Tom's Musings

I have always been taken aback when people who have amassed great fortunes are worshipped, often in an obsequious or fawning manner. During the gilded age, when robber barons accumulated obscene fortunes while laborers worked 70 pr more hours per week for subsistence wages, men like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan oft were celebrated as virtual demigods. Even when such men hired private armies to fire upon desperate workers, little opprobrium was attached to them or their actions. It was just business as usual.

I am reminded of an apochryphal aphorism that I once stumbled across. When a British worker sees a person in a Rolls Royce limousine passing by, they are tempted to throw a rock at such a display of privilege. When an American sees such a sight, they imagine themselves enjoying such pampered luxury one day. That instinctive reaction presumably explains (or explained) why the conservative perspective became the default position of U.S. political thought.

I doubt whether such binary responses are totally authentic today. Still, this insight might well contain a grain of historical truth. Traditionally, Europe was long characterized through encrusted class rigidity while America was touted as the land of full opportunity on steroids. Today, however, upward social and economic mobility is greater in most European countries than the U.S. but images, even outdated ones, die hard.

Whatever the truth about the so- called American dream, many yet gush over the economic elite here. The media follow Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg, and like titans with rapt attention. What’s not to be enthralled by the recent $50 million dollar wedding orchestrated by that former creator and CEO of the retail behemoth … the Amazon corporation.

So what if their workers must labor for long hours, often bereft of overtime compensation, for wages that must be supplemented by SNAP  benefits to make ends meet. Are not those sacrifices justified by the  unimagined luxury enjoyed by our economic royalty.

Those Amazon workers have the satisfaction of knowing they made it possible for Jeff Bezos to purchase the largest masted super- yacht in the world. Known as the Koru, Jeff’s toy is about 420 feet long, has a glass-bottom pool, multiple jacuzzis, and expanded decks. Oh, and it is accompied by a sister vessel, the Abeona. This ancillary craft has a helicopter pad and many toys that can’t fit on the primary vessel. The Amazon workers must be so happy for Jeff.

But I digress. I don’t want to focus on today’s robber barons, those complicit in the final destruction of America’s faltering democracy. I want to focus on other creative geniuses, those who contributed to society not in the pursuit of vast riches but simply in the interest of the public good. You do remember this thing called the public good, don’t you? We once considered it as a matter of course in our political dealings.

Such self-sacrificing individuals are my heroes, not those who acquire obscene fortunes at any cost. The former strike me as the ones worthy of adulation, at least more than they normally receive. After all, they put the well-being of the many over the never to be satisfied fiscal aspirations of the few. Let me note a few examples of my heroes.

Take the case of Tim Berners-Lee. While working at CERN … the European Organization for Nuclear Research located in Switzerland, the British born and educated (Oxford) physicist in 1989 wrote a memo lamenting the fact that computers could not talk to one another. If the machines could not communicate, then both science and scientists would remain isolated in their separate silos. The synergistic environment in which creative impulses thrive would remain out of reach … a mere dream.

Tim did more than lay out a vision. Over the next couple of years, he created the protocols essential to the creation of the world wide web (WWW). In the early 1990s, the cyber world of interactive communication became a reality by virtue of his efforts. He created a world in which we can all communicate.

Yet, unlike so many other tech bros, Tim never sought a patent. He never created a proprietary company. He never constrained the use of his innovations for personal gain. I think it fair to say he could have earned billions. For him, pushing his breakthroughs as widely as possible in the public domain was more important than fortune or wealth’s associated fame. Every time we turn to our smart phone, tablet, or computer, we should give a quick nod to Sir Timothy Berners- Lee.

There are others of course. Let’s take another example that may be familiar to many of you. Dr. Jonas Salk, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, developed a vaccine to confront the scourge of polio in the mid-1950s. When the then iconic news figure Edward R. Murrow asked him “who owns the patent?” His response was succinct and simple. “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?“

For Dr. Salk, his reward was in saving as many lives as possible. Constraining availability based on price and profit surely would have resulted in more deaths and suffering. I still remember the kids of my day existing in iron lungs. I remember vividly worrying that I might become one of them. Along with worries about being evaporated in a nuclear holocaust, the affliction of polio kept us kids up at night. If he had gone the full capitalist route, however, it is estimated he could have earned some $7 billion dollars. At the same time, more kids might have been trapped inside a life-saving apparatus, if they survived at all. But he chose a more humane path. In doing so, many kids may have been spared. Perhaps I was one of them.

Canadian researchers Fred Banting, Charles Best, and James Collip isolated and refined insulin in 1921. They also could have pursued profit and great wealth. But they chose a different path. They sold the rights to their discovery to the University of Toronto for $1 measly dollar. By their act, millions of diabetes sufferers were thus given hope. A life- giving drug was not restricted to those who could afford it … it became generally available to all.

University of Wisconsin- Madison  researcher Harry Steenbock developed ultra- violet techniques for fortifying foods with Vitamin D. Among other benefits, his breakthrough eliminated the scourge of Rickets worldwide. Much as the Canadian researchers who isolated insulin had done, Steenbock worked with UW administrators to advance the public good, not seek individual gain.

At U.W., they created the first American university- based non-profit model for reinvesting monetary gains from research breakthroughs back into basic and applied research. Thus, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) was created some 75 years ago. Almost half a billion has been reinvested in work benefiting the public good. Some 3,000 additional patents (including for Warfarin and MRI technologies) have been awarded with the proceeds going back into even more basic research.

Or take the case of a brilliant thinker who died in poverty and without much recognition (at the time). Among, his many achievements, Nicola Tesla recognized that alternating current (AC) was vastly superior to the direct current (DC) alternative being pushed by Thomas Edison. And why did Edison fight for his vision with such ferocity … because he thought he could profit from it.

Tesla remained a man of science. Edison was an entrepreneur who often used other people’s ideas to make money. This is not to say Thomas did not make contributions. He did. The world needs both ideas and those people who make ideas practical. Still, most people have heard of Edison. Far fewer recognize the name, or the contributions, of one of the greatest minds of the very early 20th century … Nicola Tesla.

Nils Bohlin was an engineer who worked for the Volvo automobile corporation. In 1959, he developed the modern three-point seat belt. In fact, he and Volvo did patent his innovation. Then, contrary to ordinary corporate practice, the Volvo corporation decided to share the technology throughout the auto industry. Stunningly, they did not hoard their innovation for corporate advantage.

While most U.S. auto firms fought safety measures as expensive mandates imposed by  government, Bohlin and Volvo took the other path. Why? Because it would save lives. They practiced a form of corporate morality that seems quaint today, an ethical approach where community well-being helps shape a firm’s decisions.

Madam Curie, born in Poland as Maria Sklodowska, won two Nobel Prizes (physics and chemistry) but never patented her her discoveries for personal gain. She was motivated by pure science, driven by that basic motivation to better understand the world around us. Sadly, she died early for her passion … succumbing to radiation poisoning attendant to her work.

Robert H. Goddard, professor of physics at Clark University (my undergraduate alma-mater), launched the first liquid fuel rocket into space in 1926. Working mostly on his own, and ridiculed by many, he never sought personal gain as his research was finally recognized. He was driven by a dream he embraced as a young boy growing up in my home town of Worcester Mass.

Note: his first rocket didn’t go far into space. It ascended a little more than 40 feet while staying aloft for 2.5 seconds. Then again, the first air craft of Orville and Wilbur Wright didn’t do much better. Yet both efforts launched revolutions that transformed the world as we know it.

Goddard dedicated his life to space, not treasure. He didn’t run out and build a Space X firm for his era. He always felt his work belonged the world, not to be exploited for personal gain.

When he did launch the space age on March 26, 1926 (a century ago), it took place on his aunt’s farm which would later become a golf course. I played that course as a kid. One day, I came across famed rocket scientist Werner Von Braun and other luminaries dedicating a plague on the very spot where the rocket age was launched.

We all make choices. While economic incentives play a critical role in our economy and our social well- being, we should remain cognizant of other valid motivations. Making an additional buck is not always the end all of a worthy life. Money is nice but certainly not everything. Once you get beyond a certain kink-point recognized by economists, the marginal utility of more decreases rapidly. As wealthy venture capitalist Nick Hanauer once noted, you can only  consume a limited amount of life’s goodies no matter your wealth. That extra billion just doesn’t mean all that much.

I recall once being asked to consult for the Ontario Provincial Government on optimal approaches to human services integration. A colleague of mine suggested that I ask to be paid for my services. My response was instinctive. “I already am getting paid by the university. If I can help them deliver better human services, that is reward enough.” Once you reach a comfortable fiscal place in life, what else do you need? A little more money is not going to buy you happiness. But sharing the fruits of your labor, or your insights, just might.

Few contemporary cultural kerfuffles agitate me more than the hard right’s insistence that we were founded as a Christian nation. Worse yet, they seem to favor returning what little remains of our inclusive democracy to some form of authoritarian theocracy. That might not be quite the equivalent to reversing our revolutionary war by reestablishing a monarchical form of governance but it comes damn close.

I am vexed by such aspirations for two reasons. First, though I am not a scholar of our revolutionary period, nothing in my casual reading supports the contention that our founding father’s wanted a theocracy of any sort and certainly not as a foundational pillar for our fledgling Republic. And second, the history of conflating governance principles with religious belief is intolerable on numerous levels. Prior experiences suggest that it is a recipe for violence, division, and discrimination. Essentially, I find nothing in the past to justify or warrant a move toward any form of theocracy.

