Imbolc \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Woodpecker Moon<\/p>\n
I remain unmoved by the current Presidential race. \u00a0The fracas swirls somewhere below the level of America’s current malaise. \u00a0No one, Obama included, looks like they have a clue.<\/p>\n
There’s an old phrase I learned long ago: \u00a0how you define is how you solve. \u00a0That seems to be the problem. \u00a0How do you define the American weltanschung?<\/em>\u00a0 How do you define the root causes of our (apparent) decline?<\/p>\n Let me take a side trip while we consider those questions. \u00a0There have been two prominent books on child rearing of late: \u00a0Tiger Mother and Bringing Up Bebe. \u00a0One extols what the author defines as the Chinese way and the other, the French way. \u00a0These are seen as antidotes to the current state of child rearing practices here.<\/p>\n (Rearing children is a funny thing. \u00a0On the one hand my pediatrician wife thinks there should be a license exam before people get to be parents. \u00a0Plenty of evidence to support such a notion. \u00a0On the other hand there was my basic attitude to child rearing: \u00a0billions, literally billions of children, have been reared by people who had no formal knowledge of child rearing. \u00a0And the vast bulk of those kids survived into adulthood, so I figured I could do it.)<\/p>\n So, I’m waiting for the American Way. \u00a0You know, the book about raising an American child. Why? \u00a0Because we have an acknowledged knack for raising innovators, creators, scholars. \u00a0And you know what? \u00a0We got that reputation using the clunky, clanky old education system we had, even the one we had back in the long ago day when I was a student.<\/p>\n What I’m trying to say here is that we know how to do stuff. \u00a0Important stuff. \u00a0In our child rearing, in our educational system, in our economic system, in our political system. \u00a0In our military, too, for that matter. \u00a0We’re not world beaters at everything, no nation ever was, nor will ever be.<\/p>\n It is ironic in the extreme that this latter day radical critic of Amerika and our war in Vietnam would take up the banner of his country, wave the flag, not necessarily of our government, but the flag that represents this real place. \u00a0A place where we argue about immigration all the while we take in many, many immigrants. \u00a0A place where we argue about the failings of our education system while continuing to crank out the Zuckerburgs, Gates, Jobs types. \u00a0The David Wallace, Jonathan Franzen and Christopher Hitchens types. 333 Nobel laureates including:<\/p>\n The modern feminist movement had its European roots, of course, but look at what Betty Freidan and Gloria Steinham and that whole movement of women accomplished.<\/p>\n Consider the global impact of the US work of Martin Luther King.<\/p>\n Consider this, too. \u00a0All the people I’ve named here lived or are living during my lifetime.<\/p>\n Chuck Close, Siha Armajani, Mark Rothko (immigrant), Albert Einstein (immigrant), Morris Lewis, Andy Warhol, Claus Oldenberg, Robert Indiana. \u00a0You add the names that are meaningful to you.<\/p>\n Not to mention athletics.<\/p>\n I mean, come on, for a nation in decline, for an American psyche in freefall, we seem to be doing ok. \u00a0Not perfect, not our best, not all we could hope for*, (see the cartoon) but ok.<\/p>\n So, to get back to how you define is how you solve, I would ask this question. \u00a0Let’s look at those things that produced all these positive, good, extraordinary people and their life work. \u00a0Then, let’s do more of that.<\/p>\n Maybe it’s as simple as writing a book on how to raise an American kid.<\/p>\n *my sense is that we could move the whole public policy\/state of the nation debate forward if we would analyze our country in terms of class, first. \u00a0That’s the point of the cartoon and I agree with it. \u00a0We are failing the working class, would-be middle class. \u00a0Badly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imbolc \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Woodpecker Moon I remain unmoved by the current Presidential race. \u00a0The fracas swirls somewhere below the level of America’s current malaise. \u00a0No one, Obama included, looks like they … Continue reading An Unlikely Flag Waver<\/span> \n