A Froggish Valentine’s Day Present

Posted on February 11, 2010 by Gavin Stevens

The Pacific chorus frog, Pseudacris regilla, is hereby designated as the official amphibian of the state of Washington.

Revised Code of Washington, Section 1.20.150

In my small corner of Humptulips County, the second week of February always marks the annual advent of our resident frog chorus. Why the frogs religiously stage their annual debut during the second week of February is one of nature’s mysteries which I prefer not to have explained. In my view of the world, the frog chorus demands a total immersion of the senses, and a scientific explanation would only lessen its majesty.

During the first two weeks of each February, I briefly pause in the doorway of my garage upon arriving home in anticipation of the frogs’ First Night. When First Night finally does arrive, I exit my garage to find that special spot in our field where grass, darkness and frog voices combine to overwhelm my senses to the exclusion of the ordinary. On First Night, I revel in the knowledge that I am hearing but an overture to the ever-swelling chorus that will ensue in forthcoming weeks. On First Night, I am refreshed and renewed by Nature’s ancient, natural rhythms. On First Night, I renew my vows to the small gods of field, forest and marsh.

First Night is the earliest harbinger of Spring’s impending arrival in Humptulips County. Soon the frogs’ chorus will combine with fragile snowdrops, vibrant crocuses, the faint swelling of tree limbs, and the lure of warm zephyrs to pry, one-by-one, Winter’s fingers from the land. For First Night is the true beginning of Spring-To-Come, that real and special season that is the pregnancy to Spring’s forthcoming, riotous celebration of birth. True enjoyment of Spring-To-Come demands our full concentration and careful attention to nuanced detail, and the chorus frogs serve to voice the land’s demand that we throw off Winter’s sluggishness and focus, once again, upon its earliest stirrings.

This year First Night came last Tuesday. The small marsh in the southwest corner of our property is once again alive with a chorus of the earliest frogs. Soon, the frogs resident in the small, intermittent stream behind our house will join and the chorus will become stereophonic – that may happen as soon as this evening. Accordingly, this weekend will be a time to walk our land in a warm coat, boots and hat, and, while my steps may be somewhat slower than in previous years, my mind and senses will be as fully alive as ever to the spell cast by our resident wizards of marsh and stream.

To experience a hint of their spell, scroll down and activate the audio clippings found here: www.mister-toad.com/PacificTreeFrog.html . Enjoy! There is no better Valentine’s Day present than a frog in full voice.

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The State of Our Union

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Gavin Stevens

The President must give the Congress information on the State of the Union from time to time.

Article II, Clause 3, United States Constitution

I enjoy someone who can give a good speech. There is something spellbinding about a good orator, especially when they are saying something that needs to be said while looking those that badly need to hear the message directly in the eye in a public venue. A good orator uses rhythm and a well turned phrase to capture our imagination and make us believe – even if only for the merest moment – that hope exits and that change can occur.

But far better than a merely good orator is someone who can voice a goal in ringing tones and then actually back up the words with effort, action and dedication. Such a man was Martin Luther King, Jr. For all the beauty of his rhetoric, his real worth was in the long sweaty marches, the time spent in jail for his beliefs, his indomitable will that change not only should happen but could happen only if he and many others stayed focused and kept on marching. He not only had a dream, he forged a path to its success.

President Obama gave a pretty speech last night, but I increasingly lack faith in his willingness and ability to slog forward to the change he urges. The pied-piperish Senator Obama of the campaign trail has morphed into the politician-as-usual President Obama of Washington DC. There seems to be something about the atmosphere in our nation’s capital that turns dreamers into sour wine, leaders into turnips, and faith and belief into yesterday’s porridge.

The institution of the State of the Union speech has degenerated into farcical theater. As a theatrical piece, it is not worth the price of admission. If an entry fee were to be charged for the privilege of being able to watch it, no one in their right mind would show up in order to watch a bunch of overstuffed, self-important, do-nothings act childishly for over an hour. If Congress were to pass a law making viewing of the speech mandatory, I suspect that so many people would pay good money to be allowed the privilege of not watching it that the proceeds would make a significant dent in our national debt.

Harry Chapin used to perform a song entitled “30,000 Pounds of Bananas” which had alternate sappy endings and his brother Tom would always utter the following iconic (to Harry’s fans, at least) phrase when the various endings were inevitably trotted out: “Harry, it sucks.” Where was Tom Chapin last night when we needed him?

Sadly, Washington DC has become the nation’s largest single high school. Let’s be frank: in this most magnificent of urban settings exists the most sophomoric, egomaniacal, breast beating culture it is possible to imagine. Set the various monologues and the diatribes to music and you get Grease 2, a badly imagined and poorly acted musical with a theme of continuously lost opportunity. I would rather spend my money to see Grease 1 – I know how both turn out, but Grease 1 is actually entertaining at some level.

When I consider the problem, I must begin with our Constitution – a document that in 1787 was a masterpiece of ingenuity and daring and that Americans have come to revere and sanctify. Our founders not only dared to dream the Constitution, but they went through a hard fought political process to make it the law of the land. Anyone who has read the Federalist Papers understands that the process of the Constitution’s birth was far from easy. Nevertheless, it not only got written, it also got adopted.

Can anyone seriously imagine our present leadership achieving such a result? For that matter, can anyone seriously imagine our present leadership tying their own shoes without the assistance of their respective entourages?

Therein lies our problem. I revere the Constitution as much as the next person – as a venerable piece of our history which ought to be carefully preserved as a historical document for as long as there is a United States of America. However, it is long past time to recognize that the basic structure of government embodied in our Constitution no longer works in today’s world.

In case anyone has forgotten, it is no longer 1787. The founders’ dream of a citizen dominated House of Representatives that would have significant turnover due to the hardship of travel over then non-existent roads no longer holds true. Our founders felt that a two year term was probably about all that a civic minded legislator would want to serve given the difficulty of travel and the consequences of lengthy absences from family and friends. The thrust of the Federalist Paper‘s arguments over the proposed term of a House member was whether the two years was too long as opposed to the then-standard one year term. This was an area where the founders simply were unable to anticipate a future such as the one in which we currently live. In an age of interstate highways, on-demand air travel, instantaneous communications and an interminable federal elections process, a two year term means only that House members are constantly in election mode, constantly engaged in raising money for re-election purposes, and, consequently, constantly thumping their respective chests in order to stand out from among the crowd. In short, their first priority is not your job problem or my job problem, but is, instead, their own job problem.

The Senate was seen by our founders as a place for the aristocracy to ensure that the House didn’t engage in mob rule. It was created at a time when few Americans had a college education, much less what one would, today, call a high school education. Our founders were self-acknowledged elitists who created an upper legislative chamber – the Senate -to ameliorate the wilder and brasher ideas of the mob. In a country where societal-wide communication is available at the push of a mouse button, the capacity of the upper chamber to serve as a leavening agent has been transformed into a mere recipe for nauseating delay and constant inaction. How else can one explain a chamber that feels itself unable to act despite the fact that the majority party controls an overwhelming 59% of the seats?

