1) Being shot is the problem. Complaining about it is not.
2) Racism is the problem. Complaining about it is not.
3) Poor people aren’t taking our money. Rich people are.
4) Climate change is a problem. Proving there is, is not the problem. 
5) Facts are not the problem. Denying them is.
6) Women wanting health care is not a problem. Women not getting health care is.
7) People having rights due them is not the problem. People trying to take them away is.
Resisting With Peace,

John

Tomorrow is the official celebration of Martin Luther King Day and my wife, daughter, and I went to see “Hidden Figures”, the movie that details the story of 3 women — a mathematician, an engineer, and a supervisor for NASA who suffered the double indignities of being Black and female in 1961.

The movie is profoundly satisfying in trying to explain the days when all life was in black-and-white and computers were the size of a building to my children. These were the days when things were hard, but we had hope for new things to break through, rather than days when things are easy and we don’t. My children can’t conceive of those days and I don’t want them to at first glance. I don’t want to even give them the idea that women are only supposed to get coffee for the men or that Blacks and Whites should be separated.  At the same time, I want them to have some perspective and feel grateful for what they have, so they can guard against losing it in 2017.

Of course, though, my children can and do teach me things as well  — mostly about groups I didn’t even know existed. Thoughts about these people came up in 2017 as I watched the movie about 1961. The main heroine (if it’s possible to say that) is the mathematician, Katherine Johnson, who spends great portions of the movie running from building to building (1/2 a mile!) to use the “colored women’s” bathroom. She does this throughout the movie and manages to keep her job by keeping up with her white colleagues.

According to the movie, she’s out of the office 40 minutes per day just going to the bathroom. She not only has to travel that far to use the restroom, she and the other “colored calculators” have to have lunch in a different room, and work in a different room away from work. Here’s the thing that seems so simple (and stupid) now: we could have gotten into space faster, and possibly safer, if women like Kathrine didn’t have to go that distance and lose their concentration, data, or minds. As she ran through the rain in scene after scene carrying her data in big blue folders, I can easily imagine someone stopping her because she “shouldn’t have classified information”. “Clearly”, she had no use for it, according to the logic of the times.

There is a woman engineer who could have been in place months earlier, but there was no place for her to go to school. There is a woman supervisor who could have gotten the IBM computers moving faster if they had simply given her access. When Katherine’s supervisor (played by Kevin Costner) says that he can’t figure out why the Russians got to space sooner than we did,  I wanted to scream at the screen, “it’s because you don’t want all your potential resources! And they’re right in front of you!”.

With simple kindnesses like access to a bathroom, access to a desk, access to machines, we can progress the American dream at incredible speeds. The other option — the one we have chosen — is that we can say “no” to complex solutions by saying “no” to simple kindness and co-operation. Then, when we can’t figure out why things don’t work ala Costner’s character, we’ll be stumped and helpless.

Now here’s the generational piece: I could give a rat’s behind about bathrooms. They are the least of my worries, as are the rights of transgender people. I would have thought that a group who is probably 1/10th of 1% of the population had nothing to do with me — and I would be wrong. Worrying about bathroom privileges for anybody wasn’t anywhere near the bottom of my list of concerns. So here was a cause I didn’t care about in the slightest and a group of people who never entered my mind. Last year, when the issue of which bathrooms transgender people could use became an issue in North Carolina, I thought I didn’t have time to deal with it. There were bigger fish to fry.

Just last month, a man I knew from Deering (a Christian camp that was used by my denomination) died. His name was Dave and he had a great sense of humor. At some point, “Dave” became “Davina Del Mar” and, though I don’t know any of the details, he was clearly transgender. The idea that that man — or anyone — might have to run around trying to find a bathroom he could use is absurd to me. The idea that he could have been beaten up over this issue is stupid and nuts in ways that I can’t even comprehend. To my knowledge, it didn’t happen to Dave/Davina, but that someone went out of their way to make it possible is just evil.

Simple kindness in life — especially regarding diversity issues  –is the only thing required to make a difference in the world. Aren’t we wiser, and better, in so many ways, to exercise such kindness? Keeping people out of anything just because we can’t conceive of them being there is ridiculous if we want our society to solve its challenges.

There are women who can’t be priests or ministers simply because they’re women, so the church struggles. There are retailers in America who can’t find employees just because they won’t allow transgender people a place to go to the bathroom. Every time a Black child is shot simply because they’re Black means that all that potential goes to waste. Who knows which of those children could have cured cancer or AIDS or Multiple Sclerosis? Every time we don’t give poor children access to schoolbooks that are up to date, or computers that function, we lose their talents — or stall them longer than we need to. How hard is to understand that investing in others is investing in ourselves?

How hard is it to let someone go to the bathroom, or let them in a building, or try them out at a job? Honestly, these are simple things. I swear they are. At the very least, don’t make it harder for people to be of use to society. Further, don’t make it harder for good people to help. John Glenn — a White man — went out of his way to treat the Black women in this movie as equals. There were people then, and now, who can’t conceive of that possibility. They deprive us of creative solutions to complex problems as well.

We have choices. We can be kind and open to people’s gifts or we can sabotage and penalize their gifts just because of who they are. As the woman engineer in the movie says “I can’t change the color of my skin”. Neither can people change their gender, genitalia, who they love, place they were born, eye color, height, or any other category.

Love wins when kindness does. Hate always loses in the long run, because it is self-defeating. Martin Luther King understood this, and he convinced others of it. On MLK Day in 2017, let us all hear his wisdom. Let us make kindness our goal.

Resisting with Peace,

John

 

 

 

 

 

You know how people play Fantasy Football? In my fantasy life, I think to myself, ” I could do better than Donald Trump “. As the cabinet gets picked, I first thought I’d make my Cabinet look like America. Listed below are the cabinet positions that exist now, per the US government’s website, and a little history:

The tradition of the Cabinet dates back to the beginnings of the Presidency itself. the Cabinet’s role is to advise the President on any subject he may require relating to the duties of each member’s respective office.

HIS PICKS

Vice President  — Mike Pence
Secretary of State — Rex Tillerson, Exxon CEO

Secretary of the Treasury — Steven Mnuchin, Co-chairman and CEO of Dune Capital Management

Secretary of Defense — Marine General John Mathis 
Attorney General — Jeff Sessions 
Secretary of the Interior — Ryan Zinke, Montana Congressman

Secretary of Agriculture — Forrest Lucas, Founder, Lucas Oil Products

Secretary of Commerce — Wilbur Ross, Investor

Secretary of Labor — Andrew Puzder, CEO of CKE Restaurants

Secretary of Health and Human Services –Tom Price, Chairman, House Budget Committee

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development — Dr. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon 

Secretary of Transportation — Elaine Chao, Former Labor Secretary

Secretary of Energy — Rick Perry

Secretary of Education — Betsy DeVos, Republican donor, school choice activist

Secretary of Veterans Affairs — unfilled 
Secretary /chair of Homeland Security — Gen. John Kelly, retired, Former Marine general

The following positions have the status of Cabinet-rank: 

White House Chief of Staff — Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee chairman

Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency — Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma attorney general

Director, Office of Management & Budget — Mick Mulvaney, Congressman from South Carolina

United States Trade Representative/ambassador 
Chair, Small Business Administration — Linda McMahon, former CEO of WWE

There are 24 slots. Given percentages in the census it breaks down to this: 

 White — 63.7% 14.5     15 positions  Trump = 22   

Black 12.3% 2.89              3 positions  Trump = 1

Asian 4.7% 1.081              1 position     Trump = 1

Hispanic 16.3% 3.749.   4 positions.   Trump = 0

Everyone else 1%   

Mixed Race 2% 0.46      1 position — Trump = 1
Women 51%.                    12 positions — Trump = 3

Men 49% 11.27                12 positions — Trump = 21

Gay 10%                             2.3  positions — Trump = 0? Unknown

Poor 30%.                          8 positions  — Trump = 0

Middle class 49%            12 positions — Trump = 0

 Upper 21%                       4 positions — Trump = 3?

Top 1%   $460,000 per year     0 positions — Trump = 21
 MY PICKS
Vice President  — Sean Murphy– all around good guy

Secretary of State  —  Mary Lou Brewer, former history teacher
Secretary of the Treasury — TBD

Secretary of Defense — Colin Powell , former General
Attorney General — Barack Obama, former President, law professor
Secretary of the Interior — Em Ross –former camp family, Deering Conference Center
Secretary of Agriculture — board member, WHYHunger or someone from Hall, NY — farmer
Secretary of Commerce — Elizabeth Warren — senator, professor, ethicist
Secretary of Labor — Pat Speer, community organizer, Bridgeport, CT
Secretary of Health and Human Services — Paula Richards, nurse, Boston MA
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development — Rev. Jeffrey Brown non-violent trainer
Secretary of Transportation — J Richard “Rick” Fowler — former mechanic
Secretary of Energy — Helen Caldicott, anti-nuclear activist
Secretary of Education — Cat Chapin-Bishop, public school teacher

Council of Economic Advisers head — Bob Cunningham, libertarian 

White House Chief of Staff — Zephyr Teachout, ethics author

Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency — Al Gore? Maybe makes too much money?

Director, Office of Management & Budget — Alan Bercovici, friend from High School

United States Trade Representative/ambassador — Santiago Ramos Collado, pastor

Chair, Small Business Administration — Peter, family friend, owned a small business, is gay.
 

There are 24 slots. Given percentages in the census it breaks down to this: 
 White — 63.7% 14.5             15 positions — Me, 19

Black 12.3% 2.89                      3 positions — Me, 3

Asian 4.7% 1.081                       1 position — Me, 0 (TBD)

Hispanic 16.3% 3.749.              4 positions — Me, 1

 Women 51%.                              12 positions — Me, 9, (TBD)

Men 49% 11.27                           12 positions — Me, 10 (TBD)

Gay 10% 2.3 positions —       3 positions — Me, 1+ (others unknown)
Poor 30%. 8 positions — Me, 2?

Middle class 49% 12 positions — Me, 3?

Wealthy -ish  —  Me, 17? 

Top 1% — Me, 0 
My picks are nowhere near perfect, but they are a lot closer to actually reflecting America, they wouldn’t destroy the things they are in charge of, and they would understand real people. Plus, they would all be ethical. I’ve got a better team, and I don’t know enough experts to fill the slots. Nepotism? Sure, but my friends would be worth it. Just saying.

I’m sure that anyone reading this could do just as well. That’s truly sad. This is what America has come to. The next four years are going to be really interesting, I guess.

See how easy politics is?

Resisting with peace,
John

Watching the video of the shooter at the Ft. Lauderdale airport yesterday, Reuters said, he served in the Iraq War for 1 year. They quoted his mother as saying, “He came back a different person”. 

Of course he did. You can’t kill another human being and stay the same person. We’re not built like that. Even if it was an accident, people are never quite the same. Even for a “good cause”, people are effected. The movie “The best days of our lives” deals with returning WWII veterans and their struggles. Jimmy Stewart — a hero and a good guy — didn’t want to make war look good during the filming of “It’s a Wonderful Life” because he’d been there. 

Veterans of Korea, Vietnam have also told the same story. Now we add Iraq and Afgahnistan to the list of wars and mentally and spiritually injured soldiers. Why, then, do we continue to glorify war? Why do we think anything different is going to happen? We reasonably (?) give credit to people who died for their country. But for every person who made the ultimate sacrifice, there is someone who took that ultimate gift from them. Ordering people to do that, as leadership must, is something that — if done at all — must be taken seriously, regardless of the profits others make off of it or how it “helps” our economy.

And if we send people off to be soldiers, and we know it damages them, then why don’t we pay for them to get better? Can anybody explain to  me?

 Resisting with Peace,

John