Un-dirty Four Letter Words

Yesterday the Coad Table met, a group of foreign affairs buffs who gather monthly to discuss US policy toward a given country or region.  Our topic was overly-broad: US relations with the EU and the other, non-member European states.  Our consensus? First, that great damage is being willfully done to our historic partnerships with Britain, the EU majors (potentially even with Stockholm and Oslo should he-who-shall-not-be-named continue to lust after a Nobel Peace Prize) and that this intentional damage is being done to a Europe weakened with its own populist nationalism and threatening to come undone.  We are not acting as a concerned friend but, rather, as a playground bully demanding a weakling’s lunch money -- a far cry from the US of the June 6^th 74 years ago.  (Ann and I just returned from Normandy, steeped in the lore of '44.)

The second consensus was that to change direction requires focusing on ourselves, here at home.  We need to elect a Congress willing to take initiatives, to strangle via purse strings, to exercise the War Powers Act, to debate and resolve policy directives re global warming, immigration, trade and arms reduction. We need a Congress intent on reversing the eighty-year trend toward Executive power and on re-balancing respective Congressional and Executive Branch roles.

In the course of our discussion of accords and treaties, one of our fellows commented that “collaboration is not a dirty word.”   That set my mind to mulling four-letter dirty words and un-dirty words, four letter words that we should wield in developing our foreign policies and relations with others.  Words like read—as in reading history, position papers, and cultural profiles; words like meet, hear and look; like open, feel and care – as in empathy; like join and meld and team. Perhaps if we swore by these four-letter words, we might begin to treat others as chums rather than as chumps to be bested in contracts and deals.

   

Any change in our foreign relationships must start here at home, with us.  It may take years to undo the damage and re-build trust but the time to start is Now.  This November.  It’s only 150 days away.

Merci, Monsieur Le Preside'nt, pour un bon exemple

Macron Addresses U S Congress: 4/25

Wow! Now there is an example of what democratically elected Presidents should deliver: leadership, vision, and pragmatism, all sold with conviction, courage and civility.  And in pretty good English, too; sentences with power; without anger but with passion; with no pandering to audience; with no appeals to our meanest natures but only to our higher angels.

Je suis un Macroniste.  (Thanks to Karen L for correcting my grammar.)

A Work in Process

The other day, sharp Shanna Crutchfield from Visions of Equity, a consultancy working with us of Pratt on Racial Equity, described herself as “a work-in-process.”  I am struck by that.  I, too, have been and am a work in process.  I suppose we all are in our own ways, some more radically than others, some at different speeds than others.  In my case, process speeds have come in spurts – especially on matters of social awareness and unearned privilege.

My first, wholly unearned privilege, of course, was pure demographics.  1934, the year I was born, was third lowest year for US births since the WWI.  By the time my high school class of ’52 were applying, colleges and Universities had graduated the tail end of the GI Bill crowd. More labs and dorms had been built for them and faculty hired; schools had capacity to fill and were hungry for those few of us, two-thirds of whom weren’t even seeking admission.  Ten years later, when the baby boomers were applying, including a lot more of the women boomers than in our day, schools could be selective.  I couldn’t then have cracked open the doors to a Hamilton or Harvard.  And business was booming in the late ‘50’s, when we few went into the job market, mainly men of course, companies were scrambling to hire us.  

  

My second, unearned privilege was that Y chromosome.  In 1976, I was put in charge of General Mills’ Marketing Services, a collection of departments that executed the marketing programs of our brand divisions.  Sixty-five percent or more of my 400+ employees were women.  I was 42, well brought up, well-educated and always respectful of women, though I had not worked around many other than secretaries.  Boy, did I have a lot to learn (through sheer confrontation) about unconscious male privilege! Suppositions shattered.  I am proud to have carried over those lessons to Marriott and Westin, and helped move women into positions of responsibility they earned and deserved.  But, I regret to say in hindsight, I should have done more about sexism; we were too lenient on harassers in those days before #MeToo. 

The third unearned privilege?  Race. I am, Ancestor tells me, a stew of Northern European and British genes, that stew that over eons, evolved ‘whites’.  Pratt’s racial equity initiatives, and Shanna’s encouragement, have challenged me anew.  I was raised in an unequal Maryland of segregation and discrimination.  We were aware; I was raised in a family that was intolerant of racism. Our father was intolerant only of intolerance, and he was a fighter. But despite being aware of and opposed to the hardships and injustices delivered on black Americans, it wasn’t until the coin of Discrimination has been flipped over to its other side, White Privilege, that my in-process once again has been sped up.

