No Sharpie Will Help Here

Remember when reporters were concerned about how the American people would react in a real crisis after the President drew on a map so he could justify a tweet mistake about a hurricane?  Remember how they said he couldn't be trusted is he started  Well here we are.  Last night the President ordered the death of a high ranking member of the ruling party in Iran.  It appears that he did it based on some need to respond to recent attacks on the American Embassy in Baghdad.  It also appears that he never went to Congress to inform them as is a typical process.  The Gang of Eight, the leaders of both parties in each house and the chairs and ranking members of the intelligence committees are briefed before such a action is taken.   The Secretary of State went on TV and said the President had to act swiftly based on intelligence of imminent threats, thus couldn't go to Congress.
However, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he was briefed on it before the strike took place.  Here is where the problems come in.  If President Trump was discussing this at Mar-A-Lago with some members but not the leadership then how do the American people know any of this is true.  Could the attack simply be the result of a fit of pique or worse, an attempt to deflect from a recent barrage of bad information coming out in relation to both the current Impeachment and Mueller investigation. 

This lack of confidence in what the government is doing and saying leads to nonsense that in the social media world will spread like wildfire.  For example:  Eric Trump made a stupid, but non-related, tweet about ass kicking (in response to a tweet about marines in Iraq) and the world thought he was told in advance when he deleted the tweet.  The vacuum that created now has internet bloggers and some in the media asking if the sons of the President were read into the decision to assassinate the second most powerful person in the Iranian government. 

Let's be clear.  General Qasem Soleimani was a terrible person, a butcher, a zealot and a terrorist.  He is directly responsible for dozens of deaths of Americans and many more of civilians.  He was a legitimate target and there is no question his death took evil out of the world.  I am not sure however that his killing was good in the short term and maybe not in the long term.

The Secretary of State has also said in an interview that we are safer as Americans at home and in the region because of Soleimani's death but we are telling people to leave Iraq and be careful in the region.  This again goes to the confidence that the government, in the midst of a crisis, should be telling us the truth and isn't.  A common phrase heard today is WAG THE DOG, in reference to the idea that this action was taken not in the US interest but in the personal interest of the President, and for many, like the Eric Trump tweet, it is easily believed.  This is the nightmare scenario.  This vacuum will create a space for nonsense and propaganda to grow and dangerous voices to hold sway.  President Trump said today that the assassination was because there was credible evidence that Soleimani was targeting Americans.  He also said that we do not seek regime change in Iran.  I am not sure a lot of people will believe him.  Both here in the states and worse leaders on the world stage.  Tonight Iran mourns a man they saw as a hero.  Tomorrow they will again be in the street shouting "Death to America" and who knows where they will be on Monday. 

I won't pass judgement on the President and his advisers wanting Soleimani dead.  I will say that his death might be a moment of good feeling, with a future that is uncertain and scary for many around the world.  I don't know if the President took into account what this meant.  I don't know if the President realized this was not just taking out a terrorist.  I don't know if the President didn't seriously weigh all the different options that were available and saw this action as the best.  I don't know because no one is giving straight answers and our experience with this President suggests the opposite of all that.  What I do know is that a terrorist leader is dead at the hands of American action, in volatile region of the world and there is no indication that the President's team is all on the same page, or even in the same book.  We need a President who can talk to the American people and tell them what happened, why and how the world changed because of it and be fully believed.  We currently don't have that.  Watching the Secretary of State on TV this morning, listening the the President this afternoon and reading other people in the government talk suggests that they haven't all got their stories straight.  So now, as the US has entered a new phase in the Middle East, we wait and hope that the tensions be calmed.  Maybe we should also take away the President's sharpies. 

Who Gets the Cookies.

Imagine a classroom where at snack time 5 children sit at a table and the teacher brings out 10 cookies.  Three of the children get 3 cookies each and the other two split one.  Over time the 2 children who had to share that single cookie are getting a cookie each and there is talk that one day get 2 whole cookies.  The children who used to get 3 cookies each are angry and saying that the other children are changing the way things have been done and it is not fair that they have to give something up.  This is what I see our American culture like today.

