Let Us Reason Together

Notes of Concern…

                               …Jackson Blair

Let Us Reason Together

In the beginning, individuals lived a lonely and dangerous life.

Along the way they determined to group together primarily for safety. Hence the well-worn saying: there is safety in numbers.

Living in community permitted specialization. You could afford to be the village blacksmith because someone else in the village was the baker. Well, you get the idea.

Fast forward to 2013.

The village is now threatened.

Living in community no longer seems to provide enough safety.

We feel threatened and we are worried. We have tasked our government with providing our safety. But some of us are not so happy with the methods the government has felt they needed to use to meet our expectations of safety.

The always present conundrum: does the end justify the means?

We ask ourselves what we can do to be safe again. And the answer is obvious. We must give more power to the people who can protect us. In our world this suggests we must give more power to the government.

You and I cannot protect us against terrorists or nuclear weapons. It does not matter how strong we are, how many weapons we possess in our homes, or how many alarm systems we have in our houses.

The government understands polls.

The government knows we are afraid and concerned.

The government knows if it is to be retained in power or returned to power it must alleviate our fears.

Now pay close attention for it is here that the cheese begins to bind. It is here that everyone gets his or her undies in a wad. It is here where the tires meet the road. It is here that we begin to parse exactly what we are willing to cede to the government in order to be safe.

By and large there are two schools of thought.

The first school is willing to give up certain freedoms in order to have more security.

The second school finds freedom too valuable to trade for security.

Here then is the predicament in which we find ourselves. Reasonable people can disagree on important things. This issue is one of them.

I hear someone saying “compromise, compromise!” but no one in either school of thought wants to compromise. If safety is your primary concern you are not going to settle on partial safety.

If freedom is your main concern you are not going to give away, say, 50% of your freedoms.

So how do we achieve a resolution to these concerns?

The man who knows the answer could easily be elected president.

The man who does not know the answer will not be successful as president.

As with so many seemingly insolvable problems this one will be solved in time. It will be solved when another terrorist attack that takes many lives reminds us that we just cannot bear the cost of not being safe.

If we are greeted with multiple attacks across a wide swath of our territory, we will demand action from the government.

I believe the government knows that this would be the result of permitting further attacks. They know the pressure would be on them to satisfy us. With this in mind, it is easier for them to prevent such attacks from happening in order to keep us feeling reasonably safe and to lessen the chance we will be in the streets demanding retaliation against enemies real or imagined.

Students of history know that this nation wished to be neutral in WWII until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. After that you had a hard time finding sentiment for further neutrality.

After the attacks of “9-11” the president had really high approval ratings and there was strong sentiment to go after the attackers.

So both the Bush and Obama administrations, privy to the secret briefings about how bad things really are and how bad they could become, found common ground on how to handle the situation.

They gather information, evaluate the information, act on the information and hope for the best.

At the moment this column is being written, there are many in America who would like to restrict the gathering of information.

There is great danger in this thinking.

And there is great danger in thinking that once we give up certain rights that were guaranteed us in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights we will ever get them back.

The situation in America today is not very encouraging.

It is appropriate that each of us gives this a lot of thought and that we be prepared to go to the ballot box and vote our conscience because these decisions will be made for us by our elected representatives and these decisions have far reaching consequences.

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

A PRINCE AMONG MEN

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Notes of Concern…

                       …Jackson Blair

A Prince 
Among Men

This is a column written for Fathers’ Day.

It may be published after Fathers’ Day but hopefully it will encourage every former son or daughter to reflect on how much a father brings to a family.

More specifically it is meant to be a personal tribute to my dad:     

                                   Charles L. Blair, Jr.

Everyone has a father.

Some have a dad.

Fewer are fortunate to have a father and a dad, a man who knows which hat to wear as the situation dictates when raising his offspring.

In so many families fathers are the breadwinners. Typically that means they are not around much during the week. This often suggests children spend much more time with their mothers. They bond daily with mom and they depend on her for more immediate attention to their needs.

It is as children mature and move out into the world on their own that they begin to assemble a better understanding of the role their dad played in parenting. In many ways, large and small, he made their formative years possible.

As maturity arrives it seems the former child can see that the partnership between mom and dad included an understanding of the roles that would be played and the assigned areas of primary responsibility. They formed a team and their mutual goal was to raise healthy, happy and productive children.

In my case my father worked for the United States Steel Corporation. So did his father. So did his brother.

He worked regular hours but they were hard hours. He walked to and from work and he walked home for lunch. I have vivid memories of seeing him coming home, striding along, arms swinging. He always had time for a 15-minute nap before heading back to the job.

When I took a position in New York City and selected a home two hours away from work, my dad went with me to try out the “commute.” I looked over at him on that first train ride and he was chuckling…he was thinking of me handling those four hours every day.

A far cry from walking to and from work.

But it was clear he was proud of my accomplishment and he was there to help me work through the beginnings of a new life. Even though he had absolutely no frame of reference for what I would face, he knew it was important to give me support and encouragement.

Raising four children of my own, three sons, gave me opportunities to practice parenting. Occasionally I was rash. On one of those occasions my dad encouraged me with a: “don’t break his spirit son.” Approaching discipline after that conversation, I never forgot the admonition.

I remember that he was a quiet fellow compared to my uncles and other men I knew in my hometown. He was almost always upbeat. He was an encourager, like Barnabas in the bible. In fact, he would be pleased that anyone made that comparison. He was almost never critical of me, and certainly not of others. And if he was critical, it was always constructive.

