RESPONDING TO THE NEW REAL

By Edwin Cooney

Back on June 16th, 2005, I wrote my first column under the private title I called “Cooney's Corner” which I categorized as my take on historical and current events as well as on the forces and tendencies that cause you and me to have our beings.

It was my private hope that some newspaper or publication might hire me as a columnist. That didn't happen, but I decided to soldier on because I enjoyed thinking and writing about current events. Also, although I had permanent teaching certification in New York State and temporary certification in California, I never attained a teaching position. Still, I longed to teach.

When I began writing these musings, I believed that I had a pretty solid idea where we were headed as a society. I continued to hold to that belief even in the wake of President Trump's election in 2016.

However, since his re-election last November, I've come to realize how little I understand my fellow Americans. The center of my belief has been that despite the inevitable peaks and valleys in future human events, the future always has an upward trend.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt made that assertion on January 20th, 1945, his fourth and final presidential inauguration. I heard Dr. Martin Luther King assert the same belief on Sunday night, March 31st, 1968, just four days before his assassination.

I've come to realize that President Trump is strictly concerned about his own personal ambitions and needs and the reality is that not even his fellow Republicans appear to assert their constitutional powers and obligations when and if they clash with the president's prerogatives.

Thus, I've lost my political, social grasp as to where America is headed. I find particularly frustrating those who claim that they held their noses and voted for Donald Trump last November 5th. After all, voting isn't a guess. It's an essential assertion of value and judgment.  Henceforth, these musings will be about our past as a nation. I abhor feeling about the current president the way I do.

The past, like the future, is loaded with people and events that invariably reflect on who we are, individually and collectively!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

MY POLITICAL RECESS

By Edwin Cooney

Since yesterday was Groundhog Day, I guess I'll equate President Trump with Punxsutawney Phil. The very idea is a bit scary, but let's have a little fun!

My first thought has to do with what might happen to Phil if President Trump should realize that the Pennsylvania hibernator is getting more national attention, even for a single day, than he is. After all, Mr. Trump is the President of the United States on his way to perhaps eventually becoming America's first king. Little Phil is already vulnerable to larger rodents. Come to think of it, however, since Mr. T. is America's #1 in every category every day, he may well regard himself as an even greater rodent than Punxsutawney Phil. Additionally, Old Phil is even sleepier than “Sleepy” Joe!

Another thing that makes me worry about Phil is that he may not realize that he is one of the leaders of the “Deep State.” After all, he's been a celebrity since 1887. Hence, Punxsutawney Phil has been in office during the administrations of those crooked presidents who have tolerated socialism, presidents who have cheated on their wives, presidents who have taken advantage of White House interns, and presidents who have given away our Panama Canal for the benefit of the Chinese. One must keep in mind that the 138-year-old Woody has been a celebrity longer than the mere 78-year-old Great American Savior — but that's why it's way past time for Donnie Johnny to do something about him!

As for convenient political labeling, have you ever heard a Conservative refrain from labeling Liberals as being on the “far left”? Since there is a far left, doesn't there have to be a “near left”? For the last twelve years we've heard about the “deep state.” Shouldn’t there then be a “shallow state”?

Woodrow Wilson, one of my least favorite presidents, once began a speech with the words: We stand in the presence of an awakened nation impatient of partisan make believe.  George Washington, in his September 19th, 1796 farewell message, warned against the creation of political parties. However wise both of these two statesmen were, they were noninstructive. Without a competitive political process, how were free men and women supposed to pick their leaders? Of course, money has always been at the center of both public and private and even religious affairs. Hence the rich will always have the advantage when it comes to making choices and setting policies.

It's time to let President Trump do what he will, but that doesn't mean we should put our collective consciences in our back pockets!

It is time, however, to be ready for the next time it is our turn to set the agenda.

Remember, if we cheapen the presidential office, we can hardly expect it to work for us when we're atop the summit once again!

Even more, let's be sure we're ready when recess is over!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY      
 

HE’S THE MAN ON TOP, LIKE IT OR NOT

By Edwin Cooney

I didn’t and don't like it at all, but Donald John (I often refer to him as "Donnie Johnny”) Trump occasionally is unpredictable enough to be interesting. The bottom line is that he's real and must be taken seriously! Mr. Trump finally won America's popular vote by a percentage-and-a-half, but the heart of the problem is his permanent anger with the land and the people he insists he loves.

Just a word about my personal perspective. Much of my life since my late teens has been learning about the lives of the men who have served as president of the United States. I'm not as knowledgeable as Jon Meacham or Michael Beschloss, but over the years, presidents have become real people to me. I have favorites like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, TR, Calvin Coolidge, FDR, John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. My least favorites are Andrew Jackson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Grover Cleveland, and Woodrow Wilson. My mind has occasionally  shifted regarding Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, and Harry Truman. In order to reach reasonable conclusions about these presidents, it requires one to objectively learn about these men and measure the socio/political environments from which they came.

 Back in 1979, I heard British Prime Minister James Callaghan announce in almost a cheery voice that Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher had toppled his government by one vote bringing a nationwide election that would sweep “Sunny Jim” from the prime ministership forever. Donald Trump has given two inaugural addresses, both of which show nothing but contempt for most of his predecessors — certainly including the four living presidents who honored him by attending his second inaugural last Monday, January 20th, 2025.

These men, according to him, have appointed crooks to the Justice Department, taxed Mr. and Mrs. America in support of socialistic or “woke” causes, allowed foreign criminals to thrive here in America and, worst of all, have encouraged the slaughter of police officers in the name of civil rights.

The most blatant irony is that right after expressing what FDR used to call "crocodile tears" about the shooting of police, he proceeded to pardon some 1,600 people who defied the law on January 6th, 2021. In other words, shoot a police officer on behalf of George Floyd and you're a crook worthy of prison or even capital punishment, but do that on behalf of President Donald Trump, you're a proud patriot.

A personal friend of mine says he's “cautiously optimistic” about the path President #47 is taking, but he's not sure I'm making an effort toward optimism about President Trump. This gentleman is really and truly a fine Christian. Just as I would, he'd come down like a brick if his son deliberately insulted people due to their religious beliefs or even gender identification, but he requires nothing but standard tax cuts from his newly inaugurated Republican president.

In the late 1960s and well into the 1970s, people named Angela Davis, George Jackson, Stokely Carmichael, and Huey Newton claimed their personal patriotism every time they were accused of breaking the law. Sometimes they weren't guilty of breaking any law, but were merely guilty of protesting as a black American.

Last Inauguration Day, I heard a president straight out of the 19th Century. I heard Andrew Jackson justifying The Trail of Tears along which the Cherokee Indians were driven into Oklahoma. I heard James K. Polk out of Manifest Destiny going to war with Mexico, thereby bringing about the Civil War. I heard Grover Cleveland being thirsty for Hawaii, Teddy Roosevelt stealing the most important part of Panama, and I heard the United Fruit Company making its claims to lands in Central and South America. Beyond that, I heard an appetite hungering and thirsting for Canada, Greenland and, of course, Panama.

Let's be clear!  President Trump is right about a lot of things and those things have been presented to the public more dramatically and effectively than have the cases and causes raised by his opposition. However, there's a huge difference between recognizing a problem and the capacity to solve any problem. Sometimes what constitutes a problem is a solution to someone else's need. Donald Trump's insistence that there are only two genders, male and female, only belittles other people's feelings.

Identifying something that angers or threatens you is a different problem for someone else. The practicality that faces a family seeking to emigrate to the United States is a life-saving venture. Our immigration rules are legitimate for the purpose of controlling or managing our domestic affairs, but it's equally true that people don't walk hundreds of miles across one or two countries just because they feel like taking a hike. If we send troops to another country's border, to them that's a threat as much as it is self defense for us.

These days we are entrenched in conflict for both good and bad reasons. For example, President Trump comes across as sympathetic to hurricanes in North Carolina but blames the governor of “liberal California” due to the wildfires in the Golden State.

My biggest overall problem that stultifies my effort to be optimistic about President Trump is my lack of confidence in his ability to effectively comprehend other people's legitimate needs if they aren't sympathetic to Donald Trump's own social, political or spiritual agenda.

Last week's inaugural was a proclamation more than it was an understanding communication!

There are 1,461 days in most presidential terms and as of today there are 1,456 days remaining.

Mr. Trump, act like a president rather than like a king  and America will treat you the way it ought!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY    

JIMMY'S WAYS

By Edwin Cooney

As we prepare to celebrate Donald Trump's second inauguration, America is pausing to honor a former president whose ways of wondering, thinking, and worshiping vastly differed from that of President-elect Trump.

