IT'S ALL ABOUT HOPE VERSUS HURT AS THERE'S NOTHING LOGICAL ABOUT FANDOM!

By Edwin Cooney

Are you a fan? Did you become a fan through the power of logic? Really? It's possible that there's some logic in your explanation of your fandom, such as your love for the hometown team, but if you come from New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, it's possible that you heartily dislike one of your hometown teams! 

It's my guess (and that's all it is) that the Houston Astros will defeat the Philadelphia Phillies in the upcoming 2022 World Series! The Astros are so talented, deep, and, yet, young, that like the old Bronx Bombers, it doesn't seem they can possibly lose. 

After all, the human truth is that neither winning nor losing really and truly makes sense. Both victory and defeat often strike without the least bit of warning! (Ask the 1969 Orioles and Mets.)

If you still don't believe me, just ask a Los Angeles Dodgers' fan if, after winning 111 games, they expected to lose to the San Diego Padres, a team that didn't even win 90 games in 2022.

I've been a New York Yankee fan since 1954 and my fandom, although many don't believe me, my love for the Yankees has little to do with the Yankees themselves. I was forced to separate from my biological family at birth, but during a rare visit in 1954 with my "real" Uncle Joe who was a Yankee fan, I became a Yankees fan as well in order to identify with him. (I love to shock people by asserting that had my Uncle Joe been a Communist, I'd have become a Communist!)

Of course, there are all kinds of fans! First, there are the disillusioned fans such as the Chicago Cubs' William Sianis, a tavern owner. The Cubs (foolishly, of course!) refused to let Sianis bring his pet billy goat to a World Series game against the Tigers in 1945. Thus Mr. Sianis put a curse on his Cubs. His “curse” lasted until 2016 (71 years) when those celebrated Cubs won the World Series over the Cleveland Indians (who, of course, really lost on their own). (Note, one can't mention curses of any kind or type without referring to "the curse of the Bambino" on the Boston Red Sox in 1921 for selling Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.) 

Then there's the stupid or, at least, the selfish fan like Steve Bartman who caught a foul ball during the 2003 playoffs that Cub outfielder Moisés Alou would like to have caught to subdue a Marlins rally. The Marlins offense was allowed to proceed and the Cubs lost that series which they might well have won thus ending Sianis' curse thirteen years earlier.

Next, there's the gullible fan like me who, for many years, allows him or herself to believe that the team he or she roots for belongs to them. Fans like that are told that “your" Yankees, Dodgers, or A’s are "on the air!" There are even such entities as "Red Sox Nation" designed to convince the fan that his or her status as a "fanatic" encompasses an actual national patriotism.

Finally, there is the hopelessly unlucky fan like the Phillies grandmother who, sitting behind third base during a Phillies/New York Giants game in 1957, was struck twice by a foul ball off Phillies outfielder Richie Ashburn. The second foul ball hit this lady as she was being assisted onto a stretcher right after being hit by the first Ashburn lined foul. Richie Ashburn was doubly embarrassed and brought her flowers and candy throughout her hospitalization. He even arranged for her two grandsons to visit the Phillies' clubhouse. However, the boys (who were big Philadelphia Eagles fans) suggested that she take them to an Eagles' scrimmage, where  she might accidentally be tackled. Obviously, those two little boys were fans as much as they were grandchildren!

Emotional investment in a singer, a sports hero, or even a politician is as American as voting or enthusiastically screaming (keep Jack Kennedy and Elvis Presley in mind). Taking all of the advertising dollars, the ballpark concessions, and memorabilia revenue into consideration, our economy even depends on it. 

The perspective here is that as wonderful, exciting, and profitable as it all is, little of fandom has anything to do with logic, patriotism, or what everyone else (except me) calls “common sense!”

One more thing: If today's New York Yankees really and truly belong to the fans, there's no way the Yankees will let Aaron Judge go to another team even if they have to legally adopt him!

As for hope versus hurt, hope ultimately prevails because without hope neither you nor I would dare to be a fan!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

AMERICA AS IT'S LIKELY TO BE — PART 2

By Edwin Cooney

AMERICA'S NATIONAL STRUCTURE — Few countries that humankind has ever created are even as equally designed as the United States of America! Our federal system of social and political checks and balances is as sound as human genius is likely capable of both creating and maintaining.

