AMONG THE DEAD

I spent a few hours in a cemetery earlier this week, not as a precursor to spending eons there in the future, but as somewhere I could get close to a few famous people without them running away or caring that I was near them. I didn’t even think about autographs.

The Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church is the resting place for hundreds of former people, the most notable being Aaron Burr, a Vice President of the United States, successful duelist, and one of the stars of the hit play Hamilton. When you enter the cemetery you can pick up a brochure that has a mini history, a gridded map, and a list of the most famous inhabitants, what they are famous for, and their location by grid coordinates. Besides Burr, I sought out President Grover Cleveland, theologian Jonathan Edwards, mathematicians Kurt Godal and John Von Neumann, and bookshop owner Sylvia Beach. I was also interested to see William H. Hahn Jr., best known for the epitaph on his headstone: “I told you I was sick.”

Spending time in a cemetery is profound. You are confronted with human mortality but also with accomplishment. There were a lot of big and expensive looking headstones for people I never heard of and I wondered what they accomplished. Could it be that they managed to make their heirs prosperous and this was part of the thanking process?  Again I thought about my own meager accomplishments and if I wanted my descendants to have one place to visit my rotting remains, or to have them tour exotic locations around the world to find where my ashes might be scattered. Hmm.

Some of the monuments speak to the love from family members, friends, or colleagues; many creatively erected, some new and shiny and well maintained, while others are weatherworn and faded into illegibility.

Seeing famous people in public always makes me both excited and uncomfortable. There are a limited number of famous people and as the level of fame increases, so does the rarity of running across one. Getting to meet one of “them” at a social occasion, the situation is so artificial I don’t know what to say; to appear intelligent without being stupid, friendly but not obsequious, confident but not pretentious; to treat them respectfully as a person and not as an objet d’art or a creature nearing extinction. It is almost like an adventure where there are unknown perils. In reality, it doesn’t happen very often. I am excited by seeing a rare object up close, like in a museum; uncomfortable when holding or touching something that is fragile and costly.

Yet none of that comes into play if the famous person is already dead. Seeing their tomb or headstone, knowing they are just a few feet away, I can freely contemplate greatness, fame, or infamy without needing to directly interact. If I have a question I want to ask, all I have to do is that Google thing. When I saw the headstone of Ruth Cleveland next to that of her father Grover, I was reminded of the tale of the origin of the Baby Ruth candy bar. Was she the inspiration or is that a myth?

 

Despite the assertions of the Curtiss Candy Company, according to Snopes.com, alas, Baby Ruth was not named after Ruth Cleveland who died of diphtheria at age 14 in 1904, seventeen years before the candy bar was named.

The grounds of Princeton Cemetery are well maintained and the graves are spread out with sufficient space so you don’t feel like you are sacrilegiously trampling on dead bodies.  It is a peaceful park in the middle of a bustling community.

Many of the graves are surrounded by flowers or other decorations, yet for some reason Kurt Godel, a “logician, mathematician, and philosopher… one of the most significant logicians in history,“  who proved that “there will always be mathematical truths that cannot be proved with logic”, has a great bunch of poison ivy blocking out part of the headstone.

Paul Tulane  was from Princeton, made a lot of money in business, and in 1882 donated a chunk of it to the University of Louisiana which they then renamed Tulane University. Now he has one of the largest monuments in the cemetery; quite imposing, really.

 

Hard to find was the small headstone of Sylvia Beach. She is known for founding the English language bookstore Shakespeare and Company in Paris which published James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1922. The bookstore was one of the great cultural centers between the World Wars where Sylvia was friends with icons such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Andre Gide and Gertrude Stein.

Beach’s father was a minister at the Presbyterian Church of Princeton and Sylvia’s papers are archived at Princeton University.

Paris

Two of my favorite cemeteries are in Paris. Pere Lachaise is the largest, on 110 acres in the 20^th arrondissement. It is very crowded with over a million bodies buried there. Some of the most famous residents are:

Composers Chopin, Bizet, Rossini; Artists Max Ernst and Eugene Delacroix; Writers Oscar Wilde, Moliere, Proust, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas; Singers Maria Callas, Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison.

 

JIM MORRISON	EDITH PIAF

 

Also in Paris is Montparnasse Cemetery, “home of many of France’s intellectual and artistic elite as well as publishers and others who promoted the works of authors and artists.”

You can find the graves of Charles Baudelaire, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Seberg, Jean-Paul Sartre, Camille Saint-Saens, Simone de Beauvoir, Cesar Franck and many more.