It strikes me that the founding fathers were rather clear on this point. Our rulers shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. I am confident that some evangelicals might argue that the intent was to prohibit advancing one sect over others within the Christian tradition though other traditions might be prohibited. That might be arguable since other primary traditions (Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism) were generally not found in the colonies. But I suspect that loophole is not satisfying.

The claim that the 1st amendment was only directed toward intra- christian hostilities does not strike me as particularly defensible. While Jews were initially discouraged from settling in New Amsterdam (later New York), secular business interests eventually overcame religious bigotry. Thus, a number of practicing Hebrews migrated to New Amsterdam early on, even when the future New York was controlled by the Dutch. They were subject to discrimination and persecution in the same way  that religious intolerance periodically would flare up throughout the colonies. In their case, they generally were attacked as Christ killers.

Islam would also make its way to the new world in the slave ships from Africa though it was largely stamped out brutally by those in control of black lives. Still, core spiritual affininities die hard. We really don’t know how long the belief systems brought from home persisted.

On the whole, our so-called Founding Fathers were not particularly religious men. They were well read intellectuals steeped in the thoughts and sentiments of the enlightenment that had swept through the salons of educated Europe. They brought reason to bear on the difficult issues of the day. They sought refuge in history and in rational reflection, not divine authority.

Many of these men would define themselves as Deists. They believed in Providence but less so in a divinity that interfered in the daily affairs of men. (Note: other than John Adams, I doubt they thought much about the oppression of women.) Their concept of a divine presence likely was a remote entity who might have designed creation, but left the hard work of making it work to men’s sweat and ingenuity. They likely would have agreed with one of America’s greatest literary figures of the 20th century … John Steinbeck. Man’s reason would be his ultimate salvation.

The founding fathers were well aware of the corrosive effect that fervent religious affiliation likely would exert upon any sense of national unity. One must remember that the concept of a nation was not well developed in the late 18th century. We had thirteen separate colonies with diverse cultures and histories. They might unite (somewhat, at least) to oust British control, but on little else.

The initial Articles of Confederation, ineffective at best, testified to the pervasive suspicions across the colonies during that era. Each colony wanted to retain its own peculiar character. Religious differences could well be an additional powder keg fracturing any possible amity among the separate parts of our embryonic  union. They could easily see that catering to passionately held religious differences would render unification even more problematic, if not impossible.

The concerted push to guarantee a secular basis for the emerging republic was motivated by more than personal beliefs. It was based on more than a century and a half of rancorous history in the new world. That history would have remained fresh within the experiences of the men gathered to hammer out a stronger constitutional arrangement in 1787.

The Puritans, as with other early immigrants to the new world, did not leave England to seek religious liberty. Rather, they were seeking a place where they might exercise their own version of spiritual intolerance and communal oppression. Not long after permanent settlements were founded in Massachusetts, anticipated religious conflicts erupted. Roger Williams, upon arguing unsuccessfully for religious tolerance in the Massachusetts Bay colony, was forced to flee Putitan persecution. In 1636, he purchased land from the Narragansett tribe and created what later would become the state of  Rhode Island.

Not all escaped extreme forms of religious persecution. Mary Dyer, for example, was hung by Puritans in 1660 for being a Quaker. Extreme harassment of those settlers failing to conform to local religious orthodoxy grew so troublesome that the British King had to intervene to stop the growing virulence of religious persecution.

Quakers were routinely punished as outsiders, even though their ethical standards were exceptional. For example, they were the first sect to oppose slavery in 1688. The Salem witch trials were another manifestation of runaway religious fever. Over a two year period in the late 17th century, some 200 people were accused of all sorts of offensive behaviors by local religious zealots. At least 30 were found guilty based on the slimmest of evidence with 22 being executed before the fever abated.

Religious intolerance and violence certainly was not limited to New England. In Virginia, Anglicans beat Baptist ministers. In Catholic Maryland, the death penalty for perceived religious blasphemy remained on the books. Oddly enough, though this colony was founded by a powerful Catholic family on England, its fortunes changed over time. The Catholic majority of its early settlers ultimately lost political control. They themselves became the victims of persecution.

Of course, it was not only home grown conflict that colored the opinion of our founding fathers. They had witnessed hundreds of years of religious intolerance and bloodshed. The Thirty Years War alone, an ongoing battle between Protestant and Catholic adherents across Europe, resulted in some 8 to 9 million casualties, mostly among innocent civilian populations. Much of Europe was devastated.

Religious intolerance was not, of course, limited to the Colonial period, not by a longshot. The so- called American melting pot continued to boil away as ethnic and religious communities remained separate and hostile to one another. Getting one’s salvation right was important back then. Choosing the correct side seemed critical in such an environment. After all, one’s eternity was at stake.

For example, Catholics were banned from Massachusetts for many years. Their treatment as late as the 1850s was abominable. When desperate Irish immigrants reached Boston during the potato blight of the late 1840s, they were told by earlier Catholic settlers to keep moving. They would never be accepted by the city’s then dominant Protestant power brokers. They would be subject to continuing isolation and discrimination. And they were.

Most new Catholic immigrants disregarded that advice, including one desperately poor laborer who died young, but not before siring a child. He, himself, could not be buried in Boston since Catholics, by law, could not be buried in that Protestant jurisdiction. His wife transported his body to Cambridge where despised Papists might secure a final resting place.

Yet, within a generation, an offspring of his graduated from Harvard University and this individual’s son would be elected President of the United States in 1960. The rise of the Kennedy’s mirrored the ongoing conflicts as separate religious cultures fought for acceptance, then power, and finally hegemony. Within two generations, the hated Irish, considered to be untermenschen (ignorant, diseased, and criminal) by the prevailing power elite would dominate Boston politics.

Overt religious conflict has abated substantially over time. But it has not disappeared. The American experience has remained less secular than what remained in the European nations that supplied most immigrants. America witnessed recurring waves of religious rebirths in which bursts of passionate evangelical preachers sparked spiritual awakenings across the land. No similar events of any consequence emerged in the European countries from which our immigrants came. Unfortunately, such movements also sparked renewed outbursts of intolerance along with narrow forms of cultural fanaticism. 

For better or worse, America has remained a distinctly religious nation. As seen above, many pray routinely. Yet, that has done nothing to enhance our spiritual or moral core. While we have the highest proportion of our populace of any comparable nation who believe in angels, we also incarcerate more of our citizens, tolerate higher levels of child poverty, fail to provide basic health care, and kill one another with striking frequency.

I have known a number of people whose strong, personal faith has elevated their sense of ethics and morals. In general, however, I fail to see how knowing a person’s religiosity permits one to predict their moral fiber. It is not a robust predictive variable.

Our high levels of religious affiliation has done remarkably little to refine our national moral compass. Arguably, it has made things worse. Thus, I see no advantage to dissolving the separation between state and religion. Just the opposite, it is a foundational principle worth defending.

It might be worth noting that Trump’s appointed Secretary of War has just removed 180 forms of religious beliefs from the list supported by our Armed Forces. The belief systems eliminated include humanism and Unitarian-Universalism (U.U.). These are two of the most caring and Christ-like traditions available today. I think I will rest my case at this point

Last Fall, I did a road trip back east. Nominally, the reason was to visit the granddaughter of my good friend (Mary Zink) who had started her freshman year at Bates College in Maine. At the same time, we could revisit my old stomping grounds in and around Worcester Mass.

For some reason, while visiting the sites around Worcester, I decided that we should explore Anna Maria college. Having spent my professional life on the bucolic University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, I enjoy visiting other sacred grounds devoted to higher education. This was about the only campus in central Mass that had never been graced with my presence.

Though I feared it might already had closed down, as so many small schools had, it was yet open and seemed lively with student activity. In the moment, I was pleased that this smaller, Catholic institution had survived the fiscal trials being visited upon many similar schools. Good thing we did visit when we did. I recently read that it had closed its doors for good.

Such has been the fate of a growing number of vulnerable schools. Recently, I read about the closure of Hampshire College in Western Mass. It was a school that stressed personalized curricula and individualized courses of study. Many years ago, I visited the Hampshire College campus while touring Western Mass with my favorite cousin. Now, this Spring, it also passed into history.

One of Hampshire’s most well known alumni is Ken Burns, the producer of many highly regarded documentaries that we all love. Many times, Ken poured excessive praise upon his Alma Mater, suggesting that his success in life was predicated on the excellent preparation he received at this latest victim of higher education’s changing fortunes.

The closing of marginal schools is no longer news. My home state of Wisconsin recently has seen several smaller public campuses of the UW system shutter their doors for good. These dark times for higher education are comprehensible in light of at least one unavoidable factor … we are poised on a sharp demographic cliff. There simply aren’t enough future teens to fill up the available seats. It also doesn’t help that Donald Trump’s xenophobia is scaring away foreign students.

When I was considering college in the early 60s, my perception was that the demand exceeded supply. You worried about being accepted anywhere, not about which of several options to select. In that moment, an ever growing number of kids were pursuing higher education in pursuit of the American dream. Then, when accepted, you worried about flunking out which was a more common fate in those days. Today, schools often cannot afford to lose paying customers, even when their performance is substandard.

