The Ghosts of Christmas Past!

Christmas brings memories by the massive bundles that are bigger than Santa’s sack… memories of other times, other places and other people!
by Charlie Leck

Here’s what I think of on Christmas Day – other Christmas Days past. I mostly remember people who have faded from memory in so many ways, but I can bring them back to mind in startling realism on Christmas Day. Jesus, I sit down on Christmas morning, before the big kids (now really adults) awaken, when the house is remarkably quiet, and I remember faces and places and times long ago.

I remember a cousin who I loved like – like what? – like she was the most important possession in life to me. Only, I didn’t possess her. I saw her far too seldom for my own likes. When I was a kid of nine years, she would have been seven, but, to me, she seemed twenty-one. She was remarkably wise, kind and sensible. She respected me. That’s what I appreciated most. In a family of much older brothers and a sister, I was generally treated like an after-thought – like an unwelcome, awkward after-thought. My cousin didn’t treat me that way. She looked me hard in the eyes and smiled widely and let me know I was cool (though we didn’t use that word back then) and important. When she would reach out and touch my arm it felt so remarkable; for this was loving, human contact with someone who cared for me as much or more than anyone in my life ever had.

I must have been about nine when she and her mom spent a couple of days over Christmas with us. She was from the Bronx, in the big city, and my family lived in what people in the big city called “the sticks” – a place far out in the country, even though our two homes were only 45 miles apart. Now, I’ve been through nearly 70 of these gatherings around the Christmas Tree – these gift exchanges – and there is no Christmas I remember as I do that one. It comes back to me with a strange mixture of detail and vagueness even on this Christmas morning when I’ve so much to do and so little time to think. It invades something deep inside me – like my soul – and it spreads a warmth and happiness over me.

For my special gift from Santa that year, I received a nifty six shooter, holster and belt, chaps, vest and a cowboy hat. I buckled the holster low around my waste, so it would ride on my hips; and I showed off my slick quick-draw, looking as smooth and skilled as Gene Autrey himself. My sweet, pretty cousin got some girlish things, like little blankets, a doll and a stocking cap. I remember her wrapped in a little, fragile scarf that someone gave her. She was so beautiful it took my breath away. She kissed my cheek for something inane that I gave her

I shiver still, when I remember that kiss. I still feel the warmth and genuineness of it. I remember her fresh and innocent breath and the glow of her incredible eyes.

Christmas is, I guess, for children; though there is still a child in me and he remembers back over years and miles to Christmases long ago.

My bedroom had two big windows, nearly floor to ceiling, that looked out on Main Street of our little, country town. Straight out there, across an intersection of streets that came together into an outlet on to Main Street, I could lay in my bed and see the village park. An evergreen tree in the middle of the park was decorated with colored lights.

I was filled with the excitement of the coming morning, anxious to see the transformation of the tree that now stood bare in our livingroom. While we slept, Santa would magically arrive and decorate the tree and scatter wonderful gifts beneath it. He'd stuff full the stockings we hung around the room. He’d also devour the little snack I had left out for him and he’d read my note to him and leave one for me, expressing his thanks.

Sleep, however, did not come easily for me. Wide awake, I looked out at the lights on the town’s Christmas tree. I listened carefully for the sound of sleigh bells and, perhaps, for Santa’s voice, shouting commands to his magical, flying reindeer.

After some long time, I would conclude that it was the lights from the tree that kept me awake, so I would stir and roll to my other side and try to close my eyes, begging for sleep to come. Soon, however, I would flop back over to look out at the tree in the park and I’d watch an occasional car or truck rumble down Main Street.

As if it happened by magic, I would hear voices all around me, stirring me awake.

“Pop is checking to see if Santa came,” one of my big brothers would tell me. “He’s down there now, checking!”

I jumped up, surprised that I had been asleep. The night sky was being pushed away by the gray-white light of morning. I could barely tell that the lights on the town’s tree, across the way, were still glimmering. Dressed in my pajamas, I jumped out of bed and showed my readiness to descend the stairs.