Fifty years ago as James Earl Carter began his most unlikely quest for the presidency, he introduced himself to you and me as "Jimmy" rather than as “James” as in Madison, Monroe, Polk,  Buchanan, and Garfield. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Jimmy's political commitment was his personal integrity as his bond of public trust — thus promising never to lie to the American people.

A “born-again Christian," Jimmy generally avoided proselytizing his religion thus allowing his behavior as a Christian — rather than his reputation as such — to demonstrate what he was all about.

The fact of the matter was that he was offering his services to the public as a politician rather than as a saintly figure, which is actually quite ironic.

Although Jimmy was successful enough to outdo other politicians for the presidency, his ultimate failure was as a politician. Having been elected as an outsider, he needed to be a successful insider to get his agenda through Congress. His clash with Teddy Kennedy and the liberal element of the party ultimately cost him the November election of 1980. On the very night of his defeat, he conceded to Ronald Reagan sufficiently early to defeat a number of would-be Democratic Party congressmen and women which almost caused him to be literally read out of his party. The convention that nominated Walter Mondale pointedly ignored Jimmy Carter in 1984.

As for Jimmy Carter's ways of thinking and working, consider the following. The Panama Canal Treaty in September 1977 solidified and strengthened Central American peace that resulted in the Arias Peace and Unity Agreement in 1987. The Camp David Accords and the Israeli Egyptian Peace Treaty of 1978 and 1979 still prevail in the most contentious part of the world.

During his inaugural address, Jimmy Carter made it clear that how nations handled human rights would primarily affect our relationship with them. Former President Nixon insisted that holding the Soviets to human rights expectations was both pointless and naive. However, the Carter Doctrine issued following the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979 warned Russia that further territorial expansion into the Persian Gulf would result in a possible military response and ultimately stultified Soviet advancement throughout Western Asia. His recognition of Communist China while insuring the security and safety of Taiwan upheld America's commitment to the maintenance of international freedom.

To his ultimate detriment, Carter’s commitment to free the American hostages was far more personal than it was political. (Note that with the exception of FDR, Harry Truman, and perhaps Mr. Reagan, no president had a greater positive effect on American foreign affairs than President Carter.)

As for domestic Carter achievements, on January 21st, 1977, President Carter pardoned all Vietnam War draft evaders. That commitment was originally a political risk! It was a decision he announced during a campaign appearance before the annual American Legion Convention which was held in Seattle in September 1976. Candidate Carter declared that in order to put the divisiveness of the Vietnam conflict behind us, he would pardon American draft evaders upon becoming president. His declaration was booed by his audience, a response which must have discouraged many of his political supporters.

 In 1977, Carter deregulated cargo-carrying airlines. In 1978, he deregulated commercial airlines and the sale of natural gas. In 1980, he deregulated the trucking industry. That was followed up by the president's deregulation of "Ma Bell.”

In 1977, President Carter outlawed the dumping of raw sewage into the ocean. The following year he signed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. Finally, following the 1980 election, Mr. Carter signed the Alaska Land Control Act, setting aside some 140 million acres of land for national parks and the establishment of wilderness areas.

In 1977, President Carter signed a measure making food stamps free to everyone who qualified to receive them. In 1978, he signed the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act sponsored by Hubert Humphrey, Democrat from Minnesota, and Augustus F. Hawkins, Democrat of California, setting a goal of 4 percent unemployment by 1983 and requiring the president to issue public reports on employment, unemployment, inflation, and production. In addition, the development of energy-saving and climate-improving strategies were put into practice by Carter, demonstrated by the installation of solar panels in the White House.

Jimmy and Rosalynn held opposite positions on capital punishment. While visiting inmates in state prison, Rosalynn met and was impressed by Mary Prince who'd been wrongly convicted of murder. The Carters were sufficiently impressed with her to make her their daughter Amy's caretaker. They ultimately brought her to the White House where she became part of the Carter family. Mary Prince would be officially pardoned by the State of Georgia. Like Thomas Jefferson before him, Carter believed that capital punishment could only be applicable when it could be perfectly utilized.

What's fascinating to contemplate is how Jimmy Carter's dedication to person-to-person care only began to matter following his 1980 defeat for re-election.

During the first months of his forced retirement, Jimmy was genuinely at sea as to what to do with the rest of his life. In March 1982, he awakened suddenly in the night thus startling Rosalynn who feared that he might be ill. However, what had awakened the 57-year-old former President was the sudden realization of what he should do with the years ahead.

The Carter Center would be established so that Mr. Carter could use the reputation of his former office on behalf of political and social needs, not only for his former constituency but also for people all over the world. Henceforth, he would study the effects of diseases of which most Americans had never heard. He joined businessman Millard Fuller's Habitat For Humanity to built homes for the poor. He monitored contested elections and encouraged peaceful competition everywhere.

During his 1977 Inaugural, he made it clear that the establishment and strengthening of human rights regardless of whom it disturbed would be the main goal of his public service.

Only Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt approach Jimmy Carter's passion for people.

Scholars may perhaps continue to separate the significance of his presidency versus his post presidency, but this observer insists that like love and marriage, “you can't have one without the other!”

Today, Americans of differing political persuasions have come to appreciate and love "Jimmy Carter's ways” just as they ought. From this day onward, his deeds as President of the United States will have finally caught up with his reputation as an outstanding humanitarian who just happened to become President of the United States of America.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY

A SET OF INTERESTING IRONIES

By Edwin Cooney

One of last week's major headlines (aside from those having to do with President-elect Trump's incoming cabinet selections, the change of government in Syria, or the murder of an insurance company executive) has to do with a rather significant American phenomenon. That phenomenon is the contentious selection of 26-year-old outfielder Juan Soto by the Mets, effectively stealing his services from the mighty New York Yankees.

The free agent acquisition of Soto by the Mets was obviously a good decision as the young left-handed slugger is a splendid baseball commodity. However, there are several truths about this transaction that diminishes its significance.

First, it guarantees the Mets absolutely nothing since the "World Champion” Los Angeles Dodgers, the Atlanta Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies will have something to say or do about the Mets' success in the National League next season.

Second, American League teams such as the Boston Red Sox, Houston Astros, Toronto Blue Jays, and other league franchises will have much to say about the fate of the Yankees next year.

However, in New York sports culture which is so dependent on comparison and competition, the Mets undoubtedly won a public relations coup over the mighty Yankees on Sunday night, December 7th, 2024.

There's nothing new about this, especially in New York. Back in 1915, under manager John McGraw, the Giants were the kings of New York. Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston, two ambitious entrepreneur friends of Mr. McGraw, scraped up $460,000 to purchase the lowly Yankees as McGraw suggested. Thus, Frank Farrell and Bill Devery, who had purchased the team in 1903 for a mere $18,000, made a handsome profit. Within eight years, the Yankees were not only outdrawing the mighty Giants, they defeated them in the 1923 World Series in their brand new Yankees Stadium which was just across the Harlem River from the Polo Grounds. Jacob Ruppert, the son of a brewery magnate who was born in 1867, rose in New York society to be elected to Congress from the "Silk Stocking District” of New York. Owner Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston, a native of Texas, made his money in the reconstruction of Cuba following the Spanish American War. Once the two were in charge of the Yankees, they disagreed about everything except spending to increase the value of the Club. Huston disliked manager Miller Huggins whom Ruppert backed over the whims of Babe Ruth. The two split up in 1923 when Ruppert paid Huston a million and a half dollars to gain sole control of the Yankees.

Competition between the Yankees, Dodgers, Giants, and, eventually, the Mets was inevitable. In 1965, the Mets under Casey Stengel signed Yogi Berra who had just been fired by the Yankees after losing the 1964 World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. (Not that it did them much good: the Mets ultimately fired Yogi 10 years later even after he'd taken them to the 7th game of the 1973 World Series against Charley Finley's Oakland A’s.)

The key factor here, as in the past, was the willingness of exceedingly wealthy owners such as the Steinbrenners and, now, "Uncle" Steve Cohen to please Mets' fans.

Another intriguing question is: will an Uncle Steve Cohen "World Championship equal that of the 1969 “Miracle Mets” championship glorified by such names as Donald Grant, Joan Payson, Casey Stengel, Gil Hodges and, of course, Yogi Berra who was their first base coach at the time?

Ultimately, there remains the question, what value does any major league team have to any sports fan? Sports entrepreneurs and even sports writers insist these days that fan support matters above all, but does it really? Are the Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and other teams really yours or mine?

A few years ago I insisted that I wasn't going to allow George Steinbrenner to ruin "My Yankees.”

Hence the question: who was I kidding?

Ah, but sports is merely entertainment! Therein lies still another question! What's the ultimate value of entertainment?

