LOSS

LOSS

A long time ago Joe Biden, a very young man at the time, won election to the United States Senate. No one thought he had much of a chance. I am sure his family: wife, two sons and one daughter, were proud of him and looking forward to this new experience.

One week before he was to be sworn in as a U.S. Senator his family was in a horrific car crash. It took the lives of his young wife and young daughter. His two sons were injured and hospitalized. The Senator-elect is said to have refused to leave the hospital beds of his sons and his swearing-in took place in the hospital. There were some things written about his resigning his seat and looking to his family. Few could believe he would find a way to overcome such a tragedy.

But he did.

Unlike most Senators he did not rent a living space in Washington, DC. Looking back on it I can imagine he decided to fulfill all his responsibilities, personal and professional. So he kept the family home so he could be there to kiss his young sons goodnight, every nite, and to wake them and breakfast with them every morning. In order to accomplish this he had to take a two hour train ride, each way, from home to his Senate office.

I suppose there are some who felt he could not keep this up. Others who may have thought he would do it just for a short time. The fact is he did it every day until I am told he moved into the official quarters of The Vice President of the United States.

For those who felt he would not be able to be an outstanding Senator, let me tell you candidates for president don’t worry about picking a vice presidential candidate because he can deliver Delaware. Biden was selected because of his excellent work, his ease with people, and the kind of dedication to duty that four hour a day train ride took.

Just a few weeks ago a young lady in her ate thirties succumbed to breast cancer. She had a twelve year old son. She had fought hard, lost her hair and proudly went without a wig or cloth covering,  attended church, weddings and social events. We knew her as a baby. We saw her again about two years ago at a wedding and she was as upbeat, vibrant and happy as one could be. I am attending her wake this week.

A couple months ago my cousin, best man at our wedding, living in North Carolina was moved to hospice. I spent a week with him and helped his family move him to what would be his last home. He approached his end with dignity, without complaint, and with the joy that family and friends were there.

We all have stories of loss. It really doesn't matter the cause of one’s demise or even the unfairness of the timing. We have no explanation how people are able to enjoy the gift of years and live into the hundreds while others are taken as infants, teenagers, young mothers or fathers. No matter how we try we cannot find an acceptable reason for dying. Yet we all know that is the common goal we all have in our lives.

Also, some families are hit harder than others. The Kennedy’s come to mind. But they are not alone. During the wars you can see the Gold Stars on the windows of neighbors’ homes. Hardly a graduation weekend goes by that is not marred by the tragedy of losing a young person just starting out on a career.

Loss is part of living.

Accepting loss is part of recovering.

Forgetting loss is never possible but the pain of loss can lessen.

Hold close the ones you love. None of us has any idea how many more days we will be with them.

This & That

THIS & THAT

Today’s column will have some short comments on subjects much in the news these days.

Secretary of State Kerry announces the US will up the number of refugees admitted to the US to 85,000 in 2016, and 100,000 in 2017. 

Yet there was not one statement as to how such a program is to be managed or financed. I suggest that is because they haven’t a clue how to manage that many people crossing our borders and they know, but don’t wish to say, exactly how it will be financed: through our taxes.

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was kicked of the navy for mental issues and then allowed to enlist in the army. 

Do these people never talk to one another. 

When the sergeant decided to abandon his unit and go over to the enemy his attorney said he simply wanted to bring attention to unsavoury things happening in his unit. Hmmm. Did he think the Afghans would give a darn? 

Now the President has met him at The White House, called him a hero, released five of the worst terrorists at Guantanamo in exchange for this guy. This suggests to me that there are other organizations in DC not talking to one another. 

A well run White House would never have allowed the president to expose his naïveté that way. And the bottom line for me, and for many, is that seven American servicemen are reported to have lost their lives searching for their missing compatriot, Bergdahl, after he was reported gone. Try as I might I cannot fathom how this deal ever happened.

The questions being asked candidates for president have been really naive, often an attempt to simply embarrass, and most questioners have made no effort to ask for policy ideas from these people who want to run the nation.  

The problem is not with the candidates, it is with the press. The press has abdicated its historical responsibility to get to the bottom of issues, not personalities.

 President Barack Obama on Friday nominated Eric K. Fanning to be secretary of the Army, which could make him the first openly gay secretary.

So what. 

If he is the best qualified it should not matter if he dates crocodiles. Lets hope we don’t see him identified as “gay” in every report that comes out of the years about his work. Can you imagine every day seeing in the newspapers “the heterosexual president” said this or that?

This week everyone seemed to have their undies in a wad over remarks made by Donald Trump and Ben Carson when asked if Muslims should have a role in government. 

Why shouldn’t an American citizen of good repute who happens to be Muslim but has through his life performed admirably, demonstrated leadership abilities, operated as an American citizen first and foremost, not be qualified. Religion is never to be a test for leadership positions in our nation.

I thought we solved all this stuff when we elected Jack Kennedy. Remember back then people said the Pope would be calling all the shots! 

We are better than this.

The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, invited the Pope to speak to Congress. This is only acceptable if he has constructed a list of the leaders of other major religions in the world who will subsequently be given the same honor. 

Will we see the Archbishop of Canterbury under the dome any time soon? And when are the Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, etc., getting their 15 minutes? Heck maybe we could just have one protestant leader and they could represent all those smaller groups.

At one time in our nation’s history you took your kids to see the three ring circus when it came to town. Well, clearly we have increased the number of rings and you can watch the circus on your television almost anytime you want.

Mrs. Clinton

Notes of Concern…

   …Jack Blair

MRS. CLINTON

The ever growing list of Republicans who want to be president raises in my mind the question: why?

At this point in time there is only one viable Democrat nominee, Hillary Clinton, and she has been given valuable time to secure her lead and ready herself for the general election while Republicans of all stripes attack each other, use up campaign funds, and call into question how they could ever reduce their field to one or two and get back in the real game.