“He’s been here all right!” My father would call from the bottom of the stairs. “You can all come down now!”

There was a ritual to our descent of the stairway. My mother always went first. She wore a warm, woolen robe and her night dress showed beneath it, from knees to her ankles. Big, warm slippers covered her feet. Her hair had already been neatly brushed. My big sister, Jean of blessed memory, followed her. She too wore a robe and slippers, and, like mother, she had tended to her hair. Brother, Frank, seven years older than I, went next. His feet were bare and he wore pajamas that had both long legs and long arms. His hair was wildly unbrushed. John, my brother who was a year younger than Frank, followed next in line. He had pulled on a pair of jeans and he wore a tight, white undershirt that showed his muscular chest and arms. His hair was already thinning and it didn’t matter if it were combed or not, because it always looked the same.

I, of course, followed, last in line, and I was made to wait near the bottom of the stairs while everyone else gathered in the livingroom to watch my reaction.

“All right, Bubb,” my father called out, “you can come down now.”

I took the final step downward and turned the corner to descend the two stairs that led to our kitchen. From there I could see through the kitchen and into the livingroom, to the big tree that stood in the corner, covered with bright colored lights and a hundred decorative ornaments. I screamed and ran to the big room and slid on my knees to the front of the tree where dozens of gifts were scattered beneath it.

Each Christmas there was some very special gift – a new train set from Lionel, or a new bike, or that six-shooter on the year my pretty cousin and I shared Christmas together.

It seems so long ago, but, in my mind, it was only a few nights ago and mother and father and sister are so real and alive that I can hear them laughing together as I discover the year’s great surprise that was waiting for me beneath the tree. The laughter is palpable and rises in volume now, as I write these words.

Santa was generous in those years of my boyhood, even as he has been on this year, late in my life. Ghosts return to me at Christmas time and I can see them clearly and I distinctly hear their voices and laughter. My mother’s hands are clasped together and rest on her chest, just beneath her chin. An enormously wide smile is spread across her face as she watches me tear open the special gift that Santa has left for me. My sweet cousin is giggling uncontrollably and jumping up and down, shouting to me.

“What is it, Charlie? What is it?”

Christmases long ago seem so very near, indeed!

A Christmas Gift to My Readers

Abraham Lincoln and the Grand Old Party!
by Charlie Leck

How many times I chuckled during the last election when I would hear various Republicans claim Abraham Lincoln as their own. Indeed, Abe was a Republican; though he was not, believe me, a member of this party of Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Sarah Palin.

This blog, written on Christmas Eve Day, about just how democracy in America works, by using the 1964 election of Abe Lincoln, a Whig turned Republican, as an example, is my Christmas gift to my readers.

Then, in order to apply myself to shoveling the snow away from the house, keeping the walkways and driveway cleared; and then to enjoy the visits of some of our children, returned from their far-away homes on either coast, I shall take a few days off and resume writing again on Monday. I hope you will all have a wonderful holiday weekend.

“There is no new thing to be said about Lincoln. There is no new thing to be said of the mountains, or of the sea, or of the stars. The years go their way, but the same old mountains lift their granite shoulders above the drifting clouds; the same mysterious sea beats upon the shore; the same silent stars keep holy vigil above a tired world. But to the mountains and sea and stars men turn forever in unwearied homage. And thus with Lincoln. For he was a mountain in grandeur of soul, he was a sea in deep undervoice of mystic loneliness, he was a star in steadfast purity of purpose and service. And he abides.” [Homer Hoch, Congressional Representative of Kansas, in the House of Representatives, 12 February 1923]

Abraham Lincoln was a gift to America, given to her at just the right moment in time – at the precisely right moment in history. Could any other man – any other President – have saved the union? We will never know. We only know that Abraham Lincoln did.

I have just finished reading, for the second time, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s remarkable book, Team of Rivals. Years ago I read Carl Sandberg’s remarkable Lincoln biography, a single volume he pared down from the seven volumes he wrote about Abe’s pre-war and war years. As a boy, in Chester Public School (NJ), the first book report I ever wrote was about Abe by Bernadine Bailey, The Story of Abraham Lincoln. I also clearly remember reading, as a child, a little ditty called Barefoot Abe. Today I can’t find any references to it; yet my mind has pinned that title on the book with a stubborn certainty. In high school, my dear, sweet English teacher and forensics coach, Mae Call, assigned me the task of memorizing and delivering publicly Lincoln’s extraordinary Gettysburg Address. I can still get through it nearly verbatim and completely. Some years after that, when I was a bit more mature, I read and wrote a report on We Knew Abe Lincoln, a biography written by Lincoln’s law partner in Illinois, William Herndon. On the shelves near me, here where I write, I also have a volume of Lincoln’s speeches and letters (from 1859 through 1865). I’ve read most of it. Lincoln has always fascinated me.

None of this makes me a Lincoln expert, by any means; however, it does mean that I am not exactly a piker either when it comes to the subject. So, when I tell you that Lincoln's Republican Party is not the same entity, that is the Republican Party that we view today, I think I know what I'm talking, or writing, about.

A couple of years ago, I spent some delightful time reading the two volume set written by Ernest Duvergier de Hauranne, A Frenchman in Lincoln’s America (originally Huit Mois en Amérique: Lettres et Notes de Voyage, 1864-1865). It was remarkable to read about America, its politics and Abraham Lincoln through the eyes of a European who was a contemporary of our greatest President. This very literary Frenchman was on hand during the year when Abe ran for his second term as President. Duvergier de Hauranne got to live through the campaign hype of that year and the election. His description of those events is stunning and captivating.

“In Cincinnati last night a large Unionist meeting was held, and the streets are still full of huge banners almost as long as the houses are high. There will be a second one Saturday at which Mr. Chase (Salmon Chase), who has definitely declined to run for any office, will speak in favor of President Lincoln. Yesterday, while the Unionists gathered in front of the Court Hall, the Democrats were meeting at Covington, in Kentucky, on the other bank of the river. There again a minor riot occurred: a goodly number of wounded soldiers from a detachment of convalescent troops was present. One of the orators, the honorable Mr. [George E.] Pugh of Ohio, took pleasure in insulting them; he declared that their victories were only lies spread by the telegraph, spoke of ‘Beast Butler’ and of ‘Brute Burberidge,’ and denounced military tyranny in the most energetic terms. As he was describing his pity for the suffering of his Southern brothers, a soldier of Sherman’s army, disfigured by a scar on his face, cried out, ‘You are a traitor!’ – ‘You are cowards!’ replied the orator. That touched off an uproar; the soldiers were furious; they threatened him, crowded around him and would have killed him if he had not fled. In five minutes the crowd had dispersed and the platform was in flames.”

Ah, politics! And we tend to think that the hate-mongers and the venom they spread during our contemporary time is somewhat unusual. There is nothing quite like mixing the exuberance of a hotly contested political campaign with the morality questions of war – an atmosphere we have lived in for a good part of my entire life; but never, of course, was the tone like that of the Civil War days when brother fought brother and state went up against state. Remember, as you read the quote above, perhaps again, that Cincinnati and Covington were in neighboring states, but only about 10 miles apart.

The Frenchman eloquently describes the intensity of the differences in political parties during that 1864 election campaign. The following is a description of a campaign scene in New York City.

“Meanwhile a few small Democratic meetings were being organized along Broadway; stones were thrown at the marchers as they passed by. Tempers became heated. Suddenly a movement occurred in the crowd; the noise of firecrackers redoubled and the sound of drums and brasses increased. The ward delegates appeared on the scene, marching with a military step in long columns, led by their chiefs and followed by their cannons and their illuminated wagons filled with orators. These speakers began to hurl abuse; insults to McClellan echoed through the streets. Some ‘peace-men’ protested, interrupting with loud shouts of ‘Down with the Negroes!’ ‘You damned scoundrels!’ ‘It’s a damned nigger war!’ During all of this cannons boomed, the crowd roared and the band played fortissimo: the bellowing orators, foaming with fury and fatigue, still tried to make themselves heard above the tumult. Orators in antiquity were recalled to measure and harmony by a flute player; what is one to think of this American eloquence that takes its pitch from a salvo of field artillery?”

My goodness! We must rethink how awful and how abusive our current campaigns are. Back then we are talking about the progressive Republicans and the extremely conservative Democrats going at each other tooth and nail – and I mean it quite literally.

And, we tend to think that great ideals are at stake in our Presidential elections – that victory and defeat are matters of life and death. Imagine how southerners in 1864 watched the national election and worried about the results. A Lincoln victory would forever change southern culture and mores. We’re talking here about the Republicans (of a unionist bent) and the Democrats (as the champions of southern states’ rights). My, what a mixed up, bent up world!

Quite early on 9 November 1864, the election results were in and the Frenchman is amazed at the calm that has suddenly settled over everything and everyone. From Chicago he makes his observations.

“President Lincoln has been elected by a large majority. Since yesterday it has been evident that the Republicans would carry Chicago. This morning we learned tht they have won in all states except New York and a few other states where the vote, when counted, is likely to go to the Democrats….“The most amazing thing is the profound calm in which the great event has taken place. The newspapers bring us no reports of rioting, no tales of violence or disorder. Over the whole territory of the Union, from Boston to St. Louis and from Washington to Chicago, Election Day was a day of truce, and all parties laid down their arms with astonishing unanimity…”

Then, in a paragraph, Ernest Duvergier de Hauranne tells us the great secret of America, and this, my dear friends around the nation – you Democrats turned Republican and you Republicans turned Democrats – you conservatives and progressives and liberals and independents and moderates and those of you who are just confused or sitting on a fence somewhere or totally disinterested – you who think Abraham Lincoln was a Republican when really the Republicans of this day are someing else entirely apart from the Republicans of that day – this is my Christmas gift to you on this snowy, blowing, white day in Minnesota:

“What, then, is the guardian angel that protects democracy? To what does she owe this spirit of order, perseverance and wisdom which her friends themselves have never counted among her virtues? She owes it to her ‘party organizations.’ These despised words contain the whole secret of American liberty. These slapdash conventions that are convened in the name of the people to nominate candidates and draw up the party’s program, are obeyed with a unanimity that proves the political intelligence of the country. In America there is no issue so local, so private, that it is not connected with the great political and constitutional questions which divide the nation; the questions of war and peace, of Lincoln or McClellan, are linked with the choice of a police chief or a street-cleaner.”

You may be involved in this process if you wish. Just get to the next caucus of your political party of choice or get connected with that party's headquarters and express your wish to be involved. It's not difficult.

God bless America! Happy Holidays to you all!

Weather Threatens Senate Health Care Bill

The Senate stood ready to pass a health care bill before the Christmas recess, but bad weather all across the central U.S. makes Senators want to go home early for fear they might otherwise not get there to celebrate the big day with constituents.
by Charlie Leck

That might not be so bad; that is, I mean, if the Senate doesn’t get the health care reform package passed before Christmas because the Senators want to get out of town to beat impending storms in their home states. It will give us all a little more time to think about it. Frankly, I need the time.

I’ve very slowly come around to cheering on this bill. It doesn’t come close to what I wanted or hoped for in a health care reform package, but, I reluctantly agree, it is better than nothing. It will be something to build upon in the future.

The real problem ahead is reconciliation!
The Senate bill is going to be far different than the House bill. That means a joint committee of Congress will negotiate out a common compromise and settle on the exact wording of the bill to be sent to the President. That’s good, because some of the preposterous proposals and tagged on mandates can be removed – like the one that promises not to tax anyone in Nebraska (who is under 133 percent of the poverty level) for the costs of the new bill. I don’t often agree with Senator Lindsey Graham, but on this one I do. That is one of the most absurd things I’ve ever heard. It certainly isn’t the new politics – the politics of change – that President Obama promised us. It’s a dirty, rotten negotiated deal with Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson to get his vote for health care reform. It’s a provision every state would like. Why not? Other exemption provisions were stuck in the bill for Massachusetts, Vermont and Louisiana in order to get votes from the Senators of those states. That’s not new politics. That’s the stinking, unfair, closed door, smoke-filled room politics of forever! Change? Where’s the change we were promised?

The joint committee will be able to trash such nonsense, however, and make this truly a better bill. Nevertheless, there are a couple of major and significant differences between the two bills that might not get reconciled and then the bill will be in danger of crashing. Here are those two major points that will present real, knotty problems.

• The abortion question is an ugly one. The Senate bill does not allow federal funds for abortions. The House won’t stand for that exemption.


• The House bill may come in with a public option. The conservative Senators won’t allow this.

Representative Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, is my current hero. He stood and jabbed at both the House and the Senate and told them the truth: “We need strong leadership so close to the finish line, not efforts to water down a bill to the breaking point.”

You can still have an impact on your Congressional leaders, but you absolutely must speak up now!

You’d Better Watch Out!

Santa has some employee problems in this bad economy. They are trying to get as much done with far fewer people.
by Charlie Leck

Christmas is right around the corner at our house. The master of the domain finds himself singing little Christmas ditties as he wanders around the house, checking the tree three or four times during the day, adjusting an ornament here or there and exchanging a green light with a red one in another spot to improve the balance of the color. He notices that not only are the stockings all hung with care, but that some of them are already gushing full of gifts. Santa has obviously made a preliminary stop. The grandchildren’s stockings are already over flowing with toys and goodies.

The rumor is two-fold. (1) Santa doesn’t move around as well as he once did and all the spreading of joy and generosity can’t be left to just one evening any more. He needs to get a jump start on all his visits and the filling of so many stockings. (2) The number of Santa’s helpers in down quite seriously since a year ago. The economy has taken its toll and there is just far more for each helper to now do to make up for the shortage of employees.

I got a hint of all this just this morning when I noticed the lid had been left off the cookie jar in our kitchen. It was perfectly clear that someone had been looking for a treat. Then I saw that a carton of eggnog that I had not planned to open until Christmas Eve had been tampered with and a third of it was missing. Then, in the kitchen sink, there was a large drinking glass with the tell-tale evidence that it had once been filled with the thick, creamy holiday liquid.

Not being anyone’s fool, I went into the living room to look around at my tree; perhaps, to make a few adjustments to an ornament or two. And there, behind the tree, I noticed that a few of the hung stockings had already been filled to the brim. Then, too, there were more gifts beneath the tree than I had put there and the wrapping paper was clearly nothing like any that we keep around the house. Sure enough, when I checked the gift tags, they were from Santa. A dozen or more gifts had been added to our already immense pile.

The older I get, and the less nimble of mind, the more Santa fantasies dance in my head. I can actually see the old fellow wandering around the house, checking on things and making sure all is ready for the big morning. The dog cocks his head and whines a bit. To keep the black lab quiet, Santa flips a few treats over to him. Santa’s legs are bent at the knee in a manner that makes them look far less strong than they were only five or six years ago. His joints crack as he slowly moves around the tree, making important adjustments. Santa’s belly looks much more like a bowl full of jelly than it did when the children were little tikes. His hair and beard are completely white now, without even a trace of gray. He finds the sofa a comfortable place to take a 20 minute nap before he moves on to the next homes in the community. He’s even given up landing his big sleigh and tiny reindeer on the roof. They set down and take off now from the driveway. Santa just ambles in through the front door, struggling a bit with the big bag thrown over his shoulder. When he’s finished with his work for that visit, he leaves the same way he came. That business of going up the chimney is but a mere memory of his youthful days.

I clean up after Santa a bit, rinsing his drinking glass and putting it in the dishwasher. I refluff the sofa to remove the evidence of his little nap. I go outside, in front of the house, and shovel up the little deposits the flying reindeer have left out there.

Santa will need to return. Not all the stockings are yet filled. So, I’ll get the cookie jar filled with his favorites – short bread pieces. I’ll buy a larger jug of eggnog and leave the bottle of brandy out where he can see it (just in case).

The tree at our house looks very comely, indeed. It’s a tranquil sight. Lights are blinking at me and some of the ornaments are sparkling. I sit in my easy chair – the chair I call “Archie Bunker’s chair” – and I survey the Christmas scene. An enormous amount of work has gone into this project. I begin to think about the meaning of it all, but that thought tires me and my head flops back and my eyes close. I drift off to sleep to the sound of sleigh bells moving westward over the hay fields.

The One Great Hope in this Health Care Reform Package

Photograph by markstahlphoto and purchased through iStock Photos.

A health care reform bill will likely pass the U.S. Senate this week! We can only hope it’s a start.
by Charlie Leck

It may be a historic moment when a health care reform bill passes in the U.S. Senate this week. Then again, it may not be.

If the bill gets through the House of Representatives and goes to the President’s desk, it may be the start – the beginning – of something historic and important. Then again, it may not be.

The predictions are that a bill will get passed in the Senate. It will not be anything like what candidate Obama portrayed in his campaign. If he calls it a great victory or a deliverance on his promise, some of us – and probably many, many of us – will chuckle. Nevertheless, I’m trying to be optimistic here. Maybe something good will come of it.

It will take years to repair the piece of junk that this Congress is going to turn over to the President for his signature, but if, slowly and carefully, the repairs are made (let’s say in the next decade) someday my grandchildren can take pride in a nation that takes care of its sick.

Don’t celebrate when this particular bill is passed! Just quietly hope that it is the beginning of a long process that will see our hopes fulfilled in another decade or so.

The Man of the Year

Frank Rich calls Tiger the Man of the Year – “the farcical reduction ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams!”
by Charlie Leck

It’s a good call to name Tiger Woods the Man of the Year, as Frank Rich has done in his NY Times column. Too bad it’s so negative. On a year when Barack Obama becomes the first President of color and wins the Nobel Peace Prize – when Bernie Madoff is sentenced to finish his life in prison for stealing billions – went countless financial wizards were unmasked as nothing more than frauds – when we realize we are mired so deeply in wars that were sold to us by Bernie Madoff-like politicians – we crown Tiger Woods as the most prominent example of “the great con.”

“If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy).”

“…What’s striking instead is the exceptional, Enron-sized gap between this golfer’s public image as a paragon of businesslike discipline and focus and the maniacally reckless life we now know he led. What’s equally striking, if not shocking, is that the American establishment and news media — all of it, not just golf writers or celebrity tabloids — fell for the Woods myth as hard as any fan and actively helped sustain and enhance it.”

As a radio personality out here on the plains often says: “Mr. Rich is either on to something or he’s on something!”

But, I’ll go a long with the call. Tiger Woods is the man of the year. He certainly crushed a part of my life and left me dizzied with disappointment. Five or six times a year I plan long, long camp-outs by the TV to watch 6, 8 or 10 hours of the major golf competitions – the Masters, the U.S. Open Championship, The Open (from Britain), the PGA Championship, the Players Championship, and an international team championship. It was a commonly known fact around here that the only thing I ever wanted on Father’s Day, from all of my children, was to be left on my own, in privacy, with a batch of tostados and guacamole dip, so I could watch the final day of the U.S. Open Golf Championship (played every Father's Day).

Now I have no interest. Perhaps something will stir inside me when Spring arrives, but, for now, I have only Tiger to thank for messing up my wonderful rituals. Now, when a champion is crowned in any of those events, the natural doubts will always hang in the air. Did the best player really win? And, if it’s Tiger who wins, the question will be: Who cares?

The height and shear nerve of Tiger’s con is too enormous to forgive easily. He might have not only destroyed the loyalty of those of us who loved to watch him do his work on a golf course, but he may have destroyed the comfortable livelihoods of a large group of successful and hopeful golf professionals.

If my attitude is multiplied by several million other enthusiasts around the nation, what does it do to the Professional Golfers Association of America? What does it do to the United States Golf Association? What impact does it have on the good fellow up the street who owns the nice, low green-fee, public golf course?

What damage does it do to the dozens of golf equipment manufacturing companies? What harm to the dozens and dozens of charities that benefited from contributions from so many golf tournaments all around the world.

Immediately, the fall-out from Tiger’s personal failings will be enormous. Perhaps, over time, the situation will heal. I, however, don’t have all that much time. This year I’ll get outside during “Masters Week” and enjoy the budding arrival of Spring in Minnesota. And, I guess I’ll ask the children to take me to brunch on Father’s Day this year.

Alas! As Frank Rich writes, carrying the Tiger Wood’s syndrome to greater heights…

“The most lethal example, of course, were the two illusions marketed to us on the way to Iraq — that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and some link to Al Qaeda. That history has since been rewritten by Bush alumni, Democratic politicians who supported the Iraq invasion and some of the news media that purveyed the White House fictions (especially the television press, which rarely owned up to its failure as print journalists have). It was exclusively “bad intelligence,” we’re now told, that pushed us into the fiasco. But contradictions to that “bad intelligence” were in plain sight during the run-up to the war — even sometimes in the press. Yet we wanted to suspend disbelief. Much of the country, regardless of party, didn’t want to question its leaders, no matter how obviously they were hyping any misleading shred of intelligence that could fit their predetermined march to war. It’s the same impulse that kept many from questioning how Mark McGwire’s and Barry Bonds’s outlandishly cartoonish physiques could possibly be steroid-free.”

“But these scam artists are pikers next to the financial hucksters. I’m not just talking about Bernie Madoff and Enron’s Ken Lay, but about those titans who legally created and sold the securities that gamed and then wrecked the system. You’d think after Enron’s collapse that financial leaders and government overseers would question the contents of “exotic” investments that could not be explained in plain English. But only a few years after Enron’s very public and extensively dissected crimes, the same bankers, federal regulatory agencies and securities-rating companies were giving toxic “assets” a pass. We were only too eager to go along for the lucrative ride until it crashed like Tiger’s Escalade.”

Again, read the Frank Rich column from today’s NY Times.

Dick Cavett's column about Tiger Woods and the enormously high cost of fame is also a remarkably good read.

So Many Golden Days

A marriage of 50 years is not a common, ordinary achievement!
by Charlie Leck

My brother, John, and his wife, Mary Jane, are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary today. My, oh my! Though we can't be with them in Florida for the big day, I send along these words of love and congratulation.

Dearest brother and lovely Mary Jane, Anne and I want you to know that we will be thinking of you on this immense day of celebration and jubilation. Your incredible achievement does not go unnoticed by us, but, quite the contrary, is an absolute wonder that is regularly on our minds. To reach the fifty year mark in a marriage is not an ordinary or common thing. That you have done this is to be celebrated in great earnestness and you both are to be congratulated in an extraordinary manner – especially you, dear Mary Jane, for managing to put up with a Leck boy with such graciousness and so tenderly (it proves you are a remarkable actress among your other so admirable traits).

Fifty years! My goodness. It does not seem so. How quickly the days have slid by. How many times does that mean the sun has raced across the sky, from Atlantic to Pacific, within the seasons of your marriage? Though you may not want to hear the number, it has happened 18,263 times (including leap years). Among those thousands of times were many stunning risings of the bright, golden globe in our East and as many settings in the West more splendid than the world’s finest artists could ever capture on a canvass. Golden mornings! Golden evenings! Through all of them, your love for each other has endured the natural tests to which every single marriage is and must be put; and you have not only survived them all, but you have passed each trial with such grace that you have set a wondrous example for your children, grandchildren and for all of us who know and love you.

And now, on this Golden day of celebration, we congratulate you with hoorahs and ovations of joy and happiness and pray that there will be many more golden risings and settings of the sun for you to enjoy together in love. And, as part of this celebration we send out our love to you both – forever!

Anne and Charlie

I hope their day with family and friends is an extraordinary one, indeed!