Of our three main branches of government, Congress is the most broken. If the President needs to be replaced, we can do so by means of the electoral process; we cannot toss out the entire Congress at any single moment in time. The Supreme Court cannot be changed quickly, but there is some merit to consistency in the judicial process – even though it pains me greatly to say so when I consider the lack of ability and empathy shown by so many members of the present Court. But the Court, too, can and will be changed as each new President has an opportunity to make new appointments. Congress, however, just sits like a cancer on Washington DC, with each new member as fully dedicated to keeping his or her job as the old member he or she replaced. Congress is too big, too lobbied, too useless, too unproductive.

In short, the dream of a government of checks and balances which the Constitution envisages has become, instead, a reality of unrestrained sophistry, self-serving goals, and decisions motivated by pleasing the ever-present and constantly spending special interests rather than decisions taken for the good of the general public. The particular form of representative government created by the founders in a time of difficult travel and poor communications has outlived its usefulness and has become, instead, an impediment to good governance.

It is long past time for us to call for a new constitutional convention and to create a form of government for the present. To those who revere the present document, I remind you that when our constitution was created it was deemed by all as a boldly new and daring initiative. Our founders dared to dream and to fight for that dream. If they could still speak to us, I strongly suspect that they would tell us that nothing is forever and that when the trappings of government become inimical to the public good, one must change the form of government. Why do I assume so? Because that is exactly what they did in their place and time and, in the fullness of their success and daring, they became known as “founders” instead of being remembered as the ordinary citizens they were when they began the process.

I suspect that mere amendment of portions of the existing Constitution will be insufficient. It is time to re-think our entire governmental structure given the present communications tools we possess. It is time to amend the existing Constitution by means of a wholesale replacement thereof with a new document approved by means of the amending process set forth in the present document. Our founders thought about the need for periodic amendments and provided us with a methodology for doing so. In creating a wholesale replacement, we need only follow the genius of our founders as embodied in the existing document.

We don’t need to be afraid of such a process as it would involve significant debate and state-by-state approval. To those would would argue that no one can presently be identified as someone with the necessary stature to lead this effort, I would say that I have sufficient faith in the American people to know that leadership will rise to the top in the course of the process. It won’t come from Washington DC where leadership is a lost art, but it will come from among the many talented individual Americans who will be willing to step up and be counted. To those who would say that such a process would be far too risky for our democracy, I would ask “when did America decide not to dream?”

It is time for a change. Given the present configuration of our government, things simply do suck. It doesn’t have to be that way. All we have to do is dream the dream, get off our collective duffs and join the march. This time the march should be away from Washington and all of the collective inefficiency, uselessness and depravity that it represents.

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Rushing to Judgment

Posted on December 22, 2009 by Gavin Stevens

Once I began using a desk top computer on a regular basis in my practice in the early 1980′s, I quickly realized that my ability to deliberate over pending decisions was being impaired. As the speed and capacity of computers increased exponentially, the ability to deliberate over decisions became increasingly difficult. In fact, at one point I found myself arguing, due to the incredibly increased pace at which we were being asked to turn around transactional documents, that in making hiring decisions our law firm should carefully consider a prospective lawyer’s ability to make snap judgments in conjunction with the more customary criteria of law school grades, common sense, character and legal ability in general.

In reaching this conclusion, I was not becoming enamored of the lack of time for deliberation, but simply recognizing that the manner and means of practice had changed so extensively that one simply had to recognize that the facility to make snap judgments was increasingly important in a tech-dominated working environment. In fact, I have long decried the lack of time to deliberate carefully, especially in complex matters, and have long sought substitute methodology which would build in necessary document review and consideration of basic legal issues involved in the matter at hand.

Snap judgments are just that – judgments made on the spot, often without full information about the circumstances with which one is faced. I long ago learned that while the clients want a quick product turn around and are unwilling to pay for time to deliberate, they also want informed decisions taking into account everything that adequate deliberation would demand. After all, in the purest sense lawyers are counselors, and counselors are supposed to provide thoughtful, considered advice. The resulting stresses between the speed of service allowable due to technological expertise and the need for informed – rather than snap – decisions, can be incredibly debilitating over time to a service provider.

This is not, however, a piece about this type of stress. I am hardly the first one to mention it in print, as articles on the subject have become prevalent since at least the mid-1980′s when people began to notice and comment upon the phenomenon. I can no longer effectively argue against this reality of our world; I can only seek ways to insert reflection and deliberation into a process which is basically inhospitable to their involvement.

Instead, this piece is about something else that I have begun to notice which may well be one of the inevitable outcomes of a generation of technology-enabled, snap judgments employed on a society-wide basis. I offer these comments with some hesitation since I don’t have anything more than a feeling that my comments are correct. I leave it to others who may agree with the premise to perform the necessary research to substantiate these propositions.

What I have begun to focus upon is the inevitable, public commentary that immediately accompanies every published, on-line news article. While I do not generally read such commentary, I have begun to notice three things about it: its prevalence, the speed with which it is produced (it arises almost simultaneously with the news story publication), and the virulence and vehemence of its content. I am truly amazed at the speed with which the general public arrives at an unshakable opinion about the truth or untruth of a given news story, and the absolute ferocity with which these opinions are defended or advanced.

I start with the proposition that no one who reacts so quickly to a matter about which he or she cannot have any first hand information can possibly have deliberated over the facts presented before publishing a post. It simply isn’t possible that someone posting an opinionated response within minutes of a news story’s first publication can have spent any significant time in reflection about the story’s accuracy or meaning. Clearly, those posting in this time frame are simply making the story fit within the framework of their preconceived viewpoint, rather than offering a considered judgment about the facts – in other words, they are responding to the story using their basic prejudices, rather than taking any time to think. And then the “fun” begins.

The “fun” often consists of pages upon pages of postings, all arguing with one another over the worth of their respective opinions – or, to be more correct, over the lack of worth of everyone’s opinion but one’s own. The actual subject matter of the news story frequently becomes lost in the discussion and, in many cases, becomes irrelevant to the discussion itself. Name calling abounds, often in the rudest imaginable language with peculiarly personal attacks against people the author has never met.

The media encourages this behavior, both by making the postings possible and actively encouraging the resulting commentary, and by posting instant polls asking people to “vote” on some subject they believe will catch the general interest. It should be noted that this form of “voting” is simply a shorthand way of posting one’s opinion – it removes the need to use words in the posted commentary sections by letting people simply push a yes or no button. In other words, the resulting “voting” is nothing more than a compact version of the wordy commentary – opinion reduced to a single word generated by the click of a mouse. The practice seems even more pernicious in prospect from the standpoint of deliberational thinking, since the question’s framer defines the issues to be voted on (i.e., discussed) rather than leaving the subject for discussion to the imagination (or prejudices) of the posters.

What is more significant from my viewpoint is that this behavior is becoming increasingly viewed as appropriate. It may, in fact, have already become the norm. I arrive at this conclusion by noting the lack of published argument or commentary about the extent of its usage. As societies change, it is usually true that behavior which is gaining ground from the standpoint of respectability is at first decried early on its way to becoming the societal norm. At some point in its evolution, people stop arguing against its rise and it becomes, with time, acceptable behavior and, finally, the only appropriate behavior. While we still seem to be at the stage where there is some argument over instant commentary, the argument focuses more and more upon the ethics and manners of the practice rather than on the efficacy or utility of the practice itself.

