The Glue is Gone

         NOBEL LAUREATE 
         NELSON MANDELA




                                                       RIP MANDIBA

It is sad that the world has lost Nelson Mandela.

It is a tragedy of immense proportions that South Africa has lost Mandela.

“How blessed we have been. He has become the most admired statesman in the world, an icon of forgiveness and reconciliation, a moral colossus.” – Desmond Tutu

How many men in history can you name who were treated shamefully, imprisoned, and put at hard labor who ultimately over a quarter of a century after imprisonment were freed and forgave their tormentors, torturers, political enemies and almost anyone else who sought that forgiveness.

And after all of that, the man went on to become president of his country when his long imprisonment contributed to the winning of the franchise for his people.

Madiba (some spell this Xhosa clan name as Mandiba), as South Africans affectionately knew him, set an example in the way of Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and a small group of others throughout history.

The difference with Mandela is he did not do it as a religious leader but as a political leader.

He contracted pneumonia during his imprisonment and it was the source of most of his post-prison medical problems and probably ultimately the cause of his death. Having said that, with all that history, he lived into his 90’s.

After all his sacrifice his wife Winnie Mandela disappointed him. She behaved badly while he was imprisoned and she embarrassed him after his release.

More recently his children were accused of taking advantage of the trust he established to care for his them and his grandchildren. It seems they could not wait to get their hands on his money.

Some of his contemporaries failed to measure up in the early years of the new Republic of South Africa. He must have been sad to see them unwilling or unable to adapt to the new South Africa and instead cling to the tribal and political differences from the past.

Jealous compatriots tried to undermine his good work.

Through it all he remained a calm presence. He talked peace and forgiveness. He lived the talk. He walked his talk.

The world will long read of Nelson Mandela. History will honor him. The Nobel Peace Prize was well deserved, as were all the other awards and prizes that came his way. The former prisoner who worked on rock piles on Robben Island counted among his friends  presidents of many countries, royalty, outstanding authors, religious leaders and people of depth accomplishment and substance.

Most of my readers have probably not read Mandela’s speech accepting the Nobel Prize. I commend it to you as an example of what is important in life, an example of his commitment to peace and reconciliation and as a template for the forgiveness we should allow show to our fellow men. Here is a short portion of his remarks on that occasion:

“We stand here today as nothing more than a representative of the millions of our people who dared to rise up against a social system whose very essence is war, violence, racism, oppression, repression and the impoverishment of an entire people.
I am also here today as a representative of the millions of people across the globe, the anti-apartheid movement, the governments and organisations that joined with us, not to fight against South Africa as a country or any of its peoples, but to oppose an inhuman system and sue for a speedy end to the apartheid crime against humanity.
These countless human beings, both inside and outside our country, had the nobility of spirit to stand in the path of tyranny and injustice, without seeking selfish gain. They recognised that an injury to one is an injury to all and therefore acted together in defense of justice and a common human decency.”

His country honored and revered him. His last years were spent in the company of his current wife, Graca Machel, and it appears she brought him the love and comfort one hopes for in old age. News reports say that in the more than one month he spent in hospital during his last hospitalization she never left his side for more than 3 hours.

Now that Madiba is gone, South Africa has an opportunity to demonstrate a commitment to his ideals. It will mean the Inkatha Freedom Party, the Xhosas and the Zulus will have to work at getting along without the glue, Madiba, who insisted they must.

They will have to work at it. It will not come easily.

Ambitious men who wouldn’t challenge Madiba while he lived will have to cool their ardor for fame and power and consider adopting the garb of a forgiver, an encourager and a penitent.

The qualities that allowed Nelson Mandela to escape the fate of most black revolutionaries in South Africa and to attract the support and friendship of whites who were former enemies is what will be required if South Africa is to continue the journey started at the end of the apartheid era.

My wife and I have been involved in work in South Africa for a couple of decades, work begun by our friend the philanthropist Charles P. Stetson.

With Stetson, my wife penned a short book titled “Pointing the Way-From Despair to Hope in South Africa.” And from these first steps we witnessed the changes occurring in that most beautiful of lands that harbored some of the ugliest hatreds and outrageous behaviors.

I had the privilege of chairing a foundation in South Africa for many years, started by Charlie Stetson, with a goal of encouraging young black and white children to interact with one another through the programs of Outward Bound.

While I cannot claim to be an authority on either the history or the future of South Africa I can claim to have been a witness, with feet on the ground, to much of that recent history.

I visited and watched pre-Mandela South Africa. And it was exciting to witness post-apartheid South Africa. The day blacks had their first opportunity to actually vote, they dressed in their finest clothes and stood in line for hours on all the streets leading to polling places. It was historic. It was social for them. They had waited and suffered so long. It was an honor and they treated it as such.

Living in a country, the United States, where so few people actually turn out on voting day, it was wonderful to see how the people of South Africa, who were so long denied the opportunity to have a voice, celebrated the day that all changed.

And no reasonable person could doubt that it was the person of Nelson Mandela who brought this about.

