A Tale of Two Christmases

                              A Tale of Two Christmases

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 12/24/17

            On Christmas morning of 1965 my father, my younger brother and I followed my mother’s casket out of a small church in rural Mississippi.  The crisp, Christmas Day air was a welcome relief to our tear-streaked, hot cheeks.

            I was 21, my brother Carlton, 18.  Our mother was 65.  We both thought she was so old.  Age 65 actually was older then than it is now, especially for a country woman aged by Southern summer suns and 45 years of childbearing and childrearing.  It wasn’t children and hard work that did her in, however.  It was kidney stones.

            For years they had plagued her.  Her pill bottle collections would have scared a medical student.  Several times a year Dr. Baker Austin would come from town with his gawky medical bag and administer a shot to ease her pain.

            Her death had not been sudden.  Just after Thanksgiving, the urologist at St. Dominic’s Hospital in Jackson had told us her kidneys were embedded with stones and that the resulting uremia was quite advanced.  The closer we got to Christmas, the more hopeless her situation became.  It was one of those long good-byes.

            I arrived home from college to be with her at the hospital the week before Christmas.  All of my older 15 brothers and sisters had families of their own, but those living nearby had been able to take care of her.

            Death is one thing; dying is another.  The week of her dying, my mind raced back repeatedly to my childhood.  As a small child I was a big worrier. Knowing my mother was so much older than the mothers of my classmates, I was afraid she would die before I grew up.  The doctor’s visits fed my fear.  Although this anxiety subsided by the time I was a teen, occasional thoughts of losing my mother drove me to the vast Bienville National Forest behind our house to cry alone.

            Please understand, but at some level, I think my mother willed her death.  Despite her characteristic strength and joy of life, there was no modern bravado of “I’m gonna conquer this.”  Rather, at the height of one of her worst “spells,” when Carlton and I were the only kids still at home, she looked up at us with a forced smile and whispered, “If God will let me live until my baby boys get grown, I’ll be happy.”

            Her “baby boys” were now grown.  With our eyes glued to her casket, I began complaining to God with those “why” questions we’ve all felt, heard, or expressed.  Within moments, however, two things happened that, instead of alleviating my grief, completely obliterated it.

            The first thing was the cool Christmas Day air that patted my cheeks and seemed to say, “Life goes on, and you can too.”

            The second thing was the Christmas Day noon meal (“dinner”) our family shared.  The laughter and storytelling, so common to our gatherings, was not abated by the mid-morning burial of our mother.  Our joy amidst the sorrow was no indication of anybody’s super-spirituality; rather, it was a testimony to the power of all that our parents had taught us.  In this case, the teaching had been “Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory.”

            On another Christmas morning in 1981, I drove from my home in Kennesaw to Northside Hospital, not because of a death but because of a birth.  Our new, second son and last child, Reagan, had been born on Christmas Eve.  Driving south on I-75 and atop I-285 I saw only four vehicles.  Ah, Christmas does slow us down, I mused.

            Reagan came home in a Northside Hospital Christmas stocking, his countenance as fresh and happy as was his grandmother’s right up to her dying in 1965.  Reagan made this Christmas a Thanksgiving as well.

            Since even Herod the Great couldn’t stop Christmas, I pray no reader of these musings will ever allow life’s setbacks or man’s evil to stop it either.  The Christmas message is still the same: God came down.  “Mild He laid his glory by,” wrote Charles Wesley.  Irrefutably, wherever this message has gone, schools, hospitals, and orphanages have followed.

            As it turned out, my own two favorite Christmases weren’t too different; they both ended in peace.  Ever wondered, perhaps along with Elvis Presley, “Why can’t every day be like Christmas?”  We know that every day should be.  The Christmas message says it can be.

            Merry Christmas!

Roger Hines

12/20/17  

A Self-Interrogation on the Joys and Ills of This Age

              A Self-Interrogation on the Joys and Ills of This Age

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal.12/17/17

Q:  Hines, do you actually believe there are “eternal verities,” that is, eternal truths that never change and cannot be changed?

A: Yes.  Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly.  Though I won’t be surprised if, before the end of 2018, somebody will argue that fish can live out of water – given a few trillion years.  Some are already arguing that there is a third human gender.  Such an idea expresses a weird wish, not a scientific possibility.  We are male and female.  I do pity (sincerely, not condescendingly) those who want to be something other than what they are.  Transgenderism is mutilation, pure and simple. Human sexuality, our maleness and femaleness, is one of those absolutes.

Q: Are there any other “verities”?

A: Tons of them.  Human nature is one.  The human race is plagued by evils that have always plagued us.  The oldest history and oldest stories show men fighting and killing to rule over others.  The insecurities of those who would rule over us are illustrated by today’s politics.  Human nature hasn’t changed.  We all still want what our great grandparents wanted:  affirmation, self-worth, something to eat, and a house on the hill.  Of course super-evolutionists say that humans will one day be … something different from what we are now.  You know …  from apes to us now, to some ugly looking creature in a movie.  If so, I betcha these “beings”  will have the same problems we have today.

Q: You’re touching evolution.

A:  Yes.  Evolutionary theory is a million miles wide and a quarter inch deep.  Not all smart people are evolutionists. Many scientists embrace cause and effect.  Every effect (a wrist watch, a building, the universe) has a cause, and the cause is bigger than the effect.  I’ve observed geological evolution in my back yard, but wait and see if “human evolution” ever changes us. (If you can wait a trillion years, that is.  Undecipherable, unimaginable amounts of time are what super-evolutionists stand on for support, you know.)

Q: You’re refuting Darwin.  I suspect you would also refute Freud.