What does this mean for human society? The so-called “commentary” posted with respect to on-line news stories is not my real concern, but is, rather, the most evident, measurable manifestation of that concern. What I worry about is the ability of upcoming generations to make informed, considered, thoughtful decisions about complex social matters in an environment where snap judgments are the norm. As the speed of decision making increases, will society respect and appreciate, or even accept, the ruminations of those who retain the art of pondering the meaning of those decisions? And even if they are accorded such respect, will the results of their deliberations be useless in an environment where irrevocable decisions are made in a matter of moments in accordance with prevailing custom?

Take the recent public squabble over the time it took President Obama to arrive at a “new” Afghanistan policy. He took the time to arrive at strategy and the public and his rival politicians could not understand his methods or the accompanying delay. The public complaints over the time it took (a matter of two to three months on the whole) were news in and of themselves, since, to his critics, the decision was obvious and thinking about it was simply a complete waste of time and denigrating to our troops.

Admittedly, this may not be the best example I could use, since the resultant decision could well have been made in moments given the staleness of the thought it represents – it was nothing more than recycled Bush era thinking that left us with nothing new or useful. Nonetheless, I give the President credit for resisting the public demand for instantaneous decision making, even if his decision, in the end, was, to me, profoundly disappointing and lacking in perception.

My overriding fear is that we may well be headed for an era of generally poor decision making brought on by popular impatience with the art of deliberation and reflection. We could easily arrive at what I might term “pachinko ball decision making” – decision making by reaction to a chain of choices where each single opportunity of choice is defined solely by the decision made with respect to the previous choice. Contrast this notion with choices taken in accordance with an overall, pre-existing strategic plan with established goals – decisions made with the use of an existing measuring stick.

In order to avoid decisional disasters arising out of our increasing need for immediate results, governments can do two things – learn to anticipate and contemplate issues before they come to prominence and hire folks of common sense to make decisions as such issues come to public prominence. I can foresee the use of governmental think tanks charged with anticipating issues and providing advance analysis and deliberation for the subsequent use by politicians who must react immediately when such issues finally achieve prominence. While it is highly unlikely that governmental budgets will stretch to think tanks whose product might or might not be used at some future time, I see no other way to provide needed deliberation in the face of increasing impatience over “delayed” decisions.

As for hiring – or electing – folks with common sense to make decisions, I have probably come full circle to my hiring suggestion to my colleagues at my law firm. I can imagine only one, real-time antidote to poor decision making made in the context of needed immediacy, and that is to have the decisions made by persons possessing abundant common sense. Mind you, I am not hopeful for this solution, since my belief is that only a very small percentage of people have any significant amount of common sense, and those that possess significant amounts of this commodity will likely realize that putting themselves in a position where they are forced to make hurried decisions without adequate reflection is a losing, long-term proposition.

I anticipate charges of elitism being levelled against me as a result of this proposition, but I am not concerned about such charges. Perhaps I am an elitist at heart, since I fully believe that some few are far better at decision making than the bulk of the population and that those few should be given the burden of doing so. This is hardly a new belief, since this notion can be traced to the ancient Greeks and beyond, but the need for such an elite group may well be more important now than at any previous time in recorded human history.

As has always been the case, the problem remains the methodology by which we are to select those that should govern. Can western notions of democracy prevail in a coming age where the voting public is trained by, and inured to, snap judgment-making by the very technology generally employed in our educational institutions and in the work place? I predict that this will be the primary challenge faced by future generations of Americans. If future generations are going to solve this challenge, the present generation must first acknowledge its existence, define the scope of the challenge and offer it up on the alter of public commentary.

And so it seems that there is really nothing terribly new under the sun, except, perhaps, for the present speed at which humanity is careening from significant choice to significant choice. I can only hope that we have not yet exceeded the capacity of our restraining rails to hold in check the resulting centrifugal force.

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Veterans’ Day

Posted on November 11, 2009 by Gavin Stevens

I am not a veteran, but that does not mean that I lack an appreciation for the sacrifices that so many of our fellow countrymen have made over the years while serving in our armed forces. There is a story behind the fact that I am not a veteran, but it is not one which should be told on this particular day. The focus of this day should be on our veterans and the respect due them for having served our country in whatever time or conditions they found themselves during their period of service.

Not all military service is equal in risk in the sense that some veterans have served during times of peace and some have served in times of war; but all of the service is equal in the sense that each soldier, sailor, airman, marine or coast guardsman engaged in his or her service solely for the benefit of the the many civilians of our nation. As Americans, we are privileged to live in a country where the branches of our armed services exist only for the benefit of the collective whole, and not for their individual profit or for the exercise of political power. Not all nations enjoy such a luxury.

Those Americans, like me, who have not served in our armed forces have, over our lives, benefitted from our veterans’ service; service that, whether in time of peace or war, required some form of sacrifice. Their sacrifices range from the mundane (a reduced income during military service compared to what might have been earned in civilian life, or living in exceptionally cramped quarters in a submarine or surface vessel) to something as extraordinary as the giving of a life, the loss of a limb, or the suffering of mental instability arising from the horrific conditions of war.

All of our service men and women live with the idea that the very act of their service demands that they will place themselves in harm’s way if the need requires. They enter into service with this knowledge, knowing full well that the final decision as to whether they will engage in combat is not theirs but that of a superior. They train hard to be prepared for the worst of situations, never knowing when and where those situations may arise and always trusting to the judgment of others as to what the national will or need may require of them. In this regard, it doesn’t really matter whether their service originated by governmental draft or by voluntary enlistment – in either case, they served for the benefit of all of the rest of us who so significantly outnumber their ranks.

Yesterday, the day before Veteran’s Day, I watched the televised proceedings at Fort Hood honoring the 13 who died last Thursday at the hands of an assassin. Their loss is unusual because of the manner and location of its occurrence. These were volunteers, most of whom faced future service under fire, many of whom had already served under fire, and all must have had no thought that they might come in harm’s way on an early November day in Texas while engaging in routine daily events on their home post. Their loss makes this Veteran’s Day all the more poignant since it demonstrates that harm’s way may be found at any time and at home as well as abroad.

I am not a veteran, but my partner is. My partner served with distinction in World War II in many locations, but most notably in the small town of Mortain, France. One sunny day in early August when he thought he and his fellow troops were going to enjoy a few days of respite behind the front lines after weeks of fierce fighting from hedgerow to hedgrow in Normandy, he awoke to find his hill – Hill 314 just outside of Mortain – surrounded by a German panzer division as the Germans counterattacked in an attempt to break the Allied invasion. For the next 6 days and nights, he called in artillery fire on the hill’s very edges to keep the German’s at bay, using the only working radio the troops on the hill possessed. He was not the only hero on that hill during those 6 days and he would be the very first to say so. But he did the job he was trained to do as best he could, and his efforts were very effective. He won the Silver Star for his efforts at Mortain and wears it proudly to this day when the occasion demands.

