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