A: Marx, too.  But  Freud is just wrong.  Sex is not the strongest, most fundamental drive in humans.  Love is.  I’m talking about love that would drive a man to risk his life to save the lives of his wife and children, or the woman who would keep her cancer secret because she has a loving husband and children to care for, or the soldier who truly loves his homeland and is willing to die for it.  Territory probably is next.  Read Robert Ardrey’s “Territorial Imperative” in which he argues that the drive to have a place in the sun is far more powerful than the sex drive.  Hollywood, libertines, and advertising are the entities that have elevated sex to the throne it now perches on.  We have not always been as sexualized as we are now, and it seems to me some things are coming home to roost.  Seen the news lately?

Q: You keep saying “probably.”

A: Well, because I don’t know everything.  But I know what I believe.  And I do have two eyes,  two ears, and at least half a brain.  I also had precious, common sense parents who knew right and wrong and taught it.

Q: What is the biggest problem facing our nation now?

A: It is what one of my intellectual heroes, Melvyn Fein, has called “the disloyal opposition.”   In the past, losers of an election accepted defeat, worked with the winners when they could, while anticipating victory in the next election.  Consequently they were called the “loyal opposition;” opposed, but still loyal to the nation.  Today, losers of the last presidential election are working day and night to overturn the last presidential election.  Their actions forebode street fighting and bloodshed which certainly can happen in America, turning our politics into a third world brawl and abandoning our historic example to the world of peaceful transfer of power.  Those who lose an election should accept it and work to win the voters’ favor during the next election.

Q: Where is the joy in all of this?

A: There’s joy in knowing that in spite of a negative press, the jobs picture is looking good, the stock market is soaring, working people are voting, my liberal friends and I still love each other, my two atheist friends and I talk regularly, and Christmas is just around the corner.

Roger Hines

12/13/17

  

A Self-Interrogation on the Joys and Ills of This Age

              A Self-Interrogation on the Joys and Ills of This Age

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 12/17/17

Q:  Hines, do you actually believe there are “eternal verities,” that is, eternal truths that never change and cannot be changed?

A: Yes.  Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly.  Though I won’t be surprised if, before the end of 2018, somebody will argue that fish can live out of water – given a few trillion years.  Some are already arguing that there is a third human gender.  Such an idea expresses a weird wish, not a scientific possibility.  We are male and female.  I do pity (sincerely, not condescendingly) those who want to be something other than what they are.  Transgenderism is mutilation, pure and simple. Human sexuality, our maleness and femaleness, is one of those absolutes.

Q: Are there any other “verities”?

A: Tons of them.  Human nature is one.  The human race is plagued by evils that have always plagued us.  The oldest history and oldest stories show men fighting and killing to rule over others.  The insecurities of those who would rule over us are illustrated by today’s politics.  Human nature hasn’t changed.  We all still want what our great grandparents wanted:  affirmation, self-worth, something to eat, and a house on the hill.  Of course super-evolutionists say that humans will one day be … something different from what we are now.  You know …  from apes to us now, to some ugly looking creature in a movie.  If so, I betcha these “beings”  will have the same problems we have today.

Q: You’re touching evolution.

A:  Yes.  Evolutionary theory is a million miles wide and a quarter inch deep.  Not all smart people are evolutionists. Many scientists embrace cause and effect.  Every effect (a wrist watch, a building, the universe) has a cause, and the cause is bigger than the effect.  I’ve observed geological evolution in my back yard, but wait and see if “human evolution” ever changes us. (If you can wait a trillion years, that is.  Undecipherable, unimaginable amounts of time are what super-evolutionists stand on for support, you know.)

Q: You’re refuting Darwin.  I suspect you would also refute Freud.

A: Marx, too.  But  Freud is just wrong.  Sex is not the strongest, most fundamental drive in humans.  Love is.  I’m talking about love that would drive a man to risk his life to save the lives of his wife and children, or the woman who would keep her cancer secret because she has a loving husband and children to care for, or the soldier who truly loves his homeland and is willing to die for it.  Territory probably is next.  Read Robert Ardrey’s “Territorial Imperative” in which he argues that the drive to have a place in the sun is far more powerful than the sex drive.  Hollywood, libertines, and advertising are the entities that have elevated sex to the throne it now perches on.  We have not always been as sexualized as we are now, and it seems to me some things are coming home to roost.  Seen the news lately?

Q: You keep saying “probably.”

A: Well, because I don’t know everything.  But I know what I believe.  And I do have two eyes,  two ears, and at least half a brain.  I also had precious, common sense parents who knew right and wrong and taught it.

Q: What is the biggest problem facing our nation now?

A: It is what one of my intellectual heroes, Melvyn Fein, has called “the disloyal opposition.”   In the past, losers of an election accepted defeat, worked with the winners when they could, while anticipating victory in the next election.  Consequently they were called the “loyal opposition;” opposed, but still loyal to the nation.  Today, losers of the last presidential election are working day and night to overturn the last presidential election.  Their actions forebode street fighting and bloodshed which certainly can happen in America, turning our politics into a third world brawl and abandoning our historic example to the world of peaceful transfer of power.  Those who lose an election should accept it and work to win the voters’ favor during the next election.

Q: Where is the joy in all of this?

A: There’s joy in knowing that in spite of a negative press, the jobs picture is looking good, the stock market is soaring, working people are voting, my liberal friends and I still love each other, my two atheist friends and I talk regularly, and Christmas is just around the corner.

Roger Hines

12/13/17

  

Teaching: Learning Twice, Laughing Much, and Fighting the Culture

Teaching: Learning Twice, Laughing Much, and Fighting the                                                 Culture

               Published in Marietta(GA) Daily Journal, 12/10/17

          

            Several years ago on the first day of the semester, I walked into a college English classroom to find everyone sitting quietly, waiting to see what their teacher looked like.

