Category Archives: America

America, miscellaneous

A Broken Society

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Several things have hit me lately that demonstrate just how broken our society is. I’m not thinking about politics, and whether or not it’s better that a Democrat or Republican won the presidency earlier this month. I’m not thinking about the economy and the Panic of 2008, although clearly if a depression hits us we will potentially see much more brokenness than we do now.

No, I’m thinking of the brokenness of individual lives.

Two events are giving rise to this. On November 7, in Oklahoma City, Jeremy Moore was murdered by gunshot. I can’t remember if I met Jeremy or not. He was our son-in-law’s roommate for some of his college time, and was in his and our daughter’s wedding party. So I know I saw Jeremy, but may never have met him. Why was he murdered? The circumstances were he was delivering pizza as a second job, trying to support his girlfriend and their nine-day old child, having just bought a house and about to make their first payment. He took a delivery to a certain apartment complex. The apartment turned out to be empty, and someone(s) was waiting in the shadows and gunned him down. Police don’t know the reason; possibly robbery, though everyone knows (or should know) delivery men carry almost no money; possibly gang related—not that Jeremy was in a gang, but that he was the random target of someone who had to kill someone as a gang initiation; possibly simple depravity, someone out for kicks. My son-in-law blogged about it a couple of times here.

The other event was learning yesterday that a young couple in our church in Bentonville are getting a divorce. This couple was one that got the “cart before the horse” in terms of intimacy, but yet had married, had two children, and had become fairly regular attenders at church, even linking in with a life group, and having loving, supportive parents from at least one side. I know the pressure on young couples is great these days, and the chances of failure of any marriage is around 50 percent, but this was one couple which, despite a start with questionable circumstances, I really thought was going to make it.

One young widow and fatherless child due to a tragedy; two children in a broken home due to whatever the circumstances were, but also a tragedy. This is emblematic of the brokenness of our American society. I have heard, but have not verified, that statistics show children are least at risk when they grow up with a mother and a father in a loving home, not even necessarily a Christian home. This gives me pause to wonder: what is the church doing, and what am I doing, to interrupt this brokenness? Maybe my concern about politics—who gets elected, what policies they represent, how they will protect American sovereignty—is misplaced. As would be the church’s. Maybe I should just be thinking about what I and my church can do to help prevent tragedies such as these two.

Something to think about.

America

Forty-Five years ago yesterday: Kennedy Assassination

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I meant to write this yesterday, but a day full of activity in advance of Thanksgiving, and all the company we will have, gave me no time at the computer.

John F Kennedy was assassinated 45 years ago yesterday, November 22, 1963. I was in 6th grade at the time, in Mrs. Fisk’s class in dear old Dutemple Elementary School. The first word that we heard was that the president had been shot. This came from a snotty girl in the class, and how she heard it I don’t know–obviously from some adults, probably the teacher. A few minutes later she came over to say the governor of Texas had shot the president. Before school was out at 3 PM Eastern Time, we had the correct news. I don’t remember a whole lot about my reaction. I was not very politically aware as a 6th grader, as neither of my parents were all that politically active or interested.

Put me in the camp of skeptics as far as the official version of the events goes: the Warren Commission conclusion that the president was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone. Sorry, but I don’t buy it. I have read way too much about the evidence and actions of the various players, and believe that Kennedy was killed by some sort of conspiracy. The police work was so shoddy, and the forensics so botched–from the autopsy to the ballistics to the interrogations–that there is no way Oswald ever would have been convicted had he lived to face a trial. The doubt of his guilt is way beyond reasonable.

I don’t know that I want to get into my theory today. I may never post or publish it, save in papers in my file folders. I do want to mention one interesting family anecdote related to this. My late father-in-law, Wayne B. Cheney, was a paper gatherer, and an amateur photographer of some ability. He took many photos of local sports events in Fowler, Kansas before he moved to Amarillo in his latter days. In 1963 he was living in Longview, Texas (he was divorced from my mother-in-law), and had a lot of interests, had lots of contacts with people. He lived a quiet life, but not an isolated life.

I mentioned he was a paper-gatherer. It fell to Lynda and me to go through those papers after he died, along with all the photographs. One 8×10 glossy photo was among the many in the boxes. It was of JFK and various people. I don’t have it in front of me, so I will summarize what Wayne wrote on it: In November 1968 [sic], when I lived in Longview, a friend asked me to take her to Houston for [I can’t remember the reason]. While there, president Kennedy was there, and I was able to get close enough to snap this picture. Obviously he got the year wrong, for Kennedy died in November 1963. But could this be true? It would have been like Wayne to have given someone a ride from Longview to Houston; he would have had his camera with him; raised in a Kansas Democrat farm family he would have wanted to see Kennedy. I don’t know any other time during his presidency that Kennedy was in Houston. So, assuming Wayne was writing the truth, that he actually took that photo (I still have to look for a negative among his papers/photos), this picture would have been shot Nov 21, 1963 during that fateful trip. What is amazing is how close he was able to get to the president.

I may hunt that photo up and enter the exact caption he wrote on it, but I don’t think I’ll post it, just in case Wayne really didn’t take it. He never mentioned it to me before he died.

Just an interesting anecdote. Then again, maybe I’ve got a semi-valuable gem in that box.

America, poetry

The People Have Spoken

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The election on November 4 was a clear signal, I believe, from the American people. They don’t like the job the Bush administration has done, and John McCain was not seen as a better alternative. Hence Barak H. Obama is our president-elect. I hope he has a successful presidency, and that my fears of an 8-year economic slowdown/recession/depression about to take place as a follow-up to the Panic of 2008 (which I believe will happen regardless of who had been elected president) will not happen.

I notice the Democratic gains in the Senate were about in line with expectation, while the gains in the house were a bit below expectation. Still, the gains were clear. That is surprising given Congress’ low approval rating as determined by pollsters, but is further evidence of backlash against Bush.

While some non-professional pundits are saying this is the end of the Republican party, I think that death certificate is pre-mature.

The main negative I have heard in the last two days is that potential Republican hopefuls for 2012 are already making plans to head to Iowa. How sad we must be in a perpetual election cycle.

America, Writing

Everybody’s Busy

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American life is an incredible journey of rushing from one good activity to another. At least, that’s the whirlwind I’m in, and the one others are in based on my recent attempts at making contact. I suppose the greatness of America has something to do with it. We are blessed with incredible freedom and abundant wealth, both augmented by the world’s most advanced technology and relatively cheap transportation (even with gasoline at $3.559).

Because of that, we load up our lives running here and there: activities, trips, and travel–hopefully good things that will enhance our lives and the lives of those within our reach. That includes the whole world nowadays. So when a new, good activity comes up, it must be denied access to our schedule, or something else must give way, be it sleep or relaxation or whatever.

If an old friend from school days contacts you, offering re-acquaintance, what to drop to add that? If long lost relatives discover you, how do you work into the schedule time to build new relationships? If someone you mentored decades ago goes out of his way to find you and attempts correspondence, how will you respond? Interesting questions, for which I have no ready answer.

For me, what gives first is the mundane household chores: balancing the checkbook, paying the bills on time, planning next month’s finances, replacing a light bulb, replacing a broken lamp globe, sweeping the driveway, timely washing the dishes, filing the ridiculous number of papers all my activities seem to generate, etc. Next comes a shortening of quiet and devotional time, and leisure–avocations are not always leisure. Shortening may eventually become elimination.

For others, what gives might just be the new activity, for the comfort of current routine ultimately trumps change for most people.

America, Politics

Michelle says: It takes a family

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Yes, that was the underlying message of Michelle Obama last night at the Democratic party’s convention, to the delegates, staff, media, nation, and world: It takes a family to raise a child, and that family consisting of both a father and mother, and if it happens, cooperating siblings, all working on their own initiative, all dedicated to the task at hand, working diligently, loving totally.

I thought the tribute she paid to her dad was touching, how he worked at a “filtration plant”–by which I assume she means a water treatment plant, and how he continued to do so even after he was physically diminished by disease. He altered his routine, taking longer to get ready for work, so that he could continue to support his family, which he saw as his duty, so that his wife could be a stay-at-home mom. Michelle praised he mother for that, and seemed to feel having that mom at home was important to her upbringing.

The relationship between Michelle and her brother (didn’t catch his name) also seemed important, based on their dovetailing testimonies. She influenced him to stay with coaching, and he influenced her to pursue public service as opposed to a Big Law partnership. Any parent would be proud to have such children, and feel that they had done something right in their raising.

Look at what was absent in Michelle’s speech concerning the influences in her life: neighbors, neighborhood, extended family, government programs. She mentioned her neighborhood, the south side of Chicago, but did so in almost derogatory language. You got the sense that the neighborhood would have pulled her down if the family hadn’t propelled her up. It appears, from Michelle’s words, that the government had no influence at all, either positive or negative.

A last impression I got was the positive influence Michelle has on her husband and children. As stable and positive as her raising was, Barack’s was turbulent: absent father, mother who seemed unstable, frequent moves, raised by a racist grandmother, experimentation with mind-altering drugs. Maybe Michelle helped her husband settle down and end the wild days of his youth. She is likely having that same influence on their daughters.

So, thank you Michelle, for that positive message, exactly what this nation needs to hear today, and echoing that of Bob Dole in 1996: To raise a child, it doesn’t take a village; it takes a family.

By the way, Michelle, have you discussed this with Senator Clinton?

America

Musing on America

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Seventeen years ago I was on my last overseas trip (the ones to Mexico in 1996 and Canada in 1997 not counting as overseas). I spent about 30 hours in the Bahrain airport, writing for my visa into post-war Kuwait to come through. It finally did, and I arrived in Kuwait July 4, 1991, where I joined my wife. She had been there about six weeks as a Red Cross nurse, and was about to leave for home. We overlapped three days, I think.

At that time I had spent five of the previous nine years living out of the country: from 1981-83 in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, and then from 1988 to 1990 in Kuwait. I remember my first flight back into America, in September 1981, when I came to fetch the family and bring them to Saudi for our life there. Charles was 2 years 8 months old, and Sara a mere 5 months. I flew on Pan Am, which to me was a symbol of America. Upon touch down at JFK airport, many on the plane broke out in cheers and clapping. Home again, to the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Several times since then Lynda and I have commented on how reckless and foolish we were, as young parents, to take our children to the Persian Gulf region while the Iran-Iraq war was on. We saw few effects of it while in Saudi, but it was still on when we began expatriate life in Kuwait years later. Several times we saw smoking ships being brought to land somewhere to the south, close enough to see what it was but far enough away to not know what type of ship, or if they were putting into a Kuwaiti or Saudi port. I suspect the Saudi ports were over the horizon, and that they must have been foreign vessels–probably Iraqi–putting into Kuwait ports for repairs. My first month in Kuwait four terrorist bombs were set off, though always in a place that seemed to be to damage a business, not kill people.

In those five years, I had six homecomings to America, plus the one in the trip after the war, so seven overall. I’ve been to Canada twice, and Mexico once, so in all I have returned to America ten times in my life. Each time was an exhilarating feeling. Home again, to a nation where peace prevails and sanity rules. Home again, to where economic opportunity is bounded only by the effort you put in and the amount the government takes out. Home again, to safety and security. Usually to cheers, always to relief.

The world has changed in those years since the long trips for oversees residency, not for business or tourism. I had the opportunity to be in about twenty-five or thirty other countries. I love this country most of all. Yet, as I’ve said in an editorial, I see the United States as a fragile experiment, a mere 232 years after declaring independence, 217 after finding a workable form of government. We have outlasted some nations, but many others through history lasted longer. The experiment is still fragile. Forces foreign and domestic want to change us from being the nation we were formed to be. I won’t list the changes, and not all readers would agree with the specifics.

Has America passed its zenith? Are we now on the decline? This would take many posts to write about, which I won’t do at this time–too much writing to do otherwise. If we have passed our zenith, I hope it is momentary, and that another score of years will find us on the ascendancy again. As I said in the closing line of a tribute poem to Ronald Reagan, “Long live your shining city on a hill.”