Politics, George Washington, and Elena Kagan . . .

It's politics, stupid . . .

It seems that for the second time in a few short weeks, I feel moved to riff on James Carville's famous 1992 phrase about the economy that may just have sent George H.W. Bush down into the flames of defeat to Bill Clinton. Only today, I don't want to talk about the economy, I want to talk about politics.

As I've also said frequently in this blog, I'm sent books by publishers because I do book pieces for NPR. Last week, a big box arrived from Bloomsbury Press, and among the books inside it was John Ferling's The Ascent of George Washington, which is subtitled "The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon."

George Washington 1782

Our first president is generally held to have operated above the political fray. As historian Michael Beschloss writes,

Washington's dream [was] that America might forever be governed by natural consensus--no parties, no factions, just patriots.

Indeed, once he'd obtained great power, George Washington quite frequently strove to position himself apart from any and all power brokering, having famously stated,

I hope that I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man. (1783)

and

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. (1783)

and

All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity. (1790).

I haven't finished Ferling's book, but I'm far enough along to think that he makes a pretty good case that George Washington appears in history as such a non-political animal mostly because he was such a skilled one.

In my reading, he's just finished his first years of service in the Virginia Militia (picture at left shows Washington in Militia uniform), attaining dizzying heights mostly by skillful milking of family connections (along with occasional  flashes of bravery counterbalanced by incidents of military bungling). In other words, John Ferling is making a fully documented case that the Father of our Country was as skillful a political animal as anyone else who's served as an elected official in America.

I find finding out that our first president was as enmeshed in politics as the rest of them comforting as we brace ourselves for Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. President Obama nominated her the Monday after conservative Utah Republican Senator Bob Bennett's stunning failure to get himself renominated because he wasn't deemed conservative enough. As Howard Fineman writes for MSNBC:

The farther to the right the GOP moves, the less willingness it will have to vote for any Obama nominee, even one with a hard-to-pin down track record (and reputation for team play) like Kagan.

Tea Party pressure is particularly important in the context of the Kagan nomination when you give it a close eye in the Senate. For example, Bennett’s Utah buddy, Sen. Orrin Hatch, is a key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will conduct televised hearings on the Kagan pick.

Hatch loves to play the role of the reasonable guy, willing to cut deals across the aisle. But Bennett had that reputation, too — which is why he just got whacked. Hatch, who is up for reelection again in 2012, may not want to play the go-between role again.

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has never filibustered a court pick and prides himself on levelheadedness when it comes to the judiciary, but he is feeling pressure from his right as well.

His handpicked candidate for the GOP Senate nomination in his state, Trey Grayson, is likely to lose to Dr. Rand Paul (son of Ron), who is Sarah Palin's pick and a Tea Party favorite.
Party leaders like Dr. James Dobson of "Focus on the Family" are siding with Paul, and McConnell is scrambling to build ties to Tea Party-types he refused to take seriously a year ago. He may want to seek favor with them by giving Kagan a hard time.

According to historian John Ferling, such power-mongering was good enough for George, so who are we to quarrel with history?

What are your thoughts on this process for figuring out who is truly qualified to sit on the Supreme Court?

Just for fun . .

I was all set to blog about Elena Kagan's nomination or Lena Horne's death or Utah Republican Senator Robert Bennett's defeat at the hands of Tea Partiers, when it occurred to me that the blogosphere already had those three subjects pretty well covered.

So, I decided instead to drag out another anecdote from my old freelancing days -- back when I drove a pickup with a camper and cruised around looking for stories. I thought perhaps on a Tuesday in the merry month of May, I might not be the only person ready to take a break from keeping up with the news.

The following is what I think of as a "hollar story" -- a story that involves a person who lives up in the deep crevices of this country and doesn't particularly want to live anywhere else. I've spent quite a lot of time chatting on front porches with such folks about bear and rattlesnake hunting, cooking, making a living, and family. The following, I think, tells the story of the only time I got relationship advice.

This story comes from fairly far back in the vault. Here you go. . .

Sex Education

There was once an old squatter who lived west of Charlottesville, up in one of the hollars. I'd met her doing a freelancing assignment the year before this particular afternoon took place. She lived in an unpainted shack beside a dusty road, and she spent her summer days sitting on the front porch of her house spying on her world.

Her name was Maggie. I have no idea what her age was or how she ended up in that house. She had kin in Criglersville who checked up on her once a month or so. In between these visits, she just survived and stayed vigilant. I think it is not impolite to say Maggie was pretty much out there, viewing the world from a different vantage point than most of the rest of us.

I pulled up in front of Maggie’s house late one summer afternoon and asked if I could stop and chat for a while. Everyone has their price, and Maggie’s price for her conversation was a large bottle of Pepsi. So I drove to the nearest store, got her a Pepsi and brought it back.

We settled on the porch and Maggie started talking. Her first subject was her family and what they had done to her. Then she moved on to her neighbors and what they had done to her. Cars rolled by occasionally and kicked up dust that covered us and the porch. Maggie hated the dust and told me all about all the things she did to try to keep it out of her house.

Suddenly, right in the middle of our housekeeping discussion, she asked if I was married.

“No, Maggie,” I replied. “I’m not married.”

We sat in silence for a moment. I felt that Maggie was studying me, making a decision as to whether I was suitable for girl talk.

Finally, she spoke again. “Better off, ain’t you?” she asked.

I didn’t understand. “Pardon?”

“Better of,” Maggie repeated. “Ain’t got nobody to boss you.”

“Oh,” I said, thinking of the two nice men to whom I'd  been briefly married. “I guess so, Maggie.”

Silence again.

“I was almost married once,” Maggie said. She grinned. “I used to go with a fellow. I did.”

“So, why didn’t you marry him, Maggie,” I asked.

“Didn’t want to.”

“Why didn’t you want to?”

Another silence.

Then Maggie leaned over and lowered her voice. “You know what men do with you at night, don’t you?” she asked. She was so dusty her lined face looked eroded.

“No, Maggie,” I said. “What do men do with you at night?”

“They take you out,” Maggie said, leaning even closer. “They take you out in the dark . . . and then they kill you.”

 I do not remember what I said in response. I guess I was speechless. Which, as you might imagine, does not happen very often.

For Mother's Day Monday, the big business of birthing . . .

Hodnett ED, Downe S, Edwards N, and Walsh D did a study in 2005 on  "Alternative [homelike] versus conventional institutional settings for birth." The study concluded, "home-like institutional birth settings reduce the chances of medical interventions and increase maternal satisfaction, but it is important to watch for signs of complications."

Any

Early last month, I posted something rather silly on Facebook, and I think it was WMRAer Suzanne Keene who suggested I report on something important, such as the closing of the Birthing Center at Stonewall Jackson Hospital in Lexington. Okay, it took a while, but in light of the forum taking place today in Lexington, I felt today was finally the day.

Stonewall Jackson Hospital is more properly known as Carilion Stonewall Jackson Hospital. Its birthing center closed on the first of this month. Coincidentally, the Bedford Memorial Hospital (which operates "in partnership" with Carilion) announced the closing of its Birthing Center in October.

The hospitals are both critical access hospitals -- federally certified to meet the needs of under-served (rural) areas.  This means that they do not offer state-of-the-art emergency care for baby and mother should there be birthing complications.

The two Birthing Centers are contrasts in busy-ness. Seventy-three percent of Bedford women are already traveling to other, larger hospitals. In Lexington, however, 55% of area woman giving birth used the Birthing Center.

"We held on as long as we could," Dr. Thomas McNamara, president of Stonewall Jackson, said in a news release. "We are the last Critical Access hospital in the state to offer OB [obstetric] services, but we simply don't have enough patients and physician participation to continue."

I'm not sure whether viability was attached to profitability.

Evidently Suzanne Keene is not the only Lexington-area person who disagrees with the decision to close the Birthing Center. Domnica Radulescu, chair of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at Washington and Lee University sent me this e-mail, which I thought I'd pass along:

The Women's and Gender Studies Program at Washington and Lee University . . . is organizing and sponsoring a discussion Forum on the issue of the recent closing of the Birthing Center at Stonewall Jackson Hospital in Lexington.  The Forum will take place on Monday May 10 at 4:00 p.m., in the Elrod Commons Living room of W&L university and will be hosted by program chair Domnica Radulescu and moderated by Psychology Professor and member of the WGS Program Julie Woodzicka.

Although the WGS program is an Academic program we see the recent decision made by Carilon and the issues confronting women in our area as a result of this decision as a clear illustration in real life of many of the theoretical and historical components explored by students and faculty in our program and feel compelled to become involved in efforts to deal with the situation as a productive way of putting theory into practice and of seeing feminist activism in action.

The closing of the Birthing Center is deemed to have numerous negative impacts on the communities of Rockbridge and Allegheny counties. It will affect the lives and health of women and babies in the area and make it much harder, particularly for economically disadvantaged women, to obtain high quality prenatal, birthing and post natal care for themselves and their infants.  It will also make it harder to draw young professionals to the area, including hiring new faculty at Washington and Lee.

The main purpose of the forum is to create a safe space for a productive discussion on the options, initiatives and solutions to this problem and find the most productive ways as a community to respond to this challenge and help women and children in the area.  There already have been petitions circulated as well as efforts to look at the implementation of such projects as a free standing clinic for pregnant women, shared maternity and other ideas.  Health care professionals such as the certified nurse midwife from Roanoke Kate Winstead will be present and speak at the Forum. These efforts have been led largely by Cassandra Perez and Gloria Smitka who will also speak at the forum on Monday. 

  Any thoughts on this situation? On the business of birthing in general?

Us and Willie McGee

Before we are anything else, the WMRA community is a community of listeners. This is why I want to be sure you knew of a rare listening experience to be had today on All Things Considered -- Radio Diaries' exploration of the case of Willie McGee, a black man who may or may not have been guilty of raping a white woman, who was put to death in Mississippi's traveling electric chair on May 8, 1951.

His trial and execution are generally considered to be a representation of Jim Crow's rough and racist justice on parade.
 
I grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina. In the fifth grade, my class went on a field trip to Raleigh. All I remember touring is the capitol and the penitentiary, where we were shown the electric chair. I can't remember what I felt at the time, but I can still picture that chair.

Mississippi Department of Archives and History

Onlookers in Jackson, Miss., gather around the executioner Jimmy Thompson, left, and the portable electric chair, which was mounted at the back of a truck.

The experience came back to me when I read Larry Rohter's fine piece in the New York Times about the execution of Willie McGee, and studied the children in this photograph. Don't you think they'd have much the same expressions if they were being photographed with Joltin' Joe DiMaggio? This electric chair, this executioner! Man, they're really something!

Was that me as a fifth grader? Surely not, but then children take their cues from adults, and evidently adults in the 1950's thought laying eyes on an electric chair was a real treat.

These days, no matter what our politics, no matter what we think about capital punishment, we do at least recognize now that it isn't "something!"  And there's probably no better context for considering the societal implications of the death penalty than the arrest, trial and execution of Willie McGee.

Here's Wikipedia's entry on it . . .

Willie McGee (died May 8, 1951) was an African-American from Laurel, Mississippi, who was sentenced to death in 1945 for raping a white housewife.^[1] In a time of intense racism in the United States, especially in The South, the outcome of McGee's first trial in December 1945 was effectively pre-ordained.^[1] With two confessions and overwhelming evidence against him he was convicted by three courts. The first trial lasted one day, and an all-white jury found him guilty after 2½ minutes of deliberations.^[1]
McGee's legal case became a cause célèbre.^[1] William Faulkner wrote a letter insisting the case against McGee was unproven.^[2] Bella Abzug brought his appeals in Mississippi and the Supreme Court in one of the first civil rights cases of her legal career.^[3] Other notable people spoke out: Jessica Mitford, Paul Robeson, Albert Einstein, and Josephine Baker.^[1] U.S. President Harry Truman came under international pressure to grant McGee a pardon.^[1]
McGee spent eight years in Mississippi jails prior to his execution, during which time the Communist Party Civil Rights Council gained him two new trials and several stays of execution.^[4] Supreme Court Justice Harold Burton ordered a stay in July 1950; however the full Supreme Court refused to hear McGee's final appeal.^[4]

The night before he was electrocuted by the state of Mississippi, he wrote a farewell letter to his common law wife, Rosalie:

Tell the people the real reason they are going to take my life is to keep the Negro down.... They can't do this if you and the children keep on fighting. Never forget to tell them why they killed their daddy. I know you won't fail me. Tell the people to keep on fighting. Your truly husband, Will McGee.^[4]

Radio Diaries is the public radio production house that has already brought us such series as Prison Diaries and New York Works. In public radio lingo, their Willie McGee piece is a "format breaker," meaning it's luxuriously long, rich story-telling - much longer than the typical long ATC story. It is narrated by McGee's granddaughter, Bridgette Robinson, and includes a newly discovered recording of a local radio station's play-by-play account of McGee's execution.

It will air (provided ATC's schedule doesn't change)  from 4:35:30 -4:58:18 PM EST today

Los Suns, united in protest

 

Forward Taylor Griffith

Yesterday was Cinco di Mayo, and last night the Phoenix Suns made a sartorial gesture of solidarity with the Latino community by wearing "Los Suns" jerseys. 

A sizable chunk of the national spotlight was shining on the Suns as they took to their home court at Phoenix's U.S. Airways Center. They were playing the San Antonio Spurs, in game #2 of  round #2 of the endless NBA playoffs. As Arizona Republic sports columnist E.J. Montini saw it,

We all know that politics and sports don't mix. But they sometimes collide.

On this day, the MVP of the Phoenix Suns isn't Amar'e Stoudemire or Steve Nash, but team owner Robert Sarver, with an assist from General Manager Steve Kerr. They saw a political freight train heading right toward them and - rather than veer out of the way - accelerated full-speed right into it.

Further on in Montini's column, he writes of Mr. Sarver,

He sought and received unanimous support from his players for them to wear their "Los Suns" jerseys for Game 2 on Wednesday.

He told The Arizona Republic that the new immigration law was not "the right way to
handle the immigration problem, Number 1. Number 2, as I read through the bill, it felt to me a little bit like it was mean-spirited, and I personally just don't agree with it."

I cannot think of a comparable political gesture by a major sports organization. Sports is big business; protest is risky business. As Michael Jordan famously put it when he declined to endorse Democrat Harvey Gantt in his 1990 attempt to unseat Republican Senator Jesse Helms, "Republicans buy sneakers, too."

And Los Suns donned their protest jerseys as Arizona's senior senator, John McCain, continues to voice his strong support for the new law, going on Fox News's O'Reilly Factor to claim that illegal immigrants are deliberately staging car accidents.

Mr. Sarver's quietly public protest (that's him pictured left) reminds me of the time in 1947 when much beloved white baseball player Peewee Reese walked over to the first black baseball player, Jackie Robinson, and put his arm around the man's shoulder.

Except, of course, that Mr. Sarver has a lot more money at stake.

Caesar's turf . . .

 There appears to be social pressure, world-wide, to muddle the boundaries of religion's reach. Two separate events yesterday got me to thinking about this; specifically about the command in the Christian Gospels to “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”

It seems to me we are finding it increasingly difficult to figure out what which is which. . .

Fragment fresco : Christ and the tribute; Capella Brancacci; by Masaccio. 

Event #1. . .

Greg Versen, aka Professah Blues, stopped by my office yesterday for an always welcome chat and to let me know that he had a "Letter to the Editor" in that day's Washington Post. Since it was short and to the point and beautifully written, I decided to just cut and paste it into this blog. 

What that cross in the Mojave Desert symbolizes

Tuesday, May 4, 2010; A22 

For Christians to cheer the Supreme Court's decision on the cross situated on public land ["Decision on cross highlights high court's church-state rift," front page, April 29] is to accept the court's denigration of Christianity's most sacred symbol. To accept Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's statement that the cross "is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs" but a symbol "often used to honor and respect" heroism is to reject its very meaning to all Christians.

The cross symbolizes the ultimate sacrifice of "God's only begotten son," not someone's heroic act. This decision clearly weakens that wall of separation that our forefathers had the wisdom to establish between a secular government and the sacred and non-sacred beliefs and practices of its people. This decision is clearly not a victory for Christendom.

Gregory R. Versen, Harrisonburg

Event #2 was an e-mail from a friend who's a biologist, letting me know that evolutionary geneticist and molecular biologist Francisco J. Ayala had won the Templeton Prize, given annually to honor "a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works."

According to an article on the Templeton Prize website, Dr. Ayala "has vigorously opposed the entanglement of science and religion while also calling for mutual respect between the two."

“If they are properly understood,” he [Ayala] said, “they cannot be in contradiction because science and religion concern different matters, and each is essential to human understanding.” Referring to Picasso’s Guernica, he noted that while science can assess the painting’s massive dimensions and pigments, only a spiritual view imparts the horror of the subject matter. Together, he explained, these two separate analyses reveal the totality of the masterpiece.

Dr. Ayala's "entanglement" opposition reminds me of the Texas textbook issue  of a few weeks ago. What are your thoughts about this whole issue of Caesar's turf?

The Blog is back!!

WMRA's official blogger-in-chief--that being I, Martha Woodroof--am happy to be back at the computer after my annual, personal Big Dig in the Woodroof gardens. Our flowers are, if I may say so, looking mighty fine, despite the dry weather. Invasive weeds are banished. Queen Anne's Lace and wild poppies remain as welcomed additions.

So now, it's back to the real world. Which really is a fine, if complicated, place to be. . .

_________________________________

This morning, I opened The New York Times to find that an arrest had been made in the New York City failed car bomb attempt. As I'm sure you know, "Faisal Shahzad, 30, (pictured left as he appears on his Facebook page) was taken into custody at Kennedy Airport on board an Emirates flight to Dubai . . " Two other men were removed from the plane, but it is not known if they were part of the plot. Evidence, the article says, does point to more than Mr. Shahzad having been involved in the attempt.

Mr. Shahzad, a legal immigrant to this country from Pakistan, had just returned from there. So this, toward the middle of the article, caught my eye:

The investigation was shifted on Monday to the control of the international terrorism branch of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, a multiagency group led by the Justice Department, according to two federal officials.

“As we move forward, we will focus on not just holding those responsible for it accountable, but also on obtaining any intelligence about terrorist organizations overseas,” {U.S. Attorney General] Mr.[Eric} Holder said.

Officials cautioned that the investigation of possible international contacts did not mean they had established a connection to a known terrorist group.

“It’s a prominent lead that they’re following, the international association,” said a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing investigation. “But there’s still a lot of information being gathered.”

The New York Post's, much more tabloidian in style, reporting of the arrest was just as straightforward, as was The Washington Post's and the LA Times.

Glenn Beck has yet to comment at the time of this posting, and Rush Limbaugh is still focused on accusing environmentalists of blowing up the BP oil rig.

What we've been told, so far, is that this car-bomb was planted by someone with Pakistani roots whose intent, according to Attorney General Holder, was to kill Americans. Yet the language used by the Attorney General to describe the event, the investigation, and this arrest has been noticeably lacking in the dramatic, the political, the opportunistic. I have read or heard or seen nothing from the man that smacks of fear-mongering speculation.

Of course the plot was foiled, the bomb didn't go off. And this makes it much, much easier for all of us, including Attorney General Holder and all other government and law enforcement officials involved, to stay calm and resist speculation.

There is still, however, much more to be learned about possible terrorist connections. This, as we continue to slog our way through two wars; at least one of which is now considered by many to have been entered into in part because of false claims about terrorist connections made by politicians and government officials. It's left some a bit leery of what we're told by those in charge of such investigations.

My question is, are you any less or more leery of what the Obama administration has to say on the subject of terrorism, than you were of the Bush administration?