            Detecting their nervousness, I decided to have some fun playing a role I had played often.  Closing the door behind me, and trying to channel General George Patton, I surveyed the room without comment, looking left and right, attempting to show displeasure.  Within seconds, I barked, “RULE Number 1: BE AFRAID!”

            It worked.  Again.  Fear shrouded the faces of the entire class, even the older, “non-traditional” students who were entering college for the first time as full blown adults.  Since I’m no George Patton and knew that the class would be held in their fearful state for only a few minutes more, I prepared to sound forth Rule Number 2.

            However, before I could trumpet “RULE Number 2: Be VERY Afraid!” a young lady on the front row caught on to me, smiled, and hid her face.  There I stood, wanting so much to continue the fun with yet another “rule,” but I was totally thwarted by the savvy young lady who had found me out.  Seeing that the front row young lady was heaving in quiet laughter, the entire class began to laugh also, relieved that I was not a classroom George Patton.  I gave up, broke character, laughed with the class, and got down to business.

Such joy is one of the reasons I wish every adult could experience teaching.  Specifically, I’m referring to 16 to 19 year olds, or high school juniors to college sophomores.  I’ve no doubt that teaching children and younger teens is rewarding, but since my own experience has been with older high school and younger college students, that is the only age group about which I have anything to say.

To teach is to learn twice.  If you think you know something well, teach it and you will know it better.  Teaching can become your teacher. 

But neither the joy nor the twice learning is the chief reason all adults could benefit from teaching.  The chief reason is that teaching can fast anchor one to reality.  It allows (forces actually) one to get a good grip on the pulse of the times all because you spend your days with youths.

Oh, the faces of innocence and need into which teachers peer daily.  Need brought about not just by the lack of basic knowledge that students should already have, but by the conditioning that has shaped youth and created a blur that blinds them to the adult world. 

The blur is a generational cataract.  It was created by the emergence of teen culture which in turn created a chasm between teens and adults.  It prevents teens from seeing and understanding what it means to be an adult, to be self-directed.   It prevents an understanding of adult responsibility and what it entails.

The causes of this blur pre-date the current Age of Snowflakes (soft, easily offended youths) for which our universities are largely responsible.  Today’s universities are coddling their students, shielding them from opposing points of view and creating a culture that is perpetually adolescent.

The word “teenager” first appeared in 1941 in Popular Science magazine.  It was grabbed by marketers and advertisers who saw its potential and commenced to create “the teenager” in their own image.  World War II stymied the new teen culture’s advancement, but the rock and roll of the 50’s and the protest spirit of the 60’s pushed it to its present reality.

For 6 decades the teenage mystique has ruled.  Adults have acquiesced to it, adopting its language, dress, music, and tastes. Shabby dress and general casualness are the result.   The blur, the distance between youth and adulthood, is of our own making.  Recognizing this distance, younger teachers are prone to believe they must “reach” teenagers before they can teach them.  “Reaching” often means trying to be a pal instead of an adult leader.

Action is needed to loosen teen culture’s grip.  Re-instating the military draft would help.  An-18-year-old male needs something hanging over his head.  In a positive, beneficial way, the draft would serve this purpose. 

            Teenagers face a crazy, uncertain world.  That’s why they need some joy and encouragement as surely as they need discipline and focus.

            So check out teaching.  You’ll feel the love and the vigor of youth, and you might be able to fix some problems that plague the nation.

Roger Hines

12/6/17

How Conservatives Learned to Fight

                     How Conservatives Learned to Fight

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal 12/3/17

            There is one primary reason for the political divide that characterizes America today.  It isn’t President Trump or his tweets, nor our two political parties, per se; nor race, religion, or regionalism.

            The primary reason for the constant heated arguing is that both sides now have a platform from which to speak their piece.  This was not the case before cable television and Rush Limbaugh marched onto the stage of our political consciousness and firmly planted their flags.

            By both sides, I mean liberals and conservatives, though it’s clear these two labels are fading due to the rising populism/nationalism made manifest by Donald Trump’s election.  Before cable, Limbaugh, Fox News, and conservative talk radio, there was little fighting, essentially because there was no debate stage for conservatives to stand on to engage in philosophical battle.  Conservatives had no megaphone.

            ABC, CBS, and NBC reigned supreme. When these three big networks ruled the airwaves, practically all of their news anchors and reporters were FDR/JFK/LBJ/Clinton water boys.  Walter Cronkite, Ted Koppel, and Tom Brokaw weren’t exactly closet conservatives.  Their allegiances were just as obvious as are those of Wolfe Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, and Rachel Maddow today.   

During the decades of liberal media dominance, there were conservative voices, but they were muted.  William F. Buckley was an unrelenting undercurrent of conservative thought, but  despite his intellect and his stellar National Review magazine, he and his readers remained strangers in a strange land.

            Just as Barry Goldwater birthed Ronald Reagan, so did Buckley birth Rush Limbaugh.  In 1988 a liberal friend asked me if I had heard “that Limbaugh guy”.  I had not.

            “You’ll like him,” she added.  “He’s pro-life.”

            Hearing Limbaugh for the first time, I was surprised by joy.  Never on radio or television had I heard anyone challenge – and cheerfully, at that – the default philosophy of the media and higher education.  Although Reagan was in office in 1988, many Republicans were still merely Democrat lite, sadly resigned to the hold liberals had on the culture.

            Not that William Buckley wasn’t still trying.  But his greatest strength, his erudition, was also his greatest weakness.  Like his protégé, George Will (whose recent fall from grace would render the now deceased Buckley heartbroken), Buckley simply used too many big words.  Limbaugh used big words too, but he knew when his audience needed them broken down.