Well most of these folks are not lacking in political savvy. And the people who give them money are not used to throwing money away.

So the GOP contenders and the money folks seem to know something the rest of us don’t…or at least suspect something the rest of us have not yet considered.

When I read the papers and looked online these past few weeks there may well have been some indications. 

Years ago what came to be called “Bimbo Eruptions” almost cost Bill Clinton his presidency. At least five of those women (none of whom seemed “bimbo” material to me, have risen to fight again all these years later. They are more mature, less afraid of the press and willing to speak to power. And they are determined. They are being interviewed, some have set up websites urging other ladies who may have enjoyed Bill Clinton’s company, to come forward with their stories, especially if any of them are post-impeachment stories. 

We have witnessed in the recent Bill Cosby accusations how the internet can make it very easy for those who felt damaged to present their story.

Mrs. Clinton released medical reports this week that suggest that at least one doctor finds nothing in her medical history or condition to disqualify her from serving. But it is a long time until the general election and she has had some close calls with her health.

Add to this Secretary Clinton  keeps releasing emails she should not have had on her private, in home, server but they are redacted and so far have not included the emails her detractors say contained classified documents. This might cause someone to suspect that somewhere down the line all the emails will come out and that they will hurt her chances. I imagine the Clinton campaign is in damage control on this one.

Then in the back pages of the newspapers is the less loud drum reminding us that the Clinton Foundation’s funds, those that came in while Secretary Clinton was in office  as Secretary of State, might be seen as an attempt on the part of donor countries and companies to buy favour with the U.S. government. We have no idea if such favours were granted but you can be sure research is being done as I write.

I don’t need to mention the Benghazi mess as we will continue to hear about it now that Secretary Clinton has agreed to testify again.

I am a fan of Hillary Clinton. She is smart.  I believe she was at the top of her class at Yale. While holding no elected office she actually did live with the Governor of Arkansas for two terms and when he became President of the US she lived with him in The White House. No one with any sense at all would question that she did not grow and learn and listen to all the major events in the world during those times. She was in the thick of it.

Then she went to New York and won a seat in the United States Senate. She worked hard. It is said her colleagues, both Republican and Democrat respected the quality of her mind and the work she accomplished.

She took a run at the presidency. She did not get the nomination but she had the experience of a national campaign with her in the driver’s seat, not simply accompanying her husband.

When her party won The White House she accepted the top cabinet appointment, Secretary of State, and held that job, sharpening her foreign policy chops.

Re-read the part of my column that mentions the “bimbo eruptions.” That has nothing to do with Mrs. Clinton and her qualifications for office. That has to do with her choice of a husband and her subsequent choice to stay in the marriage. No matter what Bill did or is doing has anything to do with the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.

Rather, I think as Americans we should compare the years of experience Mrs. Clinton brings with her to the lack of anything close to that kind of experience in the successful candidacies of her two predecessors, the presidents Bush and Obama. And yet the American people gave those two men 16 years at the helm of our nation.

It is distasteful that people find it necessary to attack her candidacy at this time in these ways. She has earned the right to be a candidate. She has more experience than anyone  running on either side at the moment. 

It is perfectly acceptable to prefer a different candidate. It is perfectly acceptable that one might not share her views or that of her party. It is perfectly acceptable to vote for someone because in your gut you trust him or her more. And it is understandable that there are people who just simply do not like her, think she is power hungry, believe she has told lies, and find her the last person they would vote for to be president. All of this is part of reaching a decision before the election.

It is appropriate to want to know more about her use of emails and classified information as that would speak to her integrity.

It is appropriate to want to know if there is any evidence of influence peddling between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation.

It is appropriate to want to be assured she has no medical condition that could prevent her from doing an effective job.

It is appropriate to want to know what she knew and when she knew it and what she did or did not do about Benghazi.

The answers to these substantive questions is what we need to hear between now and the election and it is that kind of information that should ultimately permit us to decide if she should be president.

But let us not detract from her experience and preparation and try to bring her down with petty stuff that should not even be discussed. Everyone says they want politics to operate on a more honourable plane. 

We can make that happen.

"The Donald" Phenomenon

THE DONALD PHENOMENON

Donald Trump brings out a wide range of reactions when his name is mentioned. In some ways it is geographical.  in other ways it is jealous. in yet other ways it depends on whether you won money with him or lost it.

If New York is The Big Apple, the Donald has a deed on most of the orchards. When your business is real estate and casinos, along with a large number of smaller operations, you have to be bigger than life. 

Check out the tycoons who run the Vegas and Reno and Atlantic City Casinos. They are not a lot different from the Donald, with the exception that most of them have devoted themselves to one business, the casino business. Donald Trump loves all businesses and wants to succeed in as many as possible.

To the Donald, the casino business is just one of many cash cows that have seen him rise from bankruptcy to a net worth of $9 billion dollars. Yes, readers, that is billion with a “B”!

For those of you who see him as a clown, as an irresponsible fellow, as a publicity seeker or as someone less admirable than, lets say, a conservative bank president, let me remind you that he built his empire, stone by stone, brick by brick by hiring and managing the right people, by having dreams he followed, by knowing how to get the better of the bankers when they tried to restructure his loans, and how to climb not just out of bankruptcy but right up to the top again.

He has been married to beautiful women. He has beautiful children who are making their way successfully in the world. He has planes, yachts and some of the most sought after condominiums and apartments in New York City.

Is he sneaky, sly, manipulative, overbearing, sometimes outrageous in comment and appearance. Yes. Does he care if you don’t like that about him? No.  He measures himself as a businessman. It is the way the world often measures a man. 

Do you think he is not charitable? Do you suppose he is not a philanthropist. Interestingly, he is very generous. However, in that part of his life he does not grandstand.

People who wanted to be president of the United States called on him over the years. They would ask for advice, but what they wanted was donations. He has met them all. He was on all their lists. You don’t run for president without touching base with people like Donald Trump who can give you the help you need.