 

The most famous cemeteries in the U.S. are Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia and Forest Lawn in California. They are huge with many famous people and worthy of a separate piece.

I used to think of cemeteries as morbid places where dead relatives were buried. Painful memories of people praying and crying were reinforced by funeral scenes in movies and TV shows. Now I see them more like museums where artifacts of history reside. A cemetery is also a place to inspire reflection and introspection, even inspiration. It may be too late to do big and grandiose deeds such as make a scientific discovery, found a school of philosophy, build a university, or befriend great artists; but it is never too late to do good things for friends, family, and community that are carved in fond memories if not in hard stone.

(“I don’t want to be the richest man in the cemetery,” quote Ed Wynn, Colonel Sanders and Steve Jobs. Ha! that’s an aspiration I am sure to fulfill.)

HALF CENTURY DO-SI-DO

It’s been fifty years since the mid-1960s; a half century, but who’s counting?

If you are old enough to have lived through the 1960s, and can still recollect vaguely, in detail, or distorted through a purple haze, things in America may seem awfully familiar, emphasis on the awful, regarding politics today. A lot of the big issues are still with us: the Vietnam War is long over and that now unified nation is our friend and trading partner. But another big foreign policy blunder, the 2003 Iraq War, has left a lingering disaster in the Middle East and a contentious debate about how we should act going forward. The battle for Civil Rights was fought on the streets and in the Congress during the 1960s. Laws were enacted to insure voting rights and prevent overt discrimination; attitudes about equality and fairness have evolved in our culture. But there is still much more to accomplish regarding racial justice and economic opportunity. There are numerous areas of de-facto segregation and in several states voting rights are again an issue. Legalizing marijuana was a big subject among my crowd during the 60s. Now, if you live in Colorado or Washington you’re good to go. Everywhere else you can still end up in jail, just like fifty years ago. The 1960s saw the passage of Medicare and Medicaid with thirteen Republican Senators voting in favor (seventeen against), unlike their unanimity against the Affordable Care Act, which the Republican House voted to repeal more than 60 times. In addition, gay rights, minimum wage, taxes, energy, education, and women’s rights were also issues back then and today.

Our old enemies, Communism and the USSR, have been replaced by Muslim extremists such as ISIS, al-Queda and their sympathizers; fear of nuclear war gives way to fear of terrorism.  And politicians are still using fear to scare Americans and pit them against each other to vote against their own self-interest.

Some prominent people seemed to have been resurrected in whole or in part by the actors on today’s stage.

In this period piece Hillary Clinton is playing the role of Lyndon Johnson. Though lacking Johnson’s dominant personality and political skill, Hillary is likewise burdened by the issue of an intractable war thousands of miles away. She is tainted by having voted in the Senate to authorize the war, a vote she has admitted was a mistake. As Secretary of State she was considered hawkish, pushing for intervention in Libya and Syria.  One can make the case that the Middle East has more importance to our national interest than Vietnam, but one can also show that our costly meddling has made things worse and not better, similar to 1960s Vietnam. On domestic issues Johnson had great success with enacting the Civil Rights Bill, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, and other pieces of his Great Society. Hillary has been fighting for universal healthcare since her First Lady days, having modest success with CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) and now is advocating for a host of women’s and family issues.

Bernie Sanders took the challenger spotlight and inspired young people analogous to Eugene McCarthy and especially Bobby Kennedy in 1968. He drew huge crowds of support for his idealistic, populist, socialist agenda: end the wars, free healthcare, free college, higher minimum wage, reduce income inequality, take the influence of big money out of politics.

Kennedy ran on a platform of racial and economic justice, non-aggression in foreign policy, decentralization of power and social change. A crucial element of his campaign was an engagement with the young, whom he identified as being the future of a reinvigorated American society based on partnership and equality.

On a windy day you could see Bernie’s hair blowing in the wind just like Bobby’s.

 

 

Donald Trump is part Barry Goldwater, part George Wallace.

From April 22, 2016 All Things Considered segment on NPR: Is Donald Trump a Modern Day George Wallace?

George Wallace fired up crowds with a similar anti-establishment message, and drew protests as passionate as are being seen at Trump’s rallies today…Incidents of violence at rallies are another common theme. Just as Trump supporters have turned on protesters in the crowd, Wallace rallies were known to get physical.

 Wallace also became a face of racial tension in America as the leading symbol for segregation in the 1960s.

Wallace drew voters alarmed at eroding white privilege. Trump draws voters worried about the erosion of blue-collar jobs and competition from immigrant labor.

