Bashing partisanship - the saga continues

Oh, poor Rush, the liberals are being mean to him and he can't be an owner of a football team. Poor, Obama too, the conservatives are making fun of him for not getting the Olympics for Chicago. This is what you both get for your tactics, even if the attacks are unfair. We all get what you deserve - more mindless bickering and unfair character assassinations. I do believe we can do better. It's not a utopian dream although it will not be realized any time soon, probably not in my lifetime.

A few weeks ago I was challenged by a friend/reader as to my political assessment that "partisanship makes everyone a little bit crazy". I will state my position, discuss some studies I think are relevant, and throw it open for criticism. My friends' belief – and I'm pretty sure this covers it - is that my position (1) is offensive to people who have an ideological position (2) confuses that ideology with partisanship, and (3) merely evidences my own bias that everything has to end in some “nice” amorphous middle ground.

I disagree with the first two points and can give some credence to the third.

My central position is this - the biggest problem we face in this country is hard to define because it is not an issue, it is procedure. The control of congress by the two national parties, steeped in partisanship, stifles debate and legislation. This is a long standing problem and not surprising. We should train ourselves to be more open minded.

If it is ever to change it must be bottom up as we cannot expect the people in power to willingly surrender theirs. One of the reasons we cannot get past it is the strong partisanship felt by so many people towards one party or the other based on their identification with conservatism or liberalism, the two parties’ central ideologies. Many Americans share these beliefs, yet, because of the nature of independents, there are no central or common positions they repeatedly rally around. As it stands now, few people with a chance to win will run as an independents, and the few who do successfully must almost then always ally themselves with one of the two parties to even have a voice. The eventual flame out of Governor Ventura in Minnesota and Ross Perot’s Reform Party being taken over and essentially destroyed as a powerful political presence by Pat Buchanan’s party takeover in 2000, are good reasons for independent minded people to pause before they support independent candidates. It may not only waste their vote but help those they most dislike politically to win.

Thus, we can't simply "throw the bums out," because no side wants to take the chance that they would throw their bums out but the other side wouldn't, leaving them completely and utterly in control.

Partisanship can be very different from ideology, although often you can't tell the difference. You could alternatively use the phrase "ideological partisanship" instead of just "partisanship" and it would mean the same thing. Ideology means that the person has a position based on theories of government, jurisprudence, society, culture, science, etc., that is, something based on evidence or reason. Aside from the obvious definition, partisanship means knee jerk reactions as what party (sometimes person) proposes or opposes; liking or disliking or disparaging a public figure (or ordinary person even) or entity based on their party or ideology or belief system; forming positions on issues based on who is supporting them; rejecting policies out of hand because of who proposes it. It means being more likely to believe in the negative "facts" about the other side, and less likely with your own, and also taking the most extreme opinions from the other side and tarring the entire -ism with it.

Likewise with how important you think a scandal is - the question is rarely the real issue for many people, but who's ox is being gored? As an example, a very strong conservative once complained to me that Frank Lautenberg was flouting the election laws in NJ because of a late entry after scandal came out over the Democrat candidate. I agreed with him but asked if he thought that Dick Cheney was flouting the federal laws by pretending to live in Wyoming at the time he became a VP candidate to satisfy the election law in the constitution. That he said, was a silly thing to argue because it wasn't important, even though the two issues were quite similar.

I don’t mind admitting a bias towards the middle and opposition to extreme. We tend to have a bell curve shaped universe and most issues (not issues like slavery) seem to resolve themselves toward the middle over time. But by middle I do not necessarily mean some “feel good” kumbaya compromise, although that is a possibility sometimes. But, I have always been attracted to Ben Franklin’s closing speech (read for him) at the Constitutional Convention, which I will excerpt here:

I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Steele a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain french lady, who in a dispute with her sister, said "I don't know how it happens, Sister but I meet with no body but myself, that's always in the right — Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison."

. . . For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. . . .
Rejecting partisanship or being independent in no way means you always believes a compromise or some soft middle position is the right thing to do, or, that important principals are not worth fighting hard for (hopefully, politically, and rarely otherwise). Independents or moderates might be more willing to compromise than partisan warriors, but where a true principal exist, they can be as strongly for or against a given position as any partisan. For example, for me, first amendment rights are most important and I am also quite passionate about the economic ruin I believe both parties are forcing upon us.

There are limits to everything and you can take any of the above statements to their extreme and find them untenable. But, in the main, I solemnly believe they are correct.

When I say “partisanship makes everyone a little crazy,” I often follow it up by saying something like - "not wacka wacka crazy." I say that not just because, clearly, being partisan doesn't make one nuts in the way we usually mean it, but also because I’d rather not offend people unnecessarily.

That leads to a paradox. I dislike ad hominem arguments and prefer to argue with people who don't regularly make them. That is, when people tell me that my position on something is because I'm a liberal, I'm a conservative, I'm a lawyer, I'm a psychology major (college), I only want to be controversial, I have too many rules, I'm illogical, I'm overly logical or technical, etc., I only take extreme positions, everything I say is a generalization, etc. (and I've heard all of those), I don't find it leads to a good discussion. Yet, when I am faced with regular ad hominem argument (the preferred method, not just of partisans) I find that the only way to deal with it is to call the person on it, point out that it the arguments they make are regularly ad hominem and encourage them to stop. Sometimes they do (although never for long). But I admit that doing so is itself an ad hominem attack on them. However, it is the only thing that seems to work other than not discussing anything with them. The same goes with partisanship. Extreme partisanship is merely one form of ad hominem attack and the only way to deal with it is call everyone on it.

Now, partisans might think my saying that partisanship makes everyone a little crazy is an insult, but, at least I am not singling out one side or the other. I do believe that devotion to a side causes people to make irrational arguments to bolster their sides chance of winning. The irony is that partisans regularly use far stronger language to describe each other than "a little bit crazy," even regularly calling each other Hitlerians, Stalinists, murderers, etc. But, both sides have a special place in hell for moderates – who they often chide as worse than their opponents – even though we agree with them roughly half the time. Now, why is that? Because moderation and independence requires looking at the issues, not the asserter's character or the label and that is the last thing partisans want.

Here’s Andrew Sullivan on partisanship from August, 2007 – Practically every pundit and public intellectual thinks that their pet idea - whether it's neo-Reaganism, Sam's Club Conservatism, or whatever the heck Peter Beinart was selling his fellow liberals - is at once the solution to America's ills and the ticket to a lasting political majority. This can produce some deep silliness, like Linda Hirschman's argument that the repudiation of John Rawls will cement a new Democratic majority, but there's nothing particularly sinister about it. . . .

Too true. Even this month Democrats or liberals will tell you that the Republican Party is finished and Republicans or conservatives say that Obama is on his last legs. Both are silly. After next years election, one of them will get to say, see, we were right - it’s all swinging our way. But, they both have been wrong so many times before, that it is just meaningless to declare victory. It has been swinging back and forth since Washington took office. But, how is it, if people are being rationale, that conservatives come to one belief and liberals another every election? How is it that they routinely are convinced their own side will win even if the polls show the opposite (and the polls are usually right). It is more like rooting for a sport’s team.

The examples of partisan thinking as opposed to ideological thinking are too numerous to list comprehensively. But, I will hazard a few. It may be ideological to believe that abortion is right or wrong, but it is more partisan than not to believe that most pro-life or pro-choice people are evil, stupid or cruel just for disagreeing with your position. It may be ideological to think that Obama’s policies are right or wrong, but it is partisan to say that he is actually a Marxist seeking to make us at least a pre-dominantly socialist country or that those who disagree with him are racist. It may be ideological to like or not like John McCain policies, but it was partisan for conservatives to call him a liberal (he has over 80% lifetime conservative rating according to the rating system relied upon by conservatives) because he sometimes disagrees with them or that he was a Neanderthal right winger who was determined to give us “four more years of Bush” as the two had butted head many times over the eight years of Bush’s terms and McCain was long the favorite Republican of many liberals and least favorite Republican of many conservatives.

It is partisan for liberals to think that Michelle Obama is exceptionally attractive or for conservatives to think she is doesn’t even have a pretty face (I've heard both a number of times). It is ideological to disagree with a president’s policies, but both liberals and conservatives mind when their president’s speech is interrupted and are glad when the other guy’s is – if that isn’t partisan – what is? I’ve never heard the conservatives approve of the Pink Ladies the way many approve of Joe Wilson’s outburst, and never heard the liberals complain about Cindy Sheehan the way they do about Wilson.

