Tom's Musings

I lied about the previous blog being the ‘final’ reflection. I didn’t lie intentionally. It is just that memories, or more accurately one more return to these old pictures, keep me rooted in the past. At my age, this is not a bad place to be. After all, memories represent the bulk of my consciousness.

The above pic was from our wedding day. Mary Rider and I had been living together for a year or so before we decided to wander over to the courthouse just before Christmas in 1972. Upon finding a judge who would let us marry in our own fashion, we set a date and did the dirty deed. Our witnesses were two fellow workers we strong armed into performing their required roles.

No one else even knew about this quiet ceremony. We wanted to keep it all low keyed. But marriage is not a ceremony. It is an understanding, more akin to a set of spoken (sometimes unspoken) agreements. Our particular set of understandings would endure (and thrive) for half a century. It proved a remarkably good arrangement.

I soon got to know Mary’s family … her parents and her two older brothers (see above pic). The shock (for me) in adopting a new family was located in their normality. Mary told me that she had never heard her parents argue. I was incredulous. I had never heard my parents be civil to one another unless in public. But it was true. Her folks got along splendidly and seemed to appreciate one another. I had to recalibrate my assessment of relationships, which had been very negative based upon my own childhood.

That childhood had ingrained within me a negative set of expectations about love and marriage, and commitment. Not surprisingly, I had been anti-commitment in the extreme as a young adult, viewing it as something akin to a life sentence. Somehow, Mary had penetrated the barriers I had erected. I’ve thought hard about her technique. Apparently, she didn’t seem to be trying to nail me. In the end, that proved quite effective. That’s the best I can do.

Mary had a meteoric rise through Wisconsin Government to the position of Deputy Director of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Along the way, she earned her law degree with honors. As you know, I made my way into academia, mostly with smoke and mirrors. She, on the other hand, had real talent as a manager. I know she managed me real well.

We both reveled in each other’s careers, getting to know some amazing and accomplished people along the way. The pic above is one example, taken during a themed party at our house. The men in the back row were my colleagues. The late Bill Prosser (on the left with a cigar) was a senior federal official I got to know well during my work in DC. When the pic was taken, the baseball player in the middle was a junior economist at UW. He eventually became the campus Provost and is now the President of the University of Oregon. The one on the right was a sociologist at UW at the time. He went on to become a Dean at UW before taking the position of Provost at Oklahoma State University, though he is now retired. (He is a Native American who was born in that state, and wanted to return to his roots.)

I also got to know many from Mary’s professional world … lawyers and judges and other legal types. We were blessed to have fascinating positions and to interact with such accomplished and bright people. Blessed indeed. Our lives never lacked for intellectual and social stimulation. And we were involved in many state and national issues. It was never a dull life.

One court story. Mary came home one night rather upset. She noted that the Legislature wanted to kick the Supreme Court out of the Capitol, casting covetous eyes on the space. ‘So what,’ I responded in my usual sympathetic manner. ‘You don’t understand,’ she responded (I seldom did). ‘The justices won’t move unless I find them a place looking over the lake. And worse, I will have to get them something with seven corner offices on the same floor with that lake view, all with equal space. They will be there with their measuring devices making sure that no other justice did better than they. I don’t think that even possible.’ I managed academic prima-donna’s at my research institute, but they were sweethearts compared to the Court Justices. In the end, this silly idea fizzled.

Most of our life together, however, probably was no different than any other marriage. It helped that we had our own interesting careers. We were not dependent on the other for meaning or a sense of accomplishment in our individual lives. I think that can be critical to a long relationship. You need to be comfortable in your own life if you are not to be a burden on the other, or expect too much from them.

Still, we did do a lot together. For example, we traveled a lot, taking in many sites around the world, and we traveled well together for the most part (which is a good test of compatibility if you are considering marriage). In fact, our basic patterns and interests were in sync. We agreed on not having children, on politics, on basic values, and on spending habits. Nothing is more important over the long haul.

Yet, some of the best times were not that far from home. Mary’s dad had built a cabin up on Burntside Lake in Northern Minnesota. We would spend time up their each summer. The pic above was taken up there with Ernie, our pet Cavalier. I knew my place in the household pecking order. If I fell over the boat on one side and Ernie the other, I knew who would be toast if Mary were forced to only save one of us. I’d be toast without question.

As I said, we had a good marriage and partnership. For over four decades, all was well. Then, about a dozen years ago, I noticed changes as did others. In fact, I was in denial of the obvious for some time. Eventually, even I had to accept the reality that Mary had early onset Alzheimers.

For those with loved ones so afflicted, it is known as the ‘long goodbye.’ The person who was such an important part of your life slowly slips away from you. At first, the changes are imperceptible. In the end, the disease ravages the brain rather completely. You only have memories left.

Mary needed professional care for the last four years of her life. Still, there were good moments. The final picture is of Mary at Brookdale Memory Care facility with her niece. I have always loved this shared laugh they had. Such moments became increasingly rare, however.

During the Covid lockdown, we could only see our loved ones virtually (via computer). I recall the staff person holding the screen in front of Mary while saying that her prince charming wanted to say hello. On that first such visit, she kissed the screen … a heart-warming moment. In subsequent such visits, she would look, wrinkle her nose, and walk the other way. The staff person would run after her repeating. “Mary, it is your prince charming.” At that, Mary would break into a run. Funny … yet sad at the same time.

In the end, it proved a blessing that she passed. Still, she gave me a lifetime of good memories. And who else would possibly love a sad sack like me? I was a lucky man. 😌

If you will permit me, I’d like to share a few comments on my life at the University of Wisconsin or, to be more precise, the Institute for Research on Poverty. I spent some four decades there, in one fashion or another. I did research, taught undergraduate and graduate classes, helped run a nationally renowned policy research institute, consulted with officials from all levels of government, cemented ties between academia and various institutions in the real world (think tanks, evaluation firms, the philanthropic community), raised a great deal of money, gave untold talks to academic and policy audiences, served on numerous committees, wrote uncounted reports and articles and book chapters, and so forth. And yet, I was never a formal part of the university community. I remained, more or less, an independent entrepreneur who exploited the academy as a platform from which to operate.

How did I get to this unique position? Professionally, I started out as an analyst with the State of Wisconsin. That proved a blessing in disguise since I formed a love of policy work before being exposed to the stifling aspects of the academic culture. After about 4 years of working for the State of Wisconsin, I migrated the mile or so down State Street to the University of Wisconsin. I enjoyed my life as an analyst for Wisconsin’s social welfare programs. As was my want, however, I was never satisfied with doing my formal job since that was never stimulating enough. So, I was always searching for new mischief in which to get involved.

Early on, for example, I realized that the paper basis for managing income maintenance and human service programs was outdated (this was in the early 1970s). We had to move forward to the emerging digital age, which was rather advanced thinking back in those primitive days. Perhaps I thought boldly because I knew nothing about computers … zilch, less than nada. Ignorance easily can generate foolish and excessive zeal. Still, I joined several other young turks to push for the computerization of these programs, even in the face of initial opposition from the powers that be. You can imagine our naivete. Still, we were a stubborn lot. Eventually, Wisconsin became the first to develop and implement a computerized system for managing the major welfare programs and, once again, a model for the nation.

Since I cannot tell this remarkable story here, I do recommend reading my memoir titled A Wayward Academic: Reflections from the policy trenches. (See pic below, the one on the left).

But let me move on to the university. Much in my life happened by serendipity. That is, little was planned or intentional. Becoming a quasi-academic was no exception. As I noted, I was involved in many projects as a state analyst. One day, my state bosses (who had little faith that academics had anything of substance to contribute) told me to work with an egghead from the University (Irving Piliavin) who had an idea for a research project. Eventually, it was funded by the federal government. Out of the blue, he called and asked me to move to the Institute for Research on Poverty where this large, complicated project would be housed. He needed someone who knew how government worked. He assumed I did, and even better, I came cheap. I thought about his offer for 5 seconds (I was giving up a civil service position after all) and said yes.

As the two-year project wound to a halt, I concluded that this academic lifestyle was better than working for a living (despite seeing first hand the tensions and driven work habits of scholars at a top research university). But I first needed a doctorate, which I managed to obtain only after many years and, in the end, more as a gift than anything earned. Doctoral studies were not a difficult process for me. I recall working harder in high school. But I was always distracted. I never stopped working on an array of policy projects that interested me. The real world kept dangling interesting and amazing issues before me to distract me from the tasks at hand. I must have had an attention deficit disorder. Even while taking classes, I was lured into playing a major role in a legislatively mandated welfare reform study. Getting a degree could not compete with what I termed the enticements available in my policy candy store.

I never thought of myself as an actual student. I was older and already had tackled a set of tough challenges. Besides, my nominal dissertation advisors were my colleagues, not mentors. I had bailed out several of their research projects with my knowledge of how policy operated in the real world. I also had wowed them with my Prelim answers. One of my committee members publicly stated I was the smartest student to come through the program. I knew that was not true, but it was nice to hear. I believe they were confused by the experience I brought to the table and my verbal skills. Having barely passed high school algebra, my quantitative skills were decidedly lacking. When they realized I would remain an ABD (all but dissertation) for life, they dummied up a plan to get me a degree by hook or crook

Upon being handed an undeserved degree, there was no way I was leaving. I already had a robust agenda of projects to keep me busy. So, I remained at the University as a researcher and then scientist … academic positions but not with faculty status. I soon began teaching policy courses in the School of Social Work where I proved an inspiring teacher. I was always an entertainer at heart.

This was perfect for me. I had maximum flexibility and freedom to do what I wanted, as long as I could raise my own money. That was no problem, I was good at that. In fact, the university occasionally made me ‘take a month’ off despite the fact I had plenty of money banked in my personal account. It was a rule I was told, the rationale for which escaped me.

Being identified with the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) proved another blessing. This was the premier academic-based research entity on social policy in the country. Being associated with it (and being in a management position there by the 90s) opened up many doors. Everyone assumed I was an expert. IRP had been created as part of Lyndon Johnson’s War-On-Poverty and has remained in business as a designated federally sponsored institute almost 60 years later.

Eschewing a typical academic position proved a blessing, in my mind at least. Conventiomal scholars must, especially early in their careers, focus on narrow issues. They must drill down, publish a lot of what I consider narrow papers in provincial journals with limited audiences. Later in their careers, they can focus on broader and more meaningful issues of real importance. Besides, I wanted to remain involved in the real world. I learned a lot from interacting with real people and programs. The scholarly ‘literature’ was only one source of information

Hell, I was too impatient to do that insular scholarly stuff. I came of age professionally when poverty and welfare issues were front burner items. I surely was not going to waste a dozen years or more earning my academic bona-fides while the welfare wars were raging in Washington and State capitols. That would be like showing up for the war a week after the armistice had been signed.

For about two decades starting in the mid-80s, I plunged deep into the very guts of the welfare and poverty wars. I was on the speed dial of reporters around the country and sought after as a consultant and public speaker. More critically, I had not been pigeonholed as an expert in a narrow area as scholars often are. I could, and did, take the big picture, often reframing traditional disputes in refreshing ways. I had freedom to select which issues to take on and how to approach them.

In 1993, just before heading for Washington to work on Clinton’s welfare plan, I wrote a piece for FOCUS (an IRP publication popular with academics and policy wonks) titled Child Poverty: Progress or paralysis. It was a synthesis piece that integrated perspectives and ideas from across the political spectrum. I was stunned by the popularity of the ideas contained in this article which I almost didn’t publish it because I thought the ideas old hate since I had used them in many of my talks. A research assistant working for me changed my mind on that score, thank God.

This piece, as it turned out, took the policy and scholarly world by storm. At the center was a metaphor that employed the image of an onion where different reforms represented distinct layers. I argued that what had been thought of as contradictory ideas really were complementary initiatives that addressed separate issues or subgroups within the population of vulnerable families. This seemed obvious to me but stunned the policy world. However, I doubt I could have published this (and similar pieces popular with policy audiences) if I were mired in the narrow and provincial world of academia. My unique position as a free lance academic entrepreneur gave me unusual lattitude to exercise imagination and function outside conventional boxes.

Over the years, I worked on virtually every major initiative to come down the pike. As laid out in A Wayward Academic, my involvement in these issues typically came with a call or request to get involved. I did not have to seek out interesting topics. They literally were thrust upon me, for better or worse. That is, opportunities fell into my lap.

Early on, I had worked on several large and conventional research initiatives … the use of discretion in welfare decision-making, the under- subscription of wage-bill subsidy programs, a longitudinal study of homelessness, an exploration of the welfare migration dilemma, and several other conventional academic topics. While I was competent in these traditional studies (actually very good at managing large-scale data collection efforts), I was easily bored. I wanted bigger challenges that cut across distinct policy issues and narrow siloed questions. My strength lie in seeing broader issues and reframing them in ways that others couldn’t or at least didn’t.

Let me just note a few of these larger and more compelling issues to be found in my policy and intellectual candy store: helping legislate work-oriented welfare reform initiatives in Wisconsin and elsewhere, developing one-stop work and welfare model programs, exploring why integrated human service models fail and what can be done about that, developing models for critically examining reform proposals to increase the prospects of success or seeing changes on the ground that others failed to see, updating evaluation methods as welfare programs evolved beyond income support initiatives, theorizing about the importance of culture and institutional frameworks to reform efforts, reconceptualizing and updating the official poverty measure, articulating new approaches to human service integration schemes, launching successful ‘peer assistance models’ for stimulating and developing new reform concepts, updating and advancing the social indicators movement, and advancing a new arena of scholarly study … institutional ethnography. There are others, but let us move on.

Of course, all was not wine and roses. Being at the forefront of the welfare wars, one was bound to create enemies. Tommy Thompson, long time Wisconsin governor and HHS Secretary under Bush (the son), disliked me, an animus that threatened the relationship between IRP and the state. But I began working with his policy advisor and welfare expert, Jennifer Noyes (pictured below).

Over time, we repaired the fractured association between academia ((IRP) and the real-world (the State of Wisconsin). Later, I worked hard to get Jennifer to the University (and IRP) where she became a wonderful colleague and friend. She now serves as a top assistant to the Chancellor of the entire campus.

I cannot imagine a better career. My standard line when asked what I did was this … I flew around the country to work with the best and the brightest on society’s toughest challenges. I loved it, but it was exhausting. I would arise at 5 AM each morning and get to the campus by 6 or 6:30. Even in DC, I would get to the Humphrey building so early that I would be checked in by night security. The workload was unending. I still recall putting talks together on the plane to some event and planning class lectures on the return flight. And yet, I never could get over the fact that they paid me to have this kind of fun.

If I did make one mistake, it was letting others talk me into putting my name forward for a tenure track position in the School of Social Work very late in my career. Whatvin gods name was I thinking. All that did was add some additional burdens onto my already exhaustive schedule with absolutely no advantage for me. But I was such a people pleaser I went along with this fiasco. It likely was headed for disaster though we will never know. I retired from teaching and administration before any decision came due. I would continue my consultation, research, and writing for another decade or more.

I was retired when I got a call from Bob Haveman one day. They were launching an IRP initiative to bring in professors who taught poverty courses from around the country. (A pic of the 2015 class is above … I’m the gray hair head in the back row). The intent was to employ IRP associates to upgrade the skills of those training the next generation of policy wonks. A long-time IRP affiliate (Rob Hollister from Swarthmore College) was to give the plenary talk that would set the tone for the week. However, he came down with an illness at the last moment. Could I fill in?

I had given so many talks on a variety of topics over the years. ‘Sure,’ I responded, ‘Why not.’ Then I reflected that I had not been thinking about these issues for a while, and this was such a last minute request. But the magic never disappears fully. I threw something together that, to my surprise, wowed the audience. I was asked to write up my notes for a FOCUS piece which came out in 2015. It was to be my final contribution.

This is a long segue into where I’m hoping to go next with this blog. That last talk (and subsequent article) is a decent summary of my concluding thoughts on a rewarding career. So, I will share it with you, in bite-size pieces, over the next several blogs.

I’m sure you cannot wait!

The picture above was my college graduation shot. I was quite pensive, even serious. I could easily have been mistaken for a business major heading for a Wall Street career. As discussed below, nothing was further from the truth. It might be more accurate to describe me as a quiet, perhaps clueless, rebel in training.

Most likely, I was reflecting on all the changes that had taken place since I had left the seminary three years earlier. Or perhaps I was anticipating the further changes I would experience in India as a Peace Corp volunteer. The metamorphosis I experienced in those so-called transional years was fundamental and profound. I emerged from a cocoon embracing, perhaps suffocating within, a Catholic and conservative working class culture to become someone with an insatiable curiosity about the world and a desire to change things.

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A quick note on my seminary experience (above, I am with my seminary roomates … both named Peter). A general and likely religious inspired desire to do good led me to the seminary. I joined a foreign missionary group partly because I wanted to help the less fortunate in some material manner. What better way to sate that pervasive Catholic guilt and fulfill Christ’s core message. Go forth and do good!

Eventually, the obvious dawned even on a slow learner like me. Really believing in God was a prerequisite for the job. That, it finally hit me, was a job requirement one could not fake, at least not easily nor for long. Besides, there just might be more appropriate ways to save the world, like this new Peace Corps thing. But that would have to wait until after college.

I returned home in the fall of 1963. I found out that Holy Cross, the Catholic College I would have attended straight out of HS would not accept spring semester applicants. I’d have to wait until the fall. That was just the excuse I needed to apply to Clark University, also located in my hometown (attending school out of town was financially infeasible). In truth, I was intrigued by this place known within the local Catholic community as a den of atheists and Communists. I had not met any of these derelicts to date.

Serendipity was undoubtedly at play here. Clark was a small, liberal arts school with an interesting history. It was founded as the 2nd Graduate school in the U.S. (after John’s Hopkins). When Sigmund Freud lectured in the U S., he came to Clark (that is a statue to him above.) Later, Robert Goddard (known as the father of the space age) developed the liquid fuel rocket to further his dream of space exploration. Over time, Clark settled into a niche as a very good, though not necessarily a top-tier school. I wouldn’t have gotten in if it were, having been a middling student at best early on.

Suddenly, I was thrust into a perfect environment. It was small, intimate, with an atmosphere that invited risk-taking and free inquiry. I found like-minded intellectual adventurers (including several graduate students) who joined me as I explored the boundaries of my existing world view. We would spend hours (sometimes pulling all nighters) debating the issues of the day as we tore apart the presumptions with which we entered school and painfully erected our new world views and moral compasses. In the end, I had undergone a radical change. I have little doubt that I owe much of whom I am today to my days at Clark. Being a child of the turbulent and activist 1960s helped a bit as well.

As I approached graduation, I went back to the same impulses that had drawn me into the seminary after high school. Now, however, I had a better sense of who I was. I would do a kind of missionary work but with a more secular mission … the Peace Corps.

After a long and arduous training regimen, I would soon be off to India as an agricultural specialist. Don’t ask, it was not one of the better schemes Peace Corps launched in those early days. Again, in hindsight, the botched character of the program may inadvertently have been a blessing.

I can’t fully share the PC experience here. I can not even come close. My small group that survived the training and early experiences in country went on to endure heat, isolation, cultural friction, various illnesses, confrontations with snakes and other creatures, and intense feelings of inadequacy. As smart as we were, we were expected to contribute in technical areas in which we had little competence. Yet, failure could have significant consequences for those living at the margin

Over two years, I managed to start a number of ag projects using high- yield experimental seeds, start a home poultry project, help the local schools, and make a few good friends, among other things. But mostly, I had two years of solitude, time to reflect, to read voraciously, to write my own novel, to learn to appreciate diversity in this world, and to gain valuable insights into the importance of culture. I began to understand the pace of life, especially how others saw things. My world was not the only world. I eventually brought these last lessons with me into my subsequent careers as a policy wonk and an academic.

Many of us got together some 40 years after our return home in 1969 (see pic below). It was an emotional experience (the first reunion I ever attended). We realized how deeply we had been touched by that experience, including how many of us had felt like failures. Oddly enough, this was our first real opportunity to express and process feelings from four-plus decades ago.

But as I looked about at my now aging fellow volunteers, and as I listened to the shared stories, I realized how fortunate I had been during these formative years.I had met such talented and successful people, like the ones in that reunion room. Most had gone on to do amazing stuff, including garnering advanced degrees from the nation’s top schools.

And my story! I had gone from an intense religious encounter in a seminary to a college experience that, in addition to opening up new worlds for me, pushed me to fundamentally reorder my world view, and then on to a unique cultural experience that both tested me and exposed me to previously unimagined challenges. It was not always easy, but I had been fortunate indeed.

As I reached adulthood, I still did not know what I wanted from life, but I did know I would do it on my terms. I brought forth with me all the experiences and turmoil from my so-called transitional years … the introspection of my seminary experiences, the social activism and intellectual turmoil of a 1960s college experience, and an unforgettable cultural immersion in rural India. I was ready for anything.

In truth, I rather stumbled into a career through a series of unplanned events. It is better to be lucky than good since I never had a plan. At the end of several twists and turns, I had a masters degree and later a doctorate. Somehow, I wound up associated with the prestigious Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin. This was the pre-eminent academic based national think tank on social policy issues. It is the only such institute to receive federal support continuously from Johnson’s War On Poverty to the current day.

It was a special, and fortuitous, landing for me since I could pick and choose the issues I wanted to pursue. Personal freedom is one perquisite of an academic position I love dearly (there are less desirable aspects of academia). I also had an opportunity to pass on whatever I had to share with future generations of idealists interested in shaping the world. I loved teaching.

In A Wayward Academic: Reflections from the policy trenches, I describe my fascinating career where I had a front row seat to many of the hot policy issues that embroiled the nation from the 1970s through the start of the 21st century.

Being a free lance policy-wonk proved a perfect spot for a dilettante like me who had trouble focusing on a single issue, at least not for long. You might imagine that I wasn’t a conventional scholar or academic … they had to be extremely focused to be successful. But I could be insightful, clever, synergistic, and worked well with diverse audiences.

Best if all, helping run the premier research entity on poverty and welfare issues when they were front burner concerns opened so many doors to me. Perhaps my priceless experiences during those transitional years gave me a perspective and advantages others did not possess. It wasn’t any of the usual or conventional skills since I was the kid who barely passed high school algebra. Yet, I still found a seat at the policy tables.

When I stepped down as Associate Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at UW (and retired from teaching policy courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels), they threw a nice party for me. I told those assembled that I had been blessed. I managed to find a position where I basically flew around the country to work with the best and brightest on the nation’s most perplexing social issues. And best of all, I was paid to do this. Not bad for a hopeless working-class Catholic kid with no apparent skills whatsoever.

If this tour of my early years intrigues you, try my memoirs. A Clueless Rebel covers my early years in general with great humor. Our Grand Adventure: The trials and tribulations of India 44 covers my group’s Peace Corps experiences. And A Wayward Academic: Reflections from the policy trenches covers my career as a policy wonk. It is also a cooks tour of U.S. policy from the ‘war on poverty’ to the ‘war on the poor.’

We continue down memory lane in this blog, a trip mostly stimulated by coming across an album my dad put together for me many decades ago. From where this pictorial album ends, I would say he assembled it in 1970 or so. The final shots have me returning from Peace Corp Service in India, which happened in 1969.

But perhaps we should start at the beginning. I don’t recall the pic above being taken. My parents look happy to have me around. However, in the early years, I’m certain that I was a drag on their lifestyle. They liked night clubs and poker nights with friends and heading to the race track and the high life. What I remember from my early years involved spending lots of time with my grandmother and my aunts. Later in life, my mother would argue with her sisters about who really raised me. I’m astounded that anyone would want to claim credit, but there you have it. I do vaguely recall being dumped on beds with a pile of coats as a poker game noisily went on in some adjacent, smoke-filled room.

Here I am with my Aunt Ag (my father’s sister). They lived nearby early on and I managed to spend a lot of time at their place. Bill was the only family member to graduate from college and have a ‘white collar’ job. I was crushed when they moved to the suburbs. For years I was a surrogate child for them since they never had any of their own.

Pity, they would have been perfect parents. Later, they ‘adopted’ (so to speak) another kid … Amy. She went on to make a fortune in Cape Cod real estate. When Ag died, Bill insisted that Amy and I ride with him in the funeral procession. I still recall one day when, as a tot, I came home one evening to find a suitcase outside the door. I was told by my folks that I spent so much time with Ag and Bill, I should go and live with them. I cried. Then again, I cried a lot.

Here I am with my dad. I doubt he was excited to be stuck with a messy kid. He was rather fastidious and I’m sure I was a bother in many ways. I cannot imagine he EVER changed a diaper. As I got older, however, he did get into it, fatherhood that is. He started to take an interest in my life. He was very proud when I (finally) began to excel in school, a fact that shocked the crap out of me. He had so much potential, coming of age during the depression took his chances of success away.

On the other hand, I let him down on the athletic field. He had played sports as a kid in high school, and I never excelled in that area, at least not once I reached high school myself. I started working many hours per week, getting a job at age 14 in the public library. There were no spare hours between that and a rigorous academic schedule. While I had a good excuse to end my athletic endeavors, there was plenty of guilt there in which I could wallow. In the end, I owe him a lot. He had wit, charm, and could entertain others with his stories. I embraced these gifts from him with tremendous gratitude.

Speaking of athletic prowess (or am I changing direction here), my career was short-lived. In the first pic, the kid on my right (Lincoln Seafood) is my cousin Paul. He WAS a good athlete following in his dad’s footsteps (a baseball pitcher on his day with an excellent local reputation). After high school, Paul was signed by the Los Angeles Angels and played in their minor league system. On the other side is his younger brother Bobby who was the only male cousin to attend college (he became a pharmacist).

The pic above brings a smile to my face. The local papers covered Little League games back then, with box scores and all. My pitching heroics one day got me a headline. (As an adult policy wonk and academic, I was in the papers all the time, but this was special then). My heroics are laid out in the text. Later, I became the starting pitcher of my junior high team, where I lost only one game. I once even came within two outs of a no-hitter.

But one sad day I realized that my anticipated career in sports was illusory 😳. I was on 1st base when I got the sign to steal. Now, I did have some skills. However, being fleet of foot was not one of them. I had three speeds … slow, slower, and dead stop. I looked at the coach in disbelief. After giving the sign several times, he yelled … ‘steal second base, you moron.’ So, on the next pitch, I chugged down to second and slid in without, to my utter amazement, being tagged out.

WHAT? I could NOT have stolen 2nd base. No freaking way! I concluded that the batter MUST have hit a foul ball. So, without confirming my deductive conclusion, I started back to 1st. When the other team recovered from their shock, they tagged me out to end the inning and danced off the field.

All I remember from yet another horrific moment from a childhood full of them was a single image … our couch screaming obscenities at me as his adams apple bobbed up and down while his face turned a pure crimson red. We didn’t worry about kid’s feelings back then. At least I cannot recall any concern for mine 😞.

A kind teammate brought me my glove, perhaps saving my miserable hide in the process. I then slunk back to my position. Fortunately, our coach’s murderous rage had subsided by the time I returned to our bench. But I knew at that moment I would not be making a living on any athletic field. Alas, I would have to get a real job someday, though how I conceivably might support myself as an adult totally escaped me in that moment. I was an indifferent student at that point and had no demonstrable skills … NONE whatsoever.

Okay, all was not a disaster. My American Legion team (pictured above in 1958) won the league championship. I’m the 2nd player from the right (back row). The tallest kid (4th from the right) was one of my best friends. He was just the nicest kid imaginable who came from a large family of very modest means. But there was a great deal of love in his home. I very much envied him that. He eventually went on to the Coast Guard Academy and became an officer in that service. He had such a big heart. I wish I hadn’t lost touch. 😕

But that’s a problem with guys. We seldom form lasting attachments with our early friends. Later, as adults, we rely on our significant others to form social attachments, though we might well have plenty of professional colleagues. After all, they have utilitarian value. Below is the exception for me.

To the right in this pic is Ron Senosk, probably taken during our high school days. We played a lot of sports together and became good friends though we never lived near one another and went to different schools. (NOTE: he was a good athlete averaging 20 plus points per game for his high school basketball team 🏀). Perhaps competing against me did wonders for his ego.

Years later I was back east in Massachusetts when a cousin told me that Ron’s father had just passed and a service was being held. To his shock, I showed up and our friendship was renewed. As kids, he had reflected the prejuduces and attitudes of his environment. We fought a lot since I was already a flaming liberal and he was anythung but. I found, however, a different adult. Even though he was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army reserves, he was anti war and had otherwise become a raving liberal. We no longer had to fight over values, though we did differ in other ways. He ran every day. According to his lovely (and long-suffering) wife, he only missed two days of jogging in some three decades

I somehow did survive those early years, though I was unhappy a lot, uncertain about what I brought to the world, and pessimistic about my future. I can never forget my mother repeatedly telling me that her teen years were the best of her life. Wow! That almost led me to end mine prematurely. It would get worse. Was that possible. Fortunately, she was dead wrong.

As I think back, my experiences were so ordinary. Yet, as events were to prove, America then WAS the land of opportunity. Even kids who showed no promise whatsoever (like ne) could make it, could get advanced degrees and could enjoy sparkling careers. I later felt so bad for the kids I taught at University. Rampant greed and tegressive politics had snatched so many opportunities away from them (take college debt for example). I explore my early years and more at length my world in A Clueless Rebel.

At least I came to life intellectually in college. Recently, friends pointed out a book that listed those colleges recognized for transforming student lives. Clark University was one so designated. It was described as taking indifferent high school students and somehow turning them into intellectuals and even scholars, some of whom end up at top research universities. I turned out to be a poster boy for that kind of transformation.

But that could not be known at the time. Having failed to stop the Vietnam War in college and still seeking to do good in the world, Peace Corp beckoned. Above, I’m looking over the Thames as I journey to India and a set of experiences that would test me and my fellow volunteers. That is a story in itself. Naturally I wrote a book on the topic titled Our Grand Adventure.

I’ll probably write another reflections– oriented blog or two before heading in an entirely different direction. Just be patient.

Scripts! We all have them. They represent our default positions in life … where we go when uncertain, threatened, insecure, or just seeking a safe place. I assume they are a product of primal experiences … those early reinforcements from our primary caregivers that just might be cemented in place by a bit of genetic wiring. Nature and nurture working together.

I probably have several identifiable scripts, but I doubt any have been more persistent or consequential than my ‘imposter syndrome.‘ In case you have been spared such, this affliction attacks any self-worth you might possess. You go through life feeling unworthy, like a fake who has negotiated life through a series of clever stratagems. You see yourself as little more than a con man surviving on little more than smoke and mirrors.

Feeling inferior infused and defined most aspects if my life. I never felt as athletic as the other kids. I thought of myself as ugly and unattractive to the females who had the misfortune to wander through my sorry life. I realized I wasn’t totally dense but was always amazed when I managed somehow not to fail in school. In fact, starting in junior high school I was placed in various advanced classes for more gifted students. However did that happen? Naturally, I assumed all that were a series of mistakes. My performance did little to correct my self-image, at least until college.

This feeling of being a fraud persisted even in the face of contradictory evidence. I somehow managed to get through college, do a tour in the Peace Corps (India), eventually earn a doctorate, and wind up teaching and doing research at a top research university. I even found myself running a natinally respected research entity at the University of Wisconsin. Still, I never could convince myself I earned any of this. In fact, all remained a mystery in my eyes.

As my career evolved, I found myself involved in national policy issues and consulting with a variety of government bodies at the local and national levels. I would be in a meeting with top federal officials and the best policy wonks. I would suddenly realize they were listening to me. To me! At the same time, I fully expected security to burst in the room to escort me to the street, the fraud in the room finally being exposed. Yet, the next moment I realized I just might be one of the cleverest guys in the room. It is very hard going through life bouncing from one extreme to the other, not knowing which captured reality.

Where did this imposter script come from? Well, I have a guess, but who knows if it is correct. My mother always criticized me, finding fault in everything I did. It wasn’t until I was long into adulthood that it became apparent that I, her only child, was a mere prop in her life. She never realized her dreams so used me to garner praise from her significant others. Apparently, I could never live up to any advanced billing in her eyes even as she praised me to the heavens to others. I, however, never heard these glowing words. When others praised me in life, and I can NOW see that often was true, I found ways to discount all that. Denial and self-deprecation were my go-to places.

There is a second script worth mentioning, one I view with mixed emotions. As you may know, my religious indoctrination was in the Catholic faith. As a kid, I was serious about it, eventually entering a religious seminary after high school. My tepid efforts to become Pope ended soon enough when I realized that a belief in God was a basic job prerequisite. I embraced the core lessons of Christ (and most other traditions) but could not accept the notion of a personal deity nor the trappings surrounding the claims any spiritual institution made. None of them had an exclusive claim on truth.

What I found is that you can push aside any formal allegiance to a specific religious tradition easily enough. I had no trouble separating myself from the Catholic Church as an institution within weeks of matriculating at Clark University, that den of atheism and Communism according to Catholic opinion in my hometown. In truth, no one at my school cared one wit about my religious beliefs, one way or another. It turned out indifference was the most effective antidote to any religious allegiance.

In fact, it is quite easy to cut the formal ties to a religious institution. However, much of the emotional detritus stays with you. For many of us ex-Catholics, you never can quite kick the guilt … the ever present sense of sin or falling short. I’ve chatted with numerous ex Catholics over the years. We agree that Jews and us carry around the most baggage from our early years. Perhaps it was all that stuff about original sin, about confession and the ever present fear of dying while in a state of sin that burdens us.

What I can recall from my early indoctrination is the milk bottle metaphor. The milk bottle represented our soul. If you were in a state of mortal sin, the bottle was black, empty, lacking any Grace. You were headed for eternal damnation.

Now, if you had committed several venal sins (those of less consequence), your milk bottle was spotty. It was if you had contracted a virus that resulted in your bodily tissue being partly infected. What you wanted, of course, is for your milk bottle to be totally white. Then you were in God’s grace, and heaven was assured.

But here’s the problem. And there always is a problem. Sin was everywhere. There was no way to avoid it, especially when we males hit puberty. Our hormones immediately roared into high gear, and Hell seemed unavoidable. There was no way to escape it. Our only hope was yo be struck by lightening within 10 seconds of leaving the Confessional and receiving the Priest’s absolution. Anything longer than 10 seconds and you likely would have an impure thought, not that you could ever act upon these thoughts. All the Catholic girls I knew back then had dedicated themselves to Saint Virginius of the Holy Bodily Temple. They would rather be dipped in boiling oil than do the dirty deed. That didn’t matter. We guys were having impure thoughts every 7.7 seconds. We were doomed.

You can kind of see how we Catholic kids (boys that is) were awash in guilt. Our milk bottles would always be spotty, if lucky, empty if unlucky. But maybe there was an out. If you were paying attention, you might latch on to Christ’s message. Be kind and loving above all else. In particular, help others who were less fortunate and were more vulnerable. If you really wanted to score points with the Big Guy, be especially kind to those not of your tribe. Loving those not considered your neighbor, like foreigners, could get you many points. Basically, the out was to do good deeds in life. You were sure to sin all the time, your hormones guaranteed that. At best, you might neutralize the damage.

Let me just say this. Going through life believing you are a fake and feeling guilty (e.g., sinful) imposes a huge burden. I’m rather shocked I made it. I do realize that the first thing I would do most mornings is apologize. For what, I was never quite certain, but being a fake and unworthy probably warranted some kind of morning petition for mercy and hopefully forgiveness. He’ll, I was petitioning an entity I didn’t believe existed. How pathetic is that?

I think I was lucky to be surrounded by people who had a much higher opinion of me than I had of myself. After many years of surprisingly positive feedback (which I had increasing difficulty dismissing), I managed to climb high enough out of my pit if self-disgust to feel okay about myself. That sense of being a failure and a fraud surely remains, but doesn’t dominate my self-image any longer. As I turn 80, I even entertain a positive feeling or two about myself.

Good enough, I think! I’ll take it.

When I started this blog last March, I thought I might muse a lot about my favorite subject … ME! But there are so many daily topics that seemed to demand attention that I kept getting distracted. One can never overestimate the capacity of our fellow beings to keep doing outrageously stupid things. For example, take the current clown show going on as Republicans try to elect a new Speaker. The best they can do is nominate a thug who has not sponsored a single piece of successful legislation in his rather long career. But I shall not be distracted this time.

I’ve always been fascinated by what shapes who we become. How did I, or any of us, become the adults we are? Not having children of my own, I rely on insights from friends who share vignettes about their offspring. For example, I’ve listened to liberal parents lament about the one child who grew to become a Trump Republican. They just shake their heads and wonder how such a tragedy came to be. That would have been my greatest fear if I had made the mistake of becoming a parent. I dreaded the possibility of siring a child who grew up to be a Republican. I could accept virtually any other outcome except that one. That is the one sin I could forgive in myself.

On a less apocalyptic note, I’ve noticed siblings with very different vocational aspirations, personalities, ambitions, and so forth. It is difficult to imagine they came from the same biological material or that they experienced similar environmental inputs. The process though which nurture and nature interact indeed remains a deep mystery.

I have no siblings. My parents took one look at me and said … ‘we ain’t making that mistake a second time.’ The world has thanked them ever since. 😊 Still, I wonder why I turned out the way I did. My puzzlement focuses on one aspect of my core personality … my liberal, if not quasi-radical, beliefs and disposition.

This mystery arises from three points. First, I was raised in a homogeneous culture and was exposed to little, if any, competing thought. Second, I was immersed in a Catholic, working class culture which undoubtedly found my budding beliefs to be anathema. And finally, there were signs of harboring strange beliefs very early on, surely before I was exposed to alternative views of the world. When I was a kid, no one was harboring the thoughts and feelings that were crowding into my head. What was going on?

There were many early moments which now strike me as informative, yet distinctly odd. I recall being perhaps 12 years old. The couple that owned the flat my parents rented were being visited by their daughter and her husband from Virginia. As I was listening to the adults talk, the visitors expressed outrage that the Supreme Court would racially integrate their schools. For some reason, I piped up and gave an emotional defense of that action. Where did that come from? No one in my world favored civil rights, or at least expressed any interest in the condition of minorities. I don’t recall even meeting a black person until high school when a Black gal also worked in the Public Library with me. Hell, prejudice was so widespread in my immediate culture that we had a pecking order among white ethnic Catholic groups. The Irish were on top and then down through the Polish and other ethnic groups until you got to the Italians. I now hate to even consider where my tribe placed conventional minorities. Prejudice was ingrained as a way of life. Yet, somehow, I instinctively was appalled at the very thought.

Around this age, I recall thinking a lot about how much we had in America and how little other peoples had (post-war hardships were yet visible). I recall wondering why we didn’t share more of our abundance with others. More amazingly, I thought hard about how arbitrary national boundaries were, to my mind at least. We needed one government for the entire globe. Of that, I was certain. I was ecstatic when Europe began to merge into what became the European Union. I even recall joining, or trying to join, something called the World Federalist Society, a one world government advocacy group. They likely were a Communist front organization, but that message resonated with me. It still does.

I was in public schools until the 9th grade. Then I went to a Catholic, all boys, high school. While being taught by religious brothers was not attractive to me (they would whack you if you misbehaved and your parents would whack you a second time if they found out about it), it was just about the best Catholic (if not all) school academically in Central Massachusetts. There were no electives, just rigorous academic courses.

However, we did have religion classes for all four years. Even though I took my religion very seriously, I would argue (silently) with what was being spoonfed to us about what we were supposed to believe. The Catholic birth control arguments struck me as totally arbitrary and ridiculous as did the notion that children not exposed to our specific religious tradition would end up in a place called limbo (a convenient invention). I could never accommodate a God that arbitrary and capricious that He would sentence innocent individuals with zero chance of redemption to some form of second-class eternity. What was with that? That struck me as totally indefensible given the message of love Christ advanced. I should have realized right then that my days in a Catholic seminary would be few. They were.

It was as if a Rebel within me was waiting to break out, only waiting for the right moment to do so. That moment came when I left the Seminary and matriculated at Clark University, a secular school in my hometown that was labeled a den of Communists and atheists by the local Catholics. I loved it. I loved the freedom of thought, the questioning, the diversity of opinion. Within weeks (or was it days) I emerged from my Catholic, working class cocoon. I never looked back.

Now, if I hadn’t taken that route (seminary and then Clark), how would I have turned out? 😳 I would have gone directly from my Catholic high school to a very good, but traditional, Catholic college … Holy Cross. Would I still have emerged as an anti-war activist, and leftist leader, had I gone that expected route. Would I still have become a lifelong Progressive, as I pretty much did? I can not say with certainty, but the journey surely would have been more difficult.

It was as if I was waiting to rebel. But why? How were the seeds implanted in me. I’ve scoured my brain for a rational explanation. One comes to mind, though it is far from convincing. My father was less prejudiced than anyone else I knew back then. He was no liberal but, on occasion, he would comment on things that bothered him.

I recall we were in Cape May, New Jersey … an upscale place on the shore where some named acts would perform. I was perhaps 9 or 10 years old, so this might have occurred in the early 50s. A black singer of some repute was appearing at this local upscale resort, as was displayed on the marquee. I still recall my father saying something like … “that is a shame. This entertainer is the headline act, but he is not permitted to stay at this resort.” I can not recall if he ever elaborated. His disaproving tone, however, spoke volumes to me.

No matter how many times I go over the same ground, I come back to the same place. Sure, I can recall a comment or two from my dad. But that hardly explains how early and how dramatically I veered away from the culture in which I had been encased from birth. It was as if I were hard wired to be whom I became. I was destined to rebel.

I’m not sure I like that conclusion. It suggests that there is little we can do to alter the divisive cultural divides that separate us from one another. You are what you are. Period! Moreover, genetic hard wiring seems inconsistent with the spacial distribution of political patterns which suggests that nurturing plays a stronger role. Why are conservatives and liberals disproportionately found in separate enclaves unless a good deal of residential self selection is going on.

That’s the problem with anecdotal evidence. You cannot extrapolate very far. No matter. I became a liberal, progressive, leftist, woke type or whatever label you prefer. I am so glad I did, no matter the cause. It means I have a conscience and a soul. I’ll take that any day.

If you want more, I have an entire memoir loosely devoted to my early years. A Clueless Rebel. Available at Amazon.com.

More fighting in what is known as the Levant region of the Middle-East has broken out. These ancient hatreds and simmering hostilities never seemed to end. So, when more fighting breaks out, we are never surprised. As basebsll great Yogi Berra once said … it is deja vue all over again.

What else would you expect when tribes that trace their origins back to antiquity compete for scarce lands amidst competing claims for legitimacy and sovereignty. In recent times, the Jews and Palestinians have been at it since since the United Nations granted the former tribe a homeland in the region in 1947. After the horrors of the holocaust, that seemed like a good idea at the time. With support from their various allies, both sides have been at it ever since (sometimes in hot wars and sometimes in cold wars). This nonsense has gone on as long as I’ve been alive.

I’m not going to untangle the middle-east mess. I’m neither that smart nor do I have enough time to write a several volume treatise on the topic. It would take that much effort to do the subject justice. But I am intrigued by a smaller issue … the rather futile efforts to assign blame in this latest outbreak. I will jump in on that exercise.

From what I see, most in the ‘West’ side with Israel. After all, the Gaza- based Hamas group fired thousands of rockets and ‘invaded’ nearby Israeli settlements. Stories of kidnappings of innocents and of unspeakable atrocities on Israeli children and the elderly sparked immediate outrage. What we do not know is whether these stories are substantially factual, given the capacity of cyberspace to be used in manipulative ways. Even if valid, the infliction of harm goes in both directions.

Time to step back a moment. I grew up in the era when the fledgling state of Israel was a weak underdog. I read the classic book, Exodus, by Leon Uris. Who could not sympathize with the brave Jewish settlers fighting against enemies on all sides merely to establish a place to live. Over the next several decades, that sense of the Israelis always being on the brink of destruction remained. That has to be a horrendous psychological burden … living with the daily reality that you might be attacked at any time or, worse, de driven into the sea and into extinction.

At first, I thought I had no comparable experience. Recently, however, I’ve changed my opinion on that. I live in an oasis of progressivism … Madison Wisconsin or Dane County. We are surrounded by rural areas that are firmly in the hands of Maga enthusiasts. We now often discuss the risks associated with taking a trip into the lovely countryside, especially if you sport a ‘Trump for prison in 2024′ sticker on your auto. Okay, I’m being facetious here but only marginally. There is real hostility across the cultural divide in America. Actual violence during the next election is not out of the question. I can understand the strains if you live daily with real threats to your very life.

I have been particularly taken by the reactions to domestic supporters of the Palestinian side on this conflict, especially on college campuses. I saw pro-Palestinian protestors adjacent to the U. Of Wisconsin campus. Calls for disciplinary action against them were rightly dismissed by csmpus suthorities. On the east coast, several Harvard groups expressed sympathy for those suffering in the Gaza strip, essentially assigning blame on Israel. Some students have lost future job offers for expressing such opinions. Other officials have called for the public exposure of these students, assuming that there ought to be a penalty for expressing their 1st amendment protected opinions. This knee jerk reaction smarts of 1950s era McCarthyism. Under no condition do we want a return to those days of censorship and intimidation.

Where do I stand? I stand firmly against getting on a tautological merry-go-round. Hamas is guilty of terrorism. But Israel is guilty of forcing suffering Palestinians into unspeakable living conditions with no hope for the future. But the Israelites are justified in their paranoia and the need for security given their tenuous situation. And is it not unreasonable for the Palestinians to erupt in outrage after decades of suffering. Who could blame them? This is an endless, self-perpetuating circle.

Here is the problem. There is no off switch to this ride. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.’

I wish I had a solution, or even a reasonable first step toward a solution. I don’t, not even close. However, I will say that there are ample sins on BOTH sides of this tragic issue. And the further we go around this endless merry-go-round, the more likely that unspeakable end games come into play. Will Hezbola enter the conflict, widening the bloodshed into a regional affair or worse. Will the Israelis begin entertaining some form of genocide within the Gaza strip as a ‘final’ solution. (I seriously doubt that would get beyond the fantasy stage, but my geriatric pessimism continues to grow.)

We currently have important problems to deal with today. Global warming threatens our eco-system and the species. The last year for which we have data was the hottest on record. Or take hyper-inequality, the spiraling dynamic of more and more accruing into the hands of fewer and fewer. This concentrates power into the control of the few, threatening our chances for social order or fairness. And we have the specter of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Right now, we have no idea where this rapid change in technology might lead. However, we do understand that we must get ahead of the curve if an unimaginable apocalypse is to be avoided.

Two lessons are staring us in the face. (1) We must reorder our priorities to focus on the real perils facing us. These are mostly global in character, not local. Their solutions will demand global cooperation. (2) We must address the local and provincial challenges, no matter how emotional, with a new paradigm. More conflict is not the answer to anything. Substantive solutions must rely on understanding, objectivity, civility, compassion, and compromise.

In the end, we all share the same planet. We must either learn to love one another as brothers and sisters or perish together in isolated folly.

The collapse of any semblance of coherence or discipline within the Republican House Caucus has raised many an eyebrow and has brought into question the ability of America to govern itself. But our current political dysfunction should not be surprising. Over time, one of our two major parties appears to have lost any and all interest in governing our affairs.

The factors pushing the GOP off the rails, as well as the edge of sanity, have been building for decades. Arguably, the last time such intra-party discord was witnessed (in either party) was when southern conservative Democrats revolted under the leadership of Strom Thurmond in the post WWII era. That revolution was settled during the party realignment initiated by 1953 Brown vs. The Board of Education SCOTUS decision and accelerated by the Civil Rights movement a decade later.

Arguably, those entrenched in defending what they saw as traditional values, including the continued hegemony of a white elite, were alarmed by President Truman’s integration of the military and the integration of Major League baseball. Northern Democratic liberals (e.g., a young Hubert Humphrey) antagonized their southern colleagues by insisting that a civil rights addenda be added to the Democratic Party’s platform. That spurred the Dixiecrat revolt. But it wasn’t until Johnson forcefully embraced broader civil rights legislation in the 1960s that conservative southern politicians fled the Democratic Party in droves. By the early 70s, the two parties were roughly organized around distinct normative and ideological positions. Our process of partisan polarization had been established.

But here’s the thing. When I was growing up, bipartisanship was common. Given my working class roots, I was a nominal Democrat by virtue of the culture in which I was raised. Still, there were many Republicans I deeply admired. U. S. Senator Ed Brooke from my home state of Massachusetts was a black man who identified as a Republican. He was a true statesman with a broad vision for society. That made sense back in the early 1960s when the most hidebound conservatives were Dems representing Southern states in which legal apartheid was yet practiced. At that time, many northern Republicans could be described as progressives. I can recall proudly shaking Senator Brooke’s hand when he visited my college campus. He was a decent and competent leader.

On occasion, over time, I even voted for individual Republicans. I prided myself on being an independent, rather despising the confines associated with prescribed labels. As a policy wonk, I generally sought to understand all sides of an issue and would work for practical solutions even in such minefields as welfare reform. As a university teacher, I took pride in helping my students develop critical thinking skills. I had little interest in telling them what to think .

However, as the old refrain goes, the ‘times they were a changin.’ Our nation’s political metamorphosis was a glacial yet consciously planned effort. It was part of a long-term plan that emerged in the aftermath of Goldwater’s disastrous attempt to capture the White House in 1964 on behalf of what would later become ‘movement’ conservatives. Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory in that contest, and a subsequent spate of liberal legislation, seemed to affirm that the 1930s New Deal was not an aberration. A renewed era of sustained progressive thought and deed seemed assured. Oh, how wrong we were.

Conservatives, on the other hand, licked their wounds and got serious about fighting back. In 1971, future SCOTUS justice Lewis Powell wrote a now famous memorandum laying out a long-term term plan for retaking political control. While it used hard and warlike language, the vision laid out by Powell was quite strategic and well considered. The ‘right,’ he argued, must work to take control of the institutions that frame the political discourse in this country. That included the media, our educational systems, the courts, local politics (including gerrymandering voting districts), among other targets. He argued that this would be a decades long struggle for the hearts and minds of the people … a concerted effort to create a new default position respecting our political and normative discourse.

Over the next decade or two, great sums of money were raised from uber-wealthy individuals to redo the infrastructure that shapes how we think about things. For example, a whole set of new think tanks were created to push conservative ideas (Hoover Institution, Cato Institute, the Hudson Institute, the Manhatten Institute, and many others). In addition, organizations were established to reshape specific institutions … the Federalist Society was charged with turning our courts into a reflection of right-wing thought and attitudes. The Americain Legislative Exchange Council worked to turn state legislatures into right-wing laboratories for change.

Education was another prime target since conservatives were convinced that the young were being brainwashed, especially in colleges and universities. In addition to Accuracy in Academia, Hillsdale College in Michigan is heavily endowed and has a mission to expose this nefarious leftist indoctrination in higher education. Conservative students were charged to ‘expose’ liberal professors. There are way too many other initiatives to list here.

Success came relatively quickly. The amiable Ronald Reagan seduced voters in ways Goldwater never could and captured the White House for the right-wing in 1980. While a darling of the conservatives for many years to come, he surely would be attacked mercilessly in today’s environment as a classic RINO (Republican in Name Only). After all, he collaborated with Democratic House leader Tip O’Neil, another Irshman with whom he could share jokes and convivial stories.

While Reagan had no trouble cutting taxes for the rich, he had great difficulty cutting spending even for the social safety net programs most Republicans despised. His budget director (David Stockman) was deeply frustrated that he could not get Reagan to drastically reduce spending even for liberal programs like Food Stamps. Thus, taxes for the wealthy were slashed but not spending (the military budget was expanded). This sent our national deficits spiraling. The revolution of the right was only partially in place.

The next lurch to the right occurred in the 1990s with the Newt Gingrich revolution. While the U.S. was just about the only advanced nation without universal health care, Clinton’s proposal toward that end  was met with incomprehensible hostility. The right-wing efforts to reshape our political dialogue was bearing fruit. Even a benefit our peer nations routinely provided was seen as government over reach here. We continued to hold on to an inefficient and highly inequitable health care financing system. Not surprisingly, Republicans finally took control of Congress. 

A media revolution also was underway, aided over the next couple of decades by the technological advances associated with cyberspace and the internet. Talk radio (remember Rush Limbaugh), then Fox News (1996), Mark Levin (2006) and other right-wing fire brands, OAN and Newsmax (both launched just before the MAGA revolution) replaced network news as distributors of news and opinion. While many had thought our new communication methods would improve society, it actually led to further tribalization and entrenched bitterness across groups.

Gingrich set the tone for the new, hard-right version of the Republican Party. No compromise with the other side was to be permitted. This was war. Since government was evil, shutting it down was a blessing (though they were surprised when people did seem to care). I recall a Republican player on the Hill (Ron Haskins) with whom I had worked on several occasions describing Gingrich to me. “He sees himself as a revolutionary. He wants to blow things up.” As someone dedicated to making government work, I was appalled. I feel Ron was wary as well. I still recall the ONE TIME Gimgrich publicly agreed with Clinton. It was on NAFTA. He barely could get the words out without having an aneurysm and stroking out on the spot.

As the Republican Party lurched further to the right, the wise pundits kept predicting that it was inflicting fatal wounds on itself. It was becoming a racist and regional party that would self-destruct and cesse to be relevant. But these wise men and women operated within their own bubble, an isolated echo chamber. In the real world, the new methods of cyber communication were operating according to a different dynamic, one that would push the GOP to places that were inconceivable when I was younger.

Essentially, this new dynamic went like this. There were now so many options from which individuals could select to get information, they could easily reinforce their priors if they tuned into the correct echo chamber. All else had been labeled fake news no matter how credible the information provided. There no longer was a Walter Cronkite to deliver the evening news in a calm, dispassionate manner, ar least no such person who could reach the whole nation. What these new outlets found (from Fox to Breitbart News) was that emotion, not logic, kept people tuned in and their fiscal bottom line healthy.

Unfortunately, this dynamic was self reinforcing. The conservative base was easily bored. They demanded  ever more salacious and gripping revelations about the sins and depradations of the ‘other’ side. And here is the key. All those enamored with authoritarianism demand an ‘other’ to fear and to despise. It might be the Shias or Sunnis in the Mideast, Catholics or Protestants in Northern Ireland, Hindus or Muslims on the subcontinent, and the most notorious of all … Jews for the German Nazis.

For the Republican base today, we have desperate Latinos pushing against our southern borders (not all that dissimilar to North Africans trying to slip into the EU.) For an insecure and easily frightened Republican base, immigrants are an easy scapegoat for a host of real or imagined threats. In our context, a good deal of the ire within the ‘right’ is directed toward the nameless elite … the educated, the ‘woke’ types they see as disrespecting and ignoring them. They thus often turn to rather ignorant demagogues who have no skill or interest in actually governing. I keep wondering if they would select their butcher to do open heart surgery on a loved one simply because that person in ‘one of them.’

What the far right found, especially their media, is a recipe that worked. In your target audience, you stoked  fear, loathing, hate, and division. Next, you offer the base a savior with simple solutions. The far right outlets have no illusions about their role and purpose. In a court deposition, Rupert Murdoch (who recently stepped down as CEO of Fox News) admitted that Fox News was NOT distributing news but rather entertainment. What he didn’t admit was that the entertainment distributed was based on appealing to the worst instincts of their audience.

For reasons I’ve never fathomed, I’m on the mailing list of many of these far-right organizations. I’m forever getting breathless messages about breaking revelations respecting the outrageous sins and depradations of the bad guys. While I can discuss these revelations as crude propaganda, many cannot. This stream of disinformation is cleverly designed to keep the base stirred up, angry, and desperately needing a strong man to save them and redress their grievances. Thus, Trump enters stage right!

The problem is that the rhetoric must keep escalating. Yesterday’s outrage is old news. Thise in front in the camera like Hannity or Carlson must produce ever more radical revelations. As the media propaganda escalates in degrees of absurdity, politicians must follow or be faced with the end of their political hopes. They might easily be labeled a RINO and primaried into oblivion.

About a dozen years ago, the best and the brightest in the Republican House were Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy. The first two are gone and the 3rd recently was unceremoniously dumped as House Speaker. Now, the extremists in the House, the nihilists with no interest in governing, are running the show. Heaven help us.

I don’t blame the Republican establishment for this mess. They are merely trying to survive. When Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney departed the scene, it was in recognition that the people they had represented for many years with honor and in a principled manner had changed dramatically. Who would have guessed just a couple of generations ago that 25 to 35 percent of the American people would trash the American constitution and wish for an end to demicrarcy … longing for a strongman to be placed in charge. They now yearn for a savior to resolve their fears and ease their pervasive anxieties. More than anything, they wish for someone to ‘get’ those they blame for whatever ills they believe they experience. If the number is closer to 35 percent, they are within striking distance of ultimate control. The German Nazis never had more support than that before getting power.

Is there hope?  Damned if I know. As I repeatedly say these days, I’m glad I’m old. On my most optimistic days, perhaps the far right will go too far and there will be a backlash. But that presumes some minimal level of judgement and just a bit of human decency among the base. I’m not optimistic on that score.

As I am writing this, Jim Jordan (a firebrand Trump supporter) has been nominated to be the next Republican House Speaker. (Note: I doubt he will be elected). Still, the revolution started decades ago would reach another level of ‘success.’  The American dream of representing a mature democracy and workable federal system of government would suffer another humiliating defeat. The wider world must look on in disbelief.

I can recall one of my Florida neighbors (when we wintered there) talking about Obama as we played a round of golf. This was about a decade or so ago. He was shocked at the level of animosity this sensible and intelligent American President received in the States. I think his precise words were, “what the f#&k is wrong with you Americans. We love him up in Canada.” I ask myself that same question these days … “what the f#&k is wrong with my fellow Americans.” Why can’t they see what is going on?

As I see America imploding in slow motion, I seriously doubt I will ever feel any pride in this country again.

Technological advances have always been a two edge sword … the Janus head figure of Roman mythology with one face gaze toward the future and the other fixed on the past. For Roman believers, Janus represented many dualities we see about us. Today, we might focus on the duality inherent in technological advancement. Put another way, most innovations can be used for good or evil, applied to the advancement of mankind or to its demise. In the beginning of any breakthrough, we cannot know where innovation will end.

In some ways, Mary Shelley captured our ambivalent attitude toward technology in her 1818 novel about Frankenstein’s monster. Victor Frankenstein set about to create an artificial man based on decent intentions, including responding to his scientific curiosity. His creation, for a variety of reasons he could not foresee, escaped his control. This marvelous, if not inspirational, creation soon became a fearsome being to the world outside his lab. Victor had unleashed a force on his community that ordinary people could not understand nor accommodate.

There are historical examples that go in both directions of course. The breakthrough inspirations of Jenner and Fleming led to life-saving innovations against infectious diseases. Henry Ford’s innovations in assmbly line production of cars reduced the time it took to assemble a Model T Ford from 12.5 hours to less than a minute. The cost fell from $850 to less than $300, thus bringing the automobile within the reach of the middle class. Of course, the unintended consequences on assembly line workers, congested streets, and air pollution were yet to be appreciated.

Other examples fit Asimov’s warning more closely. Between the American Civil War (and the Franco-Prussian War) and the outbreak of WWI, the technology of warfare advanced dramatically. At the start of the Civil War, most soldiers employed single shot, front loading rifles. They were slow, cumbersome weapons that were not accurate. Tactics demanded massing soldiers together to generate any effective firepower.

By 1914, armies had machine guns followed by tanks and high-powered artillery and bombs dropped from planes and lethal nerve gases. Yet, the battlefield tactics still were based on the killing technologies of prior generations. The result was an unimaginable slaughter (over 10 million soldiers) as leaders could not, or would not, recognize how the world had changed. They sent massed armies into technologies that cut them down with efficient ferocity.

Most of us have seen the movie ‘Oppenheimer.’ This epic captures the angst of modern science and scientists. The instinct to pursue knew technologies, often based on compelling rationales in the moment, can and do result in faustian choices. Could the scientists working on the Manhatten project risk Getrmany developing the bomb first?

At the same time, many of them realized they had unleashed an apocalyptic weapon upon the world, regretting their actions. And yet, almost 8 decades after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wars have been localized and conventionally waged. Has the totality of nuclear force lessened our militant instincts. A point to be debated.

Nothing touches upon Asimov’s point better than the AI (artificial intelligence) spectre 👻 . Will this modern day Framkenstein be a net force for good or evil. Without question, the potential applications are endless and the possible benefits breathtaking. Just take medical diagnoses alone. Think about a digital doctor with all medical knowledge available to them, who never tire, and who can make decisions in nanoseconds. Think how quickly science can progress when not impeded by human frailties and inefficiencies.

And there lies the rub. As AI abilities leap forward, who can predict what might happen? The current versions have a fraction of the connections in the human brain and yet can outperform us in virtually every dimension. How long before our products, over which we yet exercise some control, simulate consciousness, free will, and even our more basic failings. Is it not likely that they will conclude that these wholly imperfect humans atremptingvto exploit them are unnecessary. What then? The so-called ‘godfather’ of AI has upped the probability that AI will replace, or at least significantly diminish the presence of humanity, by at 25 percent.

Noodling this led me to the following thought. As these machines become capable of mimicking, or even exceeding, advanced human attributes (emotions, creativity, desires). If so, what will prevent them from simulating the worst of our tendencies … except at a higher level.

The thing is, we are only at the very beginning of this adventure. Today, AI is like those huge, clunky IBM mainframes of the 1950s with vacuum tubes that could not even perform tasks easily available on a cheap hand-held calculator today. Just think what they will be able to do in a couple of generations, especially if they assume control of their own futures. Perhaps they will simulate all human attributes such as jealousy, ambition, and anger … except at higher functioning levels.

If that happens, why in the world would they not dismiss and eliminate these slow moving and archaic homo-sapiens who would be good for very little, at least to their analysis. To my mind, we would be more bother than anything else.

Consider this, does functioning at levels far beyond what humans could ever hope to achieve guarantee that our future machines will act at higher normative levels. Will they be kind, morally superior, focused on higher level goals? I’m not sure. After all, we have highly educated (Ivy League) Republicans who act like barbaric, school yard bullies. Perhaps our future machines (we need a better term) will wage botter battles among themselves but at an unimaginable level of sophistication and ferocity. In such a world, heaven help us or whomever replaces us.

I will say this one time. I’m glad I’m old!

This is Nobel Prize week. The Peace Prize was just awarded to an Iranian female activist (Narges Mohammedi) who has dedicated her life toward seeking the freedoms that others of her gender enjoy elsewhere in the world. Her persistent efforts to secure some reasonable treatment for Islamic women have been met with ferocious resistance by the Islamic extremist authorities. She has been arrested more than 30 times, convicted some 13 times, and has been sentenced to almost 3 decades in prison and some 145 lashes. She is paying a harsh price for her convictions.

We in the West shake our heads at what we consider such barbaric behaviors on behalf of governing authorities in many Islamic countries. Why treat half of the human species with such casual, yet excessive, cruelty?

But think about it for a moment. Has not the American Republican Party of today become, or is at least trending toward, the American version of the extremist religious Taliban. They seek to command ever greater control over women, their reproductive rights, and their role in society … mostly yearning to reestablish a male dominated society.

Then, another thought struck me. Didn’t Western society go through a similar era where laws and customs were dominated by religious and not secular principles. I just finished reading ‘A World Lit Only by Fire’ by William Manchester. This is an excellent work focusing on the period of time in Europe when the Protestant Reformation challenged the existing primacy of religious authority and where our world view was circumscribed by dogmatic orthodoxy. And yet, it was a period during which scholars began to question the existing consensus on the nature of the world. Pioneering souls, driven by curiosity and the drive to make better sense of the world, began to question accepted truths passed down from sacred sources and endosed by religious leaders. These proto-scientists relied more and more on careful observation and their analytical skills. This often put them at odds with the religious authorities of the times which is a significant understatement of the reality in those times.

Of the many lessons from Manchester’s excellent work, two strike me as relevant today. First, the pre-reformation religious authorities were hardly role models for the spiritual path in life. Pope’s waged war, employed their Papal position to enrich themselves, routinely engaged in lascivious behaviors (too often siring illegitimate children). It was common for the religious elite to sell top positions in the Church to the highest bidder. Corruption started at the top and drifted down the spiritual hierarchy.

Church officials systemically sold indulgences, i.e. get out of Hell free cards. Their approach was simple. It was all too easy to implement since their followers were illiterate and all important documents were in Latin which only the top elite understood. They first sold an uneducated laity on the horrors awaiting them in the after-life, scaring them into submission. Then they suggested that the Church hierarchy, and only them, offered an alternative to an eternity of torture. Finally, they they moved in for the kill by offering a convenient way to avoid the unthinkable consequences of a wayward life … for a price of course. The Republican Party learned well from these early con men. Scare your followers, offer a simple solution, and bleed them dry.

The competition for the goodies attached to Church leadership were so seductive that three different candidates assumed the position of Pope at one point. With time, The abuses were sufficiently flagrant that secular leaders, particularly those in Northern Europe became restive to the point of questioning their subservience to a Papal authority that inspired less and less respect. The way for Martin Luther’s revolt was set by the early 1500s.

The second theme associated with the pre-reformation church involved the harsh penalties for any deviation from accepted orthodoxy. There was an accepted view of the world, one sanctioned by religious authorities. Those deviating from these revealed truths were subject to the severest penalties including torture and death. The empiricists of the era often cowered in the face of religious intolerance. Copernicus did not publish his findings of a helio- centric solar system until after his death (his friends saw to its release) while Galileo retracted his supportive findings in the face of Papal approbation. Rigorous inquiry was not for the faint of heart. Many who questioned existing dogma went into hiding if they could.

Wars stimulated by religious or arcane disputes over seemingly insignificant points of dogma, though often colored by conventional political overtones, were an ongoing reality in that era. The pre-reformation era saw a series of Crusades which pitted Christianty against Islam. But intra-Christian conflicts spawned by the dissolution of a homogeneous religious framework in the West became a constant source of terror … the consequences of which typically fell on innocent peoples lower down in society. I’ll mention just a few … the War of the Three Henrys, the French War of Religion, the Julich Succession during the German Reformation, the English reformation conflicts including the Jacobite uprisings, and so many more. Untold numbers suffered and perished in the name of God.

The point of all this being that monotheistic absolutism, the stubborn belief that ‘my God is better than your God’, has led to more suffering and death than most, if not all, competing causes. The irony should not be lost on anyone. So many killed and maimed in the name of the Prince of Peace. Even when considering more recent world conflicts based largely on secular political goals, they were often imbued with appeals to superior cultural and spiritual meanings. Each side invoked the blessing of God.

Fortunately, as more secular sentiments dominated political life, especially in Europe where religiosity is low, the levels of conflict have abated dramatically. (A recent exception has been the Catholic-Protestant ‘Troubles’ in Ireland.)

All this leads me to wonder if the conflicts we have seen in the Middle East, including the religious orthodoxy that punishes women simply for being women, suggests that the Islamic world is struggling through its own version of an evolutionary period. Perhaps they are struggling with the very issue that plagued Western societies for centuries … should religious or secular impulses govern our national and international lives. Perhaps the existing regimes, including the Shia and Sunni factions, must exhaust their outdated beliefs and emotional dispositions until more secular attitudes and perspectives become dominant. Hopefully, their maturation won’t take as long as it did in the Christian West. Only time will tell whether that optimistic notion is warranted.

The irony of all this is that spiritual beliefs can be a two edge sword. They can elevate individuals and the collective to behave in ways we all can admire. At the same time, they can be used to rationalize and justify the most bestial of attitudes and behaviors.

This brings me back to the comments from the Dalai Lama introduced at the beginning. Spiritual beliefs asserted as dogma are seldom a good idea. Their authority is always debatable, and the consequences of slavishly adhering to them often are reprehensible. Love, and a good heart, should always trump dogma asserted in the form of absolute truth. That is authentic spirituality.

The early 1500s were a kind of tipping point in our Western evolution. In religion, the process of rethinking unquestioned dogma began. Early scientists began to explore the universe about them in rigorous ways. The great texts (and religious documents) were translated into local languages and made available more broadly. Local and national authorities began separating themselves from religious authorities. Brave explorers began to seek out worlds and possibilities previously unimaginable, with Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe a prime example. A new world was being born.

Slowly, people began looking to the future as opposed to revering the past. They started recognizing that the world around them was not static but malleable. Situations and society could be improved for the benefit of all. Of course, substantive change takes time, and selecting critical moments in the past is a subjective exercise. But I see the decades around 1500 as a tipping point in history. After that, we began the slow march to modern society.

Perhaps a tipping point is taking place in the Islamic world. We just don’t see it yet. Still, we can hope.