Brookfield Basics

Time magazine recently named Vladimir Putin its Person of the Year for 2007.  The self-described "inventor of the Internet" was their choice as Runner-Up.  

A former KGB apparatchik who "made his bones" in the heyday of the Cold War, Putin is personally responsible for the torture and murder of countless innocents.  Propped up and maintained by the rocketing price of Russian oil, he is sadly and inexorably leading his country back to its autocratic past.   

Time could have selected Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was tragically assassinated last week.  

And so we see 2007 end on a tragic note.  Pakistan and the world have lost a stunningly courageous and charismatic leader, and what happens in the wake of her death will MATTER here at home.  Bhutto was remarkable on so many levels.  That a woman could emerge as a prominent and respected leader of a Muslim country is in itself remarkable.  That this woman used her position to uphold the ideals of democracy, and preach the need for moderate Islam to establish and cultivate ties with the West, is the stuff that changes the tide of world geo-political events.  And that of course is why the terrorists killed her.  

She claimed last summer that, "I did not choose this life - it chose me".  In addition to Prime Minister, Bhutto was a wife and mother who "counted the cost" as she led.  For most of us, counting the cost is measured in small ways.  For Benazir Bhutto, it meant knowingly living and working with a bounty on her head.

If you seek a definition of courage and leadership in these troubled times, you need look no farther than her life.  For months she knew she was a marked and hunted woman, yet she continued to face the guns of the cowards who could not match her indomitable will or quiet dignity.

Her political career was not the naive choice of someone who thought she could be kept safe.  It was the moral decision of a woman who understood that the call of duty was something greater than her personal desires.  To a world needing leaders of stature and steel, her loss is immeasurable. 

So today - instead of her noble profile and gentle beauty on that cover of Time, we see Putin's dour and sardonic visage squinting down at us; the very picture of a modern-day Dorian Gray. 

What a heroic figure she was. 

What a pathetic choice Time made. 

What history knows as the Abolitionist Movement began with the life of a courageous 18th Century Parliamentarian named William Wilberforce, who dedicated his life and health to abolishing England's traffic in the slave trade.  In the 1850's a group of Americans continued his work and were known as the Abolitionists.

Abolitionists still exist in America today.  They reside in Washington DC and are found in both political parties.  Today of course their enemy is not slavery.  Instead the Beltway leadership is dedicated to the abolition of a new enemy.

The great enemy that today's abolitionists look to eliminate is CONSEQUENCE. 

This can be seen in domestic legislative efforts too numerous to recount. The most recent example is the Bush Administration's attempt to eliminate consequence in the wake of the great sub-prime mortgage debacle.  As usual, such legislation is full of good intentions.  But its long term ramifications will be more than just inneffective; they will be damaging.  Perhaps in a later column I will address the great credit meltdown.  But for now I want to look at the larger and more qualitative question of "can we reasonably expect to live without consequence"?

We have all tasted from the cup of consequence, some more cruelly than others.  But today we see that our national political class believes that consequence is an antiquated notion, and that we have a RIGHT to live without it.  This belief is the foundation for a host of bad policy.  Here are but a few examples:

  >If I build my house in the Low Country of the Carolinas and the Atlantic Ocean washes it away, then the Federal Government must rebuild it in the exact same place, and for as many times as it happens.  The solution is not to build there at all, but the removal of consequence continues the bad choices.

  >General Motors is experiencing the consequence of a forty-year long denial of economic reality in the form of a protracted bankruptcy.  Already some Beltway Benefactors are calling for the elimination of that consequence via a Federal bailout.  Get ready for that one, along with Ford and a few major airlines.

  >Katrina strikes, and instead of channeling our country's resources to provide help to those who needed it most, we instead looked for someone to remove the painful images on our nightly news.  The physicians of the Beltway, standing poised and ready with their great National Needle of Morphine, were ready to oblige.  They unleashed a second flood - a  tsunami of Federal dollars sent to all the wrong places and put into the wrong hands.  And after the injection of over thirty billion dollars into the veins of the Gulf Coast, we now see a wave of scandal and corruption that was predictable, and that even when measured by the odious standard of Louisiana politics, is staggering. 

If we use public policy and public treasure to remove the calculation of "consequence" from our fiscal equations, we ensure a continuation of the same decisions that caused such problems in the first place.  We choose in the field of policy what Napoleon refused in the field of battle - the reinforcement of failure.  

I do not believe this is a question of Democrat or Republican.  The mighty lines which once divided the two parties on questions of domestic policy have morphed and blurred to the point where Democrats and Republicans now stand aside each other all but indistinguishable.  Instead of the legitimate tension of real debate, we are instead left with an amorphous political homogeneity, the purpose of which is to perpetuate its place and its hold on power.