I think over the years he must have sized these folks up and said, in his conceited way, something along the lines of : I can do better than they can.

Interestingly, some candidates have recently released their success at fund raising. I think the last number I saw was from the Jeb Bush campaign and it was $150 million. Most candidates have to chase the money and that means being beholden to donors. It has ever been so. The Donald isn’t spending his time fund raising. He isn’t piling up obligations to donors. When you start out with your own $9 billion fund raising is not something you need to do. It frees you up to focus on other aspects of your campaign.

So lets look at that who is running for president this year who has accomplished more in his life than the Donald? While many have accomplishments, they are much more modest. On the other hand, we are more comfortable with them because they are more like the rest of us. And certainly some of them have significant experience in other important areas for any president, such as foreign affairs and defence matters.

Last week the Donald was running second in the GOP polls. As I write today he is running first. He will rise and fall, probably on remarks he makes from day to day. You see he does not mince words. He says what he thinks. And he will tell you why he thinks that.

His biggest problem is that people in the country tend not to trust people from New York, especially people who live large! His second biggest problem is that the news media will headline every misstatement, every windblown hair moment, and every time he says something critical about those who also want to be president.

So why is he running so well in the polls?

I posit that it is because the people are generally unhappy with what has happened to our country under the last two presidents. They don’t want to see a bunch of Iranians pushing us around. They witnessed that we backed all the wrong people in the Arab Spring. They know our enemies are using the weapons and tanks we left behind when we left those countries.

People are very fed up. They want more Teddy Roosevelt (speak softly and carry a big stick) and less Woodrow Wilson (lets work through a world organization.)

This was most recently highlighted when Trump had to move his appearance in Arizona at the Broadview Hotel to the city convention centre because the hotel could not hold all the people who wanted to attend.

I doubt that the Donald can overcome the forces at work against him. But I admit I like some of his ideas and I know he would be forceful if he were to downsize from living in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C.  And I am hopeful that his success in the polls will wake up other politicians and force them into more aggressive stances when they talk to us about their plans.

I have been a moderate all my adult life. This irritates my conservative friends and my liberal friends and it puts me in a position of seldom seeing my choice for president win the office. I am unlikely to find a way to support the Donald in his quest but I am ever so hopeful the other candidates will see how the people have reacted to his strong approach to speaking out on issues of considerable importance to our nation and do less pussyfooting around those issues, being politically correct, worrying about taking a misstep by being honest in their comments. 

If the Donald is the tool that brings that about in the overly large GOP field of presidential wannabes, I will applaud his efforts.

Some may think of the Donald as the reincarnation of P.T. Barnum (there’s a sucker born every minute.) They are wrong. He is much more than the sum of his parts. And at the moment, he is making a lot of sense.

What I am happiest about is that what appeared to be a really boring presidential campaign now shows some chance of actually being interesting.

The Confederate Battle Flag

The Confederate Battle Flag

My wife and I have had the great pleasure of living in Georgia and Virginia. So we have encountered the deep feeling southerners have with reference to the Civil War.

There are some who believe the war is really not over. They are still fighting it.

There are some who call it the War of Northern Aggression.

There are many who have great pride in the culture of the south and all its history, focusing on the good not the bad.

This last feeling we have found when we lived in parts of the north. A feeling of great pride in local culture and history, and an acceptance that some was great and some was bad.

The Confederate Flag is more properly called The Confederate War Flag. Understanding that, it is not unreasonable to assume it should have been retired at the end of the conflict. But as we all know, it is hard to let go of things that have had great meaning to us even if some of that history has been unsavory.

Recognizing that people will have different feelings about this issue, I must admit that I do not have a personal animosity toward the confederate standard. It was a standard under which many good men and women gave their lives. They believed in their lives, their way of life. In those days I do not believe all these people were racist. Their economy was based on labor and we came to see that as slave labor. Some plantation owners treated their slaves very well. Others were treated horribly. I do not believe the south went to war to make sure black people were treated as non-human. I believe they went to war to preserve their way of life. The north was threatening their way of life, their economy.

The north did not go to war to free the slaves. 

Their were many reasons for the Civil War but freeing the slaves was not high on the list. The freedom of slaves was a benefit from success at holding the union together.

When President Lincoln “freed” the slaves he freed the ones in the south, not the ones in the north. It was a military tactic designed to frighten the rebels at the idea that thousands of slaves would be on the loose behind their lines, in their hometowns.

During our time of living in the South we often were called Yankees or Northerners, all in good fun. None, not one of the people with whom we came in contact hated blacks. I would not apply the name racist to any of them.

Yes there were racists in the South. Their are racists in the North. There are also anti-Asian sentiments, and negative feelings towards lots of groups in the South, but I find them in the North also.

The Confederate Battle Flag has been made a symbol of racism. And as such it has become a national issue.

The Confederate Battle Flag should have been retired at the end of the Civil War. All 50 states are permitted to have flags. These are symbols of pride and honor. These states include those in the south. Collectively, all the states have a national flag, the Stars and Stripes. This flag represents as as a group, as a nation.

I think it is time to retire the Confederate Battle Flag as a banner to be flown in any kind of official way, such as on state capital grounds. In our country we need not deny private use of the Confederate Battle Flag. Individuals have the right to display and acknowledge their own prejudices or strongly held beliefs and loyalties. 

Public buildings, public officials, people dedicated to representing all the people need to focus on state flags and the Stars and Stripes.

There are many things to love about southern culture. The people are courteous, welcoming and have created lovely communities. Let us work with one another to remove any sign of racism from our wonderful land and create symbols that honor the rule of law, the equality of people under the law, and the pride we have in our state and our nation.

We can do it. I hope we will.

I saw Johnny today. He is an accomplished banker with considerable skills. I think of him that way. He is also black but that is not what I notice.