Of course, demand to enter elite schools is higher than ever but, generally speaking, many colleges are desperately competing for bodies to fill out their Freshman classes. They keep adding newer amenities to attract students, offering newer creature comforts not even dreamed about in my day. Nor can I easily dismiss the possibility that grade creep is yet another way to please their dwindling supply of customers and thus keep them enrolled. Of course, demographics aside, the ever rising costs of higher education bring into question the utility of college from a cost/benefit perspective. Estimates of future utility (net increased comparative earnings) are less rosy than they once were, though still positive.

The pain among college administrations is not evenly distributed. Yesterday, as we drove across the UW campus to Picnic Point (once identified as one of the most romantic spots in the world). I was amazed at how much the campus has grown. New buildings were everywhere. It also was obvious that luxurious student amenities (spiffy student playing fields and recreation facilities) had recently been constructed. Apparently, as many schools falter, a few of the fortunate ones thrive.

Of course, any discussion of higher education cannot omit the societal inflection point being imposed by the digital revolution. It appears indisputable that human intelligence risks being replaced by artificial intelligence at an accelerating rate. This was omnisciently predicted with considerable clarity by futurist Arthur C. Clarke as far back as the 1970s.

And who of my generation can possibly forget the HAL vignette from the movie 2001: A space odyssey when the spacecraft’s on-board computer takes control of the ship from the humans nominally in charge, or tries to at least. That was art anticipating life. But now, the so-called singularity is just about upon us.

Most of today’s graduates who labored to learn computer coding skills cannot find employment because machines code better and faster. At the other end of the spectrum, Fine Arts student must be realizing that AI can generate better literature, music, and art than their own fledgling talents might possibly permit. And the machines have more manageable egos. Really, why put up with annoying humans?

All of this is happening during the earliest days of the AI revolution, a transformation that is just beginning. Given all the future uncertainty surrounding a society in flux, what in the world should universities do to prepare for what is about to happen. Humans might just be facing their own irrelevance. Think about this for a moment! Just how can educators prepare the coming generations for an impending apocalypse?

The most frightening spectre for college administrators must lie in this highly uncertain character of what we face. Remember Hollerith cards? I can recall carrying decks of these blasted things that contained both my data and the programs that might make sense of that data. One panicked at the thought of dropping all those thousands of cards and facing the near impossible task of restoring them in the correct order.

In my elementary school, we still had inkwells, now kids cannot even write in cursive style. In what we called shop, I learned how to compose lead-based letters by hand to create articles for printing. Now we use computers to create images and messages that can circle the world via satellite communication systems. The pace of change is already dizzying. Frighteningly, that pace is quickening.

Back then, who could have imagined today’s digital world. In hindsight, we knew some time ago that the pace of technological change was being halved every generation. In reality, change occurred much more frequently than even that. We have no freaking idea what the next generation of change might bring, never mind what the world might look like a decade from now.

AI technology already can teach itself how to improve. It already evinces sentient feelings and can mimick advanced human attributes. Might our machines soon make human imagination and ingenuity obsolete. How do our institutions of higher learning prepare for such a radically different world?

Returning to Ken Burns, he has argued that colleges have forfeited their transformational purposes in favor of transactional alternatives. The transformational purpose focuses on elevating the critical thinking skills as well as the imagination of each student. A transactional focus emphasizes the learning of specific vocational and technical skills to increase future remuneration. Many of such skills, unfortunately, have an increasingly short shelf-life. Nevertheless, the emphasis on transactional outcomes is reflected in data that compares median graduate earnings X years after leaving school.

Score one for the economists, personal utility (measured in dollars potentially acquired) is all that matters in education (and in life). You go to college to make a few extra bucks. But what happens when most technical human skills are replaceable by machines that never tire nor complain? What happens on the day when our machines realize that humans contribute remarkably little to society.

I find this all too depressing. Many of my youthful experiences have remained with me throughout the years. As I wrote in my other blogs, college for me truly was a transformative experience. My parents, not surprisingly, saw it in utilitarian terms … I would make more money. But my mother never progressed past the 8th grade while my dad may have graduated from high school (I’m not certain). They never had much, so material success was very important to them.

I never approached college in utilitarian terms. The world in which I came of age had not yet been taken over by the economic elite. All was possible for us. even a nondescript urchin like me from a struggling, working-class neighborhood. Yet, one thought nags at me … to what end should we educate future citizens when they have no intrinsic purpose. How do we enhance future human contributions when machines can do even that better.

Even for me, perhaps especially for someone like me, college was that place and moment in time for letting loose my intellectual curiosity and imagination. I selected courses mostly based on interest and appeal. And the best offerings, by far, were those that challenged my existing world view. They were the ones that permitted me to think for myself … that in fact demanded that I think for myself.

As a teacher at the University of Wisconsin, I was dismayed that my students, many of which were quite intelligent, had lost some of their curiosity. They didn’t strike me as risk-taking nor as intellectually adventurous as we were back in the day. They simply were too concerned about their future, and whether they might be able to pay off their student loans … altogether, quite reasonable concerns given the challenges they faced. Upward mobility for them was a vanishing dream. Their futures already were darkening. For my generation, our futures contained so much possibility. Doing better than the last generation was a realistic expectation.

Even the doctoral students of my professorial days  seemed different. Virtually all had better technical skills than I. Really, who didn’t? At the same time, there was something often missing in their makeup. They could parrot the literature but fell short when imagination and inventiveness was required. They seemed less capable at making unexpected connections among phenomena or at weaving novel theoretical positions … abilities that came rather easy to me. I was either hard wired bizarrely or had been trained differently.

For all the challenges facing us back in the 60s (e.g., the Vietnam draft), we were most blessed. We believed that the future would take care of itself. Even better, the available evidence suggested that such was the case. We could focus on developing our cognitive and analytical skills, and not just in the classroom. We would spend countless hours discussing, more or less debating, the issues of the day. That was where I developed those thinking and interactive skills which supported me through my professional life.

I weep that today’s students might not have an opportunity similar to the one I enjoyed. More to the point, I fear what the future might hold in store for us. I understand the anxieties our young now confront. I am simply glad I don’t have to face them.

This past week, I had my age estimated by a technique which I believe is called carbon dating. You know, this is what they use to date prehistoric phenomenon like ancient rocks and long lost archeological sites. My fears were confirmed. I turned 82 this past week.

That sounds old. That is old. You must accept that you are ancient when you realize that there are trees in the petrified forest younger than you. I can remember way back in the last century when I thought ahead to the fact that I would be 56 when we transitioned into the 21st century. Gee, I recall musing, I wonder if I can last until then … to what struck me as an extremely advanced age. It seemed very doubtful at the time. Now I wonder if I will still be around when AI renders the human race obsolete and unnecessary. That milestone cannot be very far off.

Alas, birthdays for me have ceased to be celebratory milestones. They have now become moments of somber reflection.

In the pic above, I am with my doting parents. It is 1944. Perhaps the term doting is just a bit of an exaggeration. I think they took one look at me and panicked. Won’t make that mistake again, they undoubtedly vowed. Thus, I remained an only child.

Then, again, perhaps it was not my fault. They might have been too busy arguing for the remainder of their sad union to bring another mistake into the world. Thank heavens for little miracles.

And here I am as a young tyke. In case you are confused, I am the one whose tongue is not hanging out. The other is our pet dog Fritz, a miniature German Shepherd. There was a debate in the neighborhood about which of us was the greater menace to society. While Fritz was loyal to the family, he did have a tendency to bite people at random. He was put on probation by the city several times for violating the aformentioned rule … don’t bite innocent citizens. The vote was close but, while I was deemed totally obnoxious, I never bit anyone. Well, I was never caught doing it.

One of my favorite pastimes was to convince neighborhood kids to raise an arm as if they were about to strike me. Fritz, ever the loyal Rottweiler (he should have been at least), would leap at my fake attacker with snarling ferocity. The poor kid would take off wailing for his life as I doubled over in laughter. As you might imagine, I didn’t have many friends.

I think I recently used the above Pic in another blog reminiscing about my misspent life. Oh well, this is what you kids have to look forward to when you reach my advanced age … repeating stories endlessly that no one wants to hear.

I am the nerd on the right, standing next to Maribeth. She was my only high school sweetheart. My best guess is that all the young women got together to decide who would get stuck with me. She lost. An unfortunate outcome for her, really, since she had a lot going for her. She was bright, witty, and clearly headed for success in life (eventually getting a Ph.D.). I am sure she told her own children about the ordeal she had to endure in high school with this total loser.

Above is my college graduation pic. Thank God I got rid of the crewcut. Admittedly, college was transformational for me. That experience turned me from an average ethnic, working class, Catholic kid living within a confining cultural cocoon into someone who questioned everything and who began thinking for himself. Well, at least I gave myself some credit for being self-reflective.

It wasn’t always easy. Ridding oneself of encrusted beliefs can be painful. Nevertheless, I am so grateful to my Alma Mater, Clark University. I entered college embracing all the conventional tropes about America. Soon, however, I could distinguish fact from delusional fancy, or so I convinced myself. I came to accept that there were things about America for which to be proud but much that yet needed to be corrected. Among other disturbing things, we were one of the few advanced nations to continue the practice of legal apartheid, that blithely permitted high levels of child poverty amidst plenty,  and that tended to wage unnecessary wars costing millions of casualties. I tilted my life trajectory to confront a bit of that tarnished national record.