Examining my white privilege has abruptly confronted my attitudes, certitudes and sensitivities.  It seems, after all, it’s not too late for an old dog to learn new tricks.  The now question is what do I do with this awakening? One of the first changes is to think equity rather than equality.  I’d always focused on equality of access and opportunity. But in the light of privilege, is equality enough? What does equity demand?  Tough questions – personally, professionally, and politically.  What causes deserve support?  What politicians deserve support?  What should my town and community be doing?  Where should my energies and resources be applied? What do I want my grandchildren to believe? What actions are affirmative?

I have few answers so far, but lots of new and unsettling questions.  A work in process, indeed. 

In deed?  TBD.

Reflections on Marching for “Their” Lives: a Lost Opportunity for Seattle

After posting pictures of the Seattle march, of course friends asked what it was like?; what did I think?; what did I feel?  I had been nattering to myself about it in any case; now such questions forced me to articulate the musings that bothered me last night and this morning.

The powerful Washington and New York marches filed moving images and stirring words, they had emotional punch.  Our march, for me at least, offered few if any of those.  Naturally, it was smaller, but moreover, as we moved onto five-lanes-wide 4^th Ave, the crowd spaced itself out both in width and length so we lost that tight mass that impresses on-lookers and energizes marchers, that sense of solidarity and impact.  We sort of ambled along.  Efforts to get chants started faded away after a few repetitions.  By 4^th Ave, I could move freely through the crowd, chasing signs that intrigued me (especially those most disparaging “the predator in chief.”)

The morning Times and the local TV coverage have made no attempt to gauge the size of the crowd; “several thousand” they said, as if embarrassed by an under-whelming turnout. Crosscut estimated “more than 50,000.” (Crosscut's coverage had the right focus: on the kids. Google it up; this program doesn't allow me to link.)

 

The signs and chants were mainly generic, almost clichés: Never Again; Ban Assault Weapons; Guns Are Not School Supplies; NRA, Go Away.  All worthy, but none Seattle-specific.

But they weren't saying much . ..

When we arrived at Seattle Center, on the “mall” adjacent to Key Arena and the International Fountain, we milled about aimlessly.  On stage was a Shoreline High guitarist; in interludes, Bob Dillon songs from the ‘70’s were being played; a woman student from some school or other sang.  

After half an hour or so, I headed for restrooms in the Armory, which was packed with folks lined up at every food stall looking for lunch.  The stragglers were still arriving.  Eventually, Governor Inslee spoke glowingly about turning the state over to the youngsters, but murkily about gun controls.  Some students spoke, but much of the crowd missed them.  Voter registration was urged. But whatever end-of-march focus and energy the organizers hoped to have had long since been lost.

My estimation: a set of lost opportunities.  The energy and anticipation we felt at Cal Anderson Park (where Attorney General Bob Ferguson had spoken passionately about how Washington State lags others re high capacity magazines and assault rifles) dissipated step by step.  We needed more marshals to keep the mass dense when we reached the wide downtown boulevards.  At the end of march rally, we needed vibrant calls for local, specific actions – action by the City Council (which has discussed constraints on gun purchase and ownership), by the King County Council (which is ambivalent), by the State Legislature (which is hog-tied.)  If there were such calls, most of us never heard them.  The papers and broadcasters never reported them.

True believers will charge me an impatient, hyper-critical, cynical old fart.  And it would be cruelly facile to say the march fizzled.  But, undeniably, opportunities were lost.   

Today, I Marched for Their Lives: Natalie, Molly, Parker, Max, Ella, Christopher, Liza and a Million Others

From Cal Anderson Park to the Seattle Center --

Mine was an M-1; His was an M-16

Orange is the color of ban

Yes, she really feels this way.  

Toward a New Second Amendment

No other part of our sacred Bill of Rights creates as much discord as does the Second Amendment.  We all know what the Second Amendment is, but let me repeat it here for your examination:

               “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Original Intenters know that in 1787, at the time Madison drafted the “Bill of Rights”, there was widespread distrust of and a universal desire to be free of standing armies, which the British had used to dominate and subjugate the Colonies.  The Founding Fathers could not come to consensus and avoided the question.  Hamilton, writing as Publius in Federalist Paper #24, thought it nuts that the Constitution addressed neither the need for nor the prohibition of a national defense force.

