In a Secular State of Mind

Labor Day is this weekend and the traditional back to school date arrives next week. With the arrival of a new school year comes a lot of silliness in the back and forth between liberals and conservatives about what schools are doing wrong and what needs to happen to improve public schools. If the dialogue involves how to do more to educate kids I'm for the dialogue, even if I don't happen to agree with what some people are saying about what's wrong and what will fix it. This means that people are thinking about it and perhaps we can sort through it all, separate the wheat from the chaff and move forward.

The one thing that comes up year after year, however, is the quest for some sectors of our society to include their religion in public school education. Their ranges from demanding prayer in public schools to denial of evolution and claims that the Earth is only 40,000 years old. Let's face it. Religion and science have no place in the same classroom. Religion is based on faith and faith is, by definition, something one believes in that cannot be proven. Science is that which can be proven by observation and testing. Belief in God or gods is an article of faith. Evolution is a proven scientific fact. The Earth is billions of years old. This too is scientific fact. As for prayer and acceptance of Christianity as the one true religion, well these too have no place in a public school classroom.

A great many people in this country posit the idea that this is a Christian country and the founding fathers accepted this principle. Sorry fellas. This is just not true. It is true that most of the early colonists were Christians. Puritans in New England exiled anyone not loyal to their brand of Christianity. To live in most Southern colonies, one had to belong to the Church of England. Catholics in Maryland allowed any denomination of Christianity and accepted Jews. In Pennsylvania the founding Quakers accepted pretty much anybody. They were, for the most part, Christians though.

By the time the founding fathers of our nation showed up, however, they were all heavily into the prevailing thought of the Enlightenment. Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were definitely Deists, not Christians. Evidence points to James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine all being Deists as well. Deists believed in a supreme being who created the universe and set in motion, but who did not take any more interest in human activity afterwards. Some believed in an eternal soul. Some did not. They believed in the power of human reason to understand the universe. They rejected organized religion. They rejected prayer and miracles from God.

These Deists of the late 1700's definitely did not see this as a Christian nation, and rejected the notion of tying religion of any sort to the state. Separation of church and state were considered a vital part of the Constitution. Really? So what about "In God We Trust" on our money? What about "one nation under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Where did that come from?

Turns out "In God We Trust" first appeared on some coins in 1864, almost 100 years after we became a nation, and long after the founding fathers had died. It did not appear on all money until 1956, at the height of the Cold War and was being fed by propaganda against the godless Communists. The Pledge of Allegiance never included the phrase "under God" until 1954, also during the Cold War, and suggested that God was on our side since the evil Communists believed in no God. Even in these instances, nowhere was Jesus or Christianity mentioned, just a belief in God.

It is true that, historically, the majority of the population of this nation has espoused Christianity as its religion. It is also true, however, that institution of separation of church and state has made this a nation where all religions, or none at all are accepted. The government officially recognizes no religion as the truth. To state otherwise is contrary to fact, just as to deny scientific facts such as the sun being the center of the solar system and the Earth being billions of years old are contrary to fact. Want to believe otherwise? Our nation allows you to do so despite the fact that you will be wrong.

In nations such as ours, most people are brought up to believe that Jesus was the son of God and his teachings constitute the true faith. Jewish people are brought up to believe that the Messiah has never come and Jesus was a teacher, nothing more. Muslims are brought up to believe that Jesus was a prophet, not the son of God, and Muhammad was God's final prophet. In India, a majority of people are brought up to believe in Hinduism and reincarnation. Large numbers of people in Asia are brought up to believe in the teachings of the Buddha. On and on. During the extremes of the Cold War, the Communist world unilaterally rejected all religion, as the opiate of the masses, and millions upon millions of people were brought up to believe in no religion at all. What you believe is generally a product of where you are born and where you grow up, a local norm.

The great thing about this nation is now and has been, historically, is the ability of people from anywhere on the globe to bring these belief systems with them and yet fit in in a nation that allows all religious beliefs, and embraces by law, none of them. In a society that is global, our children must be taught this fact. To succeed in a global society, you must be tolerant of many different beliefs. To do otherwise is divisive and creates conflict. That means that religion belongs in churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples of all sorts, not in a public school, not as a manifestation of our government.