My partner’s training and determination saw him through the seige at Mortain while many of his comrades were dying on that very same hill. He cannot forget those days in August, and as each subsequent August occurs those long ago days are mentally relived with prayers said anew for those that fell. He has even come to write about his experiences after the many years of not being able to speak about them, and, in doing so, has enabled those of us who have never served to have some idea of what true sacrifice can be.

Two years ago, my partner was awarded France’s highest honor – the Legion of Honor – at a ceremony in Portland, Oregon and I was privileged to attend and hear the remarks of the French Counsel thanking him for his service to France. I cannot award him a beautiful medal in thanking him – and so many others – for their service to this country, but I can and do extend my personal thanks in gratitude for the freedoms I enjoy. It is the grand tradition of the American civilian soldier that has protected these liberties. Each of these current soldiers or veterans, in whatever their guise or branch of service, carries or carried our freedoms in their kits during their time of service, so that the many civilians of this nation could enjoy those freedoms to the utmost. While all of us, soldier and civilian alike, bear some responsiblity for the protection of our freedoms, our soldiers and veterans have always been the heaviest lifters as the front line of freedom’s defense.

So, let this be my personal thank you to my long time partner, friend and mentor, Robert L. Weiss. Let it also be my thanks to the many other current and former civilian soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coast guardsmen – whether I have had the privilege of meeting them or not. If I do not know them in person, I now understand, thanks to Bob’s writings, who they are in spirit. For that spirit, I salute them.

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Memories and Sky

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Gavin Stevens

The sky was as full of motion and change as the desert beneath it was monotonous and still — and there was so much sky, more than at sea, more than anywhere else in the world. The plain was there, under one’s feet, but what one saw when one looked about was that brilliant blue world of stinging air and moving cloud. Even the mountains were mere ant-hills under it. Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky. The landscape one longed for when one was away, the thing all about one, the world one actually lived in, was the sky, the sky!

Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

Humptulips County has become my home, its pleasant pastoral greens beacons for my heart, its soft murmurings music to my spirit, and its gentle beauty balm for my soul. I love it here and would not now live anywhere else. But I was not born here. I grew up in Eastern Washington, an ecosystem and a lifetime away from Humptulips County.

When traveling East through Snoqualmie Pass, Eastern Washington begins in the high foothills of the Cascade Mountains above Ellensburg, its Western boundary marked by the wall of the Cascades against the overarching sky spread before you and its Eastern boundary unseeable due to the curve of the Earth. The sky determines Eastern Washington – its character, its coloring, its people, the land and the quality of the life upon that land. You cannot speak of Eastern Washington without mentioning the sky any more than you could speak of New York City without mentioning the toughness of its inhabitants. You cannot imagine Eastern Washington’s landscape except as lying beneath a sky of every imaginable hue of blue, gray or rose – land and sky existing as perfect analogues. You cannot remember a particular moment spent in Eastern Washington without recalling whether it was informed by rain, wind, lightning or sun pouring from an omnipresent, overweening sky – for the memory of that event would be singularly incomplete without its appropriate backdrop.

While I never feel claustrophobic in Humptulips County, I always feel a keen sense of release when reaching the foothills above Ellensburg. There is one, particular bend in the well-traveled, familiar highway where it always becomes apparent to me that I have arrived in what Ivan Doig termed “This House of Sky.” As I round that bend, my spirit is released into that sky to soar with the hawks, to feel and taste the bite of the wind, and to savor the colors of the landscape below – tan and sere in Summer, crazy quilted and musty in Fall, white, pristine and silent in Winter, and satin-sensuously green during its brief Spring.

The light is always glorious no matter the time of year, since there is so much more sky from which it may originate. In this light I first see the beauty that is the land itself: the ridges vanishing into the haze of a distant horizon; the very shape of the valleys as seen from above; the cornucopic imprint of life upon the land. And, the closer I look the more beauty I can find lurking within the interstices of this massive landscape: tiny flowers growing within volcanic rock; blurred movements of field mice or other small animals; silvery undersides of grey-green leaves twisting in a Summer wind; mysterious cavortings of dust devils over a plowed field; joyous antics of tumbleweeds in motion; babbling creek water passing over time-smoothed stones.

I have less reason now to visit the sky under which I was raised, but it still informs and affects my life, calling to me from memory. My parents lie beneath this sky, snug in their graves and now of the landscape itself. I hear their whispers in the susuration of the wheat and I feel their presence in the narrow canyons of the Blue Mountains. I come here less often now, but come I will as long as there is the ability to do so.

This was the land of my childhood from which I will never be completely estranged. My youngest son has just moved to Eastern Washington. The landscape of his childhood is the obvious, visual glory of Humptulips County. I wish for him that he may learn to love the spirit and magnificence of this sky, for only in its immensity can one fully appreciate one’s position upon this earth and discover the singular sense of wonder and magnificence that is to be found in the struggle of each living thing to survive and endure.

 

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Dance Me to the End of Life

Posted on September 25, 2009 by Gavin Stevens

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love

Leonard Cohen, “Dance Me to the End of Love”

I have no idea how anyone could live a life that didn’t include music in one form or another. I respect all forms of music, but confess an affinity for the human voice and for well written lyrics. I have listened to all types of music and like each in its place, but I return again and again to the poetry of a well written phrase that causes me to marvel at a succinct statement capturing something deep, convoluted and enigmatic and to wonder how the artist found the means of expressing such complexity with amazingly clarifying simplicity.

Those who do this well withstand time, no matter what one says about their voice or their instrumental musicianship. Take Leonard Cohen, for example. The man is in his 70′s and still performing to sold out venues. His voice will never rival that of another favorite of mine, Tony Bennett, but it is inextricably associated with his beautiful music. As beautiful a tune as is “Hallelujah” and as beautiful as it can be when rendered by the likes of Jennifer Warnes or the many others who have recorded it, I always come back to his version as definitive. The song is simply not complete without his growling passion, and it seems to move him as much as it does his audience – in other words, it is still fresh for him after God knows how many performances. If you have doubt, go to his website – http://www.leonard-cohen.com/– and watch the video of “Hallelujah” performed last year in London during his current world tour.

I certainly mean no disrespect for the likes of Jennifer Warnes whose interpretations of Cohen are beyond compare. Her voice is simply gorgeous and she has recorded far too little during her career. Her album of Cohen’s songs, “Famous Blue Raincoat,” should not be missed by anyone who cares for glorious renderings of masterful lyrics. It was recently remastered and re-issued and is now far more wonderful than in its first incarnation. I return to this album several times a year and marvel in its clarity and soaring music, but, in the end, I always return to Mr. Cohen’s versions to reflect upon the meaning of his music – husky, meaty versions growled, chewed up and spit out as only he can.

