CHANGE PARTIES, AND DANCE

Representatives and senators have left Washington to campaign for reelection. President Obama – the one who has said he should act in their stead by executive order if they won’t – used the occasion to criticize them for not staying and doing their jobs.

True, as a body the Congress has done little in the last two years. In some ways that is good for the country; most times the “accomplishments” of Congress do more harm than good. But, the total lack of meaningful legislating is due more to partisanship than anything else. Let the blame fall where it may.

Not a new idea, but certainly not a commonly discussed one, for getting meaningful work out of our national legislators would be to “turn the rascals out.” Set aside for a moment that the voters in the 50 states would need do that, and then both parties would be overturned. The houses of Congress would flip control, but the legislative branch would still be split.

First, stipulate that all 535 seats in the two houses will not flip. But they need not. Good results for the electorate and thus the country would follow if only fractions of a total overturn of the incumbents and so the parties occurred.

In 2010 the midterm elections brought in a slew of new Republicans and changed the House of Representatives from Democratic to Republican. That was grist for the punditry mills for months and months. That change brought a distinct change in the legislative branch’s output. In short, the House passed budget and appropriation bills while the Senate settled for continuing resolutions. The status quo brought increased spending because of built-in up-ticks in expenditures. Republicans could complain and point to their dutifulness; Democrats could smile because the government kept growing. That may be oversimplified, but still true.

What if on Nov. 6 a mere 10 percent of House and Senate incumbents lost? The political chatter would pick up considerably. Reelected and newly elected members of the Congress would take notice. That would be a sizeable turnover historically.

In a 2011 blog article on Sabato’s Crystal Ball (from Prof. Larry L. Sabato of the University of Virginia Center for Politics) columnist Alan I. Abramowitz makes some pertinent points. Never in history have both houses flipped party control, and never in recent history has there been a true anti-incumbent election. Fifty two of the 54 representatives losing their seats in 2010 were Democrats, as were all three losing senators.

A chart with that article indicates that since 1954 the greatest number of the 435 House seats to turn over was fewer than 100.

That means that if a quarter, one in four, of the incumbents in the lower chamber were thrown out by the voters, an historic event would be witnessed. What would be the effect on the 435 representatives and 32 or 33 senators sworn in with the beginning of the 113^th Congress in January 2013?

Wow! They would be very attentive to the wishes of their constituents back home. That would be a change.

And if a third were replaced? Profuse sweat on legislative brows would ensue.

Half? Those wont to feed at the public trough would get the message and start buying lunches themselves. The new influence of the voters would be astounding to politicians and pundits alike.

No more seat-warmers of congressional chairs. Their new occupants would be up on their feet, working to satisfy their citizen-masters.

Okay, so most rascals will still be in place come January. Congress has always been a favorite target of taxpayers, who seem to like the individuals they have elected.

But, just knowing that power does exist at the polls should be of some help.

Would somebody – please -- organize a campaign to make those 535 people in Washington true representatives of the people back home and not 535 egocentric self-servers intent on making elective office careers?

Or, maybe we could each give a little more thought to what we are doing when we cast our secret ballot.

Which is more important, party loyalty or responsible representation? 

KEEP UP THE FIGHT FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Catholics fear for their religious freedom supposedly guaranteed under the world’s oldest written constitution. They have not crawled under the rock from which progressives believe they emerged. Rather, many Catholics, including in the hierarchy, are praying and readying the weapon of the ballot against an administration wishing to silence their protests.

President Obama and his self-professed Catholic secretary of health and welfare struck in February with proposed rules to force Catholic institutions – and similarly disposed religious organizations of other denominations – to act contrary to part of their doctrine and consciences.

Sure, say the rules now put into effect without change, dioceses and parishes can have insurance that does not cover abortion, abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization services for their employees. But religious hospitals, universities, schools, charitable institutions and the like better cover their employees for such abominations against human life or face crushing fines.