Working with Charlie Stetson, Ambassador William Lacy Swing, the US Agency for International Development, Outward Bound International, the U.S. Fund for Leadership Training and so many other people and organizations who bought into Mandela’s dream, it is my fervent hope that the people of South Africa will honor Mandela by continuing the forward march.

Unemployment is still a problem in the RSA.

Hunger is still a problem.

Qualifying young men and women for job advancement is still a problem.

And yes, sadly, racism is still a problem. Beyond racism, tribal loyalties and enmities still prevail.

Madiba was the glue that held this fragile new country together.

The glue is gone.

Hopefully it had enough time to “set.”

If not, we will witness the coming apart of all the pieces.

And that, my readers, would be a very real national and international tragedy.

But for now we honor the life and the accomplishments and the historical importance of Nelson Mandela.

And we are grateful for the example he set.

Bully

                                   NOTES OF CONCERN....
                                      ... JACK BLAIR 


                                          “ BULLY  “



Is there a man or woman anywhere who was not bullied at some point in their lives?  I don’t have any statistics on this other than my own trek from youngster to adult. But I suspect everyone has been bullied and many have actually been a bully at one time or another.

I think there is bullying to one degree or another on most elementary playgrounds. Big kids tease small kids. Skinny kids run up against the muscled kids. Fat kids get called ugly names.

It is not right.

However, it does occur.

It has been in the past a part of growing up. Some would argue it toughened you up for the life you would face. Others would counter it undermined your self confidence.

My teachers were vigilant but, as you know, you cannot be everywhere all the time. So human nature being what is is, these things took place.

The papers today carry stories of a different level of bullying. This bullying is taking place at the adult level and it speaks to a whole different sort of problem. When adults behave badly a very poor example is set for the children who are either observing or reading about it.

Adult bullying at its worst can result in loss of life. Suicides are reported amongst people who are regularly bullied.

Men bully women.

Bosses bully subordinates.

Husbands bully wives and, yes, wives bully husbands.

Politicians seem to bully everybody! Many try to bully the president.

Most recently we read about two football players on the Miami Dolphins team. These guys are big. These guys are tough. One would have thought it impossible for one big successful highly paid thug to bully another. One would be wrong.

So let us agree that there is bullying at all levels in our society. Some of it is obvious and comes to the attention of society. I suspect a much larger percentage of bullying just goes unnoticed and unreported.

We could invent some bracelets to wear to show we don’t like bullying. We can pick a color, make up some T-shirts, and start an anti-bullying campaign. We could hold some rallies. We could get out and protest.

But it can be simpler than that.

Friends, bullying is not going to stop until we learn to act civilly in all aspects of our lives; teach respect for all persons from the kindergarten through right up to the end of life.

We need to model this kind of respect every day.

Each of us must have as a personal goal not to be a bully and not to be bullied.

Women need to leave husbands who bully them.

Employees need to find new employment when they are bullied by bosses in the workplace.

Senior citizens who are bullied by their adult children need to report it to the authorities.

Youngsters should quit teams that are coached by bullies.



Anyone bullying in the social media should be banned from those websites, which means websites must be required by law to monitor what transpires on their pages.

People who bully have some sort of unmet need to be superior to others. This needed superiority could be sexual, physical, mental or even career oriented.

When the majority of people look down on bullies the number of bullies will significantly decrease. If instead of thinking they have a prowess to be admired they are like the lady of the novel who must wear a Scarlet Letter when out amongst others in society, there will be fewer bullies.

Maybe we could agree today to just simply not tolerate any more of this stuff?

"Madam Secretary"

                                          NOTES OF CONCERN....
                                           ... JACK BLAIR 


                             "Madam Secretary"


 Secretary Sibelius,

Congratulations on being part of trying to deliver affordable healthcare to all Americans. It is indeed a noble idea.

Unfortunately, in spite of all your good intentions, the program was never popular with a great many citizens and your department’s amateurish execution of the President’s signature legislation have made it even less popular.

On balance, I think what we have is an agreement that affordable healthcare for Americans is a great idea.

At the same time, I think what we have is pretty significant agreement that the plan as presently offered is  not the answer.

So let us keep the goal in place. And let us go back to the drawing board and revisit the best way to reach the goal.

It appears that all the highly paid advisors and consultants in DC are not able to put “Humpty Dumpty together again.”

Perhaps looking to a different source for advice could be helpful. So I nominate myself as advisor to your department. Here is my advice:

You should have picked up the telephone and called Bill Gates at the outset. You could have told him you have no idea what you are doing and that you are not a computer/website whiz kid. Given his success, might he be able to secund to his government the top ten brains in his company who know how to put together a computer program at this level. Bill is a patriotic American, and he will most assuredly agree to take on this important task.


Problem solved.

Now Gates will probably send you ten boys and girls in their twenties who will solve this national problem in a “New York second.”

If you do not like that idea, let me introduce you to another solution. I like to call it Blair’s “Paper and Pencil Initiative.”

This involves abandoning the sexy computer approach to signing up for government programs and relies instead on tried and true use of pencils and paper.

I know you are not an elderly lady with no recollection of working with pencils and paper, and I suspect you have some familiarity with those tools. They have been around a long time, and neither tool has ever been associated with an “error message.” They work in a simple and effective way and have been of historic importance.