OUR NATIONAL VULNERABILITY — Our national weakness is most readily apparent in our political system. Every human being who would be "free" must possess the capacity to regulate his or her behavior. This individual need can be found in everything we do whether it's business or recreational in its function. Sports and games have umpires and referees. Artists have associations and critics. Medical personnel have the Hippocratic Oath to evaluate their overall practice. You and I have our families and schools, along with our spiritual institutions and guidelines. Meanwhile the behavior of public officials at all levels of government is largely guided by the American voter through the imperfect political process and the set of values and mores of the time. The instruments that most reflect the national mood are our political parties. These political instruments, while generally made up of genuine outlooks and agendas, are most powerfully fueled by the nature of their business. Their ultimate business is competition for the hearts and minds of free men and women. This competition is ultimately personal in nature and could (unless free men and women master its effect) poison our political, social, and spiritual destiny.

SINS AND VIRTUES — As I've pointed out, because we're so powerfully significant in the international body politic, many times both our sins and our virtues have been monumental in their force and by their nature.  

These days, whenever we preach freedom and practice any form of  discrimination, we stir up a hornet's nest of criticism and indignation. Even as we seek to offer equity, we're often very moody in our outlook especially toward large groups of political and social advocacy.

As a member of my college's political affairs club back in the fall of 1971, I had the honor of introducing Lyndon Johnson’s former Press Secretary George Reedy who was speaking on campus. His book was entitled "The Twilight of the Presidency." Mr. Reedy reminded us that up until Franklin Roosevelt took to the airwaves via his "Fireside Chats," few citizens had any sense of the personal assets or liabilities of the man sitting in the White House. Hence, in the wake of FDR's combination of eloquence, political mastery, and physical disability, Harry Truman's pugnacity and daring, Ike's grandfatherly wisdom and well-meaning agenda, JFK's refreshing and youthful guidance and appeal, and LBJ's determined imperial force and expectations, Americans came to take national leadership in a more personal way than they had since George Washington took the presidential oath in 1789.

Accordingly, our impressions of national leaders have become toxic rather than wise or just. Rather than arguing the merits of issues, we argue the demerits of people.Too few office seekers appear to realize that their often criminalization of their political opponents endangers their own credibility once they are elected to public office.

As for the public, we seldom insist that our national leadership draw any distinctions when it comes to the application of public policy. Careful deliberation of public matters has been cheapened by ideological hopes, fears, and expectations of ultimate victory and political dominance. Political dominance is the pathway to both absolute and dictatorial socialism and oligarchy.

Chaotic, confusing and discomforting as they are, the merits as well as the demerits of public issues will ultimately save us from the sheer terror of absolutism!

The effect of public policy is ultimately personal. However, the election of public officials and the debate of public issues are too important to be strictly personal.

As to the fate of the Trumps or even the Clintons, remember that they are  mere mortals subject to the history which will be written and evaluated largely by those yet to be born! 

As human beings, our most common characteristic is our imperfection. Thus, our most ongoing task is that of completing our forbear's task of forming a “MORE PERFECT UNION."

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

A MUCH NEEDED BREAK!

By Edwin Cooney

I like to browse through history dates to see what I can come up with regarding coincidences and matters of significance. Such findings, if seldom instructive, can be most interesting and even fascinating. Such is the case with this very date of October 17th.

Several events of national significance occurred on past October 17ths. However, an event occurred on one October 17th that's just plain fascinating.

Before getting to it, I am compelled to remind you that on Wednesday, October 17th, 1781, British Commander Lord Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington at Yorktown ending a month’s siege and bringing with it American independence.

On Wednesday, October 17th, 1860, the British inaugurated their annual British Open Golf Tournament which was won by Willie Park, Sr. It was the first of the title events that are held today. The winner received the “Challenge Belt" but there was no prize money. What was valuable or significant about the prize my source doesn't reveal.  

On Tuesday, October 17th, 1933, physicist Albert Einstein fled Nazi Germany and found asylum here in America, securing his valuable and personal safety and our deliverance over Adolf Hitler and Imperial Japan in World War II.

On Saturday, October 17th, 1931, gangster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sent to prison for 11 years.

However, the most fascinating event I discovered for the first time that occurred on this very day happened on Monday, October 17th, 1814.

This event would be remembered as the Great London Beer Flood. The Meux and Company Beer Brewery suffered the sudden eruption of a giant vat containing 150,000 gallons of beer. That mighty splash sent beer throughout the brewery with such force as to set off a chain reaction of large vat eruptions of beer. As the beer left the plant, over 300,000 gallons of brew were surging forward.  The beer crushed a wall and went through four homes, demolishing two of them. Next, the wall of amber water rolled through a funeral parlor where people were celebrating a wake and five mourners drowned. Once it had attacked a family as it sat at tea, most of its work was done. By the time it was over, ten good citizens were dead and hundreds of pounds of property damage had been done. 