Parishioners of St. Louis church in northern Virginia (and probably most attending Masses in the Arlington Diocese) now recite a prayer from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. They pray “God our Creator” who provided “our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness . . . to bless us in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty.” The prayer asks for strength of mind and heart readily to “defend our freedom when threatened.” It further asks for “courage in making our voices heard on behalf of the rights of your Church and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.”

Further, the prayer asks God, in this historic “decisive hour” to withstand every trial and overcome every danger so that “this great land will always be ‘one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’”

Another prayer card, from the Arlington bishop, prays the Sacred Heart of Jesus to convert “hearts to protect religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the sanctity of marriage.”

In addition, parishioners the last two Sundays have supplied those attending Mass at St.Louis with small handouts that encourage readers to “imagine” a government “founded on the right of religious freedom . . . that coerces its citizens to violate their consciences.” Hardly imaginable, until HHS rules come along.

Another asks to image, favorably, signers of the Declaration of Independence “affirming the necessity of forming a new country stating that: ‘all men . . . are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.’” It reminds that unalienable means those rights “cannot be taken away: they are not granted by the government, but rather precede it.”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, in his similar closing prayers at the Republican and Democratic national conventions citied liberty and life as sacred to our nation that derived its rights from God.

Catholic pastors and their parochial vicars are careful, of course, not to mention a candidate’s name from the pulpit. (The IRS obviously overlooks appearances of candidates at African-American services.)  But Catholics are still free of think of those candidates that would nullify their rights and the rights of the faithful of other religions. A few Protestant institutions have joined Catholic lawsuits against the HHS regulations.

Fighting those administration rules could either come as outright disobedience or just ending services to clients that often include non-Catholics or even outnumber Catholics being served. In Boston, Catholic Charities some time ago quit arranging adoptions rather than place children in the homes of homosexual couples, which government mandates.

It is difficult imaging the University of Notre Dame closing down rather than supplying insurance coverage for birth control pills for female students. But let’s hope the good Holy Cross fathers have the guts to shut the doors if necessary.  

Catholics, locally and nationally, must not give up fighting for their rights. When leaders of other religions come to realize they too are vulnerable, the fight may take on some steam. Currently, the main stream media look at Catholics as second­- or even lower-class citizens, if citizens at all. The longer those rules remain in force, the hotter the issue will grow.

Catholics dare not let it cool off.

 And let no one forget: religious freedom is the first God-given right recognized by the United States Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

TIME WARP

My sermon today is about Methuselah.

Footnote, if there can be a footnote in a talk. This will be in straight English .No dialect, Irish or Italian, so I can avoid attack from the political correctors.

Methuselah is famous because he lived for some 900 years. He was mentioned in a song by the Gershwin brothers because of his longevity. As a Biblical character, Methuselah gets but a few verses. Hardly fitting for someone who lived so long. Genesis comes at the beginning of the Bible. So it could cover a time before the invention of fire and the wheel. In their various forms, fire and wheels account for just about every kind of machine that now keeps our civilization moving. Think about it.

Footnote two. Why no the before fire and a the before wheel? Well, if it were the fire, it would mean a particular campfire or conflagration. The wheel means the first wheel, which continues to roll after all these eons.

Footnote three. Pretty unusual to have another footnote so soon. This one is to note that I just checked out the Bible before continuing to write.

It turns out Methuselah is mentioned only in verses 21, 22, 25 and 26 of the fifth chapter of Genesis. And there is not one single quotation from him. All that fame, and not one word out of his mouth. But we learn from our perusal of chapter 5 that Methuselah was 187 years old when he fathered Lemech. Then he lived another 782 years and died at the age of 969.

But, and here might be a surprise for all you who are not familiar with the Bible, there were some other long-lived people in that early Biblical age. To avoid a lengthy quotation, let me just run down those listed in chapter 5.

Adam, the first man, the husband of Eve, lived 930 years and fathered Seth when he was 130. Seth, who lived to be 815 years old, fathered Enosh at 105. And Enosh lived to be 905. There were some pretty old fathers that followed, but let’s just mention how old they were when they died. Kenan, 804; Mahalalel, 830; Jared, 800; Enoch – not to be confused with Enosh – a measly 365; then and only then Methuselah; Lemech, 777, then Noah who was 500 years old when he fathered Shem, Ham and Japeth.

