think and do today, but time has mellowed their effect.

Second, current actions and  events are far from complete in their effect or in their modification.  Thus, international trade, healthcare, recovery from the 2008-2009 recession, the struggle against ISOL, the issue of climate change and even the effects of 9/11 are unfinished business.  All of these uncertainties, some of which have been with us for years now, assault our national consciousness and sense of safety and security.

Third, we Americans are the ultimate victims of our own indulgences which too often border on sensationalism and suspicion. Individually, we seek and even beseech others to grant us the benefit of every doubt.  However, especially when defending our own conclusions, we too often regard ourselves as intellectually and morally superior to those whose convictions differ from our own.  This brings us to the current atmosphere in social and political relations.

Politics, especially presidential politics, has always been brutal, even to an extent degrading.  Incumbent presidents going back to Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren have been demonized as slick, sleazy, self-indulgent, pedantic, and murderously cold to the welfare of the people.  Sometimes these accusations have been near the truth, but never have they been the whole truth.  What especially concerns me about the current phase of national assessment is our tendency not only to be self righteous in our assessments of others, but reckless and even poisonous to the national well of civility.  In short, we’ve succeeded in criminalizing the very political process our soldiers have fought to preserve.

Free government certainly depends on sound economic and forward-looking social policies, honest assessment of social conditions and wise administration of our affairs. However, free government has a deadly enemy and liberals, conservatives, progressives and libertarians and even the nonaligned have cuddled that enemy to their own breasts for their own political advantage and to justify their own indifference.  That enemy of free government is the criminalization of the body politic.  If we assess all opponents as “criminals” or “perverts,” we subject ourselves to the same conclusion.

My 2016 candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, has numerous liabilities, but she also has compelling assets of vision and creativity.  Mr. Trump, through smarts and business acumen, has amassed wealth by utilizing strategies which conceivably could be of service to the welfare of the American people. I say this because I may soon be compelled to grant Donald J. Trump the benefit of the doubt as president-elect of the United States. Although the very idea of that possibility makes me cringe, I am compelled by learning and living to acknowledge two vital realities.

First, the will of the majority must always prevail in a free society.  Second, although the will of the majority must prevail in popular elections, the minority possesses the obligation to constructively and creatively modify the inevitable mistakes of the majority.

So, if it ought to be over, but it ain’t over when it ought to be over, Yogi, what should we do?

“Well,” I imagine Yogi responding, “It’s like I told my friend Joey Garagiola one time when he was all worried about me and George Steinbrenner.  He wanted me to be mad  at George and tell him off.  I just told Joey not to worry because, after all, George and I just agree different!  People always get along better when they think about what they agree about rather than what they disagree about.  There’s a lot of things more important about our country than how we feel about any president.” 

I also imagine Yogi saying, “I think it’s much more important for all of us to think about how we feel toward each other.  If we do that long enough, how we feel about our leaders will take care of itself.  I never explained a lot to my players about how to hit or field, I just told ‘em to watch me.”

So, after tomorrow perhaps we ought to do it Yogi’s way.  Watch events with as much objectivity as you can.  Apply your instincts in evaluating the present as well as  the future.  Keep worry to a minimum, be more skeptical of skepticism, be cool as Yogi usually was. 

Worry and anxiety bring on hatred and that’s dangerous, because as I imagine Yogi would put it: “once you start hating it gets late out there early.”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE WORLD SERIES -- MORE HEROIC THAN HISTORIC

By Edwin Cooney

As I begin this annual trip down World Series Memory Lane, I offer once again my observation that while teams get the glory for victory or blame for defeat, World Series heroes are always individuals.

Ever since the American League’s Cleveland Indians and the National League’s Chicago Cubs achieved their right to play in the 112th Professional Baseball World Series, there has been a tendency on the part of scribes and broadcasters to call the 2016 World Series historic.  Exciting and wonderful as it truly is, I insist that there’s nothing particularly “historic” about this year’s fall classic.  In order to be historic, a trend, an outside situation or condition, or internal circumstance must be present.  Here are five historic World Series.

The 1903 World Series between the Boston Pilgrims or Americans (take your pick!) and the Pittsburgh Pirates is historic because it was the first World Series and thus started a trend.

The 1918 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs was historic for several reasons.  First, due to our involvement in World War I and the Wilson administration’s insistence that major league players were subject to the draft, major league owners were forced to begin the World Series on Tuesday, September 2^nd, a month before it otherwise would have begun.  Second, it was during that World Series that “The Star Spangled Banner” was first played.  Hence, baseball and patriotism have been permanently linked on a daily basis.  Third, there was nearly a strike by the players over World Series shares.  The strike was narrowly avoided just before the fourth game.

