Cormorants In The Mist

At the beginning of pleasant two-mile walk around Bass Lake, near Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, I saw this platform crowded with cormorants waiting for the early morning mist to burn off before they headed out for their day of fishing.

Be Thankful We Have Men and Women Like This

Dawn on the Mississippi

Deep within the White House rambles or storms a tall, paunchy, florid-faced man for whom the words and attributes “gracious, kind, forgiving, humble, self-deprecating, reasonable, generous, appreciative, thoughtful, artful, empathetic, ethical, and moral” are far beyond his limited vocabulary and short intellectual grasp. Keep those words in mind.

I’d like to use this pre-Thanksgiving column to express my thanks to a man who does know those words and values, who did express them in ways befitting the underlying goodness of those public servants in uniform  who sacrifice nobly, and without any need for self-affirmation. But first, let me cite, from this morning’s Washington Post, a man of completely opposite traits…a public servant for whom I have no desire to express my thanks over tomorrow’s meal.

“President Trump began the day before Thanksgiving on Twitter, calling out those who he claims have not, in fact, given him their proper thanks.

His target, again: LaVar Ball, who Trump had previously called “very ungrateful” for the president’s help in resolving a shoplifting charge in China for his son, LiAngelo, and two other University of California at Los Angeles basketball players.

It had been nearly two full days since Trump last mentioned the elder Ball by name — and in the intervening hours, Ball had been on CNN, saying that he had nothing to be thankful for when it came to his son and his president.

“How’d he help? If he helped, I would say thank you,” Ball told CNN.

Trump wasn’t having it, calling Ball an “ungrateful fool” and “a poor man’s version of Don King,” the boxing promoter known for his spotlight-grabbing style.

As for who had helped free LiAngelo Ball from China, the president said Wednesday: “IT WAS ME.”

Now, allow me to cite the text of the remarks of Marine Cpl. William Kyle Carpenter who received the Medal of Honor for throwing himself on a grenade to shield a friend and fellow Marine from the blast during the 2010 Marjah, Afghanistan, assault.

[At the National Museum of the Marine Corps]

"With this short amount of time I have to speak to you tonight, I couldn't possibly sum up the historical battle of Marjah.

“I am comforted, though, by the fact that the men in this room don't need a summary because you were right there beside me. You felt the incredible heat of a 100 percent humidity day and the cool waters of a muddy canal. You felt the weight of 100 pounds of gear, ammo and water at your back, the weight of knowing as Marines we are and forever will be the first line of defense for our loved ones, our nation and above all, freedom.

“I stand here today extremely proud of you all. I'm proud of the job you did in the face of what most cannot even fathom. I am more than honored to call you friends, fellow Marines and brothers. You stand as an example for others and for what's best for not only our nation but the rest of the world.

“The United States military member is a beacon of hope in dark places for suffering people around the world. Many have paid the ultimate sacrifice. Many gave their limbs to help people have lives free of oppression and full of freedom and prosperity.

“Even though there are dark days and have been dark days since our deployment, and long nights, remember what Gen. [George S.] Patton said: 'It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died; rather, we should thank God that such men lived.'

“Be proud of who you are. Be proud of what you did in that country. You are alive today and have been blessed with this opportunity of life. Don't waste it. Live a life worth living, full of meaning and purpose, and one that will make the fallen who are looking down on us proud.

“For the families of the fallen, Blue Star families, active duty families, retired, and all military families and service members, I thank you for your service. You don't hear enough, 'I appreciate your sacrifice and what you go through here at home or half a world away deployed.'

“To everyone here tonight, I thank you for having me. I'm extremely honored to stand in front of you and I'm very humbled that you wanted me to speak to you here tonight.

“Marines, I'm proud to have worn the same uniform as you.

“Never forget that when no one else would raise their right hand, you did. You sacrificed and became part of our nation's history and our Marine Corps legacy for taking part in the historical battleground of Marjah. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate it."

"I really struggled with the idea that I would, not have to, but most likely be encouraged to wear my medal. And I say struggled because, let me just say that I don't want to wear this. I don't like wearing this.

“But I do because, you know, if I can inform one person of what we do and what we're about, or what we sacrificed over there, I do it for that. I wear it for all of you.

“And I just hope that you know that no matter where I'm wearing it, it's not because I want to. It's putting on a good face, trying to attach something good to the Marine Corps, to contribute and help people understand our side of life, what we go through, what we're about. And everything we've done from past generations until now, the great job we've done to keep our freedom, to keep our men alive.

“So I wore it tonight for you. Feel free to come up after and touch it, whatever you like. It's your medal."

One man says, “IT WAS ME!”

Another man says, “I wear it for all of you…It’s your medal.”

For whom should Americans be truly grateful?

Happy Thanksgiving. Semper Fi. And thank you all for your service.