Passing through those days, led to months and months and months, and years and years and years, and decades and decades and decades, not to mention centuries, and centuries, and centuries, and centuries, and centuries, and centuries, and centuries, and centuries and centuries. I think that is nine centuries. That’s a long time!

If there was no overlap, those long lives add up to some six thousand two hundred years before Noah. Obviously, many of those fathers and sons were alive at the same time, so we don’t really know from the Bible how long a time elapsed from Adam to Noah.

We do learn, however, that Methuselah lived the longest. That must account for why even today people still refer to him. Okay, some people refer to him. It has been a while, I confess, since I heard Methuselah mentioned.

Footnote four. Some folks might find it hard to believe that people lived that long back then. I’ll get to that later.

Genesis is the first book of the Bible. It was written a long time after Adam and his descendants just enumerated. So those early figures must have lived boring lives until some of them invented things to make life a bit easier, as did fire and the wheel. Hacking scars in the ground to plant seeds and herding animals left a lot of time for thinking. Thought, of course, must be reason those early people found out what seeds were. Maybe meat as food was discovered when, after killing that charging bull, something had to be done with the carcass.

Footnote five. I digress.

Living so long must have had one common accomplishment. And that was wisdom. Wisdom meant people could figure out what was going on around them.

But time means a lot of idle time, and idle time plays into the Devil’s hands. We’ve all heard that. Chapter 6 of Genesis pretty well explains what happened.

“When men had begun to be plentiful on earth, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God, looking at the daughters of men, saw they were pleasing, so they married as many as they chose.”

Footnote six. This is a nice way of saying that there was too much fooling around.

Yahweh – which is the Hebrew name for the Lord – said he would not be disgraced by the behavior of the men he had created. So He said man’s “life shall last no more than a hundred and twenty years.”

Besides that, Yahweh brought the Flood. That was the big one. Noah saved mankind and the animal kingdom by building the ark, at the Lord’s suggestion. And the rest is history, as we are wont to say.

Now, before I have to get to another footnote, let it be noted that the Old Testament goes way, way back. And from that time on it would seem that the Lord’s limit on human life holds true. Officially, according to that sage we call the Internet, the oldest person ever in recent times lived 122 years and 164 days. She was a French woman who died in 1997. The next was 119 years and 97 days. Several managed 116 years. All were women.

What does that tell you, men?

The next time you hear someone mention Methuselah, just remember his name has endured, only because he lived a few years longer than many others. Of course, one point or one run or whatever measure, means some athlete or team becomes famous.

Footnote seven. The rest are also-rans.

HOME, HOME ON THE HOBO RANGE

He was obviously homeless. He walked slowly, pack and bedroll on his back, his long hair in tangles, on a path that seemed to lead to ground-level water tanks, hidden by trees, that stand only a few paces from Route 1. There must be a campsite used by the homeless there. Until shut down, such a camp was in a wooded area about a quarter-mile north. The sheltering undergrowth was removed there, and a small green space emerged. That was good for the neighborhood, bad for those who’d rather not go to shelters. Those refuges are shunned by some derelicts for fear of other derelicts.

Okay, so it is politically incorrect to refer that way to the unfortunate human beings who can claim no shelter similar to those fortunate people with incomes. Speculation about the living conditions of that man, called a hobo back in the thirties when men wandered the country looking for work may be fruitless. Back then, those men, usually wearing suit coats and beat-up fedoras, would knock on the back doors of middle class houses and asked for a bite to eat, sometime offering to do chores in return for the sustenance. Housewives, alone and doing their own housekeeping, would often not hesitate to give the poor souls some of the soup being prepared for supper. Some would pour boiling water on the plates and utensils the hobo used. But there was sympathy for the guy who, “there for the grace of God go I.” Some of the homeless families found community (a progressive usage now) in slapped-together shacks collectively termed “Hoovervilles” (a term coined for the habitats erected by World War I who marched on Washington to demand pensions.)