In fact, Wikipedia tells us that with reference to paper:

“Paper, and the pulp paper-making process, was said to be developed in China during the early 2nd century AD”  (like I said-around a l -o -n -g time. No need for a “roll out.” Tested by time!)

And with reference to pencils Wikipedia tells us:

“Pencil, from Old French pincel, a small paintbrush, from Latin penicillus a "little tail" ... is an artist's fine brush of camel hair, also used for writing before modern lead or chalk pencils; the meaning of "graphite writing implement" apparently evolved late in the 16th century.[2] Though the archetypal pencil was an artist's brush, the stylus, a thin metal stick used for scratching in papyrus or wax tablets, was used extensively by the Romans,[3] and for palm-leaf manuscripts.”  (again, rolled out by the Romans and no complaints in centuries!)


Many leaders have had good results with paper and pencil. Many countries have benefited from work done with paper and pencils.

So let's get back to basics. Print up applications for healthcare. Head over to the post office and ask them to mail and deliver these applications to all Americans. At the moment, the post office is having trouble making money, so they will be pleased to have this chance to earn a few bucks. And as you know, they have been pretty successful in delivering our communications to one another since the earliest days of our Republic.


So people will receive an application in their mailbox. They will read the pamphlet of information and directions. They will execute the document, answering all the questions, and return it to the government. (The people get a lot of practice with stuff like this every April 15).

At that point you can review the submissions and make recommendations to the citizens on what government or non-government plan will work best for them.

Madame Secretary, thank you for letting me intrude on your busy day. I am pretty sure you make many attempts each day to log on to your computer program. It must be very discouraging to get “error messages” so many times each day, day after day. And then there is that whole but of having to go down to the Hill and testify.

You will be well served by the Gates team of whiz kids, or you may prefer to execute a purchase order for a gazillion pencils and reams of paper. But either of these ideas will bring you great comfort.

Continuing on the path you are currently following will bring you the same results: disappointment and unhappiness.

All the best,

Jackson Blair, Citizen and Pencil & Paper Man

Don't Let the People Know

NOTES OF CONCERN....
             ... JACK BLAIR 


“  Don’t Let the People Know “

There has been way too much information about spying lately to permit any of us to feel secure. We are told that every time we place a phone call internationally, it is noted by our government. We are told that everything we type on our computers is probable information shared with our government. We are told our closest allies have had their private phone calls monitored.

To make matters worse, we have a second-tier employee of a non-government company (a management consulting firm) being used by the government to help get the work done that seems to be far too challenging for the millions of real government employees we already pay.

This guy, Snowden, not only got to do the highly secret work, he got to download and copy and take out of the building all the nation’s most sensitive secrets.

Then he got to board a plane and take those secrets across the globe to a place where he could safely hand them out to our enemies and our shocked friends.

So far, twenty-one nations have approached the United Nations over our spying on their leaders. And that number will just grow.

The accepted defense against the U.S. wearing the “BAD BOY” label is that spying has gone on since the beginning of time, and no one should be surprised.  With that kind of defense in this international game of perception-vs-reality, we are sure to lose.

I am far less concerned with our spying than I am with our historical involvement in keeping important facts from our own people. Our government has gotten so good at hiding truth that we citizens do not even attempt to get the real information.

Between playing at “smoke and mirrors,” and classifying material to be kept secret for 50 or more years, our government really can, and does, keep information from us.

The stories are plentiful, and my readers could have a lot of fun trying to uncover the real truths of almost any government claim, but when you are constantly being told that things that happened really didn’t happen, and being advised that only “kooks” buy into conspiracy theories, you distance yourself from the hunt for truth.

For instance, down deep somewhere do you not probably think something unusual really did happen at Roswell? Aliens? Who knows?

In your saner moments, do you really believe there is not sustainable life on other planets? It is much harder to assume there is not.

Are you still buying the “one shooter” theory from the Kennedy assassination? Even when Governor Connally, riding in the same car, said there were more?

Are you not suspicious that “way back when,” we might have actually sunk the “Maine” for our own purposes?

The list is endless.

But what I want to highlight in this column are times when seriously important stuff is kept from us...stuff that would alter the way we think and the decisions we make.

Recently, information from 50 years ago has been released on President John F. Kennedy. Let me share a small portion of it with you (you can read much more in the historian Robert Dalleck’s most recent book: Camelot’s Court: Inside the Kennedy White House (from which I have gathered much of the newly released information informing this column).

John F. Kennedy, when running for president of the United States, suffered from Addison’s disease, which is described as a potentially fatal malfunctioning of the adrenal glands. He suffered from chronic back pain and had endured major unsuccessful surgeries in his young life. He endured spastic colitis that brought on bouts of diarrhea, prostatitis, urethritis, and allergies.

According to the recent release, Kennedy also suffered from peptic ulcers and osteoporosis of the lumbar spine.  He had been hospitalized 44 days between 1955 and 1957. And he was only 43 years old when he ran for the presidency.

Was this the “mind picture” you had in 1960 when he was asking to be the president?

We were treated to a picture of touch football, brave Navy service, writing of books with major impact, and a huge extended and rich family life.

Why did the voter never hear about any of the weaker sides to a presidential candidate? The medical issues alone would have called into question his suitability for high office.

When you add these conditions to the information about infidelities and rash actions, you could build a pretty good case that the Democrats should have fielded a better candidate.

It is not my intention to demean John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

It is my intention to call to your attention that the citizens of this great nation are the recipients of a very long existing cover up of truth, perpetuated at the highest levels of government, abetted by the national press, and sealed under classification for a period designed to outlive the primary players by the government.

I am not naive enough to believe this was limited to information about John Kennedy. The release of this information now does make me wonder how much more information on others of our leaders is filed away somewhere, marked “Top Secret--Eyes Only,” and scheduled to see the light of day when we are long gone and our grandchildren are disinterested.

What about Franklin Roosevelt’s possible advance knowledge of an attack on Pearl Harbor?

What about Dwight Eisenhower’s gift farm from wealthy businessmen?

What about Harry Truman’s cozy relationship with the mob bosses in Missouri?

What about Richard Nixon’s acceptance of funds from wealthy Californians in 1952?

The list of unproven rumors and potentially false accusations is limitless.

But the practice of concealing, securing, and the release decades later of information is not one which, in my opinion, serves us well.

And then there are the campaigns of disinformation. But that is the subject of a future column.

Perhaps the bottom line here is that we are right to be suspicious, to ask questions, to demand truth.

Let's do more of that.

We Can Do Better

                                              NOTES OF CONCERN....
                                                              ... JACK BLAIR 


                                                “  We Can Do Better “

The older I get, the more I am convinced that most people fall into one of two broad general descriptive categories.

The first category I call people with good hearts.

The second category is for people who are just mean spirited.

With the recent dust-up in Washington, DC we had lots of opportunities to see both good-hearted people and mean-spirited people.

We saw them on television.

We read them in our newspapers.

We heard about them in the hallowed halls of the U.S. Capitol.

There were elected representatives who have a deep concern for the needy and downtrodden and clearly saw that affordable healthcare was an incredibly important service to offer the people of the nation.

There were elected representatives who have a deep concern for the needy and downtrodden and clearly felt that enacting another law that would result in spending trillions and create yet another group of entitlements was not in anyone’s best interest.

I can accept that the representatives described in the two preceding paragraphs could easily be included in the category of people with good hearts.

How can that be you might well ask.

The answer is quite simple. The representatives I describe have deep convictions and they vote those convictions. They each want what is best for the people they represent although they differ on the best way to provide what is best for the people.

These folks are the true inheritors of the best of elected representatives throughout our history. They understand where the other views have been generated. They value their colleagues who think differently. They do not question the motives of their colleagues with whom they differ.

At the end of the day they will vote, the votes will be tabulated, and they will move on to the next important issue awaiting their deliberations, and they will do so without rancor.  They know that on each future issue there will be a multitude of differing opinions, and that they may well find themselves on the same side with a colleague who was on the opposite side of the most recent legislative battle.

Now let's move to the mean-spirited group.

Into this group we can easily slip every representative who berates his fellows, damns their views, questions their motives, and generally finds it necessary to demonize them in order to win the day.

This is a relatively unsavory group of politicians. They represent the worst of our people. They have no class and even less talent. The Republic is not well served by them.

Sadly, more and more of them are getting elected.

Sadly, more and more of the people with good hearts are choosing to retire or simply have no interest in re-election. What was once a classy deliberative body is rapidly becoming a farce.

Americans bear a serious responsibility to correct this trend.

Correction can only be delivered at the ballot box.

When you meet a candidate for office who is eager to tell you why his or her opponent is dangerous,  untrustworthy, or out-of-touch and that the only thing standing between the horrors that would come with the election of their opponent is......him, you are in the presence of a mean-spirited man.

Run to the polls.

Vote for people with good hearts.

They are the people who know how to work together to solve problems.

Let me remind you that arguably the most liberal Supreme Court Justice is Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the most conservative Associate Justice is Antonin Scalia. They rarely agree on anything before the court. Yet outside the court they are the best of friends, socialize together, and have great admiration for one another.

President Eisenhower had very little in common with the Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn or the Majority Leader of the Senate Lyndon Johnson, but he understood, as did they, that working together quietly behind the scenes and reaching the best agreement they could was the way to do the nation’s business. They worked together to deliver the Era of Peace and Prosperity.

Each of my readers with some reflection could construct his or her own list of leaders throughout history who were people with good hearts.

I use only these few examples of what are many  of people with good hearts who know how to get the peoples’ work done. And in all the instances I have studied in history, these people simply did not permit personality to enter into the mix, learned to identify and admire the positive traits of their opponents in the public arena, and found ways to disagree without being disagreeable.

We pay our elected representatives a lot of money and load them down with a serious list of “perks.”  While they might whine about how much more they could earn in industry, you may have noticed few of them are applying for jobs in industry. They know exactly how good they have it.