As the Christmas season is ending for most, we once again were exposed to a lie that somehow since the current President was elected people are free to say Merry Christmas.  To be clear saying that phrase has never been banned by anyone in government nor has there been any real attempt to eliminate it from our language.  A few retail companies did start using Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings in ads and for employees when speaking to customers they didn't know.  But from the halls of Congress and the White House the phrase Merry Christmas was a common greeting every December for as long as I can remember.  But there have been more and more communities that have begun to acknowledge, either by legal decree or growing awareness, that they are more diverse than just Christians.   The changing of forcing children, for example, at school programs to attend events with Santa or sing songs about the birth of Jesus when that is not their faith tradition has been met with anger in some circles.  Like the kids who lost their cookie advantage there are some suggesting that their Christmas is ruined.  When in fact that there is nothing ruined.  Christmas season starts earlier and earlier each year.  There is no lack of Christmas opportunity for people around the country.  But the very inclusion of other traditions in that space has been almost exclusively Christmas has some people riled up.  Without a thought of what it must be like for a child who doesn't celebrate Christmas forced to either spend class time learning Christmas music and visiting with Santa or having to sit in the office these people feel that their children are being cheated.  This sense of privilege is a problem that many in government are now promoting by repeating the lies of the President. 

Religion is only one arena where this privilege but one that we have seen take the forefront.  A recent viral video of a woman, standing in front of a mosque in Brooklyn, saying "this is Brooklyn" astonished that she can hear the call to prayer.  The fairly quiet broadcast to the neighborhood (compared to some I have heard in some places) did not seem to have a rejection from most of the people walking down the street, but for her it was somehow a problem.  This feeds the old creeping Sharia nonsense.  Muslims have been part of our country since before we were a country.  But demonizing their existence is part of a bigger picture.  While church bells can be heard for miles why can't the few minutes a day of a call to prayer can be broadcast?  Because it makes some people uncomfortable. 

This problem is growing in our country.  Some people don't want to make room for others to join the table and get the cookies.  This has been part of our country's history.  We had grown past it I thought.  But today I am in shock, after several attacks of Jews in the New York City area in recent weeks after a couple of years of murders in synagogues in Pittsburgh and San Diego and Los Angeles and and and a man walked into a house of a rabbi and stabbed several people.  This is a form of terrorism that is intended, by all accounts, to force Jews out of the public eye.  Maybe even out of a community.  That is a serious issue and if we keep saying that the kinds of things coming from members of the right wing this will get worse. 

Diversity is our strength.  We can't marginalize groups because some feel they are losing their seat of supremacy.  We need to learn to share and add to our great American culture.  It is a deep seated value we have had from the beginning.  We may not have always lived up to that standard but we can't stop trying.  Everyone should have access to the cookies.  

When Impeachment is Just Another Wednesday

It is Wednesday, December 18, 2019 and the third President of the United States in the history of our Republic will be impeached by the House of Representatives by the end of the day.  While it seems like a major event for many as the media has unending coverage and there were protests in the street, somehow it doesn't seem at all to be anything special in this Presidency.  In fact it simply feels like the cliffhanger at the end of a season of a TV drama where the main character has acted badly throughout and the question is will this when he is held accountable.  This is in part because it feels like every day for the past 3 years we have had to think about the President of the United States, and not in a good way.  I get asked, often, "did the President do anything today?".  A question of preparation for perhaps watching an evening news program.  We have become programmed to wonder what the person in what is the most powerful seat in the world is doing and hoping that it is for the greater good and not otherwise.  Because of this impeachment, a solemn and sober act to remove the leader of the country, is just another event in a string of events around this President. 

 Just think about this, last week or so the President of the United States was ordered to pay $2 million to charities because he defrauded them prior to his election, he wrote a 6 page rant to Speaker of the House Pelosi full of insults and lies (and spelling errors) on White House Letterhead that looks more like a chain email forwarded without comment, his personal lawyer went on television to tell the world that he in fact helped oust a career anti-corruption ambassador because she was in the way, and of course tweeted 100 times in a single day attacking everyone who cares to question his actions. 

Our new normal is to assume the President of the United States will do something outside the bounds of typical behavior for a chief executive and well it is Trump being Trump.  That is a problem.  You may be happy that he is putting unqualified ideologues on the Federal bench to make it more conservative and less about law, with an economy that continued to grow during his Presidency, at least for many sectors and it may make you feel good that he expresses those dark thoughts you have out loud about minorities and immigrants.  But the current environment is not healthy for America, and if you can't see that I understand.  A fish does not know it is wet.  But I hope people will seriously take a look at what is going on around us. The President has been moving more and more into the role of a tyrant where he no longer believes in the rule of law, the Constitution and the functional norms of our country.   When Elizabeth Willing Powel asked Ben Franklin about our new Constitution he answered,  "We have a Republic, if we can keep it."  A President who doesn't care about American values and norms is a threat to keeping it.  This may be a tyrant that you like, but all tyrants eventually find fault with everyone, and when they do I hope we are all here to stand against it. 

When We Want to Know How Old the Earth is Do We Ask a Preacher?

In recent weeks, the Ohio state house of representatives passed a law that allows students to answer questions with religious information and thus can’t be penalized for it.   The law is said to allow a student to write an essay on Jesus if asked about the greatest living human, but it clearly has the ability to challenge the teaching of scientific principles and facts like evolution in public schools.  The idea is that a student shouldn’t have to give up a religious belief for a grade and I agree.  But it looks to many that it can be extended to allow a student to not answer certain questions with a religious response when asked for a scientific one;  that is troubling.  The age of the earth for example is not 6000 or even 10,000 years old, as some believe. 

One can argue that both science and religion explain the way the world works and exists.  In fact there are many who believe that their canonized scripture is the only way and that any discovery that contradicts it is simply wrong.   A sign as you enter the Creation Museum in Kentucky, a so-called museum not far from the Ohio border that teaches the Biblical narrative of creation as fact reads something to the effect of:  Any discovery that challenges the facts of the Bible must be wrong.    

If the most expansive reading of this law is applied, then there is a problem with how grades will be given out.  Holding a belief is not the issue, using it in place of a scientific fact is problematic.  When you take a class and get a grade it is not just for you, but it tells the next person you encounter what to expect of you.  My Organic Chemistry professor put it like this in college “I can give you all As but then the next person that sees you in an academic or work setting will expect you to have knowledge you may not have and you will fail.  Better to learn it now when you have a chance to master it then when there are higher consequences”.  That stuck with me both as a student and an educator.  The grade must be an agreed upon standard.  If you were to allow a student to think the world is 6000 years old and validate it with a grade that could be a problem in the future.  It will also mean that if a student attends a university outside of Ohio they may run into a rude awakening.     

Facts should matter in school and frankly everywhere.  There is a growing trend to elevate so-called alternative facts, as an advisor to the President once said.  The idea that things don’t have to be accurate, if one has a strong belief in what they are saying.  What Steven Colbert once called truthiness.  Facts must be the center of knowledge.  While there are many places that opinion can come into the education process, the facts of science must be known to get a good grade in a science class, even if you reject them for religion.      

I applaud Ohio for trying to clarify that when students bring their faith into their assignments they must not be penalized or told they can’t do so.  Students who have strongly held beliefs who are being educated in public schools do have a right to their beliefs, and they should not be made to change them.  They can discuss them in class within reason, as long as they don’t disrupt other’s education.  But when asked about evolution, the age of the earth, or disease theory they should have to answer with the facts that they were taught.  Even if they reject them.  I am not a fan of Piaget’s theories of development, in fact I think he is wrong.  However, I learned them, I know them, I can be critical of them from an understanding of them, and I passed my test on them in college.   

We don’t know if the law will ever be enacted, nor how it will be applied.  It may open the door a crack to try to bring in alternative views that oppose the scientific view.  It might be a way to protect the religious freedom that sometimes comes under attack in a school setting when ignorance of those rights is the norm.  However, I think there is a way to write a law that protects the freedom without expanding it beyond what education should be.  We will need to keep an eye on this.  Knowledge drives a free people.  Ignorance is easily exploited and we can suffer the consequences of ignorance in the future if we are not careful.  Maybe we already are.

Love and Hate: An Evening in Two Acts

I don't think I have ever been through a more antipodean evening than the other night.  I went to a dinner sponsored by the Immigrant Welcome Center here in Indianapolis.  An organization that is funded to help support the settlement of immigrants and refugees in Central Indiana.  Run by a friend and amazing woman Terri Morris-Downs, who will soon be retiring, the organization has made life alerting and affirming opportunities happen for people who chose the United States as a place to live out their dreams.  The coalition in the room included business leaders, community service providers, religious representatives and a few political folks.  We heard about the importance of the immigrant communities to the greater Indianapolis area and what is being done by such diverse people as the CEO of the Indiana Fever, the Mexican Consul General and a Eli Lilly Scientist.  We also got to see the real work of the organization as many people thanked Terri for her years of dedication to making Indianapolis a welcoming place for people from around the world.  The entire evening was a tribute to the ideal that is so important to our nation, that we are a place of hope for many and many of us who are here now and established owe a sense of gratitude to those ancestors of ours who chose to leave their home to journey to a new world and create a life that led to the future we share that they envisioned in their dreams. 

So I came home in time to watch some news only to see Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of Citizen and Immigration Services (CIS) at a Congressional hearing.  Cuccinelli is only in the acting role because even though he is a Republican, he would not have the votes to become the permanent director because of his draconian stance on many issues.  Today he was trying to defend and deflect from a policy change that he, himself, helped create that would end Medically Deferred Action Program (MDAP).  This program allows for immigrants in this country to remain to get life saving medical treatment if being deported would result in them not getting that treatment in their native country.  Basically, CIS sent letters to families earlier this year that gave them a month to leave the country or be in violation, in some cases this would mean a death sentence to a child getting life sustaining care in the US.  In some cases the reason that the family was here was to help develop protocols for treatment for rare disorders.   Meaning that the doctors sought out and brought children to the US to try new ways to keep children alive with a disorder that was so rare that treatment was slow to come.  Now Cuccinelli and his boss President Trump wanted to just kick them out of the country and if they die, well that is the nature of things.  It was sickening. 

Good reporting and a parade of people who are alive because of MDAP testifying on Capital Hill had them change their mind and to my knowledge none have been deported.  However the very notion that we, as a country, would send young people off to certain death, for no reason but that some people thing the only good immigrant comes from a northern European country turns my stomach.  It appears that much of the rhetoric around the idea of illegal immigration and refugees is just cover for an attempt to make all immigration suspect.  These children and young adults who are here to stay simply alive are no threat to anyone.  They aren't taking jobs, they aren't a drag on the economy, they aren't terrorists, but still the government, IN OUR NAME, tried to send them back.  That is wrong on every level. 

There always have been hard and sometimes bad choices made about immigration.  Stories can be told of the people whose families had barely lost their own accents attacking the idea of boats coming to THEIR AMERICA with immigrants who don't speak the language or quickly assimilate.   I wonder if the first Cuccinelli would have been welcomed with open arms by a country that was skeptical of those coming from Italy in the early 20th century.  But we have always found a way to settle new populations and they add something to the wonder that is American culture. 

The other night I found myself morally raised up by the notion of a diverse community of people committed to the idea that we can welcome people in without fear and trembling that they will somehow ruin what we have.  Immigrants have only ever added to the greatness of who we are.  I also found myself struggling that we have allowed the voices of hate and bigotry to get enough power that we have to shame them on a national level before they stop trying to deport children to certain death. 

Of course we need comprehensive immigration reform, of course we need to have a sense of who and why people are coming to the United States, but we can do it without risking the lives of so many to appear to look tough.  In Jewish folklore there are two voices that whisper to us.  The Yetzer Harah, the evil inclination and the Yetzer Hatov, the good inclination.  I felt both yelling at me the other night in the form of Ken Cuccinelli, a man who seems to despise others and Terri Morris Downs, who seems to love others.  I know who I will listen to, I hope you will too.  

When Rock Bottom Isn't.

Every time we think we have hit rock bottom in the current political situation, someone in President  Trump's orbit takes out a more powerful jackhammer.  This week we have the President and voices from the right attacking Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a decorated war veteran and Ukraine expert for going to Congress to testify to the call that shows President Trump asked the Ukrainian President to investigate Vice-President Joe Biden and his son.  Vindman was listening to the call and reports say that when the so-called transcript was being created Vindman wanted to add words the President deleted. He was ignored.  Col Vindman showed real concerns that the President was working against the interests of the United States during this call.  So of course the President's allies attack him.