Misanthropic Musings of a Maladapted Mister

Have you ever had one of those words that you read and kind of get an inkling what it means but you really don't know what it means and you never get around to looking it up because it just doesn't seem that important on your list of important things to do? Well today I finally looked up misanthrope. And don't take that attitude with me. Half of you don't know what misanthrope means and the other half have your own words that you don't know the meaning of. So lose the high and mighty act.

Anyway, I looked up misanthrope and saw that it means a person who dislikes people, in general. Well, now I knew what it meant and when I thought about it, I wasn't quite so sure that it was an insult to the person being called a misanthrope. It might very well be a sign of intelligence. I began to think about Linus in the Charlie Brown cartoon and his famous quote, "I love humanity. It's people I can't stand."

All of this musing about misanthropes soon set me to musing on a more personal level and pretty soon I found myself wondering aloud, "Babs, do you think I'm a misanthrope?" Babs got a very surprised expression on her face and by the way she held back her answer and looked at me with that "Oh you shouldn't have asked me that," expression on her face, I knew the answer before it was even uttered. Then she very carefully said, "Yes," and she looked at me to see if I were offended, and qualified her "Yes," with a "Well borderline."

For the record, I wasn't offended. I sort of already knew the answer to that one before I asked it. Just needed a little confirmation from the outside. Got it in short order. Of course, then I had to obsess about it and question whether I were really a misanthrope or not and what were the implications if so, etc., etc., etc.

Turns out it's not so much people that I don't like as stupidity. Trouble is that a large portion of humanity is stupid, or at least they do lots and lots of stupid things. So when you dislike stupidity and the majority of humanity does really stupid things and you dislike those stupid things, it appears as though you are down on humanity (misanthropic) when in all truth you are down, not on humanity, but on stupidity.

This reminds me of Forrest Gump who famously said, "Stupid is as stupid does." Thought about that and came to the conclusion that there is a lot of stupid folks out there because they surely does a lot of stupid stuff. You are no doubt wondering at this point "Just what makes this sucker think he's so all-fired smart, calling the majority of humanity stupid and all?"

Oh no! I didn't mean you per se. You are obviously a really smart person who doesn't engage in stupid acts on a regular basis. I was talking about all of those other people out there, the stupid ones, the ones who run around doing stupid stuff day and day out. You know who I'm talking about. You're one of us, the ones who are well read and smart and who people really should listen to. There's a word for people like us. It's misanthrope.

The Fine Art of Blundering Into the Future

I was well armed and prepared to write about the lack of success of charter schools today, but then I read Babsray's Blog, and my head went off in an entirely new direction. So much today depends on how focused a kid is and what planning and action goes into their lives from early on. So much of their ultimate success depends on how their parents help them into their futures. Perhaps this has always been so to an extent, just more so today.

Then there are people like Babs and myself. Our parents raised free-range children. We were given some basics in human behavior and a work ethic at home. We were given some overarching basics at school on the American way and its ideals. Then we were cut loose to figure the rest out for ourselves. We were given very little direction. We were allowed to choose whatever we wanted as long as it made us happy and it was considered socially acceptable. We often hid those things that weren't socially acceptable from our parents and did them anyway.

Babs grew up in rural Northern Iowa and I in central Arkansas. We both had a degree of innate intelligence and were both reasonably attractive so we were both popular in school. Neither of us had a clue who we really were, nor who we really wanted to be. We both left high school with high hopes and a burning desire to get out of Dodge. We both ended up, kerplunk, at a university about 2 hours drive from where we grew up. Then life got complicated. Didn't have a clue what we really wanted from life and had to muck about for a while to discover what it was that was eating us up from inside.

I didn't know if I wanted to be a rock n roll star or a nuclear physicist so I got a degree in political science, went off to Illinois to graduate school, and somehow ended up doing improv comedy shows in bars. Paid the bills doing everything from loading trucks to clerking in bookstores to being a pharmacy technician. Did some acting, writing, directing, sang with garage bands, and hustled pool on the side. Moved around a lot and never got rich and famous. Somehow managed to get an education degree, an advanced education degree, and a certificate saying I could be an educational administrator. How'd that happen? Still not sure to this day.