But that too is the subject of another column.

We live in an age where the classics of literature are disappearing from academia, our libraries, and our collective consciousness.  But that's the subject of some other blog.

Thankfully A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens' timeless tale of renewal, still enjoys a strong place on our cultural radar screen, particularly of course at this time of year.  After more than one hundred and sixty years it speaks with a simple clarity that we can see and hear TODAY.  The characters of Scrooge, Cratchit, Marley, Fezziweg, and others come to life as they tell us the stories and sing us the songs of Dickens' 19th Century England.

But it is to the smallest and mightiest character in the story that we look this weekend:  

"Merry Christmas - God Bless us every one".

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

In October I wrote a blog on the conection between childhood obesity and technology - see https://bloggers.mycommunitynow.com/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts&sectionid=49&postid=38340

Yesterday's edition of USA Weekend (insert to the Sunday edition of the MJS) contained a great article on the subject of how kids play today - see attached link -http://usaweekend.com/07_issues/071216/071216tech-kids.html.

There is an emerging school of educational theory and study as to the damaging impact of an inordinate amount of exposure to technology at early ages.  If you have kids or grandkids - take a few minutes and read this article.  Its fascinating and alarming at the same time.  

A few Saturdays ago our son's best friend spent an afternoon with us.  They were holed-up in his room, engrossed in the construction of various objects and creatures out of cardboard and legos. 

I try and remind myself of this happy occasion every time I step on one of his lego pieces.

Over the Thanksgiving break I used some of my extra time to watch a few movies and work out.  One of the movies was Gladiator, Ridley Scott's classic tale of Imperial Rome, and of one man's journey of duty, honor and love.

During one of my workouts a TV at our health club aired the Jerry Springer Show.  I was listening to music, and so was mercifully spared the audio portion.  But there was no escaping the visual heartbreak of what Springer parades before America every week.

"I stuck around St. Petersburg - when I saw it was a time for a change. 

Killed the Czar and his ministers.  Anastasia - screamed in vain".

The horrific carnage and blood lust of the ancient Coliseum was, on some level, more honest than the Springer Show, for at least the purveyors of the Roman Games never pretended they were anything other than what they were.  Springer would have us believe there is some cathartic societal value to his show.

"I rode a tank - held a general's rank.

When the Blitzkrieg raged - and the bodies stank"

The participants - America's modern-day gladiators - were literally clawing and screaming at each other, all while in various stages of un-dress.  Then the camera turned to Mr. Springer, the "Emperor" watching the games with his odiously bemused eye.  I half expected him to mimic the gesture of the real Emperors, and point his thumb up or down to indicate which contestants would die, and which would live to fight again on the his next show.

And just as the camera showed him, my I-Pod cued the classic Rolling Stones song, Sympathy for the Devil, some lyrics of which appear above in quotes.  The drumbeat and Mick Jagger's voodoo-like snarl combined to form the perfect backdrop for the show.

The program is nothing less than emotional pornography, and as I continued running, I thought about Maximus Meridius and Jerry Springer.  I thought about the great general's creed of "strength and honor" - and Springer's pathetic display.

We live in post-modern America, where tolerance is god, and where no one dares suggest that anything or anyone is better than anything or anyone else.  But this contrast of Maximus Meridius and Jerry Springer reveals the lie that such a notion is predicated on.

We need to consider such things when we instruct our youth.

We need to consider that it might be OK to help them recognize C R _ _ when they see it.

And perhaps most of all - that it might be OK to call it that.

Sixty-six years ago today America was signifcantly and forever changed.

The ancient Hawaiians called Pearl Harbor "Wai Momi", which literally translated meant "water of Pearl".  On this day in 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the US Naval installations located there. 

I can remember my father, by all accounts an educated and articulate man, reflecting back on that day and trying to capture in words the staggering impact of the attack.  His inability to do so told me more than his words could have.  He would ultimately serve as a lieutenant in that same Navy.

Pearl changed everything.  It (not the policies of FDR's New Deal) ended the Great Depression and dragged America out of her geo-political isolationism.  There were 3,581 casualties at Pearl, and hundreds of planes and ships were lost.  It could have been much worse, as the US carriers were out on training missions, thereby saving them and their enormous crews from certain destruction.  The most devastaing loss was the USS Arizona, whose Memorial is anchored in beautiful simplicty in the center of Wai Momi.

World War Two had been raging for nearly two and a half years that morning of the attack.  America had been on the sidelines, offering only material assistance to England through the lend-lease program.  But after Pearl, we jumped into the War with both feet and vowed total victory, the only satisfactory measure of which would be the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan.  We would wage total war on two global fronts, and in less than four years traveled from a place of defeat an isolationism to complete victory and world prominence.