Certainly the 1919 “Black Sox” series was historic: it was due to the result of the subsequent scandal that baseball took the necessary steps to eradicate gambling from professional baseball.

The 1989 “earthquake” World Series was dramatically historic.  The Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants were getting ready to play the third game of the series at Candlestick Park when a 7.9 “shaker” rocked the entire park cutting off lighting within the park and communication with the radio and television networks that were preparing to bring the series to the public.  The series wouldn’t resume until Saturday, October 28th.  In the meantime, there was tentative discussion about moving the series to another location if conditions within the Bay Area of Northern California hadn’t stabilized.

Some insist that the 2001 World Series was historic for two reasons.  First, it was played in the crisis atmosphere of the 9/11 catastrophe.  No one could be sure that another terrorist attack on the heels of September 11th might not be forthcoming -- especially at Yankee Stadium in New York.  Second, the 2001 World Series was the first one to extend into November.  The Yankee’s Derek Jeter hit the first ever November home run, but the Yankees were eventually beaten by the Arizona Diamondbacks.  Neither the Diamondbacks win nor the Yankee’s loss was historic, but everything affected by 9/11 was certainly significant.

As i wrote earlier, individuals (rather than teams) are the ultimate World Series heroes.  Sure, people remember the 1927 and even the 1961 Yankees as well as the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals “Gashouse Gang,” but in 2016 the names of two players, Don Larsen and Frank Robinson, and one broadcaster, Vin Scully, come to both mind and heart.

The 1956 World Series may have featured Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Duke Snyder, and Jackie Robinson, but its brightest star was Yankee pitcher Don Larsen.  A native of Michigan City, Indiana where he was born on Thursday, August 1st, 1929, Donald James Larsen was what baseball calls “a journeyman pitcher” throughout his big league career.  However, his career was loaded with many distinctions.  On Wednesday, April 14th, 1954, he was the losing pitcher for the new Baltimore Orioles. The team had just moved from St. Louis to Baltimore and changed their name from the Browns to the Orioles.  Larsen’s record in 1954 was 3-21.  In December of that year, the Yankees and Orioles made an 18 player swap and Larsen was one of the “swapees.”  Following a stint in Denver where he went 9-3, Larsen joined the Yankees where he went 11-4 in 1956.

Larsen’s career peaked on Monday, October 8th, 1956 when he pitched a 2-0 perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers.  This performance came after a night of drinking with teammates Billy Martin and Mickey Mantle.  Almost as amazing was the fact that six years later to the day, he defeated the Yankees at Yankee Stadium as a reliever for the San Francisco Giants.  Larsen was a good hitting pitcher, too.  He had 14 career home runs and went 12 for 66 as a pinch hitter throughout his career.

The year 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of Frank Robinson’s greatest season during which he hit 49 home runs, batted .316 and drove in 122 runs. He won the American League Triple Crown and the Most Valuable Player award.  A native of Beaumont, Texas where he was born on Saturday, August 31st, 1935,  Frank Robinson’s career was jam-packed with success as both a player and a manager.  It has been said of the 1966 World Series Orioles’ sweep over the Los Angeles Dodgers that “the series began with Frank Robinson and ended with Frank Robinson.”  In game one, he hit a two run blast off Don Drysdale and, in game four, he hit a second drive off “Big Don” that scored the only run of the game to conclude the 1966 “fall classic.”  Fifty years ago this month, the Orioles not only swept the Dodgers, but held them runless after three and one third innings of Game One.  Baltimore’s “baby birds” shocked much of the baseball world as they literally overwhelmed the veteran stars of Los Angeles.

Since 1950l broadcasts of many World Series games have carried with them a special expectation -- that they would be broadcast by Vincent Edward Scully.  Vin Scully was born on Tuesday, November 29th, 1927 in the Bronx, New York.  His warm, controlled but fluid baritone voice invited millions of fans to “pull up a chair.” You didn’t have to be a Dodgers’ fan to feel welcome to Vin Scully’s broadcast or even to his world.  Vinny often described star players’ moves as “poetry in motion.”  His presentations were a combination of poetry and melody inviting the listener to come along to share his pleasure.

The World Series, be it historic or not, constitutes an annual invitation to savor the best in baseball because a championship is ever fleeting.  The day after the winning run is scored and the final out is recorded, spring training is already being anticipated in millions of hearts because, after all, a championship in all its glory is, at the instant of its acknowledgment, yesterday’s story -- and as the song reminds us, “yesterday’s gone.”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY