We’re Number One!
At 80 I have learned that the most damaging lies are the ones we tell ourselves. A common crowd chant, “Were Number One” is used to cheer our teams on to victory! After the games are over this blind pride will not allow us to learn from other people and nations.
At this time of national introspection is this chant, “Were Number One” objectively true?
Number one in Japan longevity, Finland happiest, Spain healthiest, Norway strongest democracy, best educated Canada, Norway highest rate of literacy, Denmark best work-life balance, Norway highest per capita income, Switzerland richest, and America most hours a day watching television, 4.5 hours.
In a recent article in the New Yorker Magazine Republican Victory & the Ambiance Information by Nathann Heller he states that half of the American public is at or below a sixth grade reading level. For those who desire simple answers watching less television is not a quick fix.
As a social scientist “multiple causation” is shorthand to inform that there are many reasons to explain why we are not “Number One”.
At the risk of offending some, maybe most Americans, I will start out with a list identifying the four most important items in rank order: we are an arrogant, hypocritical, hedonistic, ignorant society.
We are not willing to learn from others. We find comfort in a claim to be a Judeo-Christian nation but simply do not practice what we preach, we buy our comfort by behavior that will destroy the planet, and like the Romans of old we worship the god of entertainment.
I recognize that all that I have said is a false, unkind generalization because many Americans are the exact opposite. Charitable, smart, honest, loving people. We have the potential to be “Number One”!
Hate: The Eraser
You may hate a person or a group for reasons best known to you. Those who hate members of the LGBTQ murdered erased 350 in 2020 and 375 in 2021.
Beyond murder there is life: 1/3 reported discrimination, half had to hide a relationship, colored people and transgender people were at a higher level of abuse, the FBI noted a 16.7% increase of crimes against the LGBTQ all in 2023.
You cannot erase the following: Macbeth, Rocket Man, A Street Car Named Desire, West Side Story, The Whole Story CNN, Founder of Modern Nursing, Diary of a 10-year-old Jewish girl, Pillow Talk, Great Big Canvas Spring flower display and a female syndicate talk show host 2003-2020.
Because of their achievements these members of the LGPTQ community can never be erased: William Shakespeare, Elton John, Marlon Brando, Leonard Berstein, Anderson Cooper, Florence Nightengale, Ann Frank, Rock Hudson, Andy Warhol, and Ellen De Generous.
Hate is an emotion that robs all of their safety & health. The companions of hate and anger damage your health. I became aware of the power of human emotion when I discovered in high school that 38% of American prisoners in Korean POW camps 1950-1953 died from a feeling of “Hopelessness.”
Once in college I allowed anger to run unchecked. I moved from upset to angry to rage. Eventually I had trouble breathing. It took medication & a two day stay in the U of I infirmary to save me from myself. I never allowed myself to reach that level of anger again.
Anger causes blood pressure heart rate, breathing, blood flow to increase. Heart attacks are the leading cause of death, in 2020, 928,741 died. It also puts one at a greater risk of diabetes, osteoporosis, cancer and damage to the brain, liver, and gall bladder.
Please in your rush to hate others know that you are at a greater risk of erasing yourself.
Vaccination History in US
The battle over whether to enforce vaccination is not new. In fact, it’s older than the United States itself.
In early colonial America, the smallpox virus spread quickly among growing populations, killing as many as half of those who caught it. When one of the earliest forms of immunization — called “inoculation” — was introduced in the West, colonizers fought over whether it was safe.
Their fear was reasonable: The process to inoculate against smallpox in the 1700s was much more harrowing, and less safe, than modern-day vaccination. But the principles are the same, and even back then statistics showed that immunizing communities helped reduce the number of deaths.
Gen. George Washington knew this. The problem for him was that the process to inoculate soldiers would take weeks, and he hesitated to take any troops off the front lines. However, after losing a battle over British-occupied Canada — in part due to an outbreak of smallpox in the camps — Washington made a decision to have his soldiers inoculated. Today, many historians credit the move with helping the Continental Army win the Revolutionary War.
Word Migration
I would respectfully suggest in a time when letters to the editor are so vitriolic that some letters should be designed to make you laugh!
A sea of words lap up on every shore. My own experience with a word “ischial callosity” is a humorous example of word migration here at home.