            By 1994 when Republicans gained control of the U.S. House for the first time since 1952, conservative voices were everywhere.  Goldwater’s stern face had yielded Reagan’s smile.  Buckley’s intellectualism had yielded Limbaugh’s common touch.  Newt Gingrich was offering hope by teaching conservatives how to fight.  What Buckley, Limbaugh, and Gingrich sowed, Donald Trump reaped. 

            The voice that really broke free conservative expression and started all the yelling between pundits of different persuasions was John McLaughlin and his PBS show, “The McLaughlin Group.”  Since then, we’ve been yelling.  At least television personalities have been.

             Friends have asked me if I am not bothered by Donald Trump’s past and his overly quick responses.  My answer is “Yes, but…”  George W. Bush, a man of class and dignity, suffered the slings and arrows of the media without saying much. So did Mitt Romney.  I always wished they would fight back as Trump does now.  Did they not see that the media engages in advocacy?

            Statesmanship doesn’t mean that an elected official should take everything that’s thrown at him or her.  Frankly, I enjoy seeing the media stars turned into pretzels by the President.  The first amendment grants to the media neither priesthood nor freedom from criticism, and President Trump is the first president I know of who has told them so. 

As the saying goes, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who have one.”  With technology in the palm of our hands, all of us now have free press, so why not use it?   FDR did just that with his radio “fireside chats,” bypassing and angering the press as well.

  Critics want Trump to be “proper” and “dignified,” yet, since the ‘60s the White House press corps has been everything but “proper” or “dignified.” 

Children and grandchildren of the ‘60s, having re-defined marriage, made abortion legal, and even created a new “gender” for us, may be gasping their last political breath.  If Mr. Trump can continue to frustrate them, I’m with him. 

Conservatives would best view Trump as their clear and present hope and acknowledge that sometimes you just have to fight.

Roger Hines

11/29/17

             

            

Three Doctors and a Cure

                               Three Doctors and a Cure

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal 11/26/17

             An article in the Marietta Daily Journal last Sunday morning and a church service last Sunday evening should have boosted anyone’s spirits.  When bad news seems to abound, it’s good to be reminded there are people everywhere who still point the way to unity and neighborly love.        

            The morning article and the evening worship service involved three doctors.  Dr. Perry Fowler, Dr. Brien Martin, and Dr. Betty Siegel are not medical doctors, but they are all healers.  Fowler and Martin are pastors.  Siegel is an academician.  All three are people of vision who know how to love and lead.

            Perry Fowler is pastor of predominately white Kennesaw First Baptist Church.  Brien Martin is pastor of predominantly black Sardis Baptist Church in Kennesaw.  Betty Siegel has been a community leader for decades, her beachhead having been the presidency of Kennesaw State University.  The MDJ article detailing her many contributions and her current battle with dementia surely struck a chord with all who know her.

            Geographically, the city of Kennesaw is sandwiched between the churches pastored by Fowler and Martin.  Sardis Baptist sits on Main Street on the south side of town; First Baptist sits on the north side.

            Being good friends, the two pastors decided to have a joint worship service for their congregations on the Sunday evening before Thanksgiving.  The service brought a packed house in KFBC’s new Gathering Center.  Music from the joint choir was glorious.  The fellowship among worshippers was heart-felt.  The preaching of Dr. Martin was inspiring.

            A few months before this event, Pastor Fowler had delivered a message titled “The State of The Church.”  In the message he stated that typically Baptist churches try to reach and serve people within a three-mile radius of the church building.  He then added, “There are lots of blacks within our three-mile radius, so why do we have so few blacks in our church?”

            My wife and I were sitting toward the back.  Peering across the congregation, I observed both middle aged adults and many older heads (like mine) nodding their approval of their pastor’s point.  Perhaps they believed that if Heaven is multi-national and multi-racial, a local church should be also.

            The reason I group Betty Siegel with these two men is that I know she, too, reached out to everyone around her.

            Here is only one example.  A friend of mine who worked for a large Atlanta bank was assigned the task of informing employees they were being laid off as the result of a merger.  For three weeks she broke the news to the employees and lent them counsel.  Her difficult task moved her almost to depression.

            During this difficult time, one evening at Kennesaw State, my friend was getting out of her car to attend a night class.  Too distraught to walk on to class, she sat down on the curb and placed her head in her hands.  Within minutes, President Siegel walked by, but turned to ask my friend if she could be of help.

            “Not really, just a bad day at the office,” she replied.  With no more information than just that, the university president joined her on the curb.  Apologizing for not having much to offer, she pulled an apple from her purse and offered it to my friend who in turn explained why she was so distraught.  President Siegel gave her a hug.

            This occurrence reminded me of something Dr. Siegel said in a speech to a Leadership Cobb class.  Never with meanness but always with glee, she often challenged societal myths.  In this particular speech she challenged the notion that leadership is a lonely endeavor.

            “I don’t believe President Reagan is lonely.  I’m not lonely.”

            Neither are Pastor Fowler and Pastor Martin.  Like Dr. Siegel, they view leadership as an outward and upward endeavor that requires more engagement than isolation.  Thus, different races worshipping together.  How we need more leaders like these three.

 In introducing Dr. Martin, Dr. Fowler said, “God’s spirit is calling us together to break down racial barriers and to remind us that only one color matters, the ruby red blood of our Lord Jesus.”

            Sardis Baptist is 136 years old; First Baptist, 140; KSU, 53.  All three entities have been led by leaders who don’t put on airs and who aren’t too important to sit down on a curb.

            I’m grateful for these three leaders and others like them who know what the cure for disunity is and are not hesitant to prescribe it.

Roger Hines

11/22/17 

Do We Understand What an Allegation Is?

                  Do We Understand What an Allegation Is?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal 11/19/17

            Anyone who wants to tell Alabama citizens how they should vote had better get in line.  The line of out-of-state know-it-alls is already quite long.  Let us say too many cooks have run down to the Alabama kitchen.

            Never has outside meddling, condescension, and arrogance been on such display as with those who are telling Alabamians what to do about their December 12 senatorial election.  Republicans in the U.S. Senate, including one of our Georgia senators, have deigned to tell Alabamians what they should do.

            Need we remind these outsiders? Our Constitution’s federalism means Alabama gets to choose her own senators.  Imagine Senate leader McConnell saying, “There are options we are looking at regarding the election.”  And who is “we”?  It’s Senate members who don’t get to vote in Alabama.  Add to them the media stars who are trying to pick or keep Alabama from picking the candidate they choose.

            For instance, who is Sean Hannity to tell any candidate, “You have 24 hours to clear up your mess?”  Wow!  Being recently crowned the most-watched cable news anchor on television, Hannity is really feeling the power.  He’s sounding like the pompous U.S. Senators he has long critiqued.   How disappointing.

            Yes, it’s still relevant, so let’s ask it.  Where were the feminists, the media, and Gloria Allred when Bill Clinton’s victims charged him with assault and rape?  Clinton’s victims also went on television and cried, only to be ignored and forgotten.  Why the selective rage?  We know the answer.  It all depends on who is being accused and which election you are trying to influence.

            It isn’t the task of Alabamians to “do what’s best for the nation.”  Their civic task and privilege is to elect candidates they prefer to elect.  The guilt of their Republican nominee has not been established, so why all the moral high horses?

            Easy question.  The answer is that for Republicans, climbing upon a moral high horse is easier than fighting.  I have quite a few Democratic friends and not one of them is hesitant to fight for what they believe.  Most Republicans leaders won’t fight.  They run from the thought of trouble, spurning anyone less genteel than they.  They get spooked by seeing a Republican candidate riding a horse and wearing a hat.  They probably freaked years ago when the iconic Charlton Heston, speaking against gun control, held his gun high and said, “From my cold, dead hands.”  Their most feared enemy is the northeastern media who is also trying to school the voters of Alabama.

            Allegations, allegations, allegations.  And just weeks before an election.  Everybody reading this has seen this movie before.

            Be careful if you’re a male, especially a male college student, a male teacher, or a male candidate.  Examples abound of “guilty until proven innocent.”  Ask the Duke University lacrosse team, or Richard Jewel, the innocent security guard who during the 1996 Olympics was dragged through career-ending mud by the Atlanta papers and NBC.  Ask the exonerated male janitor and male special education teacher with whom I worked years ago.  Ask Herman Cain.

            Ask me.  I’ve been accused not of sexual impropriety but of misusing public funds.  Guess when, moviegoers.  Three weeks before an election.  The investigation by the State Ethics Commission (after I was re-elected) wasn’t fun.  A good friend called to ask if I was guilty.  Had he been the accused, I would have called him to lend my support.  See what allegations can do to people’s heads?

            What, then, are we to do about a litigious society that allows allegations to morph into truth before the ink dries?  First, we can honor “innocent until proven guilty” again.  Secondly, we should acknowledge that while smoke does indicate fire, there are lots of arsonists in the world, especially in politics.  Political fires are often ignited by a lie and fueled by the piling on of allegations.

            Allegations are often a dog’s breakfast of charges designed to smear someone.  It’s American to hear the charged one out, particularly when the accuser’s defenders are self-serving and as suspect as the timing of their charges.

            Moral superiority is the refuge of the immoral.  Just as Trump supporters are viewed as deplorable, so are “those Alabamians down there” being viewed as less than intelligent. They are also being besieged by arrogant smarter-than-you media types and Republican senators who are simply acting uppity about it all.

 And all because of yet unproven allegations.  Resistance is in order.

Roger Hines

11/16/17

What’s Dark or Dangerous about Of the People, By the People and For the People?

What’s Dark or Dangerous about Of the People, By the                                     People and For the People?

    Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal 11/11/17

Pundits are calling it populism, nationalism, and when they really wish to diminish it, nativism and tribalism.  Whatever it’s called, the growing movement in America and Europe that argues for putting national interests before globalism is well afloat.

“Globalism” has always sounded trendy and non-substantive.  It is the political term for the ideology that is in a struggle with nationalism.  It is expressed musically by the jingle, “We are the world / we are the people.”  Google it and hear the jingle’s pleasant tones.  Wallow in its love and goodwill.

There’s nothing wrong with Stevie Wonder, Kenny Rogers and others bunching up to sing about peace and brotherhood.  There’s everything wrong with governmental policy that benefits cronies and destroys jobs.

Let’s back up and grant “globalism” a measure of credibility.  We doubtlessly live in an interconnected world.  Free trade, which all Americans benefit from, requires signing trade deals with other nations.  International commerce has helped build America. 

Even so, America and Europe’s populist outrage, their cries for their governments to attend to national needs first, and their demand for secure borders all indicate that the globalist outlook has extended too far.  Surely this is the chief reason that Trump’s slogan, “America First,” took hold.

This slogan has merit.  To have national sentiments is natural.   Why the media denigrates such sentiments is a puzzle.  Or maybe it isn’t.

Why can’t television’s talking heads understand that tribes preceded nations and that families preceded tribes?  Maybe they didn’t take Sociology 101.  But could they not read a little bit of history and ponder human nature?

Here are a few questions for those who consider President Trump’s “America First” policies dark and dangerous.  Why did Britain exit the European Union?  Why the Catalonian effort to exit Spain?  Why the secession of America’s southern states?  The separation of the colonies from Britain? Why the eternal Quebec question in Canada or the breakup of Yugoslavia into at least 5 tiny nations?  Etc., etc.

It’s secession for self-determination, dude!  It’s that birds of a linguistic, ethnic, and creedal feather flock together.  Globalists, a la Stevie Wonder and friends, central bankers, tech titans, corporation CEO’s, and many politicians seem not to understand that the rest of us understand that nobody is a citizen of the world. “The world” doesn’t grant citizenship or zip codes.  Our citizenship is in nations.

Donald Trump didn’t fire up the nationalist/populist locomotive.  He only acknowle stoked the fire, asked to be the engineer/conductor, and was granted his wish.  In doing so he confounded our political terminology (liberal vs. conservative), turning our eyes and emphasis to globalism versus nationalism.  He raised high the poetic line of Robert Frost, “Good fences make good neighbors.”  He also signaled either a post-party era in American politics or at least an identity crisis in both parties.

Ironically, Trump was a Democrat turned Republican, a fact that didn’t seem to bother Rust Belt union members or evangelical Republicans.  Since 63 million voters ain’t no chicken feed, it’s obvious he struck a chord with the vast middle class.  This is populism, the result of one of Trump’s earliest speeches in which he said, “The GOP will be the party of the American worker.”  Currently the employment rate testifies to his claim.

No wonder the media and Democrats have shifted from shock to anger to daily efforts to stymie a duly-elected president.  Embarrassed, they now tout polls that claim he is not liked.  If the polls were so wrong about his chances of election, however, why should we believe what they say about his favorability rating?

Globalism has been good for the globalists, but a job-sucking monster for Joe Lunchbox. Manufacturing, where art thou?   Globalists need not ask for whom the bell tolls.  It tolls for them.  Trumpism is making sure of that.

America is a creedal nation.  Our creed is enshrined in law books, documents, on plaques, and on statues, or on those not pulled down.  Among other great ideals, that creed says E pluribus Unum, or “Out of many, one.”  To that we can now add Vox populi, or “the voice of the people.”  That’s populism too.  And it is not a cloak for anyone’s ethnic or religious bigotry as the talking heads claim. 

It’s simply a re-claiming of what Lincoln said 154 years ago.  It’s a reflection of a poem penned by a Lincoln admirer, Walt Whitman: “The People, Yes!”

Roger Hines

11/8/17

      

            

Our Babies and the Nanny State

                                   Our Babies and the Nanny State

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal 11/5/17

I’ve always been troubled, even saddened, by the expression “pre-K.”  PRE-kindergarten?  PRE-5 year olds in school? 

            For public educators and policymakers so anxious to get hold of our babies, one tiny question:   Is it your aim to one day stand in delivery rooms waiting for babies to be placed in your charge?

            The picture isn’t about to change soon, but still, a few more questions for all citizens: Where are mothers?  Why in the world are we thinking about formal learning for 3 and 4 year olds? What’s wrong with the informal learning a child gets from parents, brothers and sisters, and even pets?  What happened to “free play” without structure from adults?

            We know the answer to the question about mothers.  Mothers are working, some who must, others who don’t have to.  As for academic achievement, educators have almost convinced us that formal education, started early, is the key to success.  It is not. Good parents and strong families are the key to a child’s success.

            Educators often use “socialization” to argue their case.  Small children must have it, else they will land in prison.  No, both children and teenagers need to spend more time with adults.  One might ask educators, “What kind of socialization are you offering?  Can you assure us it will be positive?”

            My half-century observation (and participation) says the strongest influencers of children are other children.  The strongest influencers of teenagers are other teenagers.  Parents might want to consider this when educators emphasize socialization.  Children of all ages need more socialization with parents and grandparents and less with their peers.

            The desire for Trophy Children has fueled the rush toward academics, but academics are not the foundation on which to shape Trophy Children.  Character is.  All children need moms and dads who talk with them, not tests administered in hopes that early testing will boost SAT scores in high school, or boost prospects for getting into a Trophy Child university.

            I know how the educational establishment views the position I am advancing here.  They argue that most working parents and single moms are unqualified to give children what they need to succeed. That argument is elitism at its worst.

            Over twenty years ago psychologist David Elkind stirred controversy with his book, “The Hurried Child.”  Arguing that much of what schools are doing is not age-appropriate, Elkind bemoaned the fact that children are actually hindered by the rush into academics.  The results, he claimed, are stress, confusion, and even aggression. 

            More recently, psychoanalyst Erica Komisar expanded Elkind’s thesis in her new book, “Being There: Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters.”  Komisar asserts that respect for mothering is steadily waning.  She states that for a child’s first three years, mothers should be with their children because according to many neuro-scientists, a baby’s central nervous system is supplied and developed by its mother.

            Denying that men are equally equipped to attend to babies, Komisar argues that women have a “nurturing hormone” that men don’t have.  Dads are equally important but in different ways.

            Guess what. Komisar is a liberal Democrat.  Yet, neither the liberal press nor National Public Radio will grant her an interview, and her own professional organization ignores her.  That’s probably because Komisar says things like “Day care is over-stimulating for ages 1 through 3, given their neurological un-development.”  Her colleagues accuse her of making women feel guilty.

             Elkind and Komisar argue that mothering is denied respect and common sense is being abandoned.  Small children need mothers and mothering, not classrooms full of children.

            Educators will argue that modern social realities (single moms, absent fathers, etc.) have led to the need for early childhood education.  Actually it’s nanny state intrusion, derelict fathers,  and the decline of mothering that led to these social realities in the first place.  Are we any better off since the inception of Head Start 52 years ago?  Have the social realities improved? 

              If only for at least the first three or four years of our children’s lives we could let Dad go kill something and drag it home while Mom works her magic.  It worked for centuries.  There’s something about the human heart that yearns for it, still, and there are more and more young parents who are pursuing it.  For moms who just can’t do so, research indicates that grandmothers and wisely chosen small settings are best for small children.

            The triumph of nanny state culture has eroded old values, and a thoughtful, liberal, female psychoanalyst has pointed it out.

Roger Hines

11/2/17

           

           

Two Men, Two Revolutions, One True Change

               Two Men, Two Revolutions, One True Change

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal 10/29/17

The river of history is sometimes gentle, sometimes boisterous.  We often consider it a force beyond our control.

  Historian Arthur Schlesinger once remarked that “history is to the nation what memory is to the individual.”  However we define history and whether or not we enjoy its study, we cannot say that man has no control over it.  This very month, October of 2017, is the anniversary of the actions of two men who gripped history in their hands and slung it forward, affecting many nations, many centuries, and millions of lives.

            October 31 is the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.  Specifically, it is the anniversary of the actions of one individual, Martin Luther.  This October is also the 100th anniversary of Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution, specifically the anniversary of the actions of Nicolai Lenin.

            Luther’s actions are well known.  By tacking his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg, the German monk bravely challenged the most eminent authority in the western world, the Roman Catholic Church. 

Lenin did not act alone.  One of many in a bevy of radicals, he became the leader and the face of the Bolshevik (Communist) Revolution.  As dangerously as Luther, Lenin challenged not a state church but a family, the Romanovs, who had ruled Russia for precisely 300 years.

            In 1517 Luther plunged Europe into religious wars that continued for centuries.  In 1917 Lenin led Russia into a 74-year socialist experiment that severely curtailed freedom and left millions in poverty.  Such has been the plight throughout the world of those living under socialism’s central planning, a bloody recipe that has everywhere left blood in its wake.

            As social/political upheavals go, nothing is comparable to these two events except the American Revolution and perhaps the 1948 Communist takeover of China.  Our misnamed Civil War aside, we Americans, thankfully, know little about internal upheaval that leads to hunger, displacement, or endless strife.  Our 222-year history, a brief one indeed, has been marked neither by constant religious wars nor by the designs of any singular, would-be tyrant.

            In Luther’s case, it was religious conviction that sparked the flame that set Europe afire.  Luther’s indictment of the medieval Catholic structure and its practices struck a chord.  The sale of indulgences was evil. The Church’s doctrine of salvation was amiss.  “Sola Scriptura” (Scripture alone), Luther pleaded.  And then, “Here I Stand. I cannot and will not recant.” Luther didn’t reform the Catholic Church, but he reformed the religious landscape of the West by bringing attention to Rome’s raw power.

            There has come unity between Catholics and Protestants, not in respect to theology but in diplomatic relations and in working for common goals.  Recently, Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore was invited by Pope Francis to a Vatican meeting of religious leaders.  Catholics and many Protestant groups have always worked together to fight abortion and to preserve the sanctity of marriage.

            There has been far less healing between the masses of Russia and its political class.  Russia now has elections and casts itself as a democracy; however, the nation is still drying off from Leninism and Stalinism.  Putin, for sure, has not reckoned with his communist past.  The irony of Lenin’s actions in 1917 is that a bad system of aristocratic, totalitarian rule was replaced with a bad system of party totalitarian rule.   Luther brought about change; Lenin did not.  Tyranny is tyranny, whether foisted on us by a family dynasty of aristocrats or a band of socialist radicals posing as deliverers of the peasants.

            And what can we learn from Luther and Lenin?  From Luther we can learn courage.  At the Diet of Worms he presented his case, facing excommunication and the threat of execution.  From Lenin we should learn that socialism by any name is a losing proposition.

            From Luther we can learn to keep a list of 95 theses in our pocket, ready to proclaim them when events and conscience so dictate.  From Lenin we can learn that socialism/Marxism/communism is little more than shared poverty and that sometimes history turns on those who try to advance evil.

            T.S. Eliot wrote, “We know little of the future except that from generation to generation the same things happen again and again.”

            Yes and no.  Lenin’s statues have been toppled, and now the city of Leningrad is St. Petersburg again.  Luther is revered around the world.

            Sometimes history does make sense and turns out well.

Roger Hines

10/25/17

            