Paul Simon is another such poet. His voice is more musical and his lyrics less straightforward, but no less thought provoking for their sometimes frustrating ambiguity. His is the expertise of saying things in an off center manner that challenges the intellect to wonder what he truly means – even while knowing that he is saying something significant. Consider this stanza from “An American Tune”:

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age’s most uncertain hours and sing an American tune
Oh, and it’s alright, it’s all right, it’s all right
You can’t be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day
And I’m trying to get some rest
That’s all, I’m trying to get some rest

Within this lyric is a celebration of the span of American history coupled with the weariness of the ordinary American working stiff who makes such glory possible, inch by sweaty inch. How anyone, in one stanza, can capture anything so complex while reducing it to instant recognition and understanding is beyond my comprehension. I can only stand in awe, admire the reductive intelligence, and wish I had the ability to have said and left it, as Mr. Simon has, for the rest of humanity to enjoy and ponder.

And then there is Bob Dylan, the master of poetry with a voice even more fractured and broken than Mr. Cohen’s. His focus is more on human emotion than the sweep of history or the grand idea, but the poetry is no less immediate. I am very partial to the lyrics of “To Make You Feel My Love”:

The storms are raging on a rolling sea
Down the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
But you ain’t seen nothing like me yet
There ain’t nothing that I wouldn’t do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
Make you happy, make your dreams come true
To make you feel my love

I doubt Dylan will ever quit writing lyrics or music and that he will go to his grave with just one more song waiting to be written.

Lastly, there is Richard Thompson, an Irish folk rock musician who has been around as long as Dylan. He writes lyrics that he is challenged to sing since he is not blessed with the best singing voice, but his voice will grow on you with time. He is, however, a consummate guitar player who ranks among the best in the word. Most importantly, however, he is an excellent songwriter who is also a poet. His “Dimming of the Day” has been recorded by many fine artists:

This old house is falling down around my ears
I’m drowning in a river of my tears
When all my will is gone you hold me sway
I need you at the dimming of the day

The lyric is coupled with a haunting melody and, if you know the song, all you have to do is read the lyric to hear the music play in your mind – a hallmark of a successful song.

There are other gracefully aging musical poets, some of them unlikely and uneven in their output. Consider Dion Dimucci – yes, the 1950′s Dion of “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer.” Many don’t know that he is still recording and making wonderful music even today – music that is stronger and more adventuresome than anything he ever did in the 1950′s. Find and listen to “I used to be a Brooklyn Dodger,” a song about having been a phenomenon that is not filled with remorse and is beautiful to the ear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVFkO6xTpX4 Dion may seem an unlikely choice to you for inclusion in this pantheon, but take a listen and take a chance on much of his later music. You will be well rewarded. There is little out there to compare with “Deja Nu,” his 2000 album of doo wop, complete with wonderful covers of two Bruce Springsteen tunes. The first song on the album, “Shoo Bop” is a glorious return to the 1950′s, even if not poetry in the sense of that I am trying to celebrate.

Even Tony Bennett, that most marvelous of interpreters of the classic American songbook, writes the occasional song that is well worth your time and effort. Consider “Antonia” from his album “Astoria: Portrait of the Artist” – a hard-to-find album, but well worth the effort and well worth listening to even if just to hear this rare composition by Mr. Bennett.

Of course, none of these artists would be complete without the music that accompanies their words. Don MacLean’s lines from Vincent, for example, would never ring as true without the beautiful melody that comes to mind inevitably upon reading these words:

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you Vincent
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

I only wish Mr. MacLean would return to writing instead of producing covers.

For me, the truth and the beauty of music is in the lyrics, especially in any lyrical turn of phrase that is sharp, clear and remindful of personal matters or emotions. That is why the works of Messrs. Cohen, Simon, Dylan and Thompson stand out. While there are younger writers that give me hope for the future – Gretchen Peters, for example* – these elder statesman of the popular song give me rest, comfort and constant enjoyment both with respect to their body of existing work and their anticipated future production.

It is hard to imagine these men without music in their life. I expect each of them to dance all the way to the end. They continue to write and perform even as the dance slows for the rest of us. I imagine that they are incapable of doing any thing else.

* Her “On a Bus to St. Cloud” always takes my breath away:

On a bus to St. Cloud, Minnesota
I thought I saw you there
With the snow falling down around you
Like a silent prayer
And once on a street in New York City
With the jazz and the sin in the air
And once on a cold L.A. freeway
Going nowhere

Posted in Words and Music | Comments Off on Dance Me to the End of Life

Saving America’s Virtue

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Gavin Stevens

“Elaborate care went into figuring out the precise gradations of coercion,” said David B. Rivkin Jr., a lawyer who served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.  “Yes, it’s jarring. But it shows how both the lawyers and the nonlawyers tried to do the right thing.”

New York Times, August 25, 2009 “Report Shows Tight C.I.A. Control on Interrogations“

“How far can you go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

This is that inevitable time in the normal course of human events when the details of America’s interrogation techniques employed during the Bush/Cheney administration are finally being revealed. While Dick Cheney fulminates in the background about protection of the American “patriots” who carried on our so-called “War on Terrorism,” details about the techniques continue to emerge relentlessly into the light due, if to nothing else, to humanity’s endless fascination with the dirty, squalid details of mankind’s apparently endless inhumanity to individual men.

Yesterday, in a written post, Cheney professed incredulity over the publication of recent media reports on enhanced interrogation techniques that involved, among other sterling means, threats to use electric drills in unspecified ways and rapes of either mothers or wives (as variously reported) by stating:

“The activities of the CIA in carrying out the policies of the Bush Administration were directly responsible for defeating all efforts by al Qaeda to launch further mass casualty attacks against the United States.  The people involved deserve our gratitude.  They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions.”

The fact that he seems genuinely surprised and indignant that this information is now being dragged into the light of day demonstrates Cheney’s inherent inability to understand the fascination that squalor holds on the minds of ordinary mortals and places him in the role of the Dutch boy with his finger in the dike attempting to hold back the inevitable flood of condemnation and disgust that will no doubt follow these disclosures.  In undertaking the role of champion of the notion that bad behavior in the pursuit of laudable goals is patriotic, Cheney reveals why his presence (and those of his emulators) in our government over the last several decades has been one of the saddest chapters in all of American history.

The America in which I was raised believed, rightly or wrongly, that it was the greatest nation on earth, both in terms of power and of morality.  Our focus then was less upon our status as a superpower, and more upon the “fact” of our innate moral superiority.  I suspect that we took our belief in our own morality so much to heart that our neighbors frequently found us insufferable in our repeated assertions in this regard.  Notwithstanding our pomposity, those assertions did have the effect of causing us to demand more of ourselves than we expected of others, and the resulting American ethic was such that we were required, as a people, to rise above the ordinary squalor and cruelty of life.  We expected, and demanded, more of ourselves.  And, notwithstanding their occasional amusement, our neighbors came to expect this behavior of us and admired us for it, as insufferable as we may have appeared to them at such times as we publicly wallowed in our own self-assertions of that very morality.

In other words, as priggish as we may often have seemed to the world during this era, there was a genuine sense in the world that America had truly raised itself above the usual muck and mire and was a shining example of what could be achieved by a nation that took to heart the notion that individual human rights were always to be protected against the tyranny of the majority’s wishes.  I believe that our occasional public assertions of morality were forgiven by the rest of the world as the excesses of a young democracy that had truly achieved something significant.  We were more honored than reviled for our self-promotion for the simple reason that there was substantially more than a mere grain of truth behind it all.