Despite the high unemployment rate today, the homeless differ from those that rode the rails and gathered at “hobo jungles” and ate slumgullion. Today most unemployed get federal money. Actual homeless folks do not appear “down and out” as did those itinerant unemployed during the Great Depression seen in stark, black and white photos of bread lines taken by WPA workers. Now, their dishevelment bespeaks more of mental disability, with which some are burdened, or drug and alcohol addiction.

Our contemporary example of homelessness may have discovered the haven he was approaching from others like him. He may have met them high up the slope of riprap under some viaduct or bridge. New structures, such as one carrying I-95, barricade sleeping spots. Also, strings of lights illuminate the roadway for traffic and disrupt rest for anyone foolish enough to seek sanctuary beneath viaducts.

Back in the eighties during a spate of unemployment, churches of various faiths in a Virginia suburban area, worked together in providing a moving shelter week by week. The U.S. Army loaned cots and churchgoers staffed the shelters overnight and supplied breakfast and take-out sandwiches for lunch. County health officials were not happy, but saw the need and so increased the supply of governmental beds.

Clients of the church-run shelters back then could not be tagged with a single description. Few even came close to resembling the man strolling down the path toward the water tanks, or the so-called bag ladies. There were single mothers with a child or two, an underemployed woman who dressed well and had some sort of sales job in a department store, men who did look like street people. Having seen those homeless, one can only imagine the day-to-day existence of the contemporary guy with the bedroll.

Perhaps it would be unfair for someone who has not walked in his moccasins to guess how he manages to keep living, not to mention trying to get into his head. Recalling over and over, perhaps, the mistakes, or the misfortune, that put him in this fix might be his cross. Might it be the economic downturn with job loss, or unrestrained spending, or gambling, or divorce, or depression, or mental illness, or just plain orneriness? Being a school dropout? Maybe his life is just looking for his next meal, like some stray animal. Maybe it’s a continuous stewing over fate. Hard to know.

How can concerned citizens help homeless people like our guy? A lot of us might say, let the government handle him and others like him. Some of us say it is up to the churches and other charities. Others say that little can be done for those who appear to have dropped out of society voluntarily, or because of mental illness. Asylums (isn’t strange that such a caring word has become a PC bugaboo?) don’t exist in the numbers seen before the time when state governments discovered that mood-changing drugs were cheaper than big, brick buildings with locked wards.

There may be but little hope for our modern hobo. But for the great mass of homeless, perhaps more jobs would turn the trick.

FACT CHECKING BEFORE THE FACT

In this day of political speech being fact checked in print and on air and over the internet, the time might be right to advocate for a new kind of newspaper. A newspaper dedicated to just the facts, the truth as it can be discovered.

Sure, most newspapers claim they already do that. Readers know that is not true. News people are wont to declare that objectivity is impossible. Is all news gathering and reporting subjective? Need it be?

Back in the 1950s when your humble writer first entered the news business, it was generally accepted that the people who reported the news were not to take sides; that was for the editorial writers and columnists. We might have our private partisan thoughts and opinions – and indeed, we did – but we were to keep those out of our reporting. That’s why the phrases “he said” and “she said” appeared ad nauseam.

New reporters at the old United Press were instructed in company policy to write down the middle because client papers had different political slants. Fair and balanced was not mentioned, but that was the policy. That was carried out pretty well. Reporters back then, even those of many newspapers, found they could talk with and interview Democrats and Republicans without being labeled friendly or unfriendly. One could even interview a Communist and write a straight story.

Still, some readers and some politicians were ready to label newspapers. In Wisconsin, Republicans attending party functions would, on occasion, tell Milwaukee Journal reporters that they worked for Pravda or Izvestia or Tass. On the editorial pages, the Journal was Democratic but not on the news side. In Madison, the Capital Times tended to slant its news-side toward that party and its editorial positions were clearly Progressive, even though that party founded by Robert “Fighting Bob” or “Old Bob” La Follette Sr. had folded before the death of “Young Bob.” In other parts of the country, such feelings probably still prevail. Similar feelings might be heard in the D.C. region regarding the Washington Post and the Washington Times or Examiner.

Newspapers are failing or cutting back, because of diminishing advertising. Their on-line operations are not producing as much ad revenue as needed to maintain healthy operations. Some are cutting back from daily publishing, such as the parent company of the Times­-Picayune in New Orleans. Their papers are printed three days a week, following tests in other markets where the firm operates.

Even the country’s national newspapers are having financial problems. The New York Times has been selling off most of the papers it owns to right the listing flagship. The Washington Post has folded its business section into section A, folded some Sunday sections and squeezed daily sections.

Could revamping newspapers’ news-holes to recognize how readers have either switched to TV news entirely or how they use television improve the financial outlook for print journalism? That might be worth a try.

How?

More exposition and less opinion would help. Exposition means explanation. A writer, it seems, could explain without opining. Government news now means reporting the bloviating of politicians more than explaining the substance of government. The news bite broadcast news developed because of time restraints was quickly adapted by savvy politicians. Print reporters were ever awaiting colorful language for quotation, so it cannot be blamed solely on television. Nonetheless, television’s demands have intensified the public’s taste for confrontation between pols, even in newspapers. Theodore White’s “The Making of a President,” the trend-setting book on the behind-the-scenes 1960 presidential election, was full of incidental scene descriptions –details of clothes John Kennedy was wearing when he did such and such – spurred political reporters to write more colorfully. An example of what could happen at the time of transition: A political reporter for the Milwaukee Journal wrote about the scotch a gubernatorial candidate poured while being interviewed in a hotel room; the candidate was not happy. A detail such as that would be commonplace now, with no complaints.

What if the space needed to write about such trivia (albeit, such detail could be revelatory sometimes) were devoted to factual reporting of the issue at hand? That should be of more value to citizens as voters than whether the president sneaks a smoke when no one is around to take a photo.

What if breaking news was left to TV, radio and the internet? Daily newspaper editors know that is way things are, so why don’t they just edit their papers with that reality in mind and forget about the old days of street sales and deadlines every minute? In the thirties, the Indianapolis Star would put out extras during the 500 race at the Speedway, especially had there been a fatal crash. (The last extra the writer remembers is the one he ordered at a now-defunct small town paper when Robert Kennedy was shot.)  Extras are of the past, but newspapering has not fully adapted to the 21^st century.

When papers of record, such as the old Milwaukee Journal and other dailies in Wisconsin, would have reporters covering every minute the two houses of the legislature were in session and nearly all of the public hearings on bills (where, incidentally, any person registering could get a few minutes to present his or her opinion). Pertinent detail would be reported without spin. Reporters knew not every subscriber was reading their stuff, but they did know that opinion leaders around the state were. Those who cared to know what was happening in Madison could find out. And that coverage included such meetings of boards and commissions that handled welfare, insurance, building, conservation, and the university regents. And the state supreme court, of course. That reportage (to use a contemporary term) was pretty inclusive and pretty unbiased. Reporters then called themselves newsmen and not journalists. Unfortunately, there were only a few women covering general news, but there were some, who could be tough.

Reporters asking questions did not give speeches. They tried to keep questions short and pointed. They sought information. Gotcha queries were few, though they did exist. For the most part they followed the spirit of the disclaimer Lawrence E. Spivak used at the beginning of the old radio Meet the Press --- the views of the reporter are not necessarily reflected by their questions.

Reporters considered themselves as journeymen craftsmen who were surrogates for the readers who could not be there. They placed themselves in the place of interested parties who wanted to know what happened and how and why. The old three W’s ---what, where and when -- plus how and why were the questions to be answered as fully and as tersely as possible. They were not supposed to care about the fallout of their reporting as long as they could back it up. Corrections were frowned upon, but printed if necessary. (There was one blemish on corrections in the old days of newspapers: they were buried in short, little stories and were called row-backs. Now, thankfully, corrections are clearly labeled and put in one place.)

Today, journalists are considered professionals and treated as elitists. And they are paid well. That is well and good, but their product is not held in high esteem. It may not have been held high in the old days either, but somehow it seemed to be more respected than today.

