Jim Putnam - Thinking Through My Fingers

Exploring Race Homework

We had a very interesting discussion last evening at the class "Exploring Race" at University Presbyterian Church.  Our homework was to read an article, select one sentence that struck us, and to write fifteen minutes on that sentence.   Our instructor provided copies, but I've also found the article on-line so that I can link to it for the blog.  It's "Play The Race Card", by Raina Kelley in the September 19 issue of Newsweek.  I do see that the version I found on-line has corrected the spelling from "pedaled" to "peddled."  That kind of bothered me in the printed copy passed out.   And of course I wondered whether it's racist of me to notice.

When I'm writing, fifteen minutes has a highly variable amount of output.  Sometimes it is a word or two, occasionally no words, and sometimes pages.  In general, I don't like writing about a single sentence of anyone's work.  It's overly easy to remove context.  But in this case, it may actually provide a focus I need.  I'm not using time producing this as part of the fifteen minutes.

I'm going to select a bit more than one sentence.  I'll use a phrase ending one sentence and the full sentence following it.

- race isn't a political parlor game. It is a powerful fault line in a nation that bears the scars of slavery, a civil war, Jim Crow, a mind-numbing number of assassinations, and too many riots to count.

Race is used to excuse and accuse, to separate and celebrate.  I don't particularly like the symbol of fault line because, as we've seen in Samoa yesterday, fault lines slip and disaster follows.  California may be waiting for its real fault line to slip, for instance.  So, to me a fault line isn't the accurate image.

Saying that, what is a more accurate, meaningful symbol?  I believe race is a diamond, a gift that shows facets of our humanity that can only be appreciated when light shines through it.  Now, I'm not naive enough to believe that everyone appreciates the gift, but regardless, the gift is there.

When viewed as a gift, a diamond, the danger of race is allowed to diminish, the fade to insignificance.  A diamond may have been mined in parts of Africa by underpaid workers under terrible conditions.  It may have been used in business transactions that were less than honorable.  And it may have become a symbol of beauty, power or everlasting love.  But in its present state, it is a gift, one that is cherished and appreciated.

That's my fifteen minutes.

Quick Questions to Anyone

This morning, as I quilted I listened to the Diane Rehm show on NPR.  The first hour was about U.S. - Iran relations, with a distinguished panel of guests:

Nicholas Burns, Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School and former Under Secretary for Political Affairs at the U.S. Department of State

David Albright, former U.N. nuclear weapons inspector and president of the Institute for Science and International Security

Karim Sadjadpour, Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Reuel Marc Gerecht, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, former Middle East specialist for the CIA

Eliot Cohen, Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies Johns Hopkins, School of Advanced International Studies

As I listened, it became more and more clear to me that none of these experts were discussing the elephant in the room: Israel's nuclear capabilities.  Israel was discussed briefly, but not in terms of their nuclear development program.

I remembered a blog post I read recently.  Professor Juan Cole writes a blog entitled "Informed Consent", and this, "The Most Dangerous Nuclear Facility in the Middle East",  was posted yesterday, September 28.  The video is definitely worth watching.  I have no idea about its accuracy, though I also have no doubt that it is.  After The Diane Rehm show ended, I went back and re-read Cole and again watched the video.

My questions are, following these two points of view:  Why is there not a similar need to discuss Israel's nuclear capability?  More to the point, is Iran developing a nuclear weapon as another step in a Mideast arms race, and if so, wouldn't it make equal sense to pressure Israel to end its program?  Why is Iran the pariah and Israel slips its program below any mention?  One more question:  Why isn't our media verifying the accuracy of the video?  I think it's important.

It is possible that asking these questions could be considered anti-Israel, even anti-Semitic.  If that's the accusation, so be it.  I do not think such an accusation can be supported, and I am sure that my thoughts on Israel and the Mideast are more diverse and developed than can be set in such simple terms.  In other words, I hope that I am capable of a wider set of ideas and concepts.