You tell me, please?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY

AMERICA, A PEOPLE OF PURPOSE

By Edwin Cooney

Perhaps our innocence was blown away by the assassination of President Kennedy that Friday, November 22nd, 1963, but our purposefulness as a people was more than enhanced. The vital person of the  presidency was shown to be mortal, but the office was an institution authorized and owned by a free people and was not to be denied to them. Hence, we would seek to solve the crime by our own means and in our own individual ways.

Beyond law enforcement, there were suspicions to be investigated. There were political theories to be exercised. Was the rifleman a communist, a racist, a gangster, or even a drug-induced fanatic?

Was the cause too many guns, too few Secret Service personnel, a lackadaisical Dallas police force, or perhaps the existing political divide within the state of Texas?

Who most immediately benefited from the deed? Was the government a party to the assassination? How about the Mafia? Did government and organized crime have a joint stake in JFK's death?  How could "we the people" prevent this deed from ever occurring again? After all, we were a purposeful people.

We demanded to be safe, secure and, above all, a satisfied people.

As to who we are, it depends on what anyone who seeks to serve us wants. Politicians call us "taxpayers.” Professionals call us “clients” or “customers.”

We are parents, teachers, the educated, the laborer, the patient. In fact, we are so many things to so many people with varying needs and demands. History has demonstrated that the presidency of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson marked the close of 20th Century liberalism going back to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal during which our parents, teachers, and preachers were intellectually and spiritually educated. The political institutions, the colleges and universities, churches and synagogues, lawyers and doctors would struggle for the next thirty to fifty years to meet ever changing expectations.

On November 22nd, 1963, Donald Trump was a rebellious teenager. Joe Biden was attending the University of Syracuse. Barack Obama was two years old. “Shrub" Bush was in high school. Bill Clinton was a teenager who had visited President Kennedy that past August and shaken his hand.  George H. W. Bush was planning a 1964 run for the House. Ronald Reagan was a less than prominent actor. No one had even heard of Jimmy (who?) Carter down there in southwest Georgia. Gerald Ford was about to successfully run for GOP House Minority leader in 1965. Richard Nixon was practicing law in New York City and his presidential prospects were pretty gloomy. As for Lyndon B. Johnson, he was Vice President who a few believed was about to be dumped by the Kennedys.

What none of us could know in 1963 was how our values and understandings would clash during the coming traumatic decades of war, scandal and social upheaval. Sixty one years of politically stormy weather were to pass to get to election day of 2024.

With all of our “ohs" and woes, living in America has been and remains a pretty good deal. As for the immediate future, Democrats may have serious doubts. However, quick as a wink, the ins can become the outs!

Very soon, this willful and purposeful people will ask the powers that be  that inevitable question: "what have you done for me lately?"

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY

AMERICANS INNOCENT: REALLY, TRULY?

By Edwin Cooney

Last week, I quoted CBS newsman Bob Schieffer as observing: "Americans awakened on the morning of Saturday, November 23rd, 1963 stripped of their innocence.”  Are any people truly innocent?

Does any nation, despite its advertised ideology, possess a conscience?
Can there be a national consciousness? Ought there to be?

What would that mean and how might it express itself?

If America indeed awakened on that historic Saturday in 1963 stripped of its “innocence," of what was it innocent? Of what was every other nation guilty in 1776 that newly independent America was not?
 
Although this country had just celebrated its 187th birthday, America was just a baby compared to France which was approaching its 1,263rd  or England (America's mother country) which would celebrate its 897th birthday that Christmas of 1963. Still, like its two European predecessors as a contiguous people, America had developed a set of expectations according to its history. After all, young America was the first Republican form of government free of royalty.

As a newly 18-year-old lad that fall, I had a sense of some of the both admirable and regrettable behaviors of my fellow citizens.

We had fought the South and the Union had prevailed in a Civil War that had set slaves free back in the 1860’s. We had defeated a virulent form of autocracy in World War I and Nazism and Japanese imperialism in World War II. We had established and internationalized the Red Cross. We had assisted Japan in the 1920’s after a devastating earthquake. We had established the new United Nations to prevent future wars and sent some of our sons to Korea to stop the advancement of Communism. We were about to halt Communism in Vietnam.

True, “Jim Crow” was still pretty strong in the South. Northern liberals (later called human secularists) had just relieved our public schools of official prayers. Secularism was growing faster than Christianity and Judaism. As for Islam, hadn't medieval kings, knights and popes settled the hash of that ancient society centuries ago via three crusades?

Summing it all up, we were a pretty decent and fair people with a pretty extraordinary president who was handsome and very personable. Certainly the FBI, CIA and the Secret Service were determined to protect him, weren't they?

About that time in my life, I had learned how to peruse maps. I would look at the capitals and nations under Communism and I would wonder what those sad peoples had done to deserve their police state existence! Did they feel enslaved as some members of Congress suggested during their annual call for the banishment of Communist totalitarianism?

If we weren't innocent, what were we? Good, bad, fair, selfish, grasping, money hungry, all of the above or perhaps none of the above? Did God really “bless America” (as Irving Berlin wrote for Kate Smith back in 1938) just because we were America and not Russia or Yugoslavia or India?

How could we be any closer to God than, say, Israel? After all, Moses came from Mount Sinai where he had received the Ten Commandments  prior to fleeing Egypt for Israel. George Washington came from Westmoreland County, Virginia where he had pruned a lot of cherry trees --except one, of course!

So, if we're not either innocent nor guilty, what are we? Even more, who are we? Do we even know each other as well as we ought?

I've one or two ideas! I'll share them with you next time.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY

AMERICA, STRIPPED OF ITS INNOCENCE

By Edwin Cooney

Today, November 25th, 2024, marks 61 years and 3 days since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Bob Schieffer, one of the few newsmen living today who'd covered the assassination story, observed on CBS the morning of November 22nd, 2013, the 50th anniversary of the assassination:

"Americans awakened on the morning of Saturday, November 23rd, 1963 stripped of their innocence.”

I've believed that observation since that weekend. It seemed to be true at the time. After all, it wasn't until the shooting of President Kennedy that civil rights divisions hit their full angry intensity. It was after JFK's demise that the Vietnam War divided America under the very man, Lyndon Johnson, whom JFK had selected to succeed him. Next came Dr. King's and the late president's brother Bobby who were swept away. After that, Richard Nixon swept himself away by internalizing antiwar criticism by his "liberal" enemies.

Today we live in a socio/political society that has turned political opposition into criminality.

Not that the world had been perfect up until then.  After all, America had enslaved Blacks and committed wholesale genocide against Native Americans. Even religious prejudice was a part of America's story, but many of our accomplishments did overshadow our sins.

Still, America had saved its Union from a bloody and divisive civil war. Twice, America had saved the old world from itself. We had populated a continent through "manifest destiny” during the 1840s. We had established great unions strong enough to counter the forces of very wealthy corporations. We had mastered science enough to rid ourselves of disease despite the observation of the president of a major college who insisted that if God wanted us to be free of smallpox he wouldn't have invented smallpox! Fortunately, George Washington didn't agree and inoculated his troops against the disease.

America was blessed when it established the Red Cross and eventually internationalized it. Although Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley had been assassinated, their reputation was within the powers and potentials of their presidential offices. Meanwhile, Americans could relate to Jack Kennedy’s personality on their living room television sets and in  glamorous newspapers and magazines of the day.

Presidents were, of course, mortal, and one was even physically crippled, although intellectually and spiritually powerful. In the fall of 1963, the Secret Service and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI were certainly  dedicated to keeping this vital young president safe from any harm ---were they not!

Then came those six seconds in Dallas shortly after 12:30 central standard time. Within minutes, who was responsible became as significant as the deed itself!

Yes, there were still good and wondrous things yet to happen here in America. However, they wouldn't come with the anticipated expectation that they once did.

Before Friday, November 22nd, 1963, we expected the best to happen to us. Since that historic date we've been merely privileged, lucky if you choose, when wondrous things do occur.

Next week, the topic will be: we, the innocent!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY    

GETTING A GRIP

 By Edwin Cooney

Hello All,

Last week I wrote that much of America is in pain and "that's a shame."

So, how are we Democrats getting a grip? I hope we're not spending a lot of time regretting President Biden and his administration nor the nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris or Governor Tim Walz. Of course, some analysis is healthy and even relevant, but let's not scrutinize them to the point of pushing them out of the party as 1981 Democrats sought to do to Jimmy Carter. The main things to keep in mind are twofold:

First, now that Donald Trump and his ilk control the House, Senate, and the Supreme Court, they are solely responsible for what works and what doesn't work. Naturally, there are fissures in the GOP just as there are in the Democratic Party that may well modify the president's nominations and his legislative proposals.

