Now let me review the bidding: As I understand it, Tea Party legislators are holding their fellow Republicans’ feet to the fire (and, therefore, all of America’s) and are demanding a ransom... to be agreed to before they will consent to consider raising the national debt ceiling... and what is it they want? What do they say must to be fixed: Government and Employment. Their first catch phrase is, “shrink government.” The second has something to do with shrinking the percentage of unemployed people in America (people unemployed in a recession brought on my the failed economic policies of a previous administration).

It doesn’t take a Harvard or Princeton economist to figure out that shrinking government means dismissing people from their jobs in government, putting more people who now have employment as civil servants (don’t you love the phrase?) and sticking them in the pool of unemployed Americans. People who are out of work don’t have money to spend unless they are fortunate folks who don’t need jobs anyway. People who don’t have money to spend can’t go to the grocery store or to the department store or the car dealership to buy what they would buy if they had jobs. The stores, including the small businesses which Tea Party people say they want to save, won’t have the customers they need to stay in business... and the economy will slow further.

Let’s take a look at another government expenditure that’s a favorite target of the Tea Party. Receiving money to operate from federal, state, and local governments, schools are perhaps the most obvious business of government in every community. From people who have apparently forgotten what most teachers do, a common description of people in the teaching profession is that they are lazy, lay-about persons who are in teaching in the first place because of “high” salaries and long vacations. Wow! ...not my experience at all, and I spent most of my working life with teachers... and students... and parents. By cutting teachers out of schools and slashing programs to save money, besides depriving students of valuable experiences which can help them develop into appropriately educated citizens who have skills and understanding to sustain a healthy society and a healthy economy, dismissing teachers pushes them and other school personnel into the ranks of the unemployed. Like unemployed civil servants, unemployed school personnel don’t have money to spend to support the small and large businesses and industries that are the economic life-blood of communities everywhere.

For a long time America has been the very best place in the world to live. Ask anybody. My parents were young and middle-aged adults during the Hoover, Roosevelt and Truman administrations. Besides growing up in a family that was upwardly mobile in economic terms, I had the tremendous advantage of being an adolescent and young adult beginning in the early-50s when Dwight D. Eisenhower was President of the United States. President Eisenhower, a Republican, was convinced that, among other public works projects, a costly interstate highway system would be worthwhile because it would open America up to economic development and would be an effective driver of the economy while the highways were being built. His administration made a tremendous push to make American schools more effective at doing what schools are meant to do. I was a young English and history/geography teacher beginning in 1957. What an exciting time that was. We knew our country was growing the right way and becoming better. We had enthusiasm and hope, and our students caught the spirit of a brighter future from us and from their parents. I was convinced that I had chosen the best profession for me, and my enthusiasm had nothing to do with the money or time-off. My first salary was $4200 for the 1957-58 school year. Along with teaching six periods a day, I drove a school bus to make a little extra money. I remember not minding the extra work, being glad for it. I spent the time off in summer doing graduate work and picking peaches and doing a night shift in the Del Monte Cannery in Yuba City. I actually thought I was just about the luckiest guy alive. My colleagues were as glad as I was to have a job worth doing.

Anybody who has talked with a teacher in the summer of 2011 knows that the American school world has shifted. In June many teachers were given pink slips informing them that they may not have a job at the end of summer because city, county, and state governments either don’t have budgets yet or that the budgets that have been approved drastically cut funding for schools. In many districts class sizes will be larger and in some the school year will be shortened. Salaries for teachers who still have jobs have been frozen in many districts. Insurance and retirement benefits are on the table with other “expenses” to be reconsidered and adjusted. Teachers and students and parents are being told that America can no longer afford to support “a bloated, tax-supported system” which Tea Party folks say public schools have become.

Oh, yeah. There are many other government-cutting movements within our economic and social institutions that are bound to affect the employment figures. Demands are being made for cuts in spending for local, state, and national park and recreation facilities. The Tea Party folks who rode the anti-government wave into Washington in the last election are fond of saying to their constituents that environmental protection programs are at least bloated and mainly not needed at all. Our nation has announced that its space program is no longer necessary. Our last space flight launched this weekend. NASA is being dismantled. I haven’t seen the figures on how many people will be out of job as the NASA doors are closed. It’s easy to make a list of programs that are being touted as foolishly wasteful and unnecessary. It’s much harder to get back the enthusiasm for and commitment to the well-being of all Americans.

I followed this worker bumble bee around the garden today and watched as he gathered pollen from white agapanthus. It skipped over the blue flowers, obviously preferring the white ones. I wonder what that was all about.

About the debt ceiling and the mess in most state capitals and in Washington:  A close friend whom I love and respect suggests that Ron Paul’s and Neal Bootz’s plans for solving the economic problem should be considered because they are fair. “Eliminate the income tax and all deductions (and subsidies) and collect government dollars from sales tax on all purchases (except on personal jets and yachts!) There could be exceptions for basic food and necessary meds, but like the Obama health care bill states, if you sell your house, there is a tax. The tax is estimated to be significant, around 23%. The pros and cons list is long, but maybe this method is...fairer.”