When I subbed in a class in Potlatch students were being especially unruly. I told them if they behaved, I would teach them a really a bad word. They immediately settled down. Weeks later in a class in Pullman H.S. I asked why some of them had been gone. They told me they were in Potlatch at a health fair and came in second to the “Ischial Callosity” the Potlatch team.
Left me to wonder if kids cruising the big main street in Potlatch had not been rolling down their windows to taunt others with the word which means the callous on the back end of a baboon?!
Digital Slavery
Writing a Letter to the Editor is a journey, a word map! A trip into the known and unknown. Creating any map requires exploration prior to creation. Much like teaching you must learn the material before you pass it on to the students, readers.
The current strike by the Screen Actors Guild (160,000 members, SCA) and Writers Actors Guild (11,000 members, WAG) is the first since 1960. Actors and writers fear that AI (Artificial Intelligence) will be used to replace them and modern streaming services will continue to share very little or nothing to the creators of visual art. The struggle is fundamentally about ownership: the master or the slave.
The annual salary for actors varies from $96,000 the highest, to the medium salary $46,000 and $32,000 the lowest. A number of variables contribute to this wide discrepancy: popularity of the performer, role in the production, number of days worked, job availability, & peridium pay.
Actors in California pay more than $2,000 a month for apartments, the highest total tax rate
in the country, and $5.82 a gallon for regular. For most Americans when you work you get paid but acting does not guarantee a steady dependable 40-hour week! The bills do not stop coming so unfortunately an actor’s life may become one of feast or famine.
In the US the studios made 26 billion last year. Global revenue in 2022 was 77 billion. With AI the film industry once they have captured your image, they may use it as frequently as they wish without any guaranteed additional compensation. Streaming is another method to show a popular film over and over ad infinitum with little or no financial payment to performers or writers of films.
I support the actors and writers in their revolt against the masters with their bold assertion that they have the right to own their own bodies, words.
A Norman Rockwell Moment
I have attended the University of Idaho Home Coming Parades since 1963. At 78 my participation required the use of a folding chair. My chair got me off my feet at 3rd and Main.
Thanks to all the bands who marched. Every band member should be applauded for their discipline and performance as musicians. I wish to honor them for making a Sunday a moment to remember, a Norman Rockwell moment: The Vandal Marching Band, Genessee Junior High & High School, Moscow High School, Orofino High School, St. Mary, Kellogg High School, Asotin Middle School & High School, Vandal Alumni Marching Band, Moscow Middle School, Sacajawea / Jenifer Middle School, & Lincoln Middle School.
The parade was also made up of floats by fraternities, sororities, service clubs, commercial floats, huge farm machine, horses, performers and law students from the U of Idaho Law School and a happy, energized crowd who covered Main Street from D St. to 6th.
From my folding chair the behavior of Mothers caught my attention. They controlled the behavior of their little ones. These small candy bandits surged forward to catch candy without regard to the danger that huge farm machinery posed, Moms were there to pull them back to a safe place over and over again. This interaction reminded me of the paintings of Norman Rockwell (1894-1973) who’s art appeared for five decades in the Washington Post and other tabloids. Rockwell captured the simplicity, beauty, and elegance of the American people, especially children.
In our troubled world my moment on Main Street was a powerful reminder of what is right with America. My thanks to parents who are truly guardians of our future. Our shared wish for a better world can always be renewed even on a street corner USA.
Blood Brothers
Who is my “Brother?” this phrase was first recorded in the 5th Century B.C. by Herodotus. It has echoed through time across the world and bounced off the walls of human practices in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, the Middle East and Islands in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to now.
The practice always involves blood and an oath to bind individuals, groups, or tribes together, a sacred promise to defend your brother.
Cutting a finger or a hand of participants is the most common practice used in most cultures. The topic of blood oaths can be found on line in today’s world. Women also pledge to be blood sisters. The key to all of this is that the participants have no biological connection.
I have many blood brothers: Consider the following numbers: 19,000 (Civil War), 171 (WWl), 50,000 (WW ll), 7,243 (Gulf) & 10,067, Afghanistan. A total of 86,663 of my black brothers and sisters gave their lives and blood to protect us all. A total of 1.7 million African Americans served in our military for four centuries!