Second, how the president and his minions do what they propose to do will have an effect on how popular they remain. Every administration has a social and political flavor.

Harry Truman was all about “a fair deal at home and abroad.” Ike's administration was about protecting us from Communism. JFK was about youth, glamour and, late in the president's term, civil rights and a nuclear test ban treaty. LBJ was about a bigger and better Rooseveltian new deal. Nixon was about establishing a new "Southern political strategy” and "peace with honor” in Vietnam. Ford sought to "whip inflation now” and protect Nixonian Republicanism. Carter was about everyone's human rights, even in the Middle East! Reagan was about conservatism ending the Cold War. George H. W. Bush was about enlightened conservatism (”read my lips, no new taxes”). Clinton was about neoliberalism. George W. Bush was about stopping terrorism after September 11th, 2001. Barack Obama was about creating healthcare for everyone. Trump's first term was about halting liberal carnage. Joe Biden was about building bridges to sensitive liberalism.

Over the two plus weeks since the election, President-elect Trump appears to be about stripping away needless government and installing procedures that best benefit the wealthy.

What concerns this observer is this department of “Government Efficiency.” Government isn't for the poor and disadvantaged. Government is for the “happy-go-lucky” among us. When government works for the Republicans, it is as American as J. Edgar Hoover once was. When government primarily helps the disadvantaged, it's socialistic, communistic and non-Christian.

The bottom line today is that President-elect Trump, by securing the popular vote, has earned the chance to do things his way rather than mine.

For the present, it's President Trump's bat and ball. If he doesn't get it right, Lucy will demand that Charlie Brown jump on his Democratic donkey and go snatch it away from him!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY

MUCH OF AMERICA'S IN PAIN AND THAT'S A SHAME!

By Edwin Cooney

We proud Democrats are in a lot of pain! After all, last Wednesday morning, Donald Trump achieved popular election to the office of President of the United States. Of course, we didn't want Mr. Trump to win at all, but we might have felt a tad better if he'd won in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. All of us are now forced to live (notice I don't say surrender) to Mr. Trump's reality. Now is not the time to debate the differences between democracy and republicanism. The majority prevails in a democracy and, for the present, Donald Trump has prevailed.

Living with reality is distinct from surrendering to prevailing conditions. President-elect Trump also will face limitations and conflicts just as Lyndon Johnson ultimately had to face even in the wake of his 1964 “mandate" and just as Franklin D. Roosevelt did with his 1936 mandate. FDR stumbled when he sought to “pack" the Supreme Court. LBJ faltered when he sought to prevail militarily in Vietnam.

Already, there's a potential conflict between congressmen representing fossil fuel "drill drill drill" constituents versus clean energy companies expecting to manufacture and profit from the sale of those environmental and energy-saving electronic vehicles.

One of the lessons history teaches is that the more responsibility one seeks and accepts, the more accountability one will have!

As for your and my political and social preferences, for our own well-being we can't root for the failure of our national leadership without wishing failure on ourselves. The well-being of our constituents is as legitimate today as it has been. Their time and ours will come if we're conscientiously vigilant!

There was one very tiny phrase in Mr. Trump's victory statement  that gave me a little encouragement. Rather than asserting that he would make America "great again,” he stated that he had to make America better! All of us, individually and collectively ought to strive to be "better!"

Emotionally, I detest Donald Trump and almost everything he stands for and promotes. However, with his victory last Tuesday he has become an historic figure. Should he achieve as few as three of his stated objectives, his presidency will be as significant as those of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ, and Reagan.

Mark Antonio Wright, who today edits The National Review, the magazine founded and once edited by William F. Buckley, Jr, recently asked a set of very intriguing questions about the outcome of last Tuesday's election.

Why, Mr. Wright wondered, didn't Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the rest of those Democratic “goons” cheat this time? Didn't they have control of the Justice Department, the FBI, and the rest of the “deep state’s" intelligence and law enforcement agencies? After all, didn't they successfully cheat President Trump out of his re-election straight from Joe Biden's Delaware basement back in 2020? It just doesn't make sense to Mr. Wright, whom we must assume is no friend of Biden and his liberal Democratic ilk!

Still, Mr. Wright wonders why, in the face of January 6th and Mr. Trump’s criminal convictions, the Democrats decided not to “cheat” and thus deny Donald Trump another term. How can that be?.

As for Vice President Harris, her heart may hurt a bit, but she'll land on her professional and political feet. She's already achieved the honor of her party's nomination. Count the number of people who have sought that highest of honors and compare that to the number of people who have even achieved that honor!

Soon, President Biden will greet Mr. Trump at the White House and offer a smooth transition — not because he should, but because he ought to!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER!

 By Edwin Cooney

Tomorrow, I will go to our town hall and cast my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. I fervently hope you will do the same!

I've been a Democrat since 1976 when I abandoned the Republican Party in favor of Jimmy Carter and I have only occasionally glanced backward to ponder my affection for favored old Republican heroes.

What appeals to me about the general trend of the Democratic Party is its insistence that John and Sally Q. Citizen ought to be continuously considered when determining the best path to be taken in every aspect of national policy, foreign or domestic. Harry Truman used to say that the rich legitimately pay for influence at the highest levels of government. That's all well and good, he went on to say. However, working men and women who lack the capacity to pay for influence need the president and an active Congress to do their bidding. Thus, we all start out with the ability to elect imperfect men and women who invariably disappoint an imperfect constituency.

Over the years, millions of Americans have been disappointed  by the leaders of both political parties, whether it be by the teenage whims of Bill Clinton or the willfulness of President George W. Bush determined to go to war in Iraq to avenge the sins of Saddam Hussein against his father, George H. W. Bush.

Thus, millions of Americans recently have sought a leader who would be determined enough to cut through conventional ways of evaluating events and circumstances. Such a man was to be Donald John Trump, a "mighty hard little crabapple" out of "The Big Apple."

Determined to "Make America Great Again" without defining what that really means, Mr. Trump leaves it up to the most unhappy constituency to make that determination. Since history demonstrates again and again that the new comes from altering the old, anger toward the old is the best pathway toward significant or even fundamental  change.
Many years ago, columnist and comedian Will Rogers, who used piles of ink making fun of politicians, once observed that our system of checks and balances was so perfect that no person could deliberately destroy it. Sadly, as we get ready to go to the polls tomorrow, we  aren't as certain as Mr. Rogers was even during the Great Depression. (Rogers joked that America was the first nation ever to go to the poorhouse in an automobile!)

About two weeks ago, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens suggested a closing argument that Vice President Kamala Harris could use to close her case against Mr. Trump. He asserts that if Mr. Trump wins, we will be a bitterly, vocally, emotionally, exhaustingly divided country. You know this because whatever you thought of his first term, you remember how that division became a part of your daily life. She could point out:  "Thanksgiving dinners you stopped going to -- because of Trump. Friends and neighbors you stopped speaking to -- because of Trump. Topics you wouldn't broach -- because of Trump. There was no getting away from it. Trump is a human jackhammer pounding outside your window at 6:30 a.m. The noise is incessant. It's in the ad hominem tweets, the nasty nicknames, the disparagement of anyone who disagrees with him as an idiot, a weakling, an enemy of the people. And let's be honest: the noise also came from the enraged reaction that Trump provoked, whether on cable TV or the streets of many of our cities. Trump brought out the worst in everyone, not just his most ardent fans but also -- yes -- his most acerbic critics. In the four years of his presidency, he turned us into a nation of haters. He'll do it again if you elect him next month."

Through my lifelong experience of people’s natural behavior, I’m convinced that the vast electorate is deeply and genuinely sick and tired of Mr. Trump's emotional vamping. However, history may be about to tell me that I'm badly mistaken.

After all, the history of our British cousins demonstrates that they too often were ruled by selfish kings, jealous kings and even murderous kings. A king was usually the strongest warrior imbued with majestic royalty. In 1199, King Richard the Lionheart was succeeded by his youngest brother John who wrecked England's economically and militarily so badly that Pope Innocent the Third temporally prohibited England from participating in all spiritual ceremonies and rights. This was devastating to a medieval society that so depended on the blessings of God for a sense of spiritual equity. The result in 1216 was the Magna Carta which denied the king the right of absolute rule. Later on, came the Wars of the Roses between the Yorks and the Lancaster during the 1400s.

Still later, King Henry the 8th clashed with Rome and the struggle between the Catholics and Protestants put Britain in an economic and political tailspin for decades to come.