Our perceived morality gave us standing in the world. More than mere standing, it lent us a dignity from which to promote our various policies – a dignity which was unassailable even as we occasionally made a laughing stock of ourselves due to an innate and relentless American habit of self-promotion.  Our dignity was represented by Presidents who wielded our moral authority with care, if not always to best effect.  Our image was represented by the likes of Dwight D. Eisenhower, a man who had earned his right to speak out against humanity’s indignities the hard way.  Whatever you may think of his effectiveness as President, his public image was unassailable and his warnings of a militarily industrialized future uncannily prescient.

Eisenhower’s quotations are well worth reading by those of you who have relegated him to the dust-bin of presidential mediocrity.  Whatever the truth may be as to his real-time effectiveness as a working President, this was a man who understood, first-hand, the effects of war on humanity and who routinely preached against the evils of untamed blood lust in all of its forms.  Eisenhower was the very embodiment in words and deeds of America’s self-perceived morality and, as time passed and we, as Americans, began to ridicule our own moral stuffiness, we distanced ourselves from his public image of moral rectitude.  We did so at great cost, by forgetting the universal verity of many of his words.

Eisenhower could be as practical as he could be stuffy.  In the context of the subject matter of this piece, consider this statement by our thirty-fourth President:

“I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick.  If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.”

These are the words of a man who equally understands the value of the high, long way and the dangers and self-delusions inherent in moral short cuts undertaken in the name of “patriotism.”  This was a man who was often criticized for taking an inordinate amount of time to make up his mind on critical issues, but who asserted that “I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?”

I am often dismissive of much of the criticism of my generation since I believe we added far more than we took, but I do believe my generation comes in for valid criticism in over-reacting as much as we did to 1950 American moral stuffiness.  Some reaction was appropriate and necessary to save us from the smell of renewed Puritanism which permeated the era, especially in light of the fact that 1950’s Americans openly engaged in the thoroughly hypocritical and inherently degrading actions of segregation while simultaneously proclaiming their societal morality.  The generational uprising in which we engaged was long overdue and necessary from this standpoint.

What my generation was guilty of is nothing more than acting in predictable human fashion when faced with the realization that goals and actions don’t match – we swung the pendulum from one extreme to the other, forgetting there was a midpoint upon which it might well be smarter to settle.  Many of us reacted to the permeating smell of Puritanism by becoming drug induced and sex obsessed.  One of the costs of this generational pendulum shift was for America to forget the hard-earned truths which were concealed by President Eisenhower’s very stuffiness – that the moral high ground is always a position of strength when continually maintained despite the vicissitudes of time, even if short-cuts around our moral principles seem, in the heat of the moment, more likely to yield immediate results.

Dick Cheney is living proof of our failure to remember this lesson.  As tight-assed as the man is, he is nothing more than the embodiment of my generation’s failure to stop the pendulum mid-swing.  In his ignorance and arrogance, he has confused his taking of short cuts in the name of patriotism for the will of the people.  He has utterly failed to understand the historical lesson that persons in power who undertake activities of questionable morality with the excuse of being in pursuit of higher goals actually undermine the higher goals so proclaimed, actively lessen a nation’s integrity – and, therefore, its effectiveness, in the wide world – and, in the long run, its very safety.

In short, Cheney is as un-American as any public official ever inflicted upon America.  Give me, instead, the Kingfish, Huey Long – at least in his greed he was a splendid example of one of the least desirable aspects of American culture and, in the end, did no more lasting harm than any cheap criminal can inflict.  And, he came to have some redeeming virtue in becoming the inspiration for one of America’s more enduring literary classics, All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren.  In contrast, Cheney is simply an unmitigated disaster.  Cheney is no more than the latest heir to the American tradition of scoundrels who employ the big lie as a means to success.  You can easily find his like in the pages of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the guise of the Duke or the Lost Dauphin.  Would that he were as amusing or as transparent; would that he had been as harmless.

This is the time of year in North America when the sun’s light reaches us at a more oblique angle and light softens from that of Summer’s harshness as a consequence.  Even as we welcome the softer aspects of Fall’s light knowing that we cannot stop nature from its inevitable course, we should continue shining a harsh, Summery spotlight upon the interrogation policies of the Bush/Cheney administration, for it seems to be true that epiphanies only occur in a blinding light and an epiphany is what this country so desperately needs at this time.

During the Bush/Cheney administration America strayed far from the high, moral path which sustained us as a people for so many years, and there is no conceivable way back without an honest admission of our collective failure followed closely by the employment of an effective means to expiate the sins which resulted from our wandering.  What form that expiation ought to take I will leave for smarter minds and a future time; for now, it is enough to remain focused upon the imperative need for an honest admission.

And, for there to be an honest admission of our failing, we must first endure the pain of a complete, undistorted, public revelation of the facts of our failure – something that among the present holders of senior government positions only Attorney General Eric Holder seems to comprehend, and his comprehension seems either to be limited in scope or practically compromised by the short-sightedness and predilection for shortcut-taking that are the hallmarks of everyday politics.  I suspect it is the latter, since he seems intellectually up to the task.

It is a time for spotlights because it is a time for a national epiphany.  Most of all, it is time for statesmen to return to the forefront of the national stage and for politicians to retreat to the wings.

Posted in Politicians and Other Lower Life Forms | Comments Off on Saving America’s Virtue

Realities in the Arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates

Posted on August 6, 2009 by Gavin Stevens

News has been hard to come by in Brasil, but I’ve been reading a lot today and have to say that Henry Louis Gates acted like a moron…

Tweet by brennonbortz to The Huffington Post

O WOW! I just saw Henry Louis Gates in LGA acting like a damn superstar waving to folk. Somebody tell his uppity self to stop. Lmao.

Tweet by NaleJBonz to The Huffington Post

I have been watching the news about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. with great interest. As I have previously written, I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Gates last January and found myself not only charmed but very moved by his actions and words. He is a bright, effervescent man with a passion for history and a firm determination that all people are equal. In short, I found him an inspiration (see my previous post entitled “The Theory and Practice of Rainbows” for a contemporaneous discussion of my introduction to Professor Gates).

However, I wasn’t present at the time of his arrest and cannot comment on what actually occurred other than to note that my impression of the man I met last January and the various descriptions of Professor Gates in the many blogs and commentaries discussing his arrest are wholly incompatible. Given the number of people in the blogs and commentaries with firm opinions about how he behaved that July day, I am compelled to assume that at the time of his arrest there must have been a crowd of somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000 in attendance outside of his Cambridge home. How this many people could have been forewarned of the event is nothing short of miraculous and must be an indication of the power of mobile electronics – nothing else could explain such a phenomenon. One wonders if its ephemeral organizers sold tickets to what could only be described as the first-ever “Racial Event Rave”.

Since a crowd of this size is highly improbable and remains unreported by what is laughingly known as “the Press”, I have to assume that none of those with a firm opinion about Mr. Gates (or about Sergeant James Crowley, the police officer involved, for that matter) were present at the arrest when it occurred. I also have to assume that none of these self-confessed expert witnesses are blessed by a higher power with paranormal observational abilities.

In other words, none of these bloggers and commentators have a clue what they are talking about, but they are uniformly firm in their resolve not to let their lack of knowledge get in the way of their having a firm opinion about what actually happened. Ignorance of actual facts is, apparently, no reason not to assume a version thereof convenient to personal prejudice.

I find this “ability” to intuit “facts” from afar to be greatly more interesting than the story itself. The events of that July day were nothing more than a high level replay of common, garden variety events which occur daily in this country when folks of two or more races have occasion to interact. Simply put, race is still a destabilizing factor in this country even though we have spent the last several decades working hard to eliminate it as such. While the simple fact of Mr. Gates’ arrest is proof that we have yet to succeed in achieving a race neutral society, the reaction to the arrest by all of the know-it-alls and true believers is a far more telling measurement of the distance yet to travel toward that goal.

I say this simply because one can only know the Truth of something unseen and unobservable through the strength of one’s own convictions and beliefs. All of us have a belief structure which we apply to what we see and hear, and, using that structure to make sense of our sensory input, we arrive at conclusions that are personally meaningful. We use that belief structure to interpret matters which occur before our very eyes, and we also use that belief structure to interpret that which we have been told about but have not seen.

In doing so, sometimes we reach conclusions that are insightful, but more often we simply reflect our lack of understanding, lack of empathy or lack of knowledge. If there is one single lesson which all of us can learn as a result of Professor Gates’ arrest, it is to think before publication. In days of yore, becoming published was dependent upon others printing our words, and they did so only after subjecting us to editing. Today anyone – yes, even I – can publish without another’s permission, much less another’s editing. If that statement doesn’t scare you, you know not what you are about to do.

That so many could swear that they know the truth of the events of that day or, more tellingly, that so many could characterize Mr. Gates’ behavior in some manner when they weren’t there to observe his behavior for themselves (often using words or phrases dripping with the prejudice long displayed during our national history of racial discrimination) demonstrates that racial prejudice is alive and well in America. When so many can look from afar through their personal lens of verity to find Mr. Gates acting “uppity” (in the words of NaleJBonz), I can only conclude that that racism persists immediately below the crust of our good manners and eagerly awaits any opportunity to manifest its ugly self.

Not only is racism alive and well in our country, but the level of our debate on the subject has yet to pass beyond sophomoric. While I have long felt that we were making progress toward a race neutral society even if we weren’t yet perfect, this debate has made me reconsider how far we have really come. Admittedly, much of the commentary I have read is not of the type set forth above and I do not mean to denigrate everyone who has commented. However, all too much of the commentary is of the type that assumes either (a) that Professor Gates was guilty of something (loud, disruptive behavior, lack of respect for the police, uppitiness) or (b) that Sergeant Crowley was guilty of something (lack of respect for blacks, stupidity for not accepting the fact that Gates was in his own home, racial profiling).

I am certainly not against anyone having an opinion about something they haven’t personally witnessed – if I was, I wouldn’t be writing this blog entry. I am not against anyone drawing a general conclusion from these events as I, myself, am doing. As to the event itself, my conclusions are that it is very likely (a) neither man was at his best that day, (b) the matter should have ended when it was confirmed that Mr. Gates was in his own home, and (c) the police showed less than perfect professionalism in the manner in which things were handled. In fact, I think President Obama’s characterization of the entire affair as “stupid” is the best summary of events to date for the stated reasons.

But my beliefs about the matter are as peanuts when compared to the outpouring of stereotypical conclusions on the Internet about the participants themselves by people who were nowhere in the vicinity of Cambridge on the day in question. Forget the events of the day; treat them as only the backdrop to the enormous, resulting outpouring of raw sewage on the subject on the Internet. Consider, instead, what that outpouring means to us as a society. What it means to me is simply that we still have a long road to travel; we cannot yet be at the half way mark to a race neutral society when there is such conclusive, massive, public evidence that stereotyping remains rampant in many people’s consideration of events unseen or unexperienced.

As I have written this, I have wondered about my own lack of posting of stereotypical comments about Sergeant Crowley. In fact such commentary exists and I have read it and found it equally disheartening. And, I considered posting examples of such commentary since is as disturbing to me as the quotes posted above. I have not done so, however, because I do not know Sergeant Crowley. I have, however, had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with Professor Gates and I have the privilege of having a childhood friend of his as a friend of mine. I posted the above quotes not to give them prominence or credibility, but simply because the opinions they express about Mr. Gates are so contrary to the extraordinary man I met last January. I have no similar basis with which to compare Sergeant Crowley.

Consider these quotes as my muse for the purpose of this posting – a dark, sinister, ugly muse, but a muse nonetheless.

 

Posted in 'Tis a Puzzlement | Comments Off on Realities in the Arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates

Shane! Come Back Shane!: A Modest Proposal

Posted on June 24, 2009 by Gavin Stevens

I think we need a gunslinger
Somebody tough to tame this town
I think we need a gunslinger
There’ll be justice all around.

John Fogerty, “Gunslinger,” from his 2008 album Revival

Congressman Jim McDermott, the liberal Democrat from the 7th District of the State of Washington, has made a request for federal funds to help replace dilapidated windows in Seattle’s Rainier Club. Mr. McDermott, a member of the Rainier Club, has responded to press inquiries variously, including the following eye-popping statement: “Everybody in the 7th District has the right to make a request — the University of Washington, The Rainier Club, everybody.” He then went on to say that he submits all such requests to the House Appropriations Committee without screening and allows the Committee to review and determine their validity.

I am afraid this attitude boggles my mind. Congressmen are at the heart of a representative government. In other words, we, the people, elect some of our membership to Congress to act in our collective behalf with the thought that they will act wisely and conscientiously in doing so. Therefore, it seems to me that part of a Congressman’s obligation is to sift through the myriad requests people make of their government, passing along only the legitimate requests and denying the illegitimate ones in the spirit and tradition of Harry Truman’s notion that “the buck stops here.” After all, why do we need to pass all of our requests for federal aid to a Congressman so he or she can do naught but dump them into the maw of the Congressional funding funnel when we could simply do that ourselves without having to pay the Congressman’s salary? If the Congressman isn’t going to exercise any discretion whatsoever, what do we need him or her for?

To put the matter into perspective for the benefit of readers who do not reside anywhere near Humptulips County, the Rainier Club is best defined by language taken from its own website extolling the benefits of membership:

“The Rainier Club is a home-away-from-home for business, cultural and civic leaders, diplomats, and other professionals. Our members are pampered with personalized service within the context of an elegant setting. From fine dining to daily fitness, from business gatherings to private parties, from wine tastings to educational courses—The Rainier Club both reflects and enhances the diverse lifestyles of the Puget Sound area.”

In other words, the Rainier Club (in my personal vernacular) is the quintessential old-boys club – stuffy, pompous, slow to accept the realities of modern society, and the best representation of the worst aspects of a British men’s club anywhere West of the Mississippi. Not only that, but many of the old-boys who are members of the Rainier Club are either extremely well known in the Seattle community as leading professionals and businessmen, very wealthy, or both. These folks are not struggling. The fact that the membership of the Club has been unable to raise pledges from among their own membership to replace their own windows says volumes about the members’ misinterpretation of the concept of noblesse oblige such that it somehow includes an innate right to forage at the public trough simply because the Congressman happens to be a member.

Along with the rest of America, I watched in awe as the Republican dominated Congress of the Bush presidency sent one earmark after another through the Congressional system without shame or regard to the collective disbelief of the general public. One would have thought that the resounding defeat of the Republicans in the 2008 elections would have sent a strong message and taught the Democrats that if they want to stay in power they need to not emulate the Republicans by engaging in aggressive earmarking. Instead, based upon the public comments of Mr. McDermott, one has to conclude that the lesson learned by at least one Democrat was that it is now his turn at the public trough and, by God, no one can keep him from it.

I wonder which of these two lessons were learned by the rest of the official population of Washington DC? In short, just how dumb is the average Congressman?

I am not certain I want to know the answer to that question, primarily because I fear I wouldn’t like what I might learn. I am desperately trying to keep some faith in the notion that our elected representatives are honest, truthful, faithful, and interested in being good stewards of the public trust. I know that sounds strange, but I have admitted elsewhere to a belief in Pookas, so the reader cannot be completely astonished at my naivete.

There is also a part of me that believes that some wrongs – particularly those which are vile and dastardly lies that assault the character of honest men and women – are best addressed by the use of a horsewhip in a dusty street. When our Congress acts as if its true purpose is to help their friends, neighbors and contributors –especially their contributors – feed at the public trough with respect to private needs or concerns that aren’t in the public interest, then the Congress is committing a vile assault against the the public trust. If these actions continue from Congress to Congress, from party to party, on the general principal that “they had their turn, now its mine,” then it is high time to find someone to wield a horsewhip on individual Congressmen, and on Congress collectively, effectively, publicly, and without remorse for those who receive the public whipping.

I am not talking about appointing an ombudsman to oversee the actions of our government and to deal with citizen appeals. An ombudsman would be far too civilized for what we need. Our need is not for someone to act with reason and care in resolving individual injustices or unfairnesses. Our need is, rather, for someone empowered on our collective behalf to cry foul when the public trust is abused and when lies and misdirection are used to justify the abuse. To be exceedingly frank, our need is to have someone officially empowered to publicly label things as what they are in plain and simple language when the need requires.

We need Shane to buckle on his six-shooter and ride into town one last time against the background of the Western mountains to put down Jack Wilson once again. We need to create an Office of Federal Gunslinger staffed by fearless souls who can and will cry foul when the need arises. We need to insure its funding, to free it from any form of lobbying or restraint, to not populate it with underlings and lickspittles whose job it is to parse things into meaninglessness, and to appoint to the position a fearless individual who is unafraid and unwary of consequences and relishes the privilege to speak out in common sense Anglo Saxonisms whenever the public trust is being raped or the public trough is being consumed wholesale for personal – not public -reasons.

To be fair, my ideal gunslinger would be more akin to Ransom Stoddard than Shane. If the name “Ransom Stoddard” doesn’t ring a bell (and I had to look it up), he is the character played by Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. He struggles to get to the point of taking his gun into the dusty street with the intention of shooting down Liberty Valance – not because he is afraid (which he is), but because it is contrary to his notion of justice to use a gun. For Ransom Stoddard believes in the rule of law and in his own ethics, and the notion of using a gun to achieve justice and right is contrary to both notions. But, he comes to realize that he must take this action simply because it is the only way to extinguish the evil that Liberty represents, and, in the interests of the public good, he takes his gun into the dusty street and uses it. And, in doing so and regardless of whether or not he actually was, he becomes The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

I like this image better than that of Shane or of Gary Cooper in High Noon because it ought not to be easy to cry foul any time one wishes. We do not need a gunslinger who will use his or her weapon indiscriminately if we truly want to achieve a goal of effective humiliation of those abusing the public coffers. We want someone who will speak sparingly, but who will speak without hesitation and in plain English when the situation demands. We need someone who will publicly look Jim McDermott in the eye when he makes facile, unthinking statements of the kind complained of and say: “Congressman, that is pure and simple Bullshit and you know it!”

Similarly, the Office of Federal Gunslinger should be empowered to report on the collaborators of defalcating Congressmen and other public officials – those members of the general public who, through greed or a sense of entitlement, make the kinds of requests that came from the Rainier Club. The Office of Federal Gunslinger needs to understand that corruption doesn’t just come in the forms of simple bribery that exist in many countries, but that in the United States and other “developed” countries it occurs in highly sophisticated and often overly-justified guises. The holder of the title of “gunslinger” needs to understand further that the act of simple bribery so common in the “under-developed” world probably has, at some level, more dignity (if the word can be appropriately used in this context) associated with it than the more sophisticated corruption we face in our world.

After all, as Mr. Fogerty says in the first stanza of his song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjQ22C7Ycjc):

Lookin’ out across this town
Kinda makes me wonder how
All the things that make us great
Got left so far behind

So, bring on the gunslinger, but give him or her a whip instead of a gun and let us see honor established in the dust of the street. After all, if the gunslinger doesn’t appear and act, then we, the voting public, will just have to do it ourselves starting in 2010.

Posted in Politicians and Other Lower Life Forms | Comments Off on Shane! Come Back Shane!: A Modest Proposal

At Last, Spring!

Posted on June 2, 2009 by Gavin Stevens

It’s all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

Emily Dickinson

Spring has finally come to Humptulips County – and it waited so long to do so that it somewhat resembles Summer. The last two weeks have been beautiful and peaceful and now the temperature is hovering near a summery 80 degrees.

However, I know that it is still Spring since the fields are a vivid green and the light is still soft and embracing. The Summer’s sere tan and harsh light are yet to arrive, but I can now imagine that they well may do so in the fullness of time. Until now, the advent of Spring – much less that of Summer – has been in doubt. Until now, we have suffered from Demeter’s insecurities as she struggled to decide whether to prolong the wetness of our misery or to re-introduce us to the joy of the sun.

The sun’s warmth always seems to invigorate the soul by opening up the mysteries of the Earth to our senses. This is a time of year to pay attention to Earth’s simpler adornments: the allure of shadows on new mown grass; the vigor of life in the rank grass alongside a country lane; the singular joy of flowers wherever they may grow; the enticement of birdsong full of clearly stated – but unknowable and mysterious – messages; the distant voices of dogs barking at nothing more than the wind or their premonitions; and the ever-present, gentle voice of life, whether expressed by the soughing grass or the susurration of water in all its manifestations.

I may well have omitted something that belongs on your list of things to appreciate each Spring, but, as Miss Dickinson advises, do your own counting in your own way. After all, Spring is nothing more than the celebration of things individually small in scale but collectively enormous in portent.

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