As for Babs, she definitely muddled about a bit as well. She got lost in the immensity of the University of Minnesota, did a two year program in commercial art, sold car stereos, clerked in bookstores, eventually got a 4 year degree, and set off on a pattern that included proofreading, editing, writing for newspapers and magazines, writing for academics, and writing and writing and more writing. Guess what? She became a professional writer.

Along the way Babs and I have seen the world, the Arctic Circle, the Sahara Desert, and the remotest parts of the Pacific Ocean. We have transformed our lives from one of total lack of direction, just this side of poverty, to one that apppears to have substance and direction and has taken us to the Gold Coast in Chicago. Now we appear poised to move ahead one more time and find a comfy retirement in a warm climate, with swimming pools, tennis courts, and beaches. Sounds like we've done pretty well. It's just not the way anyone would advise you to do it. It has been a meandering path with lots of very interesting twists and turns and that is what makes us who we are.

My hope is that America will remain flexible for our children and our children's children's children. May it always be so that a person can meander and muddle and take every odd turning that presents itself and become a better person for it and have lots of wonderful stories to tell. May it always be possible for the unique individual to come through all of that unharmed and able to die in comfort, if not wealthy. Otherwise, what will become of our writers and musicians and artists of all ilks? Our society is enriched and better for it for allowing at least some of us to blunder into the future, rather than planning it all from the time we are in diapers.

Moving to the City to Start Again, American Migrants

The thing about moving to America to start again and get a new life is that a lot of people who gripe about all of the immigrants don't recognize how many of their own have done the same thing, only within the country. This is a large country and it is entirely possible to migrate to another place, start all over, reinvent yourself, and become a smashing success in a new location. This is speaking from experience, my own, a great many people I know, and a great many more I'm related to. Not to say that I don't know the people I'm related to, but......well you get the idea.

A great many people come to America from other countries because there is economic opportunity here and there isn't in the place they are from. The same thing happens to some people if they happen to be from, say Arkansas, or Montana, or South Dakota, or West Virginia, or a host of other places that are primarily rural and small town. The motivated go to school and leave for larger cities with booming economies and more opportunity. The difference between themselves and the immigrants from other countries is that they don't have to learn a new language. If you happen to be from someplace like Arkansas or West Virginia you might want to leave the accent at the door, though. It sometimes gets in the way, just as that Mexican accented English can do for the immigrants.

The thing is that in America, a lot of this internal migration is regional. People from Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Indiana tend toward the City of Chicago. People on the East Coast, depending on where exactly you're located, go to New York City or Boston. There are Los Angeles and San Francisco migrations out West, or Portland or Seattle migrations in the Northwest. Where I come from most people end up in the economic powerhouses of Dallas-Fort Worth or Houston. Some go to Austin and some end up over in the Old South in Atlanta. And of course those with a government bent always hold out an eventual destination of Washington D.C. Opportunity abounds in a thousand different ways in a hundred different places.

I've even known some who grow up in large metropolitan areas who migrate to small towns and reinvent themselves as small town outdoorsy sorts. It happens, just not as often. There isn't as much economic opportunity there. Some become entrepreneurs. Some commute to larger cities to support their more rural lifestyle. Just not my cup of tea. Don't want rural or small town. Don't want suburban. My internal compass is drawn inexorably to cities and the bigger the better.

Bearing all of that in mind, I tried on a number of cities before I found one that fit. Went to Austin, Texas. Nope. Went to Minneapolis. Not quite. Even spent two years on a tropical island in the Western Pacific. Tropical? Yes. Paradise? Nope. Finally landed kerplop in the City of Chicago, the third largest city in the U.S., the largest city in the middle of the country, and arguably the capital of the middle of America. Chicago been very good to me. I started in a ratty little apartment, subsequently moved to ratty larger apartments, bought a house in an upcoming neighborhood, and somehow managed to land downtown with a place overlooking Lake Michigan.

Success boys and girls. Yes it is still possible in America. The key? Education, even if it isn't an Ivy League School or the University of Chicago or Stanford. It is possible for someone with education from state supported universities to put together a successful life with good choices and a nose to the grindstone kind of approach. State supported universities? No we're not talking about an MBA from Michigan or UCLA or UC-Berkley. We're talking about Arkansas State and Northeastern Illinois University. Okay I, personally, have to throw in a stint at Loyola University Chicago, but all in all a pretty modest educational background.