Now we in America  could be on the verge of a twisted form or version of democracy. We may learn the lesson that a majority may well be wicked enough to choke itself to death via its own resentment of the conditions in which it is currently living!

However, as near as we may be to an economic and moral disaster, we're not there yet.

What you and I are still free to do in the privacy of the voting booth tomorrow, November, 5th, is to bring  this lunge toward oligarchy to a screeching halt.

Back in 1976, Christians nearly rejected a presidential candidate because he told Playboy that he sometimes had lust in his heart. Today some Christians (although I don't believe that it's most Christians) are about to support the presidential candidacy of a man who stands atop a political platform to openly discuss the significance of a dead golfer's manhood.

I still believe that there's a lot of good sense within the conscience of the American people. Certainly no one would insist that Vice President Kamala Harris represents all that's pure and good. However, any political movement that spreads suspicion and hatred among a free people demonstrates a lack  of regard toward the constituency it seeks to govern.

I'm convinced that tomorrow, November 5th, 2024, the fair-minded and the “lionhearted" people of the United States of America will say no to Donald Trump.

If fair-minded Americans say yes to Mr. Trump, then I suppose we all deserve him.

As for now, I present to you the dismissal words uttered by Oliver Cromwell when he decided that the Long Parliament of 1748-1760 had lasted too long. This dramatic and powerful rejection applies to Mr. Trump in 2024:

"You have sat too long here for any good you've been doing. Depart, I say,  and let us have done with you. In the name of God---Go!"

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY

THE WORLD SERIES WHERE HOPES AND EXPECTATIONS INVARIABLY CLASH

By Edwin Cooney

Since October of 1903, baseball's World Series has, at least, dominated America's sub-headlines. This year is quite special because the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers, at least in the public's mind, will seek to settle old scores going back to 1941 when Joe McCarthy led the Yankees and Leo Durocher led the boys from Brooklyn. (Note: Leo had played shortstop for Babe Ruth's 1920’s Yankees and neither thought much of the other.)

Beginning in 1941, the Yankees prevailed covering  ’47, ’49, ’52, and ’53 until 1955 when Brooklyn finally conquered the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In each of those World Series, something out of the ordinary happened.

In 1941, Dodgers catcher Mickey Owen missed a curveball thrown by pitcher Hugh Casey with two out in the ninth of Game 3 that led to a Yankee victory that turned the series around.

In 1947, Yankee pitcher Bill (whose given name was Floyd) Bevens no hit the Dodgers at Ebbets Field but lost to the Dodgers when Cookie (Harry) Lavagetto hit a pinch-hit double that led to a 2 to 1 Dodger victory. (Ironically, Bevins, who barely avoided the glory realized by Don Larsen 9 years later, never pitched another game for the Bronx Bombers.)

In Game 1 of the 1949 series, Yankee outfielder Tommy Henrich  (“Old Reliable”) hit a dramatic 10th inning homer off Dodger pitching great Don Newcombe to spoil an almost sure Dodger triumph.

In 1952, with the Yankees winning 4 to 2, Jackie Robinson came to the plate with the bases loaded and hit a high pop-up that neither the first or third baseman could see. In fact, neither could Yankee pitcher Bob Kuzava see it. However, Billy Martin came tearing in from second base and caught the ball knee high for the out that ended the inning.

In 1953, Dodger pitcher Carl Erskine struck out 13 Yankees in Game 4, but again Billy Martin came out hitting over .500 with two homers and 8 runs batted in to win the series for the Yankees as well as the MVP award for the 1953 World Series.

In the 1955 World Series, the first one I could comprehend, the Yankees won the first two games, but the Dodgers came roaring back to win it all. The final game at Yankee Stadium was a shutout for young Johnny Podres. It survived a near homer by Yogi Berra which was caught by left fielder Sandy Amoros because he was wearing his glove on his right hand instead of his left. As the Dodger's bus moved out of the Stadium, the Bronx streets were empty, but when the bus reached Brooklyn, the Dodgers got off the bus and joined the delirious crowd.

The year 1956 saw Yankee Don Larsen pitch a perfect game. The series ended with a 9-zip Yankee victory led by a Yogi Berra homer.

Space doesn't allow a series by series description, but the Dodgers swept the Yankees in 1963 and the Yankees won in 1977 led by Reggie Jackson's 3 homers in the sixth and final game. The Yankees won in '78, but the young phenomenon Fernando Valenzuela (who just passed away at age 63) beat the Yankees in 1981 in six games.

Who would ever believe that during the 1946 series, both Ted Williams of the Red Sox and Stan Musial of the Cardinals would both hit below par. Williams who had suffered an injury to his right elbow only hit .204 while Musial would bat a mere .222. That was the last World Series for both Hall of Famers. No one even imagined that would occur!

Who can forget those “amazing” Mets of 1969 who beat the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles in five games following their first game loss to the O’s?

As I write this, the Dodgers, thanks to the bat of Freddy Freeman's grand-slam, lead the Yankees by one game. There could be as many as six games remaining which would allow Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, and Giancarlo Stanton to catch fire.

Three second basemen, Bobby Richardson and Bill Mazeroski in 1960, Chuck Shilling of the Giants in 1962, and Al Wise of the 1969 Miracle Mets have hit dramatic series home runs.

Since the 1903 Boston Americans or Pilgrims, who today masquerade as the Red Sox, beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in 5 games to 3, Americans have matched their hopes and expectations with the fans of an opposing team. Although not until 1992 was there an international flavor to the “Fall Classic,” millions of Americans believe that —after all — America is the world!

Even more to the point, don't expect American baseball fans ever to declare that “the world won the World Series!” The “world” can’t win, because America owns the world — doesn’t it?!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY

OCTOBER, THE MOST WONDROUS MONTH OF THE YEAR!

 By Edwin Cooney

No month on the calendar is as unique as October. It is bedecked with beginnings and ends, starts and finishes.

If you're into baseball, the post season with all its unexpected drama succeeds an already fascinating season. Autumn color and crispness stirs the senses and circulates blood flow with both anxiety and hopeful anticipation.

Although we celebrate July 4th as our country’s birthday, some insist that Friday, October 19th, 1781, the day Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown, Maryland, was America's real birthday!

If you are anticipating an October birthday, you share your birthday month with six United States presidents: Jimmy Carter (October 1st), Rutherford B. Hayes (October 4th), Chester A. Arthur (October 5th), Dwight D. Eisenhower (October 14th), Theodore Roosevelt (October 27th) and John Adams (October 30th).

Additionally, you share your October birthday cheer with two legendary Yankee Hall of Famers. Mickey Mantle was born Tuesday, October 20th, 1931, and his pal with whom Mantle would enter the Hall of Fame in 1974, Edward Charles (Whitey) Ford, was born on Sunday, October 21, 1928.  

October is no stranger to historic events: On October 1st, 1961, Roger Maris hit his long anticipated home run #61 off an obscure Red Sox pitcher named Evan (Tracy) Stallard. On October 10th, 1973, Spiro Agnew became the first Vice President since 1832 to resign. (Note: John C. Calhoun resigned the Vice Presidency to accept his election to the United States Senate by South Carolina.)

On Wednesday, October, 14th, 1964, the Soviet leadership ousted Nikita Khrushchev from power. Two days later, on Friday, October 16th, China detonated its first atomic bomb.

In 1973, President Richard M. Nixon committed the “Saturday Night Massacre” by firing Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Bill Ruckelshaus, Richardson's assistant, due to the fact that they refused to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox for insisting the president release specific tape recordings of the president's conversations. This began Mr. Nixon's downhill path to impeachment and resignation.

Unfortunately, October has brought tragedy and death to mark and mar October’s high religious holidays throughout the Middle East.On Saturday, October 6th, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched their Yom Kippur War against Israel. On Tuesday, October 6th, 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was murdered in Cairo. In addition, there is the recent tragedy of Saturday, October 7th, 2023 from which the world still suffers.  

Beatle John Lenin was born on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 9th, 1940 during a Nazi air raid over Liverpool, England.

At 5:04 p.m. on October 17th, 1989. the Loma Prieta earthquake disrupted the baseball World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A’s which was about to be played at Candlestick Park. Forty-two people were killed during the 6.9 magnitude quake and part of the freeway collapsed over Oakland.

Looking back, October was especially fun for "us kids" as we anticipated Halloween with wonderful smelling pumpkins and plenty of candy corn shaped like triangles.

"Tangy ‘Tober,” as I like to think of it, features tastes and textures that thrill the palate with delightful doughnuts, cider and cocoa, and really cuddly sweaters along with childhood memories of hayrides in the country.