Good friends once told me that Clark University is one of those few institutions that took average students and could turn them into thinkers who might thrive in R-1 universities (our premier research schools). That was me. Through high school, I was average at best. In my mind, at least, I demonstrated little to no promise. Clark changed all that. It still took many years, but I slowly realized that I was not nearly as dumb as I looked.

Ken Burns, our iconic producer of excellent PBS documentaries, talked glowingly about Hampshire College (which just closed) in Western Mass. He considered it as being ‘transformational’ for him.

My generation attended college when higher education was yet an exciting adventure, and not merely ‘transactional’ in character. I know I gave little thought to what kind of job I might get. I was there to be inspired, to struggle with ideas that might help me develop a coherent and compelling perspective on life. Decades later, while teaching at the University of Wisconsin, I realized how blessed I was. The kids seated before me seemed more stressed and even desperate. Today, I cannot imagine what undergrads see before them.

I cannot move on without a quick note on Lee, my intense college sweetheart. She was my first real love. It was just like those sappy Hallmark movies where I was smitten instantly when seeing her across a crowded room. Totally lacking any self worth, it took me forever to make a move. And let me state without fear of contradiction, my patented move sucked big time. Just ask all the gals that shot me down.

While contrary to the consensus at the time, I apparently was capable of being charming, witty, and insightful. Still, I could not imagine why any reasonable female might be attracted to me. I was hardly a catch with no fortune, few prospects, and what I thought were average looks. Besides, I had been damaged by my folks’ tempestuous and unhappy marriage. Who would want to repeat that fiasco.

So, upon graduation, I ran off to India for two years in the Peace Corps. It proved somewhat difficult to keep a romantic flame alive across 12,000 miles absent satellite communications. And Lee was no dummy, other than agreeing to date me in the first place. She was at least smart enough to snag a sane guy, a post-doc she met while working at Harvard.

Via Facebook, we did reconnect some four plus decades later in life. Through this cyberspace connection, we were able to re-examine and laugh about the ill-fated romance of our youth. It turned out that she had kept all my letters from India, a treasure of real time insight to my thinking during that period. What a blessing!

One paragraph from an email she sent stunned me. Commenting on how she viewed me back in college, she wrote: ‘You were kind, sensitive, super smart, passionate about causes, and the best kisser ever. I was awed by you.’

Hmm, at the time I thought she had dismissed me as a loser! I had a hell-of-a time shaking that negative self-perception. In truth, we did love one another but were too damaged to acknowledge it at the time.

Like my time at Clark University, two years in rural India also was transformational. I met with my group India-44 several times beginning in 2009, 40 years after our return from the sub- continent. We all had similar reflections on our experience. India tested us to the extreme. The heat, disease, cultural disconnects, loneliness, and being tasked to perform in areas beyond our meager capacities proved to be extremely harsh challenges.

At the same time, all of the gathered ex-volunteers agreed that they emerged from this personal test as stronger individuals. Each of us came away with a better sense of who we were and a deeper appreciation of the power of culture to shape our lives.

There must be something special about the PC experience. The life trajectories of members of India-44 turned out to be exceptional. Many earned advanced degrees from our best universities before going on to contribute much to the betterment of society. Hell, even I managed to stay out of jail.

Above is me, and my long- suffering spouse, taken about 1979. By this time, I had left my State of Wisconsin position to work at the University of Wisconsin while pursuing my doctorate. Mary Rider, the woman who inexplicably agreed to marry me, had rocketed up the state bureaucracy to become the Deputy Director of the Wisconsin State Court System. She rose to that high position even before returning to graduate with honors from the UW School of Law

Even after finally earning my terminal degree (which I’m positive they simply gave me to kick me out of the program) I remained at Wisconsin. I realized that life in the academy, as stressful and demanding as it was, proved preferable to actually working for a living.

I spent most of my time at the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP), a nationally recognized think tank which I helped run for many years. I also taught policy courses in the School of Social Work and consulted with many local jurisdictions while spending a great deal of time in Washington, our nation’s capital, as I labored on a host of domestic policy issues.

In truth, I was never an academic scholar but I was damn clever. I loved working out of the academy while never becoming a formal member of the academy, which I viewed as overly provincial and restrictive. Real scholarship demanded that you drill down into the minutiae of very specific questions. I, on the other hand, had the attention span of a fruit fly. I was all over the place as a self-described policy- wonk

When I partially retired earlier this century, I described my wonderful career as follows: ‘I flew around the country to work with the smartest people on some of society’s most difficult domestic challenges. And they actually paid me to do this. Wow, what a scam … though it was not a career for the faint of heart. Welfare reform, in particular, was seen as the Mideast of Domestic policy making!’

Above are Mary and I as we segued into what were supposed to be our golden years. Unfortunately, she was beginning a long descent into dementia (Alzheimers). They call this the long good-bye for a reason. You lose your loved one bit by bit.

Even here, there was a positive side. As our lives became smaller, I was able to pursue a long deffered dream … that of being a creative writer. My English prof at Clark once told me that the secret to being a good writer was to tell a good story. Though I was celebrated among my academic peers as an exceptional communicator, I always wondered if I could tell a good story.

I used this more or less sheltered period in later life to answer this life- long query … could I really tell a good story. Over about 10 to 12 years, I pumped out a bunch of books … memoirs, academic tomes, and fictional works. Based on the reviews and feedback I received, I got my answer. Yup, I could tell a good story.

But life moves on. Mary Rider, who was part of my life for some five decades, passed in 2022. About three months later, a former State attorney (Sherwood Zink) with whom I worked on state child support reforms, also passed away. My spouse and I had been friends with Sherwood and his spouse Mary for over three decades.

It seemed natural that Mary Zink and I would gravitate toward one another, mostly simply going to concerts and plays for quite a long time. Eventually that simple connection evolved into something deeper, including road trips and international travel. The pic above was taken in Chile after sailing around the southern tip of South America.

Looking back, I have been damn lucky. As a kid I felt average at best. Even as an adult who achieved some professional recognition, I always thought I was the imposter in the room. While I got to be a player in all the big poverty and welfare issues when such were front burner items, I could never quite understand why my voice seemed to matter so. I believed others were far more talented than I ever was. It had proved most difficult to shed that working class sense of inferiority. Yet, I kept being invited back into those rooms to be a policy player. Thank God for that.

In the end, my inbred self- loathing never seemed to matter. I had a great time in life. I must have since I wrote three memoirs (see below).

These works have proven to me something in which I fervently believe. Everyone, no matter how ordinary they seemingly appear, has a story to tell. Even a schlepp like myself can carry on for three volumes about my pathetic life, books which readers appeared to like. My first memoir (A Clueless Rebel) had a 4.9 out of 5.0 star rating.

Just think what you could do with a life that was actually exciting.

We all recognize the names of wannabe revolutionaries such as Napoleon, Marx, Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, and Pinochet. Such firebrands sought to transform society though coercion and violence. Still, their names and pernicious acts remain with us in the historical archives.

Others who have transformed the world, at least in part, remain a bit less well known. Scottish physician Alexander Fleming stumbled upon an insight when he returned from a vacation in 1928 to discover some neglected petri dishes in which a penecillium mold appeared to have inhibited the growth of the adjacent bacteria. His insight led to further work by Drs. Harold Florey and Ernest Chain resulting twelve years later in the world’s first antibiotic … Penicillin. It was a revolution in medical care.

The work of British economist  John Maynard Keynes during the great depression revolutionized economic thought exactly at the moment innovative thinking was required. Up to his breakthrough thinking, conventional theory emphasized hard money, balanced budgets, and austerity at all costs. Such remedies deepened the catastrophic economic collapse of the 1930s. His insights rationalized public spending as a pump- priming fiscal stimulant and helped us out of a global calamity and thoughout the post-WWII recovery.

Though Albert Einstein remains a household name, other pioneers of quantum physics such as Werner Heisenberg, Max Plank, and Paul Dirac (among others) are generally forgotten. Yet, such luminaries reconceptualized how we look at and understand the world about us and the universe in which we exist. Except for Trump supporters, most now know that the earth is not flat.

Yet, so many others who have transformed society enjoy far less recognition. For example, who remembers the name Bernice Sandler. I never heard of her until I recently ran across her story. Yet, she contributed to what might be termed a societal earthquake during our lifetimes. 

In 1969, Bernice was rejected for academic positions by some seven universities despite having excellent credentials. A trusted friend told her that she was coming across as ‘too strong for a woman.’ She apparently encountered other tropes from that era such as future childbearing responsibilities would interfere with her scholarship and that females might upset the male collegiality of the academy.

Undeterred, she began to research the dilemma faced by her and other women with academic aspirations. She found that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 covered race but excluded educational institutions. Another Act, Title VII, had a similar exclusion. She continued to scour the law. One day, she came across buried in an obscure footnote a 1965 executive order where the term ‘sex’ had been added to the list of protected classes when federal contracts were involved. Since virtually every college and university had federal contracts, she believed that all were in violation of the law prohibiting discrimination based on gender.

In January, 1970, working in collaboration with the Woman’s Equity Action League, she filed a  class action complaint to explicitly protect women’s equal rights in higher education. She also filed suits against some 250 individual institutions. As part of her revolutionary work, she accumulated evidence of intentional and systematic discrimination based on sex in hiring, tenure, promotions, and pay. The fuse of revolution had been lit.