Hyang Jang stopped by the other day. She is a hospice nurse and gives relief and love to people, people of all colors and backgrounds. Oh, by the way she is Asian.

Bill came by to help me with some work. He spent the day sweating and working and as a team we accomplished a lot. Bill happens to be a gay man but that is not what comes to mind when we are together.

We are a sophisticated people. We are a long way from when we were frontiersmen, prejudiced, and afraid others might take our jobs or our homes. 

Today in America we honor hard work, people who exude love, folks who team up with us to accomplish tasks. The color of their skin or the country of their origin is the least of the things that we should notice, comment on or be concerned about.

We are better than that.

Here We Go Again

Here We Go Again

A new round of presidential candidates are announcing.

On the Republican side it seems as if someone joins the race every day. The total number of folks who think they can win the nominations is staggering. The amount of money each will have to raise, the organizations they will have to build, and the confusion that will surround so many people being on stage for the debates is mind boggling.

The Democrats have it much smoother. Except for a few folks on the outside of the large middle of that party, Hillary Clinton seems to have things locked up.

One wonders how the GOP candidate who emerges from the large field of candidates will not be so damaged and so out of resources as to have difficulty mounting an effective campaign against Mrs. Clinton.

That being said, we all know the Clintons are full of surprises, not all of them happy or encouraging so I suppose the GOP is hoping that either Bill or Hill will torpedo her campaign.

While it is always possible that an alternative to Mrs. Clinton will emerge, frankly it is getting a little late in campaign season to bet the farm on that. It appears she has a significant lead over any potential contenders and she appears to have the support of the incumbent president. Those are mighty swords to carry into battle.

Obviously, the GOP field will be winnowed down over the next few months. Some will fail to get any traction in the polls. Some will find the supporters they thought they could count on have signed on with candidates who have a better chance at a win. The GOP has some mighty effective fund raisers and a few of them who can dump tons of money into a campaign. If those donors unite behind one or two candidates this field will be narrowed quickly and significantly.

One could argue that Mrs. Clinton has the greatest experience of any potential Democrat. She spent eight years at her husband’s side, watching the presidency, hearing the policy debates, talking to him quietly in the family quarters of The White House. She then went on to make a name for herself as Senator from New York. That was followed by a presidential nominating campaign and then a term as Secretary of State. She would bring a wealth of experience to the job. But she lost the nomination to a man whose experience could not come close to hers last time around. So maybe Americans are less interested in experience and more interested in specific plans for handling the nation’s many problems.

No Republican has a similarly impressive background. 

However, Mrs. Clinton, because of her long time in the political limelight also brings baggage to her campaign. Baggage that most of the GOP candidates will not have to carry into their campaigns.

I am looking forward to a spirited primary season on the GOP side and a lackluster one on the DEM side. Then we will move into a campaign it appears that will offer the first chance for a female president.

It all sounds pretty exciting. It is way too early to handicap the GOP race. Having said that, I think it will take a pretty big surprise to upset Mrs. Clinton’s march to her party’s nomination.

Notes of Concern…

   …Jack Blair

THE SPORT OF PHARAOHS

Horse racing has long been called the “Sport of Kings.’  I looked for a king for a long time at Belmont but could only find a Pharaoh.  So perhaps as in all things we may have arrived at a new designation for horse racing.

Seriously there are few things more beautiful than watching undulating  muscles of race horses traveling that fast and look both beautiful and dignified.

I hate horses.

Well, not really hate them in the common sense of the word. I love looking at the, I hesitantly pet one now and then, I never mucked out a stall and it is not on my bucket list.

My extended family purchased some land in the country and we all went there every weekend to picnic, play and enjoy one another. I met a neighbor lad there, his name was Wayne, and his family actually owned a farm. In addition to other animals they raised goats and they drank the milk of those goats. So I got an early lesson in milking goats. Because he and I were under twelve we reached selected a goat to be our “horse.” His was a large white goat named Lightening. My goat was was called Chocolate and was about the size of a Great Dane. I remember we did not have saddles but we did have reins to guide the goats. I also remember when you want your goat to move forward you had to pull its tail. 

Those were fun, carefree days and falling off a goat was hardly possible. Pretty social creatures.

I came close to a horse for the first time when dating my wife, Pam. She liked to ride and had a friend with horses so up onto the back of this horse I climbed. Pam got onto her horse and explained we would just ride slowly around the pasture.

Horses don’t speak English and mine definitely did not hear the suggestion of a slow ride round the pasture because he took off at high speed with me holding on while looking for a brake pedal. I was terrified. When they tell you just to pull on the reins to stop a horse: do not believe them. I could have pulled the reins on my steed from between his teeth clear back to his tail and he wasn't stopping.

I  did not fall off. The horse finally slowed. I dismounted promising myself I would never again mount a horse, or anything without a brake pedal or handbrake.

Fast forward to after our wedding. We both had positions at Culver Military Academy which had, to the great happiness of my wife, a School of Horsemanship. So she had lots of opportunity to ride. One night I got a call that her horse had taken a jump, Pam was thrown, and taken to the hospital by ambulance. I raced to the hospital and found she had been transferred to a larger facility in another city because of concerns for her spleen.

I reminded myself I would never mount a horse and I prayed she wouldn’t either. 

Fat chance where she was concerned. She continued to ride throughout the summer. On weak moment she suggested I try it again as the evening riding was going to take place indoors, at a large riding rink, and would consist of a column of two, horse and rider, simply circling the arena. I admit it was a weak moment but I said OK.

All of us were assigned a mount, paired off in twos, and a column of horses and riders began to encircle the arena.

I suppose I should have assumed something could go wrong. Seems they paired me with a horse who really hated the horse riding along side us. They spoke a few profane horse words then began to fight. Enough instructors around to get me safety off the horse that was now definitely the last horse I would ever ride.

My wife’s sister also liked horses. She resided on a farm in Ohio and loved to ride. We got a call one night that something had scared her horse, it reared up and toppled over backwards and landed with full weight between ger legs. Hospital again.