Are moderates and independents just smarter than anyone else? No (although partisans on both sides frequently are dismissive of the intelligence of those who disagree with them). But intelligence has little to do with it. All I can claim for myself is that I have made a strong conscious effort for the last half of my life to avoid the knee jerk reactions we all have, however often I may fail in it. I am skeptical about many political things I hear or read until I see what I think is strong evidence of it, and I do not believe it is necessary to have a position on things I just don’t know enough about (which is a lot of things). Example – it took me about ten years to come to my conclusion about the death penalty. I remain ambivalent about global warming although I don’t see any real evidence of it reported or of human contribution to it despite it being stated as a "fact" and find it laughable that people’s views about the climate are so influenced by their political party.

Fence sitting is something that I admire. It is deplored by the more partisan people. They do not want open minds; they want to be told that they are right. Nor do I claim not be without biases. In fact, I believe it is impossible to be without them. One could argue that I am just slow, of course. I accept that criticism. I’d rather be slow than hasty when it comes to policy (but not when ordering from a menu). I notice that conservatives I know tend to believe news stories from the media or blogs they hear which support their positions and liberals their positions. Both know that many things reported turn out to be false or at least exaggerations. If being cynical about the truth of stories that seem to overwhelmingly favor one side over the other is wishy-washy, I’m willing to shoulder that characterization. Non-partisanship is cynical by nature. For the same reason, it is often come to much slower than a partisan one. Is there any other area of thought where people are encouraged not to be deliberate, thoughful and to look at the other side?

I also freely acknowledge my bias towards non-partisanship may be no more a function of my free will than someone else’s partisanship. I believe there is strong evidence that political beliefs are to a large degree emotionally determined. Partisanship itself may also be genetically determined to a large degree. If that doesn’t sound right to you, consider the following study out of the University of California at San Diego (Partisanship, Voting, and the Dopamine D2 Receptor Gene (Dawes & Fowler 2008). It looks formidable, but the central point is easy to make out.

Abstract: Previous studies have found that both political orientations . . . and voting behavior . . . are significantly heritable. In this article we study genetic variation in another important political behavior: partisan attachment. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we show that individuals with the A1 allele of the D2 dopamine receptor gene are significantly less likely to identify as a partisan than those with the A2 allele. Further, we find that this gene's association with partisanship also mediates an indirect association between the A1 allele and voter abstention. These results are the first to identify a specific gene that may be responsible for the tendency to join political groups, and they may help to explain correlation in parent and child partisanship and the persistence of partisan behavior over time.
Psychological studies rarely make broad conclusions. In fact, like most good studies, these scientists state their “suspicions” or “suggestions” carefully. You can read the study itself, but I offer these two further paragraphs as the gist of it:

While no studies to date have considered a link between specific genes and partisanship, previous association studies have identified genes that are important in shaping personality traits and behaviors integral to instrumental and social psychology theories of partisanship. The social psychology theory of partisanship suggests variation in partisanship can be explained in part by variation in social attachments, whereas instrumental theories suggest that differences in information processing, as well as the level of individual-level noise, are important determinants. Although there are likely to be dozens of genes involved in complex political behavior, here we identify one, the DRD2 dopamine receptor gene, that is believed to play an important role in both the development of social attachments and cognitive functions that may be critical to the formation of partisan ties.

Based on the political science and behavior genetics literature, we hypothesize that the DRD2 gene influences whether or not a person will identify with a political party. Using both case-control and family-based gene association tests, we find that the A1 allele of the DRD2 dopamine receptor gene is significantly associated with partisanship. Specifically, individuals who are homozygous for the A1 allele of the DRD2 gene are 8% less likely to become partisans than those who are homozygous for the A2 allele. Furthermore, this reduction in the likelihood of partisan attachment also mediates a significant negative association between the A1 allele and voter turnout. Finally, tests of cognitive function as a mediator suggest that the DRD2 gene does not influence partisanship via its effect on cognitive function. As a result, we suspect that DRD2 specifically influences partisanship via its effect on mood and social attachment, but more study is needed to elaborate the causal pathways responsible.

They go into much greater detail concerning brain chemistry and it is difficult for most of us to thoroughly analyze it. We don't have the background. With science, of course, there are few final answers and it is an ongoing process of learning. But, one of their conclusions thus far is as follows:

It must be emphasized that we have only found an association and cannot make any causal claims about the relationship between the DRD2 gene and either partisanship or turnout. However, the empirical link between the D2 dopamine receptor and DRD2 gene, as well as the known functions of dopamine in the brain, suggest at least two channels through which the A1 allele may influence partisanship. We hypothesize that difficulty in forming social attachments and impaired cognitive function, both of which have been shown to be associated with the A1 allele, reduce the likelihood an individual will form and/or maintain an attachment with a political party.
Now, the last statement is somewhat obvious when you think about it (much science just confirms or disproves obvious things) but it strikes me in a personal way. Difficulty forming social attachments has always been a hallmark of my life. In fact, the idea of joining a group is close to anathema for me and I had reservations even about nominally joining a bar association just to get better rates on continuing education lectures (although, I did eventually - needed to save the money). I don’t mind being this way, but it is nothing to be proud of either. Does it explain my anti-partisan bias to some extent? Is it wired into me? Certainly there is evidence for it.

The evidence for partisanship affecting reasoning gains ground all the time. A functional mri study out of Emory University (Westen, Etc., 2006) entitled Neural Bases of Motivated Reasoning (that's the short version) suggests that when one applies reasoning to a problem threatening to one’s political preferences (that's "motivated reasoning," but you could call it partisan thinking as well) it activates different parts of the brain than it does when cold reasoning is going on, such as putting together a puzzle. That means that partisans on both sides of the aisle are applying one part of their brain when figuring out the best way to get from uptown to downtown, but with another part when deciding whether they believe in global warming or for whom to vote. My belief, and this is a hypothesis, is that the difference will turn out to be that motivated reasoning is result oriented. The person has a result in mind and is reasoning to come to that conclusion, whereas cold reasoning is attempting to find the best solution to a problem. Some day perhaps they will test my hypothesis.

David Brooks of the New York Times, probably my favorite columnist at this time (yes, because he is more moderate than others) loves to cite research to back up his opinions. Recently, he did an article (10/13/09) on neurobiology in which he summarized recent studies indicating, among other things:

that people whose parents had lower social status than others exhibited higher activation in the part of the brain involving emotion;

that Arabs and Jews in Israel had different perceptions of pain when viewing body parts in painful scenarios;

that different areas of the brain were activated when subject watched home teams played baseball as opposed other teams;

that the so-called “reward” centers of the brain were activated by dominant behavior for Americans but submissive behavior by Japanese; and, that our brains are quicker activated by viewing members of a group we identify with undergoing pain than an outsider, even if by milliseconds.

The above studies all tend to support beliefs not only that decisions we perceive as rationale may be much less so than we think but also that culture may deeply affect our reasoning process. Further studies need to be taken to determine if these traits are inherited or social in nature - or both. Brooks also discusses a study suggesting that these reactions can be changed by cognitive therapy (a fancy way to say training). That is, we do not have to be slaves to partisanship.

As I have written in early posts, I believed I was a slave to liberalism when I was young, due to my being raised in that philosophy. I accepted it without much thought and demonized those who thought differently. My conscious training starting in my 20s led me not to be a conservative but to be skeptical and cynical about political (and other) claims and to pay attention to perspectives and frames of reference. It wasn’t easy, but it may be that I got there because I also had a bias for cynicism, moderation and independence. The studies Brooks’ discusses would seem confirm my beliefs, if true, so it is no surprise I pay attention to them and believe the suggestions are correct. David Brooks and I likely share some psychological traits which makes us look for and tend to believe information like this.

I have no problem with the concept that I am biased towards moderation, independence or cynicism. In fact, I recommend them to everyone. Which leads me to one of my two favorite quotes:

Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul – Mark Twain.

Okay, I’ve attacked your belief systems and suggested that "what you think you think" is already programmed into you. I await with pleasure your response (just kidding - usually no one comments when I say something like that).

What if?

What if?