After many state delegations had voiced concern that individual rights were omitted from the Constitution, and that amendments were called for, Madison drew on Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, one of which addressed "the proper, natural, and safe defence (sic) of a free state" and said that it rested in a well-regulated militia composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, and that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty.  There were dangers lurking out there, especially on the western and southern borders – British raiders from Ontario and French from Quebec, Spanish from Florida, hostile Indian tribes and nations – and in order to assure a responsive militia some armed citizens needed to be on call.  Keeping and bearing arms was a necessary right for the security of the community.  The original intent was clear: to assure and maintain a well-regulated militia. 

Just four years later, in Washington’s first term, it had become clear to him and to Congress that a standing army was desirable. The “Legion of the United States”, a nod to sensitivity about “Army”, was formed.  Later that same year, that silly name was changed to "the United States Army."  The need for having armed citizens on call began to be diminished and has steadily ever since.

Literalist interpreters of the Constitution set aside that conditional first phrase – “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State” and those pesky 18^th C commas – and focused only on the words “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  The Literalists are the ones that got us here.

Times have changed since 1787 and 1791 – Duh.  Then, the cost of a musket or rifle was about the annual income or surplus of a typical farmer or settler; today it’s a mere fraction of one’s income.  The Economist estimated that in 1850, only 10% of adults owned firearms.  Today, despite urbanization which depresses gun ownership, it’s 30% in total and 44% in rural areas.  300 plus million guns are out there circulating among we 250 million adults.  And controversy over regulation, prohibition, military style arms, sale and transfer of ownership just becomes more heated, more ideological, more intolerant and uncompromising.

Can’t this Gordian knot be cut?  Is it not time for a new Second Amendment? 

Principles? 

1. Citizen control: what works for Washington, DC may be overly restrictive for Wisconsin; what works for Montana may not work for Seattle.  
2. Realism: like it or not (and I do not), arms are part of our history and culture; common-sense regulation should be our end, not prohibition.

 So, try this on for size:

Well-regulated civil and military services are necessary to the security of United States Citizens.  Each individual State’s right to regulate its civilian citizens’ acquisition, use, and sale of firearms shall not be infringed.

Is this palatable?  To the NRA and its arms dealers from whom most of its funding flows?  No.  To state’s rights conservatives? Yes.  To Liberals?  Yes.  To urbanites and rural dwellers, to hunters and sportsmen?  Probably.  To criminals?  No, with a shrug, given 300 million firearms accessible one way or another.  But is this pragmatic approach feasible and sensible?  Perhaps so.

If you like this approach to a new Second Amendment, copy this and share it about on Facebook, Twitter, and with your legislators, both State and Federal.  If you can improve it, do so!  Let’s opt for common sense and find a better answer than endlessly arguing over how to apply an 18^th C concept to our 21^st C reality.

A Tale of Two Clocks — and of a Happy Gamble.

In 1806, Deacon Joe Waller ordered from Riley Whiting, a Winchester, Connecticut clock maker, the wooden works, pendulum, and weights for a long-case clock, a ‘grandfather’ clock.  He had made, or made himself, we don’t know which, a beautiful but rustic case of walnut, and thus was created “The Waller Clock” for his new farm in West Enosburgh, Vermont.  Joe, alongside his father Israel and brother David, had fought in the Revolutionary War with Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys, when Vermont was not even a colony but only a rocky, hilly outback claimed by both New Hampshire and New York. The “Deacon” came about later, when he split from the Congregational Church he had helped found in Enosburgh Falls and decamped to a new Baptist church because, as he wrote, he “didn’t want to take communion with those who had merely been sprinkled.”  Deacon Joe is the longest living male in my direct Waller line, dying at 87 in 1852.

The Waller Clock

The clock passed down to Joe’s eldest son, Chester, and then in time to his son Henry.  By then, the family had moved on from Enosburgh Falls to Barton Landing, up in the “Lost Kingdom”, the far northeast corner of Vermont.

Henry died in the 1879/80 measles epidemic, at age 36.  His wife, Josephine, passed on 120 days later, of a broken heart people said.  Left behind were four boys, ages 1 through 7, the second of whom, Halley, aged four, grew into my Grandfather.  The orphans were parceled out to uncles and grandparents.  The orphaned Waller clock was taken in by Henry’s sister and disappeared from Waller view. 