Returning

I have sat at the keyboard several times over the past week but didn't write a word to the blog.  There were several reasons, some valid, some not.  My last post, last Tuesday, provides a peek one reason why.  I began it with:

I want to get this quick post in because there may not be time to write this evening.  There's an adult education course beginning this evening at our church.   It is a four week course "Exploring Race", something I've been interested in for a long while.  I may get some blog material from the course. 

The "Exploring Race" course was, as expected, very interesting and it has given me much to think and write about.  Our leader asked us all to keep what is said in the course within our group.  I've asked for and received permission to write my own personal reflections during the course, with the restriction that if I use what another has said I should request permission.  That's the way I write normally, citing where possible and providing links where I can.

We were given homework for the week:  remind ourselves every day, morning preferably, that "I am a white person."  I haven't remembered to do it every morning, but at some time during every day it occurs to me, and I think the exercise has been valuable.

Thinking about my skin color changes the way I look at my surroundings.  Recognition that I am a white person reminds me that not everyone is, providing a new awareness.  Nothing has changed, I'm just more aware.  It also allows me to consider what a person of color must feel every day, a recognition that for him the color of his skin determines a large portion of his personal awareness, and he doesn't have to remind himself.  All his environment tells him.

In the post preceding the one cited above, I wrote about demographics.  A friend, Felix, wrote a very nice comment to that post.  A portion of that comment says:

You, too, make it manifest in everything you write: you could not, I think, manage to live without examining the life you are living. And that is what changes you ..

I appreciate that, and wish that it were more accurate, but I also know that whatever examination I have done seems neither deep or sufficient.  If it were, this exercise would not have revealed to me how differently I see my surroundings when there is even a glimmer of self awareness and examination.

I was reflecting this afternoon on how seldom I am a minority.  As a male quilter, this is one area in which I am a disctinct minority.  I am a member of two different quilting groups, one 21 ladies and the other over ten times that number.  I am the only male in both.  Within the smaller group, I am, obviously a much larger percentage, and fit in very well.  I love being with this group and feel very comfortable and accepted.  The larger one, however, is a much different story.  I've stopped even trying to correct them when they use feminine directions: "she", "her", "ladies" for instance.  It's as if I am not there.  It doesn't bother me, and I don't take it personally because I know habits are strong.  But it may also be one reason I seldom attend the larger meetings; I am simply not as comfortable.  I wonder whether blacks have a similar feeling.  Is there a feeling of invisibility, of simply not being there? 

I have written several times in this blog that when I asked a black Air Force friend about Adam Clayton Powell Jr., he told me that when blacks are allowed their scoundrels we will have achieved racial equality.  I think he was quoting someone, but don't know for sure.  In any case, there is a lot of truth in the statement.  Our society, including law enforcement, is much more harsh and strict with blacks that we are for whites committing the same incidents.  Is our society moving toward genuine acceptance and recognition?  I don't know.  I suspect not, and hope that courses such as "Exploring Race" will help us recognize how much further we have to go.

Quick Thoughts About Words

I want to get this quick post in because there may not be time to write this evening.  There's an adult education course beginning this evening at our church.   It is a four week course "Exploring Race", something I've been interested in for a long while.  I may get some blog material from the course.

Quickly though, Marrianna and I were driving to a local store this afternoon and we passed another place that had a large sign outside that announced in large red letters "SALE".  That word has been assigned multiple meanings.  Of course everything in the place is for sale,  Obviously, this large sign was meant to convey that there was an something extraordinary going on.

Sale has come to mean that the prices are lower than normally available.  It's no longer sufficient to have a qualifier such as "Fire Sale", or "Holiday Sale!".  Simply shouting sale is expected to arouse a special interest in possible customers.

Thinking about that brought another change to my mind.  I vaguely remember early in my life when our small town in South Carolina got its first "Supermarket."  Prior to that I suppose there was only small grocers, pharmacies, and other individual sellers.  The Supermarket carried a variety of items, more than the small A & P on the corner a few blocks from our house.I must have been about six, but I remember asking my father what made it a super market.  The answer is lost in the webs of memory.