During WW l Blacks were not welcome in the US military. Many served with distinction in Europe. The French government awarded 170 members of the 39th Black Regiment (Harlem Hell Fighters) the Croix de Guerre, the equivalent of our Medal of Honor, for their valor and courage.
Black heroes in Europe came home to be murdered. Idah D. Wells a famous journalist documented the lynching of 241 in her crusade to stop lynching.
A brave people who have survived slavery, discrimination, prejudice, poverty, and hatred. Finding the courage to love the ideals of this country by embracing an optimism for a better tomorrow with service & sacrifice.
I am blessed to have such Blood Brothers.
Reparation for Hurit Woman
Hurit is a Native American word for, “Beautiful”. Reparations making amends for wrong doing is a familiar term that currently sparks serious and sometimes heated exchanges on our political landscape. Reparation payments have been paid to Japanese Americans, African Americans, and for the restoration of the Florida Everglades.
The current population of the United States is 330 million. The population of Latah County is 40,000 or .00012 of total population. Annually 1,800 women in the USA are murdered by comparison the population of Native Americans is 6.79 million. Any person’s life is precious but the loss annually of 5000 Hurit women who are killed or go missing from such a small racial group is cause for alarm. Reparations for the Hurit women are not a payment for past crimes but ones that occur now!
It is easy to forget a people who have survived genocide and currently suffer more than any other racial, ethic group. They have some of the highest rates for unemployment, suicide, poverty, alcoholism, & drug addiction.
Seeing the Light
My perspective of our shared experience at 76 is certainly different than it was at 16, 26 or 56. The major change is a growing sense of humility. The traditional mantra about the importance of reading, writing and arithmetic is a legitimate foundation for education. I would respectfully suggest a fourth element. Let us call it the “Classroom of the Night Sky” — astronomy (K-12) and beyond.
Human history is a bundle of virtues and vices: pride in self-accomplishment and vanity. Vanity has thrived in all ages. It is an illness common to all people but thrives when ignorance blinds us to the truth about whom and where we are. In fact in a time when one virus tragically reminds us daily about our shared mortality we are distracted from a greater truth. On a universal scale we are no bigger than a virus and have the lifespan of a mayfly.
Welcome to a clear, warm summer night, scan the heavens, and let your eyes gather in the light that weaves a rich tapestry of light from stars and the moon.
Kneel with believers who celebrate the Creator’s work and with nonbelievers who revel in the wonder of the universe.
Use the light to find your humility. A beam of light travels at the equator around the earth 7.5 times a second, in a year light travels 5,878.5 billion miles; at light speed it would take 4.22 light years to reach Alpha Centauri the nearest star to our sun, and then imagine yourself in a light ship knowing that at that incredible speed you will never reach the boundary of a universe that is expanding faster and faster.
Using this universal scale, the difference at one light year between a president and a pauper is nothing. The reason we should be humble is written in the stars and so is the message that we must cherish and preserve the miracle of life on earth.
Nightmares & Dreams
My dream, a world by 2050 with 9.82 billion, more than ten million on the verge of starvation, climate change unleashing predictable and regular floods, hurricanes, forest fires, droughts, tsunamis, and global military spending in excess of 2 trillion dollars annually, and more. . . . Correct my dream is the real nightmare, the promise of things to come unless we change our behavior. I just turned 77 and will not be here in 2050 but even old men and women have the right to wish for a better future for their posterity. As I grow older, I am shrinking. In high school chemistry the electron was considered the smallest part of the atom but now quarts and leptons are even smaller. As James Watt has amplified the scale of the Universe beyond human comprehension, I know that I am even smaller than them. My comfort is an even greater awareness of the mystery, majesty and beauty of existence. The new telescope is the greatest event in human history! By redefying our place in the Cosmos hopefully it amplifies the one human virtue that may save usHumility. My dream, imagine a world where all children are loved and cared for by parents, neighbors, and friends. Imagine a world with universal health care and education for all children is guaranteed. In your imaging add one course starting in K- 12th grade, astronomy giving more opportunity for literary, artistic and musical expression. Once a month on all parts of the world’s children would gather at sunset to watch the stars, sing songs of dedication to the preservation of life, celebrate the beauty of the cosmos and on bended knees offer prayers of gratitude to the Devine as expressions of humility on the altar of the Night Sky.