And then I thought

I have been wondering about all the heroes and villains I have identified in recent times. First I thought that perhaps some of the heroes had done things not well known or advertised that were perhaps not so laudable. Perhaps, and I believe that some of their opponents are busy digging up such dirt to disturb or disrupt our beliefs. Then I came to realize that it is patterns of behavior and misbehavior that should be noted but that present trends and good deeds perhaps outweigh misdeeds of the past. At least I hope that is the case with retard to my own misdeeds. With that hope my attention turned to the ones I put into the villains groups … and there are many … including some noted politicians and entrepreneurs. I recall writing in an essay penned when I was in graduate school on truth that it is at times the truth that is selling that matters … at least to some of those unwilling to smell anything beyond their noses. It was then that the notion of patters of behavior re-entered my thoughts … it is who we have been and what we  have done that define who we are and who we are becoming. And I seem to recall Nietzsche’s criticism of Socrates that one is never in a position to judge oneself. Still, we hear very little of any misdeeds that Socrates might have committed, although there is a tendency to lionize and praise heroes and belittle and disparage villains. The truths they are telling about an ex-president leave me thinking I may have much less money and many fewer admirers, but I do have a relatively clear and clean conscience in spite of many misdeeds that seem small and minor in comparison to some I have seen in recent years by the one I still consider villains.

Mike

December 2022 with best wishes to all the many heroes for a better and happier 2023

Are the Russian people really that stupid?

Can it be that Russians do not see the horror that Putin has unleashed against the innocent people in the Ukraine?

The Shema – Hear O’ Israel …

 

The Shema is a cornerstone prayer for Jews and it is why we put a mezuzah (see https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/256923/jewish/The-Mezuzah-Scroll-and-Case.htm) on our doorposts … but the words that have stuck with me are these: “teach them thoroughly to your children”  … but what shall we teach our children … all of the commandments in the Torah? That was my father’s answer, and he made an effort, I suppose, but my recollection is that the focus of my parents was more narrow … focused on the 10 commandments and a few other things … and then there is the Al Chet prayer (see https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/confessing-our-sins/) on Yom Kippur in which each person asks forgiveness for any transgression that any member of the community has committed. I also asked my father, the Rabbi, why we ask for all and he answered that is what makes a community. If anyone commits that transgression, then the community has failed. Those thoughts from my upbringing have outlived my parents and are still with me.

Hear, fellow Americans, fellow worlizens, hear ye, hear ye … we must rise about hate and violence … we must, or our community will not survive … we must end poverty and prejudice, we must, or our community will not survive, we must tolerate and respect each other, we must, or our community will not survive … we are losing our community … our humanity … we are losing to the purveyors of hate, violence, poverty, prejudice, intolerance, and ill will … we are losing, we are lost.

Hear ye, hear ye. The silence is deafening. 

 

Thoughts That Come And Go

 

Thoughts That Come And Go

 

Hillel	Trump	Anyone Else
If I am not for me, who will be?	I am for me …	Family, friends, free people
If I am only for me, what am I?	It is who I am …	A selfish bigot
If not now, when?	Me first … always …	Yesterday

 

My get up and go moved to Bali about five years ago … unfortunately, my body was left behind…

My brother used to say that the history of humankind could be told as the history of war … of course he was right but my personal understanding is that the history could also be told as the history of self-interest starting with that first apple and all those who not only followed the money but grabbed as much as they could for themselves along the way …

We are born innocent … few remain in that pristine state …

Where was I when the mountains were formed … “a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas” …

How does hatred develop?

Why are we suspicious of those who seem different from us?

Is there balm in Gilead? Tell me, tell, I implore. Quoth the raven … nevermore.

Who would win a debate between DJT and Abou Ben Adhem?

Which comes first – self-awareness, self-interest, greed, ego-mania? Which comes last? Which can last?

Why can I not stop these thoughts from trickling out? I bite my fingernails but not my fingers … ouch.

Who am I? Someone who denies facts? Denies elections? Who admits to doing no wrong? Admits to limited knowledge? Admits to being all too human? I once got lost in a large department store? I am still lost … no direction-home-finder.

When I was thirteen, I read these words in front of the congregation … comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith the lord … well, I read them in Hebrew … na-hamu, na-hamu, ahmee, omar el-lo-hay-hem … of course with a Southern accent and four part harmony …

My professor asked, after discussing and dismissing the notion of substance as what properties got stuck in, what is love? I said it was what people got stuck in and others laughed … he said he thought it was the glue that binds us together … no one laughed …

What do I know about learning, technology and teaching? Not a lot … nearly everyone else in this department and other similar places knows a lot more about such things … I just try to ask questions and search for answers and tidbits of meaning … crumbs are what I usually find … old and forgotten crumbs … perhaps remnants of a big bang long ago … crumbs in a crumbling world … in the beginning there was chaos and the void and not much has changed since … just more stuff for a privileged few … more stuff and less substance …

I know so little yet I wanted to know so much … what has happened along that wayward path? Many a friend has come and gone and I am left with one hand waving free … the other hand pounding on a keyboard … it is all I know how to do …

Mike Spector

October 2022

Voting Advice

 

What advice might I give to those prior to the 2022 elections. Here it is, plain and simple: Do NOT vote against someone or something … Vote FOR someone or something in which you have confidence and deep agreement. Avoid bias and prejudice and vote what you genuinely believe is right … especially in the long run.

Mike Spector

Untimely Reflections

 

An unexpected thought just occurred to me … I may have learned more from my students than they have learned from me. Once that thought entered, it was followed by many more, confirming the original thought. What a surprise for this old man. Then I started thinking about my kids and grandkids and had a very similar thought. What have I been doing all these many years as a teacher and parent??? Learning it would seem. What a surprise.

Civil War Redux – An Uncivil Uprising

 

Seems like folks are all in for another civil war … this war even less civil than the last one. North versus South. White versus non-white. Richer versus poorer. Self-centered versus selfless. Who will win? Who won the last one? 

Odds are on those who lie the most and lie the least believably. Odds are we will all lose. The bigots are on the rise and the fall of the shining city on the hill is imminent. 

I am so sorry to say that my older and wiser brother, rest his soul, was right: what happened in Nazi Germany can happen here … is happening here. 

I feel so helpless to do anything. And then I remember Franz Jäggersätter … see In Solitary Witness by Gordon Zahn – see https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1500357.In_Solitary_Witness. 

I want to do something positive beyond contributing to the campaigns of those dedicated to peace, love and kindness but I am not sure what I have to offer at this late stage of my life. Three governors who manipulate those seeking asylum in this country from tyrants have treated innocent persons to a taste of American tyranny. Woe is me.

Memories

 I find phrases popping into my mind as I reluctantly (habitually) listen to the news, which is generally quite disturbing. Phrases like “civil war” and “war between the states” came to mind as I listened to the President’s address yesterday.  But those phrases seemed totally out of place … out of tune. More appropriate would be “uncivil war” and “war within the states.” It is not north versus south or free states vs. slave states. Maybe it does involve the soul, or more simply, character. Whatever happened to other phrases that also came to mind, such as “love your neighbor” and “be kind to strangers.” It did not matter if your neighbor was black or white or stranger than Corporal Klinger. I was taught that love and kindness should be boundless and, while trying to live up to boundless love and kindness is often a challenge or even repugnant, that is what we are charged to do … my father was referring to a higher power, of course. I found those sentiments embedded in writings that led up to the founding of today’s western democracies, and implied in the President's repeated use of "we the people." And yet … and yet … I am feeling old and my thoughts seem stale and passé. I have a grandson who is fascinated by dinosaurs … I will have to let him know that I am among those lost beasts.

Mike Spector

2 Sep 2022

What does being presidential mean?

 

I have witnessed the public behavior of a number of previous US presidents and have acquired an informal understanding of what it means to be presidential. The current ex-president does not seem to fit easily into my understanding of being presidential.

So, I started thinking about presidents in other contexts … presidents of a congregation, of an enterprise, of a university, of a professional organization, and so on. I also have some experience with some of those kinds of presidents. My father was president of our congregation in Oak Ridge, Tennessee prior to becoming an ordained Rabbi. I wrote the president of IBM when I worked at the SDD Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado expressing my disagreements with the war in Vietnam and hoping IBM would also express similar disagreement, and he wrote back in agreement. Surprising. I posted his response on my office cubicle bulletin board, which bothered at least one of my co-workers who complained to my supervisor. My university president is also a model of presidential behavior and walks a thin line between Texas politics and maintaining a humanistic campus. I have heard a previous CEO of a political organization express strong disagreement but always in a civil and reasonable tone. None of those persons ever used nasty language nor did I ever hear any of them curse at anyone or anything. Oh yes … I have to admit to having been the president of a professional organization and I have expressed strong discontent publicly while in that role but without cursing or personally attacking anyone.

It seems reasonable to expect the president and ex-presidents of our country to act presidential at all times, especially in public. One ex-president fails to meet my expectations of presidential behavior … only one. It seems so unusual that so many others do not seem bothered by that person’s public discourse and behavior. Do I need to reconsider what it means to be presidential?

 

Mike Spector

August, 2022

Classified Clearances

 

With all the news on the recent search of #45’s home at Mar-a-Lago and the boxes of documents classified as Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information, I have been recalling my years as an Air Force Intelligence Officer during the Vietnam conflict and the Top Secret SCI clearance that I had. We simply called it a coded clearance and it required a serious background investigation even though I already had a top secret clearance when I arrived at Clark Air Base as a recent graduate of the nine-month Intelligence School at Lowry AFB (now closed). I worked in a secure facility … 12 hour shift work, 3 shifts on and 4 days off … not so bad … lots of time to get into trouble which I managed to do … not on purpose, though. I read many highly classified texts … my job was to summarize and synthesize what I read during my shift to pass along to the high ranking officers the next day. Most or the time it was just the number of people killed although I read about John McCain’s capture and detention in North Vietnam during my tenure. I vaguely recall there being levels of TS SCI clearance and I think mine was at the third level – relatively low level … there were many more levels … at least eight, I believe … probably more than that. In addition, I learned that one could not share TS SCI information even with someone with the appropriate clearance if that person did not have a clear need to know. I even originated a rare few of those highly classified documents. I detested the war and hated my job but it was better than dropping bombs on people.

At one point, I hosted an Air Force Captain – he became a Major while there - who was headed to Hong Kong to co-lead a highly classified intelligence monitoring operation along with a British officer. He had to await his TS SCI clearance which took months to get. We became friends and on one of my breaks I decided to visit him in Hong Kong. He even took me to that classified facility in the New Territories on a mountain ridge and introduced me to the British co-commander and his wife. I learned that one task at that facility was monitoring all of the air traffic in that part of the world … from southern China down to Indonesia and east and west likewise. The system was not yet perfected so that transmission of information was not yet automated but was being tested with hand developed messages that were not timely. When back at Clark Air Base I was on my third day of duty on a swing shift (4 pm to midnight) with a fresh second lieutenant coming on duty after me. He had not been briefed on the Hong Kong facility (that was not my job) and got one of those dummy messages and believing it to be serious sent it to PACAF HQ as if it was the real thing ... classified as a war message… it reported unusual air traffic conditions in Indonesia and PACAF HQ thought it was real and timely and called him that night and told him to retransmit it to the Pentagon … as a level 8 message which I could not have read even if I wanted to … but I was off to Bagio on my days off. That was the beginning of my troubles. When I came back to work, The Colonel called me in and read me the riot act as if I was responsible. The Colonel was fired that same day for incompetence and I was blamed for that as well, although I had nothing to do with the matter. That was when the powers that remained at CLARK AB decided to punish me and send me to Thailand to be in charge of a group of enlisted misfits who had to build a fence around Ubon Air Base.

Well, the end of the story was that Al Gore senior eventually came to my rescue and I came back to Clark AB three months later to be with my wife and newborn son who just three months old … born just before I was sent to Thailand. So much for my TS SCI clearance. I did manage to escape the Air Force with an honorable discharge.