Why America Needs Asian Immigrants or Why We Should be Friendly to Asia!

28 Jul 2014 3 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

asian_american_republicansI can tell you one reason we need them.  Without them we would not have any Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese or Japanese restaurants.  I for one do not want to have to drive to China for takeout Chinese food!  Another good reason we need them is because they love science and math subjects. This makes them very astute when it comes to computers, engineering and some of the other hard sciences that many White kids can’t seem to handle anymore.  I could mention Chinese laundries, but I have not seen any of them since I left Brooklyn many years ago and I am not sure if they still do laundry.

We like to think that we have been more tolerant to Asians than we have to other minorities but a brief historical review of how we have treated Chinese and Japanese immigrants in this country suggest we may be kidding ourselves.  We let many Chinese in during the 19th century to help build railroads and when we did not need them anymore, we passed a law excluding Chinese from immigrating to this country.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882. It was one of the most significant restrictions on free immigration in US history, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. The act followed revisions made in 1880 to the US-China Burlingame Treaty of 1868, revisions that allowed the US to suspend Chinese immigration. The act was initially intended to last for 10 years, but was renewed in 1892 and made permanent in 1902. It was finally repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943. Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

Early stereotypes of Chinese have them as bumbling servants as in the old Paladin show where the hotel bell hop is called Hey Boy or cooks as in the Ponderosa show where Hop Sing with glaring pidgin English was often portrayed wielding a cooking knife and yelling at Hoss to get out of the kitchen.  The Slanted Screen is a 2006 documentary which explores many of the stereotypes that put Asian actors into a narrow range of roles that were generally stereotyped caricatures of Asian men.  It was many years before Asian men could find leading roles.  Marriage outside their ethnic background was taboo for Asians as it was for Blacks and was the subject of a series of laws.

“Anti-miscegenation laws discouraging marriages between Whites and non-Whites were affecting Asian immigrants and their spouses from the late 17th to early 20th century. By 1910, 28 states prohibited certain forms of interracial marriage. Seven states including Arizona, California, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah extended their prohibitions to include people of Asian descent. The laws of Arizona, California, Mississippi, and Utah referred to “Mongolians”. Asians in California were barred by anti-miscegenation laws from marrying White Americans (a group including Hispanic Americans). Nevada and Oregon referred to “Chinese,” while Montana listed both “Chinese” and “Japanese” persons.”  Wikipedia

Many of our Asian stereotypes, when not depicting them as servile cooks, depict them as inscrutable, diabolical, cunning and malicious.  Do you remember the arch villain in the first Hawaii Five-O?  Mc Garrett’s recurring nemesis was named Wo Fat.  He was so cunning that he managed to return in many of the episodes of Hawaii Five-O to cause mayhem and havoc.  I still remember the early serialized Flash Gordon episodes from the 1930’s, where the major villain was a character called Ming the Merciless.  Ming was incredibly evil and used many scientific gadgets from death rays to rocket ships to Pacific Chivalry.try and capture Dale Arden and make her his unwilling bride.  What could be worse for a White woman then to be married to an evil Asian?  She of course was in love with Flash Gordon but provided a suitable excuse for being rescued about every other episode.  Back then, women were rather helpless creatures who always needed a man to rescue them.  Come to think of it, it is still a favorite role for women as noted in many movies today, but that is another story.  Another classic villain was Dr. Fu Manchu.  He was a fictional character introduced in a series of novels by British author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century. The character was also featured extensively in cinema, television, radio, comic strips and comic books for over 90 years.  He became an archetype of the evil Asian criminal genius.

Asians seem to make either very good cooks or very good villains.  I have not mentioned their role as Karate, Kung Fu and martial artists. That would take a blog of its own to cover.  Suffice it to say, that all Asians are Kung Fu experts except when it comes to portraying the role in the movies.  At that time, we can substitute White actors such as David Carradine who played the lead role in the TV series Kung Fu.  Charlie Chan, a Chinese detective had been played for many years by Warner Oland who was Swedish and by Sidney Toler who was Scottish.  But you know, you can’t really tell those Scotch and Swedes from an Asian, at least if you are Caucasian.

Animosity towards Asians increased during the Second World War.  Japanese-American citizens were stripped of their lands and most of JapaneseAmericansChildrenPledgingAllegiance1942-2their belongings and sent to forced relocation camps throughout the US.  Families were uprooted and split apart because of a national fear that those “Dirty Japs” would support their homelands and sabotage the war effort.  It is worth noting that no such disruption or internment was waged against Germans or Italians or Austrians.  Upon the end of the war, thousands of the relocated Japanese-American citizens found that their lands had been sold or confiscated and that they had nowhere to return home to.

Many Americans lump all Asians together and a variety of derogatory names can often be heard when listening to talks discussing Asian-Americans including:  gooks, slant eyes, chinks, slopes, Buddha-heads and zips.  The failure to make distinctions between Asian cultures is not only a problem for many Americans in conversation but it was a prime reason for the Vietnam War.  In the documentary “Fog of War”, the former Vietnamese war minister Võ Nguyên Giáp can be seen telling McNamara how dumb he was for not realizing the animosity that existed between the Chinese and the Vietnamese.  Part of our war assumptions was that Vietnam would go communist and ally themselves with the Chinese.  This was an assumption that as Giap told McNamara was utterly false and totally unsupported by any historical data.

We can pat ourselves on the backs and tell ourselves that these stereotypes and assumptions are all a thing of the past, but this would continue our delusions of acceptance and racial tolerance.  Even today our attitudes towards China and Japan and much of Asia tend to be condescending and arrogant. According to some experts modern anti-Chinese sentiment is the result of China’s rise as a world major power.  Self-delusion can be harmless or it can be extremely dangerous.  In this case, it is extremely dangerous.  Consider the following:

“As part of the Chinese exclusion policy of NASA, many American space researchers were prohibited from working with Chinese citizens affiliated with a Chinese state enterprise or entity. In April 2011, the 112th United States Congress banned NASA from using its funds to host Chinese visitors at NASA facilities.  Earlier in 2010, Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) had urged President Barack Obama not to allow further contact between NASA and the China National Space Administration (CNSA).”   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Chinese_sentiment_in_the_United_States#Modern

Or consider these comments and situations:

  • According to foreign media reports, on October 16th, a “kill everyone in China” remark appeared during the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” a late-night talk show program of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), and shocked American public opinion. For days, over 25K people on the net petitioned on the White House website, demanding that the American Broadcasting Company cancel this program as well as apologize for the racist speech in the program.
  •  Thousands of Chinese Americans and overseas Chinese rallied Saturday outside CNN’s studios in downtown Los Angeles to protest anti-Chinese remarks by one of the network’s commentators. Cafferty (news commentator) said in CNN’s political news program ‘The Situation Room’ that goods from China were “junk,” and referred to the Chinese as being “the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the past 50 years.”
  •  It is difficult to look at a newspaper or go on the Internet without seeing another analysis or op-ed about the rise of China. These pieces often range from cautionary tales to alarmist declarations of inevitable Chinese aggression. japanese-internmentThough time will tell, the majority of these commentaries reinforce the belief that a more powerful China will be belligerent and upset the current status quo. Paradoxically, China is being led down this very path by regional actors who insist on publicly labeling China as a regional antagonist, creating an environment of suspicion and distrust, and using rhetoric that marginalizes China’s growing economic and political power.
  •  Republican candidates have repeatedly cited China as an economic threat to the United States, and some have run political ads that civil rights groups say are xenophobic and racist. Concern is growing that such attacks may lead to more discrimination, or perhaps violence, against Asian-Americans.
  •  On Super Bowl Sunday, Pete Hoekstra, a Republican former member of Congress and now a senatorial candidate in Michigan, ran a statewide campaign ad featuring an Asian actress “thanking” Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., for sending American jobs to China. “Your economy gets very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs,” the actress says, accompanied by Chinese-sounding music while perched on a bicycle after riding on a path next to rice paddies. After a public outcry that the ad played on Asian stereotypes, Hoekstra stopped running it and deactivated a companion website with Asian themes.

You just can’t trust those inscrutable evil scheming Chinese.  Why give them the benefit of the doubt?  Is it to our advantage to start a war with China?  Perhaps a pre-emptive nuclear strike would end the threat of China as an emerging world power? Consider the following news headlines:  (Listen to the song We are the Children as you ponder these headlines)

Amazon has several popular books that are focused on our “inevitable” coming war with China.  The vast majority of Americans do not seem to think that there is anything wrong with this “drum roll” to war.  Then we wonder why our foreign relations with China seem to be up and down.  Imagine you were a Chinese-American living in this country, how would you feel sitting in the middle of this barrage of anti-Asian rhetoric?  Are we still looking for scapegoats because of the economic recession that hit this country, or is it simply that we cannot tolerate people who come from a different culture or who look different than we do?

Karen and I have an adopted Korean daughter who came to this country when she was 5 years old.  Within three weeks she would not speak Korean and quickly learned English and realized that to fit in she had to be like “other’ Americans.  “Other” in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, meant like Caucasians.  She never felt like she was like the rest of the family despite our best efforts to help her assimilate. In elementary school she felt angry and sad when other children called her “Chinese eyes”.  As an early adolescent she would often stand in front of the mirror pulling her eyes rounder and saying “I don’t look Korean do I?”  Later in high school and eventually when she went to college she began to accept her Korean heritage.  She relearned the Korean language and began an intense effort to find her birth mother. She was successful in both endeavors.  She not only found her birth mother but also her birth father who had left her mother early in the marriage.  021

In 2000, Karen and I went with Susan and her youngest son to meet her birth parents.  Because Sam (her youngest son)
was turning one year old, her Korean family arranged a large celebration on the occasion of his first birthday as is traditional in Korea.  At first, we were treated rather suspect, since her birthmother had thought, Susan (Hei Sook) was stolen by her American parents.   When the entire story of her adoption was laid out, attitudes changed and we had a warm reception with Susan’s birthparents.  Now Susan is raising two young Korean American sons (our grandsons) and learning some of the difficulties they are having as they try to fit into a predominately White culture.

