Outliving this Day and Coming Safe Home

Larry Hagman as “J. R. Ewing” R.I.P.

There should be little doubt that Larry Hagman’s death this past week will adversely affect the prospects of the current revival of television’s Dallas. J. R. Ewing was Hagman’s character, and his alone, and J. R. was Dallas. Without J. R., the prime time soap opera is just another mediocre TV drama. His fictional double crossing, dirty dealing, and backstabbing was done with style and aplomb in a way that few actors could pull off. He was a villain, but a stylish, and even lovable one, in a more competent Wile E. Coyote (of Roadrunner fame) sort of way. I watched the original Dallas sporadically, as it came on Friday nights and I usually had something better to do in those pre-TiVo/pre-DVR days. I found it hugely entertaining when I did. The show’s international appeal was also evident. During a visit to Vienna in 1983 many guests in the small hotel where I was staying gathered around the lobby TV to watch the Ewing family’s imbroglios. The dub of J. R.’s voice in German sounded particularly menacing. As far as the image that the show gave of my hometown went, I did not care much then or now. Most people, I think, can separate real life from fiction, and anyway, to paraphrase Charles Dickens, detestation is homage paid by those who believe they are inferior in some ways.

One aspect to J. R. Ewing’s fictional villainy that made it somewhat appealing rather than odious was that the targets of his double-dealing and backstabbing were his peers, many of whom would do the same to him if they were as good at it as he was. I recall no time that he victimized or treated contemptuously his employees, house staff, or anyone who was weaker.

Coming as it did during the week of the 49^th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas, Hagman’s death (or rather, the resulting death of his character) seems apropos to a reflection on the character of the city of Dallas. In the immediate aftermath of Kennedy’s murder, those pot-bellied pecksniffian pundits of the national media got plenty of their usual exercise of jumping to conclusions and flying off the handle. They were nearly beside themselves with glee that the perceived right-wing political climate could be blamed for the President’s death. (A number of their successors expressed similar joy over the timeliness of Hurricane Sandy to give favorable photo-ops and such to their current idol and possibly sway a close election.) Of course, we knew quickly that the assassin was a left-wing Marxist, who had defected to the Soviet Union and sympathized with Castro’s Cuba. All of Lee Harvey Oswald’s motivations for killing Kennedy will never be known, but it is certainly consistent with his support of Communist Cuba and that the President’s most significant foreign policy success was in the Cuban Missile Crisis of the previous year. That and Kennedy’s firm stand on the Western Allies’ status in Berlin made him a bona fide Cold Warrior. Jacqueline Kennedy’s remark at the time, quite understandable as a product of her shock and grief, that JFK’s death was devoid of meaning because the killer turned out to be a “silly little communist,” was awfully misplaced.

To the extent there was a “right-wing climate” or for that matter, a left-wing underground presence in Dallas, neither was responsible for JFK’s assassination. Oswald acted alone. Speculative hypotheses of conspiracy abound – some quite fantastic. Not one is supported by a scrap of evidence.

That a leftist fanatic killed the President did not stop those so disposed to vilify Dallas. There were plenty of op-eds, magazine articles, and books that came out with purported analyses of the city and focusing on a “climate of hate” said to exist. On of the most prominent was that of former Dallas Morning News reporter Warren Leslie entitled Dallas Public and Private published rather hastily in 1964. Having grown up in Dallas in the ‘50s and early ‘60s (and graduated from high school there in 1963), I recognize many of the historical facts and circumstances Leslie mentions. I generally disagree with his spin. Nevertheless, his book recognizes one salient point about the city: It has no geographical or environmental reason to exist. It was for a long time the largest city in the nation not located on a navigable waterway (though I understand that his recently been eclipsed by Phoenix). It exists because of the people, the men and women who founded and grew with it. Leslie quotes (with agreement, if not with approval) a 1949 article in Fortune magazine by Holland McCombs: “[Dallas] is finally a monument of sheer determination. Dallas doesn’t owe a thing to accident, nature or inevitability. It is what it is . . . because the men of Dallas damn well planned it that way.”