She then began working with Rep. Edith Green and Patsy Mink along with Senator Birch Bayh to craft legislation to extend equal rights of women through new legislation. Finally, on June 23, 1972, President Nixon (yes, that Nixon) signed Title IX of the Education Amendments Act into law. It contained the following 37 words that turned higher education upside down.

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

It is now difficult to recall the world faced by women back in 1970. They often couldn’t get credit or take out loans in their own names. Many professional careers were essentially closed to them. My former colleague at the University of Wisconsin (UW) told the story of what she experienced when graduating top of her UW law school class. Her dean informed her that no significant law firm in Wisconsin would hire her merely because she was a woman. She later became a distinguished law professor at UW.

I recall a female dentist I had back in the 1970s. She told me about the gender related harassment and discrimination she experienced in dental school. I doubt that my current female dentist experienced anything similar.

As I have mentioned elsewhere. Females dominate higher education now and constitute the majority of graduates from medical, law, and other professional schools. When I first started using my primary medical clinic several decades ago, virtually all the doctors were male. Today, 18 of the 21 physicians in the clinic are female.

One final vignette. I married Mary Rider in 1972 amidst the height of the feminist revolution. At the time, she was heading a Wisconsin state study on the career patterns of women in state service. As part of this work, she interviewed many state and local officials. As she was motoring to the courthouse in a conservative part of the state, she was pulled over by a local cop. After a few inane questions, she finally asked why had she been pulled over? The officer mentioned that he noticed the support the equal rights amendment (for women) sticker on her car. Based on that, he knew she was from out of town. Apparently, only trouble makers supported equal rights for women in that area and he felt compelled to check her out.

When we got married, it never occurred to either one of us that she would change her name. (Women changing their names always confused me which, sadly, is easily done). But we ran into many adminitrative speed bumps for something that now seems so ordinary. Eventually, she would get her law degree (with honors), and was surrounded by other future female attorneys while in school. When she became deputy director of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, only one of the justices was a female. Today, only one is a male.

Ms. Sandler, as much as any of the more famous (or infamous) historical figures mentioned above, was a revolutionary. She impacted our society in immeasurable ways. Yet, I doubt few are aware of her (at least I was not familiar with her). So, here is a nod to those who changed our world and were soon forgotten.

She died on Jan. 5, 2019 at age 90. RIP Bernice. You deserve it.

It is well established that 1980 was a seminal turning point in American socio-economic and political affairs. Around that time, the default position of our underlying governing premises shifted. From the New Deal through the 1970s, a Keynsian understanding of the world prevailed in the U.S. According to that shared understood, free markets would remain but government would take an active role in minimizing or smoothing out common market failures.

The 1980s saw the triumph of supply-side economics or neo-classical economic thought, a set of conservative views restated by the Mont Pelerin Group as early as 1947. Among other things, it called for minimal state intervention in the market place while raising the notion of homo-economicus to mythical proportions. According to that perspective, the individual ought to be free to pursue his or her own optimal wellbeing free of formal restraint or legal constraint. Corporations, which had adopted a stakeholder perspective over the prior several decades were persuaded to revert to a shareholder point of view. The only thing that mattered were the stockholders wellbeing, no matter the cost to workers, consumers, communities, or the environment.

We now have had some 46 years of experience (almost two generations) with the neo- classical approach to our existing economics systems and our governance structures. The promised utopia should have arrived by now. What we have seen, rather, is a loss of the earlier progress made during the post WWII era when poverty and inequality fell dramatically and a strong middle class emerged.

Instead of the economic utopia promised by the prophets of neo-classical economic thought, we are tottering on the edge of a fascist, authoritarian dystopia. Our national fabric is ripped apart while the very survival of the basic democratic protocols is open to debate. Most ominously, we are witnessing the rise of an economic oligarchy so powerful that our so-called government of and by the people is substantially endangered.

Neo- classical (or neo-liberal) thought ultimately rests on a beguiling and simple premise … each individual seeking to maximize his own utility will, in the aggregate, result in the most efficient set of economic outcomes. The invisible hand attributed to economics pioneer Adam Smith, though he employed that metaphor only once in his iconic work (The Wealth of Nations) suggested that the sum of untold individual decisions somehow translates into the best of all possible worlds. If market failures exist, market forces (untouched by artificial policy remedies imposed from without) will remedy them.

What we see all about us is something different. We have a society wracked by growing inequality where private fortunes of the elite soar to unprecedented levels while the public good is squeezed of even minimal support. The result is that the U.S. has fallen to 31st on standard Quality of Life international measures. We are low on educational outcomes, health outcomes, maternal deaths, poverty and inequality measures, and even freedom of the press. At the same time, we rank high on mass shootings, gun violence, and incarceration rates. The list goes on but you get the picture.

What went wrong? We can start with the simple notion that something is amiss when too much of what a society produces goes to a few at the top of the pyramid with what little remains being available for the rest of us. This is what we see in banana republics, not what we expect to see in a mature democracy.

Why are we not more like our European peers who outperform us on most quality of life measures and have citizens who are measurably happier than we Americans are. Finland typically ranks as the happiest people on the planet with other Scandinavian countries not far behind. The common denominator is they all have democratic- socialist forms of governance.

Contentment, after all, is relational in most situations. As individuals, we compare our situation to others. In that sense, we Americans have lost our way over the course of my lifetime. Since the 1980s, some $50 trillion dollars has been siphoned from bottom 90 percent to top 1 percent. This is a massive redistribution of wealth not seen since the gilded age or the pre- depression roaring 20s.

The top 10% of the income pyramid controls up to two-thirds of all wealth while the top 1% enjoys close to a third of the pie. Similarly, the top 10 percent enjoys half of all income earned in a year while the top 1 percent controls 22.4% of that particular pie. The bottom half of all Americans struggle along with 2 to 4% of the remaining crumbs. Economic growth means little if the goodies increasingly go to those at the very top.

Worse still, the trend toward economic and political inequality is accelerating. Jeff Bezos saw his net worth rise by $75 billion in one recent year. That is over $205 million each day and about $2,375 each second. He saw increases that exceeded twice the median annual individual income in America every minute, while earning more than my quite comfortable annual income flow in less than one single minute. Such examples put the wealth of the super rich in perspective.

Corporate profits, as reflected in today’s strong equity positions show the same trends. Companies are awash in cash, yet contribute little to the public good. Some 88 of the most profitable companies paid exactly $0 dollars in taxes last year, including Citigroup which made $4.5 billion in profits. No less a sage than Warren Buffet claims that if other companies paid the same as his firm, Berkshire Hathaway, the individual income tax might be virtually eliminated.

But no, we are financing this boon to the ultra-wealthy by borrowing on our future. In recent years, the treasury takes in around $5 trillion in revenue while spending $7 trillion. Our debt, as conventionally measured, now exceeds our annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Few countries, Japan is one, has a higher debt to GDP ratio. But that is only part of the story. As of end of 2025 fiscal year, we had $47.8 trillion in liabilities, including future obligations set by law with only $6.06 trillion in assets. If we were a private household, we would declare bankruptcy. That drain on future generations is largely due to a rigged system that refuses to ask our economic elite to pay their fair share.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. By most measures, we are the richest nation on earth. Nor are we profligate spenders. Aside from military spending, our outlays are less than our peer nations on a per-capita basis. China, for example, has spent multiple trillions on upgrading its infrastructure. It recently has laid 45,000 miles of high speed rail tracks, capable of supporting trains that travel in excess of 300 mph if needed. During that same period, America has laid exactly 0 miles of similar track. What we do spend is often done poorly. Americans spend about twice as much for health care per-capita for mediocre outcomes. We should be outraged but quietly accept a very bad deal simply because we oppose socialized medicine.

No, we often delude ourselves that America is exceptional … a delusion based on long standing myths. Rather, we are in a classical cycle associated with hyper free-market systems where an oligarchic elite gets to call the shots and shape our dominant public perceptions. It is the single market failure that gets worse with time.

Think about Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Elon Musk (Twitter etc.), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Alex Karp (Palentir), Peter Thiel (Paypal & Palentir), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Sundai Pichal (Google), Steven Schwarzman (Blackstone) and others. These are the elite billionaires who are buying up our communications and social networks while spending untold fortunes to sway public debates in their favor. These are the techno-brothers who stood next to Donald Trump when he was sworn in in 2025. This in not the economic efficiency promised by the conservative prophets some half century ago, it is rampant greed on steroids.

How does this perverse economic function? It goes something like this. Economic inequality 》power inequality 》institutional control 》skewed information flows 》counter-intuitive voting patterns 》rigged economic decisions 》even more economic inequality.

Put in narrative form, it works like this . Rising economic inequality leads to power inequality. For example, in some recent elections, 40 percent of all political donations come from the top 1 percent … the economic elite. Believe me, they don’t do this out of a strong interest in good government.

The resulting power inequalities lead to control over key institutions … the courts, the media, educational systems, the military and police, the bureacracy. This in turn leads to skewed political information and a suppression of independent actions. That is, with dissent diminished and the bulk of information slanted, default political attitudes begin to reflect the perspectives of the economic elite. How predictable is that?

Then things really get interesting. Voting patterns, to the extent they still exist, begin to look counter- intuitive. That is, people seem to vote against their self interest in greater numbers. This leads to further rigging of the economy in favor of the elite and we have, in the end, a self-perpetuating cycle that further exacerbates fundamental inequality.

What is missing in all this? Well, that invisible hand that was supposed to magically create optimal economic and social outcomes. Perhaps it is invisible because it simply never existed.

I came of age as an East Coast guy, having been born and raised in Worcester Mass. I took pride in that fact. The Bay State has long been a leader in progressive thought and liberal politics. Even when they occasionally elect a Republican, that person would be considered a leftist elsewhere. Remember that Mitt Romney, while Governor, introduced a version of what later would be known as Obamacare well before Barak fought through Republican opposition for a similar law on a national level.

We Bay Staters did have a chip on our shoulders. I recall the train station in Worcester as a kid (when trains still were a mode of transportation). One of the signs read Albany New York and the West. We sophisticated New Englanders thought anything west of the Hudson River to be barbaric, primitive, and unworthy of interest. Boston was the city on the hill, the paragon of all virtue and enlightenment.

That is why I have long marveled at settling in the Midwest. To me, the vast center of the nation was an undifferentiated sea of conformity, complacency, and boredom. Perhaps Chicago had possibilities but Wisconsin was beyond reclamation. There were nothing there but cows, or so I thought. Who knew, perhaps Indian warriors yet terrorized the villagers.

But life plays funny tricks on one. After training for the Peace Corps in Milwaukee, I returned to the city that beer made famous for a master’s degree upon completion of my service in India. After graduating, I was forced to seek employment (a ghastly proposition). Through a serendipitous series of events, including being interviewed for a job for which I knew nothing, I stumbled into to my first real, adult professional position … as a research analyst for the Wisconsin Department of Health and Human Services. This happened to be located in Madison, Wisconsin.

Gleeful to secure any employment, I considered this a temporary situation while I decided what I wanted to do in life. Never in my wildest thoughts did I imagine settling down in the Midwest, in Wisconsin, or in Madison for the remainder of my life. I was, after all, an East Coast guy who sought the stimulation and excitement of fast-paced urban life.

In the early 1970s, Madison was a different place. Admittedly, the anti-war activities on the University of Wisconsin campus lent a radical patina to the community. Mostly, however, the political power of the county was yet held by the conservative agricultural interests lying just beyond the city’s borders. One example of this was found in the County’s (Dane) decision to provide surplus commodities to poor families rather than participate in the more liberal Food Stamp program. Each county had a choice back then. That decision alone spoke volumes about where political power lay back then.

I can still recall being exposed to advertisements for root worm remedies. I initially thought this was a human affliction until I realized it was something that attacked agricultural crops like corn. At the time, I was not amused. I thought I had moved to a large farming community … a virtual death sentence to a big city, east coast lad like myself.

But things soon began to change. In the early 70s, one of the student radicals of the late 60s ran for city mayor. It was a hard fought campaign but, surprisingly, Paul Soglin prevailed. A number of good citizens panicked, believing his election tantamount to a Communist takeover of City Hall. They sold their Madison Homes to escape the coming authoritarian apocalypse. Could gulags and torture chambers in City Hall be far behind?

Realty turned out to be quite different. Paul, during three long tenures as the city’s chief executive, led our fair metropolis from a sleepy state capital to a growing and thriving progressive community. No longer do root worm advertisements dominate local media. Rather, Madison has transformed into Mad City, a community of innovation and inclusiveness and extraordinary growth.

I was moved to write this paean to my home town after attending a May Day rally at the Capitol yesterday. Schools were closed so that students and teachers might participate in this rally in support of inclusiveness and opportunity for all. The rally embraced the notion that diversity within the American fabric is a strength, not a weakness. It championed the concept that cultural heterogeneity can be a positive national attribute, not a sign of decay. It simply stated that immigrants can contribute to our overall wellbeing, and should not be subject to persecution and prosecution. It was heartwarming to see so many students and their teachers marching in support of a simple notion … that all people have worth.

I suspect that events like yesterday’s rally are why I slowly fell in love with Madison. It is an island of wokeness amidst so much entrenched backwardness. The dominant cultural themes in this area now are civility, community, and compassion. People generally are willing to support efforts at enhancing the overall public good. What a quaint notion lost to so many other communities.

Wisconsin has been considered a ‘purple state’ for some time now, sometimes going Democratic and sometimes Republican. For a while, until recently, the scales have tipped toward the conservative end. But Madison’s (and Dane County’s) impact on state elections has emerged as highly significant, perhaps tipping the scales systemically in a progressive direction.

In one recent race for a state Supreme Court position, a contest that would decide the ideological balance of the State’s highest court, Madison’s salient role became clear. This emerged as a celebrated national contest. Elon Musk spent over $20 million to swing the race in a conservative direction. Overall, close to $100 million was spent on this most expensive court race in national history. In the end, the liberal won with Madison (Dane) turning out in record breaking numbers, even exceeding the vote totals in Milwaukee.

This year, another Supreme Court race was decided. This one would not effect the ideological balance. Thus, much less attention was paid and decidedly less money was directed toward influencing the outcome. Yet, once again, the Madison Community came out in record numbers … supporting the liberal candidate by a 4 to 1 margin. The contest was a blowout with the progressive candidate garnering 60 percent of the total votes statewide.

In many ways, Madison (Dane County) flies in the face of Conservative orthodoxy. Voting liberal and paying more for the public good should be the death of any community. Economic growth, according to neoliberal truth, should be stifled under the oppressive weight of big government. But the opposite has occurred here. The more liberal Madison has become, the faster it has grown. As much of the State has stagnated, Dane County has experienced accelerated growth in recent decades. Everywhere, new businesses have started and new homes and rental units are being erected. The rhythms of growth are palpable.

Now, after living here some five and a half decades, I am proud to call Madison home. It might be an island, the proverbial 50 square miles of fantasy surrounded by reality as Republicans oft say. But Mad Town, with all its eccenticities, is a fantasy world that I now fully cherish.

My recent sojourn back to my Peace Corps days got me thinking about another youthful diversion … my dalliance with holy orders. I imagine it is hard for those who have known me only as a debauched adult reprobate to accept that I once had studied for the Catholic Priesthood. In truth, it is difficult for me to accept such a fact. But, alas, it is true. In September of 1962, I took a bus from Worcester Mass to Glen Ellyn Illinois to initiate my studies toward becoming a Maryknoll Missionary Priest.

A word on the Maryknollers! They were perhaps the best known foreign missionary Catholic order at the time. They worked around the world to bring lost souls into the one, true, holy, and universal church. Well, that was what we Catholics (then) thought of our particular brand of Christianity. After all, many of the true believers thought non-Catholics would wind up in Hell. Couldn’t have that happen now, could we?

As I think back on it, I’m not certain that I ever bought into that mission. What attracted me was less a theological conviction as opposed to working in foreign lands bringing hope and opportunity to vulnerable and dispossessed people. Hey, I was only 18 at the time, hardly a sophisticate of the world. As I oft say, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Yet, in my defense, the Maryknollers stood out among the many Catholic religious communities. In addition to focusing on traditional pastoral concerns, they often worked to uplift conditions among the foreign communities they served. In Central and South America, this sometimes brought them into conflict with local oppressive elites by preaching what came to be known as liberation theology. This theological approach positioned Christ and his teachings within a more radical, leftist perspective. Some Maryknollers even lost their lives because they fought to bring social justice to their flock. That impressed me no end.

My early life had been confined to a working class, ethnic, Catholic bubble. While I knew a few Jewish kids, virtually all my friends were of Irish, Lithuanian, or Polish stock … and all Catholic of course. There were four Catholic Churches on Vernon Hill in Worcester Mass, divided among the prevailing area ethnic groups … Irish, Polish,  Lithuanian, and French. I would pop into the nearest one, which happened to be Our Lady of Vilna … the Lithuanian one. For some masses, the service was still in Latin and the sermons in Lithuanian. These were hardly spiritual experiences for me.

Nor was there much in my early years to suggest a spiritual direction of any sort. I did not attend any religious school until high school, and only then chose Saint Johns Prep due to its academically rigorous reputation. I did all the things the other guys did, including chasing young women with the usual lack of success all of us horny guys experienced.

Chasing Catholic girls, I might add, prepared one well for life’s later disappointments. In the Pic below, I am on the right next to Maribeth O’Connor, my high school sweetheart. The fellow on the left was a student at my school from Chile. I liked Maribeth, a lot. She was quick and witty. The last I heard, she had earned a doctorate in literature. Clearly, a road not taken for me or, perhaps, a near escape from one I might easily have taken and then regretted. Then again, she really was out of my league.

The more I reflect on those days, the more I can now see red flags that I should have heeded. During my career at St. Johns, I would sit through four years of religion (theology) while arguing with the dogma being spoon-fed to us. When I say argue, I mean only within my own mind. To overtly argue with the good Xaverian Brothers who instructed us would likely result in a whack to the side of one’s head. Discipline was more straightforward back in my day.

At various points, for example, we would be told that non-believers  or the non- baptized or non- Catholics were consigned to eternal damnation. What, I would say to myself! A Chinese kid who had no exposure to the true church would suffer the ultimate penalty, and for all eternity. That struck me as utterly arbitrary and unfair. Surely, a loving God would not sanction such crap. The loophole in this unfair lottery was something called Purgatory but that seemingly fabricated  post- mortem destination did little to assuage my growing doubts.

Birth control? That also seemed illogical to me. Only natural methods were permitted. But God gave us all kinds of unatural medicines that we were permitted to use to offset afflictions that the same God struck us down with. Already sensing population growth as a future problem, I stuffed that particular dogma into my growing secret reject pile.