No one has ever said it would be easy for immigrants.  Irish, Jewish, German, Italian, Polish, and many other minorities have all had difficulty fitting in.  However, White minorities have the advantage of similar ethnic characteristics.  African Americans, Mexican Americans and Asian Americans are much more easily discernible (although of course this is not always true) and therefore much easier to stereotype and discriminate against.  A recent study done at Cornell University and published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology (Vol. 60:2), reported the following findings:

“Our findings suggest that exposure to day-to-day racial micro-aggressions is common and that seemingly innocuous statements,41-kids such as being asked ‘Where were you born?’ or being told ‘You speak good English’ can have an adverse effect on Asian-Americans, in part, because such statements often mask an implied message that you are not a true American,” said Anthony Ong, associate professor of human development in Cornell’s College of Human Ecology, co-author of the study with Anthony Burrow, assistant professor of human development at Cornell.”  “The combination of having one’s racial reality questioned, and having to decipher mixed messages, is a core feature of the micro-aggression experience,” Ong added.

For two weeks, 152 Asian-American college freshmen in the study completed a daily evaluation of their experiences, emotions and physical health, including a checklist of 20 racial micro-aggression events.

The researchers found that approximately 78 percent of the participants reported some form of racial micro-aggression within the two-week time frame. Overall, participants experiencing more racial bias events had more negative emotions, fewer positive emotions and more symptoms of physical discomfort (e.g., headache, stomach ache, sore throat).

For individual participants, the racial bias events were associated with higher levels of negative emotion and more physical symptoms that day and the day after, suggesting that the experience of these daily stressors may influence health and well-being over time. The researchers also found that racial invalidations (e.g., being treated like a foreigner or overhearing racially biased sexual stereotypes) were more prevalent and harmful than racial micro-insults (e.g., being told an offensive joke or comment concerning how Asians talk).  (See Cornell Chronical April 24, 2013)

Conclusions:

Prejudice again st Asian Americans is often more subtle but no less prevalent then prejudice against other minority groups.  Systemic racism against Asian Americans exists in various forms and to varying degrees at all levels of American society.  Numerous studies have documented this bias and several well-known books have been written that discuss the problem.  One of my favorite was the book:  A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki (Dec 8, 2008).  It is fruitless to deny discrimination and it is equally fruitless to ignore our biases and prejudices.  The best solution entails frank discussions of the cultures that we create in our country and more transparent attitudes that openly acknowledge our biases.  Only through honest and open dialogue can we overcome our ingrained stereotypes.  It does no good to ignore them or pretend that they do not exist.

“Racial prejudice, anti-Semitism, or hatred of anyone with different beliefs has no place in the human mind or heart.”   — Billy Graham

Time for Questions:

Do you know any Asian Americans?  Do you have any Asian American friends?  How much do you know about Asian cultures?  Have you ever traveled to any Asian countries?  Have you seen any examples of discrimination against Asian Americans?  Why do you think people discriminate against Asian Americans?  What can you do to help prevent discrimination?  Do you speak out against prejudice and discrimination?

Life is just beginning.

Why America Needs Latino Immigrants or Lets Stop Dissing Mexican Americans!

21 Jul 2014 10 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Chicanos, Mexicans, Latinos, Hispanics, Mexican Americans, Spanish Americans, it’s all so confusing, what do I call them anyway?  Why can’t they just take a simple name like we do: Gringos?  You don’t see White people making it hard for others to call us names.

mexican american familyWhen I grew up in an Italian American neighborhood, we were wops, dagos, greasers, and guineas.  As in:

“You think im some goombah housewife with big hair and big jewelry??”
“You dirty wop, go back to Naples”
“You stupid Guinea, go back to Africa”
“What’s up dago?”  by mikey ambrosio February 07, 2005

When I grew up, it was the age of cowboy shows.  The early shows were collected from old movies and brought to TV and featured such notable characters as Hopalong Cassidy, Lash Larue, Gene Autry, Tom Nix, Zorro and many others.  Early TV had two roles for Latinos:  Sidekick or villain.  Mexicans got to play the bad guy if the script wanted to use someone other than Indians.  I can still remember my first image of a Mexican.  It was a guy with a long black mustache, bandoliers crossing his chest, carrying two or more side arms.   He was adept at hiding behind rocks and ambushing my heroes.  Of course, he always wore a large black sombrero and spoke like:

“You tink you get away from Pancho?  Pancho no fool?  Pancho keel you now, you stupid gringo!”

mexican banditoThe cavalry never had to rescue my hero from the Mexican bad guys as needed to happen when he was captured by the Indians.  The Mexican bad guys were easy to outsmart:

“No, I would never try to get away from Pancho.  Would Pancho mind loaning me his gun for a minute, I would like to see what a nice gun he has close up?”

“Oh sure, gringo like to see my gun?  Here take it and see the nice ivory handle.”

“Hands up Pancho, or I’ll blow your brains out. Come to think of it, I’ll blow your brains out anyway, cause your just a wetback from over the border. You probably don’t even have any legal immigration papers.  Blam, blam, blam, take that you dirty Latino.”

The other role for any male south of the border (Latino women were always cooks and stirring a large pot.   Later on they got to play tavern whores when the shows got more risqué.) was as a sidekick.  One of the most famous Mexican sidekicks was Pancho (What else?) who was Duncan Renaldo’s sidekick on the Cisco Kid.”  Renaldo was not born in Mexico but was born in Romania but he played the Cisco Kid who apparently was of Hispanic lineage.  The Kid spoke fluent English while of course Pancho (Leo Carrillo) said things like:

The Cisco Kid: There is something Pancho and I can do.
Pancho: Yes, there is something we can do. We could – we – what is it?
The Cisco Kid: Investigate, Pancho.
Pancho: I don’t have a mind to invest in a gate. What good would that do, anyhow?

“The Cisco Kid: School Marm (#6.8)” (1955)

“Although he played stereotypical Mexican Americans, Leo Carrillo (a college graduate) was part ofcisco and pancho an old and respected California family. His great-great grandfather, José Raimundo Carrillo (1749–1809), was an early settler of San Diego, California. His great-grandfather Carlos Antonio Carrillo (1783–1852) was Governor of Alta California (1837–38), his great-uncle, José Antonio Carrillo, was a three-time mayor of Los Angeles, and his paternal grandfather, Pedro Carrillo, who was educated in Boston, was a writer.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Carrillo

Of course, it would not do to have a Mexican play a hero or anything more than a bumbling half-witted but well intentioned sidekick.

Time for some music:  Mexican Americans Cheech and Chong full song (Click on Link)

I live in Arizona which has a large amount of undocumented immigrants attempting to pass through.   Many people in this state have developed a higher than average intolerance of our Latino friends.  A short while ago I was sitting in the local coffee shop and the woman on the stool next to me said rather loudly “I wish those damn Mexicans would all go home.”  I said “Well, many of them are home.  In fact, many if not most of them were here before you were.”  She looked at me rather meanly and said, “What, do you mean by that?”  I said, “Well until the Gadsden Purchase, the land you are sitting on was owned by Mexico.  Mexicans living here were given the chance to become American citizens and since many of their families had been living here since about 100 years before the Mayflower came over, they decided to stay.”  She did not say another word to me.

sign for serving whites onlyMy actual first encounter with Latinos was way back in 1967.  I was doing migrant farm work for Abrahamson’s Tree Farm in Scandia Minnesota for $1 dollar an hour.  It was hard physical labor from about 7 AM to 9 or even 10 PM at night.  Many of the field workers were from South of the Border.  I was warned never to discuss wages with any of them.  This warning was given despite the fact that none of them spoke English and I did not speak Spanish.  One day, while I was sitting in the fields with some of the other workers eating lunch. one of them looked at me and said “Bull-OVA, Bull-OVA.”  I had not the slightest idea what he was trying to say and looked rather quizzically back at him.  He finally reached over and took my arm. He pointed to his wrist and my wrist.  I suddenly realized we were both wearing Bulova watches.  It was a small thing but it was a rather poignant connection that we shared despite our lack of language.  That was my last contact with any Latinos until about 1979 when I was hired by Sister Giovanni to teach at Guadalupe Area Project in Westside St. Paul.

Nearly fifty years later and I am still discovering interesting things about our Latino neighbors and friends.  I was substitute teaching in one of the Casa Grande High Schools about a year ago when the phone rang in my classroom.  I picked it up and heard a Spanish speaking voice on the other end.  I looked at my class which is about 40 percent Hispanic and I picked out one suitably Mexican looking young girl and said to her:  “Maria, would you take this call for me, they are speaking Spanish.”  She looked back at me and said “I don’t speak Spanish.”  So much for getting over stereotypes!

In 2000, Arizona voters approved a law that effectively banned bilingual education in public schools.

Proposition 203, which passed with 63 percent of the vote, prohibits native-language instruction for most limited-English-proficient children in public schools. Using the electoral process to micromanage the schools, the new law imposes a statewide English-only mandate, overruling the

  • Choices of Hispanic and Native American parents,
  • Judgment and experience of professional educators,
  • Decisions of local school boards, and
  • Sovereignty of Indian nations trying to save their languages from extinction.