As you can imagine, a group of mighty angry Londoners launched a suit against the brewery. Alas, the jury eventually ruled that the incident wasn't a crime of any sort, but an "act of God." The brewery continued to function for another 108 years until 1922 and a pub that sits at the site of the long lamented brewery annually puts out a "special porter” (whatever that is!) to commemorate the occasion. 

Whatever news event occurs this Monday, October 17th, 2022 may be more important or significant than the last instance I have just related, but can it be more fascinating?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE AMERICA THAT'S LIKELY TO BE!

By Edwin Cooney

At the outset, there are three factors we might keep in mind.

(1.) Every country's story ultimately is a history of crises. Foreign wars, domestic conflicts (religious and racial), economic woes, and political uncertainties are all inevitable.

(2.) I'm convinced that countries founded on principles, rather than on circumstances and conditions, generally maintain those basic principles although in modified form. I can't think of a single instance when a democracy became a dictatorship. (Note: England in 1509 when Henry VIII took the throne was vastly different than in 1953 when Elizabeth II was crowned, but England was still England.)

(3.) Most Communist states were originally monarchies as were Russia, China and the Slavic offshoots of the Hapsburg and Hohenzollern Empires. Cuba is the only possible exception to this trend and that was tied to the “cold war.” Communist societies generally come out of monarchal dictatorships rather than what too many believe are the result of failed socialist democracies. 

Thus, whatever political and legal changes take place here will be more than likely to have a genuinely democratic flavor. Here's a thumbnail example of what I mean.

Despite its Republican Democratic form of government, America, without realizing it, was subject at birth to regional conflicts (North vs. South, Protestant vs. Catholic, rural vs. urban clashes, as well as institutional needs and demands vs. personal and moral expectations.) Had King George rather than President George Washington assumed office these conflicts would have affected our growth and development although measures for the solutions of these problems would have been different. 

As for our 21st Century dilemmas, beyond the possibilities of Trump vs. Biden, of oligarchy vs. progressivism, countering social forces and legal demands are likely to keep our national leaders sufficiently off balance thus minimizing the ultimate destructive effects of either progressivism or oligarchy.  Although we Americans will continue to do all of those things, good and bad, that past generations have done to one another, we hope that Abraham Lincoln’s characterization of “the better angels of our nature” will prevail over all of our political and social limitations. There are even signs that we're ready to tackle challenges such as climate change. I'm convinced that the electrification of gas-driven vehicles will clean the environment as corporations realize that there is money in electric, nuclear, and solar sources of energy. (Someday, former President Jimmy Carter will get the credit to which he is entitled for adopting solar energy at the White House in the late 1970s.)

Ultimately, there is some but not a lot of uniformity in the American body politic. Back in the early 1900s, progressives Theodore Roosevelt and Robert La Follette called for voter initiative, voter referendum, and voter recall to regulate corporate and generally anti-labor, pro business trends in American government and society. Today, initiative, referendum, and recall have become powerful tools even by conservatives to get a grip on liberal state governments. We older folks are less likely to be optimistic about the future than our children and grandchildren. After all, following sixty or eighty plus years of fears brought about by the Great Depression, the cold war, racial and political unrest, corrupt politicians and threatening foreign leaders, we've had enough conflict and we have a tendency to be tired of it all!

Even as our world becomes our children's world, there will remain elements of our best mores and methods of problem-solving which is a good thing because, even with the documentation of all our human failures, America has given more of what's good for people all over the world than has any other nation.    

So long as we're conscientiously respectful of our past glories, what has meant the most to us will ultimately prevail to the benefit of all humankind!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

AMERICA AS IT WAS

By Edwin Cooney

How much do you suppose we Americans really knew or understood about one another on that day, Thursday, April 30th, 1789, as George Washington took the presidential oath of office on the steps of Federal Hall in New York City? It's my guess that not very many of us were deep thinkers since only about 3% of us had had much education. The fact was that most of us were too busy eking out a living from the soil to have much time contemplating the significance of either our personal or national existence! During the 1780s, most of us spent our entire lives within about fifteen miles from where we were born. You can be sure that many of us knew little about most of us. There were newspapers so that Virginians knew broadly about New Englanders and vice versa, and the most dramatic events occurring in each colony, but neither Virginians nor New Englanders knew one another personally.

This lack of American self awareness tells us a lot about who we were and who we weren't from the very outset of our history.