The point, though, is that words reflect the culture and style of how we live.  It isn't enough that we know everything on the shelf of our local stores is for sale, we have to be told how impressive is the pricing.  It is no longer enough to have grocers or even supermarkets, we have to name our stores to emphasize their size, "Giant", Super Target", etc.  The corner A & P is no more, replaced with a twenty-four hour per day retailers.  It's as if I were to need to go out and buy my asparagus at 2:00 AM.  Even "Seven-Eleven," which originally used its name to advertise its hours, is open 24 hours, every day.

I must be getting old, disgruntled and crotchety when all I can write about is grousing that some store places a large sign in front announcing SALE.  My apologies.

Thinking About Senior Citizen Demographics

Marrianna and I ate breakfast at a local restaurant this morning, something we regularly do before church on Sunday mornings.  Somehow the conversation turned to how much or lives are different from even five years ago when I retired.

I mentioned that I now understood why some restaurants in locations with high percentages of senior citizens have "early bird specials."  These specials give large discounts to their evening menus when the customer arrives between five and six thirty PM.  I used to think they were not good marketing because who would want to have their evening meals so early.  Well, now the answer is wait for it - Me.  I like to have dinner over before the evening news at 6:00 PM.  If I eat much later than that I get indigestion later in the evening or during the night.  I understand this is a common ailment with senior citizens.  I had rather eat earlier than take another pill to deal with the indigestion.

That got us to thinking about senior demographics and whether business will change marketing practices as our citizenry grows older.  Will senior discounts, for instance, decrease because they aren't needed when the population is, on average, older?  Or, will discounts be even more necessary to attract the larger senior population?

I find the very fact that I even consider such items disconcerting.  I mean, who discusses such subjects at breakfast in a restaurant?  It just isn't something I ever thought I would be doing.  I also never thought my life style would change simply because I got older.  Now, I find that even my taste buds have changed.  In my twenties, stationed in San Antonio, Texas, there were no Mexican food spices too hot for me.  I enjoyed them all, the hotter, the better.  No longer.  I still enjoy spicy Mexican food, but l stick to the mild to mid-range versions, and truthfully, I think I like the food even better.

Even more interesting to me now is the fact that I had read demographic studies of US population years ago and dismissed them as not likely.  I had always thought that I was outside the reach of demographic studies because I was never quite like the individual they portrayed.   Somehow, I was always different.  Again, no longer.  Today, demographics very accurately portray me, or at least they have me reasonably well pegged.  When did I change?

There are probably differences.  It seems accepted, though I don't have facts to back me up, that the senior voter will be more conservative than liberal.  I don't think that is accurate, not at all.  I was much more conservative twenty years ago than I am today.  Our friends in Maryland said that our marriage twenty-three years ago was the union of a knee-jerk liberal (Marrianna) and right wing fascist (me).  Today, I am, if anything, more liberal than Marrianna.  Many of our friends and acquaintances in Fearrington, all approximately our age or older, are quite liberal.

Years ago, just out of the Air Force and working my first civilian job as computer consultant, I worked with a firm that marketed census bureau statistics and demographics to business.  I was never really sure how their data was used, but it was certainly valuable.  A business could determine population by age, income, education level, and much more about a very small geographic area, in some cases below zip-code level.  At the time, I considered it a valuable service.  If I were in a similar position after next year's decentennial census, I am not sure how favorable I would find it.

Marrianna and I have cable TV.  Obviously, the cable company knows exactly what we watch, and even what we record on their recording service.  I've often wondered whether they have the capability to tailor their advertisers to specific households.  For instance, if a family of 30 year olds is watching the same program as we are, do they receive the same commercials we do?  I am almost convinced that they do not because of the high number of pharmaceutical commercials aimed at us that would not, it seems to me, be nearly as appropriate to the 30 year olds.  Or, perhaps they have determined that there aren't a large number of 30 year olds that watch the program.  It sure seems strange to me that there are so many medical commercials.  Maybe I am just overly sensitive about becoming a senior citizen.

As Marrianna's father used to say, the alternatives to growing old are not good.  So, I suppose I'll be happy to have gotten here and enjoy it.

Brief Items

I don't have much this evening.  Politics, health care, rude people, racism, and any number of other interesting subjects have overloaded my ability to grasp their meaning.  I'm left considering relatively inconsequential items.  Such as this post on Crooked Timber.

I had noticed that book titles were increasing in length and complexity, but when I read these "Then" and "Now" posts, it became funny.
Book Titles, If They Were Written Today

• Then: The Wealth of Nations
  Now: Invisible Hands: The Mysterious Market Forces That Control Our Lives and How to Profit from Them
• Then: Walden
  Now: Camping with Myself: Two Years in American Tuscany
• Then: The Theory of the Leisure Class
  Now: Buying Out Loud: The Unbelievable Truth About What We Consume and What It Says About Us
• Then: The Gospel of Matthew
  Now: 40 Days and a Mule: How One Man Quit His Job and Became the Boss
• Then: The Prince
  Now: The Prince (Foreword by Oprah Winfrey)

I especially like the new title for The Gospel of Matthew.  Walden's new title is good too.  There is one equally as good for Walden in the comments:  Simplicity for Dummies.  As of now there are 70 comments to the Crooked Timber post with more suggestions.  There are several really good ones in there.

Crooked Timber is a blog I read almost daily.  There are some very smart people on their masthead, people from all over the globe who all write well also.  There is always good analysis, humor, and interesting posts about a wide variety of subjects.

Speaking of blogs I read regularly, Ms Julie Heyward of Unreal Nature has named her blog appropriately, as in it's unreal to be such a brilliant thinker, photographer, and writer and to always, literally always, have something intelligent to write that's also interesting to read.

Turning briefly to the economy, I see that Ben Bernanke has declared that the recession is "very likely over."  It sure doesn't feel like it to most people.  I think that Bob Herbert of The New York Times rebuts that beautifully in his latest column.  Tell that to the unemployed indeed.

In Fearrington, the village we live in, most of our friends are retired.  Some are beginning to have financial constraints they never expected.  The ladies at my quilt group were discussing some of their friends being unable to move into a full-care retirement home because they can't sell their homes.  It seems to me that for Bernanke to be telling the nation that the recession is likely over is at the very least callous.  It may be accurate technically, but it is damn sure not true.  Bob Herbert tells it much more accurately and empathetically.

With that I close.  Tomorrow is scheduled to be a full day, beginning with a medical appointment at 8:15 AM and ending with dinner with Marrianna's sister and her family at a barbeque joint.  It should be fun.

In Honor

It has been an interesting and eventful week.  There is much I could tell, and probably will over time.  For now though, I want to honor a man who died Monday.  I don't feel free to use his name in the blog, so the telling will be accurate but in respect for the family, unnamed.

He died Monday, on his 92 birthday.  The funeral was Friday.  He was another of what has become to be called the Great Generation.  I only knew him for a short time, but know that this was one heck of a man, a man who actually made a huge difference in this part of the world.  More interesting to me though were the three notes the funeral program said were found in his wallet.  I intend to write the remainder of this blog entry about them.

These three notes, carried for who knows how long, were in his wallet.   

"All this and infinitely more in the space of sixty seconds and then time ticks on until it finally sends us into the unknown eternity.  Given another shot at life, I would seize every moment, look at it, really see it, and never give it back."

"In reverence, I will listen to the concert  of the forest,
The wind blowing its song, and the birds singing their tune."

"No man is an island.  What happens to one happens to us all.  We share the same moments of time.  The universal second hand starts its unforgiving sweep toward the next minute."

These notes to me tell more about the essence of a man than any obituary or honorarium could ever.  They tell of a person who recognizes that life is finite, and the unknown eternity awaits us all.  There is recognition that reverence is due the natural world around us, without assigning the reverence to a deity.  I have no idea how religious or spiritual this man was, but know that his life was lived in accordance with a belief that it is important to use our every talent to assist others.  I see recognition that we are all connected, we are one. 

