Category: Current Event

I lost a friend the other day. Let me describe him to you, from those of us who’ve known him our whole lives…

Rick was one of a kind.
He was high voltage.
He beat to his own drum.
He’s the funniest person I’ve ever known.
No one could really keep up with his energy, but he was always fun to run alongside and try to keep up with — even just for a moment.

Rick was an uncanny, energetic, passionate man. From first grade on, I never failed to laugh in his presence.

I’ll add a little more…

He was a wrestler in middle school and went undefeated in 8th grade.
He was a brewer for Oaken Barrel Brewing Co. long before the craft industry became cool.
He owned several ferrets over the course of his life.
He loved animals.
He was a tireless worker and enjoyed a successful hospitality and sales career.

Rick, too, loved an audience…

He was an entertaining mix of Robin Williams, Sam Kinison, and Ronald Reagan.
In high school, he used our lunch table as the test market for his standup routine. Every day. I think our favorite was watching him eat his peaches as if they were a live goldfish.

Rick would also do anything for his friends…

Rick wanted to be a friend to all.
He was clever, raw, edgy, conservative, and loyal to his friends.
He would be the first to stand and the last to fall when it came to the people and issues he held dear.
He was firm in his convictions, but not condemning.
He loved his family and friends fiercely.

With the rise of social media, Rick also found new ways to voice his passions — and voice them he did. He was never afraid to speak his mind, and often, brazenly so. He spoke out sometimes daily on the issues, never hesitant to call it as he saw it. We interacted often, and when I saw him some 3-4 years ago, I razzed Rick for the frequent sharpness in his political statements — he who comes from a stance one friend describes as “somewhere a little bit to the right of G. Gordon Liddy and Friedrich Nietzsche.” Rick shyly grinned, turned a little red, and said something along the lines of “yeah, I know I can be a little rough sometimes.”

But Rick’s roughness never impeded how he felt about his friends — even on those days he’d shoot me a quick bold text, arguing I was wrong or not hard enough on someone. Said another friend, “He and I really butted heads over politics and rights, but he was also the first person to tell me how much he cared about me!” The key to our friend, Rick, was that his convictions never compromised his relationships.

I’m thinking of how much I will miss Rick. I think, too, of the current sad, digressing, societal state in which too many intelligent others have allowed their convictions to compromise who they love and how they love them… how their convictions have knowingly and intentionally damaged their relationships… how they have no tolerance for the conviction of another… and how that intolerant tone rubs off on those who take it way too far. Some want passionate voices silenced. On the left. On the right. That grieves me, as we are sacrificing wisdom.

While I can no longer hear, Rick’s raw, edgy, voice, his silence also grieves me…

Some final words…

“Bottom line — he was a great guy who would do anything for his friends. When he asked how you were doing, he really cared. He knew that life was hard, and we’re all in this together. There are people who don’t know Rick who will think that he gave up early on life. But he was a shooting star that was destined to burn out early. He even knew that. He candidly talked about being amazed to be alive in his 20s and in his 30s and in his 40s. And he didn’t work hard to stay alive for himself — he did that for us. He did that for his friends and family, and we were blessed to have him here for 52 years. For those who knew him, he is irreplaceable — but I trust that his memory will live on in the stories. I’m guessing everyone has their favorite Rick story. I’m smiling right now as I think of mine. Somewhere in heaven, Rick is working his routine on a new audience. God bless him.”

Respectfully…
AR

One of the challenges currently facing contemporary culture is the narrow selection of news. It’s not, in my arguably-less-vocalized opinion that so much of the news is this “fake” stuff we keep talking about; it’s more that it’s editorialized. We have facts that are filtered through opinion; the objectivity has been removed; therefore, the audience is subject to news which has been editorialized first.

Juxtapose, for example, the Huffington Post vs. the Drudge Report, and how they each responded to Pres. Trump’s decision last week to pull the United States out the 2015 United Nations Paris Climate Accord. [Note: the Intramuralist welcomes the respectful support or opposition to this agreement and to the decision to withdrawal; however, the decision is not what’s in question in today’s post.] Note how strikingly different the two supposed “news” sites handled the headlines…

With a background of flames, the Huffington Post announced: “TRUMP TO PLANET: DROP DEAD.”

The Drudge Report proudly boasted the President’s profile: “TRUMP FIGHTS: PARIS ‘CLIMATE’ REBUKE.”

This was over the same issue. At the same time. From “news” sites.

Pick most any topic upon which varied perspective exists — and is okay to exist (… wait… we still acknowledge that; right?). The challenge is that daily, people are reading one of the above, so-to-speak, insulating it with likeminded others, and then concluding that they have a clear grasp of the news. The problem is that news is objective, and both of the above sources are subjective; they are opinion offerers. They have editorialized the news prior to presenting it.

Let’s continue to utilize the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as our example, attempting to offer a more objective response. Here is where a source such as Rasmussen Reports, an American polling company, founded in 2003 is helpful in the discernment process. They track data and public opinion, aiding in objectivity.

Key facts regarding U.S. consent to the Paris agreement are that it was signed by Pres. Obama in 2015, but it was never submitted to the Senate for ratification or rejection. Regardless, according to the polling data by Rasmussen Reports, only 30% of voters support Pres. Trump’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from the agreement.

What is also true is that 60% of voters believe the Paris treaty should be submitted to the Senate for an up-or-down vote.

The above data — that true, has a margin for error — helps this current events observer wrestle with reality. Let me say that another way. The above data, which by definition is more objective, helps me better wrestle with what’s happening than any call to “drop dead” or “rebuking” of the Parisians. The editorials, in my opinion, often get in the way. They fan the flames, inciting judgment and disrespect.

The Intramuralist believes climate change is a topic worthy of in-depth, give-and-take, listening-based discussion. I also believe it’s a topic which tends to prompt the most disrespect, arrogance, and lack of listening. Note that Rasmussen also reported polling data last week that only 25% think the scientific debate over global warming is over. So let’s talk about it. Calmly. Humbly. Respectfully. Let’s listen to all perspectives. And let’s quit being seduced into believing that insulting another side makes anyone want to think like us.

The point of today’s post is be aware of how our news sources skew our objectivity, due to their daily presentation of an “editorialized” version of the news. When we adopt such as truth, we tend to have little patience for alternate perspective. And then we can’t even have those worthy, listening-based discussions.

Where can we find the news? While none is free from opinion (although CSPAN comes pretty close) and several sources offer opinion pieces (albeit clearly marked as such), the Intramuralist finds the following five to be among the most trusted:

1. CSPAN
2. The Christian Science Monitor
3. RealClearPolitics (and its subsidiary sites)
4. Reuters
5. The Wall Street Journal

Notably omitted are the aforementioned Huffington Post and Drudge Report — also, Breibart, the Daily Kos, InfoWars, and Occupy Democrats, etc. On the left and on the right, each takes turns editorializing what we hear.

I thus wonder what effect an infusion of objectivity would have on today’s news… and how we could better discuss the issues thereafter.

Respectfully… always…
AR

[Note: due to illness, the Intramuralist is offering one weekend column which I believed raised significant, valid, respectful questions. I’m not sure I agree or disagree, but remember that agreeing or disagreeing is not necessarily most important. This editorial did make me think. I like to think. It was written by Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.]

So last week President Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement — to the extent that one can pull out of an agreement that’s not actually legally binding, anyway. This left some people upset.

But if climate change is really such a crisis, and if sacrifice on our part is needed to stop it, then why aren’t we seeing more sacrifice from people who think it’s a problem?
That’s what one person asked on Twitter: “What if climate scientists decided, as a group, to make their conferences all virtual? No more air travel. What a statement!” And what if academics in general — most of whom think climate change is a big deal — started doing the same thing to make an even bigger statement?

It would be big. And what if politicians and celebrities stopped jetting around the world — often on wasteful private jets instead of flying commercial with the hoi polloi — as a statement of the importance of fighting climate change?
And what if politicians and celebrities lived in average-sized houses, to reduce their carbon footprints?  What if John Kerry, who was much put out by Trump’s action, gave up his yacht-and-mansions lifestyle?
What if, indeed? One reason why so many people don’t take climate change seriously is that the people who are constantly telling us it’s a crisis never actually act like it’s a crisis. They’re all-in for sacrifices by other people, but never seem to make much in the way of sacrifices themselves.
Well, some might say, that’s why we need laws. Even people who are deeply concerned about climate change lack the self-discipline to change their behavior. So we need discipline to be imposed, by the force of government.

Well, okay. Since some states and cities are promising to live by the Paris agreement anyway, and since Trump’s rejection of that agreement doesn’t mean that Congress is forbidden to act, I have some proposals for legislation that will take climate change seriously indeed.

First, we need to tax the “blue zones.” That is, we need to impose steep taxes on property in coastal areas that will be flooded by the sea-level increases that global warming is supposed to bring. By discouraging people from living or building there now, we’ll save ourselves from big problems in the future. Sure it’ll drive down property values, but those values should go down — they’re values for property that’s going to be flooded anyway, remember?

Second, we need to ban taxpayer-funded air travel to conferences. State legislatures could ban reimbursement for travel outside their states; Congress could require that no federal grant money be spent on air travel to conferences and similar events. A lot of academic conferences would fail, but that’s a small price to pay for saving the planet.  And besides, it will encourage the development of Internet-based conference alternatives. A whole new industry might result: Green jobs!

Third, we need to ban private jet travel. At first I thought about just taxing it heavily, but with the planet at stake, that might not be enough. It’s nice that John Travolta can have his own Boeing 707, or that Leonardo DiCaprio can jet around the world speaking against climate change, but the carbon emissions involved set a bad example that outweighs anything he might say. So no more private jets. Bigshots will just have to fly commercial like everyone else, the way they did in the 1950s. (And sorry, Leo, but massive yachts have to go, too). Politicians, too, should have to fly commercial. No more government-funded “executive jets” for them.

Fourth, we need a luxury tax on mansions. Any home more than twice the size of the average American home should be taxed at 25% of its value per year. Celebrities and the rich enjoy great powers of persuasion — but with great power comes great responsibility, and they have a great responsibility to set a good example for the rest of us on climate change!

These proposals are just the beginning, and I’m sure that enterprising members of Congress and various state legislatures can come up with more. But the important thing is to set a good example: Treat climate change like the crisis you say it is, and maybe more people will believe that it really is a crisis.

Respectfully…
AR

So many of the wisest people I know are also some of the most well-read. I’ve been thankful for their influence — and their consistent sharing that books are a great teacher. One of those books that contained some eye-opening concepts to me years ago is John Ortberg’s “The Life You’ve Always Wanted.” In it he coins a term oft repeated here: “impression management.” It’s the whole idea of: “what will people think?”

The pondering of that thought then influences what we do, what we wear, what we drive, who we engage with, what we say, and what we say on social media.

Imagine being freed from all that external influence…

Last week it was the end-of-year concert for my high school sons — my senior, in his final performance with his faithful friends, who have sang and danced and done life together these past several years — and my freshman, for whom every performance is a lesson in gratitude for us both, being always aware of how his so-called special needs never deter him from the stage; it just makes me thankful (… usually makes me cry a little, too…).

Let me be profoundly transparent…

School concerts are a wonderful, wonderful thing. I love seeing my children — and your children — up on that center stage. But school concerts, for years, have been a quiet, incredibly major source of stress for me. You see, concerts require a very specific attire: dress pants, dress shirts, dress shoes, etc. I get it; those boys and girls should look the part. But let me share that finding dress pants for a shorter, heavier adolescent is not easy. In fact, many of our past concert evenings found this simply-attempting-to-survive parent quietly crying in the afternoon. It was hard to find the clothes… it was hard to look right… it’s sometimes very difficult to fit in.

When he got to high school, they provided the individually-measured attire (yes, sheeewwwww…). And while maybe his tux was a tad out of proportion, the uniform relieved much of my previous stress. Josh put the pants and the shirt on at home; he put on the coat, bow tie, and cummerbund at school.

Let’s just say, cummerbunds aren’t typical wear for our family. Such was, shall we say, rather noticeable at the March concert, when Josh’s cummerbund showed up in the middle of his chest, a good 6-8” above his belt line. Understand that the tuxedo is a very handsome black; the cummerbund and bow tie are a very visible orange.

So for last week’s last concert, we had a bit of an intentional discussion beforehand. “Remember that the cummerbund goes here (motion to the belt line). It does not go here (horizontal motion to the center of his chest).”

Sure enough. Up comes the curtain, final concert of the year, Josh is his typical joyful self, proudly standing there, second row, right in the center, visible to all, and here is his bright orange cummerbund, smack dab in the middle of his chest once again. [Insert audible sigh here.]

What can I do? Nothing. But after song #1 of a three song set, the director promptly left his podium, walked up to the students, right toward Josh, and corrected the misplaced cummerbund. All eyes were on him. Even with a sweet, strong, beautiful relationship between director and student, it had every potential for embarrassment.

But not for Josh.

Josh gently raised his arms, allowed the director to adjust the necessary apparel, and then noticing that he was the center of attention for an unplanned moment, as Mr. Miller started walking away, Josh gave a quick shrug, an immediate smile, and then a fast, contagious dab. Yes, Josh dabbed. The crowd clapped and chuckled, embracing the joy young master Josh genuinely felt.

I have long thought that Josh does many things better than me. In fact, I would argue that sometimes, intelligence gets in the way for the rest of us. It causes us to miss some of the finer moments, be willing to sacrifice relationship, be embarrassed, and makes us far too conscious of impression management.

Josh simply doesn’t care. So often, he is wiser than me. He is a great teacher.

Respectfully…
AR

As promised, the Intramuralist will soon have some words for the graduate. Until then, let’s remember a few who’ve come before us, with wise and sometimes profound words, today from English teacher David McCullough Jr., delivered to the graduates of Wellesley (Mass.) High School in June of 2012…

… So here we are… commencement… life’s great forward-looking ceremony. (And don’t say, “What about weddings?” Weddings are one-sided and insufficiently effective. Weddings are bride-centric pageantry. Other than conceding to a list of unreasonable demands, the groom just stands there. No stately, hey-everybody-look-at-me procession. No being given away. No identity-changing pronouncement. And can you imagine a television show dedicated to watching guys try on tuxedos? Their fathers sitting there misty-eyed with joy and disbelief, their brothers lurking in the corner muttering with envy. Left to men, weddings would be… after limits-testing procrastination… spontaneous, almost inadvertent… during halftime… on the way to the refrigerator. And then there’s the frequency of failure: statistics tell us half of you will get divorced. A winning percentage like that’ll get you last place in the American League East. The Baltimore Orioles do better than weddings.)
But this ceremony… commencement… a commencement works every time. From this day forward… truly… in sickness and in health, through financial fiascos, through midlife crises and passably attractive sales reps at trade shows in Cincinnati, through diminishing tolerance for annoyingness, through every difference, irreconcilable and otherwise, you will stay forever graduated from high school… you and your diploma as one, ’til death do you part.
No, commencement is life’s great ceremonial beginning, with its own attendant and highly appropriate symbolism. Fitting, for example, for this auspicious rite of passage, is where we find ourselves this afternoon, the venue. Normally, I avoid clichés like the plague, wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole, but here we are on a literal level playing field. That matters. That says something. And your ceremonial costume… shapeless, uniform, one-size-fits-all. Whether male or female, tall or short, scholar or slacker, spray-tanned prom queen or intergalactic X-Box assassin, each of you is dressed, you’ll notice, exactly the same. And your diploma… but for your name, exactly the same.
All of this is as it should be… because none of you is special.
You are not special. You are not exceptional.

Contrary to what your u9 soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you… you’re nothing special.
Yes, you’ve been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped. Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again. You’ve been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored. You’ve been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie. Yes, you have. And, certainly, we’ve been to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs. Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds gasp with delight at your every tweet. Why, maybe you’ve even had your picture in the Townsman! And now you’ve conquered high school… and, indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine community, the first to emerge from that magnificent new building…

But do not get the idea you’re anything special. Because you’re not.
The empirical evidence is everywhere, numbers even an English teacher can’t ignore. Newton, Natick, Nee… I am allowed to say Needham, yes? …that has to be two thousand high school graduates right there, give or take, and that’s just the neighborhood Ns. Across the country no fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from more than 37,000 high schools. That’s 37,000 valedictorians… 37,000 class presidents… 92,000 harmonizing altos… 340,000 swaggering jocks… 2,185,967 pairs of Uggs. But why limit ourselves to high school? After all, you’re leaving it. So think about this: even if you’re one in a million… on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you. Imagine standing somewhere over there on Washington Street on Marathon Monday and watching sixty-eight hundred yous go running by. And consider for a moment the bigger picture… Your planet, I’ll remind you, is not the center of its solar system, your solar system is not the center of its galaxy, your galaxy is not the center of the universe. In fact, astrophysicists assure us the universe has no center; therefore, you cannot be it. Neither can Donald Trump… which someone should tell him… although the hair is quite a phenomenon.
“But, Dave,” you cry, “Walt Whitman tells me there is perfection in me also. Epictetus tells me I have the spark of Zeus!” And I don’t disagree. So that makes 6.8 billion examples of perfection, 6.8 billion sparks of Zeus. You see, if everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless. In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another–which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality–we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement. We have come to see them as the point–and we’re happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that’s the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole. No longer is it how you play the game, no longer is it even whether you win or lose, or learn or grow, or enjoy yourself doing it… Now it’s “So what does this get me?” As a consequence, we cheapen worthy endeavors… and building a Guatemalan medical clinic becomes more about the application to Bowdoin than the well-being of Guatemalans. It’s an epidemic–and in its way, not even dear old Wellesley High is immune… one of the best of the 37,000 nationwide, Wellesley High School… where good is no longer good enough, where a B is the new C, and the midlevel curriculum is called Advanced College Placement. And I hope you caught me when I said “one of the best.” I said “one of the best” so we can feel better about ourselves, so we can bask in a little easy distinction, however vague and unverifiable, and count ourselves among the elite, whoever they might be, and enjoy a perceived leg up on the perceived competition. But the phrase defies logic. By definition there can be only one best. You’re it or you’re not.
If you’ve learned anything in your years here I hope it’s that education should be for… rather than material advantage… the exhilaration of learning. You’ve learned, too, I hope, as Sophocles assured us, that wisdom is the chief element of happiness. (Second is ice cream… just an fyi) I also hope you’ve learned enough to recognize how little you know… how little you know now… at the moment… for today is just the beginning. It’s where you go from here that matters.
As you commence, then, and before you scatter to the winds, I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance. Don’t bother with work you don’t believe in any more than you would a spouse you’re not crazy about, lest you too find yourself on the wrong side of a Baltimore Orioles comparison. Resist the easy comforts of complacency, the specious glitter of materialism, the narcotic paralysis of self-satisfaction. Be worthy of your advantages. And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life. Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it. Dream big. Work hard. Think for yourself. Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might. And do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer; and as surely as there are commencements there are cessations… and you’ll be in no condition to enjoy the ceremony attendant to that eventuality no matter how delightful the afternoon.
The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you’re a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer. You’ll note the founding fathers took pains to secure your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness–quite an active verb, pursuit–which leaves, I should think, little time for lying around watching parrots rollerskate on Youtube. The first President Roosevelt, the old rough rider, advocated the strenuous life. Mr. Thoreau wanted to drive life into a corner, to live deep and suck out all the marrow. The poet Mary Oliver tells us to row, row into the swirl and roil. Locally, someone… I forget who… from time to time encourages young scholars to carpe the heck out of the diem. The point is the same: get busy, have at it. Don’t wait for inspiration or passion to find you. Get up, get out, explore, find it yourself, and grab hold with both hands. (Now, before you dash off and get your YOLO tattoo, let me point out the illogic of that trendy little expression–because you can and should live not merely once, but every day of your life. Rather than You Only Live Once, it should be You Live Only Once… but because YLOO doesn’t have the same ring, we shrug and decide it doesn’t matter.)
None of this day-seizing, though, this YLOOing, should be interpreted as license for self-indulgence. Like accolades ought to be, the fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying byproduct. It’s what happens when you’re thinking about more important things. Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you. Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly. Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion–and those who will follow them. And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special.
Because everyone is.
Congratulations. Good luck. Make for yourselves, please, for your sake and for ours, extraordinary lives.

Respectfully…
AR