On Fox on the Laura Inghram show, John Yoo, the author of the famed torture memo and a person seen by many as an apologist for war crimes suggested the Vindman was acting as a spy for Russia?  Ukraine?   Sean Duffy, former reality star and Congress person and current Trump cultist who is inexplicably was hired by CNN as a political commentator, suggested that Vindman might be working for Ukrainian and not US interests.  Let me tell you about Vindman.

Vindman's family fled Ukraine, then part the former Soviet Union in the 80s.  His Jewish family was leaving persecution and the dictatorship that had little hope for a country of pure hope.  He lost his mother at an early age and was raised in Brighton Beach surrounded by other Ukrainian and Russian ex-pats.  He grew to love the United States and joined the military, along with his twin brother, after college.  He found himself in Iraq where he was wounded by an IED and earned a Purple Heart.  Often decorated he moved up the ranks and served on the National Security Council and in embassies in Russian and Ukraine.  His expertise on the region cannot be challenged and his patriotism should not.  Especially by people like President Trump, who paid for a doctor's note to stay out of Vietnam, joking about his youth paying for sex as his own Vietnam.  Nor the likes of John Yoo, a man banned from countries having been tried in-absentia for war crimes.  And certainly not Sean Duffy who is only relevant to anyone for being a nonsensical character on a reality program when Vindman was defending the country. 

We have seen the Trump administration set a tone that is both destructive and hurtful as people have attacked decorated military veterans, life-long members of state department and of course members of Congress.  But questioning Vindman's loyalty and patriotism to cover for a President who admitted out loud and in front of people in the act being investigated and Vindman is confirming it with facts is a such a disgusting strategy that all who continue to promote it must be shunned by polite society.  While I don't expect Fox to do anything, CNN should fire Sean Duffy and no show should book a member of Congress who repeats this nonsense.  Voters and reporters should ask everyone of Trump's supporters if they feel a decorated war veteran is a spy or traitor and if not they should stand up and call it for what it is, as Rep. Lynn Cheney did yesterday. 

We cannot allow true patriots to be denigrated by people who aren't worthy of carrying Vindman's bloody fatigues.  We are a better country.  

As A New Person Emerges, I Too Am Changed

Two years ago I posted this on my Facebook page and reminded of it today:

 So when I got to work in my box was a book of poetry written by Noah. It is called "Valedictorian of Detention" and it chronicles some of his inner-most thoughts from high school to college. There are some stunning lines my favorite from a poem "Musings of the Damned"

"Life is like a puzzle that forms no clear picture and half the pieces are missing."

This poem is a deep dive into his frustrations with anxiety and those that tried to help. A look from the other side backward. I am proud and amazed and a little ashamed that I didn't see deeper into this at the time. I am glad he found a voice. At times angry but the last poem entitled "Back from the brink" ends with

 "I am uranium, I am energy, Fire and knlife and heat and wonderous ecstasy. I AM ALIVE
And I wouldn't trade if for anything."

I am so proud of this man.....my son....(now saving money to help pay for what I hope will be an MFA).

When I read this I thought I had insight into my child.  What I missed was that my child was struggling with identity.  This summer the child known as Noah changed.  Well, not changed but found a true nature.  The child who was Noah told us that he was now N and gender non-binary.  His pronoun is THEY.  So they told me that it was the first time they felt complete and whole.

For decades I have spoken about the idea the gender is a social construct, I have always taught that our two-gender culture norm is simply opposed to reality.  Gender, different from biological sex, has always been something that is far more expansive than the masculine and feminine images that the Western World adopted in the last 1500 years or so.  In some places like among Native Americans and parts of the Indian Sub-Continent, non-binary people were seen as valued and in some classes closer to the divine.  Some times they were seen as negative, a violation of religious law, but even in those situation they were all recognized as existing and part of the world.  At times, even when confronting a religious law, people found that humanity in individuals who didn't fit into a simplified cultural definition of gender.  Now as religious traditions evolve and reform, gender differences are welcomed and more and more embraced by many in the mainstream faith and more and more by greater culture.  People are open about their own expression and as a culture we are learning to embrace the wide diversity that is human sexuality and gender in the human condition.

But here I am, thinking.  I am proud of N for finding an authentic identity.  I am proud of N for standing up for what they truly feel.  But I won't tell you it isn't hard.  There were reasons we chose the names he had carried.  Noah for their maternal grandfather and middle name Francis for my dad.  Giving those up feels weird to me.  I use to call N "the boy".  On occasion I would say Booooyyyyy like Flava Flav.  N couldn't match it and say Bweeeeeeeee  which led to my gmail address.  Bweesdad.  However I realize this is not about me.  N is an adult and as a parent of an adult my job is to love my child and to help N negotiate a world with advice but to not stand in the way of them growing into themselves.  I don't want to look at this intellectually, but that has always been my safe space when confronted with an issue that I face.  I can and have made the argument that gender is not static and cultural defined, that is not an issue.  However, as a parent, expectations of who your child will be are very emotional.  But I realize that my major goal was to have a child that knows who they are, is happy with who they are, and sees a future that they can build for themselves.  I thin what N is telling me is that he is getting there.  I will stand where N needs me to stand with him to help as much or as little as they need.  So know my own education begins on how to be that parent.  I will stumble, I will use the name Noah on occasion, I will refer to they as THE BOY in a moment of thoughtlessness, I will suggest things that are not helpful.  But I will never give up my love for the child I helped raise and for the adult N will be.  I am happy to celebrate with my child the newly discovered person N is.  Remind me when I stumble.

Abandoning Our Allies

The Kurds are a large ethnic group whose origins are in northwest Iran and whose historical region includes northern Iraq and Syria along with Iran.  Since the bronze age the Kurdish people have developed a distinct culture.  For centuries they have been living under the rule of others.  After World War I, when Winston Churchill and the British government carved up the old Ottoman Empire there was an attempt to develop a Kurdistan for the Kurds.  However the treaty would not be signed by some so the Kurds were left out of getting autonomy.  This had led to oppression and genocide in the course of their history in the countries that they were living.  I first learned about the Kurds in the 1990s when I ran into a Kurdish protest at the Turkish embassy in Amsterdam.  Until that time they were just another ethnic group in the tapestry of the southwest Asia.  Over the next decades the Kurds played an important role in the global war on terror and the changing face of the Middle East.  Most recently the Kurds have been US allies in Syria in the fight against ISIS.  More than 10,000 Kurds have lost their lives in efforts to contain ISIS terrorists in Syria and were on the vanguard in various battles that President Trump has over and over again taken credit for in the stories he tells the American people.  The Kurds were beginning to get a similar autonomous region in Syria much to the concern of Turkey.  The US forces in Syria have held back Turkey who wants to move into Syria and set up a security zone in northern Syria and move out the Kurds.  That was until this week.  President Trump, after what appears to be consultation with President Erdogan of Turkey has decided to move out US forces.  This morning we are seeing the results.  Turkey is bombing Kurdish areas in Syria and have amassed tanks at the border.  Russia is also on the move to help clear out the area.  This also plays into the hand of Putin in Russia. 

It appears the lack of intelligence and his fragile ego has led the President to make foreign policy decisions around the world.  We saw it in North Korea where he got played because Kim Jong Un flattered him.  We see it with Russia who appears to simply make fun of Trump there while pretending to be his friend.  We are seeing it with Turkey, who apparently has seduced Trump to allow a dictator to engage in genocide.  As Turkey begins to its attempt to eliminate the Kurds from the border every one of those deaths is on the head of President Trump.  A President who is abandoning our allies in favor of autocrats who play him like a fiddle.  It is disgusting at best and frightening at worst.  In the next few months we will see the result of Trump's lack of knowledge and concern for the United States standing in the world.  This while he is calling on foreign governments to gin up claims against his political opponent here.  He appears to want to be in the club of dictators around the world.  Is it possible that this is his hazing?  You may not think the Kurds are important.  You may not know anything about them.  But this morning they are under fire and our President is responsible, if we do nothing, so are we.  

You Added a Word. Narrator voice: No He Didn't.