His life was devoted to teaching, both in classroom and in the examples he set for those around him.  These notes were with him at all times, setting a standard for himself, and through him all of us.  I doubt seriously, though of course I do not know, that he pulled them out regularly, if ever, to refresh their precepts in his mind.  He lived them every day.

I'll not put these notes in my wallet.  They are his, and though I will remember them, they are not mine.  I will think of them, and use the concept of carrying notes of my own philosophy close to me, probably with notes in my wallet.  I'm grateful to have known him, however briefly.

Likely To Be Among The Missing

Blog posting has been minimal recently.  Minimal?  More like non-existent.  We have had several things going on, including our wedding anniversary, and blogging took a back seat.  And, it is probably going to remain scant for a few more days.

Marrianna and I have been invited to meet with several sets of friends at Smith Mountain Lake, VA, this week.  We will drive up there this afternoon and return Saturday.

This is a group of friends we loosely call the Silver Spring Supper Club.  This group met for supper at least monthly for many years.  We even returned up there or had them all here after we moved to North Carolina.  Two families bought homes on the lake, and the entire group, or as many as can possibly, meet there sometime during most summers.

I am looking forward to four days of relaxing, boating, reading, catching up on all the 'families' news, and in general being lazy.  You can be assured that Marrianna will be giving them all updates on our forthcoming grandson.  We are one of only two that do not yet have grandchildren.

I'll take the laptop, but there is no guarantee I'll use it.  I know one family has access to the internet, so it's possible I'll break out our laptop and communicate.  On the other hand, it is equally possible that I will not.  I'll at least have something to write about when we return.

Biomimicry

Marrianna and I were out Wednesday evening and stopped at a chain bookstore so she could pick up a book she had ordered.  I decided to go in with her, though I know that it is always a bad idea because going into a bookstore equates automatically with spending money.

I had just written a blog article about an interview with Janine M. Benyus in The Sun magazine.  I looked up Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature [1997, Harper Collins, reissue paperback 2002 by Harper Perennial] on the bookstore's computer, and they had a paperback copy of it in-store.  It was on sale, and with Marrianna's regular customer discount, I bought it for less than $11.00.  I've been reading, putting it aside to consider its impact, and reading more since.  Biomimicry is important, not well understood, and necessary, I am beginning to believe, for the future of this world.  I'm only deep into the first chapter and have already become a believer.  I am a reasonably fast reader, but when I'm stopping regularly to consider what I've just read, my rate declines sharply.  This is an excellent book, well written without scientific jargon, and I'm very glad I bought it and am reading it.  I know I should complete, or at least be further into the book, before writing this in terms of objectivity, but this morning it seems to be the subject on my mind.  Even this early in it, I recommend the book without reservation.

The book comes at a time when other aspects of life today are very discouraging.  I need its positive perspective when faced with the political realities, or rather completely fabricated politicized lies, of today.  I can't help but believe that we are approaching a dangerous precipice, one that once we step over the edge we will be unable to recover stability.  When our President cannot even speak to the nation's children about the importance of education and staying in school without an uproar that he is trying to indoctrinate them to a socialist world, the edge may not be upon us but it is surely within sight.

I've recently read articles that contend that the source of this schism in politics and willingness to listen or compromise is that President Obama is black, that there is a racist core to the entire discussion.  So far, I am unwilling to make that an accusation, but I do wonder.  If President Obama were caucasian, would the enmity be as deep?  Would the positions be as rigid?

On the other hand, I have found myself slipping into a trap of fear that I don't want to believe is true about myself or our immediate world.  I have been, and once in a while still am, very tempted to purchase a handgun and have both Marrianna and I take lessons in its use.  The fear is that the economy and politics will be such that social structures deteriorate rapidly and we will need to be able to defend ourselves.  This is ridiculous I know, but I've seriously considered it, and continue to waver.

Looking back at what I've written, It is interesting that it has progressed/deteriorated from a positive review of a very good book through concern and finally to fear.  I really don't want to end with fear, but once it has sneaked into the conscious it is difficult to purge.  The best purge for me is the quilting table, and I hear it calling.