In the near half-century since the assassination Leslie’s book Dallas has continued to grow in the same vein. The opportunity of a robust free-market economy and entrepreneurial attitude attracts people from not just the U.S., but from the whole world. Back in the 1980s, a customer of mine, who was then a recent arrival from Chicago, related that his observation was that no one in Dallas wanted to work for a company, those not already self-employed were just biding their time until they got enough experience in their field and capital (though the latter did not always seem to be necessary) to start their own business. Hyperbolic as that statement was, it contained a solid core of truth.

Dallas has become more than just its core city, with expansion into far-flung suburbs, and even melding with neighboring cities. The Dallas Cowboys NFL team’s home venue is now in another city not even in the same county as most of the City of Dallas. J.R. Ewing’s Southfork Ranch is located, both in fiction and in fact as to the set, in yet another county. The city and the region, like all big cities, has numerous problem and challenges, many of which are products of the growth. Here’s hope those challenges can be met in ways that continue to foster rather than stifle the entrepreneurial spirit.

Leslie ends his book a personal note to which I add a counterpoint. He says that on a flight from Dallas he felt some sadness when the pilot announced that they would be landing early at Idlewild Airport, whose name had been changed to honor the fallen President. But right before arrival, the stewardess asked the passengers to fasten their seat belts because “‘We are making our approach now to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York,’ she said. Coming up from Dallas, some of us felt better.”

Last week, Martha and I flew from New York City to Dallas after a weekend sojourn in the Big Apple. I assure you we both felt much better when the flight crew announced our final approach to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Yesterday, two days short of the forty-ninth anniversary of the day the course of history took a quantum shift, one of the heroes of that day was honored at the spot where he gave his last full measure of devotion. See the story here.

I am not a fan of bombastic prose, especially my own, but Dallas Police Officer J D Tippit deserved more than faint praise for what he accomplished on November 22, 1963. Tippit, as the world knows, was the second man Lee Harvey Oswald killed that day, the first, of course was the President of the United States. Even though he was killed in the confrontation, Tippit’s alert police work undoubtedly led to Oswald’s quick arrest.

Although Officer Tippit’s memory has been honored in many ways, including the posthumous award of the rarely bestowed Dallas Police Medal of Honor, for one reason or another the location of his confrontation with Oswald and death went unmarked until now. It is certainly fitting that this has finally been done.

I am sure there are some who would downplay Tippit’s role. After all, the immediate event of his death was not the stuff of a Harrison Ford movie – no shootout, no high speed chase, no charge up the hill. It was just a chance confrontation with one of hundreds of men who met general description of the possible Presidential assassin. Well, not quite.

Police officers are trained, both formally, and by experience, to look for and recognize without conscious reflection, subtle patterns in circumstances and behavior that indicate something is wrong or that bears further inquiry. The ability to do this well is not achieved overnight. An article in Scientific American several years ago entitled “The Expert Mind” theorized that is takes a good deal of experience to fully develop such facility. Some become virtuosos; some merely competent. Arthur Conan Doyle, in his Sherlock Holmes mysteries, described the patten recognition ability as subconscious, and almost instinctive. While courts have demanded that law enforcement officer must have probable cause based upon articulated facts and circumstances before a citizen can arrested, an investigative detention can be based on reasonable suspicion, which includes the “something is not right” notion based on experience. (For the wonks out there, see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).)

By all accounts, J.D. Tippit was a competent and conscientious police officer, he had eleven years experience on the street. On the afternoon of the Kennedy assassination, he confronted the most dangerous situation a police officer can face – that of an investigative stop of an unknown person. Tippit  knew something was not right when he attempted to stop Oswald; he did not know he was confronting what amounted to a professional gunfighter who had just killed a man with two shots fired in rapid succession at a moving target.

Delving into contra-factual history – the “what if?” exercise – is a fool’s errand. What we do know is that Oswald was on the run after committing one of the most momentous crimes of the 20^th Century. Tippit’s attempted stop of Oswald was the result of good police work, and, though he lost that confrontation, in doing so he called the attention of other police officers who likewise pursued and quickly apprehended a Presidential assassin. The late author and local political consultant Judy Bonner wrote Investigation of a Homicide, a detailed account of the police investigation. She quotes one detective who said, “We don’t know how to investigate a Presidential assassination; probably nobody does. But we do know how to investigate a homicide, and we did a damn good job of it.”

Perhaps the most crucial contribution to the investigation was that of Officer J. D. Tippit, a policeman doing his job.

Personal note: I was a Dallas Police Officer from 1972 to 1978. I worked in the Criminal Investigation Division from 1974 until I left. My first watch commander as a patrol officer was Lt. Harry Thomas, who was married to J. D. Tippit’s widow, Marie. In CID, Nick McDonald, who arrested Oswald (and nearly became the assassin’s third victim that day, and like Tippit, received the Medal of Honor) was one of my detective colleagues. I became acquainted with many of the other department members who were directly or peripherally involved. I was able thereby to gain a rare perspective on what happened. Though not on the stage, or not exactly a front row seat, I am fortunate to have been at least in the orchestra of this fateful event in our history. One thing I am convinced of is that there was no grand conspiracy, or even a petit one. Oswald acted alone, and killed President Kennedy for reasons of his own.

Awhile back I planned a vacation out of the country that, as it happened, starts today. Later, I noticed that it was the day after the election, and jokingly remarked that I hoped our departure was going to be reminiscent of Russian emigres fleeing the Bolsheviks in 1917.  In this morning’s the newspaper, the “This Day in History” section noted that this is the 95^th Anniversary of Lenin’s takeover of the Russian government. An omen?

Assuredly, no. At least not for a good while, if ever. Going back to a Russian allusion, the real winners may me the crony capitalists like the Wall Street Big Banks, and perhaps insurance companies, though the latter is not so clear, will do all right. They are the Viktor Komarovskys, the character in the novel Doctor Zhivago (who wasn’t quite the one-dimensional villain Rod Steiger played in the movie, but nevertheless totally pragmatic) – chameleon enough to survive and even thrive under any regime.

Well, eleven months ago I said it would be close. I had just hoped it would fall the other way. The consolation prize is that the House of Representatives stays in control of the good guys, and there will be no more egregious legislation for at least two years. The President will have to deal with the Republicans. If things go off a fiscal cliff, ultimately he will be blamed.

More later, the plane is about to take off.

Cheers!

I do not agree with the Republican Party’s stance on every issue, and I would venture that no Republican does. My observations together with reason and logic informs me, however, that the GOP holds the value of individual liberty, which brings with it prosperity and real security, much more than the other major party does today, and at anytime in the recent past.

Thus, I cannot find myself supporting any Democratic Party candidate that I have heard of, especially the current President.

One soul-mate recites what I mean better than I can, so I call your attention to this essay.

The quite successful entrepreneur and philanthropist Sheldon Adelson writes today in the Wall Street Journal explaining why he has forsaken his parents’ and his former embrace of the Democratic Party and now supports the GOP and its nominee Mitt Romney. See this article

“It … went without saying that we were Democrats. Like most Jews around the country, being Democrat was part of our identity, as much a feature of our collective personality as our religion,” Mr. Adelson writes.

He continues: “So why did I leave the party?

“My critics nowadays like to claim it’s because I got wealthy or because I didn’t want to pay taxes or because of some other conservative caricature. No, the truth is the Democratic Party has changed in ways that no longer fit with someone of my upbringing.

“One obvious example is the party’s new attitude toward Israel. A sobering Gallup poll from last March asked: “Are your sympathies more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?” Barely 53% of Democrats chose Israel, the sole liberal democracy in the region. By contrast, an overwhelming 78% of Republicans sympathized with Israel.” (My emphasis.)

Israel is one of the few true friends the United States has in the world. The story of Israel is really an American story, which might be why the left wing has soured on that state.

Mr. Adelson goes on: “Another troubling change is that Democrats seem to have moved away from the immigrant values of my old neighborhood—in particular, individual charity and neighborliness. After studying tax data from the IRS, the nonpartisan Chronicle of Philanthropy recently reported that states that vote Republican are now far more generous to charities than those voting Democratic. In 2008, the seven least-generous states all voted for President Obama. My father, who kept a charity box for the poor in our house, would have frowned on this fact about modern Democrats.

“Democrats would reply that taxation and government services are better vehicles for helping the underprivileged. And, yes, government certainly has its role. But when you look at states where Democrats have enjoyed years of one-party dominance—California, Illinois, New York—you find that their liberal policies simply don’t deliver on their promises of social justice.”

Of course, I maintain that social justice is to justice as root beer is to beer, or fast food is to food. It’s one of those cliches that pecksniffs like to bandy about. Nevertheless, like Mr. Adelson, I believe that charity is a virtue, even a duty – an individual one. Forced charity, that is, being charitable with other people’s money is not virtue, but a species of theft. And I do not believe that poverty per se imbues virtue in anyone. The poor will always be with us, and for many its their own doing. Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty was a classic example of striving for perfection ruining the good.

The left in this country is really more Brave New World than Nineteen Eighty-Four. They want happy equality, which is impossible, so they’ll settle for the unhappy sort.

A Mitt Romney administration will not be a panacea for all of the ills of our nation, and it has been difficult to create enthusiasm for him. He does not have the charismatic presence of John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, or even Barack Obama of four years ago. Of course, elsewhere, charismatic personalities have led heir countries to destruction in many well-known cases. That is not all, though. The Presidents over the past 50 years have been a disappointing lot, except for Reagan, and even Bill Clinton, once he forsook the left. Kennedy was assassinated pretty much at the top of his game, so he lives on mostly favorably remembered. The disappointing performances of the past two Presidents may thus be part of the lack of passion for Romney.

Passion surely motivates. That is why religious fervor can incite such violence and mayhem in the name of one’s God or gods. Identity politics, also instills passion. But I, for one, would like a break. There are doubtless many more who share that wish. If Romney wins tomorrow, maybe it will be plain old fatigue with stridency. I am more optimistic, however. I will be an opportunity to put a successful businessman in a position to guide – not run – the nation, rather than peddlers of nostrums.

Sheldon Adelson has been generous in supporting charitable causes, as well as Mitt Romney’s candidacy. Here’s hoping that his money will be well spent in both instances.

Exceptional:

New York Times reporter Scott Shane wrote in a op-ed published in the Dallas Morning News last Sunday that he does not like the concept of American Exceptionalism.  See this link. 

“Imagine a presidential candidate who spoke with blunt honesty about American problems, dwelling on measures by which the United States trails its economic peers.

“What might this mythical candidate talk about on the stump? He might vow to turn around the dismal statistics on child poverty, declaring it an outrage that of the 35 most economically advanced countries, the United States ranks 34th, edging out only Romania. He might take on educational achievement, noting that this country comes in only 28th in the percentage of 4-year-olds enrolled in preschool, and at the other end of the scale, 14th in the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds with a higher education. He might hammer on infant mortality, where the U.S. ranks worse than 48 other countries and territories, or point out that, contrary to fervent popular belief, the U.S. trails most of Europe, Australia and Canada in social mobility.

“How far would this truth-telling candidate get? Nowhere fast.” Fortunately, he is correct.

I dispute Shane’s characterization of the hypothetical candidate as “truth-telling” or his message as “blunt honesty.”

For one thing, Shane cites numerous statistics, the provenance of which are not disclosed, and reliability not established. Statistics are not facts, they are manipulation (and I do not use this word pejoratively) of facts, nearly always presented in isolation, and without disclosure of underlying assumptions and methodology of ascertainment. For example: Child poverty rank 34^th? Where does that figure come from. How is a “child” defined? Persons younger than ???? Children are generally not counted except within a family unit. “Poverty” is defined as less that a certain income for a family of four. Is that valid? Is that the definition used in Romania? What about food stamps, Medicaid, other welfare programs? Are they counted. Life Expectancy? That varies with the age is it estimated from, as well as the state of health at that age.

To the extent that any meaning can be found in any of these statistics, the do not take into consideration that the United States has one of the most diverse populations in the world. Everyone in the U.S. is a descendant of immigrants (including those whose ancestors immigrated pre-Columbian).