Now what we have to convince them of is that getting us more “stuff” is not the way to earn our vote. Convince them that what we want is serious consideration of the issues, teamwork in the interest of the nation, and that we understand that sometimes sacrifice is needed, not just in the halls of Congress but in our own living rooms.

And let them know that we are ready to join them in making whatever sacrifices are necessary to ensure the future of our country.

This unseemly need to demonize, castigate, and tear down opponents is neither appropriate nor helpful. It is the work of amateurs, poseurs, and mean-spirited people.

Let’s not reward mean-spirited people by electing, or reelecting, them to public office. Let us retire them all.

Let's identify and honor people with good hearts.

Our country will be so much better off if we are able to accomplish this.

BE HAPPY

                                                                                           
   


My wife and I were blessed this summer with our eighth grandchild. Many of my readers have children and grandchildren and I feel certain they join me in acknowledging the amazing feeling that comes with new life.

All of us are busy with our lives and our careers but into each of many of our lives comes the realization that the future is in the hands of our offspring and their offspring.

When my wife and I were having children it was very different than it is today. We did not know much about ultrasound. We did not know much about genetic testing. We did not know much about learning the sex of your baby before birth. It was not commonly accepted that the father should be in the delivery room. We had our babies in the 1970’s.

Today they tell you your baby’s sex in advance.

Today the father is present in the delivery room and watches and participates in the birth of his child.

When I was born my mother was in the hospital two weeks. She was permitted to recover from giving birth and the baby was carefully observed during the early days of life.

My daughter gave birth and went home the same day.

Big difference.

Progress?

My mother was one of 13 children. They were all born at home not in a hospital. Neighbor women helped with each birth. It was amazing that in those days all of my mother’s siblings were born healthy and safely.

Life is amazing. Our procreation is part of history. We continue to add to the human race without much thought to the importance of the continuity of history.

We should stop to marvel.

Is it not a wonderful thing that we have children and they have children and that human life is sustained?

My wife and I brought Jay, Mark, Scott and Anne into this world.

They brought Carter, Patrick, Collin, Charlie, Sam, Alissa, Madeline and Caeli into the world.

And so life continues and family grows.

What a wonderful blessing can be found in all of this.

The world in which we live is indeed a place of miracles. There are lots of happy times and many pleasant opportunities for growth. Within our own families we can find the foundations on which to build our lives and see hope for the future.

In these days of ranting, raving, grousing and political infighting I wanted to write a column that left readers with a positive feeling. I wanted it to be a break from the gloom and doom.

Have a truly great week and look for the sunshine in your life.

FLY AWAY

“ FLY AWAY  “

I had occasion recently to go to California to visit children and grandchildren. My flight involved a plane change in Denver on my way to San Jose.

In my business career I flew a great deal. This trip allowed me the time for a trip down memory lane.

When I started my career in business we lived in Pittsburgh. Flying was still a novelty in those days. I remember a few years flying on prop planes and then the jet engines arrived.

In the beginning flying was such a novelty that people “dressed” for the trip. Men wore sport coats, suits and ties. Women were always attractively dressed with purses, jewelry and often gloves.

Flying was quite a treat.

I also remember in those early days that you would be served coffee before take off on a morning flight. Meal service always included a three cigarette pack on every tray. In the back, in coach, there was a “booth” like arrangement for people who might want to play cards or have a drink together.

On dinner flights they actually brought a moving card down the aisle and would carve you a slice of beef right at your seat, spoon vegetables on the plate, and deliver your drink order. And this was in COACH class!

And, as an aside, the airlines made a profit.

In those days, there were no “stewards,” just “stewardesses. And designers competed to get contracts to dress these ladies in strikingly beautiful uniforms. In fact, in those days being a Stewardess was considered an exciting profession that allowed you to travel all over the world.

Every trip was an adventure. Those who got to fly enjoyed the experience, they felt special. And of course, flying made it possible to stay in touch with distant family and for businesses to expand.

That was the beginning of the end of the pleasure of flying although it does remain an adventure!

Fast forward to today.

Getting to, and through, airports has become a tedious chore.

Taking a morning flight, best to get your coffee in the terminal and carry it on the plane. It takes most of the carriers at least an hour to get their coffee/breakfast service underway.

Forget the snazzy stewardesses and their great smiles and wonderful uniforms. You are now most like served by Flight Attendants who had enough seniority to claim the best flights (read here: the oldest and longest serving attendants). Union protection also enables many of them to be surly and not helpful.

Forget the full meal in coach. Today you get roughly twenty stale peanuts in a very small package, or perhaps five potato chips, unless you want to shell out more money to buy a dry, unattractive and unappetizing box of food.

Of course, no smoking.

Cocktails-sure! But you have to purchase them and, by the way, only with a credit card, no cash. I thought about that and decided they must have felt they were “losing” too much cash and moved it all to a cashless business.

Now medical experts have shown that breathing the recycled air in planes is not exactly healthy, especially if any of the other hundred passengers might be ill. So the longer the flight, the greater the health risk.

Unless you want to pony up an extra couple hundred dollars, or in some cases thousands, you will be wedged into a very uncomfortable seat and, in some cases, you will have the pleasure of your neighbor taking over part of your armrest or spilling over on part of your seat.