The Al Franken Conundrum

I find myself on the horns of a dilemma with respect to the burgeoning list of men, now including Minnesota Senator Al Franken, who have, to put it bluntly (but in printable terms) screwed up royally, and to the women who, in virtually every case, have borne the burden of silence far too long.

My dilemma is not whether the women are to be, or not to be, believed; in my mind, they are totally credible and deserve much credit for unloading their emotional burdens on their victimizers’ doorsteps. I am not a conspiracy theorist: The Earth is a sphere; Oswald shot Kennedy; the Big Bang is a thing; the Moon landings happened; Obama is an American by birth; and women have been (and continue to be) groped, raped, abused, and put down and silenced by men of high, middle, and low status. This is not a media creation; men have to own it.

My dilemma is that I am a man in my late 60s who grew up in a culture that elevated, celebrated, and exploited female objectification in music, film, magazines, and in daily life—both in the workplace and in the home. I was lucky to have a strong, moral, and self-confident mother, and a sensitive, moral, and conscience-driven father. But those “right-thinking” attributes did not serve as shields against the music I listened to, the movies I saw, or the magazines I read.

Pop music of my pre-teen and teen years, the 50s and 60s, filled as it often was with teenage angst, longing, betrayal, and dreams of bliss (Since I Don’t Have You, The Great Pretender, Bye Bye Love, Johnny Angel), also highlighted girls and women who were either sexually aggressive (Great Balls of Fire, Gloria [Shadows of Night version]), sadly pliable (It’s My Party, Leader of the Pack), cheating (The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Delilah, Ruby), or even predatory (Neil Diamond’s Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon), with lyrics like these:

Girl, you'll be a woman soon 

Please come take my hand 

Girl, you'll be a woman soon 

Soon you'll need a man…

The thesis about that era’s influence on kids like me is well-presented in at least 3,600 books (Amazon search for “History of Rock and Roll”) and millions of columns, but the bottom line is the music was not always kind in its treatment of girls and women, and no one cared to question it. It was just fun, it was just music. Right?

The movies that objectified girls and women during that same period are simply too numerous to list, but from the Beach Blanket and Gidget series to the James Bond movies, to something as silly as One Million Years BC or as overtly sexual (and insipid) as Barbarella, there was an accepted atmosphere of highly-charged sexuality aimed unashamedly at strengthening the male-centric view of women as a gender to be manipulated.

Enter Playboy and the weedy-mat of much lower-life men’s magazines that plugged into the still-being-wired brains of young boys in the 50s and 60s. I admit to “reading” Playboy’s gate-folds and photo spreads, and I was also exposed to the most salacious breed of bottom-feeding magazines that I cannot even mention here (my father had no part in that, to his credit—I managed to find them all on my own). The girls and women featured in these publications became the hoped-for-but-ultimately-unattainable models of women adorning my pubescent, post-pubescent, and early-teen years.

As for society’s expectations of women, mothers (at least in my sphere), were all supposed to be Donna Reed by day, and…well…Sophia Loren by night: pearls, heels, kitchens and compliant vs. smoky, steamy, sexual…and compliant.

There were millions and millions of boys all across the country, Baby-Boomer males just like me. Millions. And we all got older (though not all of us grew up), with faulty wiring informing us of what we thought we should expect from the women who would move through our lives. For many of us—I like to think the majority of my peers, but I could be sadly mistaken—we were able to grow beyond the unreasonable gender-biased expectations that nurtured our youth. But the vestigial tails of those cruel expectations still linger on the rear-ends of too many men.

It is a good thing we are beginning to see those remnant appendages exposed for what they are—inept, hurtful, and illegal moral and ethical attitudes that had no place yesterday, and have no place in today’s world. The women who are coming forward have within their power the ability to excise those ancient and inglorious vestigial remains. And I don’t mind lending a hand in that operation.

But I don’t always know when to cut and when to stay the hand of criticism. I can’t, for example, press the knife to Al Franken’s inappropriate behavior as deeply as I would gladly press it through Harvey Weinstein’s horrid tail. I know too many men of Franken’s age and background who were jackasses in high school and college (and in the halls of Congress where I once worked), who are today capable of sincere humility and apology, and who are, in many other respects, champions for women.

How do I reconcile this…this dilemma? Hate the sin, forgive some of the the sinners? Are Franken’s apologies and his self-flagellating actions sufficiently exculpatory to redeem him in the long run? I don’t know. I hope so, because I do think there has to be some gray in this discussion—some margin for retreat, enlightenment, and subsequent reconciliation.

Fathers and mothers who do know better, must begin imprinting the rules of behavior, respect, and decency toward women before their sons’ wiring goes awry and follows leads and channels made by poor examples and ersatz role models. There is simply no one better to apply a corrective than a dedicated parent. Their window of opportunity may be narrow, but a vote to litigate, censure, or expel comes far too late for too many women.