I thought about it for awhile and concluded that a solution doesn’t have to be “fair.”  I suppose there are some affluent, healthy, beautiful people who believe their good fortunate is the logical playing out of a system operating among human communities that favors fairness. Naaaah... I don’t buy it. Fairness has little to do with it. The “it” in those sentences is the pronoun that represents the economic, social and health status of people, any people, in any cultural setting. Of course, we ideally strive for justice and equity in our legal systems. We strive to make our laws “fair,” but equity and justice reinforced in law don’t guarantee that the rewards of a free society are measured out fairly to all citizens. We expect our children to learn in school that fairness is a valued characteristic, but everyone who has spent any time in school knows that ultimately the rewards systems don’t take into account all individual differences. Does anyone try to argue that the very intelligent student and the dull normal student operate on a level academic playing field or that the athlete born with ideal genetic make-up and the youngster with real physical disabilities have equal opportunities for success in athletics? When responsible people who are blessed with natural or inherited or preconditioned advantages reach out to those who aren’t so blessed and share, they are doing more because they recognize and acknowledge that they enjoy the good life at least partly because of the advantages they have enjoyed. The responsible person, the moral person, recognizes that the good life isn’t spread through a community equitably and fairly. The responsible fortunate person expects to give more to community... not just a greater amount but a bigger percentage. The responsible person doesn’t settle just for fairness but goes beyond what fairness requires and does “the right thing.”

HERE'S HOW WE ORDINARY PEOPLE PASS THE TIME IN SUMMER...
Only those people who have been out of touch for the past week may not have heard that the British tabloid newspaper owned by the Rupert Murdoch family is shutting down after disclosures proved that illegal phone hacking had become routine procedure in investigating stories. James Murdock, the top official at News Corp. made the announcement. America’s Fox News is part of the Murdock corporate news giant.

I will continue to be wary (and weary) of the clap-trap that comes out of Murdock propaganda machines. Murdock only the 33rd richest man in the world, won’t have to adjust his life style, however. As a resident of New York instead of London, he and his family enjoy the great tax benefits established during the Bush years for America’s super rich. In negotiations with the Obama Administration as the nation approaches the deadline for adjusting debt ceiling, Republicans in Congress say they are determined to continue these tax breaks for the wealthy. Go figure!

... but our jewels don't cost much.

Fire on University Avenue in Hillcrest this afternoon... There is something primal about a fire in a building where people work and live.

Twas brillig...

On my way from my car to the Museum of Photographic Arts this morning, I walked past a eucalyptus trees, not the rainbow variety, but a towering giant with a lower trunk still wet after an early soaking from an irrigation system; and there it was... Jabberwocky had transported himself (or herself, maybe) from the other side of the park and had transformed himself from the wide-eyed, mirthful gnome on yesterday’s Madagascar tree to a decidedly more menacing spirit on a tree native to Australia. There is balance in the world, however. The tree with the scowling image is only a hundred yards or so from my favorite tree, the rainbow eucalyptus that lives behind the photographic museum. The wonderful thing about a eucalyptus, any eucalyptus, is that it is always in the process of becoming; it changes from week to week. In this season of pealing, it sheds its skin in patches and strips producing abstract designs that are any photographer’s dream.

On another subject: I’ve been amazed today to learn that an apparent majority of Americans, not members of the jury, were disappointed that the notorious young woman in the Florida court was not found guilty of murdering her beautiful little daughter. What’s that about? Why disappointed? What is it in people that wants to put a person to death? Is the world, after all, filled with the spirit of the Taliban. Of course, I’m shocked that the young woman didn’t report her daughter missing for over a month. Of course, I have been saddened to learn that the young mother’s longing for the life of a party person even after she had become a mother was far stronger than her maternal instincts. How could I not be dismayed to see and hear details that made me want to hear no more? Yet, I never felt anything but extreme pity for the mother... and for her parents... and for her brother. It’s too late for pity for the dead baby. When the announcement was made today that the jury had not found her guilty and that she will probably be a free person after serving three or four years for perjury, I felt a great sense of relief; but I heard people, men and women, say that she deserves to be put to death. Wow! Am I living among people who would agree, if they were citizens of a remote village in Afghanistan, to the stoning to death of any woman found guilty of adultery? This young woman may be guilty of terrible crimes, perhaps even infanticide, but where is the satisfaction in killing her? Whatever happens to her now, her life will be hell. Imagine what people will think of her, will say about her...how they will look at her. Who could possibly love her now... genuinely love her? Can’t people just be satisfied with the terrible tragedy that will always be the overpowering central event of her sad life? Can’t we above all other impulses, when we think of her sad life, hope for redemption?

When I came across this tree today, how could I not think of Lewis Carroll and Jabberwocky...