Today it helps if you are willing to fly with your knees up around your nose. The floor space is non-existent and if you actually do use the space under the seat in front of you for a carry on, you have to do a magic dance to find a place for your feet.

This might be bearable if you are flying a short distance, like Boston to New York. It become less so if you are flying across the pond to Europe. And it is madness if you are flying from the East Coast to any Asian destination.

So today airfares are high. Planes are packed. The amenities are few. People are herded like cattle. There are no more empty seats. Food is non-existent.

Yet the airlines are not profitable.

It is not necessary to have a Harvard MBA to realize that if you sell all the seats and spend little on amenities the airlines should be turning a profit.

So what is wrong?

There are so many deals available at all times that one person may be paying $500 for his ticket while the person sitting next to him is paying $!50 and the person across the aisle is flying free on frequent flier miles.

Unions have set rules and regulations that have forced airlines into payrolls that simply make no sense financially.

The cost of oil is both unpredictable and outrageous. Since our friends in the Middle East have a lot to do with the pricing I don’t think relief is on the way.

So we have companies that are supposed to exist to make profit for their shareholders falling more and more by the wayside or into serious debt. We have employees bargaining their way out of important jobs. The traveling public is ignored so customer service is a forgotten quality.

Are their exceptions, possibly. But what I describe is rampant in the airline industry.

On this most recent trip we were told in advance there would be no empty seats. We were implored to take only one carry on bag and we were told what the dimensions should be.

As I was seated in an aisle seat I could watch what my fellow travelers were doing. I could not believe the size of bags people described as “carry on.” I was annoyed that they ignored the pleas for small bags. I saw people with a bag under the seat in front, a bag twice as large as was permitted in the overhead, thereby insuring that a late arriving passenger would have zero space to store his bag, and then they would also have a “purse” or briefcase on their lap.

As if this lack of consideration was not enough, the woman in line ahead of me when I boarded asked for TWO seat belt extensions from the attendant. And I can attest she needed both of them. Seeing that I was not seated next to her brought a peace to me and I decided all my other complaints were “small stuff.”

My conclusion is that the airlines have no one to blame but themselves. They sell tickets for the same seat in a huge range of prices. So someone always gets screwed. They announce carry on sizes but do not enforce the rule. They talk about insisting seriously obese people purchase two seats, let me know when you actually see that happen.

I would tell you to take the train, or the bus, but I think those modes of transportation are having similar problems.

As usual, I miss the old days in so many ways.

The writer welcomes comments on the subject.

Please email comments to jacksonblair@gmail.com or

post them on my blog at

http://www.blair-notes.blogspot.com

Ranting & Raving

Notes of Concern…

                      …Jackson Blair

RANTING & RAVING

You think everyone is busy “texting?”

Well, that shows what you know!

Everybody is actually busy “ranting.”

It seems the whole world is ranting. Our president is ranting that his opponents don’t want to pass his programs. Of course, he is correct. That is the way governments work. One philosophy against another. His job is to find compromise, to cajole, and to persuade. Ranting is not in his job description. But lately he has been doing some ranting and raving.

The Republican opposition is ranting and raving that the president’s health care plan, known as Obamacare, costs too much, isn’t any good, and is opposed by most of the people it is meant to benefit. Of course, they have an argument that supports these views. Ranting, however, is not helpful here. Americans want the opposition to be open to compromise, to work with the president and his party. Yet Nancy Pelosi was reported to have put the president on mute when he called with ideas; Speaker Boehner makes nice with Obama, then makes not nice with Obama. Then both go out and rant and rave to the press.
Now some Democrats are abandoning the president, and Tea Party Republicans are abandoning anyone in the House or Senate who does not agree with them. And, yes, ranting and raving at one another.

Senator John McCain wrote an article that was published in the Russian paper Pravada in which he ranted and raved against Russian President Putin. This followed an article Putin wrote for American papers in which he questioned our exceptionalism.

Bashir Assad ranted and raved that he had no chemical weapons, then did a complete turnaround and said he would give us a list.

Vladimir Putin said Syria had to reduce her arms. But while Putin was saying that, Putin was supplying those arms to Syria.

At the end of the day, the President is probably thinking that the idea that most Americans don’t like Obamacare cannot be correct because, after all, most Americans voted to return him to office.

As the sun sets on that very same day, the Republicans are probably thinking that their job every day is to convince those wayward citizens who voted to return the President to office that they made a serious mistake.

Politics is fluid.  Daily events change the playing field. Both parties have to work each day to win the confidence of a majority of the people. Neither political party is even close to successful on this goal today.

It is a fact of life that every president’s popularity changes in the course of his last years in office. No president gets to keep his majority popularity after the last election for the next four years. His popularity either rises or it falls. And this is how it should be as it is based on a continuing relationship with the people and a requirement to present good, workable plans for the country.

As you get older, you sit back and look at these kinds of things and put them in perspective derived from years of living. You find it all very sad. You hate to open the newspaper in the morning or to watch the television news. So you rely on your own good instincts, the history you have seen in your life, and you make a determination as to how well the current leaders are doing.