My dad wasn’t into “demeaning” anyone.

He did seem happy in “his skin.” He had modest needs in life. He was a contented man in so many ways.

A cousin of mine recently commented that what he liked most about my parents was that they were always so “positive.” That comment provided me yet another opportunity to reflect on my good fortune.

When I brought my future wife home to meet my family dad was immediately encouraging as well as very welcoming to her. I think he recognized that she would be joining a large extended family with a lot of expansive personalities and that adjusting to those personalities might be difficult.

He was concerned for her.

This was typical of my dad.

He made no effort to impress anyone. Yet he did.

My wife-to-be immediately liked dad. They became good friends and enjoyed each other’s company. In some ways they were kindred spirits.

When my dad passed away at age 87 it was my wife who gave the funeral oration. When mom and I asked her to do it we knew exactly what we would get: a wonderfully personal, caring and proper tribute to a fine man from one who loved him and admired him.

And we knew that dad would see no reason for “all the fuss about his life” but be secretly so pleased with our selection.

In her comments she referred to my dad as a “Prince Among Men.”

She got it just right.

I miss my dad every day. He wanted very little for himself and a great deal for my mom and me. I find myself “wanting” as a dad, falling far short of my father’s example.

But I know he would think I was being unduly harsh on myself!

I suppose all dads should set the bar quite high when modeling “Dad Behavior.”

I hope all my readers will reflect on their fathers and set aside time on Fathers’ Days present and future to quietly communicate with that memory.

And if you are a father, you could wish for no better memorial than to be remembered as a “Prince Among Men” by those you love.

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

Threescore Years & Ten

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Notes of Concern…

             …Jackson Blair

Threescore Years
 and Ten

The Bible

Psalm 90:

The days of our years are threescore years and ten

*  *  *  *

I am writing this week’s column on my 70^th birthday.

June 4^th has seen me enjoying a lot of celebrations over the years.

First, those celebrations were enjoyed with my parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Those were really great days. Our whole family had a wonderful place in the country where we would gather for weekends, holidays and birthdays. My mother came from a very large family so I always had cousins with whom to play. We had “celebrations” of one sort or another almost every weekend in the summers.

When I became a teenager, birthdays took on new meanings and a new set of celebrating friends. As I recall, riding in convertibles, dating, stealing a forbidden smoke of a cigarette and pretending to enjoy an occasional beer were the highlights of teenage birthdays.

College introduced another new set of friends who could put together a pretty good birthday celebration. In those days we could use almost any occasion for a party at the local bar or restaurant. I would have to admit that I really learned to “party” in college.

On this birthday, this special one, this 70^th one, I am alone with my dogs at one of my favorite places on earth, Prince Edward Island. My wife is finishing up her work and will join me in a week or two. So this birthday will be more quiet than usual.  It will be very different from the great majority of my June 4ths but I can see it will be special in a different way.

A time for reflection.

A time for remembering all those previous birthdays and for giving thanks for good health and a wonderful family.

As I sit here looking out on St Peters Bay, listening to birds chirping loudly, and wondering what flowers I will plant this week in the boxes and planters on the deck, I am also admitting that I have reached the biblical definition of “a life.”

God said: Threescore and Ten!

God seems to have suggested that is the “use by date.”

In the bible it reminds us that one might get “fourscore” due to good health (and good genes?) but that we are all scheduled to “fly away” one day.

In grocery store language I have reached the “expiration date.”

I don’t like to think about expiring. So I think I will not.

I am grateful I can chuckle about the “don’t use after date” because I am pretty sure my wife has plans for me for a few more years. She finds more ways to make use of me every year. She and I have been “with” one another for 49 years this year, although our actual anniversary on June 15 will be our 45^th year of marriage.

You can be certain that I do not subscribe to the current ridiculous kind of statement that would suggest, “70 is the new 50.”

I know I am seventy.

I certainly know I am not fifty.

Lest I would forget, my body reminds me every day.

My hearing needs a lot of help.

My eyes are dry.

Arthritis finds new areas of opportunity in my body daily.

Much of my hair has already “flown away.”

My skin is requiring hydration.

(This list could be longer but I don’t want to ruin the great day I am having so I am concluding it right now.)

I am alive and enjoying my family and my friends.

At the moment I have no medical diagnosis that would cause me to worry.

I love where I live now and where I vacation and where I will retire, and I look forward in so many ways to things on my schedule for tomorrow, next week and next year.

It is great to have four children who are healthy and happy.

It is mindboggling to me that I get to enjoy seven grandchildren and will be meeting number eight in July.

I am still pretty “spry” and have a largely positive attitude.

It is true I have lost many friends to death over my life. Some of them died way too young. Some died when their bodies could no longer fight off horrible diseases. Some died serving in the military and making it possible for me to live free.

They are physically gone from my world but never far from me in my memories.

But the real pot of gold at the end of my rainbow is that I have so many friends who are my age, some who are in their eighties and a few in their nineties.  I watch how they approach life and I am so proud of all of them.

 They are not a group of gripers, whiners or excuse makers. They confront life every day with appreciation.

They make it possible to be positive about the future.

So tonight I will enjoy a martini, dinner with some friends here on the island, a late walk with my Labradors and a good night’s sleep.

And I will begin contemplating what birthday #71 might look like next June 4^th, a birthday like any other if, as my father used to say:

“the good Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise.”