However, education is the key. No college? Quite often no job. The jobs that are available for the non-college educated are drying up and with them go the opportunity for a middle class existence for the high school only kind of person. Go to your local college or university and invest some time and money to get a Bachelor's degree and your prospects rise. Get an advanced degree from the same kind of college or university and they rise even further. Of course we're not talking stratospheric success like the elite who go to the elite universities. We are talking about a pretty comfortable existence and the prospect of being able to retire comfortably in a warm climate with swimming pools, tennis courts, and golf courses abounding.

The point here is that the American Dream still exists. It's just necessary to know the rules. A lot of immigrants from other countries endure incredibly low paying jobs and terrible poverty (by American standards) in order to get the opportunity for their children to play by the necessary rules and grab that American Dream. For those of us born in America, it is possible to move from poverty to that nice house and car and plasma TV in just one lifetime. It just means that you might have to migrate, which brings up another dilemma. The best and the brightest in small town and rural America leave. Those who stay behind are either part of the local economic elite or are the ones who will struggle to keep their heads above water the rest of their lives. The opportunities are not there. The ability to see a new way and create their own opportunities are all too often sadly lacking.

Meanwhile small town America loses population at an alarming rate and the cities and surrounding suburban areas grow at an increasing rate. One hundred years ago we were a country that was primarily rural and a person with little education could strike out and become a success. Fifty years ago a person with little education could achieve that American Dream by working in a factory or any of a thousand other blue collar jobs that paid a good wage. Today it is still possible to grab the ring, but you darned well better have some education and a salable skill that is useful in the 21st century.

Coming to America to Start Again, Part I

There is much ado on the right about how government regulations and taxes are going to totally screw up anyone's ability to achieve the Great American Dream. There is much ado on the left regarding how unbridled capitalism has run amuck with little or no oversight from the government and monied interests have benefited at everyone else's expense. As my mother used to say, "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

Frankly, I have to think that this country needs a bit more regulation of business. Unbridled profit motive does tend to yield some really ugly results. On the other hand, not everyone is getting totally screwed by the wealthy elite. Let's face it. It is still possible to start with nothing and end up with a lot in America. The American Dream lives.

Just ask any immigrant. Doesn't matter where from, Latin America, Africa, Asia, Australia, Oceania, or Europe. People come to America because it's still possible to succeed if you work hard and prove your capability. Why do you think we have so damned many people trying desperately to get within our borders? Not all of them are Islamic terrorists looking to blow up the infidels. Most are looking to make a decent life for themselves, including a large number of Muslims from the Middle East.

Much has been said in America about the illegal immigrants from Mexico. Frankly a lot of the Latino illegals are not from Mexico but from Central and South America as well. Why do you think they come? Because it is possible to work hard and get a nice house, an education for your kids, and a big American car and a 50" TV to boot. Can you fault them?

For that matter, a lot of Americans are missing the fact that there are illegal immigrants from all over the globe entering this country all the time. They just seem to focus on those from Latin America. Living in Chicago I've noticed an awful lot of illegals from Ireland working in construction, working in bars and restaurants. Nobody seems to make a big stink about these guys. They're white, European, and speak English. I've noticed a lot of women from Poland cleaning people's houses. Nobody seems to care if their cleaning lady may not really have a green card.

There are Chinese immigrants who pay outrageous sums to get here whether they have a legal visa or not. Many of them are abused, ripped off, and entered into a state that nears slavery. Most Americans become outraged at how they are taken advantage of, not that they are in the country illegally. How does this compare to the fate of Guatemalan immigrants who come into the U.S. via the coyote smugglers? Same shit. Different ethnicity. Yet Americans are all too quick to condemn these immigrants. They are Spanish speaking brown people and there is a prejudice there that goes back a long way.

The point here is that unless you belong to one of the Native American tribes you are an immigrant too. The Cherokee, Choctaw, Sioux, Pawnee, Apache, Ojibwa, Hopi, Navajo etc., etc., etc. all feel that we are all a bunch of uninvited illegals. Same shit. Different ethnicities. At some point all of our families came here to start again, to make a new life. It has, historically, always been possible to raise your status in life in America if you were willing to put your nose to the grindstone. It still is.