Like Wallace’s appeal to anti-Black prejudice, Trump is blaming Mexicans for crime and taking jobs and Muslims for terrorism. He wants to build a wall on our southern border and ban Muslims from entering the country.

“They both were able to adopt the notion that fear and hate are the two greatest motivators of voters that feel alienated from government,”

Aspects of Trump’s campaign can also be seen in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 run. From a December 1995 article in The Atlantic Turning Right in the Sixties:

Goldwater had no positive program, and spent much of the campaign railing against Social Security and threatening to roll back the Communist tide. Moderate Republicans labeled him a racist and a warmonger, and Goldwater seemed to confirm such charges when he threatened to “lob” missiles “into the men’s room at the Kremlin…

Goldwater was also hurt by the reluctance of many prominent moderate Republicans to support him. Governors Nelson Rockefeller of New York and George Romney of Michigan refused to endorse Goldwater and did not campaign for him.

Trump is also being a divisive force in the Republican Party, not being supported by several prominent politicians including the Bush family and Mitt Romney, George’s son. Trump has the bigotry of Wallace and the unpredictability of Goldwater. His campaign is all vague promises, schoolyard insults, and frequent contradictions. His temperament has become a serious issue as he lashes out with insults and dangerous ideas that just pop into his head when he is challenged.

One big difference:

Despite the déjà vu and today’s mirroring of the 1960s, my mirror shows one big difference. Instead of a bearded, long haired youth, it shows a bald guy with wrinkles, a neck wattle and a little gray moustache.  No longer young, idealistic, and without responsibility, I have leapt across the Generation Gap (more likely it was a minivan ride) and will enthusiastically support the Lesser Evil candidate.

I don’t see any positive outcome from a violent revolution. I prefer not to spend the rest of my days in chaos or dystopia. I do believe many of our problems can be solved politically, though not easily or quickly. Enact strong campaign finance laws, break up the big media companies, end Republican gerrymandering, and put in place term limits; this could make a big difference over a couple of decades. Incremental social change along with rapid technological change has brought us progress. There can be more.

I really see nothing wrong with drinking from a glass that’s half full.

Oh so sad and uninspiring to be a pragmatist, he blogged.

One thing that stayed the same:

Am I Now a Conservative?

“Sure once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns

Ah, but I’ve grown older and wiser
And that’s why I’m turning you in
So love me, love me
Love me, I’m a liberal.” — Phil Ochs

 

After a passionate Facebook discussion with a Bernie or Bust Millennial, I looked at what I had written and asked myself, “When did I become so conservative? Am I actually a capital “C” Conservative or merely a Pragmatist and Incrementalist?” Are they the same?

In the 1960s, which might just as well have been the 1860s to Millennials, I was a Radical, a Revolutionary. I was deeply influenced by the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention, the police riots and seeing young people getting their heads smashed on TV. I had the experience of getting tear gassed at Viet Nam War protests, yet beyond a few stoner fantasies I never did anything to actively overthrow the US government.

In the 1970s I voted for George McGovern, got married, and closely followed the Watergate hearings. I cheered when Nixon resigned and booed when he was pardoned. When the time came I voted for Jimmy Carter, had a child and bought a house. Hmm.

In the 1980s I bitched about Ronald Reagan. I had another child, and joined the lower middle class. I saved some money, enjoyed my family and friends; diligently mowed my lawn. I was concerned about my children’s education and became active in my community. I followed the Iran-Contra hearings and hoped Reagan would be impeached. Instead he was idolized.

In the 1990s George H.W. Bush was President. I voted against him but respected his resume. I supported his war to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s invasion. I was surprised when he ended it without invading Iraq. Kudos — it turned out to be the right decision. Too bad his son didn’t learn that lesson.

In 1992, finally a Democrat was elected President (thank you H. Ross Perot). I was seduced by Bill Clinton long before Monica Lewinsky. He gave great speeches; his solutions to the country’s problems sounded right; and his vision was positive. (That’s my impression though I can’t actually recall anything he said. I could look it up…). There were problems but the country seemed to be doing well even if I was stuck in a difficult and stressful job. My wife was working part time and we were getting by. I dabbled in the dot.com stock market and was putting a few bucks aside in a 401K, though soon it became time to start paying for college.

Am I a Conservative yet?

The 2000 election was crucial; criminal. We all know what happened. Painful. I particularly hated Bush’s shortsighted tax cuts and I railed against the Iraq war. Blood and treasure down the drain; insanity, criminality and incompetence in charge.

