1 Boring Old Man

It didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would. I woke up this morning knowing what I wanted to do with this blog. Actually, I woke up knowing what was bothering me about continuing. I haven’t liked being so negative as I’ve been in the 1boringoldman posts. I make no apologies. There was a lot negative to say. It’s not paranoia when what you’re seeing behind every tree is really there. But I don’t want to get stuck in that mode. And I haven’t liked being tied to the day to day facts, though I think it was important to do that these last several years. When I read the bloglines today, there are stories about: Sarah Palin’s wardrobe excesses, a spike in gun sales, William Kristol talking about his next Project for a New American Century, Newt Gingrich [of all has-beens] being who-knows-what, what will Obama do with Gitmo, what will Obama do with N.S.A. spying, what will Obama do about Bush’s … It’s like we’re captured inside of the cloud of the day to day Bush Administration and this recent campaign. It’s wrapped around us like a cloak, obscuring everything else. It makes sense, given that the election was only five days ago, but I don’t feel personally like I have much to say about the Bush Administration’s excesses on a daily basis other than, "goodbye." I’ve had my say about those people. The only parts of the Bush Aministration I have any curiosity about are: "What else did they do that we don’t know about?" and "Why did we re-elect them, knowing enough by 2004 to know better?"

What I’d like to do with this blog is what people do who sit on Park Benches – talk more broadly about things. People sitting on Park Benches don’t just rant about their shared outrage. Okay, maybe they do a lot of that. But sometimes, they actually discuss things they don’t understand. Like, throughout my life, there’s been a dichotomy between Liberal and Conservative that often reaches absurd dimensions. Something that should be an adjective, the liberal perspective, becomes a noun, a Conservative, that gets a new adjective, goddamn Liberal or goddamn Conservative. While it’s in the nature of human logic to express oneself using straw men, it feels to me like this particular way of characterizing others has gotten way out of hand in this country. America has a unique experiment going. We’re so heterogeneous that we don’t have any shared ethnic, religious, or racial bonds. What we’ve got is a short history of existing, and an even shorter history on the world stage. So we have now, and have always had, divisive forces unlike much of the old world, similar but bigger. I’d like to talk about that on a Park Bench.

As much as we think that we’ve got a clear policy about the separation of religion from government, these last several years make it abundantly clear thats more a wish of some of us than a reality. What can we do to resolve this very sticky problem? And this recent Administration has shown that the Justice system is vulnerable to attack by a morality that is not universal. We tend to see the Judiciary as operating outside the political sphere. That’s certainly not true anymore. Both of these things seem like Park Bench topics.

But even these topics are still inside the "Bush Bubble." There are some things I’d like to talk about that are over on the side of things. Our founders laid a base for our basic government. It’s pretty good, but they made a mistake or two – mostly because of their being caught up in their own historical bubble. They said, "all men are created equal." While we like to think "men" meant "mankind," that’s not how it played out. They neglected to give women the vote, and they didn’t abolish slavery. That left out a majority of "mankind." And it’s not a trivial point. I feel good that the Women’s Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement are well on their way – perhaps a generation away from part of our culture. But Gay Americans are still at the starting gate. So are Hispanics. But even these groups are way ahead of the game compared to our treatment of others – like Gitmo or Abu Ghraib. I think this is bigger than the "Bush Bubble." We haven’t figured out yet how relate as Americans to each other and to non-Americans – a pretty good Park Bench topic, because it has to do with balancing legitimate self-interest with principles.

Our founders left us to our own devices when it comes to our economy. Free Market Capitalism has once again proved itself to be untentable. There’s no question that we are and will be a Capitalist Country. Communism had its day in court, and the verdict was clear. But Capitalism without constraint is like a society without laws. Sooner or later someone will come along and find a way to exploit it. Now we have what I think of as Welfare C.E.O.‘s [analogous to the mythic Welfare Mother who has babies to get welfare checks]. They start companies or join companies in order to leave with an enormous severence payoff. That has to stop, but how? And we have Welfare Traders – people who raid the Stock Market for millions [billions] by trading commodities that have no solid value [like credit default swaps]. That’s not freedom, that’s crime in my book. What can we do about such a situation while maintaining our freedom? Park Bench the topic is my answer [notice Park Bench can be used as a verb].

So I don’t know how to go about it yet, and these topics are just some on my mind today, but what I want to try to do is create a format where those of us who have endured these Bush years can get a bit above the day to day news and talk about the many fundamental questions that lead to or arose in the Bush years. I approach this idea gently having started several blogs that were to be "shared" or a "dialogue" only to find myself the only contributor. So I’m going to think about it a while. I expect there are some of you that are interested, but inhibited about writing or talking out loud. I expect there are others who might be worried about committing time in an otherwise busy life schedule. So I’m going to ponder this some more and look at formats that are minimally intimidating. But I like the Park Bench idea a lot.

I’ll end by re-telling a personal story. My father grew up in a poor immigrant family where life was essentially "chores." I on the other hand, was growing up on a regular street, in a regular town, without the hardship he’d experienced. He and I spent a lot of time butting heads about what was a reasonable "chore" list for a regular kid [me] who had important things to do – like read, or hang out with friends, or moon over girls, or just think. I often said, "Just because I’m sitting, doesn’t mean I need to be given something to do." Even more often than that, he said, "If you keep [fill in the blank], you’re going to end up on a Park Bench," implying that I was constitutionally "lazy." Some of this was in earnest, some in fun, but it went on for exactly eighteen years.

When I bought my office town house, I put a Park Bench out front where I drank my coffee and read the paper in the morning and on breaks. I guess it was my way of saying, "Dad, you were right," while basking in the fact that the Park Bench was in front of my own building instead of on Skid Row. I think it was both an affectionate memorial and a testament of defiance that lead to that Park Bench. When I retired, I brought the bench with me. It’s the one on the right in the header picture in front of our cabin. So the idea of a Park Bench blog has an added significance for me. It asserts my right to ponder, and to talk, and to listen without having to do anything. A lot of my best thinking was done on that bench…