So, perhaps newspaper could gain some respect and more readers if they delivered a product that provided news that was of more value to those who need it, and, more important, a product that could be acquired nowhere else? That could be the case if at the core of that product was news and information readers came to believe in as true and unbiased. News that provided detail from original sources rather than parroting opinion from those who could benefit at the polling places. News that tried more to be pertinent than merely timely. There are enough people who need such news to support the high costs of gathering that news, or it seems there should be. Those people can be found in all walks of life, in business, education, professions from health to science and engineering, entertainment. People in commerce and industry and professions need to know what is happening. They need to know current events in detail, not in fleeting bursts.

Newspaper publishers and editors always have thought they were providing essential information, but the state of the industry shows otherwise. A new approach is needed.

Advertisers need such audiences and surely would reward those publishers providing such readers.

And, of course, there would still be printed entertainments broadcasters and cablecasters cannot provide, such as comics, crossword puzzles, and, naturally, the real skinny on sports.

Professionals could be found to report and write without bias if that was demanded and enforced by well- meaning publishers. Pros in the news business would be happy to supply a product that really fulfills a need.

The yellow press of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries faded away, just as today’s version of daily newspapering is on the brink of slipping into oblivion. The old days of newspapering were not perfect. There was, however, a sense that the news pages and the editorial page were discrete.

Why not a newspaper, or many newspapers, that live by and thrive on that division? Editors would not need a staff of Clark Kents to put out the Daily Verity. Only some upright people who wished to practice high standards.

Fact checkers would do their work before the fact of publishing.

SPORTS SHORT TAKES

Sports entail things that intrigue a fan who knows little of the fine points of the various games.

In no particular order:

Why does a trainer shield his lips as he speaks to a fallen college footballer? Is someone on the opposing bench assigned to watching TV to discern what may be wrong with injured players on the other team? Maybe. Pitcher mound conferences are notorious for covered mouths.

Why were quite a few season-opening college football games played in neutral cities, such as Dallas, Atlanta, Dublin? Participants were big time schools, not Sleepy Hollow State and the like. Money probably answers the question.

Velcro on the batting gloves of Major League Baseball players must be lousy. Batters seem to readjust those wrist bands almost after every swing or called ball. The other day, one player loosed and tightened just before stepping into the box. It seems that as late as the fifties, ball players batted bareheaded and did not put helmets on their heads. Safety from bean balls, that’s understandable. But do gloves really give better grips? No more do batters stoop and rub dirt on their hands and handle.

Are tattoos and facial hair on pro and amateur athletes more prevalent this year than in the past? Clean cut is no longer the look for our heroes.

How come college quarterbacks must operate with hand signals from the sidelines and pros can just listen to the radio receiver in his helmet? Rules, sure, but more and more seem to be taken from the player and put into the hands of the coaches. And what about those assistant coaches (only now and then a head coach) up high in the warm seats behind glass, running algorithms or whatever on their computers and relaying important tactics to the bench and the field.

Noticed for the first time the other day when in a big league ball yard that the umpires have to be fast on their feet, just like the players. The base umps run to get into position when flies and grounders and Texas leaguers (is that term still used?) come off the bat. No more out-of-shape officials. Suppose the plate umpire, the crew chief, has to be agile, too, for the umps do move around from game to game. Oh yes, does the plate umpire still carry a little whisk broom to keep home plate clean? And how bad do the lines marking the batter’s boxes have to get before they are re-chalked (or is some space­-age paint used)?

Why are the profiles of golfers seen in TV long shots so easily identifiable to fans? Got to be that body language speaks pretty loudly. Swings certainly are recognizable.

People who can’t stand sticky hands shouldn’t be pitchers. Those resin bags have got to feel like honey.

Ball players must have a choice between long pants and stockings. Suppose it makes no difference if uniforms are not uniform. Can’t remember whether players have a long-pants option when teams wear retro gear.

Basketball – can players maneuver just as well in those long shorts and loose fitting jerseys as they could in the short shorts era? Is the longer version just for style? B-ball players don’t seem to have a choice in uniform styles as do baseball players.