And don’t get me started on sex. That was only permitted for the purposes of procreation. What fiendish divinity would give us large amounts of testosterone and then say ignore all that. Perhaps God enjoyed teasing us poor, pathetic males. But why would He?

I only recall one vignette from my Freshman religion instructor. It went like this. Tommy and Susie were parked at night on a lonely road. Passion overcame them and they committed a mortal sin. Horrified, they tried to recall the words to the perfect act of contrition, which presumably would protect their souls until they could get to confession. But before they could recite it, or even remember the damn thing, a large truck hit their car from behind and sent these two decent kids directly to Hell. Come on, really? It was years before I could go parking with a girl without having a panic attack.

Despite all that, as I approached my senior year in high school, I thought more seriously about this missionary avocation. I would compartmentalize my doubts and focus on the positives. I would be doing the Lord’s work even though many of my boyhood friends thought this slightly nuts. To them, I would be giving up women, theoretically at least. As I saw it, chasing Catholic girls already was tantamount to taking a vow of chastity. So, I wouldn’t really be making much of a sacrifice.

In the Pic above, I am with Father Beck, a Maryknoll recruiter. He was good at his job but I didn’t need much selling. I strongly wanted to choose a meaningful future for myself. So, I stuffed all doubts aside and decided to give this Priest thing a shot.

It is now hard to pinpoint any transformational moment. I was never struck by lightening on the road to Damascus like Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul). Perhaps the movie Keys of the Kingdom played a role. In it, Gregory Peck plays Scottish missionary named Francis Chisolm who spends most of his life working in pre- Communist China. This fictional Priest was loose on Catholic dogma but strong in compassion and love for the community he served. Now, that’s what I wanted to be.

Remember, what I entered in 1962 was a minor seminary, the equivalent to getting your college degree. The Maryknoll Seminary fortunately had a decent academic reputation. Four additional years in a major seminary, located on the banks of the Hudson River in Ossining New York, were required to become an actual Priest. It would be a long haul.

In the Pic above, I am with my two first- year roommates … both named Peter. What I recall most were the endless, highly regimented, days. It was up at some ungodly hour, perhaps 5:45 AM? Then there were mandatory prayers and Mass, followed by breakfast and then classes. At some point you went to mandatory assignments designed to keep the building functioning. I recall one of my duties was waxing the corridor floors. There were also mandatory study halls, recreation periods, and more chapel time.

Throughout the day, there were long periods of enforced silence (which we oft ignored when we could). Even at meals we had to eat in silence while selections from holy sources were read to us. The headmaster would ring a bell when we were permitted to converse. The overall experience struck me as something like being in one of our military academies. You had few free moments.

Still, there were moments of emotional depth. I recall Easter Sunday morning for example. We filed into the circular chapel around midnight, each of us being given a unlit candle. The lights were dimmed but a growing illumination slowly came from each candle being lit one after the other in a circular motion. Then, in the quiet hush of the flickering light, we all began to sing He is risen. That memory still gives me goosebumps. There is something about a close community dedicated to something inspiring that can be comforting.

But My Priesthood dream was doomed from the start. I realized I had to abandon this spiritual journey part way through my second year. I had arrived at a place that could not longer be denied …  a reason for leaving that was both direct yet compelling.

I could not escape the reality that a belief in a personal God, and in Catholic dogma, were basic requirements for the job. I possessed neither of these. I had been driven by an elemental desire to do good for people. That was not enough. Besides, perhaps there were better ways to pursue such a vision.

In the Spring Semester of 1964, I enrolled at Clark University, which was located in my hometown of Worcester (there was no money to go away to school). Clark was just about as far from the Seminary as one could get. While virtually all of my high school classmates went on to college, I don’t recall any of them matriculating at Clark, despite its proximity and excellent reputation. Within the Catholic community, the school had a reputation for being a haven of Communists and atheists. Those suddenly struck me as decidedly attractive qualities.

I rationalized my choice as being one of convenience. Holy Cross, a local Jesuit institution and my other natural choice, didn’t take spring admissions. That made my decision easier to explain to others. In truth, though, I desperately wanted to escape the cultural cocoon in which I had been raised. I was beyond ready to shed my conservative Catholic roots.

This is my college yearbook pic. While I look quite conservative for the 1960s, looks can be deceiving. As I recall, I lost my faith within weeks of enrolling. It didn’t take long before I had become radicalized against the war in Vietnam, joining the first anti-war march in Worcester very early in that movement. Soon, I was forming the leftist group on campus … called SACC, the Student Action Coordinating Committee. I even joined SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), before they fell off the edge into self-destructive nihilism.

In retrospect, that sounds like a dramatic transformation. I went from a straight- arrow seminarian to a collegiate leftist. In reality, it was a very short journey. Both at the seminary and at Clark, I was looking to do something meaningful. To support myself in college, I worked in a hospital (11-7 shift) and also with disadvantaged kids. I could have found easier work but, for me, everything was about making a contribution.

The trappings of my life had changed, but not who I was inside. That remained constant. Not surprisingly, the first thing I did after college involved spending two years in India as a Peace Corps Volunteer. That’s sort of like missionary work.

But here is what was remarkable about my experiences and about that era. When I entered my religious studies in 1962, the seminary had just been expanded to accommodate additional students. Yet, the incoming class still exceeded capacity. At the very beginning, a few incoming freshmen were sleeping in the halls. A decade or so later, I took my new wife down to look at the place. Shockingly, I discovered that the seminary had closed. It was now a Community College. The inflow of new recruits had suddenly slowed after 1962 and then virtually stopped within a few years.

In retrospect, 1962 had been a seminal year. Up to that point, vocational dreams were common among Catholic youth. After that  moment, the idealistic young went in different directions. Alas, the reasons for this radical shift must await some future musing.

I ran across a story recently that caught my attention. Apparently,  a professor mentioned to his college class that his early Peace Corps service had motivated his subsequent academic career in Ag Economics. One of his students, clearly puzzled, finally asked: Professor, what is a P – Score?

I have been in that poor prof’s shoes. How many times had I used a familiar term, to me at least, and then realized just how young my students were. What did the post-war period mean to them, which war? Many of them might remember the Vietnam conflict but WWII was tantamount to ancient history to be catalogued next to our Civil War or the Hittite invasions of antiquity.

And take The Great Depression. While I never experienced that social trauma first hand, my parent’s generation did. In many ways, the scars left on their psyches from that global challenge informed the way they lived and how I was raised. To my youthful students,  though, that economic disaster was a vague prehistoric shadow, something largely irrelevant to my youthful students … like rotary phones.

So, I guess it is not surprising that the Peace Corps, a cultural phenomenon in the 1960s, is now an item for a trivia quiz. Still, having personally run off to India as a volunteer during my misguided youth, I find that a bit sad.

President John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps by executive order (10924) in March, 1961, a program that would subsequently be authorized by Congress the following September. In some ways, it was an accidental product of fortune and timing. Candidate Kennedy arrived at the Ann Arbor airport one October evening in 1960 after a televized debate with his opponent, Richard M. Nixon.

In that famous verbal joust, tricky Dick had suggested that Republicans were the party of peace while the Dems typically led us into war. That did not sit well with Junior Senator from Massachusetts who had stewed upon this allegations during the subsequent plane ride.

Shockingly, a crowd of 10,000 were still awaiting his arrival around midnight, many being students from the University of Michigan. A few unprepared words were required of the exhausted candidate. Besides, who would recall anything from a few random, late-night remarks.

Paraphrasing a portion of his remarks, Kennedy, while drawing on a vague concept he had toyed with in the past, spontaneously threw out a challenge to this largely youthful gathering: how many of you would be willing to volunteer one or two years of your lives as educators, ag experts, or engineers in underdeveloped foreign lands before suggesting that the fate of the free world might well rest on just such sacrifices. The term Peace Corps was never mentioned but a seed had been planted.

About fifty years later, I was in Washington for a gathering of India-44, my own P.C. group. Peace Corps, as a federal program, was celebrating its 50th anniversary at the same time that included a number of public events. At a panel on the program’s origins, a woman stated that she had been in the Michigan crowd that night when Kennedy laid out his challenge. His chance remarks, she shared, surged through the young crowd like a bolt of lightening.

In the days before social media, word about this new volunteer program (that didn’t exist) spread from campus to campus like wildfire. Soon, the now President-elect’s office was inundated with requests for information about an initiative that had only been a throwaway line in a late night campaign speech. But now there was no turning back.

Many among the college youth of that day thirsted for a way to express their higher ideals. Though still in high school, I certainly felt that tug. Many of those who later would join me in India vividly recalled Kennedy’s clarion invocation during his inauguration speech: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

For many, that sentiment sparked something in our generation … a desire to make a difference. That desperate need to seek our better angels burned bright at that very moment in time when nuclear apocalypse seemed so present and so possible. Civilization did appear to hang in the balance.

Richard Goodwin, a speechwriter for Kennedy and other icons of that era, said the following to a early group of volunteers: “Peace Corps touches on the profoundest motives of young people … that idealism, high expectations, and ideological convictions are not inconsistent with the most practical, rigorous, and efficient of programs. … every one of you will definitely be judged – and will ultimately judge himself – on the effort he has contributed to the building of a new society.”