I have done this. Here is where I come out:

Leaders in all fields are behaving like spoiled children.

No national leader should abandon dignity to rant and rave.

There isn’t an adult in most of these rooms when major decisions are being made. They are all children.

We should give all the ranters and ravers a “time out,” just like parents do with wayward children, until they learn to play nicely, and we should ship them all off to the island of Elba where their opportunity to do damage would be severely reduced.

In our country we have got to stop putting “8x10 glossy” handsome men and women in office who have little experience and show no dedication to America.

In our country we have got to stop returning politicians to the Congress because they remember our birthday or send us Christmas cards or because they are “nice.”

We have to begin to look beyond politicians who have velvet voices and can mesmerize us with their speeches.

It is time to look hard at resumes, lists of truly applicable experiences where performance can be measured, and to seek for at least a modicum of patriotism in each and every representative of ours at all levels. And perhaps, more importantly, lets do our homework before we cast a vote. Anyone representing us should be doing exactly that and if they are not we need to bring them home and send someone else. And we keep doing this until we get it right.

The fate of the Republic stands on that approach.

The writer welcomes your comments, ideas and suggestions.

Please take a moment to share your views on the topic by emailing

 jacksonblair@gmail.com or leaving a comment on his blog at

www.blair-notes.blogspot.com

For further information:  jacksonblair@gmail.com

Revisiting Intervention

Notes of Concern…

                   …Jackson Blair

Revisiting Intervention

I rarely do a follow up to a column.  Today I am doing so.

By sending what has historically been a presidential decision on to the Congress, the decision on whether to intervene in the Syrian civil war, the president has placed in jeopardy presidential prerogative to act quickly and then inform Congress, which has been the way we have operated for all of my lifetime, and he has placed congressmen in the cross hairs of public opinion.

Both of these are very serious indeed.

By the time this column is in print, the decision on whether to intervene in Syria may well be made. Here are the possibilities:

The president receives support from both houses of Congress and chooses to act, or not.

The president receives support from one house of Congress and chooses to act, or not.

The president receives no support from Congress and chooses to act, or not.

None of the three could be described as a “win” for the president or the nation.

In taking this course, the president has provided to the Syrian regime weeks of opportunity to move gasses around and hide them in highly populated civilian areas, to rearrange his military to counter a strike the details of which have been played out in advance in the press. And while the president and Congress dance awkwardly together, the president has provided both the Russians and the Chinese the opportunity to send warships to the area, greatly increasing the possibility of a wider conflict.

I want to cut to the chase here.

I have seen the videos of men, women and children writhing on the floor as a result of the Syrian government’s chemical attack on them. My heart aches for these people.

I have also seen the front page New York Times picture of Syrian rebels standing over kneeling prisoners of war that they then systematically murdered.

My friends, this is a civil war in which one of these two groups of thugs, the current Syrian government or the rebel forces, will ultimately prevail.

This is a civil war like many that have been fought across the world over the last many decades.

We do not have a “horse” in this race and I would hate to have to pick either one of them. I would not spend one dime of our treasure, human or economic, to help either of these groups. They are completely opposed to any sort of human rights and we have no business getting involved with either.

We did not like Hosni Mubarak. We helped Egypt overthrow him. In return we got the Muslim Brotherhood, a much worse group of thugs. Our national interest was in no way served.

We did not like Khadafy. We helped Libya overthrow him. In return we got murderers, torturers, and a government that hates the U.S. Our national interest was in no way served.

The list goes on and it is not my goal to engage in a history lesson here. It is my goal to say that we cannot be led by emotion in these important national decisions. We need to be smart. We need to be strategic. And most of all, we need to look beyond each decision to the multiple decisions that will come down the road. We need to be certain we know what those possibilities are and that we are ready to stay the course.

Americans in huge numbers oppose Syrian intervention if we are to believe the polls.

Military commanders and strategists cannot believe the manner in which we have approached the planning, advising the enemy well in advance of our plans and permitting the enemy to be better prepared to both repel American efforts and plan for terrorist responses.

Make no mistake, if we bomb Syria there will be reprisals against American embassies, American tourists, American interests, and we will lose American treasure.

The president may well honor his commitment to “no boots on the ground” but that will not translate into “no loss of American life.”

I do not want the Syrian government to prevail.

I do not want the Syrian rebels to prevail.

I do not see a happy outcome in any way in Syria.

What is really going on here today is that our president made some missteps and some misstatements and is trying to find a way to come out of this situation a winner.

My advice to the president: take your licks and move on. Focus your final three years on domestic programs that can relieve the burdens faced by American citizens.

We must not compound this problem by taking unilateral action in a part of the world that has delivered defeat to us in so many ways over such a long period of time.

The War on Drugs is Lost

Notes of Concern…

          …Jackson Blair

Raise The White Flag

The War on Drugs is over.

We lost.

Considering the billions of dollars spent over the years and the constant promises from politicians that they will end the drug trade the facts are that drugs are readily available in our country to almost anyone who wishes to buy them.