Long before I started school back in 1950, children who were in the fifth grade were taught about the uniqueness of the United States of America. Over the years we've learned that we were once thirteen colonies founded by European nations for their economic and social benefit; that we fought the Revolutionary War against Great Britain; that at the time of our independence our original form of government was under the Articles of Confederation. The Constitutional Convention occurred in 1787 thus establishing the federalist system of government under the Constitution of the United States. (Note: One of the reasons for a federal union over a confederate form of government was the founders' fear that sovereign states could make treaties with foreign nations.)   

Most of us are especially proud that we were the first people in history to shrug off tribalism and royalty and establish what Jeffersonians called the Democratic-Republican Party.

We've taken pride in the balance and flexibility of our form of government. Even more, up until recently, we've bragged to the world about our capacity to create and compromise despite our political, social, ethnic, religious, and economic differences. The most outstanding aspect of our form of government has been "the peaceful transfer of power” between Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives, and Liberals.

Additionally, however reluctantly, we’ve been forced to recognize our sins (social, racial, economic, and attitudinal) even as we set out originally to form “a more perfect union.” The obvious question is: can perfection be expected from an imperfect people or do imperfect people occasionally achieve a special level of perfection?

Historic events have forced us to realize social, religious, and  economic prejudices and clashes. Chattel slavery and native American genocide are our two worst historic practices. Religious prejudice against Jews, Catholics, Mormons, and others are right up there with ethnic and gender prejudices.

Some Americans loved their slaves as long as they remained comfortable being slaves. Following the Civil War, free Blacks became too dangerous for some to love, especially when they competed for jobs and expected to move into white neighborhoods. Even more threatening was their insistence on voting "for God's sake!" Throughout the debates which led up to the Civil War, Southerners saw the institution of slavery as a noble institution along the lines of Medieval Europe since slave owners were obligated to ensure the well-being of their slaves from the cradle to the grave. Southerners saw northern industrialists as “dollar lovers” who in an instant let their workers starve once they got too expensive to remain employed.

Religious prejudice was often circumstantial depending on how, when, and where people felt threatened. Throughout the 1850s, the Nativist or "no nothing” party made prejudice against Mormons, Catholics, and Jews very acceptable. (Note: One doesn't have to look too hard to find that “nativism” is highly prominent in 2022 politics!)

Believing as we once did, and as many of us still do, that God obligates us to have faith and to encourage others to have that faith, many of us too often feel obligated these days to judge nonbelievers badly and to keep our children as far away from their influence as we can.

Finally, believing that we have a Manifest Destiny (as defined by newspaper publisher John O'Sullivan in 1845 just before our war with Mexico), millions of Americans are convinced and comforted in their assurance that most of our social and political activities are ordained by God.

From Thursday, July 4th 1776 until this very day, we've considered ourselves to be special human beings because we are citizens of the United States of America. We have maximized our human value to the extent that other peoples aren't quite as fair, as just, as free, as religious, or as brilliantly creative as we! 

Of course, we're subject to the worst and the best in human nature. Perhaps the assessment by two prominent Americans about the American pioneer  might put all of this in proper prospective. The late great news commentator Paul Harvey praised what he called "the hard-handed American pioneer” as being hard working and hard praying. According to Mr. Harvey, all the American pioneer had to say as he looked over his land was: ”Thank you, Father, I can take it from here!"

The commentator and comedian Will Rogers had quite a different view of Paul Harvey's “hard-handed pioneer" partly due to his Cherokee heritage. He once observed: "I'll bet none of you have ever seen a picture of the American pioneer without a gun in his hand!” Although he would pray, “he carried that gun in order to see to it that he got what he was praying for, mostly from the Indians, of course!" Rogers went on to assert that the American pioneer was most likely someone who wanted “something for nothing." I might add that the United States government saw to it that the American pioneer got the maximum opportunity through government legislation to get what was needed to build a farm, homestead, factory and, especially, land grant colleges. (After all, many of our national leaders were land speculators.) Of course, Americans have been good, fair, generous, and creative perhaps beyond the norm, but as I've written before, in spite of Irving Berlin and Kate Smith, none of us who would like to will get to heaven just because we were born citizens of America!

Perhaps the most significant factor of our hard earned success and sense of national well-being is that America could develop between two oceans free of the historic international struggles with which most of the people of the world have had to contend.

People all over the world, out of fear for their safety and their lives, long to be you and me despite all we are, aren’t, and truly ought to be.

If you think that nativism versus immigration is easy to deal with, just ask Vice President Kamala Harris!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY