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The Age of Obama: The year 6 AO

Posted on November 7, 2014 | 3 comments

 

 

The first candidate to openly declare a bid for the Presidency of the United States of America in the 2016 election is reportedly prepared to declare his candidacy and is buying a whopping ad slot to do so. This candidate is an African-American and is also a conservative Republican. Before one dismisses Obama as irrelevant it is useful to look at signs like that the Lame Duck has made changes he will doubtless fell proud of and this post does not deny such things.

We all have images of what leadership should look like which are not simple portrayals of reality.

We all have images of what leadership should look like which are not simple portrayals of reality.

This is a time to take stock of what I have said about the direction of the country under Obama.  It seems that President Barack Hussein Obama has a great deal to say about staying the course, he does not seem to admit that a major course correction is in order.  I have posted about these midterms here, here and here. I posted about the previous Obama midterm here, here and here. I am clearly no Obama supporter but I have not been clamoring for impeachment. Even today Obama opponents picking such a fight might end up giving him the only fight Obama could still really win in US politics. But He is a realistic target for impeachment for the first time. I will return to that idea in later posts if the process starts. But I bring it up because there is a storm brewing. My own life is full of storms and disappointments. We have no way to measure such things relatively. For me Obama has meant that years of unpaid work on Space colonization has been put further on a back burner. For others he has meant the change of race relations for the worse at work. But those are not impeachable offenses.  Some of us will be looking around to see what can be restored and rebuilt.

Policies come and go but we all see the heavens and can dream and see visions.

Policies come and go but we all see the heavens and can dream and see visions.

Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln were both presidents during our country’s greatest crisis. Neither served as long as Barack Hussein Obama has served in this our nation’s highest public office. Lincoln was assassinated shortly after being reelected and only a month after the first anniversary of his inauguration.   Jefferson Davis was out of office long before six years had been counted in the Confederate States of America,  inaugurated two months before Lincoln he dissolved his cabinet and the Confederate government in Georgia a month after Lincoln’s assassination and was captured by Union forces and gave a final surrender of executive documents on June 15, 1865 .  Only a few people would believe that Obama is in real danger of seeing his presidency become an equally tragic one to those of Davis and Lincoln. Has he failed in a policy that really created ISIS? Has he let Ebola find its feet? Has the AHCA (Obamacare) further ruined the American dream of a good forty hour a week job for most Americans? Has acrimony gotten much worse in Washington? Did he and his people lie about Benghazi? A Republican majority in Congress can look intently at all these problems for answers.

The country may be divided but all out war is very unlikely. We have already done that once. We have real problems to resolve but the right national goals could resolve most of them if properly presented.  But I am less sure of where Obama is coming from than I am about where Davis or Lincoln were coming from.  The crises Jefferson Davis faced as Secretary of War for the United States of America was a long-developing crisis which came to a head and brought him into an office that had not existed before.  Lincoln faced the stern truth of secession from the start. America was a minor player in the worldwide balance of power and it was easy to let internal affairs take precedence over the challenges faced in the world. Obama’s presidency is like that of Nixon, Clinton, Harding, Buchanan and others deeply troubled.  The country has serious problems at home and abroad but none that focus the mind like a Civil War would. The truth is that many of us who are very different from one another feel insecure. However, is President Obama going to find himself the victim of the whirlwind he and others have sown?  The old saying goes “sow the wind and reap the whirlwind” but our political weather may well be sow the whirlwind and reap the super-storm. The conflict does not seem to be abating.

 

Things have changed since President Obama was elected. One can look at Obama’s biographies and analyses of what his presidency meant   a few years ago and see that the climate in the nation’s politics has been through several changes since these books were written.  We will face a period of sorting through the significance of these midterm elections and we will have the runoff between Landrieu and Cassidy. However, it is conceivable that gathering dark clouds will limit the Landrieu campaign to something less than expected.

 

It seems likely that Republicans will take Alaska and extend their majority in the Senate but come up with less than 60 seats for certain. It seems likely that Democrats will hold Warner’s seat in the Senate as Senator from Virginia. The next two years could be bloody and an impeachment may be what both Obama and the TEA Party would most readily understand as an outcome. It may even be the right thing for the country.   I am not a Republican. I worry about the direction of the country with or without Obama. But the future  must be made and his tone has left Republicans with plenty of feelings from which to seek out “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” in his record. If things are going to be messy and slow anyway why not focus them on impeachment? I do not think that things will start there. Republicans are not clamoring for it yet. But we could end up there sooner or later over the next two years.

To safeguard liberty we must be able to adapt to the changing times.

To safeguard liberty we must be able to adapt to the changing times.

 

America wants to deal with its business and if the President cannot make that happen there may be a reluctant acceptance of the impeachment of this President. The best chance of averting that outcome is in his hands. I am not sure he wishes to avert it. For me the future is not much about impeachment. I am not so unusual that Republicans could not relate to other things about Obama’s vision that never mention impeachment which I have posted which are rather harsh visions of his office.  I have not clamored for his impeachment although I opposed him early on and ever since on most things or in much of his tone at least.

What about the big hopes of good reporting on weapons of Mass Destruction used in Iraq? What about Space Colonization? What about a better monetary standard? What about patent reform? Those things may not affect impeachment nor be affected by it but the political winds do not blow away conservative visions of the  better future the President’s political opponents might wish for and they will see if he can cooperate whether they are really GOP fans or not. America is a complex place. We still hope our own hopes.

Some still see a future with homes on the Moon and Mars.

Some still see a future with homes on the Moon and Mars.

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My Election Day and the Next Step In American Public Life

Posted on November 5, 2014 | 2 comments

I have written two blog posts on this election cycle already and you can link to them here and here. I also listened to election coverage on the radio, watched it on  cable television viewable in waiting rooms and came home to watch ABC’s coverage last night. While I was doing those things, I also had a busy mix of errands and recreation with my mother in New Orleans. We saw lots of tourists where we went but also many people in the busier streets holding posters supporting local candidates. the weather was beautiful and it was good day to do almost anything worth doing in New Orleans.

Window in the Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans showing the sainted King of France for whom the church is named caring for the sick directly.

Window in the Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans showing the sainted King of France for whom the church is named caring for the sick directly.

The struggles America is engaged in are clearly showing in the elections of the last twenty years. America is struggling with ISIS and as the new One World Trade Center opens in New York we are all aware of how serious a threat this can be, or at least that it can be a very serious threat. Many Americans have been expressing doubts about whether we are taking this threat seriously enough.  National security and defense are not the only factors in yesterday’s trouncing of the Democratic establishment in our government but it was certainly a factor.

Window in St .Louis Cathedral showing the Crusader saint's body being borne back when he died after launching a great war against Islamists who were terrorizing local Christians and others.

Window in St .Louis Cathedral showing the Crusader saint’s body being borne back when he died after launching a great war against Islamists who were terrorizing local Christians and others.

Republicans have gained control of the US Senate and extended their majority in the House of Representatives. The governors races also went largely to the GOP. There is a sense of staggering loss among many Democrats.  That sense of a huge outcome took top billing on the daily e-mail from the decidedly liberal Huffington Post. There is little to debate about the clarity of the results.  But some report that the White House is not seeing a very clear or focused response to the President and his policy. Some are emphasizing his excuses more than the article I chose to link to in the last sentence. We will have to see how his press conference actually goes this afternoon at two thirty Washington time. We will also have to see how the years play out. Last midterm election he was willing to be candid and say that his party got a shellacking. Policy shifts and candor are two different things.

My mother poses in front of the statue of the Hero of New Orleans who fought the British Empire and become President and the Church of the Sainted Crusader King.

My mother poses in front of the statue of the Hero of New Orleans who fought the British Empire and become President and the Church of the Sainted Crusader King.

I am writing from Louisiana where the nation will be watching the December 6, 2014 runoff between Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu and Republican Congressman and physician Bill Cassidy. Local media has been ready for this race and are reporting it pretty well I think at this early hour. There will be a month more before that vote plays out. Landrieu has invited Cassidy to engage her in six debates. My mother and I went to New Orleans to pick up her expedited passport. The City Care Forgot (not really) was at its best yesterday. We had a tiring schedule but enjoyed the trip thoroughly.

My mother took a picture of me in front of a restaurant that shares my name. We enjoyed eating but did not eat at Frank's yesterday.

My mother took a picture of me in front of a restaurant that shares my name. We enjoyed eating but did not eat at Frank’s yesterday.

The truth is that one election will not determine the course of the country entirely and mostly shows us where we are and where we plan or hope to go.  So much of America is made up of the little and medium sized efforts of its people. the artisans, entrepreneurs and artists of the French Quarter and the French Market are contributors who are not elected and whose lives will be affected by the election but not in simplistic and highly predictable ways.  We bought a few things and did some appreciating. Mom bought a couple of  famous Central Grocery Mufuletta  sandwiches for some young near beggars in the street. The people doing business there are resilient and like many Americans find politics as one part of their lives.  Most Americans were too young, too sick, too criminally convicted, too unsure of their legal status, too busy or too apathetic to vote in this elections cycle.  That is the real majority.

Artisan entrepreneur makes pot plant holders. We bought his fine cypress productions.

Artisan entrepreneur makes pot plant holders. We bought his fine cypress productions.

So does politics matter? I definitely think it does.  I voted for ten of the fourteen constitutional amendments on Louisiana’s ballot and against four. The State ‘s electorate as a whole voted for six and against eight.  Five of the six newly enacted were amendments I favored. Three of the eight opposed were ones I also opposed. These amendments make a difference or at least they often do so. You can read some reporting of how this worked out just here.   But life goes on today much as it would have gone on if the Democrats had won. Change takes a while to play out and is uncertain.

Mom shops and talks on the phone at the New Orleans French Market.

Mom shops and talks on the phone at the New Orleans French Market.

I hope to hear the President speak today. I will follow the new Congress with interest. I will vote in the Senate Runoff. But I have other things to worry about and hope for and so do you. The big event is over and we must now live, work, trade, fight and pray. life goes on.

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The Midterm Elections and Some Issues Beyond

Posted on November 3, 2014 | 2 comments

This is the day before election day.  I have a lot to try and discuss here although it my second post on this election. The first can be seen just here and has some useful links and a guide to the constitutional amendments. But this election has a context and this post is part of my effort to provide some context for this post.

In less than twenty four hours the polls will open in Louisiana. This is after a week of early voting which for us closes a week before election day itself. The election will matter for certain.  I feel that my own life is very much in a mode where I know that anything I choose to write is simply  a small chance of expressing some concerns and trying to discuss what is of interest to readers. There is no longer a great chance that I will exercise any kind of direct influence over the offices or issues I discuss in the way that some people thought I might when I was younger.

I do feel that as we vote in the Senate election there are some issues related to the current news which are worth mentioning. We feel in many parts of this country and the world that America is losing its step and has lost some of its path. Most Americans do not feel that the country is heading in the right direction. I am writing this post amid a number of relatively serious problems related to the act of posting itself. This has been a perpetual part of my life for as long as I can remember — there have been major obstacles which involved technically executing a task which tend to overshadow any problems with whatever plan or program I might be discussing or proposing. I have had good functionality with the blog but today it is bad as it ever was in its worst days — and perhaps it was never as bad as today. But by the time I post it those issues may be resolved. The world changes fast and those elected tomorrow may not know what the greatest issues facing them will be. Nor do those in the Senate know who will be President for the majority of the term to which they are being elected.

We all have images of what leadership should look like which are not simple portrayals of reality.

We all have images of what leadership should look like which are not simple portrayals of reality.

 

There are issues related to space in the news today and over the last few days. Space in my opinion as important an issue as there is and you can touch on some of my views on the subject here, here, and here. However, space flights have always been risky.  One of the bigger risks is how much space is not an issue in this election.  That alone could indicate to me where we are going in terms of dealing with the real challenges of the human species and global civilization heading into the future. I am sure some Senate races are dealing with space but Louisiana’s is not much if at all concerned with it. Louisiana’s race may yet come to great prominence. Some are predicting this and granting its likely place in the national conversation.

NASA stock footage loose in the world reminds us of where we can go.

NASA stock footage loose in the world reminds us of where we can go.

“All politics are local” the old saying goes. On that basis we may understand why Ebola, the issues rocking Ferguson, Missouri and the issues related to water management in the Western United States do not feature prominently here. We have a new pipeline based oil spill. We have ruins in old flood zones by the acre.  We have issues with higher and other public education funding. Louisiana’s race does deal with the Obama Presidency, the issues of Medicare, the AHCA  (or Obamacare), the records of the candidates and how each candidate reacts to immigration issues.  There is discussion of the economy which is national.

Familiar Greenbacks

America is used to paper money as a great symbol of National unity as well as the tangible form of our unifying preoccupation.

They are not much discussing Britany Maynard’s suicide, the violence perpetrated by professional athletes, the rise of ISIS or other issues that provide a context for what all of us here them saying. I think that the US system has some real benefits it derives from a system where the President and Vice President are truly elected  in a national contest which involves states only as means to that national goal and a legislature which really is composed of state elected officials. Of course there are costs to this system as well. But each member of both houses is likely to know something about the State that elects them or within which they are elected.

Maness, Landrieu and Cassidy all have to show that they connect with past challenges. They have to show that they can lead in future crises. But it is hard to say if the national political realities will eclipse some of these memories. Memories of storms and oil spills and their legacies.

A flotilla of shrimp boats adapted for skimming oil.

A flotilla of shrimp boats adapted for skimming oil.

The news is bleak on many aspects of foreign affairs and that will certainly hurt Landrieu who is closely tied to the President. There is recent new from Syria that is very bad indeed as seen here but may in reality be even worse news. Louisiana has paid a good share of the cost for all these wars in that region in the lives and time of the military personnel and their families.  But we remember the National Guard elsewhere as well. The struggle to defend our coasts is endless.

National Guard fights a different battle

National Guard fights a different battle

Whoever comes to power there will be issues related to sex, the sanctity of life, quality of life, racial harmony and constitutional reform. The truth is that few Americans are optimistic that those they elect will effectively deal with these challenges. But I hope all who read me and can vote will do so. I hope that in voting they will know that writing to congress, local elections, civic participation and good citizenship will all be required as follow-up. I am in favor of larger changes but also of working hard to make the best of what we have and trying to make it work.  We really do need a government. People have shown themselves unhappy with their government for a long time but it is becoming a very serious issue now. This poll is the best indication yet of  what people are feeling.

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About Work and Living

Posted on October 31, 2014 | Leave a comment

This week is Halloween, All Saints Day, a religious conference put on by Family Missions Company called “The Proclaim Conference” around here but perhaps known as Proclaim among most attendees. It is homecoming week at UL and it is the week between early voting and the general election. But while I will mention those things in this blog none of them are the core and focus of this post. I also am going to the wake and possibly the funeral of Dr. Hayden “Pete” Mayeaux. He is a man who made a real contribution to my family and community.  But I am not posting about any of those topics today.  I am posting about work and living.

I am going to discuss a little further down in this post what I thought my life and work might be like over the last twenty-five years. This is not just any homecoming it is my twenty-fifth anniversary one. I am reminded of not getting far down that road first taken and am reminded of the work done since that direct first path was lost. So let us review very briefly my life and work since 1990 when I suffered my first major setback.

When I left Tulane Law School where I had planned to launch my legal career I was still married to the woman I had wed late in our undergraduate studies.  We left Tulane and engaged in that activity my associates in life often refer to as “licking one’s wounds”. That took a few weeks. We spent some time with my extended family at a great resort with my grandparents celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

My ex-wife and I after leaving law school a few weeks earlier.

My ex-wife and I after leaving law school a few weeks earlier.

 

Then I was working in seafood sales and brokering as I had done many times before including even during my time at Tulane Law. I went down with the owner and chief sales manager of the privately held company that was my employer on a buying trip to Merida. This was typical of a lot of things about my seafood crowd. The owner paid for four tickets, four registration packages, four hotel and food packages and in me provided one of the two or three best interpreters on the trip. However, the trip was supposed to be a sales trip sponsored by the US Department of Commerce and we were there buying. While that exact event was unique it somehow encapsulates all of my considerable experiences in the fishmongering world. While there Lieutenant Governor Paul Hardy presented me with the honor of Honorary Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana. He gave me a very large and beautiful certificate that I was proud to display as I was to mention the honor on my resume. My interest in food has been lifelong and even in my lawn and garden care around the house this year I am most pleased with the limes and oranges we have harvested and hope to harvest. There is no great scale in that enterprise but it still pleases me a good bit.

A photo of our orange tree on Halloween 2014.

A photo of our orange tree on Halloween 2014.

When I got back I set up those purchases and set up a series of chain and institutional sales for catfish and catfish products of sizes which were not in the main stream of demand and commerce. That was about all I did before quitting my job and going to work for St. Thomas More High School. I knew it would annoy him but I left my employer with a proposal for changes needed in the company. From a distance over the years I watched many of them take place. (Since I wrote this note however the company has closed because it imported much Mexican labor after the ties established on this trip and has had trouble getting the paperwork in order in recent years according to one of the former owners). I had done some of all these kinds of things before but these were not the paths I had set out for myself when I graduated in 1989. These tasks were different. My intention in those days was to pursue a career that would have involved food, Mexico, teaching and other things that my life currently involved but the basis for the whole of my work activity would have been in the legal profession. My father grandfather and three uncles (two of his three brothers and one of my mother’s brothers) were lawyers and the law framed much of my thinking. It still does as you can see here, here and here.  My first year out of the path I had planned on was not all bad, I worked in seafood brokering and sales (which I had done before)and my contributions won me the honor of recognition as Honorary Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana. I left this work to be fulltime theology teacher at Saint Thomas More Catholic High School in Lafayette where I would tie into my certificates as an exegete from EAPI and my commissioning as an Evangelist in the Diocese where the school was located.

My story must return to the subject of St. Thomas More High School. The wake I will be attending today is near the school and I have stayed in touch with people from there and with the institution I various  ways for many years since my one year teaching there.  My Mom had helped me hear about and get an interview for the job at STM and I took Sarah to school there as I commuted to work. Michelle soon found a job in Lafayette in a career field she would follow in for a good while. I added a part-time job as youth minister at St. Mary’s Parish and then we moved from Mom and Dad’s neighborhood in a rental house to an apartment in Lafayette. Mom and Dad soon moved to house only a few miles away. My sister Susanna was registered to go with Sarah to STM the next year. I care about schools and teaching. I once considered getting a masters in education. I have corresponded with students I taught and didn’t teach.  I continued to support and be excited about all of the speech competitions my sisters excelled in at STM.  I wrote game stories for their soccer and football teams about ten years later for Lafayette’s Daily Advertiser. This is all the follow through that weaves into my life.

Schools are one of the front lines in the world forever more or less and so this military missive I wrote to a student at the Citadel stands for my views about a great deal of teaching. Here :

Your father sent out an invitation for notes to you at The Citadel. I have sent your father a note on my views on a number of matters which I titled “My Own Confederate Heritage” and we are Facebook Friends.  I want to say I appreciate and respect your commitment to preserving the living Confederate and American military tradition. I have relatives who have been to West Point, Forks Union, Riverside, Vriginia Military Institute and other such institutions but I myself have no military or military educational record. However, perhaps that can make you feel more connected to the ideals and beliefs of an even larger group than if I had been to such a school.

I wish you well in your studies and hope that you will find in your academic studies an opportunity to expand your mind, develop your character and learn to better present your point of view. You will in time find your own path. There will be disappointments along the way. I remember when I was not so much older than you and was finishing up my first academic degree my young bride and I visited Beauvoir’s Confederate shrine on our honeymoon. However, it has been a long time since we were divorced and my life has had many other twists and turns. Yet through my faith, the grace of God, hard work and the support of thousands of comrades and relatives I am able to look back on some victories and consolations in my half century of life which seem to me to be significant. You too can expect to see great things happen even in troubled times.

 

The country and civilization in which we live is more in jeopardy than many think. Your resolve and training may one day be called upon to dare great things against great odds. However, I have risked my life enough time in enough places around the world (Mexico, China, the Philippines, Colombia and elsewhere) to feel no shame when I say do not be in too much of a hurry for crisis and risk. I think if you hold to your honor, heritage and conscience it is likely you will be sorely tried. The current phase of your life should be about preparing yourself, making friends and perhaps courting a young woman or a few which will lead to some partnership in life which will ever comfort you.  However,   fun is also not be undervalued.

I am enclosing a few tokens from a different part of Dixie without explanation. I hope you find them interesting.

 

I do and did value teaching. I taught for the 1990-1991 academic year. That year I was also certified as a Catechist at the basic level by the Diocese of Lafayette. My wife became the youngest branch manger in a major corporation with many branches and we lived well within our means.  But I was moving on from that environment and institution as my sisters continued to study there and my mother would start teaching there for two  years with my recommendation after a one year gap. I would follow all their deeds with interest in the early 1990s.

However, by that time I would be a Board of Regents Fellow at Louisiana State University. Michelle had a good job in Baton Rouge with the same company she had worked for in Lafayette and I had the fellowship money and some other sporadic income. My last year was at LSU was the only time I have so far been enrolled at the same place and at the same time with one of my syblings, Sarah was at LSU. I had driven her as a student to STM High School when I taught there. I received my Master of Arts degree there in 1993 shortly after the death of my grandfather former Louisiana Chief Justice Frank W. Summers. While there I published an article in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. Michelle’s career flourished and although neither of us were huge successes we  were not failures either. We were pretty happy and pretty successful as far as living in a rental townhouse can be considered successful in America.  I have never owned a home. I have cared for many and enjoy the hard work of keeping up the grounds where I live currently.

The last flowerings of autumn in some of our plants in the yard facing the pond and pasture.

The last flowerings of autumn in some of our plants in the yard facing the pond and pasture.

 

We had no title to a home but we did own two new vehicles we had bought new and although I was getting really fat for the first time since early adolescence we were more in love and happy than at any time since just after our wedding. So if Law school was really brutally bad — then graduate school was pretty good. I was tired and stressed but not as alienated as I have often been. It was a time for maintenance and restorations. Then two things did happen when I was in Grad school at LSU that had a big impact on my life between the two of them. One was that my half-brother Paul Nicolas Jordan came into my life. The other was that my grandfather Frank W. Summers I died. These things and earning my Masters really defined those years. I think that few people realized how hard I worked during those fellowship years. But it was the most sedentary life I had ever lived and although I hunted and walked a bit I did not starve myself to adjust to the change of physical pace. I gained a great deal of weight.  After graduating I would back into wholesale food sales as a sales associate for Sysco foodservices before returning to Tulane Law School.  I went into food sales again which was familiar but in the summer I started prepping for law school and and then did some legal assisting work of various kinds during the summer before I returned to Tulane Law School again.I am going to deal with both very different periods of my time at Tulane  Law below. It is not a simple path to chart.

But let us fist go back to the time I was in undergraduate school and which was over twenty-five years ago. I hope to weave this in with other parts of my life more clearly now. The bulk of this post is a pasting together of excerpts from my earlier blog posts and Facebook notes I wrote a while back. That means I should have had more than one chance to correct spelling, mechanical and minor factual errors than usual because I spent time creating the text first and then a longer or shorter time reworking it. However, I know from experience that there may be a gross error of continuity from pasting parts together and have lots of irritating glitches. I hope not. If you read it and wish to comment I will try to address errors and questions.  It is part of my life to keep interconnecting and reworking media even if it is generated by me. I have not gotten rich and famous but I have been involved with many kind of media and communications in my life and work.

my curriculum vitae shows work with radio, film, journal, newspapers and lots of public speaking.

my curriculum vitae shows work with radio, film, journal, newspapers and lots of public speaking.

 

Perhaps I have been a bit prone to focus more on my own thoughts than the average person for quite some time. Today is a day when that seems more true than usual. I am very much aware of how far I am from the kind of success many of my correspondents in life have achieved. I am also interested in anniversaries and the passage of time.   I am currently not planning to buy a ticket to my alma mater’s homecoming football game this year which I usually do. I would need to at least purchase one  more or less as soon as I get finished with my blog post. That is more or less the last minute and later than I normally buy the tickets on the many years when I do go to Homecoming.  I did make one game this year already — the home opener. I got that ticket through the coordinators of the Circle of Friends group I was meeting with in Lafayette.

Where I went before and after Steubenville and received my degree.

Where I went before and after Steubenville and received my degree.

It has sometime happened in the years that I did make the homecoming game that I bought these homecoming game tickets with cash even second hand or else with my own bank card. But more often than not someone else has bought them for me at a group rate or I will be buying one a bit early for myself alone  with my mother’s credit card. I sometimes do this and pay her back with cash but it often happens as with other things this weekend related to events I am going to try to take in during the end of the year that she has given a ticket to me as a gift. I feel a sense of obligation to be there and I have often been to Homecoming games over the years.  Much  of my life has been devoted to observing and becoming invested in other games . . . I will mention again sometimes writing high school sports but I also have been to many games for nieces and nephews.

 

THIS YEAR MARKS TWENTY-FIVE YEARS SINCE MY GRADUATION. But I have not gotten an invitation to anything except those sent out to all University students and have not had the resources to  initiate much organization although  I do love my school and watching football. I certainly am not proud or happy not to be going to this game nor would I be delighted to  be going alone and in many other ways in the situation I am currently in at this time. Back in the days  I was in undergraduate study things were not so smooth either, but I was still a little optimistic. I had less radical goals and more hope of achieving them. I began  my studies at USL in Lafayette Which is now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and I earned about a smemester of Advanced credits which I certified by completing the courses above them in the catalogue, I also took the course required to be enrolled in the Honors Program and this filled out my first semester pretty completely at the end of which I was a sophomore gaining on those my age who had started college a year before I did. But I left the uNited States returned to tthe Philippines with my family and ended up missing the next semester and the summer. When I returned I was enrolling at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. I won the Sophomore Class Award there (so did a young woman as they were awarded to one male and one female student).  I also had the part with the most line in  the University of Steubenville production Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town — that of Stage Manager.  But I left the school in the middle of my third semester there. I left there in the middle of my third semester for many reasons including money.  My work life woven in with my education is an almost impossible story to digest in a brief sketch like this so I am representing it here as a separate timeline. When I got back to Louisiana my family were coming back from the Philippines. We met up at my maternal grandparents home called Kisinoaks on the Bayou. My grand parents were now living only in the small house in the back leaving what some would call the mansion in the front unoccupied. Mom and Dad settled in and Dad (who had done legal work during many trips home) worked as a lawyer. They bought a house in Abbeville and I (who had broadcast experience of various kinds and who had taken mass communications in college) got my lifetime FCC radiotelephone license and got a job as a country music DJ. After a bit of time welcoming my family back from the Philippines and working in  parish based religious education before  I returned to U. S. L.  I went to work as a Director of Religious Education at St. Theresa Church in Duson , Louisiana where I lived in the rectory with Monsignor Ignatius A. Martin  This was not a long but was an important institutional transition job.  My first semester back in college I met Michelle Denise Broussard the only person I have been legaly and/or sacramentaly married to and we began dating. We wed in December of 1987. I graduated in May of 1989 and was the Outstanding Graduate selection of my department and college as well as of the Alumni Association of the whole university. Michelle graduated the next semester in December.  I was already at Tulane Law and we were having a multi-faceted hard time that I will return to later in this post. But at USL I felt my life had some drive, focus and promise as regards a career. One reality is that today I do not really have much a career as such things are usually defined.

The orange tree panted and nurtured on the new house site on old family land.

The orange tree panted and nurtured on the new house site on old family land.

After my first time at Tulane I never felt that I would find a short and clear path leading anywhere I wanted to be. Before that I thought I might. I will revisit USL one last time as a an approach to the coming crisis at Law School and the death of those plans. I once had plans for an ambitious and more conventional career. When I graduated from UL in  May of 1989  I went to work that summer for the law Firm of Mangham, Hardy, Rolfs and Abadie in the offices near the top of the First National Bank Tower in downtown Lafayette. It was as close as I have ever come to feeling like my life was on a smooth and established track and not a trek through dangerous places. I was headed off to Tulane Law School in the fall. A lot of people in my life who have always behaved badly toward me when they were around chose not to that summer. I had been on television and in the newspapers a great deal when I won the Outstanding Graduate award and it seemed like I would be given some space to do things one step at a time in a way that I have never really known at any other time.

My time at Tulane Law School that first run was one of the worst times of my life. That is from my point of view saying a great deal. We lived next to a family who were in charge of our floor in student housing and screamed and roared many hours every day. Michelle never found any job of significance which wrecked our financial plan, I got hit in a horrible traffic situation and got the ticket, I was chronically sick, we had several family crises. Someone who owed me a substantial amount of money skipped out on payment and it was an informal exchange without legal recourse. Those patterns were established early on and then there were a lot of other bad things. Michelle told me she was pregnant fifteen minutes before my first moot court competition and that she was not (either never was or had lost the pregnancy) just in the middle of my real examination preparation. Then my relationships already included a lot of people who were the opposite of supportive. Despite being a harsh, grim and critical man my grandfather Frank W. Summers I came across as a major source of counsel, social and financial support. He and I had been close of years and this put a strain on our rebuilding relationship but it was a time when he really shone in several ways. When Michelle and I left Tulane after a semester and a bit then in almost every way the life I had sought to graduate into was  dead. The journey since then has been an entirely different journey.

That journey has involved a mix of family, recreation and work. But it has been ambitious in less attainable ways than I had hoped.

But it has been varied as is evinced by looking at one aspect of my whole life, associations.  I want to list some or most of the groups and associations with which I have been involved although I cannot do much more than list them: Known Groups I have belonged to but did not help to Found and in which my records may be imperfect:National Rifle Association,Louisiana-Mississippi Press Associations Joint Roll, Louisiana Sportswriters Association, Community for Creative Nonviolence, Pax Christi, Bread For the World, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Blue Men of America, The Optimist Club and Student Catholic Action of the Philippines. Known Groups I have belonged regularly but did not help to Found and am now lapsed: Democratic Party, Certified Foreign Experts of the People’s Republic of China, University of Southwestern Louisiana Pre-Law Club, Knights of Columbus, Family Missions Company, American Cancer Society, United Blood Services, Louisiana State University Alumni Association, Mensa, Gamma Beta Phi, Phi Kappa Phi, USL Honors Program, University of Louisiana Honors Program Alumni Association, University of Louisiana Alumni Association, The Black Scorpions, Tulane Public Interest Law Foundation, Christian Association for Carreer Development in Youth Services, and numerous Facebook Groups. Known Groups I have Founded or Helped to Found outside of Facebook Groups regardless of other factors: Juventud San Pedro, Maranatha Youth Group, Bukidnon State Catholic Youth Congress, Brotherhood of the Cross, Open Dooor Community, 7 Cs. Facebook Groups I founded and destroyed when the rules changed: Crater Cap Colony Concept Group, Abbeville Louisiana’s Mount Carmel Elementary School Attendees, Summers Family Name Association, Seedbed of a New Geopolitics, Responsible Royalists Reforming Republics, Vermilion Parish Library Independent Patrons Association, Historical Restorarions, and eight others.

MIRROR BOWL on rear of a ship from sideview

MIRROR BOWL on rear of a ship from side view

This post is about work, life and also about working for a living. I believe that My life’s work has gone on for almost long as it can under the circumstances in which I labor. I must face the future or whatever else the next step is somewhat distinctly from those carried forward on a great wave of momentum.   I have evaluated my work and life before and now I must do so again. I am jumping around my life’s timeline and while the pictures reference recent things and so do some comments in paragraphs we have worked our way back to USL and then forward to Tulane after dealing with the time between the two Tulane years. I am eager to set out some basic dates: I  first enrolled at Tulane Law School the next fall after a May graduation— August 1989. I left the school in early 1990.  I returned to Tulane Law School in August of 1994. Michelle and I separated in January or so of 1995. I went to Micronesia to be with my family and shortly afterwards we divorced without contest on my part. I have been very single almost all the time and somewhat single all the time since then.

I want to discuss what these later underemployed years have been like in a brief narration before returning to the changes and crises of earlier years. I went back to Tulane and the second time my marriage ended. It was a major crisis although my grades were better and I met one person I consider an important figure in my life.    After Tulane I almost taught in Micronesia but returned to the United States to tend to my divorce before really getting started. Shortly after or before the final saga of the divorce procedure I returned to Abbeville alone from Micronesia. I was staying in Abbeville with my paternal grandmother and my family came back fromwhere we had all been in Chuuk together. I had been spending some time together with the only one of my sisters who had not made the journey. Sarah was married, had a daughter named Alyse and had graduated with a top ranking and perfect grade point average from LSU. She was giving birth to her second daughter Anika at about that time. I became Anika’s godfather. The role of parrain is very important to me and to some others around me. The rest of my family came back after my mother had come back to be with Sarah and the children and her husband. I reunited with my parents and younger siblings and all of us moved into a tiny house (for us a very crowded one) near the railroad tracks in Abbeille. Mom and Dad began building a large home on the smaller farm called the Big Woods Farm which was part of a larger feature called Big Woods and which had been part of my Dad’s large family farm when I was growing up. This would be a long process it seemed with my mother shopping for bargains on materials and her brother Bruce working as the contractor as well as one of the hands on carpenters. I was homeschooling my brothers Joseph and Jon Paul for free that year. I taught them film class, logic, the classics, an introduction to the martial arts and the Bible in five formal classes each meeting a few times a week and they worked on other things the rest of the time. I did many things in those early years after ending my publicly growing carreer but I did little that is well documented or worth including here.I went with my mother, brother John Paul and others on a pilgrimage to Grand Pre in Acadie Canada. We traveled to Domino Farms in Michigan to visit Susanna at FUS, Niagara falls, to historical sites in Boston, to the Shrine of the First North American Martyrs, and to visit my sister Sarah who was working at Yale’s Project on Nonprofit Organizations (PONPO) while her hubbie Jason was studying at Yale Divinity School. We had met up with her and her daughters at Niagara Falls and vacationed there. Some of the stops I mention were made on the way back but our trip’s high point for me was the sacred and powerful time in Acadie. The sense of union with my Acadian heritage was very meaningful to me. I came back and Dad transferred a very small farm to me called the Rock-a-Bye Tract One which I improved a good bit and later returned to him. The words buy and sell could be used but these family transactions are not the same as ordinary purchases really. I worked with this farm and distributed my mother memoirs Go! You are Sent around the country and the world along with other tasks. In the summer of 2000 I went alone on a long train trip. My mother met me at the end of it. I had business in Virginia and Alabama but also went to New Haven to watch Jason graduate, treat Sarah to a birthday celebration and bond with Alyse and Anika. On return in August of 2000 I began work as a substitute teacher for the Vermilion Parish School Board and continued to do the work on my farm and business doing this. While I was subbing my sister Susanna married Mike and at this writing they have Michael, Anthony, Dominic and Thomas. Susanna’s wedding was held in Mexico out of our family home and mission base once part of the palace of the Marquess de Aglaya to which I had then and later would make many short trips. I now kept up teaching, writing and continued the other things I was doing.The school system and other parts of my life were battered by a series of storms less famous than Katrina and Rita’s joint devastation years later. Just as that whole pattern was coming to an end I attended the Health and Life Insurance License required training offered by Insurance Specialty Training of Louisiana. I completed the course successfully. I then took the test, passed it and got my license. However, I was unable to find a real job selling insurance and have since let my license lapse although I once did renew it. The well known phenomena of Gulf of Mexico hurricanes in the form of storms less famous than Katrina or Rita had a lot to do with me looking for a change. In 2004 I went to China, a country I had always wanted to visit. I flew into Hong Kong hoping to take a train from there. Instead, I flew the rest of the way. I taught at the Shandong Institute of Business and Technology. I taught in several of the colleges within the university including the China Canada Higher Applied Technology College. I had wonderful students and a full load. From several of my classrooms I had a fabulous view of the Yellow Sea and a small view of it from my apartment. I toured extensively in Yantai, Shandong where I lived and in other places. I finished a semester having taught almost a year’s load of courses completely. Due to passport and visa paperwork problems I left early and was not able to return but had no calsses left in progress though others were scheduled to start. I returned feeling somewhat transformed to the United States fairly early in 2005. I wrote an article with photographs about my trip for a local cultural newspaper called Bonnes Nouvelles and that was the last real paid job transaction I have had in the united states outside of family transacttions except when I took a job helping my disabled brother Simon adjust to life outside his aprtment by working full time for IBC Healthcare. That job ended in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita when I was injured and fled the chaos to San Diego and then Mexico. I have over the course of my life in fact been employed as a writer by The Daily Advertiser, the Abbeville Meridional, Bonnes Nouvelles, and The Vermilion among other periodicals. I have been employed to teach by quite a few institutions. I have over the course of my life had my own business, a farm, and numerous small jobs and projects. I have at one time or another spoken, read or written a really large number of languages although I am not comfortable calling myself fluent in very many of them. I think Americans are unlikely to re-examine ideas and assumptions about work but I think that they should.

A dim reflection of myself taking a photograph of the door of Kisinoaks on a family unpaid work day.

A dim reflection of myself taking a photograph of the door of Kisinoaks on a family unpaid work day.

I have been really busy the last few days. I often am really busy but there is a great deal of what I do which is fairly marginal. It toil at setting up small home offices and keeping up lawns and gardens. I really never grow too tired to hope for the restoration of beautiful things in my life and surrounds. I recently have been enjoying the autumn and all the  somewhat muted wonders of early Fall around here. But there is a lot to do all around me and I suppose it is work.

Two of my maternal uncles working that same father's Day work day at Kisinoaks.

Two of my maternal uncles working that same father’s Day work day at Kisinoaks.Fall

 

Long and rambling as this post may appear it is not exhaustive. Much of my life’s work is unmentioned . I have worked in a number of public endeavors more or less continuously since I was four years old. However, I now feel that even if I die tomorrow my own mostly frustrated efforts will produce a few tangible and discernible ripples in the future which an astute person could discover and find significant. In a blog like this I write about a great number of people who lead lives more successful and with work paths more rewarded than mine. That is no less true even when things seem to be going well by some measures. There have been good times in my life and I have included myself on a list of some distinction here on the blog. However, by any measure it is hard to argue that I am as successful as any other member of this list. They also have their secret successes but I must rely almost entirely on undisclosed successes to make up for the obvious differences.  I have had plenty of work to do in making up the list of course but it was not very remunerative.

This blog itself represents a good bit of my work in recent years.

This blog itself represents a good bit of my work in recent years.

However, I do write about other people and do drop names because those people interest me as does their work — but the blog and other things I write also focus a lot on my personal life and work. Thus in describing and sharing how I view the world I give myself a longer biographical note than anyone else because it is my post and becuase of the lack of other publicity. Of course because this is my blog I had a much easier time making the blog list than anyone else. This Blog and it’s list are like most of the things I have done in my life and like other sections of this blog in that it more resembles a failure than a success and yet it is a completed and worthy project which some people will read and some already have read.  But I do not have the comfort of a newspaper masthead very often any more. Newspaper have a way of keeping their writers focused on the business at hand. That is while they are on company time anyway. My appearance in that list and the post you are reading here are related in some ways. Both have to do with my views on work and a life’s work in different ways.

I am still fascinated by the idea called “true work.” My work has been distributed or not in ways that have not made me rich or famous and sometimes without influecing others but includes studies and essays and group organizing related to family needs, scriptural exegesis, physical geometry, sexuality and politics among other things. That arduous and obscure route has been my path on to this list. It has been in this larger and deeper context of work and responsibilities not so easily seen that I have done the things which qualify me for this list. Even here there are many things which will not be disclosed. Of the people in the final ten list I am by far the least famous.  Even among the hundred I am one of the less well known and less compensated. Although I am known in some circles which are less reprted than broad that difference does not overcome the basic fact that I am the least known. Most of the reason that I am on this list will not be included on this little biography. However some reading no one part and some another part of the hidden realities. Only in the unlikely event of a large readership will most people reading it be entirely at the mercy of this brief sketch. To those few who are now I apologize.

 

 

Life and work have become composed in part of unlikely plans

Life and work have become composed in part of unlikely plans

 

 

One of the bugbears of my life is that people of influence thought I had not done the work to deserve to go to college. They resented any success thereafter. I note below my pre University life and study.I think it speaks for itself.

I was born in 1964 and my mother Genie Summers and father Frank Summers began educating me imediately, lots of other people played small parts in the project My father was himself a student during much of my early childhood, so unlike some oldest children I was always in a house where school was in some sense part of life. while my Dad was a young law clerk for a federal judge my mother bought a course called Teach Your Baby to Read and did just that. I never stopped. I attended Happy Howard’s Nursery School in Abbeville and then my Dad went on to pursue an advanced law degree at King’s College in the University of London. We (Mom, Dad, my uncle Jed and I) lived in a small apartment in Soho. Jed however was usually at boarding school. I attended a a kindergarten that Americans call public in America. My mom educated me in museums, galleries, castles and markets. I also went to a cartoon theater and really was a pretty authentic Londoner. On holidays Dad took the helm and the steering wheel of our car and with Mom researching and Jed joining us or not we saw and studied Europe.

For first grade I attended Mount Carmel Elementary School in Abbeville. Dad then pursed yet another advanced law degree at Columbia University in New York. While he was there I attended Second Grade at St. Hilda’s and St. Hugh’s School in Manhattan. I returned from there to Mount Carmel Elementary from the third grade to the middle of Fifth grade.
My parents (and I ) had a transforming religious experience and went into the missions with the Marists. We lived in Maufanga, Nukualofa, Tongatapu, Tonga in Polynesia in the South Pacific. I attended Tonga Side School. Then we moved to Pago Pago American Samoa where I began to home school. I continued this as we worked for a while among the Navajos in New Mexico. Then I returned and did another year of Junior High School at Mount Carmel Elementary in Abbeville. Then I attended a very small start-up school at Our Lady’s Youth Center in El Paso while my parents ministered in a ministry to a large public high school. The little school I attended was called The Lord’s School. Then after a little home schooling, I attended a IDEAL (Instituto De Estudios America Latina) in Cuernavaca, Mexico for a basic course in conversational Spanish and Mexican culture. My father and I were classmates. Afterwards I returned to a homeshcooling program through many grand and small journeys. In Colombia where I lived in the same lay Catholic farming community as Miguel Angel Barriga, I borrwed the Colobian Government correspondence books and workbooks from other community kids while learning more Spanish, chess and agriculture. I resumed homeschooling thereafter until I both apprenticed informally to Bert Farquarh of Titahi Bay and enrolled formally at Viard College in Porirua near Wellington New Zealand. I was already involved in ministry and music and media for several years by that point. It was at that time that I reached the age of most Americans starting High School’s Senior year and we left in the middle of it to go to the Philippines. In the Philippines my main focus in school terms was accompanying my sisters on a long weekly journey to attend class, go to the library and hand in a week’s work at Nancy Knobloch School. . In Malalybaly and elsewhere I took minicourses in Cebuano-Visayan and I often taught mini courses in Theology or English. However I also did certified work, Icompleting a formal course at the Ateneo de Manila’s East Asian Pastoral Institute. It was called Scripture Ventures and was spear-headed by Fr. Herb Schneider SJ. Dad and I were classmates again. This was the last formal studying I did before enrolling in a University in the USA.

 

I have worked hard all my life and where it will lead I do not know. But I choose today to reflect upon it. I wish we all would in these days of harvest. It is a season for such thinking on past labors.

 

 

 

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Louisiana’s Early Voting and Some Related Thoughts

Posted on October 21, 2014 | 6 comments
Pelicans Injured & Killed by BP Oil

Pelicans Injured & Killed by BP Oil

The early voting in Illinois was marked by President Barack Obama voting yesterday. However, in Louisiana the early voting opens today and goes for a week and with next Tuesday taking the place of Sunday.  I have not yet decided if I will vote early or vote on the regular election day. In this election the biggest and most high profile race is for the United States Senate seat occupied by  Mary Landrieu. Senator Landrieu is running and is opposed by Congressman and physician Bill Cassidy.  Rob Maness is also running and in a first past the post state if he had an open primary as the general election he might split the Cassidy vote and elect Landrieu outright. But here there will be a run-off to achieve a majority and it is not likely to be for Maness. But we  may see Maness again in another race.  I will return to this race near the end of this post. Which party will control the Senate is likely to be a very important question for the future.

There are also all of the seats in the US House of Representatives and any number of local elections. To see more about all of this click here.  You will have to fill in Parish and precinct information to generate the ballot that pertains to you. I will not do justice to these races in this post.

This complicated place has many issues to address

This complicated place has many issues to address

Louisiana also has fourteen constitutional amendments on the ballot and I will fly through those here Below this paragraph. For some view of the text and such click here  for a good general article from a paper where I used to work but which requires log in to view. There are also articles the fact of so many amendmentand on the substance of some amendments from another paper where I used to work here, here and here. The mere text is also available on the sample ballots linked above.  My summary may be imperfect in many ways and each voter should read and research the ballots on their own.

Proposed Amendment 1 Medical Trust Fund & Provider base Rate

A Yes vote would use constitution to protect Medical  Assistance Trust Fund.

A No  vote would leave this in the field of ordinary law and budgets.

Proposed Amendment 2 Hospital Assessment, Trust Fund & Fee Formula

A Yes vote would fund and create a Hospital Stabilization Fund using fees and monies from hospitals and Medicaid.

A No  vote would leave the process to legislative  and other budgets as now.

Proposed Amendment 3 Sales of Property with Delinquent Taxes 

A Yes vote would empower local governments to use collection agencies and make it easier to sell property for back taxes.

A No  vote would keep citizen protections higher under the current system and leave a weakened local funding system.

Proposed Amendment 4 Fund Transfers for an Infrastructure Bank

A Yes vote would implies the legislature should create the bank described but it AUTHORIZES the treasury to invest in such a bank.

A No  vote would leave the State Treasurer probably unable to invest in such a bank even if it existed — it does not exist now.

Proposed Amendment 5 Elimination Mandatory Retirement Age of Judges

A Yes vote would allow judges to serve past 70 years old.

A No  vote would keep judges subject to retirement mandate at 70.

Proposed Amendment 6 Higher Millage Cap for Police & Fire Protection in Orleans Parish

A Yes vote would allow Orleans Parish to collect millage taxes at twice the rate allowed to other parishes.

A No  vote would leave Orleans Parish and City governments with the same tax collecting rate limits as all other parishes.

Proposed Amendment 7 Property Tax Exemption for Certain Disabled Veterans

A Yes vote would allow special homestead exemption for fully disabled veterans.

A No  vote would not create this special exemption.

Proposed Amendment 8 Artificial Reef Development Fund

A Yes vote would probably plan to use BP penalty money but mostly would authorize the protected reef fund so coastal protection funds in it are not subject to the normal budget.

A No  vote would not create a special protected fund. Any fund made by normal law would be subject to normal budget issues.

Country chapel of St. James after a massive flood destryed interior.

Country chapel of St. James after a massive flood destroyed interior.

Proposed Amendment 9 Tax Exemption Reporting for Permanently Disabled Residents

A Yes vote would exempt those permanently disabled and under 65 from having to certify tax exemptions each year.

A No  vote would leave these people the burden to certify their tax status yearly.

Proposed Amendment 10 Tax Sale of Blighted or Abandoned Property

A Yes vote would reduce the redemption period to the 18 months which Orleans Parish already has.

A No  vote would leave longer periods of time to redeem blights property that has been condemned.

Proposed Amendment 11 Increases the Number of State Departments from 20 to 21

A Yes vote would allow on more department so a Department of Elderly Affairs can be created.

A No  vote would not allow for more departments.

Proposed Amendment 12 Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission Membership

A Yes vote would increase allocated representation for North and North Central Louisiana.

A No  vote would  leave two kinds of commissioners: those from the coastal parishes and those from the rest of the State.

Proposed Amendment 13 Orleans Lower Ninth Ward Vacant Property

A Yes vote would allow nominal rate sales of  properties in the still devastated Ninth Ward to approved buyers.

A No  vote would leave the Ninth Ward in the same category as other areas.

Proposed Amendment 14 Tax Rebates, Incentives & Abatements

A Yes vote would place laws related to Tax Rebates, Incentives and Abatements in the same category as other fiscal laws and would allow them only to be considered in the fiscal session in odd numbered years only.

A No  vote would allow such laws to continue in general sessions in even years as well as in odd years.

money is always part of the law but fiscal policy is separate here and elsewhere from other laws

money is always part of the law but fiscal policy is separate here and elsewhere from other laws

 

I want to acknowledge the work of my Louisiana State Representative in reporting on these amendments to her constituents.  Unfortunately her reports are not linkable to this blog.

I think all these amendments scare off and discourage some voters. But I do not really object to having them on the ballot this time. That is not the point. But we must consider how to engage young voters as well as all else we must do. Attracting the right combination of voters in the right numbers is a very important part of the process. Yong people are on such constituency and you can read my recent exchange with Lord Roberts on this subject here.

I think we will earn a lot about the demographics and voter behavior in Louisiana from this election. I think Mary Landrieu is out of step with the State on Abortion, she is very linked to Obama’s policies. On the other hand sh is a devoted public servant and has good seniority, connections and experience. Cassidy is smart,  clear in his policy formulations f not always consistent and has few big blemishes. If there is a runoff then I think the whole country will get involved in the real vote determining which of these two will win. I think Mary Landrieu has a small chance to win out right in the primary with more than 50% of the vote. Cassidy does not have a chance to win that early. But if he is ahead of Landrieu in the primary he will be hard to beat. But Maness will take votes only from Cassidy. So Landrieu should go into the general election at an advantage.

I am voting for Charles Boustany for U.S. Representative. I think he has little opposition. Mike Harson and Kieth Stutes are running hard for District Attorney. We will see how that race plays out. Harson has the edge with Stutes still gaining in my view but not fast enough to beat the incumbent.

 

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Asian-American Relations and the End of A Career

Posted on October 19, 2014 | 4 comments

 

 

I am writing this and acknowledging that while it might start again my life as someone working in Asia, selling to Asia, visiting Asia or selling writing  about Asia has ended. This writing about a big set of subjects comes from the ending of one aspect of a life one personal career.  Asia still surrounds me in my room. I still felt the Asian qualities of the Vietnamese-Americans beside me at mass in St. Mary Magdalene Church this morning.   I still have many friends in and from Asia. But this bit of writing is inspired in part by the death of a personal set of Asianist American functions that shaped my life.

News paper article about China

Newspaper article about my time in China

As I type this last post stories about the Ebola virus are playing a big role in the picture of American life and society created in the news. They are forming a part of the vision we face when we look out at the world. I discussed some of the meaning of Ebola for our American future in one of my most recent posts. But I did not discuss the individual patients that make up American Ebola. Those patients are missionaries and healthcare workers infected in Africa and a journalist who wrote about the epidemic and the relief efforts. The Liberian Thomas Duncan who brought disease here from Africa has died. Two of his nurses are certainly infected so far. One is Amber Vinson and the other is Nina Pham. Vinson is African-American. So far all of those returning from relief work in Africa are Caucasians but Nina Pham who provided early high risk  care to  Duncan is an Asian-American. She is a brave and optimistic critical care nurse whose biography  has begun to more sought out by those following the cases of Ebola.  But it also has been reported by some how real the sense of community among the Vietnamese-Americans of Fort Worth really is. That report can be read in one version right here. Asian Americans are a small part of the American population and a diverse portion as well. But Asian= Americans are very much part of our story as Americans every day and they have been part of that story for a while now.

Asia is very diverse and complex and my ties to it and views of it represent some experiences . . .

Asia is very diverse and complex and my ties to it and views of it represent some experiences . . .

 

Asian-Americans struggle to balance the ties they maintain to Asia, to preserve their specific ancestral  heritage here and they struggle to be fully loyal and engaged Americans. I can relate to all of those troubles very well.  My life has changed a good bit even in the time since I started writing this trilogy of posts. On July 24, 2014 there was a meeting about closing the Perry community U.S. Post Office or greatly restricting it. From that smallcountry Post Office where I have had my box correspondence has gone back and forth to China, Singapore, the Philippines and to many other places. Now that era is coming to an end. When I jotted down some notes to set down these ideas about Asian-American relations in this blog it was at a very sad time for me although that was not so very long ago I feel I have managed to change my perspective.

Not so many week ago I described this little project in my sort of temporary and informal diary in this way:

For me every day brings more bad news from associates around the world. For me what seems to reassure some people I do really care about is often very bad news as regards social change, it is another part of America becoming more of a hell for me and   my life becoming more horrible. Nor am I happy in the opposition groups that take the same basic view I may take of one or two given issues.  But despite that sense of alienation I am continuing to blog. I want to do a blog post series on Asian-American relations while I still have the time, energy and security to do such a thing —  this must be an honest and thoughtful discussion — as such a series of posts could possibly be the last serious series I ever do.  In comparing with some posts of friends, groups I have known and Lord Norton I am aware that recent years have been bad for the blog.  My blog is much diminished from its peak but it had visitors from 72 countries in 2012. That number of countries is about 58% of Lord Norton’s haul for that year.

Many of the countries this blog reaches are in Asia. I have recently given some data about the reach of this blog in a post just here. In addition to Asia much of the rest of the world is represented. Staying in communication with Asia and the rest of the world is in itself a worthy aspiration.  It takes plenty of work and focus just to do that. Besides my blog posts here about the  performance and reach of this blog are not Exhaust my own efforts to understand how I am reaching the world in terms similar to those in my diary above I have commented about this on another blog named in the quote below  where I compare our relative reach in a particular year not so long ago:

But because you are  nearer the top than the middle of countries possible one would have to measure the difference form the total possible. The real measure then is from some number between 190 and two hundred which is the largest number Word Press could have in such a report. Thus you lack about 70 for total coverage and I lack about 125. These numbers are inverses of our contact numbers. However, your rate of views is much higher. All this indicates to me a high probability that The Norton View is at the high end of some thick part of a distribution curve. Progress upward from here may be disproportionately difficult to achieving the exposure already achieved. But perhaps this will be a completely “curve busting” phenomenon. If that is the case I am even more fortunate to be along for the ride as often as I am..

In the wake of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, I am more aware than usual of how all the regions of the world are connected.   The way they interconnect is constantly changing. But  the connections between Asia, Europe and America are constantly changing and usually increasing.  My mother has followed my path to China and I am thinking of that trip as she is out tonight and has been a bit down.  Who knows what all this  and her recent talk to children about the Philippines has meant to me trying to finish this series of posts. It has made me thoughtful. I want somehow to be true to the Asia I share with my family. Those views and associations may differ from my won views.

My mother toured the Great Wall of China/ I did a good bit of touring but I did not get to really tour the Great Wall in my longer stay in China

My mother toured the Great Wall of China/ I did a good bit of touring but I did not get to really tour the Great Wall in my longer stay in China

 

I am writing this last post in this trilogy on Asian- American relations to discuss the significance of the Obama Presidency, to discuss Islam in East Asia and to relate all of this to the end of my own public life. Whether it is a permanent end I do not know. I  do know that I am at a place of nearly complete current and situational failure at least as far as my ability to shape Asian-American relations. I also am at a place of really acknowledging that for me this society and my own many connections to it are utterly bankrupt. There is a sense of ever deepening alienation. But in Asia I always took pride in being an American.I may have been critical at times but always distinctly pro- American as well. That might be harder if this alienation continues to increase as it has in recent years.  Obama’s views about Islam are doubtless part of my sense of being part of an increasingly alien country but there are many other problems as well.

The horror is all that begins to count as a struggle that preclude effective action in other struggles I have long known,  the good of being an active citizen of this republic entirely eclipsed by the bad in my view of what there is ahead. But I have not always felt that way. For half a century I struggled against all odds  to do the right and good and necessary. This is not a declaration that I will never do anything public again and far less is it a note declaring the proximate end of my own life.  I have always had a fairly hellish existence in some ways.  But I know there have been many blessings and joys as well.

The world always goes on around family events and sometimes they get a bit of notice.

The world always goes on around family events and sometimes they get a bit of notice.

I am writing this blog at a time when I am hoping that I can return from the depths of alienation in some aspects of my life to another place.  Asia has long played an important role in the identity and  role of both America as a whole and for me as an individual. The many crises in the world that are not closely related to the relations of the United States to Asia very directly remain in the news as such things always have.  I know that America and Asia often simply share the common experience of  dealing with global, European or African problems all though they may deal with them differently. In my family two of my brothers were born in the Philippines.  One of my sisters was born in Colombia and the rest of us were born in the USA. But all of us have some Asian experience that is our own and different from that of other people in our family.

My mother gives her memoirs to a Catholic Bishop in China.

My mother gives her memoirs to a Catholic Bishop in China.

 

But  for all the practicality of any position I may take toward Asia I also have a whole set of dreams and ideals. Inside my imagination, I cannot help imagining a set of circumstances much better than I have ever known. Yet the struggle for a day and a week and a month is still the struggle in which I have spent my life both in Asia and here thinking and praying about Asian-American concerns .  Many memories of successes I do have but many of sorrow and trouble as well. How much different or better things could actually have turned out is one of those deep mysteries which nobody is granted to see clearly. I have got quite a few things to say about Asia and America as I wrote above.  These things have a context of shared experience and internal reflections and aspirations.

One fact is that while I have had hundreds of experiences in Asia that involved Muslims or were in some way affected by Islam I have never lived in a really Muslim Asian context. Many of my family members have spent time in Malaysia but I have not.  But in writing about Asian American relations it is vital to write something substantial Islam in Asia. So I have tried to weave it in here and there. I will deal with it a bit more below as well.

There is a lot I want to try to cover in this post and some of it is related to Islam throughout various parts of the region and across time only as the past affects the present very directly  from the  North and South and West .  I am discussing in this trilogy of posts on Asian-American Relations.  I have a few things left to do before the end of my own journey and I think that some of my attention will always be devoted to understanding conflict with and challenges from Islam. The United States of America confronted challenges from Islamic forces early in the Federal Union’s history. That was the North African Islamic challenge and not one directly from Asia. America fought the Barbary Pirates in the early 19th century  and added the words “The shores of Tripoli” to the Marine Corps hymn to remember that great struggle.

My family and I have struggled together and separately to be true to all the challenges of Christianity and have found different ways of dealing with Muslim influences in the places we have ministered or worked, toured or taught. Asian Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Communists also face challenges similar to what I and others I care about face and what America faces. Surely not all of Islam nor all Muslims can be held to be the same. But we may all feel there are conflicts of destiny upon us with much of Islam.  In the part of Asia nearest Europe we are able to feel horror at the beheadings, crucifixions and persecutions undertaken by Islamist in a new wave of terror and confrontation with the West. But East or West many of us may feel we are not ourselves if we do not confront the Islamist threat. Not all of us are actively doing what we may feel needs to be done.  I or a Buddhist in China may feel I must do something against Islamist forces to be true to my inner sense of things.  However, that is no certain assurance I will get those things done which I perceive to be somehow or other essential to my destiny.

This post and this series are in countless ways stopping rather than being finished. I let the set of stories lie. These articles  in this blog provide a small window into a vast subject ending here beginning here and continuing here.

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Garter King of Arms

Posted on October 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

This is a sequential addition to my most recent post which was a reblog as well. That post has Lord Norton mentioning my name in the post itself this one does not. However this post has a comment in which I interpret the heraldry of the Coat. At the secret level Lord Norton calls Jokes and I call Hieroglyphics. This is a subtle skill that I am proud to possess. I hope you enjoy this. I recopy the comment again here:
Your first name is Hellenic English which of course I rather like. I see no love symbols or horses anywhere. I suppose the other way to go would be “fill” “hip” and indeed two set of hips are indicated but not really displayed and the rest fills between them. The bee might suggest a weather vane if one’s eyes are bad and therefore imply the cardinal directions including North. But I have a dirty mind trained to look for codes and therefore able to see both those that are there and those that are not. Probably none of this is intentional…

August 25, 2010 at 12:08 am
Lord Norton,
I have decided to lead you further into the world of psycological delusion known as cryptographic over determinism. I will be prepared if you exclude me here after. The wings of the bee are of a colour and design that could suggest an iced vein. The quills in the owls’ beaks are also possible coded icecicles. The streamers are white with snow and ice as they are whipped around — all of this indicates a North wind. If this is true your coat says Fill Hip North On. The on because the crypto wind-vane is on the top.

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I have written aposton Lords of the Blog about the death of Sir Peter Gwynn-Jones who until a few months ago was Garter King of Arms and, as such, responsible for agreeing titles and overseeing the introduction of new peers.  He was quite a character.  I got on quite well with him, despite the fact I failed to invite him to lunch.

Upon introduction, a new peer is entitled to host a lunch for family and friends.  It is also quite usual to invite the two peers who act as one’s supporters and I did so with mine, Lords Weatherill and Newton of Braintree.   Lord Weatherill was, as he usually was, on good form, regaling my family about his time as a tailor.  However, I discovered subsequently that Garter also rather liked (expected?) to be invited to lunch.   I consoled myself with the thought that he may have been…

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Coat of Arms

Posted on October 17, 2014 | Leave a comment

I once wrote on salary for periodicals more than I do today. In recent years this has greatly diminished. So I am trying a few new ways to show how I connect at least with the larger internet. This is my first re-blogging ever and I am considering hosting a contributing blogger now and then. This is part of a series of posts by Lord Norton on the Coat of Arms and a much larger series of posts in which he and I have communicated in some way. Any reader can see some of his other posts on the coat of arms  here and here.

Lord Norton's avatarThe Norton View

By popular demand – well, at the request of Frank Summers and the Duke of Waltham – I reproduce my Coat of Arms. 

When I was offered a peerage, I had to see Garter King of Arms to discuss and agree my title.  That actually took little time, much to my relief.  (I had heard various stories of new peers running into objections from Garter as to their preferred titles.)   He was keen to explain to me that it was possible to have a Coat of Arms.  The College of Arms is self-financing and designing Coats of Arms is part of their business, not that he said that.  I was initially inclined not to have a Coat of Arms, but decided that as it was a once in a lifetime event and I would have one.  I told Garter what I would like represented on it and he then came up…

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America and American Perceptions

Posted on October 15, 2014 | 1 comment

I think the perception of America at home and abroad is changing. Some people have experienced real change in the way they look at their day to day lives. But that sort of change has always been around. We all live evolving lives.

Americans celebrate with family and friends when not working as I often have on holidays. That is America too.

Americans celebrate with family and friends when not working as I often have on holidays. That is America too.

America is made up of all the people, institutions and places that exist within the country. It is made up of the culture, society and subcultures of these United States of America. There is no doubt that the American experience is a varied and diverse experience.  But Ebola, ISIS, military cutbacks, lower labor force participation,  tensions with Russia, struggles to cope with change in Asia and the lack of real growth in many sectors  are issues which force people to reconsider where America is and where it is going. This blog has been a place to view certain problems in our country since its inception. In today’s post I want to deal with perception itself and the possible crisis of credibility in our discussions.  There will be no grand conclusions here but there will be an effort to  get us in a mindset for meaningful discussions by examining two sets of current events.

To safeguard liberty we must be able to adapt to the changing times.

To safeguard liberty we must be able to adapt to the changing times.

But what is fundamental to America’s well-being more than to most nations is an ability to deal truthfully with present conditions. If that is really at risk then so is a great deal more. There is a lot of diversity amid the States in this Union.  I am well aware of Louisiana and what pertains to Louisiana. I see the world from my viewing station on this State. This is true for many other people in other States as well.

Our ritual foods of Mardi Gras are on my mind more than Borscht

Our ritual foods of Mardi Gras are on my mind more than Borscht

There is a lot going on in America at any given time. Americans work hard every day to make their mark and do what is right as best they can. The do this in all walks of life including athletics. Excellence in athletics  was recognized near where I live yesterday among all the negative news on the same day.  But there are real crises in our country.

Where I went before and after Steubenville and received my degree.

The University where I went before and after Steubenville and received my degree.

It is true that I have seldom been accused of having too rosy a view of things but there are two very different stories in today’s news which remind me of the importance I place on credibility. The need for credible sources of information and real discussion of situations by those who make decisions.

We do have multiple healthcare workers infected by one cooperative Ebola patient in a hospital in the USA.  We have to live with who we are, what we have and what constitutes our situation.Early on people were assure medical facilities in America could safely handle Ebola and now the same people like Dr. Richard Besser of ABC are asserting the need to use specialized hospitals to deal with Ebola. Ebola in Dallas came with one cooperative patient. The risks by many other theoretical possibilities are vastly greater and we are much less than ready for all possible risks if only specialized hospitals can safely confront the disease. On the other hand, the good news is that the first nurse — Ms. Pham — is still showing signs of making a good recovery in the general hospital environment which many are losing their faith in all of a sudden.

My nephew Isaac in an American hospital shortly after birth

My nephew Isaac in an American hospital shortly after birth

I am as critical of the American healthcare system as almost anyone I know. But America does have a vast wealth in general hospital systems and the services around them. huge numbers of educated and well trained people and many resources from technology to insurance are committed to these institutions. These hospitals are not all called general hospitals but when America faces challenges as potentially vast and terrible as Ebola could become, or chemical weapons attacks or anything vast I think the CDC, the military, the insurance industry and other institutions must think of coming to support the general hospitals of our country with ancillary services and expertise. We cannot face such vast challenges without them.

my Insurance Certification Course Diploma

my Insurance Certification Course Diploma

It is no secret that I am of the opinion that America must evolve to face the challenges of the future. Readers of this blog will know this well. Nor have I been shy about discussing possible radical change here and here. I have also discussed healthcare at length. The post linked in the last sentence is only one of many. But we do have many fine resources that must be respected even as they are reorganized to meet new challenges. Ebola is not a unique situation in an absolute sense — it is part of the whole world of healthcare challenges  we must face.

So we come back to what more of what makes America one nation most — national security and military issues. We have a very significant story to think about right now. We need a strong and supported military. But don’t we also need to have discussions based on the truth.

My cousin Severin was killed in battle in Afghanistan.

My cousin Severin was killed in battle in Afghanistan.

 

The second story is that after hundreds of debates and articles and elections to determine all kinds of things we may find that all of these exchanges were based on lies. There may have been weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq after all. It may have mattered quite a lot all this time and have been kept secret. The US government may have found WMD in Iraq as the Bush administration promised — thus that prediction was not a lie. However, they may have lied about finding the weapons (only keeping up morale makes since as a motive). This is now coming out as we worry about ISIS having weapons from Iraq as well as the vast caches of Syrian weapons that are known to exist. The future must be faced in discussions based on the truth. That is what I have always believed and still do believe.

My family stopped at a Battleship park after one vacation and I have a long interest in studying and observing military history.

My family stopped at a Battleship park after one vacation and I have a long interest in studying and observing military history.

When we look at Ferguson, Missouri and at the approval ratings of the President and Congress we know people are unhappy about the state of things. Add to that those affected by all the many crises on the news more directly than you or I may be.  We have a big election coming up and I am glad for it. I intend to vote. But Americans must demand more truth and have a more complete political discussion sooner rather than later.  Personally, I have much to do besides worry about the nation and so do most Americans. But I think we have challenges that demand a larger than usual response.

I look forward  to seeing how our politicos respond to this  set of crises. I know I will be watching and some of you reading this will be as well.

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Columbus Day 2014 Reflections

Posted on October 13, 2014 | Leave a comment

Today is the Monday the thirteenth of October or to be more currently American –October 13, 2014 and is also Columbus Day. It is not a big holiday compared to Christmas or the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving.  But it is a holiday and I will blog about this particular day today. Columbus deserves some attention. He has gotten some here before.  But even in this post he will not get a full biographical sketch. The Italian mariner who sailed for Spain to search for India’s Western reaches and found Hispaniola and caused the sea off America’s East to be called the West Indies. Admiral of the Ocean Sea, bringer of  fine churches, barracks and trade goods and gatherer of reports of the nearby continent — he deserves more attention than he will get here. This is not so much a post about 1492 as about my own Columbus Day this year.

Columbus discovered America. That is the old formulation which shaped much of the creation of this holiday and of our sense of American history.  But the Vikings got from Europe to America before Columbus. The Viking past has made the news this week again.

One vision of America that I relate to better than most is the vision associated with the magazine titled America. It is a magazine of the American Jesuits. We get it here and we recently had a guest who fairly recently before his visit appeared in its pages. Father Corcoran’s sister is living at Big Woods Mission as I write this post.

I spent  good bit of today getting ready for a storm. Partly this meant finishing up some drains for the land around our house. It may well get a full test today and the rains have started since I began typing this post. But it is gard hobest work that needs to be done.

A Columbus Day storm may test our new drains

A Columbus Day storm may test our new drains

There were little supplies to get like the top for my homemade seep pot between a larger and smaller drain pipe. All of that is part of what is repeated in millions of homes to make a continent into a society, economy and civilization. It was my day’s contribution to the development of America.

This false slate covers the seep pot in my new system

This false slate covers the seep pot in my new system

 

But none of this is America writ large. I have dealt with the theme of the great America in many posts such as here, here and here. But that is not what this post is mostly about. I have a lot on my mind today including the role of Columbus as a Christian  coming to the New World and the ongoing struggle of Christians and the ongoing role of Christianity throughout the world. This continues to have geopolitical significance in places as different as Hong Kong and Syria and Iraq. Syria is the first country where the term Christian was ever used.  The vast Christian populations of the America’s are an enormous legacy for Columbus and his Spanish employers.  I am a Christian and glad to have these lands filled with so many of my faith.

But America is above all my homeland and it is a home in which my sense of rootedness continues to grow and manifest itself in different ways. I love the sports, prepare for the elections, and over a lifetime have done all kinds of things in interaction with the lands, waters and natural treasures of America. Today I tend to a smallish lawn and garden

The orange tree panted and nurtured on the new house site on old family land.

The orange tree panted and nurtured on the new house site on old family land.

What is never in doubt is that it really is home. So many are the ties that bind and the memories that enrich. Here too so many ancestors lie buried and so many ancestral deeds are remembered.

These are the fruits I hope will weather today's storm.

These are the fruits I hope will weather today’s storm.

But for all the land has to offer this homeland is more than land and cultivated and wild nature. But the wilderness endures and appeals to us all here. All the years of hunting and fishing form a vast geography of memory.

My brother killed his first deer taken with a bow today at Big Woods and brought it back here to our house.

My brother killed his first deer taken with a bow today at Big Woods and brought it back here to our house.

So today is Columbus Day.  I will live one more day as an American and see what happens tomorrow. It too will find me in debt to the explorer remembered today.

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