Japan had enjoyed a series of stunning victories in China, the Phillipines, Singapore and the Malay penninsula, the horrific savagery and barbarism of her conquests rivaling anything the Naziis did.  America was led in the Pacific by our greatest soldier - General Douglas MacArthur, whose genius and leadership confounded, bedazzled, and ultimately defeated the Japanese.  He accepted the surrender of Japan in the spring of 1945 on-board another battleship named for a State - the USS Missouri.

The road to victory in the Pacific War began in 1942 at the battle of Midway, where the pilots of the USN's Dauntless dive- bombers wrote their names into immortality.  Upon locating the Japanese fleet of carriers, they flew into almost certain death to attack and destroy them.  Most did die, but not before crippling the Japanese fleet.  Thinking back to Pearl Harbor as he watched the Japanese carriers burn, US Airman Wilmer Gallaher exulted into his radio, "Arizona - I remember you".   

I have been blogging for over a year now, and with one exception, I have not ostensibly addressed specific issues before the School Board; a policy I plan to continue for many reasons.  But I do want to use this page for what I consider to be a public service announcement related to the political process in general and the School Board in particular. 

In April of next year this community will elect three people to the position of School Board member.  The Seat currently held by Patrick Murphy is up for election, and Patrick has announced his intention to seek another term.  His seat is an At-Large position, which means anyone who is eighteen years of age and living within the confines of the School DIstrict of Elmbrook can seek this office.

The Seat that I hold is also to be decided.  It is an Area Seat, which means that you must live within a certain quadrant of the District to seek it. Generally speaking, it is the southwest portion of the District, and like Patrick, I have decided to seek this office again.

After eight years of service, Cheri Sylla has announced that she will not seek re-election.  Cheri also holds an Area seat that represents the northeast portion of the District. 

Anyone interested in running must act NOW.  Even though the election is not until April, there is a lot of protocol required to be eligible.  Papers must be filed and signatures must be gathered to declare and establish candidacy.  These rules are driven by State Statute, and not by any requirements of the School Board.  All filings are due at the District Office by January 3, 2008 in order to be a candidate, so time is of the essence.

Anyone considering this can contact a current or former Board Member to discuss what is entailed with Board service - see the District's web site at elmbrookschools.org and click on the Board of Education tab to get contact information of current members.  Questions regarding the protocol and requirements of filing for candidacy, or the boundaries of the two Area seats, can be directed to Ms. Pat Felde (Fell-Dee) of the District Office at 262-781-3030.  Pat is knowledgeable and friendly, and can answer any questions you have about this matter.

Lastly, after eight years of service (and five more months to come), I want to acknowledge and thank Cheri Sylla.  To those who take Board Service seriously, and Cheri does, eight years is an enormous sacrifice.  Cheri has dedicated thousands of hours of work, attended hundreds of meetings, read countless reports, and most of all, put herself  "out there" to take whatever comes.  Perhaps greatest of all is the opportunity cost - the things she didn't get to do because of her Board service.

I like to think that we live in a community where, regardless of one's position on this issue or that, people can appreciate and respect that.

Some things are so simple that they become difficult.

Since the 1967 Arab/Israeli War, U.S. Presidents of both parties have been pursuing the "peace process" in the Middle East. It has become so obligatory that the actual pursuit of PEACE has become secondary.  As long as the "process" is engaged, that's all that really seems to matter.

Last week's meetings in Annapolis, Maryland reflect the latest installment of this sad reality.  There, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice presided over a series of carefully coreographed minuets, all of which were presented to a yawning world as "peace talks". 

The seminal question I have always had on this matter is, "how does one seriously negotiate ANYTHING with parties that are sworn to accomplish your very death, destruction, and annihilation"?

We are in the throws of a Presidential Primary season, and wouldn't it be nice to hear a candidate, ANY candidate, say something along these lines?

To the Arabs and Palestinians:

"Look guys - all this talk of Israel having no right to exist and how you are dedicated to wiping it off the face of the earth - well, that's really not helping matters.  And my Administration won't be spending one iota of time, effort, or money to support the "process" until you can bring yourself to verbalize what the entire world already knows.  That they ARE a legitimate State and they DO have a right to exist.  We settled that question way back in 1948".

And to Israel:

"Hey man - if we can get those other guys to agree to the above, can you immediately agree to the establishment of a Palestianian State, and dedicate yourself to a meaningful plan for its implementation"?

To state that these matters are centuries old and deeply complex is to state the obvious - Middle East geo-politics is a Gordian Knot of Olympian proportions.  But plain, simple statements like the above seem to be the only real starting point.

Anything else is just so much diplomatic window dressing.