This mentality reminds me of the efforts by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in the early 20th century to eradicate the Native American cultures in this country by prohibiting Indian students from speaking their native language.  Many Americans now look back on the history of Indians and say how unfair our treatment of them was.  We say that we wish we could do it over.  But we are trying to do the same thing to the Latino speaking cultures in this country TODAY.  This is not happening 100 years ago.  In 2010, Arizona passed a law banning Ethnic and Multi-Cultural Studies in schools.  The ostensible reason was to insure that the government of the United States was not overthrown by these multi-cultural radicals.

But Mexicans are good for one thing.  Many of my compatriots in Arizona love to go to the border towns in Mexico to get their dental work done or their prescriptions filled.  The town of Algodones is on the Mexican border of California and Arizona.  It is filled each day with people from the USA who cross over to take advantage of the lower prices for both dental and eye work.  The prices can be as much as a third lower than in the USA. The popularity of both inexpensive prescriptions and medical care catering to Canadian and US senior citizens has prompted a virtual explosion of pharmacies and dental offices.  We may not want these Mexicans to live near us but we don’t mind if they will fix our eyes and teeth at discount rates.

stereotypesSo what drives this antipathy and sometimes out right hatred towards our Latino neighbors?  Why after 300 years of sharing our border have we reached this sorry state of anti-immigration and intolerance towards the Latino culture?  Some would say fear.  Others would say it is a reflection of hard times in the USA and the difficult economy.  Who needs more competition for jobs and work when millions of United States citizens are suffering with unemployment and a high cost of living?   But is this any reason to take it out on the poor of other countries who want a chance to escape their poverty?  Why can’t we look for a win-win in this scenario?

What further exacerbates this problem is the sorry state of leadership in this country.  Instead of looking for solutions that would appeal to the best in human nature, too many of our political leaders seem intent to stoke the fires of race hatred and cultural intolerance.

Resistance to a sweeping immigration overhaul is moving from conservative talk shows to the corridors of power.  The Republican-controlled House of Representatives on rejected President Obama’s policy to stop deporting young people brought to this country illegally as children. With all but six Republicans voting against funding a policy that lets hundreds of thousands of law-abiding but undocumented youth enrolled in high school or the military to stay in this country, the vote spotlighted the long odds facing the much broader Senate bill to allow 11 million illegal immigrants to earn citizenship.

 The House vote came two days after Republican Gov. Rick Scott of Florida vetoed a bill that would help young people whose deportations were halted by the Obama administration get driver’s licenses. And on Wednesday, a key immigration leader in the House, Republican Raul Labrador of Idaho, defected from bi-partisan talks.  http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/mounting-signs-of-gop-rebellion-against-immigration-reform-20130607

 We seem to have forgotten that this country was settled by people from many other countries.  Perhaps our greatest strength has come from our diversity and our ability to assimilate people from diverse cultures. The assimilation was not accomplished and has never been accomplished by laws or politicians. The assimilation happened because we were all able to share in the mexican_march_californiaAmerican dream of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”  This vision of what could be has been the fuel for the vast melting pot that this country has always represented.  Without this fuel, we have no ability to assimilate diverse cultures.  People are not assimilated because of anti-language or anti multi-cultural study laws.  People are assimilated by a common dream and a common vision.  We have always pointed our country out as a beacon for the forlorn and hopeless of other lands.  Are we going to give up on this role and the dreams that millions of people have for freedom, justice and prosperity?  Will we diminish ourselves by denying this dream to others?  What happens to such a dream if we do not share it with others?

 “Cruelty is all out of ignorance. If you knew what was in store for you, you wouldn’t hurt anybody, because whatever you do comes back much more forceful than you send it out.”  — Willie Nelson

 Time for Questions:

When did your grandparents come over? How were they treated? What if they were trying to come over today, how do you think they would be treated? What if you lived in a poor poverty ridden country, what would you do to escape or make your life better?  Documented or undocumented immigrants, should we have more opportunities for immigration to this country or less?  Why?  How much charity should we extend to people from other countries?  Can we extend too much?

 Life is just beginning.

 

 

 

A White Person’s View on Black Americans or Does Racism Still Exist?

14 Jul 2014 13 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

“Einnie, meanie, miney moe, catch a nigger by the toe.  If he hollers, let’em go.  Einnie meanie miney moe.”   

Portrait of Happy Family In ParkBetween 1868 and 1969, 3,446 African Americans were lynched in the United States.  Some for looking at a White woman, some for being uppity, some for not getting off the sidewalk when a White person was coming, some for smiling, some for laughing and some for no other reason than they were Black.  Today of course, we point with measured pride to the fact that the President of the United States of America is an African American man.  I say with measured pride because President Barack Obama is perhaps one of the most reviled and hated men to ever hold the office.  Gun sales have gone through the roof since his election along with an increase in hate groups.  If Obama says the “Sky is blue today,” he is called a liar, thief, scoundrel, socialist, anti-American and worse.

“Einnie, meanie, miney moe, catch a nigger by the toe.  If he hollers, let’em go.  Einnie meanie miney moe.”  

Abraham Lincoln was reported to have investigated or at least contemplated the idea of resettling newly emancipated slaves in another country.   Thomas Jefferson freed some of his slaves but not all of them and had a slave mistress by whom he had a number of children.   Strom Thurmond, a US Senator from South Carolina who long opposed desegregation and civil rights had a child by his Black maid.  The list of hypocrisy concerning the value of Black folks in America is as long as the Mississippi river.  Is it a fair question to ask “What is the value of Black people?”  One could well ask the same question for White people.  Would the answers differ?  Is there some inherent value for the color of a person?

“Well” some would say:  “Look at how those Black people can play football, baseball and basketball.”   We managed to make the Russians look bad in many of the Olympic Games through the contributions of Black Americans.  African Americans have made numerous contributions to science, humanities, arts and literature.  The list of African Americans in any of these categories would take up more room than I have in this blog and would be insulting to even think of listing.  For those White folks who see no value in Black people, a list as numerous as the stars would not change their minds.

“Einnie, meanie, miney moe, catch a nigger by the toe.  If he hollers, let’em go.  Einnie meanie miney moe.”  

The Black Holocaust generally refers to the persecution, enslavement and murder of millions of Africans during the period of legal slave trade that existed from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century.  It is estimated by some scholars that over ten million Africans were killed in this period by murder, beatings, malnutrition, disease and other tortures suffered during their enforced imprisonment and transportation to slave pens and slave auctions.quincy-auction

“Some Afrocentric scholars prefer the term Maafa to African Holocaust, because they believe that the indigenous African terminology more truly confers the events. Other arguments in favor of Maafa rather than the term African Holocaust emphasize that the denial of the validity of the African people’s humanity is an unparalleled centuries-long phenomenon: The Maafa is a continual, constant, complete, and total system of human negation and nullification.” [1]  — Wikipedia

Well, you say, all this was a long time ago.  “My daddy didn’t own any slaves.”  “Black people should be held to the same standards as White people.”  “What about reverse discrimination.”  “Why don’t they just act like White people?”  “I’m not prejudiced; I just don’t want to live with a bunch of Black people.”  “Why should I have to pay for something that happened long before I was born?”  “When are they going to start taking responsibility and put this slavery business behind them?”  “They all want special treatment.”  “They always play the ‘race card’ when things get tough.”

“Einnie, meanie, miney moe, catch a nigger by the toe.  If he hollers, let’em go.  Einnie meanie miney moe.”  

“You know they didn’t really have it so bad.  Many of the slaves down on those plantations were happy and proud to have a White master and three square meals a day.  They make it sound like things were really awful but they had it better than many White folk in the good old South.”  —  A typical White comment.

“Old Black Joe” (Click on the Link and listen to the song)

Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe”.
Chorus
I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low:
I hear those gentle voices calling, “Old Black Joe”.

“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” ― Abraham Lincoln

The following is a description of routine slave treatment from “A Runaway Slave.”   © 2003 This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.

lynching“One night towards the last of the week, our allowance was gone and we were very hungry.–So I and two others went into the musk-melon patch and took three or four melons apiece. The next day they measured our tracks and then measured our feet, and whipped some of us, till one told who did it. There was a man and woman besides me. The man’s name was Reuben. They carried the man into the woods, where they had four stakes driven into the ground, and stretched him out and fastened him there. The driver whipped him for a long time. Afterwards they washed him down with brine and then put him in the stocks. I was tied round a log. They tied me as close as possible with strings round my neck and hands and feet.–They put a cap on my head and drew it down closely over my face. It covered my whole face, and was tied under my chin, and was not taken off till the whipping and washing were all over. After whipping I was put into the stocks. They tied the woman up to a tree, and made her hug round it. She was whipped more than I was, though I was whipped badly enough. They put her into the dungeon, a dark hole under the house.”

So much fun, it makes you wish that you too could have been a slave and lived on a plantation.  I can imagine working in the cotton fields with the other children from 5 in the morning till 9 at night.  Getting a chance to sing and dance for my White masters before drifting off to sleep and then waking up at 3 in the morning to the tune of a whip snapping across my back and my White master gently singing “Get your Black ass out of bed and into the fields.”  So much fun!  I don’t understand why we just don’t start some new plantations and allow White folks who think they were cool to take vacations there.