Insofar as the United States trailing other countries in social mobility, especially European ones, I don’t buy that one bit. Shane doesn’t even bother to allude to any source for that ipse dixit, or even bother to state his criteria. I suppose his idea of social mobility is like that of “social justice” which exists only in the mind of the person decrying the lack thereof.

Anyway, the purpose of government in American thought is to provide a means to safeguard life, liberty, and the pursuit, not the guarantee, of happiness. To that end, the United States has traditionally made individual liberty paramount. When that liberty and collective material good are in tension, freedom is supposed to win. We have Constitutional protection of nearly absolute freedom of expression that no other nation has, as well as the individual right to the means for protection of our persons and property. (Naturally, Shane scoffs at the very idea that the United States is number one in small arms ownership.) The Constitution also protects our right to due process of law for our life, liberty, or property can be taken, although the growth of administrative has been eroding the latter in recent decades.

For another, more thorough discussion of American Exceptionalism, I suggest an essay by Norman Podhoretz available at this link..

　

Provinces?

Mitt Romney has been criticized as being inconsistent for favoring, and obtaining passage of,  a state health insurance plan in Massachusetts when he was governor, but opposing the similar Obamacare law foisted upon the entire Nation.  Putting aside Mahatma Gandhi’s explanation that his beliefs today are inconsistent with his beliefs yesterday because he learned something in the meantime, Romney is not being inconsistent at all.  I only wish he would have better explained that state and federal governments have different roles in our system.  That is, states have a general police power that the federal government does not have. Practically, we’ve spent the past three-quarter century trying to change that for practical purposes, now a former Supreme Court member thinks it should be done legally.

Retired  Justice John Paul Stevens believes the Constitution should be amended by adding “four little words” to the Supremacy Clause in Article VI.  See Law Blog

That is the clause that provides that the “Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby… .”

The whole point of this clause was to provide that, if a state law (statute or common law principle) were to conflict with the U.S. Constitution, or any act of Congress that is valid and Constitutional, the judges, state or federal, would be bound to decide a case or controversy by applying the federal law, not the state. Stevens complains that the clause is too restrictive, and should be applied to all state officials. He proposes to add “and other public officials” after “Judges” in the offending sentence.

The basis of the former Justice’s complaint are number of Supreme Court decisions, in which he dissented, that refuse to allow Congress to commandeer state officials to enforce federal laws or administer a federal regulatory program. Stevens laments that “a rule that prohibits the federal government from requiring state officials to take action to help locate missing children, to apprehend violent offenders, and to forestall terrorist attacks and spread of communicable diseases, cannot be wise.” Perhaps.

The states of our nation, however, are just that: states, not provinces subject to a central sovereign. They are, like the national government, subject to the Constitution in a federal union. The diffusion of political power was one of the wisest constructs of the formation of the United States, as I will demonstrate below. The federal government must be supreme in its proper sphere, which is primarily that of foreign affairs and foreign trade. It must also ensure that the nation is an economic unit for the purpose of foreign and interstate commerce, and protect what we have come to regard as fundamental individual rights.

For most state and local issues, though, the state governments are sovereign. The Tenth Amendment, though judicially moribund, makes that explicit. This has become lost on many citizens in our day. Congress has stretched what constitutes commerce well beyond its intended meaning, and used that a Constitutional basis for enacting all kinds of police power, that is, social and general welfare legislation. Congress also uses its essentially unlimited taxing and spending power to indirectly coerce states to what it cannot directly mandate.

Now, Stevens would like Congress, and by extension, the judiciary to have the direct power to require, state officials, presumably under penalty of law, to enforce federal laws, regulations, and schemes. For a number of reasons, that is not a good idea.

One issue that always comes up in state government finance is that of the unfunded federal mandates. What this means is, that as a condition for, say, receiving federal highway construction funds, states were formerly required to enact and enforce a 55 mile-an-hour speed limit, but were not provided the funds to pay for the extra police manpower to enforce it. There are other examples. The Medicaid provision in the Obamacare law that the Court struck down while upholding the individual mandate as a permissible tax is one. With these unfunded mandates, the state may opt not to participate and forgo the funds, as, I am informed, Montana did with the 55 mph speed limit. If Stevens’ proposal became part of the Constitution, no state could opt out. This would reduce the states to mere administrative units, that is, provinces.

Fortunately, such an Amendment has no chance. Recall that, even if Congress could must two-thirds of each House, there is no way that three-fourths of the states would ratify it.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority in Printz v United States, that “The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. It matters not whether policy making is involved, and no case by case weighing of the burdens or benefits is necessary; such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty.”

Scalia is doubtless correct with regard to Constitutional jurisprudence, but what about the needs of today? What Stevens suggests is “unwise”? Well, there is always the Law of Unintended Consequences, which I partly addressed with regard to the unfunded mandate situation above. There is more, however. Consider this: After World War II, the Western Allied Powers considered how the National Socialists came to absolute power in Germany. They noted that the Weimar Constitution that governed Germany from post World War I until the end of World War II (theoretically anyway, for Hitler never formally abrogated it) centralized power in a national government. A determined and fanatical minority was, in the time of a crisis, able to cobble together a bare majority long enough to highjack the centralized power of the state. Consequently, the Allies insisted that a reconstituted Germany be a federal republic with significant police power constitutionally placed in the states (German: Länder). Most foreigners like us do not realized that because today’s Federal Republic of Germany looks monolithic from the outside. But federalism is alive and well there, and has been since the early 1950s, and now includes the reconstituted states of the former East Germany. The possibility of dictatorship, whether of the proletariat, a Führer, a Duce, or a Caudillo in Germany and the United States, anyway is thereby reduced.

One more reason why President Andrew Jackson was right when he declared “Our federal union! It must be preserved.”

Past or Future?

Well known leftist Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson says that vote next week is a vote for the future– Obama – or a vote for the past – Romney. Meyerson indicates that a Romney wind will only slow down the inevitable. One factor he cites is that the nation is growing “more racially diverse (or, more bluntly, less white) each year.” See Post Opinion

Concerning the past-future divide, I believe Meyerson is wrong on many levels. Regarding his perceived racial divide, I offer this: Before the leftists in this country decided they could create an advantage by divide and conquer politics, The only racial classifications in this country were black and white (or Caucasian and Negro, or whatever, if you will). That was wrong to begin with, but was a legacy of slavery that should have been put behind the country nearly a century and a half ago. As a mater of fact, “Hispanics” were classified as “white” previously, as were all non blacks. To be sure, there was social discrimination, as there was with other immigrant ethnic groups, but no legal segregation as there was with blacks. The Irish, Italians, Poles, and especially the Jews, all overcame that without the help of a Civil Rights Act or the EEOC. Certainly, the so-called Hispanics can too, to the extent it really exists.

Actually, Meyerson is wrong about the nation becoming “less white.” Officialdom still uses the infamous “one-drop rule” more formally, hypo-descent, and insists that a mixed race child is black, rather than “white” or even mixed. Get ride of that rule, and the nation is actually becoming more white.

As far as voters in younger age groups being more apt to favor Obama, Meyerson is assuming they stay enamored with the left as the age.  That is generally not true.  Winston Churchill’s observation that if one is not a liberal at age 20 he has no heart  — if he’s still one at 40, he has no brain, is also generally true.

With apologies to Ennio Morricone and Sergio Leone. I recall the musical pocket watch in For a Few Dollars More: “Sixty Seconds to What?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-rFT-uHm4w

Eleventh hour thoughts about the upcoming election.

If the economy is as bad is everyone is saying, why are the polls showing the election will be so close? Well, I could go to Ian Morris’s thesis that the direction of civilizations is shaped by scared, lazy, and greedy people. There are a lot of people that are scared of losing some of their goodies and they are too lazy to figure a way to acquire their own without the help of Big Daddy or Big Brother. Not everyone, of course. And I do not subscribe that 47% of the people in America fit into Morris’s thesis. But there appear to be enough, when coupled with other interests, to make it close. Maybe.

One poll shows that there is overwhelming support for Obama among blacks – a significant bloc. That is, regrettably, understandable. Identity politics has become the norm. To paraphrase Ferdinand Lundberg in his 1968 tome The Rich and the Super Rich, one cannot easily hide his ethnicity, therefore, if a politician is a Ruritanian (his generic ethnic), he should bray loudly and often about it, thus securing at least the votes of nitwit Ruritanians. Lundberg also observed that blacks are rooked by blacks, Catholics are rooked by Catholics, and Ruritanians are rooked by Ruritanians more often than they are by those not of the group. The key to progress for members of minority groups, however, is not to continue to identify themselves by race or ethnicity, but to become part of the greater society and succeed and contribute to where no one other than the most diehard racist could believe who their ancestors were or their complexion matters. Many people of all backgrounds voted for Obama in 2008 because they thought that it was then able to show that a black person, or at least a person of mixed race, could become President. That has been proven. It is also been proven that the person elected has shown to be marginally competent at best. To my view, re-electing him does not do anything for advancement of the interests of minority individuals, and in fact may be detrimental.

What about the issues that were only touched, or even tangentially so in the debates, and in recent campaign materials?

– Gay marriage is in the courts, and the candidates are wise not to bring it up. It would be a distraction and generate more heat than light.

– Global warming, or as the preferred term seems to be now, climate change is divisive, not because the Earth is getting warmer, which it probably is, but how changing human activity could slow or reverse the trend. I do not think it can. The candidates may not either, and in any event it does not seem to be in the forefront of anyone other than fringe interests.

– The so-called women’s rights are wedge issues that are really non-issues calculated to scare the ignorant. They are as visible as they are because one of two nitwit down-ballot candidates had a appetite for shoe leather. Both of the Roman Catholic Vice-Presidential candidates looked like they wanted to take a hasty restroom break when Martha Raddatz brought up the subject of abortion at the debates. Memo to both sides of this controversy: The courts are not going to overturn Roe v. Wade. It has been settled law for too long. The only way the principles ensconced in our jurisprudence by that case will be changed is by a Constitutional amendment. That is political heavy lifting. The Constitution has only been amended 27 times, and 10 of those were immediately after ratification. Most of the amendments have been uncontroversial and structural; that is, they addressed a procedure that had become unworkable. In any event, outside the bully pulpit, the President has absolutely nothing to do with the process. He cannot propose it in Congress, he cannot veto a resolution proposing a Constitutional amendment. And if the alternative method is used, he cannot call conventions in two-thirds of the states to propose an amendment. Presidential candidates are best served by staying out of that controversy, and they probably know it.

– Regarding gun control, the Second Amendment’s guarantee of an individual right to bear arms is also settled law, although quite recently. Furthermore the National Rifle Association, as well as other gun rights groups, have proven themselves to be the most effective lobby in the nation, and will undoubtedly continue to be so. Like that or not – and I do – it is a fact. The NRA’s relentless efforts have made all politicians into poodles, other than those in super-blue constituencies. Glad I’m on their side on that issue.

– In foreign affairs, the major issues we have are the continuing threat of Islamofascism, China’s economic impact on trade, and the potential nuclear threats of Iran and North Korea. Under the line of sight of most lurks Russia. The bear is stirring, and we must take heed of that. As election issue at the moment, they seem pretty blah. Although the botching of the Benghazi terrorist attack response seems to have spiced it up somewhat.

Anyway, I believe the closeness of the polls has to do with factors (1) the power of incumbency, (2) a woeful unemployment rate in a bad economy, (3) and a challenger that, while he appears competent, is not charismatic. Couple these factors to a candidate who does not seem to offer much to most narrow interest groups, with one who at least promises to look out for them, and you have a close call.

I will end by recalling an analytical framework proposed by Robert Reich, the U.C. Berkeley professor and former Clinton Secretary of Labor, in 2005. He called it the democratic narrative – stories with four themes that uniquely (he maintains) appeal to the American character. Those are: the Triumphant Individual, the Caring Community, the Mob at the Gates, and the Rot at the Top. The Democrats in 2008 had all four: Obama, the promise to do something about the faltering economy, two protracted wars, and one corrupt Congressman and Senator after another. I’ve been struggling with what we have in those narratives this election. Nothing seems to fit. Maybe that is another reason it will be so close.