Peace Corps did seem to capture the spirit of the times, evoking the more salubrious instincts of my generation as it then was coming of age. In 1966, when I started my own training, some 15,500 volunteers were serving in 46 countries. The program in those years was flooded with tens of thousands of  applicants, way more than could possibly be used. If you survived the selection process and rigorous training, you felt you belonged among the privileged few.

In those days, that sense of privilege segued into a test of our individual characters. Being assigned to rural India was not for the faint of heart. Heat, isolation, disease, cultural conflicts or misunderstandings, loneliness, and poor program planning became everyday challenges for us. This was still what was called the wild west days of the program, when they were still turning a vague concept into a functioning system (see Our Grand Adventure for the entire story).

The Peace Corps program has remained active all these decades later. In recent years, some 8,500 volunteers yet serve in 77 countries. In some critical ways, the program is much better now. The volunteer sites are more thoughtfully planned and the skill sets of the volunteers are matched more closely to their expected roles. And, of course, with global communications today’s volunteers do not experience the raw isolation and loneliness we endured.

Yet, in other ways, something has been lost. We in India-44 were thrown off the deep end, placed in remote sites largely without any creature comforts (often without running water, electricity, indoor plumbing to name a few). Worse, we were expected to perform tasks we were not exactly prepared to do. All this while confronting searing heat, monsoons, snakes and other reptiles, dysentery (and worse), language issues  (incomprehensible local dialects), and so much more. And there was, as I oft note, that debilitating sense of isolation.

While surely trying, these challenges didn’t matter in the end. We still were Kennedy’s children, inspired to go forth and do our best. We stubbornly believed that a better world was possible. We even grasped at the naive aspiration that we might conceivably contribute to that new world.

In truth, we fell far short of changing the world. At the 2011 50th Peace Corps anniversary, the Indian Embassy had a reception for the former volunteers who were in town. In his remarks, one of the Indian officials talked about what he thought Peace Corps had meant. It was, he asserted, not really about the technical contributions we made. They were inconsequential in such a huge country. No, it was more about the lasting connections between two very different cultures. It was, at the end of the day, mostly about greater human understanding.

He was right. Each of us in India-44 had been stretched as young adults. And each of us came away with a better understanding of who we were as individuals and with an appreciation of the wonderfully complex world in which we lived. I oft have looked upon my fellow volunteers in wonder and admiration. What a marvelous and talented group, each of whom would contribute much throughout their lives.

Of course, they might have done so anyways, without any volunteer service. But I suspect that Peace Corps had something critical to do with what each managed to accomplish in the ensuing decades.

Of course, the 1960s turned out to be a very mixed bag … hope and the promise of change was mixed with anger, assassinations, riots, and excessive drug use. Change is never easy. But I personally will never forget those moments back then when we dreamt of a better world where all of us would be valued, and where each of us had at least the opportunity to seek our full potential.

Were the kids today to be so fortunate!

From which sources did I draw the moral sentiments that have generally governed my life? Was it my early Catholic faith, family and neighborhood, or something borrowed from the tenor of the times. Hard to say for sure but something on this matter has been nagging at me. Bear with me for a bit.

Aldo Leopold, the poetic conservationist who wrote The Sand County Almanac, died in 1948, just as television would separate people from nature. In that masterpiece, he wrote about the dance of the Woodcock. “The drama of the sky dance is enacted nightly on hundreds of farms, the owners of which sigh for entertainment, but harbor the illusion that it is to be sought in theaters. They live on the land, but not by the land.” Aldo was lamenting what he saw as the very beginnings of a societal pattern where people would be separated from nature by technology, where their attachment to what was really important would be fractured.

Harry Truman turned down many offers to get rich when he left office in 1953. He drove back to Missouri to live again in his modest family home, living on an army pension of $1,350 (in today’s money) and modest royalties from his memoirs. His sentiments back then sounds quaint to modern ears, “I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize the prestige and dignity of the office of the Presidency.” Can you imagine Trump issuing such a sentiment?

George Romney (father of Mitt Romney) was CEO of American Motors, Governor of Michigan, Cabinet member in the Nixon administration, among other achievements. As a top industrial manager, he actually argued for restraint in what we paid top people in industry. He thought that a balance between the compensation levels of management and labor was important to our overall wellbeing. He quaintly saw greed as a destabilizing force to our social fabric.

Students in my day, back when I came of age in the 1960s, admittedly were all over the place. There were those who missed the 60s altogether, those who dived into the abyss of the counter-culture experiment, and those who naively tried to correct America’s obvious failings (like me). Yet, many of us were focused on making the world a better place. We certainly talked about that a lot. And change did come about, for a short while at least.

But something fundamentally changed by 1980. I can recall Reagan’s inauguration as President. It was not just a change in power but in our national ethos. Money and status were rudely inserted into the national psyche. Gone were Nixon’s claims about modest Republican cloth coats (in his famous Checkers speech) or Jimmie Carter’s humility and simplicity. Enter hubris and the gratuitous display of wealth and status. His inauguration was a grotesque display of limousines, mink coats, and ultra chic (and expensive) evening wear. A new ethic was in town.

The dominant political patois of neo-liberalism soon segued into corporate board rooms. In my youth, a form of what Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Reich would call stakeholder capitalism attenuated the rougher edges of corporate life. For a while, profit-oriented organizations explicitly recognized that they had managerial concerns beyond their fiduciary responsibilities to company shareholders … concerns extending to their workers, their communities, and to the future. Quarterly statements and shareholder prices were important, but not every thing.

The 1980s ushered in a new (and old) ethos, the seeds of which had been planted in 1947 at a gathering of intellectuals at Mont-Pelerin in Switzerland. Conservatives like economist  Milton Friedman and philosopher Friedrick Hayek laid out the argument for economic liberalism … a world where individual liberty was sacrosanct and virtually all public (i.e  government) action was tantamount to tyranny. They offered an old argument founded on the notion of homo- economicus where the sum of all individual self-optimizing decisions would magically result in maximum economic efficiency. Great stuff if you believe in the tooth fairy. In reality, it proved merely to be a transparent rationalization for unbridled greed.

It took many years for this neo-liberal perspective to overcome the Keynsian alternative that had rescued the nation from a global depression and introduced a decades long era of prosperity and promise. The world, however, eventually forgot what a focus on the public good as opposed to private gain had achieved.

When future Supreme Court justice Lewis Powell laid out a strategy in a 1971 memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce through which neo-liberalism might gain control of key societal institutions, the game was on. Conservative money poured into the movement conservative agenda. Traditional institutions came under attack while new ones (like right-wing think tanks) were created. Within a decade, the White House was theirs.

The concept of stakeholder capitalism now seemed quaint. It has been replaced by the concept if shareholder capitalism. Nothing matters other than optimizing the well-being of shareholders. That became the moral foundation of corporate life in the 1980s … a world in which workers, communities, the environment, and our futures be damned.

So, when pharmaceutical companies make pricing decisions that effectively kill thousands, it is just business. When extractive energy companies actively fight against safer alternative energy sources, they are doing the moral thing. When weapons manufacturers lobby against sensible gun control policies, they are just looking after their shareholder’s needs. It is Orwell’s dystopia made real. This greed is good mania now has us with a public debt approaching $40 trillion, mostly to give further tax breaks to the Uber-wealthy who are blessed with the wherewithal to buy favorable tax preferences.

There is a second social change from which I was spared during my critical formative years. Smart phones and virtual reality had not yet arrived, those technologies which have separated people from one another. Just explore Jonothan Haights The Anxious Generation if you want the background on this phenomenon. I read today about a 19 year old who melted down on a plane because he was without his phone for a day. Nothing helped until he was provided a substitute phone and he could get back to his Snapchat, tic-toc fix or whatever. He was addicted.

AI may well be the next technology to interpose an artificial chasm between humans and their traditional purposes. Most of the angst these days focuses on AI replacing traditional jobs and tasks traditionally carried out by humans. Everything from computer programming, middle management tasks, repetitive manual labor, legal services and medical diagnoses suddenly face highly uncertain futures. 

But these are just the initial challenges posed by our god-like machines. It took a hundred years to recognize the full potential of the industrial revolution and just several decades to see the digital revolution play out. Who knows where AI will be in just 10 to 15 years. Will humans be confronted with their own obsolescence by 2040? I wouldn’t bet against it.

Back to my original issue … from where did my core moral sentiments originate. I suppose all the traditional factors played a role. Of that I am reasonably certain. But I also was lucky enough to be aware of excellent role models in the public sector,  men and women of uncommon virtue. There existed salient public sentiments that explicitly seemed to value life. As my late colleague, economist Robert Lampman pointed out, a common litmus test for new public policies in the 1960s was what will it do for the poor.

In addition, I was raised largely without our modern digital communication miracles. Okay, we eventually had a 12 inch Fada television in our home (later than most). But that did not prevent me from spending endless hours playing with friends in ways that sharpened my social skills, my independence, and my initiative. I even had time to learn basic multiplication tables and to diagram sentences. As Aldo Leopold feared in the mid 1940s, we had not yet lost our connection to other people and to the natural world.

Despite my rough, working class environment, I even knew where the public library was. When I wasn’t marauding our streets with my friends (without any supervision), I was greedily reading anything I could acquire. Now, being a member of three book clubs at age 81, it is clear that some early habits stay with you.

Im short, I feel blessed. Oddly enough, I’m not sure just how blessed I was at the time. But I do now!