Important personal and historic events occur every month of our individual and collective years as we wonder, wander and will ourselves towards eternity. However, there are special times that are separate from other times in our hearts. Yet, to this observer, October and August, with April close behind, are particularly memorable.

God bless those who prefer Nat King Cole's "Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer" or who wonder at the promises of romantic love in June, the gifts of Christmas and the thankfulness of November. Nor ought we to minimize January as it opens its gates to a new year! For me, however, October blends anticipation and expectation mellowed by hope in such a way as to steady the spirit. Schools and colleges are open, football is settling in, and hockey and basketball are in full swing.

When, in the early 1950’s, the mighty Yankees would crush the hopes of Brooklyn Dodger fans, those sad days would beckon to the inevitable October days that were to come as Brooklyners would chant, "wait till next year!”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY    
   

FOR GOD’S SAKE, NEVER HOLD YOUR NOSE!

By Edwin Cooney

You shouldn't be surprised that in this topsy-turvy political era, I have a friend who tells me he may well…hold HIS nose and vote for Donald Trump! I guess I should be grateful that he's even considering holding his nose, but I'm desperately hoping he'll forget his nose and follow some of his individual principles which are both admirable and perfectly grand.

This is a gentleman who's a registered Democrat and a dedicated Christian. Insofar as I know, he hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since he abandoned Jimmy Carter for Ronald Reagan in 1980. I'm grateful that he's considering politically stutter stepping this November 5th!

Both decency and individual equity require a distinction between Reaganism and Trumpism. Reaganism is principled and contains goals and rules for application. Mr. Reagan tried to use government only for the ultimate military defense of the public. Other uses of government must be limited but primarily used for the benefit of business magnates and bankers whom FDR used to call "economic royalists.”

Trumpism uses government to settle scores with all sorts of people, big and little, including ethnic minorities. Trumpism denies past sins by glorifying Jim Crowism as "states' rights" and demonizes current efforts  such as climate purification as a socialist conspiracy or as a political hoax.   

As a student of history and a voter, I'm fully aware of the foibles most politicians display from time to time.

Nixon seldom told the truth when a quality lie would often do just as well. Jerry Ford, solid citizen that he was, was too politically collegial to have allowed Nixon to resign without a catch-all. (Nixon aide John Ehrlichman insisted that Richard Nixon never knowingly "stepped into darkness as he would have done minus a pardon escape tunnel dug by ‘good old Jerry.’") Jimmy Carter, although a wonderful humanitarian, was derelict in not preparing himself to handle Congress before seeking the presidency. (Besides, presidents don't wear sweaters when giving major addresses nor do they carry their own bags.)

Ronald Reagan's ignorance of the needs of those who lacked his resources was deliberately arrogant and demeaning of others.

George H. W. Bush, though grand in many ways, was a fool to ask the people to "read my lips. No new taxes."

Bill Clinton was an emotional teenager when it came to personal conduct and he was deceitful even in federal court.

George W. Bush was both careless and reckless when anticipating and carrying out foreign policy.

Barack Obama may have been exceedingly articulate socially and even culturally wise, but he wasn't thorough enough when dealing with the Taliban!

Joe Biden's presidency occurred at a time in his life when he couldn't handle it as he once might have!

Donald Trump's fundamental fault is that his ambition is about himself and little else. His ongoing promise to "make America great again" lacks both timeline and definition. Is America great because we are sinless, always tolerant, and richer than any other nation? What makes a nation great or not so great?

Other circumstantial questions come to mind. Who was the last Republican presidential candidate to identify with a former member of the Soviet KGB? If some nations are “shithole nations,” is that due to their culture, their religion, or their social values?

If voters are to judge the Harris/Biden administration, wasn't there once a Pence/Trump administration? After all, wasn’t it Mike Pence rather than Donald Trump who upheld the Constitution of the United States on the afternoon and throughout the evening of Wednesday, January 6th, 2021?

As for how long or often Mr. Trump would be a dictator, I can't know or even guess! However the idea that "dictatorship" is in Mr. Trump's social, emotional mindset or vocabulary disqualifies his candidacy as I see it! Even more significant are the names of the 90 plus people who are insisting in writing, on tape or on video that he is unfit for the office. That can hardly be brushed away by any genuine patriot! These are men and women who’ve been associated with and often appointed to high office by Mr. Trump.

Adlai Stevenson once observed that neither political party has a monopoly on either virtue or rascality. It has been possible from the very outset of our republic that we could choose a very, very bad president!

Keep in mind that the alternative to Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be neither. Of course, “neither” isn't on the ballot! Hence, I insist it's got to be Kamala Harris!

Unlike my nose-holding friend and considering who is running, I'm going to let my nose do what's natural to it! After all, noses — like political candidates — both run without my consent!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

 

BEYOND THE REASON WHY

(updated from February 18, 20008)

By Edwin Cooney

Like most everyone else, almost any time I hear of a tragedy, the first reaction that enters my mind or crosses my lips consists of the word: why? Very often, however, the question “why” just isn’t enough.

The tragedy that has recently gripped my attention happened during the third week in January in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania about six miles from Center City, Philadelphia.  Fifty-three-year-old Barbara Killian -- blinded from an accident when she was a baby -- and her little white lap dog A-Rod died in the basement of their home by the hand of Barbara’s eighty-four-year-old father Robert Killian who then turned the gun on himself.  Mr. Killian had just been released from a local hospital having been treated for advanced cardiovascular disease.  Convinced that he didn’t have long to live, Mr. Killian apparently believed he had to provide a permanent solution to what he perceived would be Barbara’s struggles in his earthly absence.  Thus, believing as he did that Barbara would be both alone and helpless in this world of expectation, cruelty and demand, he decided that her life should end with his.

Hence, sometime between Tuesday, January 15, when Killian was released from the hospital, and Saturday evening, January 19 at six pm, Robert Killian shot Barbara, their little dog, and himself to death in the basement of their home on Cheswold Road. 

According to the sum of all reports out of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania,  Barbara and Robert Killian had lived alone since the death of Shirley, Barbara’s mother and Robert’s wife, in 2001; the Killians “minded their own business;” Robert Killian was extremely protective of Barbara; and, finally, there was a lot of love in the Killian home as evidenced by Mr. Killian’s constant devotion to Barbara.
So there you have it: the who, the what, the where, the when, and, only superficially, the why of the story. Surely, however, knowledge of these guidelines which every news reporter knows brings one no satisfaction. If you’re anything like me, perhaps you need to pause and take it all in before reading on.
In the emotional wake that occurs as one learns of this tragedy, there is the natural tendency to be outraged, not only with Killian’s murder of his daughter, but even more with what was clearly his demeaning attitude about Barbara’s very existence as a person with blindness.  There are reports that neighbors called area social services from time to time to complain that Barbara was being “held captive” by her parents in her home, the response to which caused the Killians to retreat further into seclusion with their daughter. Inevitably, one wonders what exactly went on in that household upon Mr. Killian’s January 15th return from the hospital. How long had Robert Killian contemplated this irrevocable deed?  What religious or moral matters did Mr. Killian consider before taking Barbara to the basement of their home to meet her death?  Did Killian tell Barbara in advance of his intention or was there a reasoned or even gentle pretext to the basement visit? Did Robert Killian see his act as one of love or one of despair?

Information out of greater Philadelphia regarding Barbara Killian’s existence is sketchy but still revealing. A 1973 graduate of Overbrook School for the Blind, Barbara was shy, intelligent and fun-loving.  She was a baseball fan of the Yankees, especially Alex Rodriguez whom she had met through an organization for the blind.  Thus, she named her little dog A-Rod.

What happened to Barbara Killian has to be very personal on some level to everyone who lives with a disability — especially those who live with blindness.  All of us, whether born able-bodied or disabled, are vulnerable to our parents’ individual environments, values, and attitudes.  Even more relevant to the Killian family tragedy is the strong parental instinct, the overwhelming need to protect our children from the world’s many outrages.

While we’re certainly justified in our righteous anger toward Robert Killian, that anger alone is as destructive to you and me as Killian’s thirty-eight caliber pistol was to Barbara. It would be more helpful, I think, for us all to re-examine what it means to love and protect one another as well as one’s children.

It would be arrogant for any of us to question Mr. Killian’s love for his daughter.  However, Robert and Shirley Killian’s love for Barbara was clearly misdirected as evidenced by their decision to reject a college scholarship, choosing to have her stay at home instead of broadening her horizons. Their legitimate mission was to protect her life and to empower others to ensure her security after they were gone. It’s quite apparent that Mr. Killian was more overwhelmed by his fears than he was sustained by “the better angels of his nature.”