Instead of going to a spa, White folks who think plantations were fun spots could book a vacation at a plantation.  They would all be run by Black people who were descendants of slaves and had some first-hand knowledge of plantation life.  White people could get a chance to experience plantation life first hand and pay for the privilege.  All the proceeds could be donated to a Black scholarship fund and then we would not need any Affirmative Action quotas.  It would be a win-win for everyone:  more scholarships for Blacks and more fun vacations for Whites.

“Einnie, meanie, miney moe, catch a nigger by the toe.  If he hollers, let’em go.  Einnie meanie miney moe.”  

I started this blog with the intent of identifying the worth of a “Black person.”  Once upon a time one of my students said that “life was invaluable and
you could not put a value on the life of a human being.”  I cried “Bullshit, insurance companies do it all the time.”  So if we can put a value on the life of a human being, why not subdivide humans into categories or minority groups and ask what each of the members of these groups would be worth?  Something like this:

White Person:             3, 000, 000 dollars

Black Person:             2, 000, 000 dollars

Latino Person:            1, 500, 000 dollars

Asian Person:             1, 000, 000 dollars

African American HistoryI suppose we could argue about these numbers some but I suggest them simply as a starting point.  Perhaps there could be subcategories to help narrow things down: Tall people versus short people or old people versus young people.  With such a value system we could even initiate trades.  I could trade you two old White persons for one young Black person or a few tall Latinos for one short Asian.  A system like this might make trades between sports teams easier.  It would certainly be embraced by insurance companies when it came time to paying out death benefits.  I am also sure lawyers would gravitate to the system when civil lawsuits for damages were unclear.

“Einnie, meanie, miney moe, catch a nigger by the toe.  If he hollers, let’em go.  Einnie meanie miney moe.”    (Listen to the song War by Bob Marley)

These dam Black people.  They act like prejudice still existed.  Don’t they know that prejudice, racism, discrimination and race hatred are things of the African American Soldierpast?  Us White folks have now become racially indifferent, non-prejudiced, non-racist and extremely tolerant of Black people.  Why some of us even let our daughters date Black men.  Just listen to some of the ideas that you can now hear said about Black folks by our elected leaders.  I am not talking about out and out racists like the KKK, Aryan Nation or Rush Limbaugh.  I am talking about elected political leaders who hold office and have responsibility to represent all the citizens of this county.

  • Texas Governor Rick Perry was an ambiguous bigot whose records and affiliations are not blatant enough to call him racist, yet the racist tone of his politics straddles the line. Just recently, Perry came under fire after it was learned that his family’s leased hunting compound in West Texas was named: “Niggerhead Ranch.”
  • Former Minnesota US Senator Michele Bachmann endorsed a pledge that claimed Black families were better off during slavery. She also railed against a government settlement paid to Black framers, who claimed the federal government discriminated against them for decades. In another instance she claimed, “Not are cultures are equal, not all values all equal.”
  •  Mississippi State Representative John Moore has ranted about the special interests of “one group of people,” and has advocated against a bill to make teaching civil rights mandatory in Mississippi schools. Moore has also given speeches at various rallys sponsored by the Council of Conservative Christians, a group that has worked hard to deny its racist sentiments, but who the Republican National Committee has openly condemned in 1999 and that the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as a crudely white supremacist group whose website has run pictures comparing pop singer Michael Jackson to an ape and referred to Blacks as “a retrograde species of humanity.”
  • Arkansas State Representative Loy Mauch, a former head of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, proved the present day political clout of white supremacists, winning a seat in the Arkansas House of Representatives.  Never one to back away from his white supremacist views, Mauch declared the Confederate flag a symbol of Jesus Christ, and has even said he believes Abraham Lincoln did not follow the Constitution.
  •  South Carolina State Sen. Jake Knotts went on a racially motivated tirade against then-gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley and President Obama. “We already got one raghead in the White House. We don’t need another in the Governor’s Mansion.”

So what is a Black person worth?  I guess the answer would depend on whether he was a good Black or a bad Black.  A good Black is a Black person put the white back in the white housewhom I know, like and trust.  He or she might be someone I work with, a neighbor or a friend whom I have met through some mutual activity.  A good Black person has a lot in common with me.

A bad Black is a Black person whom I don’t know.  I don’t have much in common with these bad Black people.  There are many more bad Blacks in this country (since by default we all know fewer Black people than we don’t know) then there are good Blacks.  That makes it hard for most White people to feel kindly towards Black people, since there are so many more bad Black folks.  What can we do about this situation?  If only we had some universal skin dye that could make those bad Black people all White that could help solve the problem.   Of course, us White folks could all move back to Europe and leave them Black folks here.  That would fix them.  The Indians might appreciate this latter idea as well.

Time for Questions:

How do you treat people who are different from you?  What do you value in a human being?  Does it depend on the color of their skin?  Does it depend on whether or not they belong to the same groups as you do?  Does it depend on whether or not they belong to the same church as you do?  Who are the “good” people in your life?  Are your “good folks” based on character or race?

Life is just beginning.

“Einnie, meanie, miney John, catch a Honky by the toe.  If he hollers, let’em go.  Einnie meanie miney John.”  

I think the lyrics to Marley’s song are worth thinking about.  Following are the lyrics for those of you who might want to print them out.  I am guessing Mr. Marley would not mind more widespread distribution of his song.

“War” —-  Lyrics and Music by Bob Marley

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior
And another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned –
Everywhere is war –
Me say war.

That until there no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes –
Me say war.

That until the basic human rights
Are equally guaranteed to all,
Without regard to race –
Dis a war.

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace,
World citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued,
But never attained –
Now everywhere is war – war.

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
that hold our brothers in Angola,
In Mozambique,
South Africa
Sub-human bondage
Have been toppled,
Utterly destroyed –
Well, everywhere is war –
Me say war.

War in the east,
War in the west,
War up north,
War down south –
War – war –

Rumours of war.
And until that day,
The African continent
Will not know peace,
We Africans will fight – we find it necessary –
And we know we shall win
As we are confident
In the victory

Of good over evil –
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil –
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil –
Good over evil, yeah! 

 

 

 

 

Why do we need all those damn minorities anyway !?!?!?!?

06 Jul 2014 5 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

immigrantsThis blog is best read while listening to the following song:  South Park – Minorities at My Water Park song  (Eric Cartman)

Ever since this country (USA) began, we have had to deal with the problem of immigration and immigrants. You know those lazy shiftless dirty ignorant people from other countries who want to come here to steal the “better” life we have.  Of course, some (those Black folks) came over unwillingly, but that’s not our fault right?  The vast majority of immigrants have been let into the American Dream by laws designed to allow a certain amount of legal immigration each year.  This legal amount has been supplemented by a large amount of illegal immigration or undocumented immigration that takes place because of our porous borders (Read no large brick walls) or perhaps force fields.

Each year seems to bring a new “minority” group to this country.  I can remember in St. Paul when the Hmong come over, then the Somalians, then the Russians.  Many of the Latinos had come over before I moved to St. Paul.  If my history is correct, much of the Mexican migration to the Twin Cities took place in the 40’s and 50’s.  Of course, before that it had been those dirty Italians, lazy Swedes, and mean spirited Germans among others too numerous to mention.  It is a wonder that St. Paul is still basically a White country.  My adopted Korean daughter used to refer to White Bear Lake as “White Boy Lake.”  There were not too many Asians in her high school.  Oh, did I forget the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese who live in the Twin Cites?  No matter, what’s few more or less minorities?  And you know those Asians, they all look alike.

I suppose before I go any further, I should mention those dam Indians.  I know, they were here first!  And they let us know everyCavalry_and_Indians chance they get.  But let’s face it.  They don’t really count.  After all, they were primitive people who had no law, no writing, no books, no libraries, no Mc Donald’s or anything else you need for a real civilization.  You can’t really take their claims to this country seriously.  Why, they sold Manhattan for only 40 bucks.  Their lack of business acumen is testimony to their inability to manage a large endeavor like the USA.  They should be happy we “Treatied” this land from them.  “Treatied” is a word that I made up to denote the process we followed with these indigenous people.  It works as follows:

  • Befriend Indians
  • Encroach on their land
  • Skirmish with angry Indians
  • Make treaty with Indians for peace
  • Break treaty with Indians to take more land
  • Make new treaty with Indians
  • Break treaty to steal more land
  • Kill Indians that complain
  • Take more land
  • Make new treaty

As you can see, this process worked pretty well. We (The White people) now own most of the good land and the remaining Indians (those we did not kill) got put on the Bad Lands (now called reservations.)  That is because we “reserved” those Bad Lands for them.   Well, actually, we only loaned those lands to them, since whenever, gold, copper, water, oil or anything else of value was found on them, we sort of took the lands back and moved those Indians who complained to a new reservation.   I told you earlier Indians were never really very good businesspeople.

Ann coulter on illegalsSo, now that I have briefly reviewed the history of immigration to this (the “Greatest Country on God’s Green Earth”), I would like to look individually at the various minority groups that we (read White folks) have more recently had problems with.  I want to see if perhaps there are solutions to dealing with “those” (non-White) people.  I will look at one minority group in each of my next blogs to review in terms of history, culture and potential contributions to our country.  Based on my findings, we will have a better means of answering the question: “Should we let any more of those people in or should we toughen up our immigration policies to make sure they cannot find a way in?”   I would like to discuss the following groups:

  • Black people
  • Latino people
  • Asian people
  • Disabled people

I am going to skip Indians since they were already here and they pose little threat in terms of immigration.  I know a few Eskimos and Natives from Alaska have tried to come down to the “lower” 48, but their numbers are too low to really matter and besides, Alaska is already a state so legally they are not immigrants.