Until 1935.  Then Halley got a call from a second cousin: the clock had been standing for over 50 years, unused, in a second bedroom of his Vermont farm house which was being put up for sale; “if you want it, come and get it.”  Grandpa drove out from Akron, Ohio and brought the Waller clock back into its proper family.

My son Frank had been hankering for the clock for a few years.  My Dad had passed it on to me before he died, and Frank seemed to see in that a recognition of independent adulthood, a senior rite of passage as it were. I began to empathize.

My talk of sending the clock off to Frank, in Champlin, Minnesota distressed Ann; she had become attached to the clock steadily tick-tocking away in our kitchen/sitting area.  I, on the other hand, thought Frank had a good idea and a good claim.  So how to mollify both?

Could I replicate the Waller Clock? I started idly checking auction houses on line. In December of 2016, I came upon an auction of clocks in Buffalo, New York; among the offerings was a “New England Tall Case Clock: early 19^th C, butternut case, original painted dial, wooden works, time and strike calendar movement.”  The consignor claimed it operational; the auction house folks assured me that all the parts were there.  And the case looked good – at least in a small b&w photo on-line.  

Was I serious about this, about giving up  the Waller clock and replacing it with another?  This Federal-style clock was the first I had found on offer.  “What the hell”; I put in a ridiculous, low-ball bid, sight unseen.  In January, word came that I now owned a second grandfather clock – in Buffalo.  And I dared not tell Ann.

Licensed inter-state shippers bid twice or more what the clock cost, but the auction house led me to a gypsy shipper whom they trusted to handle antiques.  She gave me a good price and said that she could pick up the clock in January and probably would have a West Coast run by March or so.  Delivery was to Cypress Tree, in Redmond, our trusted furniture restorer and re-finisher.

January came and went; no pick-up.  No problem said the auction house; we’ll just hold it for you.  March came and went; neither pick-up nor delivery.  In April, the pick-up in Buffalo. In August, the delivery.  I went over to Cypress Tree to see what I had bought.  Good news: the black walnut (!) case  needed minimal work, and a missing finial could be reproduced.  Neutral news: while the second hand seemed original, the hour and minute hands, and one of the two weights, looked like more modern replacements, perhaps later 19^th or early 20^th C.  Bad news: the calendar was a dummy.  Not such bad news, really; they rarely worked anyway.

The works and dial were as advertised.  In fact, the works were virtually identical to the Waller Riley Whiting’s design and the apple wood gears and spindles looked as if they came from the same lathe under the same hand.  I suspect I have either an unsigned Riley Whiting or a Hoadly, a partner of Whiting’s who left to make his own clocks in 1813.  I commissioned Cypress Tree to lightly clean the dial; reproduce the missing finial;  tighten up, steam clean and wax the case; and hold the clock until we returned from Scotland.

In early October, Ann went into hospital for a knee replacement.  The next day the clock was delivered and the Waller clock wrestled downstairs.  I set the newby up where the Waller Clock had stood since 1991.  And it ran! – for 20 minutes.  Call to my old clock repairer: he no longer made house calls on long case clocks, but led me to Storm Smole, nee’ Austormius Josephus von Smoleans, trained in his family’s Austrian clock works founded 1729, and proprietor of  Edelweiss Time Company on Bainbridge Island.

 

In the meantime, Ann came home.  The next day she observed that “the clock has stopped.”  “Yes, I have a guy coming tomorrow.”  Storm came, admired and tinkered, and it ran again.  It chimed the hour; that was new, for the chime on the Waller clock had been decommissioned by my Dad long before as ill-fitting the dignity of the austere, tall case.  No mention from Ann at the new sounds ringing through the house every sixty minutes.

 

The Janes Clock

A week went by.  Sure, she was distracted by her knee recovery regimen,  but no notice of this new resident of our home.  A second week.  Then she asked why I had removed the door knob on the clock.  No, I hadn’t removed any knob: puzzlement.  Finally, more than two weeks after the replacement of the Waller clock: “something is different . . .”  I then introduced her to the Janes clock.

The Janes clock is a delight, happily tick-tocking away and once I learned its sensitivities, keeping accurate time.  The Waller clock, after careful encasement and shipment (read expensive) is now safely in its new home in Minnesota.  A new and challenging climate for a wood works clock – huge temperature and humidity swings – but not too unlike the conditions it lived in in Maryland and Ohio, though very different from those in Vermont.  But it will be happy there, at 212, and do well for generations of Wallers well into the 21^st C, I am sure. 

And I?  I am one happy gambler!