In August a whistle blower in the American intelligence community sent a report to the Inspector General of his division about a phone call between the President of the United States and a foreign leader.  The IG followed procedure and along the way the White House blocked the information about the problematic issues from being sent to Congress, which is in violation of the law.  Good reporting made it known and after some attempts to keep it quiet the White House released not only the whistle blower's report to the IG but a summary of the phone call.  We now know what the troubling aspects of the call were and why looking at a bigger picture in US policy in relation to Ukraine might be troubling.  However, it appears that the Trump supporting pundit class and members of Congress must think that gaslighting will really help the petroleum industry because they are on television for the last few days constantly lying like they are getting paid to do it.  It is remarkable, this isn't the kind of lying we are used to from pundits and elected officials.  This isn't just a distortion of the truth or looking from a different perspective.  These were straight up lying.  Many said this was simply hearsay which should have no value.  It does since it has been corroborated.  They said that the hearsay law was changed recently, it wasn't.  Kevin McCarthy, the highest Republican in Congress, when read the words of the summary of the call were read to him said the Scott Pelly added a word.  Others have said that following the whistle blower law is treason and a dangerous precedent.  These lies are simply made up nonsense so I have questions. 

1.  If what the President was doing is so normal and legal why all the lies?
2.  Why is there so much effort to keep the information from Congress? 
3.  Why is a personal lawyer of the President doing foreign policy? 

One answer appears to be an attempt by the President and his team to get dirt on Joe Biden in connection with his son's role in a Ukrainian energy company.  But the focus seems to also be to confirm a widely debunked conspiracy theory that it was Ukrainian and not Russian operatives who hacked the DNC server during the 2016 election and did so to benefit the election of Hillary Clinton. 

I continue to be amazed by the Republican party who continues to carry water for a clearly corrupt President, even now as we see possible impeachable offenses in relation to foreign policy and American intelligence.  Where are the leaders in the party?  Senator Chuck Grassley did come out to stand with the whistle blower law and demanded protection of whoever he or she is, because the White House and others are calling for the name to be released and calling him or her a spy, a deep-state actor, or worse. 

If you are a Trump supporter, I have to ask, what can the President do that violates our values and laws that would make you speak out?  When has he crossed the line if at all?  Should he be held responsible for any of that?  It seems like people are willing to go on TV and in print simply trying to create a different reality..  Is that the world you want to live in?  j

Bias-Awareness and Our Own Common Prejudices

 I was already feeling less than generous about the world as I pulled in to get gas this morning.  Drivers seemed to not notice others around them and as I turned into the station cars were parked everywhere, making the actual turns into the slip difficult at best.  So when I finally got to the pump I looked up to notice a Jeep in front of me.  It was older and looked well used, maybe a work vehicle.  In the back window was  a Star Wars family sticker.  (you know like the stick figures you see only with Yoda, Luke etc.) and then I saw another one.  It said "My family is different from yours" and it was pictures of guns see here.  Above was an NRA sticker.  So immediately I thought for a second who the person might be who drives this car.  When he came out to pump his gas I was trying to find something I lost in my car.  When my tank was full I took out the nozzle out and proceeded to get ready to go when I heard "Have a great Rosh Hashanah".  I looked up, the driver who had the gun family, casually dressed and likely  the stereotype I had the second I saw the sticker had wished me a happy new year, in Hebrew, a few days before the holiday.   A stranger, seeing my kippah,  made me feel included and in my head I didn't do the same.  I have to say that was an interesting feelings a few days before Rosh Hashanah.  Even after he said it I assumed he wasn't Jewish and just said thank you.  Then as we both returned to our vehicles I said, "Have a great day".  There I was, my soul naked to the world.  My prejudice was out there, in the open, and while no one else saw it, I did.   

It has haunted me all day, especially as I do High Holy Days preparation.  I was reminded of a song from my punk days.  The Offs had a song, Everyone's a Bigot, lamenting that some oppressed groups still harbor bigotry that they call to end against them.  I see that they were talking about me.   We all have biases.  Some more than others, but we all carry a series of prejudices and too often we let them come out.  Even when people are trying to fight that very thing.  Years ago I responded to a book for early childhood teachers, called The Anti-Bias Curriculum, with a workshop called Bias-Awareness Beyond the Anti-Bias Curriculum.  My point was that while trying to eliminate bias you build new ones.  The writer of the curriculum seemed hostile to deeply religious people for example.  In the end however, she felt that she had a way to eliminate bias.  We shouldn't be about eliminating bias, it should be about confronting it.  When we think we have eliminated bias, we become blind to our own. 

Confronting our own biases are difficult. There is some irony about the fact  I went to a production of 12 Angry Men at the Indiana Repertory Theatre yesterday where those 12 men, judging the life of a young man, confronted their biases head-on.  They did it in a crucible of a jury room.  It is amazing to see the bias of others laid out in the open as the play does, but it also is a strange feeling when you can see it in yourself.

Part of the High Holy Days is looking at your missing of the mark for the past year.  We are not looking to be perfect, for in fact we never can be, but addressing the short-falls and acknowledging them is an important part of who we are as Jews and I dare say human beings.  I know I have some strong prejudices. I can't really do T'shuvah for this as I will likely never see this guy again.  But it does make me think more the next time I see this kind of thing.  Perhaps this season I can make a list of where my prejudices focus on them.  For those who celebrate may the New Year bring you joy and the opportunity to see yourself how others see you, embrace the greatness they see and work on the problems we can identify.  Shana Tova. 

Why Can't We Talk about Guns?

Rep Beto O'Rourke touched what might be a new third rail of politics during the recent Democratic debate.  Well he not so much touched it but tongue kissed it on national television:  Gun confiscation.  The idea that the government is going to come an take your legally purchased weapon that you have not used to commit a crime is the nightmare scenario that has been the center of the NRA propaganda for decades.  The last time we, as a nation, banned the import and purchase of certain so-called assault weapons, Dianne Feinstein, the leader of the movement, said she would love to ask all Americans to turn those weapons in but it isn't possible.  As Joe Biden said at the recent debate, "We have a Constitution".  I see no Constitutional mechanism in the current political climate to have a mandatory buy back of any kind of gun that was legally purchased and I don't think I want one.  We can legally ban all future sales, put certain weapons in a category that requires a higher grade of scrutiny for the purchaser and of course pass laws that do take away guns from people deemed by a court they are a danger to self and/or others.  But the notion of a government program to take legally purchased guns away from people is a non-starter with the vast majority of people in Congress, and frankly I believe with the country.  It is too  dangerous for that kind of power to exist inside the government and particularly in the Executive branch.  So O'Rourke's position could have some support but it truly is a fringe and unthinking approach to this important situation.  But there are other extremes.

Recently major retailers from Wal-Mart, Kroger, Giant Eagle, CVS and Walgreens among others have asked to not open carry weapons into their stores.  The initial reacts of some is that they will boycott said stores.  Worse, some have decided to ignore that policy.  Again, one argument is that it violates their 2nd amendment rights.  Clearly it doesn't.  These stores are private property and can make the rules they want when weapons in their stores.  They aren't even asking people not to carry, just not to openly carry.  Open carry causes more concerns than it solves problems.  People, especially with rifles, walking into a grocery store usually does not make people feel safer.  In fact it brings a sense of anxiety because we don't know the intent of someone carrying it.  It also is less likely to stop any bad actors who might show up to do harm with a weapon.  First they would become the first target and secondly there is no evidence that an untrained person would be able to respond in a way that is beneficial to the situation.  Nearly anytime a civilian is seen as stopping a shooter in a public environment we learn that the person has some expertise in weapons.  So what is the benefit of open carrying?   Experts I know would rather their weapon be concealed and frankly have a weapon that is easier to pull out to respond. 

So there is a huge divide in how we see guns, gun ownership and rights.  Let's be clear, the founders enshrined a right to weapons in our Constitution.  In part because the states had to have the ability to respond to any attack on the new Republic, even if it came from our own Federal government.  The Heller decision made the right an individual right, so states can't overly regulate gun ownership.  But it also allowed for, in the decision, that, like all rights, there are limits to it.  So there is a role for government to limit who can own and what kind of weapons can be owned.  But even members of Congress don't seem to understand that.  That is where we are. 

We can have an honest conversation about weapons, but it needs to start with facts.  Too often facts are the first casualty of the emotional reactions to both views of people like Beto and that of the NRA, who, to be clear, is not about gun owners but gun makers.  We can't solve problems on the extreme.  We can't solve problems without knowing the legal protections and guard rails.  It is time to ignore that nonsense and focus on what actually can be done.  The first call should never be to groups like the NRA and shouldn't be to someone who wants to ban all guns.  They will not build the future.  That is not what we need.  We need true statesmen and stateswomen to take legal steps.  If you know one give them a call.