The first of the minority groups that I will look at have been called Africans, African Americans, Blacks, Negros and other more pejorative terms.  This group is composed of people who were tribal in origin but now may lay claim to being descendants from such new nations as Somalia, Uganda, Nigeria and Rhodesia.  The large majority of early slaves who found their way to North America came from West Africa, mainly the region that now has the countries of Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal and Cote I’voire. Traders often referred to this part of Africa as the “Slave Coast”.  Many bought or captured slaves would have come from the Yoruba, Oyo and Ashanti people. The main slave trading countries of Europe were England, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands.  Slaves were brought to this country and traded at slave markets for money, rum or other goods.  It goes without saying that slaves did not come over to America willingly.  I suppose most of them were undocumented but so were most Europeans back in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

You might question my qualifications to write about Black people in America.  If so, I can only defend myself by saying that some of my best friends have been Black.  How many of your have had some best friends who were Black?  Perhaps, I would be more qualified if my sister or niece had married a Black man but that did not happen.  I have known quite a few Black people in my life and I have been to several sessions (sponsored by my company) on “diversity.”   So there, my qualifications are unchallengeable.  Diversity training, Black friends, and I have even read a few books about Black people.  If you still do not find my qualifications acceptable, then I suggest you read the book:  “Black like me” by John Griffin and skip my blog.     japs keep moving

Time for Questions:

Are you a minority?  What makes a person a minority?  Is it color, ethnicity or ideology or all of them?  Have you ever felt like an outsider?  What do you do to help people feel included?  Do you think America is for Americans?  What is a real American?  What should we do about immigration?  Do you think building more walls will help? What about building “walls of hate?”

Life is just beginning.

Lyrics:  Minorities at My Water Park Song:  Eric Cartman

What has happened to this place?
I don’t recognize it anymore.
It used to be so fun and special.
What is life worth living for?
The dream is dead, our land is gone;
There’s a hole in my heart and I can’t go on.

There are too many minorities (minorities)
At my water park (my water park).
This was our land, our dream (our dream)
and they’ve taken it all away.
They just keep coming and coming (minorities).
I tried to go and tell the police,
But even the authorities
Are minorities
At my water park.

There’s no place for me to sit anymore,
And the lines just keep getting crazier.
There are Mexicans all around me.
The lazy river has never been lazier.
It’s a 40 minute wait to go down one slide,
And the instructions are in Spanish on the Zip Line ride!
(Guarden los brazos y piernas dentro del paseo)
Just do it in English!

There are too many minorities (too many)
At my water park (somebody do something).
Where did they all come from?
Why can’t they leave this land alone?
And it’s such a tragedy (feel a bit like dying).
We looked the other way too long.
We’ve got to change our priorities
And get all these minorities
Out of my water park

(Minorities) Mexicans and Asians,
(Black people), I think I even saw Native Americans (gross).
God I’m asking please, get all of these minorities
Out of my water park (my water park).

 

The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?

30 Jun 2014 2 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

Repeat the words in the title anywhere in the world and they are immediately recognizable as referring to the United States of America.  As Michael Medved loudly proclaims on each of his shows:  “And another great day in this, the greatest country on God’s green earth.”  It is my guess that you have never thought about where the phrase “land of the free and home of the brave” comes from.  Of course, it comes from our national anthem but where did the words originally come from?  Were they from some patriot during the Revolutionary War or from the War of 1812?  Actually they came from a lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key.  He penned them as part of a poem he wrote in 1814 which was originally titled:  “Defense of Fort McHenry.” 

“The poem was set to the tune of a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society, a men’s social club in London. “The Anacreontic Song” (or “To Anacreon in Heaven“), with various lyrics, was already popular in the United States. Set to Key’s poem and renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner”, it would soon become a well-known American patriotic song.”  — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner

Today, we naturally assume that the words refer to our penchant for American independence and heroism.  Our unique ability to save the world from itself and to right injustices wherever they are found.  Our vaunted American exceptionalism that gives us the moral right and categorical imperative to influence and insert ourselves in events and places the world over.  No one dares to question (or at least few in this country) the right of America to influence politics throughout the world.  No one questions the assumption that we are only in it for the greater good of humanity.  How could anyone from the “land of the free and the home of the brave” do otherwise?  Where our boots tread, soon follows democracy and prosperity, right?

But what if the “land of the free and the home of the brave” was not the reality anymore?  What if it was more accurate to say that today America has become the “land of the guarded and the home of the fearful.”  Since 911, Americans have seemed to retreat behind a cloak of ongoing surveillance and security measures that could become the greatest detriment to freedom, this country has ever faced.  As Benjamin Franklin so wisely noted; “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”. 

So I have decided to do some first-hand research and go visit a few “average” Americans.  I took a little road trip across Wisconsin to find some true patriots and to see what they think about our country.  Are we really scared and fearful?  Are we willing to give up our freedom for security?  Have we become more xenophobic?  To answer these questions, I stopped at diners, coffee shops, rest areas, truck stops, libraries and Denny’s Restaurants to visit with real Americans.  Not the 1 percent who make their money from stocks and bonds, but the hardworking “Joes and Janes” who make their money the old fashioned way, by the sweat of their brows.  I will briefly post a few excerpts here from some of my interviews.

Roxanne:  The Full-Time-Part-Time Worker:

I met 36 year old Roxanne in a booth in Mc Donald’s where we talked over a Big Mac, fries and a shake.  Roxanne is a divorced mother of two school aged children whom she is raising with the help of some grandparents.   She works both a part-time day job at Benny’s Cleaners and a part-time night job at Wal-Marts.

John:  Let’s cut to the chase Roxanne. What do you think about America today?

Roxanne:  Well, John, its dam hard to make a living, I can tell you that. Without my grandparents helping me, I don’t know how I would get by.

John:  Do you think we have too much security and not enough freedom?

Roxanne:  I don’t know, seems like there is never a cop around when you need one.  I had a fight with my boyfriend the other day and called the cops, but it took them over 30 minutes to get to my place.

John:  What do you think about the Russians, Iraqis, Mexican Cartels and Obama?

Roxanne:  I think they should all go back to the countries they came from and leave us alone.

John:  Did you vote in the last elections?

Roxanne:  Who was running?

John:  Thanks Roxanne – got to go now.

“Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.”  — Mark Twain

 Pete:  The Carpenter

I met Pete while stopping to fill up my gas at a Pilot Station.  I noticed the painted sign on his pick-up truck which read “Carpenters keep it up longer: Call Pete for a good job.”  I offered to buy him a coffee if he would answer a few questions.  Pete was 54 years old, married with four kids. One daughter was still living home with him.  She had been married and was now divorced.  Pete’s wife worked part-time as a church secretary.

John:  So Pete, what do your kids do?

Pete:  Well, one boy works with me when I need extra help. One daughter is married and lives out of state.  One daughter lives with us and the other son works nearby at a local manufacturing plant as a night supervisor.

John:  Do you think this country has provided enough opportunity for them?

Pete:  Yeah, I guess so

John:  What do you think about the economy Pete?

Pete:   Sucks.

John:  I guess a lot of people would agree with you there.  What are your biggest worries for the future?

Pete:  Paying my mortgage and taxes.

John:  Are you worried about freedom and security.

Pete:  Nope, got a concealed carry permit and a good stockpile of ammunition.

John: What do you think we should do about immigration?

Pete:  Send them all home.

John:  Well, thanks for your time Pete.

“True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.” — Clarence Darrow

 Bob:  The Tea Party Member

Bob is a 47 year old accountant. He is married with wife and no kids.  I met Bob at a local café that I had stopped at on my journeys.  He was wearing a t-shirt that read: TEA: Taxed Enough Already.   I sat down at the counter next to Bob and struck up a conversation.

John:  So you belong to the Tea Party?

Bob:  Yeah, joined about five years ago.  I am fed up with big government, taxes and the present no ethics politicians running this country.

John:  So how is the Tea Party going to change things?

Bob:  Well, for a start we are going to only elect politicians that support our views and are not going to compromise away what we stand for.

John:  So what do you stand for?  I know you hate taxes but is that all?

Bob:  Well, here look at this card.  It says it all.

John:  The card Bob gave me read as follows:

Our Core Principles

Tea Party Patriots stands for every American, and is home to millions who have come together to pursue the American Dream and to keep that Dream alive for their children and grandchildren.

What unites the Tea Party movement is the same set of core principles that brought America together at its founding, that kindled the American Dream in the hearts of those who struggled to build our nation, and made the United States of America the greatest, most successful country in world history.

At its root the American Dream is about freedom. Freedom to work hard and the freedom to keep the fruits of your labor to use as you see fit without harming others and without hindering their freedom. Very simply, three guiding principles give rise to the freedom necessary to pursue and live the American Dream:

John:  That sounds very good Bob, but I don’t see a lot of progressive thinking coming from the Tea Party.  Seems like you guys are more against things then for things?

Bob:  That’s because we want to go back to the way this country used to be run before the bureaucrats, illegal aliens, liberals and socialists took over this country.

John:  What about health care and education and social services for the needy?

Bob:  This country is full of free loaders who sponge off the hard working Americans who work for a living.

John:  So you don’t believe that there are truly needy people out there in this country?  What about new immigrants?

Bob:  No one gave me anything or my grandparents.  They came over to this country with just the shirts on their backs.  People used to believe in hard work and honesty.

John:  What about education?  It is barely affordable anymore.

Bob:  That’s because we give all of these free scholarships to students from other countries and the high salaries that those lazy professors make.  Do you realize most of them work less than ten hours a week?

John:  Well, thanks for the opinions Bob.  Time to go!  You have a great day.

 “Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.”  — Samuel Johnson

Cassie Jean:  The NRA Member

Cassie Jean is a 33 year old single woman who works as an Assistant Manager in a small bakery.  I talked to Cassie Jean while she was on a break over coffee and a cigarette.  I had stopped for donuts and a rest break.  Cassie Jean rides a 2002 Honda Shadow 600 motorcycle.  She is an avid hunter and a card carrying member of the National Rifle Association.

John:  So Cassie, what was the last thing you killed?

Cassie Jean:  Well, got me a good sized buck this past fall and a nice turkey this spring.

John:  How long have you been shooting?

Cassie Jean:  Ever since I was a little girl.

John:  Why do you belong to the NRA?

Cassie Jean:  They protect our rights.  You know the Second Amendment.

John:  Isn’t that about militias?

Cassie Jean:  People have the right to arm themselves.   If we let them take our guns away, we will have no protection.

John:  Protection from what.

Cassie Jean:  The wackos and socialists.

John:  What about our army, National Guard and the police department.  Isn’t their job to protect us?

Cassie Jean:  They work for the liberal socialists that are destroying this country.  The only thing that stands between them and us is our guns.

John:  But what about all the gun violence in this country?

Cassie Jean:  If more people were armed, there would be less violence.

John:  How do you figure?

Cassie Jean:  Well, would you screw with someone who had a gun?

John:  But what if no one had a gun?

Cassie Jean:  Over my dead body.

John:  Well, you sure make good donuts.  Take care and happy hunting.

“Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.”  — General Douglas MacArthur

 Dick:  The Mechanic

Dick is a retired Ford mechanic who worked for a small Ford garage in upstate Wisconsin for over 30 years.  A bad back and a desire to enjoy more of life convinced Dick to retire early.  Dick is a strange sort of man as he does not like hunting or sports but enjoys literature and particularly good poetry.  He is a connoisseur of fine wines and good music and never misses an opportunity to travel with his wife Paula to see new places.  Dick belongs to a group of retired men who hang out at a local library where they can get free coffee and an occasional donut.  Despite his lack of a formal education, Dick is knowledgeable and well versed on many subjects.  His views would surprise many.

John:  What’s new Dick?

Dick:  I am going to Russia!

John:  For real?

Dick:  Yep, I like the way Putin is running things.  No BS in that country.

John:  What about freedom of speech and freedom of religion?

Dick:  Religion is a farce, just a bunch of know nothing do-gooders trying to live off the backs of hardworking people.

John:  What about freedom of speech?

Dick:  No one listens to you here anyway unless you are a billionaire.

John:  I don’t think Putin would tolerate unions and I thought you were a union man?

Dick:  Unions used to help people now most of them are just parasites as well.

John:  You sound like a libertarian.

Dick:  I don’t belong to any party.  They are all useless.

John:  When are you leaving for Russia?

Dick:  Soon

John:  How soon?

Dick:  Not soon enough.

John:  Well, I imagine many of your friends would hate to see you leave.

Dick:  Yeah, well I can send them a postcard.

John:  Do you think the libraries in Russia would have a men’s group and free coffee?

Dick:  I don’t know.  I will talk to Putin about it when I get there.

John:  Well, if I don’t see you before you leave Dick, have a good flight.

Conclusions:

I arrived back to my starting point in Frederic Wisconsin after several days on the road.  Truly, I cannot say I had any great insights into the subject of freedom and liberty.  My “random” sample of “average” Americans would not satisfy even a lazy graduate student much less a hard core researcher.  Nevertheless, my total observations have literally been based on hundreds of such conversations over the past ten years.  My interviewees are a composite of dozens of people whom I have met and talked to from the shores of Coon Lake in Wisconsin to the rocky Casa Grande Mountains in Arizona.

Numerous books attest to major changes taking place in our country.  Are we going backwards, forwards or perhaps sideways?  Are things getting better or worse?  Are we still the place that everyone wants to immigrate to?  If not, what has changed?  We are surrounded by apocalyptic visions.  The USA will be overrun by illegal immigrants.  Socialists will take over the country.  Fascism will become the norm.  The end days are near and the Messiah will return to judge the good and the evil.  The poor will rise up and destroy America.   The country will become one vast prison with drug addicts and drug dealers on every corner.  No one will be able to afford health care or education.  Terrorists will infiltrate and bomb our most prized establishments.  The country will give in to Sharia Law.

With such gloomy visions of the future, is it any wonder that many people are fearful and ready to sacrifice their freedom for security.  More and more Americans live behind walls either in a prison or in a gated community.   Neither prison walls nor community walls seem to protect us from our worst enemies which may be ourselves.

Beck – It’s All In Your Mind, music video         (Love this Song, click on here to listen)

Time for Questions:

Have you felt things are getting better or worse in this country?  Do you think we need more or less patriots?  Do you think most people professing patriotism are really patriots?  What do you think makes a good patriot?  What do you think makes a “bad” patriot?  Where do you stand on patriotism?

Life is just beginning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

John’s New Blog Site.

21 Jun 2014 Leave a comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized

I left “time parables” and started a new blog at http://www.agingcapriciously.com    I wanted to explore longer themes and a greater variety of subjects. I should have left this message two years ago, but I guess “better late than never.”  If you have enjoyed my blogs here, I think you will enjoy my new site. My posts are now longer, generally 2000 to 3000 words and my subject matter more diverse.  I would like to think my writing has also improved and has more variety to it.  If you go to my new site, you might want to start at the beginning which was Feb 2013.  Hope you enjoy.

Mans Inhumanity to Man

21 Jun 2014 Leave a comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized

I am out of town this next week so I am reposting one of my favorite blogs. If you have read this one already, you might want to visit my other blog site at http://www.timeparables.blogspot.com. I have nearly 500 blogs I wrote on this site. I will have a new blog next week but this week was so busy, I decided to do a reblog. If you have not listened to the music with this blog you are really missing the essence. The music is haunting.

Dr. John Persico Jr.'s avatarAging Capriciously

I have advice from a respected friend who says it is better to be positive than negative.  Generally, I think there is much truth to his comment.  Pessimists, cynics, skeptics, and critics seem to live hard unhappy lives.  Studies show that though optimists may not live as long as pessimists, they live happier lives.  We can look around us and see misery, inhumanity and poverty or we can look around and find kindness, generosity and love.  So why would I write about “man’s inhumanity to man?”  Perhaps I cannot give you a good reason.  Sometimes it just seems so egregious to me and terrible that I feel the need to condemn it.  I can not always have a “Happy Face” in light of the inhumanity that I see displayed by other human beings.

I am not talking about a specific act of cruelty or any one specific act that has…

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The Goals of Life or Should We Live a Life without Goals? Part 2

16 Jun 2014 Leave a comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized

In part one of this blog we examined the question of whether it was possible to achieve goals that gave other people health, wealth, wisdom or happiness.  Our major conclusion was that this would be a futile effort.  Thus, we turn to the question of whether or not we can set goals to achieve any of these cardinal objectives for ourselves.  Prima Facie, you are probably wondering why anyone would even ask this question.  I think this a critical point to address before we proceed further. I want you to understand that I am not being frivolous here.  I am indeed serious in asking whether we can set goals for happiness, health, wealth or wisdom.   Image

Most of us accept as well established dogma, if not fact, that goal setting is essential to accomplishing our dreams and leading a successful life.  I assure you I am not setting up a straw dog.  I bring in Dr. W. E. Deming as my expert witness and mentor.  Dr. W. E. Deming believed that goal setting could be a waste of time and effort.  He was so adamant that one of his famous 14 Principles even addressed the subject, Principle Number 11:

“Eliminate numerical goals, numerical quotas and management by objectives. Substitute leadership.”

To understand Dr. Deming’s antipathy towards goal setting a few basic points must first be established.

  1. A system can only produce what it is producing unless changes in the system are undertaken.
  2. Arbitrary changes without consideration of the system as a whole will produce random results.
  3. “Pushing” a system to produce more than it is capable of will produce undesirable and unknown side effects.   For example:  asking workers to speed up production or to work longer hours.
  4. Improving a system will improve output and increase desirable outcomes.
  5. Continuous improvement comes from understanding of the process and the various factors that contribute to the process outcomes.

Dr. Deming believed that one of the worst evils in the business world was management arbitrarily setting goals for workers and employees.  We have already looked at the futility of such efforts.  We now turn to the issue of whether or not we can set similar goals for ourselves.  Keeping in mind the five points made above, will help us to more realistically look at the feasibility of setting goals in these areas.

Happiness for Ourselves:

My goal is to make myself happy. This sounds very simple but it may be the most difficult goal of all. How many people do you know who are depressed, alcoholic, suicidal, angry, bigoted, intolerant and worse even homicidal?  Rarely do we see anyone in the news who is happy.  If so, it is a very transient state of being.  Many people are happy today and sad tomorrow.  Happiness seems like a state of mind that can only be attained for a very short space of time.  “The happiest day of my life” can be remembered by most of us, but if we could be happy all of the time, why would any one day stand out?  That they do attests to the fact that truly happy days are very few and far between for most of us.  Happy days always seem to be in the past.  Perhaps that is because we really forget the miseries that often accompanied even the so called happiest days of our lives.

ImageBuddha said about happiness that we can have a false happiness which is a search for things to make us happy.  We can try to find happiness by obtaining more money, more friends or more possessions.  This kind of happiness is transient and our “happiness glow” soon fades.  Things can never make us happy.  True happiness is a state of mind.  It is a state of mind that accepts all things and that simply observes rather than reacts.  True happiness cannot come from changing others or even trying to change ourselves.   Buddha said, “Happiness is in the mind which is released from worldly bondage. The happiness of sensual lust and the happiness of heavenly bliss are not equal to a sixteenth part of the happiness of craving’s end.”

Conclusion:  We can achieve happiness but it is not the happiness of having things or getting medals or being successful.  True happiness is a state of mind.  Happiness starts when striving for results or accomplishments ends.  Thus, setting a goal to become happy might only lead to more unhappiness. The way to accomplish this objective is a paradox since to be happy we must let go of the goal of being happy.  Jesus said to live one day at a time. 

Health for Ourselves:

My goal is to make myself healthy.  We all want good health and we can certainly make ourselves unhealthy.  Can we do the opposite and make ourselves healthy?  I think we can strive to be as healthy as possible but we have to accept the fact that some “health” is beyond our control or at least beyond our current scientific knowledge to impact.   In terms of the five points given above, we do not fully understand the biological processes that create health in human beings.

A few weeks ago, a young woman in our town died of terminal cancer at the age of 32 leaving two young children.  She died only a few months after being diagnosed.  What did she do to make herself unhealthy?  Was it something she ate?  Did she not exercise enough?  I think you could spend your lifetime looking for an answer to these questions and you would never find an answer.  Do your best to stay healthy.  Exercise, eat right, don’t smoke, avoid stress and you might lead a long and healthy life.  On the other hand, you might die in six months from some disease that you never realized you had.

Conclusion:   We can have a major impact on our health by living properly but no one person or no single effort can guarantee us health.  It is a worthwhile goal if seen as a journey and not a fixed end state.  Some days you will be healthy and some days you will be sick. 

Wealth for Ourselves:

My goal is to make myself wealthy.  I have often pondered the value of this goal.  Since I have never achieved it, though I have often stated it as a goal, I am left with two questions.  First: Did I really value wealth enough to make it a priority in my life?  Second: Would my life have been better had I become wealthy?  My answer to the first question is a tentative no.  I have valued many things more than wealth.  I have always valued time more than wealth and I have always valued my own independence more than wealth.  I would rather be out running or swimming than reading the Wall Street Journal.  I have always had a difficult time taking orders and valuing loyalty to a company whose major motive is making profit is foreign to my nature.  Perhaps (which is why I said tentative) these are the reasons I have never achieved wealth or status.  On the other hand maybe I was just too lazy, stupid or undisciplined to become another Warren Buffett.  I thought I had the brains, but somehow the billions have never come.

ImageThe second question is perhaps more interesting.  “What if I had become rich?”  Would my life have been better?  Would I have been happier?   I have thought about this question more as I have aged and I honestly think that if I had become wealthy at a young age, my life would have self-destructed.  Like many young people who become wealthy and ruin their lives with drugs or fast living, I think it entirely likely I would have been unable to handle the influence or power that money would have brought.  I certainly do not think that becoming wealthy would have led to my happiness.  As I have become older, the goal of wealth has become less important.  I would not change my present lifestyle for all the money in the world.  I am content with my life, my friends and my spouse.  I am also content with growing older and coming to the end of my time.

Conclusion:  Beware of what you ask for, because you may get it.  Few of us are wise enough or strong enough to handle the “drug” of wealth. 

Wisdom for Ourselves:

My goal is to make myself wise.  We have already seen the difficulty of giving wisdom to others. Can we make ourselves wise?  Are there activities or knowledge that we can pursue which will ultimately confer upon us the mantle of “wise one?”  I think you could go to school for 100 years every day and you still would not be wise.  There is an old saying that “knowledge helps you to make a living but wisdom helps you to make a life.”  We go to school and receive knowledge, but the world is full of educated idiots.  We all know people who know how to make a living but haven’t the slightest clue as to how to make a life.

I am nearly 70 years of age now.  I am almost at that time of age when years ago, I would have been considered one of the tribal elders.  By dint of having lived seven decades, I would have been considered wise. Perhaps years ago, that is all it took.  The older you were, the wiser you were.  Today, I see little correlation between aging and sageing.  In fact, if you look at many of the great prophets, they achieved their status as leaders at what today would be a very young age.  Jesus was in his mid-thirties when he was killed.   Gandhi was fifty three when he became the leader of the non-violent movement in India and Martin Luther King was only thirty nine when he was assassinated.  History is full of examples of people who were deemed wise without the benefit of age or education.  Thus, we are back to the question, “how does one become wise?”  If I do not know the answer, I can hardly make myself wise.  Looking at the five points noted earlier, we must address the issue of “what kind of a system can or does produce wisdom?” Until we can answer that question, the goal of wisdom will remain elusive.

“Confucius once said that there were three ways to learn wisdom: “First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” Gaining wisdom, the most prized of virtues across almost all cultures, is an exercise in life learning, careful analysis, and thoughtful action.”   http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Wise

If someone as wise as Socrates was purported to be could deny the mantle of wisdom, perhaps this is one of those goals which is ineffable.  No one I know would claim to be wise and certainly no one I know would anoint me with the title of “Wise Olde Man.”  This is probably a good thing.  If I were known as the wisest man in Frederic, I can only imagine what this would do to my free time.  I can also imagine the effects this would have on my spouse and friends.  I am not generally regarded as being humble now and walking around bearing a cloak of wisdom would be deleterious for my ego in the long run

Conclusion:  I don’t really know the answer to becoming wise nor do I have a formula for how to become wise.  I must conclude that at the present time, I have achieved a great deal of knowledge but the magic of wisdom has still escaped me.  I have found that trying to become wise is an exercise in futility, like looking for the Holy Grail.  Perhaps we would all be better off working to become more humble than more wise. 

Time for Questions:

What goals have you set for your life? How successful have you been in accomplishing them?  What obstacles have you faced?  How have you overcome them?  If you could re-live your life, what changes would you make in the goals you set?  Why?

Life is just beginning.

 

 

 

 

The Goals of Life or Should We Live a Life without Goals? Part 1

08 Jun 2014 4 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , ,

ImageOne of the common assumptions of modern life is that we all need to set goals.  It is said that our goals should be purposeful and measurable.  Furthermore, we are told that without such goals, we are doomed to live a life of meaninglessness.  Minus thoughtful goals, we will be like Alice in Wonderland where since Alice had no purpose or direction in Wonderland, it did not matter which direction she went.  Heaven forbid it!

But could modern wisdom be wrong?  Could common assumptions about the importance of goals be another of life’s many canards?  In my blog this week, I would like to explore the role of goals in our lives and look at whether or not they really are useful or are they simply another tyranny of a materialistic society that wants us to be running like rats on a treadmill.  Forever and forever scurrying through all eternity trying to achieve more and more and enjoying life less and less!  (By the way, I love exclamation points because they get rid of those annoying green lines that Word places in phrases that it does not like.)

Let us start our discussion by breaking goals down into two fundamental categories.  The first category concerns “goals for others.”  These are goals that we set either by malevolence or benevolence but they are destined to impact the lives of others.  Missionaries (depending on who you ask) may be thought of as having benevolent goals.  Dictators and tyrants (depending on who you ask) may be thought of as having malevolent goals.

The second category concerns “goals for ourselves.”  These are goals that we set to help us achieve either current or future objectives.  Thus, if I want to become set goalssuccessful, I may set a goal of going to college and obtaining a degree in law or politics or business.  This will be a future goal.  A more current goal would be to find some means to raise enough money to pay for my college education.  The element of time is somewhat flexible in determining whether it is a future goal or current goal and the distinction has created many an argument between people.  The indisputable element here is that we pursue these goals to benefit our own well-being. There is no altruism or charity in this category of goals.  Having said this, all distinctions are really like water. They are very fluid.  I am using these two basic categories to facilitate discussion and not with any hope of creating a uniform or indisputable and universally accepted definition.

Proceeding on with our discussion, we can identify under these two categories of goals, four specific goals that many would say are the four most important goals in the world.  I am not going to challenge this assumption.  For our discussion of goals, I will accept that these four goals are extraordinarily worthwhile objectives.  Furthermore, they are four in both of our major categories.  The four specific goals are:

  • Happiness
  • Health
  • Wealth
  • Wisdom

I am going to accept each of these goals at face value and forego any discussion of whether they are cause or effect.  I am also willing to accept that whether outcome or process they all are objectives that few of us would forego.  Thus, if a genie appeared to almost anyone on the face of the earth and said:  “Would you like to have eternal health, wealth, wisdom or happiness, there would be very few who would turn any one of these goals down.  We can put these goals into a table as follows.

Goals for Others Goals for Ourselves
Happiness Happiness
Health Health
Wealth Wealth
Wisdom Wisdom

Returning to the original question, “should we live a life with or without goals?” it is obvious that we must first answer a second question:  “Can any of these goals (In either category) ever be accomplished?”  If the most important goals we can set for life are impossible to achieve then it would seem wise to assume that “goal setting” is a waste of time.  Let us consider one by one each of these eight possible goals and see how many (or even if any of them) are really attainable.  What can we honestly expect to achieve for ourselves and others?

 Image

Happiness for Others:

My goal is to help make other people in the world, in my life or in my family happy.  What would you say to that goal?  If you are honest, you would probably say that it was a ridiculous goal and that no one can make anyone else happy.  No matter how hard we try, we cannot insure that the things we do will bring happiness to other people.  Happiness, you may wisely note is more of an inside job.  It depends more on our expectations and views of the world then what other people do for us.  Conclusion:  Don’t waste your time. 