Nothing we can say or write, no wish we can wish, no prayer we may pray, can undo what was done to Barbara Killian by her father. Love is a powerful force. As such it can nurture, sustain, encourage, and therefore foster growth and even greater love.  However, if love is administered with jealousy or fear, it can destroy. It appears that the Killians’ powerful love for Barbara went awry and, hence, it destroyed.
Sadly, Robert Killian believed that the world wasn’t sufficiently trustworthy to match his love for Barbara. Hence he took her with him for her own protection.

Happily, most of us know that the world is worthy because you and I are worthy of the kind of love that sustains and nurtures.

So, in the words of a hit song from the 1970s:  “Let your love flow…”


Ah, but that's what Mr. And Mrs. Killian did, or thought they did!

The broader deeper question is: How did this happen?

First the babyhood accident: what was its cause and nature? I grew up with a friend who was blinded at age two when his mother accidentally dropped him on his head. My friend Fritz, never tried to explain, blame or excuse the cause of his blindness or his mother's role in it. The causes of illness and/or disability are numerous and even undetectable   and lie beyond the power of the inquiry of “why?"

Blindness itself possesses its own set of causes and effects! Most of us tolerate our disability even as we're forced to observe the advantages of others who live with no life-altering disability. Another person I know becomes angry with their disability when experiencing frustration, denial, or especially dependence on the sighted.


Hence, how did Mr. or Mrs. Killian feel about Barbara's blindness? Did they feel guilt or even embarrassment as to their daughter's existence? What was their overall reaction toward human physical, emotional, or even spiritual weaknesses?

Every Fall, new boys and girls were admitted to our sister and brotherhoods at the New York State School for the Blind. One Fall, two boys, Bob and Stan, joined our little brethren. Both had been blinded for about two years. Bob was wounded by a shotgun accident. Even while his family desperately sought a cure for his malady, Bob cheerfully accepted his lot. Stan, on the other hand, sulked and complained to the disgust of many of us including myself. Stan's blindness was the result of a brain tumor. He died in 1965. Insofar as I know, Bob became a lawyer for the state and still lives. (Shame on us blind boys!)


The National Federation For The Blind is right when it asserts blindness is what you live with — it's not who you are!


If only the Killians had been gifted with that perception!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

AMERICAN GREATNESS: DOES IT CHANGE? DOES IT MATTER?

By Edwin Cooney

Atop my desk sits a three and a half inch medal depicting the twenty-eight men and two women regarded at the time as the 30 greatest people in American History. It includes seven presidents, one sports hero, two explorers, three writers, one Supreme Court justice, one civil rights figure, two social leaders, four inventors and, of course, several military heroes. Hence, my question: since it was an official Bicentennial medal, these are supposedly the 30 greatest Americans throughout our first two hundred years. It's important to keep two things in mind. First, some pretty special people aren't included on this medal, such as Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Frederick Douglass, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. Second, throughout the decades and centuries, challenges and values change. Adlai Stevenson pointed out that during pioneer days, candidates used to accuse each other of being “part Indian.” One candidate asserted while standing on the stump: my opponent insists that he's not part Indian and I believe him, because the Indians deny it, too!

Here's a list of those people on this large medal: Washington, Franklin, Jane Adams (who established Hull House in Chicago to assist the poor), writer Carl Sandburg, Thomas Jefferson, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, Neil Armstrong, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Kennedy, John D. Rockefeller, Robert E. Lee, John Paul Jones, Paul Revere, Alexander Hamilton, explorers Lewis and Clark, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Woodrow Wilson, Babe Ruth, Martin Luther King, Franklin Roosevelt,  Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Orville and Wilbur Wright, and Charles Lindbergh.

I’ve also read that on the 150th anniversary, the treasury struck a medal of George Washington and of Calvin Coolidge.

Now for the puzzle: As we approach our country’s 250th anniversary, who would we add or eliminate from the top 30? Here's my list of subtractions and substitutions.

I'd replace Carl Sandberg with Eleanor Roosevelt. I'd remove Henry Ford for Alexander Graham Bell. I'd replace John Kennedy with Ronald Reagan (although I personally prefer JFK). Betty Friedan would replace John D. Rockefeller. Robert E. Lee chose his state over his country and that's treasonous so I would replace Robert E. Lee with Harry Truman. For Woodrow Wilson, I'd take Theodore Roosevelt. Babe Ruth would be replaced by Willie Mays and, finally, I'd replace Lindbergh with John Glenn. These changes would keep the number to 30 great Americans.

As I see it, greatness has to do with the care for and commitment to the safety, well-being, and prosperity of the widest number of people in our republic. Anger toward minorities does not result in greatness. Even though society requires spiritual principles including the Golden Rule, society generally does not benefit by punishment or rejection of the lawful. Nor do we benefit from the criminalization of political candidates or their constituents.

There are, of course, no right or wrong additions or subtractions to this list, but changes do reflect our personal values because we govern through our values!

How significantly have we changed since that glorious Bicentennial Sunday, July 4th, 1976 as bells rang, fireworks roared, and the tall ships sailed into New York Harbor?

Of course, it matters because everyone matters!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY

OKAY, MADAM VICE PRESIDENT, WHAT'S NEXT?

By Edwin Cooney

Now that you've impressed millions of your fellow citizens of your ability to tie Donald Trump in knots, what's your next act of political mastery?

No matter what one is doing: eating apples from a forbidden tree, building an ark, consuming rice with chopsticks, or running for President of the United States, you've got to master your task!

There are many strategical paths to the presidency that if taken can bring forth victory.

Last Tuesday, Vice President Harris manipulated former President Trump so cleverly that he had to concede the popularity and even the practicality of "Obamacare." The Affordable Care Act was essential, Trump insisted, as a framework of a Trumpian health care plan which he deliberately maintained in order to build his own health care plan.

As for Mr. Trump's foreign policy, Kamala Harris told Mr. Trump that both Presidents Putin and Xi by using personal flattery will "...have you for lunch!"

Harris was sufficiently successful throughout the debate that those who haven't yet made up their minds who they ought to vote for, want to know more about the challenger and her plans in a way they were once curious about Mr. Trump's policies and plans.

Now the former president says that he won the debate and doesn't need to debate Ms. Harris a second time. He even implied that there's no need for a Vance-Walz debate in October. In 2016, Hillary Clinton already had a reputation which Donald Trump's audacious behavior eventually overwhelmed.

It's increasingly apparent to this observer that Donald John Trump is becoming exceedingly boring! Thus, 2024 marks the third presidential campaign the public has been fed Mr. Trump's insistence on his capacity to "make America great again!" American greatness is an ongoing expectation that ebbs and flows at home and abroad. American greatness is a judgment rather than a continuous degree of perfection.

Greatness is about achievement applicable to the continuous well-being of a majority of Americans.

David Brooks, writing in The New York Times last week, believes that we're passing through a positive culture change that is about to succeed Donald Trump’s culture of exhaustion and indignation into a new culture of expected togetherness and personal connecting.

Now that the former president, for his own both political and personal protection, is abandoning direct political combat, it's up to Kamala Harris to construct and travel her highway to victory.

Although there's seldom any doubt as to whom this observer favors, seldom do I offer an assurance. Hence, here's a certainty as of today. Should sudden illness overtake President Biden, Kamala Harris would not only succeed constitutionally to the presidency, she'd easily be elected President of the United States in her own right. Up until last Tuesday, September 10th, 2024, such was not the case. Today, minus a major error on her part or a major discovery of Biden-Harris administration "skullduggery," Kamala Harris could be "in like Flynn."

If Vice President Kamala Harris becomes "President Harris" before November 5th, 2024, she'll remain President Harris until Saturday, January 20th, 2029. Hence Mr. Former President, it's in your political well-being to pray for "Old Sleepy Joe!"

Early in 1942 with the United States now in the war with the Axis, Winston Churchill observed:  "This is not the end! It's not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. "

Kamala Harris, the rest is up to you!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN CLOONEY

A NEW CONCEPT CALLED “THE STINKIN’ TRUTH”

By Edwin Cooney

One of the most fertile institutions in 21st Century society today is the podcast, a program available in a digital format over the internet. I think of these podcasts as mini broadcasts of stories and ideas designed to take the public where it's never been — and sometimes doesn't really need to go.

One of the most intriguing podcasts is called "The Stinkin' Truth,” largely encompassing real possibilities that are true, but that you or I would rather not experience, especially as sports fans.

Here's one set of simultaneous stinkin' truths:  One: Trump might win this November fifth election. Two:  Harris might win this November fifth election. (Keep in mind that all of us must own and handle stinkin' truths!)

A stinkin' truth I've had to face since 2009 is that the Yankees haven't won the World Series.