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Calloh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

PATRICIA... AT CHURCH ON THE THIRD OF JULY.

ROBERT PLIMPTON... ANTICIPATING INDEPENDENCE DAY AT THE ORGAN CONCERT IN BALBOA PARK.

At the Zoo...

It's been awhile since I posted a political rant on the BLOG. Blame this one on my friend Katie. She sent me a Rolling Stone article about the same time last week that a Washington Post writer said Democrats need a Tea Party of their own. My journal writing today is a take on that proposition. No matter how hard I try, I can't make a connection between the photographs today and the writing... I tried saying something about naked truth and the pictures of the Naked Coral Tree, but it didn't work. You have to be careful with the word naked... It's easy to be misleading with that word. There are also some more photos of the Naked Coral Tree... Yep! That's it's name. This one stands brazenly in front of the Fashion Valley Mall just down the hill from where I live.

Can Liberals Start Their Own Tea Party?

A Washington Post headline last week posed the question and supplied an answer offered by environmental activist Van Jones. Jones was not suggesting that “Tea Party” be part of the name for a liberal movement to rival the powerful new conservative wing of the Republican Party. His emphasis was on the liberal side’s need for new infusions of political and financial power.

Since the formation of the Tea Party, the intractable Gridlock in Washington and in state capitals has become even more rigidly fixed. What we do not need at this time is another wing of the Democratic Party toward which elected members must genuflect. We might try placing emphasis on common sense and direct attention to verifiable laws of natural, political, and economic science. But, of course, the success of a common sense approach to solving problems depends on elected officials and other citizens who are well-informed and wise. Americans are notoriously ill-informed and foolish when it comes to history, science, and finance. In debate Celebrity is at least as persuasive for many Americans as plain facts. A dazzling set of perfectly aligned teeth flashed at the right moment along with, of course, clear statements of allegiance to God and the flag and denunciation of gay marriage and abortion are enough to get the votes of many fundamentalist Christians. Documented facts based on legitimate research by environmental scientists aren’t enough to dissuade some folks from insisting that global warming and climate change are myths designed to undermine belief in the power of God. When Michelle Bachmann raises her arm and lifts her eyes toward the sky and says that God in Heaven called her to undertake a political career to set America right, millions of people actually believe her. Liberal thinkers relying on common sense in this political climate should suppress the impulse to laugh at her. Laughing at her when she confuses Concord, New Hampshire, and Concord, Massachusetts, in a political stump speech only strengthens her hand. You mustn’t laugh at God’s anointed candidate. With one hand on the Bible and the other saluting the flag, she can say almost anything she wants to say; and many people out there will be convinced that God is rewriting the past and the planning the future just for her. If, by God, she says she will create jobs when she is President of the United States; then, by God, we’d better believe she will do it. If she says the country can pay for everything that God wants to do with America without putting any financial burden on millionaires and billionaires, then, by God, it will happen the way God wants it to happen. You have Michelle Bachmann’s word on that.

What was that old Chinese curse about living in interesting times. These are definitely interesting times... for China and The United States and indeed for the whole world. There is no denying that the world is smack in the middle of economic, ecological, and social crises. Politicians with narrow parochial views of the world can only make these crises worse. A few of the American politicians who want to be president of the country lack a world view. We need politicians with an appreciation and respect for the interconnectedness of all people and all other things of the earth. The world needs citizens who support environmental and social justice movements for all people. We must face up to the realities of negative environmental and social consequences of industrial economic development, even when it means that by giving up some of our wasteful ways of living we may become temporarily uncomfortable.

I am not reassured by Michelle Bachmann’s insistence that God will show her the way to make things right, even when she holds up her diploma and insists that her fundamentalist zeal is backed up by a law degree. Indeed she was a member of the first class in 1979 of O.W. Coburn School of Law founded as part of Oral Roberts University, a law school that proclaimed from the start that it was dedicated to the teaching of “the law from a biblical worldview.” The law school has gone through at least three name changes and affiliations. After it was O.W. Coburn School of Law it became the Christian Broadcasting network School of Law (televangelist Pat Robertson's baby), then it became the Regent University School of Law (Now in Virginia Beach... extended from the university founded by Pat Robertson. It should be no surprise that a course on constitutional law focuses primarily on sin. It's also no surprise that the school's WEB site reassures prospective students that they can do their course work online or on campus. You may remember that under the Regent name it came to the attention of the world when the George W. Bush administration produced an unusual flood of entrants into the Bush Justice Department. Regent was clear in it’s intention to have its graduates enter government and become “change agents” who would bring the law more in line with “eternal principles of justice,” i.e., biblical morality.

Don’t get me wrong. Principles of justice are important. It’s just that Michelle Bachmann’s declared determination to make gay marriage, abortion for any reason, and restrictive protection of the environment illegal in the United States speaks more of injustice and inequality than of justice and equality. It’s no laughing matter.