Two Men, Two Revolutions, One True Change The river of history is sometimes gentle, sometimes boisterous. We often consider it a force beyond our control. Historian Arthur Schlesinger once remarked that “history is to the nation what memory is to the individual.” However we define history and whether or not we enjoy its study, we cannot say that man has no control over it. This very month, October of 2017, is the anniversary of the actions of two men who gripped history in their hands and slung it forward, affecting many nations, many centuries, and millions of lives. October 31 is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Specifically, it is the anniversary of the actions of one individual, Martin Luther. This October is also the 100th anniversary of Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution, specifically the anniversary of the actions of Nicolai Lenin. Luther’s actions are well known. By tacking his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg, the German monk bravely challenged the most eminent authority in the western world, the Roman Catholic Church. Lenin did not act alone. One of many in a bevy of radicals, he became the leader and the face of the Bolshevik (Communist) Revolution. As dangerously as Luther, Lenin challenged not a state church but a family, the Romanovs, who had ruled Russia for precisely 300 years. In 1517 Luther plunged Europe into religious wars that continued for centuries. In 1917 Lenin led Russia into a 74-year socialist experiment that severely curtailed freedom and left millions in poverty. Such has been the plight throughout the world of those living under socialism’s central planning, a bloody recipe that has everywhere left blood in its wake. As social/political upheavals go, nothing is comparable to these two events except the American Revolution and perhaps the 1948 Communist takeover of China. Our misnamed Civil War aside, we Americans, thankfully, know little about internal upheaval that leads to hunger, displacement, or endless strife. Our 222-year history, a brief one indeed, has been marked neither by constant religious wars nor by the designs of any singular, would-be tyrant. In Luther’s case, it was religious conviction that sparked the flame that set Europe afire. Luther’s indictment of the medieval Catholic structure and its practices struck a chord. The sale of indulgences was evil. The Church’s doctrine of salvation was amiss. “Sola Scriptura” (Scripture alone), Luther pleaded. And then, “Here I Stand. I cannot and will not recant.” Luther didn’t reform the Catholic Church, but he reformed the religious landscape of the West by bringing attention to Rome’s raw power. There has come unity between Catholics and Protestants, not in respect to theology but in diplomatic relations and in working for common goals. Recently, Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore was invited by Pope Francis to a Vatican meeting of religious leaders. Catholics and many Protestant groups have always worked together to fight abortion and to preserve the sanctity of marriage. There has been far less healing between the masses of Russia and its political class. Russia now has elections and casts itself as a democracy; however, the nation is still drying off from Leninism and Stalinism. Putin, for sure, has not reckoned with his communist past. The irony of Lenin’s actions in 1917 is that a bad system of aristocratic, totalitarian rule was replaced with a bad system of party totalitarian rule. Luther brought about change; Lenin did not. Tyranny is tyranny, whether foisted on us by a family dynasty of aristocrats or a band of socialist radicals posing as deliverers of the peasants. And what can we learn from Luther and Lenin? From Luther we can learn courage. At the Diet of Worms he presented his case, facing excommunication and the threat of execution. From Lenin we should learn that socialism by any name is a losing proposition. From Luther we can learn to keep a list of 95 theses in our pocket, ready to proclaim them when events and conscience so dictate. From Lenin we can learn that socialism/Marxism/communism is little more than shared poverty and that sometimes history turns on those who try to advance evil. T.S. Eliot wrote, “We know little of the future except that from generation to generation the same things happen again and again.” Yes and no. Lenin’s statues have been toppled, and now the city of Leningrad is St. Petersburg again. Luther is revered around the world. Sometimes history does make sense and turns out well. Roger Hines 10/25/17

               Two Men, Two Revolutions, One True Change

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal 10/29/17

The river of history is sometimes gentle, sometimes boisterous.  We often consider it a force beyond our control.

  Historian Arthur Schlesinger once remarked that “history is to the nation what memory is to the individual.”  However we define history and whether or not we enjoy its study, we cannot say that man has no control over it.  This very month, October of 2017, is the anniversary of the actions of two men who gripped history in their hands and slung it forward, affecting many nations, many centuries, and millions of lives.

            October 31 is the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.  Specifically, it is the anniversary of the actions of one individual, Martin Luther.  This October is also the 100th anniversary of Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution, specifically the anniversary of the actions of Nicolai Lenin.

            Luther’s actions are well known.  By tacking his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg, the German monk bravely challenged the most eminent authority in the western world, the Roman Catholic Church. 

Lenin did not act alone.  One of many in a bevy of radicals, he became the leader and the face of the Bolshevik (Communist) Revolution.  As dangerously as Luther, Lenin challenged not a state church but a family, the Romanovs, who had ruled Russia for precisely 300 years.

            In 1517 Luther plunged Europe into religious wars that continued for centuries.  In 1917 Lenin led Russia into a 74-year socialist experiment that severely curtailed freedom and left millions in poverty.  Such has been the plight throughout the world of those living under socialism’s central planning, a bloody recipe that has everywhere left blood in its wake.

            As social/political upheavals go, nothing is comparable to these two events except the American Revolution and perhaps the 1948 Communist takeover of China.  Our misnamed Civil War aside, we Americans, thankfully, know little about internal upheaval that leads to hunger, displacement, or endless strife.  Our 222-year history, a brief one indeed, has been marked neither by constant religious wars nor by the designs of any singular, would-be tyrant.

            In Luther’s case, it was religious conviction that sparked the flame that set Europe afire.  Luther’s indictment of the medieval Catholic structure and its practices struck a chord.  The sale of indulgences was evil. The Church’s doctrine of salvation was amiss.  “Sola Scriptura” (Scripture alone), Luther pleaded.  And then, “Here I Stand. I cannot and will not recant.” Luther didn’t reform the Catholic Church, but he reformed the religious landscape of the West by bringing attention to Rome’s raw power.

            There has come unity between Catholics and Protestants, not in respect to theology but in diplomatic relations and in working for common goals.  Recently, Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore was invited by Pope Francis to a Vatican meeting of religious leaders.  Catholics and many Protestant groups have always worked together to fight abortion and to preserve the sanctity of marriage.

            There has been far less healing between the masses of Russia and its political class.  Russia now has elections and casts itself as a democracy; however, the nation is still drying off from Leninism and Stalinism.  Putin, for sure, has not reckoned with his communist past.  The irony of Lenin’s actions in 1917 is that a bad system of aristocratic, totalitarian rule was replaced with a bad system of party totalitarian rule.   Luther brought about change; Lenin did not.  Tyranny is tyranny, whether foisted on us by a family dynasty of aristocrats or a band of socialist radicals posing as deliverers of the peasants.

            And what can we learn from Luther and Lenin?  From Luther we can learn courage.  At the Diet of Worms he presented his case, facing excommunication and the threat of execution.  From Lenin we should learn that socialism by any name is a losing proposition.

            From Luther we can learn to keep a list of 95 theses in our pocket, ready to proclaim them when events and conscience so dictate.  From Lenin we can learn that socialism/Marxism/communism is little more than shared poverty and that sometimes history turns on those who try to advance evil.

            T.S. Eliot wrote, “We know little of the future except that from generation to generation the same things happen again and again.”

            Yes and no.  Lenin’s statues have been toppled, and now the city of Leningrad is St. Petersburg again.  Luther is revered around the world.

            Sometimes history does make sense and turns out well.

Roger Hines

10/25/17