The world is bathed in truths: relative truths, partisan truths, personal truths, ideological truths and, this fall, Trump and Harris truths.

The most dangerous stinkin' truth is that it's possible that a world leader might miscalculate and bring on a nuclear explosion or that humanity's carelessness and selfishness might permanently poison the earth so that it might not be habitable. (Come to think of it, as bad as that would be for you and me, it might be good for the planet, thus enabling it to replenish itself for the next ten or twenty thousand years of habitation, human or otherwise.)

Sometimes we create our own "stinkin' truths" due to our personal insecurities or doubts about the capacity or veracity of others.

I once had a landlord who insisted that he hated lawyers. According to him, they too often lied, misrepresented, and schemed to make a buck. One Tuesday, early in November of 1980, I insisted that his doubling of my rent was way too much while being unfair at the same time. By Thursday, his lawyer was knocking at my door to serve me with an eviction notice. Oh! I forgot to mention that my landlord was the head of a citywide organization designed to control rent increases. Additionally, I learned that this gentleman actually had a direct telephone line to his lawyer.

Although some "stinkin' truths" are really stinky, some are actually funny. How about the Idaho man, David Rush, who spit 47 ping pong balls from his mouth against the wall in just 30 seconds to set a world record! Rush wasn't as proud of his spitting prowess as he was of his tenacity and persistence in the attainment of his crazy record!

Here's a wondrous truth: UPI recently reported that a Texas cat that had been missing for 3 years was found in Massachusetts. The cat had been loved so much by it's Texas owners that a chip had been inserted beneath its skin and was discovered during  an examination in Massachusetts. The cat, missing since January 2022, is Shoto. Her owner Karla only by chance answered the call from Dakin, Massachusetts and drove the 2,000 miles to retrieve Shoto. Only Shoto knows how her trip began, how she was treated or even how it ended.

Here's still another truth, this one personal. It occurred back in the early 1990’s. My son's cat went missing for about six weeks. One day, my son's mother and her boyfriend came home and there was Cinnamon meowing on her porch, thin as a rail and malnourished. At the vet that afternoon, they discovered that Cinnamon had been trapped in a garage that she had wandered into just before the people who owned the garage went on vacation.

Stinkin' truths are found everywhere: in the grocery store; at the barber or beauty shop; even in the “sack” with your significant other! History books are loaded with stinkin' truths. While it's true that the Electoral College distorts the popular vote, the final stinkin' truth is that we would never have been the United States of America without it. (In fact, still another stinkin' truth is that most every truth demands a price!)

Stinkin' truths possess an integrity. They can't be manufactured. They can only be realized. They can be funny, ironic, even boring, but they just might be the only genuinely real truth on "God's green earth."

Enjoy the idea. There's a lot in it!

No bull!


RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

IS DONALD TRUMP A POPULIST?

By Edwin Cooney

Those who have come to love and respect Donald Trump because of his willingness to propose radical changes to government policy insist that he's merely in the tradition of late 19th and early 20th century social reformers or populists in the tradition of such leaders as Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette, four time Cleveland Ohio Mayor Tom Johnson, William Jennings Bryan and perhaps Clarence Darrow who was called "the attorney for the damned.” However, the examples of the above are precisely what Mr. Trump is not!

America's populist movement occurred in the late 18th and early 19th centuries between 1885 and 1915. It was led by women and men determined to alter the relationship between the public and their government to the overall advantage of the people.

The cornerstone of populism was the legislative initiative, the power of political referendum and even the privilege of the removal of some public officials. The cry was for public “initiative, referendum and recall.” Twice while I lived in California, between 1979 and 2013, voters invoked their capacity for initiative, referendum and recall.

The first time was in 1983 when some San Franciscans sought to recall Mayor Diane Feinstein over her veto of city employee benefits to gay domestic partners Their initiative against Mayor Feinstein badly missed its mark!

The second time was in 2003 when Governor Gray Davis was recalled due to unresolvable budget, social and energy differences. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the result of that 2003 recall.

Although FDR hasn't been considered a populist by historians and political science academicians, several laws passed via FDR were populist in nature. They include the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933 because it established a government corporation that competed with private enterprise, creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission because it regulated banking and trade through the government, and the adoption of Social Security in 1935 because it established government pensions thus changing the reliance of retired workers from private to government pensions.

Keep in mind that not all populist reforms are progressive. Prohibition was a populist movement that altered the relationship between the government and the people.

Angry or resentful presidents, governors or mayors may reject or institute a new policy issue, but in order to be populistic, one must introduce a structural process in a way that alters government's interaction with people which previously didn't exist. Farmers, factory laborers, miners, and some social minorities were affected by the populist movement. Populist leaders included Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Despite TR's New Nationalism and Wilson's New Freedom during the 1912 campaign, both were regarded as populists regardless of their Republican and Democratic Party affiliations.

Although former President Trump may be exceedingly popular, his social programs and policies lack much coordination or widespread national support. Another difference between Mr. Trump and most populist leaders is that government solutions were front and center to their method of problem solving.

Hence, Mr. Trump can't, by this observer, be considered a populist — not even close! The ultimate question then is obvious: can Donald Trump be elected?

Unfortunately, of course he can. Just ask Hillary Clinton!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

POLITICAL AMBITION AND NATIONAL FATE: HOW DO THEY COMPARE AND CONTRAST?

By Edwin Cooney

As a Democrat, I enjoyed the hopefulness and even the joy apparent in the acceptance addresses of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz last week in Chicago.

The year 2024 marks the 16th national presidential campaign I've followed since 1960. Twice, in 1968 and in 1972, as a Nixon Republican, and five times as a Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden Democrat, my side has prevailed.

Beyond the participation and hopes of the voters lie the presumptions and expectations of each. How reasonable are our hopes and expectations?

For my personal guideline, I try to keep in mind the purposes stated in the Preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Note well, please, that in the above mentioned goals you'll find no political or ideological prescriptions for achieving these goals. Conservatives may stress the importance  of the national defense, liberals often point to the assurance of our domestic tranquility, and some may even emphasize the ordination of the Constitution, but there's nothing about balanced budgets, deficit spending, or the prevalence or lack of religion.

Of course, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris represent vastly contrasting views and interpretations of both the purpose of government and even the interpretation of the Constitution, but beyond those views and interpretations, the genuine goals of the Founding Fathers remain.

Between 1789 and 1932 during the administrations of George Washington through Herbert Hoover, the primary ongoing government obligation was the protection of the public by the military. Since 1933, the primary (though not total) responsibility of government has been the privileges and priorities of our domestic obligations. Up until Franklin Roosevelt, Democratic presidents from Andrew Jackson through Woodrow Wilson opposed direct assistance to either manufacturers or laborers. Grover Cleveland, a personal friend of Franklin Roosevelt’s father James, asserted in his Second Inaugural on March 4th, 1893 that it is the obligation of the people to support their government, not the obligation of the government to support the people.

As is his right, Mr. Trump will make his case to return to the presidency and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, just as the above mentioned Grover Cleveland returned for a second term. However, I believe that Vice President Harris's ambitions are sufficiently significant to justify her election. More specifically, human rights ought to take precedence over property rights.

Human rights must always take precedence over human ambition in order to be legitimate. However, human ambition and human rights must always equal government's obligations to the whole of the people.

Back in 1964, as a very young and naive Republican, I was convinced at the close of the convention that nominated Barry Goldwater and Bill Miller that they were the answer to the security and safety of this free people as it struggled against the threat of Soviet Communism. Practically everyone remembers the phrases for which Goldwater was famous: "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! Let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” (I suspect but can't of course prove that the phrase Barry Goldwater originally hoped would be remembered goes like this: “The Good Lord raised this republic to flourish as the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave,’ not to stagnate in the swampland of collectivism, not to cringe before the bullying of Communism!” The only problem is that in his deliverance of that phrase he stumbled, thus throwing off its rhythm.)

Here are just a few of the promises versus the outcomes since the mid 1960s:

In 1964, voters looked to stay distant from the Vietnam War. In 1968 and 1972, voters hoped for an honorable end to that widened war. In 1976, voters looked toward an administration that would successfully overcome misgoverning inside Washington. By 1988, voters expected the budget to be balanced by the administration that had promised that achievement in 1980. In 1992, voters expected their taxes to remain the same as promised by a president who encouraged the public to "read my lips." In 2008, voters hoped a Black presidency would bring about a dramatic reconciliation of race relations throughout the country.  

As for 2024, however legitimate or outrageous Mr. Trump's or Mrs. Harris's ambitions may be, our national fate is what ultimately will matter.

The rest is up to you, as well as to me!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY