2016: More losses

Yesterday I posted a list of the musical losses of 2016. There were a number of others from the entertainment, political, and news field that we also will miss. Here is that list.

Rest in Peace!

·      Abe Vigoda ·      Alan Thicke ·      Antonin Scalia ·      Arnold Palmer ·      Carrie Fisher ·      Craig Sager ·      Debbie Reynolds ·      Doris Roberts ·      Edward Albee ·      Elie Wiesel ·      Fidel Castro ·      Florence Henderson ·      Garry Marshall ·      Garry Shandling ·      Gene Wilder ·      George Kennedy ·      Gordie Howe ·      Gwen Ifill ·      Harper Lee ·      Janet Reno ·      Joe Garagiola ·      John Glenn ·      Morley Safer ·      Muhammad Ali ·      Nancy Reagan ·      Patty Duke ·      Richard Adams ·      Robert Vaughan ·      Shimon Peres ·      Tom Hayden ·      Vera Rubin- astronomer ·      William Christopher ·      Zsa Zsa Gabor

Having listed all these names over these two posts, it is only appropriate to ask, "So what?" Too many times we take these deaths of famous people as if they are members of our family, a close friend, or someone we just can't live without. I reflected on this a bit back in April after Prince died. The issue is that our lives are defined and impacted by all kinds of different events. Our stories include the events that were going on in our greater world- for better or worse.

That list above contains names of people who over the past 60 years defined certain times and places. It could be the way we responded to a TV show like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Robert Vaughan) or the fall of Cuba (Fidel Castro.) It might be remembering where I was when our first American astronaut went into orbit (John Glenn) or the power of fiction was made clear (Harper Lee and Richard Adams.) When these people die, we remember our lives and how we are connected, impacted, changed, and grow thanks to many influences.

No, we are not acting as if we knew these people, but rather, how, by what they did, they helped us get to know ourselves better.

2016: Music Losses

Yes, 2016 was a cruel year for those of us who love all the varieties of music. Here is my In Memoriam list for the year past. Music is not quite as full today as it was a year ago.

Rest in Peace!

·      Bobby Vee ·      Buckwheat Zydeco, accordion king ·      Dan Hicks, the Hot Licks, multi-genre singer/songwriter ·      David Bowie ·      Gato Barbieri, jazz legend ·      George Michael ·      Glenn Frey, Eagles ·      Glenn Yarbrough, Folk-era star ·      Greg Lake, Emerson, Lake and Palmer ·      Guy Clark, country/folk singer/songwriter ·      Kay Starr, pop and jazz singer ·      Keith Emerson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer ·      Leon Russell ·      Leonard Cohen ·      Maurice White, Earth, Wind and Fire ·      Merle Haggard ·      Mose Allison, jazz legend ·      Paul Kantner, Jefferson Airplane ·      Pete Fountain, jazz legend ·      Phil Chess, Chess Records co-founder ·      Prince ·      Ralph Stanley, bluegrass legend ·      Red Army Choir ·      Rudy Van Gelder, Miles Davis’ engineer ·      Scotty Moore, Elvis Presley guitarist/legend ·      Sharon Jones, soul singer ·      Sir George Martin, famed Beatles producer ·      Sonny James, country star ·      Toots Thielemans, jazz legend

Time for Reflections

It is finally here- the end of 2016. This ranks among the most unusual years of my lifetime. These past 364 days have had some of the strangest events with the most profound impacts on me than most of the past nearly five decades of my adult life. Prior to this year the ones with the most impact would be:

• 1968- The year the world was turned upside down in many ways.
• Marriage (1972) and birth of daughter (1981)- Obvious!
• 1988- The year I got sober and my world was turned rightside up!

Reflecting then on 2016, not even counting the seemingly endless deaths of musicians and cultural icons, it was a year of up, then down, then uncertainty.

First half of year:

• Renewal and settling- the first time our two months in Alabama as snow birds was more than just getting away.
• Photography- lots of time with pictures in Alabama.
• Reconnecting with old friends- Friends from 50 years ago got in touch with us- and we saw them for the first time in 30+ years. 
• Trumpet improvement- I am amazed at what has been happening with my musicality. Don't let anyone tell you old dogs can't learn new tricks.

Mid-year:

• New directions- I began to feel like retirement was falling into place, or as I have calling it, Career Three.
• Publishing and writing expanded- I published a book for the trumpet camp and then another of my Christmas stories. It has pushed my writing to new directions.
• Another old friend connection- Another boyhood friend stopped by to see us! Wonderful times.
• Music continues

Fall:

• Election campaign and growing uncertainty- even this old Political Science major began to get overloaded with the election because I was...
• Absolutely appalled by the campaign. To say this campaign was awful would be to give it too good a review. It may not be the worst in American history- yet- but it was the most awful in my 68 years!
• Maintained Music- the one thing that kept me going!

Post-Election:

• Grief and fear followed by the feeling that I was
• Slogging through quicksand in everything for the last two months leading to great
• Difficulty maintaining focus in all things.
• Christmastime in Bethlehem, PA, back at our spiritual roots and great times with friends gave a bit of positive uplift. It was only temporary, however. Things are just too wobbly, uncertain and downright scary- at best.

General:

• Awareness of aging and its impacts physically and emotionally began to sink in at a couple different times during the past year. It is the inevitable process of aging, but it doesn't have to mean giving up. It means maintaining the soul and the spirit. That I have been able to do thanks to ...
• The wonders of music... my own and that which I have been privileged to see and hear in person. Music is so essential to my life. Amazing! But so was...
• The joy of writing. With more to come in 2017.

As the wise teacher of Ecclesiastes might say, 2016 was just another example of the simple fact that time moves on, things change, and times are what they are. With some of what has happened in 2016 I have no idea why they have happened and what the outcome will be. That's where my uncertainty and fear come in. I have to finally admit that I have no choice but to continue to live within the cycles and seasons, while finding the ways to be proactive and supporting that which is important to me. In 2017, I will look for those opportunities as things continue to move on. With thanks to Ecclesiastes and Pete Seeger then, important words for uncertain times...

Words (Sort of) Fail Me

Actually, it is not the words that fail me tonight, it is the ability to put them into sensible thoughts.

• Sadness- deep sadness over a loss in this less than hopeful election season just ended.
• Uncertainty- what will this change mean?
• Fear- what has this victory unleashed?
• Conflict- values and basic understandings of life and even of the role of our democracy in conflict- deep, divided conflict.

This will most likely go down in the long catalog of historic elections as one of the top game-changers. Nothing quite like this has ever happened before. A man with no public service experience, no government experience, no seeming understanding of how nations and governments are different from business.

More thoughts will come; more reflections will arise. We as a nation are in a different place tonight than we were when polls started closing on Tuesday. We have no idea what the next four months, let alone the next four years will bring. But yet, we are still the United States of America. We are all in this together.

Let me repeat the quote that I put on this page earlier today.

After climbing a great hill, one only finds

that there are many more hills to climb.

-Nelson Mandela

Actually, I chose all the quotes of these past two weeks at the very start. I knew that when we got to this day very little will have been resolved. No matter who won, I knew, we would have a very long way to become more united again. We have been deeply split; many feel deeply wounded. The voice of the people who felt left out has been expressed through Donald Trump. The wounded ones today are those who had other dreams of a nation living out its ideals.

It is not over. The great American experiment, the exceptional quality of this kind of democracy, is never finished. The pendulum swings from one side to another; one group is in the majority today, another will be in the majority next time. We must uphold that gift we have exercised for 240 years of a peaceful transition of power. Then we must move together to find the common ground, not allowing ourselves to get lost in recrimination, repudiation, vengeance, or just plain old apathy. There are many hills left to climb.

May we climb them together, even when we don't agree on what they might mean.

Coming to the End - What If.....?

The long, very strange road to the election is almost over.

Here are some of the thoughts I have rumbling around in my mind today. I am fed up, burned out, and just plain finished with the election. All I want to do is give you a few bits that I have heard on radio and TV the past week. No filling in the blanks- just the basics. Maybe next week it will clear. Maybe not.

• Trump has unleashed some demons that won't easily be contained.
• Hillary is a lightning rod and will probably not be able to do anything to win over those who don't like her. There is probably absolutely nothing she can do, esp. if the opposition won't attempt in any way to work with her.
• Some of the demons include racism and sexism. But beyond those- and perhaps more difficult in the long run- is the middle class white anger at what they perceive as the loss of their hope while others seem to be the beneficiaries of their hope.
•  US politics looks more like European politics than it ever has. Trump is a known type over there- conservative, mildly fascist. Sanders is also the other known type- the democratic socialist. Hillary is a throwback to the old politics.

• Chris Matthews on MSNBC
• If Trump polls 40%, and he very well could, pundits and the "elite establishment" better pay attention. It is significant that he, in spite of everything(!) could still get that kind of support. It says something very important that better not be overlooked by either left- or right-wings. Bernie Sanders did the same on the left. Together that would have made quite a majority if they could have agreed on issues. 

So, with all that in mind, that is about all I want to say until it's over. Maybe I can hibernate until Wednesday. Politics-wise- see you on the flip-side.

It Can't Be Any Clearer

Seen today on Facebook from an Instagram post:

"Consensual sex" is just sex. To say that implies that there such a thing as "non consensual sex", which there isn't. That's rape. That is what it needs to be called. There is only sex or rape. Do not teach people that rape is just another type of sex. They are two very separate events. You wouldn't say "breathing swimming" and non breathing swimming", you say swimming and drowning.
Posted by guerrillafeminism

Neither is, as is pointed out in the comments on that page, "forced sex" "sex."

This whole story so clearly illustrates "male privilege", sexism, and patriarchy that it boggles the mind. The news articles are even referring to his $^%$#$% swimming times.

IRRELEVANT!

STUPID! (Yes, I was shouting!)

And then I came across another one:

If someone is a rapist and an athlete,
They aren't an athlete who made a mistake.
They are a rapist who can also swim.

Folks, this is 2016, for God's sake.

Next thing you know we will have a racist for a presidential (sic) candidate.

Why I'm Afraid

We were listening to a public radio program the other day that was reviewing where the 2016 election cycle is at this moment. One of the comments was that even the most hard-core and experienced political observers are at a loss to explain what is happening this year or to begin to sort it out. In short, they are even more confused than usual. All the conventional wisdom of the past seems to be irrelevant. This is especially true in the GOP race where Donald Trump, with no political experience, is leading.

At first they (the experts) said he was a flash in the pan, stands no chance, will start tanking once the lack of truth or the extreme bombast of his message is seen.

Now they (the experts, again) are saying he could very likely win the nomination.

Then there's Dr. Ben Carson, another inexperienced politician and Ted Cruz whose colleagues find little good to say about him.

A look across Facebook indicates a deep and indescribable divide in the nation. Sure, the extremes, left and right, get the press. They yell the loudest and make the most outrageous statements and therefore you notice them.

But this seems different this year. Deeper, more contentious. While I am not an expert, I am an old political science major who has lived through, watched, and participated in political campaigns in one way or another since 1956. That's 60 years of watching and I have to admit that for the first time in all these years, I am afraid of what is happening.

Before going into detail let me say that some of my friends will tell me that I am overreacting to the early ups and downs of this crazy political season. They will remind me that Pat Robertson and Mike Huckabee have previously won the Iowa caucuses. We are a long way from the conventions, let alone the general election. A lot can- and most likely will- happen.

I hope that is true. I pray that is true.

I also hope and pray that the GOP doesn't do something even more stupid than nominating a Trump, Carson or Cruz. I hope they don't find a way to play with their own election rules to keep Trump from winning. The divide will only get worse.

Having said all that, back to the fears.

The only other time I remember being afraid in a presidential election was in 1964 when Barry Goldwater came across as an extremist, ready to go to war. "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!... [M]oderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!" he famously said. We had been on the edge of our seats since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when we knew we had been only a blink away from a nuclear exchange. Here was Goldwater seeming to be a saber rattling politician.

This seems different. The fear is coming from within our national psyche. It is division and hate that seems to be taking the upper hand. It is name-calling and prejudice and stereotyping people of all types from both sides of the political divide. I have previously talked about why some of these issues are so important. The depth of the anger and prejudging of others by the color of their skin or the way they worship or the type of clothes they wear is taking over the news and airwaves.

• We have Sikhs being attacked because some people can't tell the difference between them and Muslims.
• We have people claiming that "white lives matter" as a way of denying that African-Americans are often profiled and attacked simply because they stand out.
• We have presidential candidates wanting to deport all Mexicans, build a wall on our southern border and close all borders to Muslims.
• We have many who don't believe that Obama was born in the United States and that he is a Christian.
• We have seen a rise in what used to be called "nativism" the idea that native-born and established residents take precedence over immigrants.
• We ignore the fact that our police forces are made up of human beings, some of who can and do make mistakes and commit crimes, while most are just like you and me- trying to do a job the best they can. Yet both sides refuse to accept that. Police are either demonized or placed on pedestals.

None of this is new. These prejudices and policies grow out of our history. We have seen them before. The KKK wasn't just anti-Black. They were often more vehement in their hatred for Jews and Roman Catholics. Italians and Irish were persecuted, stereotyped and harassed. Some of our current presidential candidates are playing on these deeply-seated fears. They are fanning the flames with language that is as incendiary as they claim the "Black Lives Matter's" language is.

With this increasing polarization and ramping up of the rhetoric what might happen if, in the end the extremist views lose? Or win? In a loss they will claim persecution. In a win they will gloat and rattle their own sabers more forcefully.

Either way could spell danger to our very democratic ideals. In search for security- ultimate and complete security- we can easily be convinced to give up more and more of our liberties. Abraham Lincoln famously said:

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Either the left or the right could accomplish this. Any extremism that seeks to reduce our freedom and liberty for whatever reason can accomplish this. And it will be done in the name of preserving our democracy. Remember we are the nation whose military leader once commented that they had to destroy the village to save it. The language and logic of extremist views of either side is neither safe or logical.

That is why I am scared for this next year. 2016 may very well be one of those watershed years of our history. It may be one where we make decision that will set a direction for the next 50 years. This nation- and our democracy- the "shining light to the nations" we have claimed to be- is being called to make some important decision this year. The level of anger and hate and horrific rhetoric may prove too toxic for us to survive the way we have.

I don't believe that the American people- US- the USA- will go that direction. We have a deep and enduring sense of what is right and wrong- and I believe we will maintain that. We were created as a nation with flaws and, yes, sins. But we have worked and grown and embraced change as it was needed. We have sought often to move away from the "bad" and more toward the "good."

• Democracy works on compromise, on discussion, on listening with open minds and ever open hearts to our fellow citizens. 
• Democracy works to protect the rights of the minority as much as the rights of the majority.
• Democracy works to preserve values and principles and is an ever-changing, ever-evolving process that seeks to discover what can be done next.

I for one will be watching closely and praying often for our sanity and future. I hope and pray I am overreacting and that my ultimate faith in our country will be be made real. I will keep writing about it.