Health for Others:

My goal is to help make other people in the world, in my life or in my family healthy.  This sounds like a goal that someone in a medical profession might pursue.  But how healthy can even a doctor make someone else?  Again, honesty would lead to the conclusion that nature and personal factors have more to do with health than even the best MD or medical practitioner.  Science has made major strides in helping populations become healthier but few are the medical people who could claim that they have made people healthy.  To make someone healthy would be almost an impossible task.  The best we can accomplish is to help prevent certain diseases and to help alleviate the effects of other diseases.  Conclusion:  We can help make people healthier but health is a state influenced by too many variables to be under the control of anyone but God.

Wealth for Others:

My goal is to help make other people in the world, in my life or in my family wealthy.  If I could make enough money, I could donate or leave it to my heirs or to some type of philanthropic foundation.  The skeptic in me would reject the idea that all of the donations in history have had much impact on world poverty.   I could be a teacher and teach other people how to make money or run a successful business. I could also be a consultant or business investment advisor and teach others how to wisely run their businesses or investments.  There is little doubt that we can help people have more money or even use their resources more wisely, but how many people have been made wealthy by the advice of others?  As a business instructor and management consultant for over 30 years, I can tell you that the answer is very few. When I look at the Forbes List of Richest People in the World, I see self-made billionaires, most of who were initially laughed at for their efforts.  I doubt Bill Gates, Sergei Brin, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Richard Branson or Warren Buffett depended very much on consultants or business teachers for advice.   Conclusion:  We can help people manage their money better but individuals make themselves wealthy. 

ImageWisdom for Others:

My goal is to help make other people in the world, in my life or in my family wise.  In order to see if this is possible, let us first look at Socrates.  Socrates was a teacher.  According to the Oracle at Delphi, Socrates was the wisest man in the world. Thus, we may ask the question:  Did Socrates teach other Athenians to be wise?  This is not a simple or easy question to answer.  Socrates did not accept that he was wise and went looking for a wise man but could not find one.  He never claimed to be teaching his students to be wise, but merely how to question assumptions and conventions.  Is a person who questions wise? How many wise people do you know?  Is wisdom a matter of age or does college teach you to be wise?  I would argue that school and teachers can give you knowledge but only life and your experiences drawn from life can give you wisdom.  Conclusion:  No one can make any other person wise.

If you accept the majority of my arguments so far, I think it would lead to the obvious conclusion that we cannot really make anyone else healthy, wealthy, wise or happy.  These are tasks that are far beyond our ability to have more than a minor impact on.  However, I am not yet ready to dismiss the power of goal setting.  Before I can do this we must turn to the second category of goals: goals for ourselves.  Do we have the ability to accomplish goals for ourselves?  If we can achieve even one of these objectives, then it would be ridiculous to say that goal setting is a waste of time.  In fact, given the seriousness of each of these goals, it would necessitate establishing goal setting as a serious repertoire in our lives.

In Part 2, which I will publish next week, we will look at each of these second category goals and see how much impact we can have on them.  If we really cannot make much of a difference for others, perhaps we can at least set goals that will make a difference in our lives.

Time for Questions:

Have you ever set goals for other people?  What goals have you set for others?  Have you been able to accomplish them?  What helped you or hindered you in this effort?  Do you think it was a valuable use of your time? Why or why not? What would you do different if you could do it over?

Life is just beginning.

Grow Old Along with Me

24 May 2014 5 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , ,

We think of growing old and we think of aged people, old people, retired people, elderly people, nursing home people and dying people.  When we think of growing old, we don’t think of babies, teenagers, young people and college students.  Ironic in a way, since everyone from birth to death is growing old or is at least growing older.  Perhaps that is the difference.  Growing old seems to Imagemean aged.  Growing older is a process while growing old denotes a physical condition.    Old means droopy skin, failing health, difficulty walking and a general decline in one’s ability to be mobile.  To some, old is a state of being or as others would say a state of mind.  Call old what you will, but none can deny the physical deterioration that comes with growing older.

In the Velveteen Rabbit, as the stuffed toy rabbit grows older, he becomes more and more worn and raggedy.  Despite his aging, the rabbit becomes more and more loved by the boy who has become his constant companion through the years.  The love of the boy eventually makes the ImageVelveteen Rabbit “real.”  Regardless of the rabbit’s becoming threadbare, torn and disfigured, the Velveteen Rabbit gains a persona that can only be understood by someone who values longevity, companionship and friendship.

Of course, we all value companionship and longevity; many people in our lives are like the Velveteen Rabbit.  Our sisters and brothers, our grandfathers and grandmothers, our mothers and fathers and our good friends and spouses; will all become older and older and older.  Eventually, they all become aged, misshapen, wrinkled and decrepit.  But if they have been good companions through the years, we are blind to their aging process.  We only see the love and caring that they have shown us.  We are blind to their difficulty with hearing and their inability to keep up with us.  We only see the person who was kind and thoughtful to us.  We are blind to their infirmaries and disabilities.  We only see the person who took care of us and helped us in our time of need.

I sometimes look at my spouse Karen who has put on pounds and wrinkles and walks slower than she used to.  Over the years, she has become more and more beautiful.  Looking back, I am not sure Karen was real to me when we were first dating and even married.  It has taken nearly 30 years of togetherness for Imageme to more fully appreciate the person that she is and it is still a process that is evolving.  The commitments that she makes to others often go beyond my understanding.   The kindness and compassion that she shows to those who are in need is more than touching.  The many ways she sacrifices what she wants so that she can help me get what I want have all made Karen real to me.

One of the saddest things, you hear at funerals, is the comment “I wish I had spent more time with them.”   It is probably inevitable that we feel this way.  Having pondered this comment over many wakes and funerals, I wonder if more time would really have made a difference.  I rather think it would be the “quality” of time we spent with others.  You may think that I am simply citing a cliché “quality of time?”  What is this elusive quality of time?  Some examples from my own life with Karen illustrate this concept for me.  Perhaps for you it will be different:

  • Sharing meals together
  • Going to hospital visits together
  • Sharing back rubs and massages
  • Reading together
  • Traveling together
  • Shopping together
  • Spending quiet time together
  • Being concerned with each other’s work
  • Helping each other whenever we can
  • Checking in each day to see how the other is doing
  • Always hugging and greeting each other when going or coming
  • Taking care of each other when sick

My list might seem trivial to you.  Your list might be very different.  Nevertheless, what if we spent the time with our loved ones that enabled all of us to say when they are no longer with us that:  “I am glad I spent the time with them that I did.”   Is the time we spend watching TV or football or golfing, or fishing so precious that we could not have spent a little more time growing older with our loved ones?

Image

We are inundated with emails, text messages, advertisements, news, news and more news.  Our minds and brains are saturated with people beseeching us to buy, sell, rent, borrow, donate, loan or vote.  The rest of our time, we are numbed by media depictions of trivia, deprivations and horror.   We are fascinated by Hollywood, Bollywood and royalty.  For many of us, Princess Kate is more real than our own brother or sister.

When Princess Diana was killed, I remember seeing a co-worker who had a shrine in her cubicle for the Princess.   Princess Diana was one of the most popular people in the world.  She was real for many because they lived her life with her.  Recent polls show ImagePrincess Kate is now as popular as Diana once was.  The media is making Kate real for us just as it once did for Diana.  The sad part of this is not that we identify with and make these people real, it is that we fail to make the truly important people in our lives real.  How much do you know about the lives, wishes, hopes, dreams and fears of the really important people in your life?  Do you get as much news about and with them as you get about Princess Kate?

GROW old along with me!   (From Rabbi Ben Ezra by Robert Browning)

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:        

Our times are in His hand    

Who saith ‘A whole I planned,                 

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!’

I think we fail to teach our children the value of time.  We teach the value of money, but we neglect to teach the value of time.  It might be argued that money and time are valued according to their scarcity.  To the young, time is plentiful and money is scarce.  To the old, time is scarce and money is (if not plentiful) at least often more abundant.  If this argument is correct, then it would be a waste of time trying to teach the value of either time or money.  Their value is fixed according to age.  I disagree with this argument.

ImageI think if you look closely, many older people have never valued time as much as they still value money.  And many young people fully understand the value of time and would readily put it over the lure of more and more money.  If this is so, then it suggests that the value of each is not fixed by age but by some mental process perhaps not fully understood.  If a mental concept or construct is at work here, it can be modified or changed by reason and logic.   I may be justified in thinking that young children need to be told that time is valuable and that in many cases it is not fungible.  You can never replace or substitute money or goods for the time that you did not spend with your family, friends or loved ones.

Time has every right to be as respected a discipline as the study of money.  In capitalism, money becomes King, money is good. We pervert nature by upending the true value of things. Tangibles become more important than intangibles.  Goods become more important than services.  Greed becomes more important than charity.  Youth becomes more important than experience.

Aristotle was right in his use of the Golden Mean concept to show how to create a balance that was harmonious with the world.  ImageAnything taken to extremes becomes evil or distorted.  Time and money are the pivots upon which the world rotates.  They must be kept in harmony.  We have lost our balance though and let money become the sacred source of happiness and success.  Perhaps the really wealthy people are the ones with more time.  Why wait until retirement to become truly wealthy?

Time for Questions:

Do you have a balance in your life between time and money?  Do you keep the really important things in your life in proper perspective?  Do you value time as much as you value money?  Do you think we need to do more to help have a balance in our country?  Are you willing to share your time with others?  How about your money?

Life is just beginning. 

 

 

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