What is now history once lay upon the edge of a knife. The slightest twist of fate could have changed everything we know, everything about our lives we take for granted. Whether that would be for good or bad, of course, we can never know, nor how differently history may have turned out. You do not need to accept the butterfly wing theory - that a butterfly beating his wings in Brazil might mean a tornado in Asia, -in order to recognize that if certain persons who arose to greatness at critical moments in history either did not exist, died or had their own circumstances change before that moment arrived, things would be extremely different - perhaps unrecognizably so. The following are just some interesting facts from history that make you say - what would the world be like if just a few little things changed? What ifs are just novelties, although they seem to be a cottage industry, but they can be entertaining all the same, particularly where the actual history is interesting itself.

One day soon after the end of the Revolutionary War, Young Thomas, age 6, and his two older brothers, Mordecai and John, were working in a corn field with their father on one of his 5000 Kentucky acres. He was a former Captain in the Virginia militia during the war and well regarded. At the time, Kentucky, originally part of Virginia, was considered part of the western frontier. Conflicts with Indians were common. Suddenly, while they toiled with the corn, an Indian appeared from out of the woods, and shot the boys’ grandfather, killing him instantly.

The two older boys ran for their lives, but Thomas, still only an infant, merely sat beside his dead grandfather and cried. The attacker came out of the woods, a silver crescent hanging upon his chest, and made his way towards the young boy, perhaps to take him as a prisoner, a slave or to raise him as a son, or maybe to kill him with a blow from a tomahawk or the butt of his gun.

Mordecai, age 14, stopped running, turned and raised his rifle. He aimed for the silver jewelry on the Indian’s chest and fired, killing the brave, and thereby probably saving his little brother’s life or at least preserving for him a future in the culture he grew up in.

The name of the father was Abraham Lincoln, but not the one you are thinking about. But Captain Lincoln, as his men called him, was the father of the father of the future president. The young son crying by his side after he was shot was Thomas, the future president’s father. When the president's Uncle Mordecai saved Thomas’ life, he indirectly saved his future nephew’s life and changed history forever.

What if Uncle Mordecai’s aim had not been so good?

Some might say, it would have been better for our country. The South only seceded upon Lincoln’s election. Maybe they would not have if someone they trusted more had been elected. For example, if Stephen Douglas, who had beat Lincoln out for the 1858 Illinois’ Senate seat, didn't have to face Lincoln, he might have also won the 1860 presidential election and there would have been no reason for the South to Secede. After all, many Southeners voted for him and he had a laissez faire approach towards slavery. Perhaps, indeed, slavery would have come to an end in a few years without the need for the bloodiest war in our history. Some folks suggest that not only would it did not have to occur, but that the hundred year plus struggle of blacks for true liberty in the South would not have occurred either. Of course, they may be all wrong. Perhaps the war would have come upon the next election anyway, or, perhaps no Northern commander-in-chief would have had the stomach to handle the horrifying casualties and steady defeats that occurred and would have made an armistice, basically freeing the South (but not the slaves). There are an infinity of other possibilities and only so much of your patience.

Here is another story which shows how subtly history may change.

The young man was proud of his little flat bottomed boat. One day two prospective passengers on a steamer anchored in the middle of the river asked him if he would row them out to it with their luggage. He obliged and even loaded their luggage for them. The young man was known for his kindness and did it without thought of reward.

So he was stunned when both of the gentlemen threw him a half dollar and much later said it had been a very important moment in his life. He thereafter performed the same services for a few other people when he found himself in trouble. He was called before the Justice of the Peace and charged with ferrying without a license, a complaint brought by a family that felt they had a monopoly on it.

The young man appeared himself and pleaded innocent. His only defense was that he was only helping passengers on his side of the river, not taking them all the way across. Sure enough, when the Justice looked at the law, it turned out he was right. It only prohibited unlicensed persons from ferrying from one side of the river to the other. Case dismissed.

Now that young man actually was the future President Abraham Lincoln himself. What if he had been convicted? It is neither inconceivable or even unlikely that the Justice of the Peace could have interpreted the statute differently or never never bothered to look at the statute itself. How much would it have changed Lincoln’s life and his future had he been convicted? If you think this is too small of an incident to consider as life changing, then consider this - no president had ever been elected who was previously convicted until George W Bush was in 2000, a much, much more tolerant era when it comes to youthful indiscretions (not that he was that young). If you know of another president who had been convicted and I missed, let me know. That’s what comments are for.

Lincoln was also almost killed when he was just nineteen years old and on a commercial raft trip with another young man down in New Orleans. Seven men attacked their boat in what appeared to Lincoln to be an attempt to both murder and rob them. Lincoln, of course, was famous for his great height and strength and his friend, after poling much of the 1200 plus miles on the Ohio River and the powerful Mississippi must have been no slouch either. The two of them fought the attackers off and survived.

Years later, in his thirties, Lincoln was challenged to a duel by a well known and quite deadly soldier named James Shields, who felt Lincoln had slandered him. The story of how that ended I have already blogged about (10/23/07), and, leave it to your perusal if you are interested. Of course, Lincoln wasn’t the only one whose life hung in the balance.

In another recent post here (8/20/09) I quoted from George Washington's own journal of a perilous crossing of a river strewn with fast moving blocks of ice into the path of which he was hurled, almost losing his life, and his companion's journal which described how an Indian they were traveling with shot at Washington at close range and missed, both events taking place during the French and Indian War. But Washington escaped death so many times before he became father of our country, we could do this entire post on him. He was shot at numerous times without unfortunate result in both of his wars, nearly froze to death, managed to survive the mumps, smallpox, malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid, infection, the flu, dysentery and pneumonia, all of which were regularly fatal back in those days. He dodged death so many times that instead of telling about one of those, I'll relate instead an incident where he might have been facing death, but certainly the Revolution almost faltered. Either way, our lives would be much different today.

On September 18, 1780, Benedict Arnold, who Washington once called his "finest officer," met with Washington and Alexander Hamilton near his base at West Point (when it was a critically important fort, not a school). Washington was traveling with his staff and a very small Life Guard. At one point, ferrying across the Hudson, Washington and co. (even Lafayette and the artillery chief, Henry Knox) came within cannon shot of the nearby British ship, The Vulture. Had the Captain known it was Washington, he undoubtedly would have fired at him or moved in to capture him. At the meeting Arnold asked Washington just when he would be returning to West Point. He was told it was to be six days later, the 24th. The traitorous Arnold signalled the British signalled the British in code when Washington would return. He had already been negotiating to turn over West Point and thousands of troops and had lied to Washington about the state of its defenses, which were terrible as opposed to formidable.

One of my favorite Revolutionary era historical characters, a man with the almost impossibly heroic name of Hercules Mulligan, was a spy for Washington in New York City where he pretended to be a loyalist while the British controlled it. He had already advised Washington that one of his own generals was a spy (obviously, that was Arnold). Now he learned that British troops were indeed headed up river and warned Washington about that. One of the British officers Arnold contacted was a charming and talented intelligence officer, but ultimately unfortunate man named Major John Andre, who went up towards West Point to meet with Arnold in secret, traveling out of uniform. Arnold waited at West Point for his prey, who was supposed to show for breakfast Saturday.

Hamilton showed up with one of Lafayette’s staff and they breakfasted with Arnold. Washington, he explained, would be delayed but would be there later. During breakfast Arnold got an express from a courier. He learned that Major Andre had been captured and papers with Arnold's name on them discovered. In fact, Andre had been waylaid by some brigands (some say deserters from the American Army) who were robbing loyalists and Andre's secret papers were discovered by them in his boot. He was also informed that papers, which he knew would incriminate him, were on their way to General Washington. Without letting anyone know what he was doing, Arnold excused himself, told his wife to burn their papers and to stall his guests, while he left the house and commandeered a boat. Later, when Washington arrived, he received the papers Andre was carrying and ordered Hamilton after Arnold. It was too late. He was already on a British ship - The Vulture.

While still at the house, Hamilton had heard Arnold’s wife shrieking upstairs. She played the role of a madwoman and fooled Hamilton and Washington completely. They let go and never suspected her. Her role in the espionage, which was extensive, was not discovered until the last century. But Major Andre was hung as a spy.

There are some questions about whether the British really were going to try and take Washington and his men in addition to capturing the fort for which they already agreed to pay Arnold a very large sum of money. There is a paucity of evidence of it on the British side, but, given the fact that Washington, upon visiting West Point, would (and did) discover the awful condition the fort was in, he certainly would know Arnold was lying to him and probably would have figured out he was the traitorous general Hercules Mulligan warned him about. Why would Arnold have taken this risk unless he Washington was to be quickly captured? On the other hand, if that was the case, why didn't Arnold execute his plan anyway. It is all lost in the mists of time and the fog of war, to overwhelm you with cliche. However, we know that many important figures at the time believed that Washington was the target, including Lafayette and Henry Laurens, then president of congress.

What if Andre wasn't captured and the plot uncovered. Both Washington and the British knew if West Point fell, the Americans would be split in half and the war all but over. Arnold, in fact, had been completely false to Washington as to the condition of West Points' defenses. If Washington, not to mention his staff, had been made British prisoners, perhaps executed in London, the war would quite possibly have been over in 1780, even if West Point wasn't taken. Even if matters caused Washington not to head back up to West Point, it would have soon been taken and war ended. As another alternative, what if Washington had perished or was rendered unable to serve in one of his earlier adventures or succumbed to one of his illnesses. As strange as it might seem to us now, it is not that unlikely that the brave and competent Benedict Arnold, who craved recognition from his countrymen, would have been turned to early on in the War as a leader and we would be recognizing Benedict Arnold as a founder, if the not the father of our country.

Many presidents have narrowly escaped death. But, if Benjamin Pierce had been killed when his carriage crashed on the way to D.C., taking his son’s life, or, if Andrew Jackson died in one of his bloody duels or in the assassination attempt on him when he was president, for example, I doubt the world would have been very different. But Washington’s and Lincoln were extraordinary men and their absence or disappearence would have had enormous consequences.

Here are a couple more "what ifs" which might have had changed our history dramatically.

The rotund British author was visiting New York City a little before Christmas, 1931, on a lecture tour.

Already a disgraced government official who had had an exciting life including a life of risk in the Boer War and WWI, in 1929 he had lost a ton of money in the Great Crash. Now he was on his way to see an old friend, the famous financier, Bernard Baruch. But, while walking to Baruch’s place on Fifth Avenue, he looked the wrong way crossing the street and was struck by a passing car.

He was thrown into the gutter and suffered a serious head wound. He went to the Bahamas to recuperate but then caught a form of typhoid fever.

But he survived all of it.

Good thing. The fortunate pedestrian was soon to be leading the last stand in Europe against Nazism. Without Winston Churchill bracing Britain, it is possible both that she would not have survived Germany’s assault on her or that the United States would not have put so much effort into defeating Germany when Japan was considered her real enemy by so many of our citizens. Perhaps without Churchill's iron will, Britain would have sought an early armistice. Although I believe that the good guys would have won in the long run, Churchill was more than just instrumental, and his special relationship with Roosevelt, his own American heritage, his indomitable spirit, and ability to motivate the British people not to mention Americans, were critical. Not for nothing, Churchill sometimes tops opinion polls of the 20th century’s greatest man, and, in fact, won this blog’s award (the most coveted of all such awards - 5/9/07) as well.

But what if the driver had been going just a little bit faster or had hit him more squarely in the front of the car?

Last one.

Just two years after Churchill’s accident, an Italian immigrant named Giuseppe Zangara was down in Florida. He was an anarchist, believing that no government was the best government. He was not only out of work but had just lost a couple of hundred dollars at the dog races. He purchased a 38 caliber pistol and went to the park to hunt a particular human one day. It wasn't a fair fight as his prey was crippled. Zangara stood up on a chair just 25 feet away from his target and opened fire. He got off five shots before a bystander knocked his hand away and he fell off his chair.

He hit some people, but missed his main target, in fact managed to gravely wound the mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak. It took only 5 days to convict Zangara who was sentenced to 80 years in prison. Then the mayor died of his wounds. Zangara was tried for murder and convicted. His execution quickly followed.

The very fortunate main target was then president-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Because Zangara missed, and we tend to remember only successful assassination attempts, people forget how close FDR came to missing his dates with destiny – both the depression and WWII.
What if Zangara had gotten closer or been a better shot or waited until he was closer?

We might have a clue to this since we know who the Vice President-elect was. John Garner was also a Democrat, but he was a southern Democrat, and had very different ideas about policy than FDR. There probably would not have been a New Deal – for better or worse – as Garner was against it. Who can say how he would have dealt with WWII as he was out of office before the war actually started and Roosevelt would not have given him any real role anyway. Unlike Roosevelt, Garner was very committed to the two presidential term custom and actually ran against him in the primaries (losing badly). But, had Garner been president instead of Roosevelt, would he have found reason to run again himself as WWII loomed. Also, unlike Roosevelt, Garner would have lived through the whole war too. He didn't until he was nearly 99 years old in 1967, exceeding by far the life span of all other presidents or vice presidents. Ironically, If FDR had died while president-elect not only would he be virtually unknown today, but possibly we never would have heard of George Marshall, or Dwight Eisenhower or many others for whose fame FDR was directly or indirectly responsible. Perhaps not even Winston Churchill. If there was a short war, perhaps the atomic bomb never would have been created, or for many decades.

Of course, some might argue we'd have been better off as FDR has his critics. Some say that the New Deal was the wrong way to handle the bad economy and made it worse. Some also say that regardless of how we did in the war, Roosevelt's giveaway to Stalin at Yalta set up a much longer war, albeit a cold one. However, most people feel Roosevelt did well, and there can be no doubt his life has been quite consequential.

Roosevelt, Churchill, Washington and Lincoln all came within a hair’s breadth of losing their life or, in Lincoln’s case, to not even being born. They were arguably the four most important men in the English speaking world since America’s inception. You can play what if with anyone about almost anything, but the virtually unique importance of these four men and the dramatic ways they almost disappeared from history makes it a somewhat more interesting consideration.

But, the truth is, I just like to talk about interesting history I come across, and what ifs are as good an excuse as any.

Websites

I find great websites all the time. Today, I just want to talk about a few that just appeal to me because I like their subject matter.

http://www.thefire.org/

One of my favorites sites lately is FIRE, short for Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a foundation advocating freedom of speech in education. Few things get me as riled up as first amendment violations, and frequently FIRE has an article that just makes me mad.

Take this case documenting what looks like a disturbing power play by a Georgian State college to stifle all dissent by their employees. Thomas Thibeault was a professor at East Georgia College. According to FIRE, during a seminar on sexual harassment he complained that the school’s policy had no protection for people who were falsely accused. The school’s vp for legal affairs, Smith, replied that there was, in fact, no protection for them. Thibeault said he thought that made the policy unfair. Seems like they agreed, no?

Apparently not.

Two days later Thibeault was called to the presidents office, where President Black, along with VP Smith, confronted him. President Black essentially fired him – well sort of fired him, as you will see. FIRE provides a copy of Thibeault’s letter to Black and Smith giving details of the meeting, of which I include a part here:

You commenced the meeting by stating that I was a divisive force in the college at a time when the college needed unity for the forthcoming SACS inspection. You then informed me that you were canceling my present contract and all future contracts on the grounds of sexual harassment. You claimed that I have a “long history os (sic) sexual harassment which includes smutty jokes, foul language, obscenities, and innuendo.

I asked you for proof of these allegations, and you stated that, if you received my resignation by 11:30, nothing more would be done and that you would provide me with a good reference for my next teaching position. If you did not receive my resignation by 11:30, you would dismiss me and that my ‘long history of sexual harassment would be made public.’

His letter also states that he was told he would be escorted off the campus and that the sheriff was informed if he was found on the campus to arrest him for trespass.

Thibeault was a teacher at a State college, which is required to apply due process under Georgia’s law, not to have professors escorted off campus and threatened with arrest because the president thinks he’s not a team player. It gets crazier, according to the FIRE article.

On August 25 the president wrote Thibeault again, claiming for the first time that Thibeault had actually been suspended, not fired: "[T]he committee's finding was that there is sufficient evidence to support your suspension." The letter also stated that Thibeault was going to be terminated because of "sexual harassment," that he could obtain the charges upon request and also request a hearing. So, he requested a copy of the charges a few days later, and, of course, did not get a response. His lawyer had the same result.

Of course, I have no idea whether Thibeault is a celibate monk or leers at his student. But, if FIRE is even remotely accurate here, then the school’s process, unfairly depriving professors of their jobs, might be worse than many cases of actual harassment, unless you think a boss abusing his power by unfairly taking someone's job is okay. My question is, what will happen to Black (not to mention Smith) if Thibeault’s facts are borne out? I'd like to think it would be severe, and that they was dismissed himself or at least severely chastised and required to apologize for his bullying and rule violations. Of course, in real life, that won’t happen at all, which is why organizations like FIRE are so necessary.

Whatever the result is, my point here is really just that it’s a terrific website, whose mission is one I can get behind. There are also articles on FIRE this past month about Yale’s decision to remove cartoons characterizations of Mohammad in a book which is actually ABOUT THOSE CARTOONS (you all remember the hullaballoo in Denmark over these cartoons, including death threats), another one on Virginia Tech’s coercive requirement that professors produce research supporting Tech’s diversity policy (FIRE takes no position on the policy; only on the coercion); University of Idaho’s speech code prohibiting “insensitive” speech (I know people who think any public mention of ethnicity, skin color, gender, etc., is insensitive at best, if not outright bias); and, a similar one at James Madison University where students may be punished for "lewd, indecent or obscene conduct and expression" - naturally, no definition for lewd or indecent is given - as FIRE points out, the school's explanation that it is only to prohibit illegal conduct like public urination or masturbation doesn't explain why "expression" is also prohibited.

I don’t need to check FIRE everyday, but once a week or so does the trick.

http://www.pardonpower.com/

Another site I’ve discovered lately is on the pardon power and the related power of presidents and governors to grant clemency, reducing a sentence. It is run/owned by Professor P. S. Ruckman, Jr. (and I can’t find his full name anywhere), who has a Ph.d in political science and is an associate professor at Rock Valley College in Illinois. He is also one of one of the few experts in pardons in the country.

Pardons usually become exciting only at the end of a president’s term as the media and political opponents wonder which of his cronies, supporters, etc., will get a pass. Clinton’s Mark Rich pardon (which did Rich little good and Clinton much bad) and Bush’s clemency for Scooter Libby are well known examples.

Ruckman has written heavily not just on presidential pardons but keeps us informed as to what is going on in each state. The pardon power is, of course, an awesome one. It can be sweeping (Carter pardoning all those who fled the draft during Vietnam; Andrew Johnson pardoning the confederates), it can be obviously political (Nixon pardoned supporter George Steinbrenner or Clinton's of Mark Rich); and astonishing (Carter pardoning unapologetic Puerto Rican terrorists - one of whom had tried to kill President Truman and who was indirectly responsible for a security officer’s death in doing so; Clinton pardoned Puerto Rican terrorists too). It can also be an act of mercy that it was meant to be, such as where terminally ill persons are allowed to go home to die or to receive medical treatment.

What’s interesting about Ruckman’s site is that it is so comprehensive, both he and his associates having made a scholarly inquiry into the subject. The stats are fun and overwhelming (I’ll obey the request on his blog not to cut and paste).

For example, he breaks down George Bush’s pardons by State. He didn't pardon very many people but when he did, 17 were from his home state, Texas, which received by far the most. Of the top eleven states having prisoners receiving pardons from Bush, nearly two thirds are from the 11 states which were in the Confederacy, as was Texas. Nearly 70 percent came from red states as were 80 percent of the top ten. Of the states that received only 1 pardon, 7 of the 11 had gone blue in his last presidential election, including some very populous states with lots of prisoners. Total pardons received by blue states – 47; Total received by red states – 105. He’s not suggesting Bush was more political than any of his predecessors and, if Ruckman has a political persuasion, I can’t tell from the site what it is. But, can it be said that this power was placed in the Constitution for the president to get to score political points. I think not. Athough there was already a federalist/anti-federalist split in the founders, parties didn't exist yet the way they would just a few years later. A separate article reprinted in Ruckman's blog suggests that the power has only recently morphed from an exercise in checks and balances into the president’s personal prerogative.

Here’s some more from the site – of all of our presidents, the two main World War presidents, Wilson and Roosevelt, made by far the most pardons. Since LBJ, the number of pardons presidents grant have substantially shrunken. In the last two of FDR’s terms (the last term mostly Truman’s), more pardons were granted than all of the pardons from Reagan through Bush put together. Since Carter left office, Clinton has granted the most, but still quite few compared to all presidents since the Civil War.

I got turned onto the site after reading a scathing article by Ruckman on the congressional testimony given by “experts” to congress after the Clinton “last minute” pardon scandal, the one which included the pardon to Mark Rich. Ruckman was not defending the Rich pardon, but he showed that if you actually look at the statistics, the experts who testified were anything but expert. In fact, despite their testimony that Clinton’s pardons did not fit a historical pattern, the actual statistics show quite the opposite. The problem was, as he pointed out, those who testified claimed to be basing their opinions on history, but cited almost no facts at all. If you've ever watched congressional hearings, that is hardly a surprise. Apparently, they just had no idea of what the truth was and based their opinions on what they thought might be the case. I find it curious that the "expert" Ruckman most heavily criticized for inaccuracy at the hearings, Margaret Colgrave Love, who had worked in the Justice Department’s pardon department, is listed on the sidebar of www.pardonpower.com among its lists of experts. After the bashing he gives her in his article, I’d like to see that mystery unraveled.

Go to the site, if you have any interest in these things and spend as many hours as you like reading it. You won’t exhaust the amount of information there. It’s like reading Wikipedia but just on one topic.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/

A couple of years ago I found this truly amazing website hosted by Tufts University (with contributions and support from many other sources). Perseus collects many ancient texts of the Greek and Roman world and translates them in a word by word clickable fashion. It also provides dictionaries and commentaries for most of their collection. It is a revolutionary tool that allows you to translate, as examples, Aristophanes, Tacitus or even the Bible, word by bloody word.

This might not excite everyone, but it will language lovers and it excites the bejabbers out of me. What it does is open the doors of knowledge that previously could only be enjoyed by a handful of scholars, the same way the internet has opened up trading on the stock market to any idiot who wants to gamble his money away.

Let’s jump, just for fun, to Perseus’s table of contents and then scroll down to the Bible under “World English Bible,” then to the Old Testament Book of Judges (from whence, e.g., the story of Sampson) in the Latin translation of St. Jerome. I choose St. Jerome, one of the "fathers" of the Catholic Church, because his efforts in revising the existing Latin translations of the Bible paved the way for translations in so many other languages, just as Perseus has done in a different way. When completed, the translation became known as the "Vulgate" or common text.

So, I click on the Vulgate version and up pops the Latin translation for Judges. Then, I choose, not quite randomly, the second word, mortem, because it looks familiar, and I’m guessing almost certainly has something to do with death, as in "mortician" and even "Morticia," of Addams family fame.

Click.

A word study box pops up. It tells me that the root – Mors – does indeed mean death (that was an easy one), and that mortem is in the feminine, singular and accusative case (which, if you care, is basically the direct object of a transitive verb). You can also connect to Charlton T. Lewis’ An Elementary Latin Dictionary for more information. But, even without doing that, the word study tool box tells me that the word appears 458 times out of the some six hundred and fifty thousand words in the database. In all of the Latin texts, out of nearly four and a half million words, it appears 2168 times or 6.27 times per 10,000 words.

Tell me that doesn't get your heart pumping. No? Maybe I'm a little strange.

I click on the number 2168 and I am taken to a page which lists for me every single usage of the word in their database. The first entry is from Cicero, and when I click on that entry, poof, there is a Latin translation for that text with again every world clickable to a dictionary translation. Perseus also highlights Mors wherever it is found in the text I pulled up.

Of course, you can just skip all that word for word translation and just read any of these ancient texts in the full English translation that you can also access with a click, not to mention commentaries and related texts all linked to most every word. No library you or I could get to without tremendous inconvenience could ever be so handy and make these great texts available to us. It would take a huge library just to collect the texts, and even then reference works wouldn't be just a click away.

Here’s a selection of authors you can do all this with on Perseus (my favorites in bold): Aeschylus, Appian, Aristophanes, Aristotle, Caesar Augustus, Julius Caesar, Bede, Catullus, Cicero, Demosthenes, Epictetus, Euclid, Euripides, Herodotus, Hesiod, Homer, Livy, Lucretius, Horace, Pindar, Plato, Plautus, Plutarch, Sophocles, Tacitus, Thucydides, both Testaments and Xenophon. I just gave names that are somewhat familiar to most interested people, but there are many others.

The name Perseus was inspired. Perseus was one of Greece’s greatest mythological heroes, the one who cut off the head of the dreaded snake-coiffed Medusa, whose mere look could turn a man to stone. Scholars often try to guess where the names of mythological characters come from, but I emphasize the word guess, as, although there is knowledge involved, it is hardly a science, even though it is often stated with great certainty. The best guess for the meaning of Perseus is “destroyer” or “sacker” (as in, they sacked the city), from Perth- (“-eus” being a typical Greek male ending as in - Zeus).

But this post is really about websites and I can’t start talking about mythology or I’ll never get back on track. A similar site to Perseus is the http://www.blueletterbible.org/, a cite that has a search engine for 14 different translations of the Bible, as well as tons of study aids, charts, lists, summaries, encyclopedias, etc.

I recognize that the first amendment, pardon power and translations are subjects which interest me and might leave others cold. Let me know what websites have you fascinated these days. And no, my friends, I wasn't referring to porn.

Good-bye, Mr. Safire

Having blogged on ghosts just yesterday, it feels a little strange to write a memorial to William Safire, so recently departed, and I will pass on doing a longer piece such as I wrote for George MacDonald Fraser, John Mortimer and George Carlin here the past year or so, though not because Safire isn't worth it. I am sorry to see him go as I have been sorry in the past to see him give up his New Times column and later his language column.

He was the kind of political "pundit" I like, rarely making a personal attack, almost always debating the point rather than stating the party line or baiting his followers with "red meat," and almost always softening whatever he wrote with his particular sense of humor (I almost wrote "impish" or "puckish," to modify "humor," but he would scold me for the cliche and then snicker while he used it himself). If I had to pick, he and the late Jack Anderson have been my favorite columnists. I never read one of Safire's novels (that I can remember, anyway) and his re-interpretation of the Book of Job was just a mistake in more than one way. But, those are minor criticisms of a great writer and can have the same damage to his reputation as my blowing into the wind would have on a hurricane.

I very highly recommend his Lend Me Your Ears, a collection of inspirational speeches (he was, after all, first known to us as a speech writer for Nixon) that I have revisited enough to destroy the spine, as well as his column on columns, How to Read a Column. If I am allowed a slight fantasy, I picture him greeting his old boss, Richard Nixon, today, but then moving on with delight to the spirits of Pericles, Judge Learned Hand, Malcolm X, William Jennings Bryant, and so many others who have inspired him with their words and which he has helped pass on to us.

I leave this topic by quoting from a speech by Charles I of England, just before he lost his head, which I read first in Lend Me Your Ears. I imagine Safire might have liked to quote this himself, if he could: "I troth, sirs, I shall not hold you much longer; for I will only say this to you, that in truth I could have desired some little time longer, because that I would have put this I have said in a little more order, and a little better digested, than I have done; and therefore I hope you will excuse me."

Boo!

For the most part this blog is not biographical, but, there’s no rule against it. This past week I went to Gettysburg, my third visit, and it was as historically sublime as the last time I went. The first time I went it rained heavily and I was accompanied by one adult girlfriend and three female children who all seemed to think that Pickett’s charge was as exciting as watching the test pattern on tv at 3 in the morning (am I dating myself – do they even do that on tv anymore?).

For those of you who haven’t been to Gettysburg, it is the preserved town and battlefield from one of the most - if not the most - important battle ever to have been fought in our country since Yorktown. I can’t recommend it more highly as a great two day destination, even if the Civil War isn't your thing. One couple I recommended it to loved it so much, while they were there they reserved rooms to go back later that same year. A truly special place. I posted here after my last trip I believe two years ago and gave there a very short summary of the battle and a longer discussion (possibly intolerably long) of General Longstreet’s controversial role in that great fight. You can check out that post (4/16/08) if the Civil War interests you. I’m not going to repeat that all here, and, as I say all the time - this isn’t Wikipedia. There are a tons of sites on Gettysburg and as many, if not more, books.

Rather, I will discuss my personal experiences with the paranormal in my life up through Gettysburg this week. If there are two phrases you will rarely see written together in a sentence that I write, they are “personal experience” and “the paranormal.”  Frequent readers here know I am one skeptical fellow (see my 8/7/08 post - The Anti-Muldar Society - I don't want to believe). I will tell you now, certain as Scrooge, I do not believe I have been visited by ghosts these past two weeks any more than I believe beings from other planets are visiting Earth (although, admittedly, I do love reading about that subject or watching it on tv), but I will relay my experiences to you all the same as objectively as I can.

So, follow me back through the misty waves of time to Westbury, Long Island in the late 60s - early 70s, where a young boy we will call David and his friends are having some weird experiences in the unfinished part of the basement in his house. It seems like there is a ghostly presence there which makes unexpected noises and even occasionally moves things. We actually found this quite a bit of fun and emboldened with each others' presence, would frequently visit downstairs and await to be scared so badly that we would run up the stairs as if the devil were right behind us. One time that especially stands out in my mind, I watched my friend Rainer standing behind the door of an old closet, bb gun in hand (wondering, even then, what use to him would that be against a spirit) as the door began to slowly closed upon him, to both our horror. There was no reasonable explanation – no breeze and neither he nor I was touching it.

With a strange bravery that seems a little nuts now, we would turn off all the lights and wait not long for the inevitable footsteps and sounds that would come from the next room (the finished part of the basement) or even inside the unfinished room where we waited, although there was no one else home. In retrospect, it is hard to believe we did that at all, but we did so constantly. Bear, who frequently comments here, was then an acquaintance and not yet a friend. He visited the house in the 7th grade and wrote a story about it for the school newspaper (still have that story around, Bear?)

The truth is, the reason I think we were able to be so frequently frightened by our "ghost," but then managed to live in the same house without fear and actually fall asleep at night without even thinking about it, is because deep in our hearts we did not really believe. I was sure, even if I didn't say so out loud and spoil the fun, that there must have been some explanation for the uncanny events.

Skip ahead to about 1997-8. A friend of mine who used to clean my apartment (thank God for friends, but I'm pretty sure I paid her) tells me that while she was there, she heard a door open. I pointed out to her that I lived upstairs from other people and that it wasn’t a big surprise. She said, no, it wasn’t that kind of door. I asked her if she was going to tell me my long deceased mother was visiting me. She said that was exactly what she meant. I replied, “Great, so much for walking around here without clothes anymore.” But I did not believe. It was not a problem.

Skip ahead to 2003. I am in Ireland in an old house that literally had bats in its belfry (seriously, it had a belfry and bats.) In the middle of the night, the woman I affectionately refer to as my insignificant other tossed me out of the room and, bedspread in hand, I headed off towards the library where I knew I had seen a couch. I walked down the large eerie stairs past the impossibly large mirror with the long diagonal crack and into the library with the spooky pictures on the wall. I lay down on the couch, looked around, thought about some of my friends who would have had the hair on their head standing straight up, and said to myself, “Thank God I don’t believe in ghosts.” I went back to sleep. Skepticism has its benefits.

Skip ahead to last Sunday, September 20, 2009. I return from a breakfast with two friends, sometime in the late morning or very early afternoon. I entered my house and moved directly to the computer in the front room. From there, about thirty feet away, I can see the kitchen refrigerator and, in front of it, a black bullet shaped garbage can with a see saw top that moved moved up and down when you dropped something in it.

I was working on the computer for roughly an hour, half watching the Jet game (must have been after 1 o’clock p.m.) when I looked up. That may have been coincidental, or it may have been a reaction to motion in my peripheral vision. Whatever it was, when I looked up, I saw the top of the garbage can moving up and down. I immediately thought it was an optical illusion of some type, and stared at it for I believe five or six seconds. No illusion. It was definitely moving, and not just a little, until it settled down.

My first reaction was not that there was a ghost, but a living person visiting me, who must have either touched the lid or dropped something in it. I walked into my bedroom, picked up the knife I take hiking with me and walked into the kitchen. Nobody there. I went from room to room, closet to closet, and satisfied myself there was no one else in the house. It is small for anyone to have avoided me seeing or hearing them move about. Yet the lid moved.

I checked the garbage can for an explanation, such as a mouse, but found nothing that would explain it.

That's when I got that creepy feeling up my spine like you get when you are watching a scary movie. Later that night when I went to bed I asked myself if this was going to be a problem. I did think about it for a minute, literally said "Bah, humbug" out loud and went to sleep, I believe immediately.

And nothing further has happened there. Yet. At least there.

Later this past week I drove north to Gettysburg. I had chosen the bed and breakfast my friend and I would be staying at because of its reasonable price, and more importantly, its availability on the days we needed. When I spoke with the host, Keith, on the telephone, he told me that the house was well known to be haunted. He also said that it had been the subject of an episode on a television show, but that it had exaggerated the truth. One of the former inhabitants of the house, Tillie Fields, after whom the house is now named, was involved in caring for patients during the battle and was witness to much horror. But, her worst experiences were a few miles away from her house. Although her house, like so many others, was used as a makeshift hospital, probably nothing all that dramatic happened there. The house across the street was struck by a live cannon round, which is still stuck in the front of the building. Fortunately, the fuse had come out along the way and it did not blow up. Tillie's house was more fortunate.

Nor did Tillie die there. In fact, she had not lived there for decades when she finally passed on. So, who would be haunting the house? I don’t know. No one knows. Since I don’t believe (keep remembering that as this gets scarier), it’s not that important to me.

My friend, Mike, who lives in New York, met me there. The hostess who greeted us, Leslie, assured us that although the tv show greatly exaggerated what happens there, but also quietly insisted to my friend and I that there were ghosts which were harmless, but mischievous. I told her I didn't really believe and she said that maybe nothing will happen to us when we went up to bed. However, she also told us that after an experience recently, one guest fled the house in the middle of the night and wouldn't come back in, despite her boyfriend begging her to. Who knows if is true. The hostess has a motive to increase interest in the house and entertain her guests, however much she assured us she was not exaggerating. Unfortunately for Mike, the room he was going to sleep in was the one she claimed the most people report seeing and hearing spooky things. Each room has a book that guests can write in and many left a record of some ghostly experiences, usually hearing raps and footsteps or sometimes seeing small lights, but they didn't seem all that scared either. More amused, it seemed to me. One the other hand, they all seemed to be couples. As I knew from my adventures in my basement all those years ago, company breeds courage.

Close to midnight, we went to bed. I was a little concerned about my friend, and I wasn’t quite sure whether he believed in ghosts at all and whether our hostess had primed him to the degree he'd be frightened, although he is a usually a very collected fellow. After some joking, and my showing him the really creepy picture in my room of two very serious looking children, we said good night. I learned the next morning that he had fallen asleep with the lights on while reading. Honestly, if I were in that room, it is possible that might have happened with me too. Even skeptics can get spooked.

I read for about a half hour from a book of essays on Lincoln that I had picked up in town and then turned off the light to go to sleep. As often happens with me, I woke up in the middle of the night and read until about 5 a.m., when I felt sleep overcoming me again.

Perhaps I fell asleep or perhaps I was in the process of falling asleep, but I had a very vivid of feeling someone or something holding my left arm up and pulling on it. It was warm, tingly and so very real that as I write this, I get the same chilling feeling I got at that moment. Possibly because I was dreaming, I felt paralyzed, and try as I could, I was unable to open my eyes or move my body, despite the alarm coursing through me. For a few seconds I felt - I say felt, not believed - as if a ghost was holding me and it was more than a little disconcerting. Fortunately, I don’t believe, and after a few seconds of this, I reminded myself of that, and let myself fall asleep (if I wasn’t already) without even opening my eyes. Nothing more happened and when I awoke, it was light outside.

I reported my experience the next day to Mike, but I played it down, because, frankly, I didn’t want to scare him if he had a difficult night. Mike said his night was uneventful, although he kept the light on.

The next night there was a full house. I had no incidences at all, but I was awake again much of the middle of the night. I looked at my cell phone when I awoke that night and knew that I was up from about 2:30 a.m. until about 5 a.m. In the morning everyone except me, including Mike, reported hearing footsteps in the hallway in the middle of the night. Mike was certain it was at about 3 a.m. That one I could explain. I told them it was almost certainly me they heard. Whenever during the night I had gotten out of bed and walked in my room, the floor creaked beneath me and I wondered if I was scaring the bejabbers out of everyone on the floor. Apparently I was. I can't think of another explanation as I know I made the floor creek, but heard nothing from outside my own door. If they thought it came from the hallway, it is only because they could not, in the dark, with the doors all closed and lights off, tell where the sounds came from. I did also relate my experience from the night before to them and wrote in the notebook in my room what I had experienced, including my skepticism that it was a spectral event, despite what it felt like at the time.

Smart people I know believe in things I don’t. I accept that, but it hasn’t changed my mind. Still, even for this dyed in the wool skeptic, the two recent experiences – the one in my house and the one in the Tillie Pierce House, were quite strange, among the strangest in my life, and a little unsettling. I am no less a skeptic today, but can't deny what I saw and felt, and leave you to your own conclusion.

Political update for September, 2009 - you are still all crazy

I take a few weeks vacation from the blog to attend to other business and the whole world goes to hell. Health care reform, which I think is critical, stands on the abyss; an angry congressman shamefully loses control at an Obama speech; an ex-president blathers on about the loyal opposition being overwhelmingly racist; constant whining about partisanship WHEN YOU ALL DESERVE IT, and so forth.

It is nice to be needed, so I will get to work and resolve some of the problems. To warm up this week, I started reading some popular political blogs, and even commented on them (and guiltily admit to cleaning up the typos in them reprinted here). I don't read them much, but I haven't really watched the news in a few weeks. Many of these blogs were about President Carter. Let's visit his most recent error in judgment. Here's the exact controversial quote:

An “overwhelming portion of the intentionally demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man; that he is African-American.”

For the first time in this column, I say, - Seriously?

Sure, there's too much racial prejudice in the world today. Maybe there always will be during my lifetime, and long thereafter (I have hope - someday). The fantasy that prejudice is no more is a conservative one, but the fantasy that there are still substantive legal impediments to certain races or ethnic groups is a liberal one (in fact, it is by law weighted the other way).

But there has been a tremendous improvement in race relations the past half century to which I can personally attest. I know through experience that some people might read the previous sentence and believe I wrote - There is no racism anymore - but I've also learned that they cannot hear much else, such is their sensitivity to the subject, and so I will let it go. But, gone are the Jim Crow laws of the South, a large part of the animosity towards black/white couples, and many other of the badges of slavery that continued for a century after the Civil War. Even in my conservativism soaked little Southern town, where there seems to me far more racism than I would like, both conscious and un-conscious, a black and white couple could walk up and down the streets unmolested by anyone. Even in the north, where I still know people against inter-racial dating, they say nothing when in the presence of such a couple, nor would they have a problem inviting them to a wedding or a barbeque. It's undeniably better than it was.

Of course, the fact that we have a bi-racial president who identifies himself as black, speaks the proverbial volumes as to the change in our culture. Many people thought it could not happen. Indeed, until about two months before the election I admit I thought we would have a small percentage of people who would even say that they would vote for him but would not and that might make the difference - but it didn't seem to happen, at least in any measurable way, and it wouldn't have mattered much anyway.

Carter's rhetoric is inflammatory and meant to say, if you disagree with my side, then you can't have a good reason we can discuss and therefore it must be a product of racism. It is because of statements like this that he has so often played the fool the last few years. He hasn't done President Obama any favors with these comments and maybe he doesn't care. Ex-presidents often think they are still relevant, and for a few weeks he will be. That's because cable news needs something to talk about.

The real flap is mostly, of course, over health care, which dominates the political scene. I offered my own solution a few months ago; use the power of charity, augmented by increasing its tax benefits, to fuel non-profit organizations to supplement various medical needs. Part of that plan has now arisen in the idea that a not-for profit insurance company would be a good way to force for profit companies to compete harder. I have no problem with a not for-profit-insurance company competing with for profit companies in health any more than in other industries. I do have a problem if it is subsidized by the government, because then it's not really competition, it's destruction, followed by government takeover. But, perhaps I'm a racist for thinking so.

Last week, after Joe Wilson's unfortunate outburst during Obama's speech, Maureen Dowd - who - sorry liberal haters - is a great writer (no worries, though, so is Ann Coulter) - took aim by writing that even if it was "unfair" to say so, that when Wilson said, "You lie," he meant, "You lie, boy." I commented on the New York Times page as follows:

Seriously? You are not going to castigate him for calling Obama a liar during his speech, you are going to make believe that he added "boy"?

It's not "fair or unfair," it's just plain unfair. Especially because you know that people will read it and just remember the "boy" part, not that you made it up. Wilson was rude, unprofessional and even, idiotic. But to target people as racist because of where they live - well, I live in the South too. I guess that makes me a racist.

The other day I commented on a Jonah Goldberg piece where his defense of birthers was that people who believed the government was involved in 9/11 were even more nuts. We get the same ridiculous, over the top, nonsense from both sides.

If you folks can't write about something that actually happened, why do you have these big jobs?

p.s. I usually like your column, and you are a great (although biased) writer, but this was just silly. Come on.

However, if one of Dowd's points is that there is still a lot of prejudice in the South, I'm not going to argue too much. For example, The Daily Kos reports a poll showing that “birthers” are a regional phenomena. 69% of them are born in the South. The suggestion is that because the South held onto Jim Crow so long, this is a holdover of racism. Maybe so. Living in the north of the South, it seems to me that there is a little more racism here than in New York, where I spent most of my life. However, this is purely anecdotal, and I can’t be sure that this is so, and admit a bias to believe it given U.S. history. Also, I’ve met any number of people down here who are anything but racist. But it is also a place with a strong history of anti-federalism and state’s rights, not exactly the Obama administration’s strong point.

It is no more fair to decide that Joe Wilson was rude because Obama was black as it is to believe that Obama is being less than honest because he was black. In fact, put Clarence Thomas up as even the Democrat candidate and see how many conservatives would happily vote for him. Most.

Now maybe Wilson had a knee-jerk conservative reaction to Obama. That I buy (although I do agree with his point that Obama was not telling the truth, at best, being slippery, but he was rude and that doesn't serve his side at all, any more than the Pink Ladies influenced debate by interrupting congressional hearings). But Dowd has knee-jerk liberal reactions every week.

Calling someone racist without good grounds is almost as bad as being racist, some might think exactly as bad. It certainly happens much too often.

A number of times during the presidential election I was asked with incredulity – HOW I could vote for McCain? I had a list of reasons which even my political accusers agreed were, at least, reasons. I won’t bore you here with it as I already lost that one. But one reason I voted for McCain definitely was not that Obama was black. I, and I know many others who voted against him (even, I think, John McCain), who thought it was a significant moment in our history that a black man was elected. But one of the few personal faults of Obama that bothered me during the election was the too frequent race cards thrown by Obama’s staff or supporters, particularly in the primaries. He stayed out of it for the most part and still does. I appreciate that. But, I thought he should have actively countered it during the election and he failed in that.

Obama can’t control Carter (no one can). But, he could, in passing, say, "I disagree with President Carter’s belief. Racism does exist. But most of my political adversaries have principled positions that differ from mine. Let’s have a debate about the best thing for America." That would impress me. His press secretary, Gibbs, has pretty much said so, and Obama gets his chance this Sunday on the news shows.

Speaking of Jonah Goldberg, here was my comment on his absurd little piece on the birthers, defending them on the basis that "truthers" who believe that the towers went down as part of a U.S. government plot. Admittedly, it sounds suspiciously like my comment to Dowd, as I wrote them close in time:

Seriously?

That's your argument? Birthers are nuts, but truthers are more nuts? You should have mentioned the "flat earthers" and the "no moon landers". That would make birthers look even better. Come on. You are better than that.

And speaking of birthers, they are out of their evalovin’ partisan minds just the way the liberals who thought Bush was going to declare martial law if Obama won were out of theirs. People don’t like it when others disagree with their politics and they tend to make up stuff and believe almost anything about their “enemy”. I laugh when I read that some society, like Iraq, for example, is susceptible to rumors and myths, as our own culture is awash with them.

One of my favorite myth/rumor busters is John Stossel, who has been commenting for years on the silly things Americans believe and demolishing them with facts. He recently announced his move from ABC to FoxNews where he felt he will have more time to explore his libertarianism, which I find to be an elastic term difficult to pin down. I have my libertarian instincts, and if you put a a gun to my head and said pick an -ism to describe yourself, I might just settle on that, although I would be very unsatisfied with the answer and greatly prefer the even more amorphous independent/moderate. In response to Stossel's online request for suggestions I wrote as follows, venting my usual anti-partisan rant:

I picked up one of your books one day (never saw your show as I never watch network news) and recognized a sympathetic soul - the fears Americans have, the things they believe, are often absurd. And you nail them, one after another.

However, although I hope you continue your approach on Fox, please do not fall under the Fox spell that everything left is wrong. We have too much tunnel vision on tv - whether on the networks, Fox, CNN or MSNBC. In my humble opinion, partisanship makes everyone a little bit crazy and both sides believe things that aren't true as articles of faith. Bust all myths, not just liberal ones (and they both have plenty).

For example, conservative radio and tv hosts' claims that it was conservatives who gave us the the civil rights acts are just so much nonsense. That comes from mixing the concepts of Democrat/Republican with conservative/liberal. If you read the votes on the acts, you can see, the split was not so much Democrat/Republican as it was North/South. The southern Democrats were primarily conservatives, the Northern Democrats primarily liberal, but whether Republican or Democrat, the push for civil rights came primarily from liberalism.

In other words, be the same maverick you were on network tv on Fox. If you were going to MSNBC, I'd be asking you to do the same, but in the opposite direction – bust liberal myths too. Vex your bosses and you will draw fans like me.

Politicians change over time. Often they mellow with age. Pat Buchanan is one of them. He was for a while the leading extreme Republican. At least since he started working for MSNBC and spending a lot of time with Republican moderate Joe Scarsborough, Pat Buchanan has way mellowed. He was so hated on the left that it took me a while to convince a couple of liberal friends that he really was cuddly and grandfatherly. They came around after they saw him a few times.

That doesn't mean he became a liberal - far from it. One of the more distasteful aspects of his early rhetoric for me was the belief that diversity is bad for America. There was a time when his feeling was quite intense, but he states it more gently now. Recently, he posted an opinion piece where he blamed the increase in partisanship and uncivility to diversity. I commented as follows:

Relax

I admire Mr. Buchanan's knowledge and experience, but this is just hooey, as he must know given the depth of his historical knowledge. First, America was always a diversified country - what it wasn't was a country where power was shared among different ethnic groups. There were always blacks, Hispanics (speaking Spanish), Protestants, Catholics (at the beginning very few), Indians, etc. and their cultures always intermixed. Take something that seems as solid and fixed - classical music. It itself comes from the contributions of people all over Europe whose people and governments were often at each others' throats during that same time period it was being developed. Where do you think Jazz came from? It didn't pop out of Benny Goodman's clarinet and Bing Crosby's throat - it developed primarily from Black music - Whites liked it and contributed to it. There was always old music and new music; there was always a mix of languages (I'm for one official language - English - for government, law and school). You could go on endlessly. That's what great about America. Diversity can be unsettling, but eventually, when given time, develops into culture we all think of as "ours". America does have big problems (always will) and two political cultures at odds with each other. But, as I'm sure Mr. Buchanan knows, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were battling away in the very first cabinet. My advice - relax; try and get together on what we can; be fairer to the "other side" than you perceive they are to you; and read history. People like Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann are popular among their fans because they are extreme and often just absurd, but there are other more moderate voices out there. Mr. Buchanan used to be an extremist, in my view, but has grown into a more balanced position. He used to be one of the verbal bomb throwers, and I'm glad to see he has less patience for it.

Whenever I write a political post, I look back and say - Oh, it's about the same thing again - partisanship makes everyone a little bit crazy. And perhaps nothing is sillier than my own hope that one day, long after I am a pile of dessicated dust in an urn on my daughter's mantle, the large majority of Americans will have learned to have political debate without the endless name calling and assertions that the other side is just being . . .(pick your sleight). Maybe so. But it is clearly my passion, my mantra and my cause d'etre. I certainly have a lot of work to do as almost everything political I read makes me shake my head and say to myself, your side does the same damn thing. Take the email I received today from one of my favorite liberal friends, which stated, in part:

I think the national Republicans are without honor, ideas, or courage.

I couldn't help but write back as follows reporting on my previous evening with a group of conservatives here in town:

Oh, now I get it. It's the Republicans who are at fault. See, I was confused because I had heard that about the liberals last night, although I believe they used "mentally ill," "without a clue" and "without morals". I was also told that "you moderates" (meaning me, not you) are the problem. That I expect. No one likes the guys who point out that both sides behave the same way. It ruins the illusion of good and evil, right and wrong.

Had enough? Giving up your partisan ways? Fine, I'll stop for now, but I will be watching.

SUMMER BLOGCATION

I'm up in New York and wishing I was home kayaking and also that I wasn't too busy these last two weeks to write anything. So, I decided for the first time in my astronomically long career as a blogger (three years this past Sunday) to take a Summer Blogcation and skip a few weeks. Feels strange. I'll be back the weekend of September 18th. Please do not hold your breath. I can't be responsible.