T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month. That may be so to certain perspectives, but I find that October is one of the most uncertain and eventful months. For one thing, here in Texas there is a saying that if you don’t like the weather wait 15 minutes and it will change. That adage is truer in October that it is in any other month.

Putting aside the weather, there been a number of momentous events in history that occurred in October. The battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066 in which the present Queen Elizabeth II’s distant ancestor William of Normandy conquered England and established his line of succession which is unbroken to this day.

Fast-forward to the United States in 1962, 50 years ago to the week of this writing, the United States and the Soviet Union faced off in what has become to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Many have opined that this is the closest the world has ever come to wholesale nuclear war. Some dispute this, and I reserve judgment. It was nevertheless a significant turning point in the Cold War. An ironic note: of the three major participants, President John F. Kennedy, Soviet president (or whatever his title was ) Nikita Khrushchev, and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, Kennedy was assassinated little more than a year later, Khrushchev was deposed in 1964 and died in 1977. Castro remains alive and in actual, if not formal, power (although his current state of health is a matter of mystery and speculation). On an even more ironic note, Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita’s son is now a U.S. citizen, and lives in Rhode Island.

Tomorrow is the 131^st anniversary of the Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. As insignificant as this event probably was, it made Wyatt Earp a legend of the old West, and spawned no fewer than five motion pictures. Made millions for Hollywood.

And of course, today October 25 is St. Crispin’s Day. I, of course, had to write this to acknowledge this blog’s patron. King Henry V of England led his troops to victory on this day at Agincourt in northern France. The battle and leadership Henry displayed was immortalized in Shakespeare’s play of that name, which is a source of a number of well-known adages, including the blog’s title.

As for current events, this month leads up to a Presidential election, which many commentators are calling one of the most important in our history. To my mind, that is a bit of hubris on the part of pundits (isn’t it amazing how many foreign words become commonplace in our language). The historical importance of elections is not determined until they become, in fact, historical. There is little question that it will be close. On New Year’s Day of this year I predicted that it would be, and I have no reason to change my mind.

As for the weather, today was warm and windy, but is at this writing becoming cool and windy, and tonight according to Texas standards anyway it will be almost cold.

But it is one more day that I’ve outlived, and I plan, shortly, to go home – I hope my journey of about one mile to be safe.

Friends, give me a break; cut me some slack; allow me to engage in a little rhetorical hyperbole. I know that Big Tex was not a god, or an idol like the Golden Calf – er, make that Golden Bull. But he was an icon, a mascot, and an, almost, living symbol of the great State Fair of Texas, which I suppose is itself somewhat of a hyperbole.

Because of our 24/7 news reporting, many if not most of those who read this already know that Big Tex caught fire and burned from his boots to his 100 gallon hat this past Friday, two days before the Fair closed for the year. He had been there 60 years. As a matter of fact my first State Fair in 1952 was also that of Big Tex. My mom remembers taking me and my brothers and sisters to the fair that year, and, the day before the immolation, Martha and I took my mom. Witness this photo.

I’m not going to go into the history of big Tex that has been related over and over again, others than to mention he started his life as a Santa Claus in a small town in Navarro County Texas, and was purchased for $750 to begin anew at the fair. To say that he was living and breathing, of course, is going a bit too far, but his voice was that of radio announcer Jim Lowe until the 1990s, when a new voice took over. Unlike they computerized voices many puppets and machines have today, Tex always had a live human being making the announcements.

This is not an obituary, because the State Fair management, and the mayor of Dallas, have said that Tex would rise again at the fair next year. After all, only his clothes, boots, and fiberglass head and hat were destroyed. The steel armature, or skeleton, remained intact, and was respectfully removed from his place in a shroud.

So, the metaphor, or imagery if you will, is not that of the Immolation of the Gods as in Richard Wagner’s stupendous opera. It will be the Flight of the Phoenix, or if you will, a secular resurrection.

See you at the State Fair next year. We can meet by Big Tex.