In 2008 as the stock market crashed and the foolishness of the Iraq War was generally recognized, I started to believe in “Hope and Change.” The country was in the toilet but I thought Barack Obama had a lot of good ideas, and if only he could get some cooperation, many problems could be solved. Unfortunately he never got that cooperation and though crises were mitigated, things could have turned out a lot better. Obama is one of the most convincing and inspiring orators that I can remember. Though he has his flaws, considering the crass and virtually treasonous obstruction of the Republicans (fiscal cliff, government shutdown, Senate letter to Iran), I think he was a great President and moved the country forward.

There is a famous epigram falsely attributed to Winston Churchill:

Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.

I’m more than double that age. Am I a Conservative yet or do I have no brains? How about you, my friends?

Policies

I believe we are a wealthy enough country that everyone should be afforded food, shelter, healthcare, childcare and education. Anyone who wants to work should be able to have a job, even if that means the government becomes the employer of last resort.

“During the time of the CCC, enrollees planted nearly 3 billion trees to help reforest America, constructed more than 800 parks nationwide and upgraded most state parks, updated forest fire fighting methods, and built a network of service buildings and public roadways in remote areas.”

That was in the 1930s. There are a lot things that need to be done today and a similar program should be endowed. “We’re already spending the money.”

I believe the government should be less intrusive in the private lives of individuals and more concerned about protecting us from corporate greed. Regulations against poisoning our food, drugs, water, and air should be strengthened and criminal penalties such as fines and incarceration enforced rigorously on culpable corporate executives.

I believe that income and wealth inequality has been exacerbated by policies enacted in the 1980s and that this trend should be reversed. The redistribution upwards has to be re-redistributed back downward.

I believe there is too much money in politics. It is corrupting that Politicians need big money to get elected and reelected; corrupt that they sell influence to those who provide that money. This needs to be changed by a combination of term limits and campaign finance laws.

I believe in pushing the envelope, but not so far as to poke a hole in it.

I believe none of the above can happen quickly or all at once.

Is any of that Conservative these days?

Debt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States

I had student loans in college; I had a mortgage to buy my house; I had a home equity loan to build an addition; and I had a few car loans. Otherwise I eschewed debt. I hate paying interest. If I couldn’t afford to pay for something, I didn’t buy it; or I bought something less expensive. I believe in Frugality (though my children call me “Cheap”).

I know government is different. It does not have to be run like a household. It has to “provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare” in good times and in bad. Government has to spend money on infrastructure; like a mortgage on a house, these expensive projects that last years need to be financed. When there is a recession with lowered tax revenue and high unemployment, government has to stimulate the economy, using debt.

Interest rates are now at historically low levels. National debt is at an all-time ridiculously high level.  When rates go up we are going to get clobbered. Interest payment on the debt will squeeze out other worthwhile expenses. We need more wisdom and less greed in the Federal Budget; more for the “general Welfare” and less for corporate welfare and special interests. If we want greater services, they should be paid for by us through higher taxes, not by our children and grandchildren through debt.

And when the government makes commitments to our future selves like with pensions and Social Security, money should be socked away to honor those commitments, not borrowed and spent or used to create an illusion of a smaller deficit.

Am I a Fiscal Conservative or a tax and spend Liberal? Probably both.

Back to the Future

Government policies have long term consequences.

In a Democracy there has to be a strategy to implement policies not everyone agrees with. Like in chess, you have to figure out if a sacrifice today can put you in a stronger position later. Sometimes that strategy involves compromise, taking half a loaf and coming back later for more. It always involves electing candidates that most closely reflect your policy beliefs. Change takes time and usually happens in increments. In my blog post The Times They are A-Changin’, I wrote about Bismarck’s “Politics is the art of the possible” and Mick Jagger’s “You can’t always get what you want.” That is how progress happens.

Does wanting to make progress make you a Progressive? Or does Compromise and Patience make you a Conservative?

Too bad Phil Ochs isn’t around to sing about it anymore. So I’ll just say:

Love me, love me, love me,

I’m a Conservative.

Addendum        

Psychology Today did a meta-analysis and came up with three reasons why older people are more conservative:

• “intellectual curiosity tends to decline in old age, and that this decline explains age-related increases in conservatism.”
• “judgment, in particular information-processing capacity. In most people…the speed of information-processing, a core ingredient of judgment and intelligence, peaks around the mid 20’s. To make matters worse, most people become considerably slower after their mid 40’s, with a substantial deceleration after their 60’s”
• “familiarity. As we grow older, our experiences become more constrained and predictable. This is partly adaptive; order and structure enable us to navigate the world in autopilot, whereas change requires proactive adaptation, effort, and improvisation”