Now my wife still likes horses and I know she would accept an offer to ride anytime. My sister-in-law gave up horses for cats.

It might be possible if my sister in law were to saddle up one of those cats I would give it a try. But as for horses, I bet on them. I don’t ride them.

Ideas from the 1700s May Not be Realistic for the 2000's!

Notes of Concern…

   …Jack Blair

                             1700 -vs- 2000

What was the life expectancy in 1776? 

                                   35 years to 47 years of age !

Article II in the U.S. Constitution ( 1700s) states that In order to qualify to serve as president, a person must be a natural born citizen of the United States or a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, at least 35 years old and a resident of the United States for at least 14 years. 

The first president to be born an American citizen was Martin Van Buren.

In the 1700s when a young America was wrestling with the formation of a Constitution, they specifically laid out in Article Two the qualifications to be president:

What were they looking for? Experience in life. Wisdom. Leadership abilities witnessed by others. Keeping in mind that life expectancy at the time was 35-47 years of age (due largely to many infant deaths), I think we can posit they were looking for a senior gentleman, known to the country to have the qualities I outlined above.

Fast forward to 2015. Life expectance today is into the 80’s. You do the math. I think it safe to say if they were forming the constitution today the lower limit to the age required for the presidency would probably be 50 years of age or higher. We can argue a year here or there but they would not be looking for someone 35-40 with little experience.Less than one term in the U.S. Senate? Never having run a state? Never having held a political office or seen how the system works? Give me a brake. We would have to be nuts.

Our nation is burdened by great threats both inside and out. The Constitution gives broad powers to the executive branch of government. Perhaps it is time to bring some of these archaic principles and requirements, appropriate to the 1700s into the 21st century.

Since the Congress is unlikely to take on the broad project of amending  the Constitution too make it a more modern reflection of reality, especially since to do so would limit some of their powers, I am suggesting here what I think would be appropriate.

A candidate for president of the United States should be a natural born citizen and should be at least 50 years of age.

A candidate for president must have had considerable applicable experience, shown to be important to governing on of the world’s largest superpowers. These experiences must at the least include one or more of the following:

     a sitting Vice President (rules for candidacy for VP same as for President), therefore already determined to be qualified to step up, or

     a U.S.Senator who has completed at least two full terms in the U.S. Senate,or

     a  Congressman who has completed at least six years in the House of Representatives,or

     a  Governor of a State who has run that state for at least one full term.

     (I intentionally leave out experience as the CEO of a major company because I know that experience in management is very different from what is required in managing the nation. A CEO typically rises from the ranks of the business in which he succeeds. He has qualities that could make him a good president but if that is his goal he should leave the business world and spend some time as a governor or senator  before embarking on a campaign for president.)

It is a recognized scientific fact that we lose brain cells daily. While we wish it were otherwise, no one ages with the same alacrity of thought, keen ability to be planful and active in dangerous situations, and then begins the onslaught of medical problems. 

Although this does not apply to all, it applies to most, so I would add as a qualification no president should retain that position past the age of 78 and should not be a candidate for president if the term would take him beyond age 78.

Because we live longer we have a much larger group of living ex-presidents. Collectively they possess an unparalleled treasure of experience. They should be required, since living very much at government expense and protection beyond their presidential years, to become part of a new “kitchen cabinet” for the sitting president, regardless of party or personality. 

This group should meet officially four times a year with the president and should be on call for emergency situations. A house, in Washington DC, like Blair house, should be established with sufficient bedrooms and living quarters and a conference room to provide the location for their quarterly and emergency meetings. Just having all this experience in one place, a place where the current president could sit informally with his predecessors and brainstorm what is happening in the world, could be a huge asset.

I have met most of the living former presidents and one of the things that stood out was that most had abandoned politics. They really don't see themselves as Republican or Democrat. Something about serving in The White House gives them a much broader view on the world. So I would not worry about politics interfering with their discussions or their advice. No one is better qualified to offer advice to a sitting president than the small group who sat in that chair before him.

In any event, I am just forwarding an idea that I think is realistic. We should not be governing or applying rules that fit circumstances in the 1770s to events of the 2000s.  

So however many votes I might have left in my life I intend to cast based on what I have outlined in this column. I know it won’t make a difference but to me I will feel I am acting more responsibly when picking our leaders.

I have some similar views on the Supreme Court that I will share in a later column.

GALLUP AWAY

Notes of Concern…

   …Jack Blair

GALLUP AWAY

Have you been watching the science of polling lately?  There have been some major mistakes and in calls into question whether our traditional methods of guessing ahead of time who will win an election are being erased by all the changes we are seeing in the world.

I knew George Gallup and was a founding trustee of the Gallup Institute. I didn’t know much about polling techniques or history but I was just one of a group of executives he would invite to conferences to pick their brain and share any new developments. Gallup and others of equal note were pretty good at guessing the outcome of an election and they got better when they kept polling, monthly or weekly, so readers could see trends.

Television and the internet changed the way people saw candidates. A news story could break and whatever they told the pollster who called the day before might not be what they would say today.

This brought about the advent of “exit polls.” These were really the brainstorm if news organizations like CBS, NBC, etc. They seemed to think that you and I could not wait until late in the night to know the actual results so they stood outside polling places and asked people how they voted, then they would extrapolate this small sample and tell you what was going to happen.

This caused all sorts of problems because the networks were announcing winners as a result of east coast exit polling before the west coast folks had even gone to vote because of the time difference. There was more than a little worry that some west coast voters just stayed home and had an extra dessert since the talking heads out East had already told them their vote wouldn’t matter.

Jumping forward a bit there were recent polls on the election in Great Britain with headlines that the Prime Minister was in BIG trouble, doubtless would lose the election and the entire nation would be embarking on new things.

Guess what. The Prime Minister won and he won BIG.

The campaigns of Barack Obama and Romney spent gazillions of dollars on polling. Given the current nature of polling I would say they should have saved their money.

Now comes the new presidential election season. There seems to be only one really strong democrat in the race but there are dozens of republicans. So the debates will begin, the news cycles will start, the spinning of what was said will get underway, and none of it will mean a thing because our world has changed.

There was a time when a man didn't even know he had been elected for three or four days until a rider on horseback could get to his home to let him know.

I for one place no value on polls in this day and age. We turn a knob on a television in our house and we know what happened that day, typically we are actually watching it happen in real time. I don’t need anyone to tell me what it means because all that is important is what it means to me.

And as the trite saying goes: the only poll that really matters occurs on election day. Are we so up tight we cannot wait, turn on the TV or the computer, and see the results.

I for one would like to see pollsters GALLUP off into the sunset.

White House Correspondents-Drones-Embeded Reporters

NOTES OF CONCERN…

  …Jack Blair

                                     VARIOUS

I watched The White House Correspondents’ Dinner last night and couldn’t help but think how much better the country would be if these people could get along that way all the time.

There were jokes about everyone important and everyone seemed to take it all in their stride. People who don’t speak to one another during office hours (the President, the Senators, the Representatives, the Governors, etc) seemed to be having a jolly time.

—————

From party talk to drone talk. Lots of folks are upset that an American prisoner and an Italian prisoner were killed by an American drone whose target was a gang of Al Qaida terrorists. Let me begin by saying I have sympathy for the families of the innocents. But I also know they made decisions to go into war torn countries, countries known to take hostages and keep them for years, so they made an up front decision that their work, which I understand was humanitarian in nature, would place them at risk. 

To have failed to bring down a large number of acknowledged murderers, perhaps men who murder innocents multiple times a week, would not have been a proper decision in war time. Two good men were lost but we have to keep in mind that hundreds of good people may have been saved by this drone strike.

We discovered terrorists. We knew they murdered innocents. They were in our sights. They will murder no more.

The whole idea of embedding reporters with troops during the Iraq war was foolish. Trained soldiers have to worry about reporters crawling around distracting them from their work. Is it so important that those of us sitting at home actually see an enemy shot right when it happens or could we wait for the morning paper?

As a government I do not think we should encourage, or make the path easy, for our citizens to place themselves as well as our troops in harms way during military activities.

I recall when President Reagan invaded a small country to rescue Americans being held at a medical school. Do you remember? His first order was “not one reporter.” No coverage. When the work is finished they can go over in droves and interview anyone they want. 

They are in the newspaper business. We are in the business of conducting an invasion. No distractions. None.

When President Truman ended the war in the far east by dropping not one but two atomic bombs there was collateral damage everywhere. But when the numbers were added the report was that had he not dropped those bombs and the war had gone on for months a great many more lives would have been lost. 

He reminded reporters then that he was the “American” president and it was his duty to protect “American” lives. And I think he might have thrown in a little reminder of Pearl Harbor.

—————

Last topic for this column this week is the devastation that mother nature has brought on the little nation of Nepal. As of the date I am writing this column over 2000 people have died. By the time you are reading the column I am sure the number will be greater. You cannot guard against these acts of nature other than through strong building codes, decisions on where to site your structures, and have in place quick emergency responses. And of course, count on the people of the world to come to your aid. We as people of this world are at our best when we gather together and to help one another and at our worst when our goal is to harm others.

Tripping

I had the pleasure of driving for ten hours from Massachusetts to Virginia the other day. The drive actually took 12 hours because my GPS wasn’t paying attention to traffic on the George Washington Bridge (construction) in NYC or the traffic jam around Washington DC (the roads around the capital are almost as congested as the halls of Congress).

In any event, while balancing coffee and trying to eat an Egg Mcmuffin at dusk I began to realize that hundreds of pairs of red eyes were looking right at me. It was mesmerizing. I had to watch them back or risk tail ending car in front of me. 

Turning my head left I saw hundreds of pairs of eyes, very white and very bright and very constant.

Turning my head right all I saw were brightly light advertisements for fuel, food and lodging.

Now I don’t know about you folks but 5-6 hours of that assault on my old eyes did not make for much comfort. I found it difficult to read the big green signs overhead. Reading the Exit signs was impossible.

So in addition to arthritic hands paining me from the constant grip on the wheel, a very sore bottom from sitting for 15 hours in one position, and the occasional stop to exercise my legs that were getting pretty tired of being in on position for all that time, I reflected on the decades when none of that bothered me. There are realities to aging. Our bodies, eventually, rebel against the idea that nothing ever changes.

This trip helped me make some late New Year’s resolutions.

1.   I am going to drive less at night and certainly not at all on long nighttime trips.

2.   I hate motels. I am going to give them another try.

3.   I am going to break long trips into manageable lengths.

4.   I am going to learn to depart earlier in the morning and stop for dinner and overnight at dusk on any trip.

5.   I am going to be better at getting books on tape to avoid the boredom.

6.   I am going to try to have my wife along more often to share the driving.

As I write this column I still face repeating the trip back home. But I am going to engage in my new resolutions on the return trip and lets see how that all works out.

Reordering the Middle East

NOTES OF CONCERN…

  …Jack Blair

                        Reordering the Middle East

Since its inception the State of Israel has been the one true ally of The United States in the Middle East. Their friendship never in doubt we have always had their back.

Until lately.

Lately the Israeli president has felt unwelcome when he visits The White House. If we are to believe the press a very cool relationship between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu was present from the beginning and has recently turned to ice.

If we take a look at the forest and ignore the trees one could argue that President Obama set out to reorder the Middle East as part of his foreign policy. 

It would be fair to say he has succeeded in reordering the Middle East.

It would be fair to say that in almost every country in the Middle East that policy has made enemies of former friends.

Under other presidents we have found ways to peacefully deal with the realities that exist in other nations of the Middle East. In order to do so we had to overlook their traditions, some of their bad behaviors, and try very very hard to keep them neutral.

It has always been a delicate balance in the Middle East with reference to relations with the United States.

In the presidency of Jimmy Carter we decided our friend the Shah of Iran was just too brutal and not only could we not support his regime but we could encourage his overthrow and refuse to let him come to America for much needed cancer treatment.

Carter failed to look beyond the information he had on the Shah and America got in the Shah’s place the Ayatollah. Iran got a nation with harsher conditions, albeit it religious ones, and we lost our delicate friendship with Iran, a nation that continues to this day  to be a thorn in our side.

Then somehow we convinced our friend Anwar Sadat that if he would just come to Camp David and shake the Israeli Prime Minister’s hand a new era of friendship would immediately be jump started in the Middle East. Sadat came, did the hand shaking, went home and was assassinated by his own troops. In this instance he was succeeded by Hosni Mubarak who was able to keep the lid on and keep friendly relations with America. Then we turned on Mubarak.

Then President Obama decided that we should encourage the rebels in Egypt to overthrow Mubarak. They were successful in this. It  all came under  the wonderfully encouraging idea of an Arab Spring from which good things would surely come. What came was the Muslim Brotherhood and no relationship of significance between our two countries.

On to that terrible fellow Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. He was at one time an outrageous and ardent enemy of America. President Reagan got tired of it and put a missile through the front door of Gaddafi’s tent. Message sent and understood. Gaddafi hardly bothered us since. In fact he actually started to disarm. But President Obama believed a better partner could be found there and we encouraged a revolution that showed Gaddafi brutalized and assassinated in the streets of the capital. He was replaced by  two rival governments who are still trying to figure out how to govern. And neither is friendly with the USA.

I hope you can see a pattern here. We abandoned leaders who, while not necessarily to our liking, were at least not beheading Americans or burning them alive. And while their rhetoric on Israel got pretty strong, it was still mostly rhetoric.

Along comes Syria in this litany of American involvement in politics and revolution in the Middle East. This time our president was up against a pretty tough leader by the name of Assad. Further, Assad had an ally in Russia. Nevertheless, we announced he had to go and drew a red line which we warned him not to cross. He crossed the red line and then erased it completely. He is still there and shows no signs of going anywhere soon. And we aren’t painting any more lines. In fact we hardly mention that country at all.

And some of those who are older will remember when Saddam Hussein was our ally when Russia was trying to outmaneuver the poppy growers in Afghanistan. He went from friend to enemy mighty fast and we created such a mess in Iraq our enemies there are actually using the money and the weapons we left behind when we departed to fight us.

Just writing this stuff is demoralizing.

We had allies of sorts in Egypt, Libya, Iran, Iraq, and other countries. They weren’t the nicest of folks but they were mostly under control and not even close to having the hatred of America that exists today.

Everyone has their own take on history. Mine is this: we tried a foreign policy that was unnecessary, we meddled in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, we did so in such a naive way that the new leaders in almost every instance turned out worse than the old, and the bottom line is that America has never been in this much danger from a divergent group of countries that we have now single handedly brought to a point where they may actually succeed in forming a Caliphate and through united action become a major world power opposed to everything we hold dear.

And if that happens the history books will have a field day with our role in a major change in the balance of power in the world.

The New Kind of War-Are We Ready?

Notes of Concern…

…Jack Blair

                        THE NEW KIND OF WAR

Raise the DEFCOM to the highest level

Put the country on war alert requiring the manufacture of needed weapons and support materiel.

Get a war vote out of the Congress.

Order the Joint Chiefs to set up an invasion plan with two alternative plans.

Move the fleet to the Middle East.

Work with friendly nations to establish air bases for the USAF that puts us within close range for the attack.

Reconsider the draft.

All career officers should be told this will be a chance of battlefield promotions.

Hold on.

This is what we do when we know which country is our enemy.

In the world today there is no country that can be identified fully as our enemy.

We have no country to attack.

Our enemies are individuals and they are scattered all over the world and are prepared to give their own lives to take the lives of the people of the world whom they see as their enemy.

In all the wars we have fought we knew exactly whom we were fighting and where to find them.

When President Truman decided to drop an atomic bomb on Japan he gave them two chances to surrender. It took two bombs to get their attention. There was a lot of collateral damage, meaning non-combatants, civilians of all ages died. But it ended a war and saved thousands of American lives.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor we new which county to hold accountable. Same in Vietnam and in Korea. We knew they were our enemy and we knew they were supported by the Chinese.

The American people need to understand that we are not fighting any more against nations, but rather individuals who train and plan in nations.

Any attack against those nations that harbor and encourage terrorists will include collateral damage beyond what Truman got in Japan.

The enemy counts on our unwillingness to use our most damaging bombs to reach them. So they scatter their camps and they regularly move around in various countries and when training is complete they send their new warriors into the U.S. to await the order to strike.

Those strikes could run the gamut from a suitcase bomb set off in a large stadium killing everyone who went for a night out to watch a sport contest. They could use gas in a large office building killing everyone who is at work that day. They could, on a coordinated basis, go into five or ten schools in different states and kill all the students and faculty. They could bomb the subway systems in major American cities.

West Point and other officer training schools did not have classes on this type of war.

The possibilities are many. Defending America will be difficult and perhaps impossible without a major change in the way we Americans think about fair play.

Our enemy beheads their captives. The captives are more often newsmen, aid workers, and students. They have made it clear they want to kill people who disagree with them regardless of whether they are in our army or just trying to offer their services to those in need.

The kind of decisions the president and the Pentagon need to make to protect us against the “new way of war” will not be popular with Americans. Our actions will have to be very far away from the kind of nation we think we are.

This becomes difficult to contemplate. But it is going to be necessary if we are to survive.

Because this is a very scary situation for our nation, we have been slow to react. Again, the enemy counted on this and our reluctance to move on them has permitted them to train, recruit and grow.