Remember that we actually had “Drug Czars” under some presidents. I think some even had “cabinet rank.” We proclaimed that we would stop the smuggling of drugs across the Mexican border with the United States. A president’s wife campaigned for eight years with the slogan “Just Say No.”

Well “Drug Czars” didn’t work.

Drugs coming across the border are as plentiful as the illegal immigrants that also continue to cross into our country.

And with due respect to Mrs. Reagan, I think more people are saying “yes” than are saying “no.”

Recently the president said he would let illegal people stay in the United States. There are nuances to his proposal but this is the bottom line: you broke the law but you are here and we will find a way for you to stay.

Recently governments have said that imprisoning folks for marijuana use was a waste of time and money. Mandatory minimum sentences for some drug possession will soon be a thing of the past.

Recently the government said illegals could work at polling sites, would not be deported and would find a path to citizenship. Some of these illegals probably brought drugs with them.

As I write my column more and more states are pushing for the elimination of prison terms for certain illegal drug possession, especially laws that demand a period of imprisonment.

While I am not opposed to a more enlightened approach to determining penalties for the use of minor drugs, I think we are actually simply trying to rationalize the fact that what we wanted to do we were unable to do.

We wanted to stop drug traffic.

We failed.

We wanted people who wished to become Americans to follow a simple, legal procedure.

We failed.

So now we may well lessen the penalties and actually make some drug use socially acceptable but at the end of the day it is clear to me: we just failed.

In my life I never experimented with drugs. I simply had no interest. So I am certainly not an authority on the risks involved nor the pleasure that might pertain.

I was a fan of the Myrin Institute and other organizations that made efforts to educate young people on the possible damage marijuana use could have for future pregnancies and births. This information seemed statistically significant. But it is clear the youth of America were unwilling to forgo the pleasure of marijuana use because of any fear of eventual genetic problems. And since they are still smoking it their children will have no concern for themselves in that regard.

I am certainly not against the medical use of marijuana. When pain cannot be controlled by more conventional methods, it seems more than compassionate to make whatever drugs can control pain available to patients. We have been, in my opinion, pretty silly about this.

In some ways I see comparisons to the era of prohibition.

The government did not want people to use alcoholic beverages.

They put in place lots of programs to make sure alcohol was not available.

The people wanted alcohol.

They were willing to defy the government and to buy and use alcoholic beverages.

The war on booze failed.

And now the war on drugs has failed.

I am not a pacifist but maybe we should stop declaring wars of any kind.

Maybe the hippies had it right: make love not war.

Simple?

Pragmatic?

Realistic?

KERFUFFLE

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Notes of Concern…

         …Jackson Blair

Kerfuffle

I think there are some wonderful words in our language. Many of them get very little attention.

One of those is “kerfuffle.”

A “kerfuffle” is described by most dictionaries as a disturbance or a fuss.

Synonyms for “kerkuffle” include:

ado, alarums and excursions, ballyhoo, blather, bluster, bobbery, bother, bustle, clatter, clutter , coil, corroboree, disturbance, do , foofaraw, fun, furor, furore, fuss, helter-skelter, hoo-ha , hoopla, hubble-bubble, hubbub, hullabaloo, hurly, hurly-burly, hurricane, hurry, hurry-scurry , commotion , moil, pandemonium, pother, row, ruckus, ruction, rumpus, shindy, splore , squall, stew, stir, storm, to-do, tumult, turmoil, uproar, welter, whirl, williwaw, zoo

Now you have to admit that “kerfuffle” pretty much covers the territory and it has such a fantastic sound.

We seem these days to be involved in a lot of kerfuffles nationally and internationally. There are disturbances breaking out everywhere and certainly there are more fusses than we could possible enumerate.

There is the kerfuffle in Egypt. This is a kerfuffle of our own making. We involved ourselves in the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, in the election of the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and shortly thereafter in his overthrow.

Why do we need to get involved in these things?

What a kerfuffle.

In Massachusetts the gas tax went up 3 cents recently, a change that put Massachusetts amongst the states with the largest gas tax.

What a kerfuffle this tax has become.

The President announced that the head of the Federal Reserve had stayed overly long. Then he added that he was trying to decide between two people as replacements. This put in motion an entire kerfuffle over whether a woman deserved to be the next head of the Fed or whether the former president of Harvard University deserved the job.

This was a kerfuffle that could have been, and should have been, avoided by a practicing politician.

Recently Rolling Stones Magazine attempted to hold out a Boston bomber as a nice young fellow who was led astray by his terrible brother and by a dysfunctional family.

Yep, another kerfuffle.

The Patriot’s efforts to take some good young men with bad records and make them into football professionals took a nosedive with Hernandez.

Big kerfuffle.

George Zimmerman shot a man. The police did not want to charge him. The FBI told the justice department there was no evidence to uphold a charge of racial profiling. A jury found the man innocent. And the country erupted.

A kerfuffle of huge proportions.

The world that we love has a lot of kerfuffles. In fact, hardly a day goes by without another kerfuffle.

It can only be a matter of time before TIME or some other newsmagazine labels this the Era of Kerfuffles.

In the meantime, I hope each of my readers can master the kerfuffles in his/her own life and manage to bring order to the chaos.