We are a nation of immigrants and refugees. We live in a nation with an abundance of resources, natural and human. There is creativity in the air. If you want the country to stay the same as it always has, please step aside. It is a living, breathing, growing, changing entity. Try to stop its growth and progress and it will swallow you up. Hold it back by force and other parts of the world will pass you by. What America has always had to offer is its endless possibilities. Embrace that.

The Dignity of Labor. The Indignity of Laboring.

I find it pretty interesting that the people who are most likely to crow about the dignity of labor, and the redemptive qualities of hard work are generally those least likely to do any real hard labor. Garrison Keillor showed up in Salon in an online essay last week. In his essay Mr. Keillor touted the positives of labor and earning a paycheck. He actually calls it redemptive. I daresay if you talked to any of millions of individuals in America who draw a small paycheck from doing mind-numbing, hard physical labor they would be glad for the paycheck, but would label the actual work anything but redemptive.

To his credit, Mr. Keillor did suggest that America needs a jobs program, such as the Depression Era works projects, the WPA for instance. We do need something that will put millions of Americans back to work. Unfortunately, well-heeled Republicans oppose such a program en-masse. They say we can't afford it. It would either cause a rise in taxes or it would cause the national debt to grow even larger. Gotta wonder where these clowns were when G.W. Bush and company were putting two major wars on the buy now pay later plan.

At any rate, more jobs for Americans, doing things that are good for the infrastructure, is a good idea. It would fix a crumbling infrastructure that no one seems willing to pay to fix. It would provide jobs for unemployed Americans. Those now employed Americans would then go out and spend money, thus creating jobs for more Americans, and fewer Americans would find themselves facing foreclosure on their mortgages. Still, very few of them would describe their labors as redemptive. Paychecks redemptive. Labor not so much.

Mr. Keillor went on to talk about how he briefly held a job, in high school where he fed dishes into a dishwasher. Oooohhh, the hardship. Did he have to wash them by hand? Did he have to continue doing this job everafter so he could pay the bills? Not! Mr. Keillor has lived a life writing for newspapers and magazines, with the odd book thrown in, while hosting a nationally syndicated radio show. Not a lot of hard redemptive labor there.

At one point Mr. Keillor pointed out that he could have chosen to make a career out of manure spreading, but did not. The key word here is choice. There are those out there who have no choice but to take on that career in manure spreading, and anyone who calls that sort of labor redemptive is a lunatic. I graduated with a liberal arts degree in 1972 and spent a large part of that decade doing manual labor. I did not find anything about it redemptive or dignified. I found eating somewhat rewarding, however, so I continued to engage in such activities until something better came along.

There is a certain Republican anti-handout mantra that goes something like, "People feel better about themselves if they know they earn a living and don't have it given to them as a handout." People feel even better about themselves if the size of the paycheck will keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Frankly, if handouts are larger than what you get when you are actually laboring at a job, I doubt anyone finds themselves feeling good about earning a living instead of taking a handout.

Frankly, if America were so taken with the dignity of labor and its redemptive qualities, the lottery would not be such a boom industry. We've all heard the comments from lottery winners who say they won't change a thing about their lives. Then they proceed to quit their jobs, buy a big car and a big house, and live like the millionaires they've become. Redemptive schmemptive, people work because they have to. If labor were so redemptive, we'd find Rockefellers paving roads and building bridges. If labor were so dignified and redemptive, there would be no Paris Hiltons and her ilk filling the pages of the "Who did what to whom and with whom" columns.

That being said, I begrudge no one who doesn't have to work and thus doesn't. I often find myself being a wee bit jealous of these people. If I didn't have to work, I probably wouldn't. Then I could find time to do things that I really like doing, like writing and reading, and playing tennis and running, and traveling, and singing and playing my guitar. If I were able to make a living doing any of those things, I might find that redemptive. Just don't try to hand me a load of b.s. about the redemptive quality of the sweat of your brow and the dignity of callouses on your hands. Been there. I know better. I am not owned by the job. My job does not define who I am. Nor does it for the millions upon millions of men and women who work a great deal harder than I do every day. So let's all celebrate paychecks, instead. They make life possible, even if coming by them is a real bitch.