Each day they become stronger and better prepared and we lose ground.

This conundrum on how to fight has seemed to paralyze the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the leaders of the Congress and the President himself.

They are the people on whom we count. I am sure they have seen the situation and are discussing various ways to respond. Unfortunately, they have not yet understood that Israel learned the hard way: that one has to respond quickly and efficiently to these atrocities.

We see on the Internet the beheading of innocents. Most recently we witnessed the burning alive of a Jordanian pilot.

It is time for hard decisions, quick response to any outrageous actions like we have seen recently from ISIS. Americans are going to have to learn to stomach American responses far outside our moral and fair play standards of the past.

I think we are not far away from the Israeli experience. Once they start massive undertakings in our homeland they will be established, prepared and effective in undermining our way of life.

My preference would be to take them out where they are. In order to do that we will need massive air strikes, an acceptance that collateral damage is brought on by ISIS not by our response.

 Until our enemy understands that whatever price they require us to pay when they attack, the price we will exact from them and their host countries will be significantly greater.

My readers know that there is not a diplomatic solution to this kind of problem. You negotiate with another nation but not zealots who are scattered throughout the world.

This is a fight we need to take to them before they bring it to us.

A recent example is when ISIS burned alive a captured Jordanian pilot, within 24 hours Jordan executed two terrorists being held in their jails.

Our president has felt the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, in the most recent case four dangerous terrorists, was a gesture our enemy might appreciate. Of course all three went back home to rejoin the effort to kill Americans. The President has bent over backwards to change the enemy’s view of America. He has tried hard for six years. Secretary of State John Kerry has hardly had time to replenish the clothes in his suitcase as he travels the world trying to find a way toward peace.

Gentlemen, it didn’t work. It is not going to work. You need to read more about Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman to understand what our current enemies understand.

 They understand strength.

They understand they will pay heavily for any attack on American citizens anywhere in the world.

 And they need to understand if we capture them, we are not going to release them or trade them but rather execute them every time they do the kind of horrendous acts we have recently seen them commit.

How far can we be from the beheadings of more Americans and the burning alive of American citizens?

How far can we be from finding that hundreds of young Americans have been recruited and trained and then returned to America to await orders to strike our homeland?

My take on this is that we are close to seeing individuals taking action against America in their hometowns and states. It is going to get very ugly very soon.

A new kind of thinking about protecting Americans and American interests is required.

DOES INGENUITY=PROGRESS?

NOTES OF CONCERN…

  …Jack Blair

              Does Ingenuity Always Mean Progress?

One used to buy an automobile, probably from an American company, and it was pretty simple.

Two or four doors. Four wheels. A steering wheel. Roll down windows was the way you conditioned your air, and some people splurged on a radio.

The car salesman made sure your new wheels were gassed up and ready for you to proudly drive it through town. He handed you two keys and the paperwork.

If you weren’t sure how to get where  you wanted to go you looked at a map.

And just to be safe you usually stopped at the local hardware store and had keys made for all the drivers in your household as well as a few to store in case of lost keys. They charge you 25 cents per key.

Oh, and the car probably cost $5,000.

Take a great leap to 2015.

Cars still have two or four doors. Except they have airbags in them, the windows go up and down automatically, your seat moves up, down, and tilts when you touch the right button. They have curtain airbags, they have the highest quality surround sound, they have airbags inside the steering wheel and some of the newer versions even talk to you if you drift out of your lane, your driving too fast or too slow, or someone is sneaking up on you in your blind spot. And if you want to back up, you have a television camera on the rear of your car so you can see everything around you without turning your head. The list of new stuff could be much longer but lets hope I successfully showed you what has changed,

Now a huge percentage of Americans drive foreign cars.

And in what is probably an understatement, your car probably cost you in excess of $20,000.

When you are ready to leave, the salesman does not fill up your gas tank. You probably have enough to get you to the closest gas station.

He does still give you two keys. They don’t look like the old keys because they are filled with computer chips that operate most of the new toys in your new car.

And you don’t stop at the hardware store because only the manufacturer of your special keys can duplicate them. And the cost to duplicate the each key I was given with my car was quoted to be $350.

So I use one set of keys and my wife probably keeps the backup set in the safe. When we travel we always have to take both sets so if we lose one we can get home. Because, they also tell you at the dealership that should you need to have a $350 key made it can be done in California, takes a couple days, and then has to be shipped to you wherever you are. So what was a day trip to see grandma can turn into a week waiting for a key. And of course, you have to have your car towed somewhere while you wait. And if grandma lives in a small one bedroom, you also get to run up a motel bill.

I learned something new about these great new cars a week ago when I was involved in a fender bender and had to take my car to a body shop to be repaired. My insurance company kindly provides me with a rental car to use while my car is being repaired.

I pick up my rental car, a nice little number with fewer bells and whistles, but hey, I have wheels. And they gave me two keys with a sign attached to them saying I would be responsible for a $250 fee for each key I lose.

I didn’t notice until I got home that both keys were on the same keychain and the special keychain was made in such a way that you could not separate the keys. Absolutely no way to put one away and use one.

I was sure this had to be in error so I called the rental company.

No, they assured me it was all part of a plan to keep the keys together. I remarked that would be silly because if I lost my key I actually would have lost my keys, both  of them, and I would owe them $500 rather than $250.

They assured me I had made the correct assumption. In response to my question why anyone would do that, I was told no one had ever asked and they had no idea.

So if you saw me walking more than usual and did not see me driving much during the time my car was being repaired, it was because I worried about losing my keys, both of them at the same time.

Then it came to me. There was a method to their madness. I have to have a car. They rent me a car and charge me a daily fee. I don’t drive the car because I am afraid of the key fine. They get the car back, hardly driven at all, no real mileage, and they get to do it all over again with the next guy who needs to rent a car.

Marketing genius at work.

Never underestimate American ingenuity.