In response to Burr Deming's The Awesome Quality of Wealth

For the most part, I don't come across resentment of wealth. Not in public statements, not in private comments made by friends. Resentment of snobbery is another matter. The assumption that financial success is the measurable manifestation of moral superiority is irksome.

- Burr Deming, March 21, 2012

I resent those on the liberal side who are quick to cry racism, sexism, etc. But conservatives have a comparable cry: "liberals hate the wealthy!"

Their proof consists of:

1. Many liberals want to raise taxes on the wealthiest among us. Conservatives often regard this as a form of punishment. We all know that taxes have no other, more basic function.

2. Many liberals resent the massive raises, golden parachutes, and offshore accounts that some of the wealthy get or have, especially during a poor economy. Conservatives seem to consider this to be none of our business. We all know that how an individual or business chooses to spend its money has no impact on anyone else.

3. Many liberals resent the prevalence of money in politics, particularly in campaigning. Some conservatives do as well, but when they notice that liberals resent it, they seem to jump to the conclusion that liberals want to deny "free speech" to others. We all know that [redacted by Mr. Deming].

4. Most liberals support entitlements and the welfare state. Conservative conspiracy theorists, who seem more and more common and accepted, think that liberals or their leaders want to get and keep everyone on the public payroll so that no one is successful. We all know that this is the only reasonable conclusion.

5. Some liberals do simply resent just how much the wealthy have in comparison to others. It is difficult, if not impossible, for them to justify that the average CEO in the Fortune 500 is paid 380 times what the average worker makes. Conservatives say that liberals are just envious. We all know from pop psychology that what we resent must be something that we deeply desire.

I have a budding entrepreneurial spirit. I want to become wealthy through honest means and without the government's direct assistance. But that doesn't mean that I am obligated to stay silent about which group is the best to tax, how much others make even during bad times, what they do with their money, how money is used in politics, the need for robust regulations and a sufficient safety net, and wage gaps.

My opinions on these matters do not mean that I hate or envy the wealthy. I hate excess and abuse--just like my traditionally conservative parents, who are no more enamored with the free market and big business than they are with big government.

Ryan's most notable public success can be witnessed at his own site, where the application of reason to the goal of ethical living effectively rules out excess and abuse.

Please visit Secular Ethics.

Press accounts from decades ago of the killing of Colette McDonald and her little children by deranged hippies seemed more than a little off to me. The dialogue itself seemed all wrong. "Acid is groovy. Kill the pigs." It was a staid sort of out-of-it caricature of hippiedom, even in 1970. Nobody talked that way. I was not surprised to read about the eventual conviction of her husband, Captain Jeffrey MacDonald.

It's possible. I have to acknowledge that it is a possibility that George Zimmerman is innocent. I find it hard to visualize, but his story could be true. Amazing things do happen.

One of those amazing things is the determination with which some folks seem willing to believe Zimmerman has to be innocent.

It is not remarkable that a man with a gun would follow a youngster who is on his way home with candy and soda. It is not unbelievable that the man, on the firm advice of a police dispatcher, would walk back to his vehicle.

That the young man, a few yards from his home, goes after the same man, then ambushes him, seems to me a remarkable coincidence. Of all the people to choose for attack without provocation, just for being in the same neighborhood, the teenager happens to pick the same fellow who noticed him and had walked away. A remarkable, unfortunate, and deadly coincidence. A strike by lightning would have seemed more likely.

If it did happen that way, and if in some strange alternate reality young Trayvon had not been killed, it would have been a tempting subject for a comedy script. How dumb would you have to be? Bringing skittles to a gun fight.

The implausibility, the pushing of reasonable doubt way into the territory of unreasonable, the near impossibility, is still a striking marvel to me. A youngster a short distance from home on his way back from the fast service store stops, suddenly pivots, pursues, confronts while his subject stays in his vehicle, then waits for him to get out, and finally ambushes the same fellow who had been about to pursue him.

If it had been a screenplay, I would have turned the channel to a more believable television drama. Dramatic entertainment needs to provoke some suspension of disbelief in order to qualify as dramatic entertainment.

A juror is more strongly required to suspend disbelief than is a television viewer. The ability of a juror to dispassionately consider evidence is a basic line between mob rule and the rule of law. I pray they find twelve good citizens and true who are up to it.

Self defense is a legal defense. It can make a homicide into justifiable homicide. But, in most places, it is an affirmative defense. That means the burden shifts. A prosecution does not have to prove a killing was not self-defense. A defendant has to demonstrate it was.

The incident is horrible, but not really surprising. Somewhere in America, some vigilante will shoot and kill someone innocent. A homeowner will kill a paperboy or a Halloween visitor. It has happened and will happen again.

The after-shock in this tragedy comes in the official reaction. An investigator on the scene is skeptical to the point of filing an affidavit just to go on record but is overruled. The assumptions abound. the victim is tested for drugs. The killer is not. A cell phone carried by the high schooler is ignored until weeks later, and even then it is a television network that gets curious enough to find if the dead young man was on the telephone. A witness who tells police of hearing the young person crying for help is corrected by an investigating officer. No, no. It was the man who did the shooting who cried for help.

And the shooting victim lying in the care of the local coroner, parents left to wonder and worry for days before anyone seeks them out. The eventual "balanced" view of a police chief. He is sure the gunman wishes he had behaved differently, as would the victim have wished HE had acted differently. It was a conflict. Both sides must be to blame in some way. Truth always lies somewhere in the middle.

It seems implausible to me, nearly impossible, that the Zimmerman story could be true. Implausible, nearly impossible, that it could be believed by anyone. Flatly impossible that it could be accepted as unimpeachable fact by authorities. Occam's razor would make the obvious believable: having killed the bad guy, making up a story that would surely be believed about the hooded threat to the community, the sad defender of the neighborhood discovered that he had, instead, killed a teenager on his way home.

Accounts by relatives of the man just released on bond have included in his account dialogue that would not get past a director. "What's your problem, homes?" the teenager is to have said to the man who had followed him and whom he now chased and confronted, the man now in his vehicle. After waiting just in case the vigilant neighborhood watcher got out and walked, just in case he headed in the right direction, the smaller youngster waited around the corner of a building. He was shot, and his last words were, "You got me."

"You got me." It's a small detail, amid a growing pile of fact. It reminds me of a forty year old murder story and the brutal death of a family. "Acid is groovy. Kill the pigs."

What shocks is that authorities overruled an investigator and accepted that story as plain, indisputable fact. No further investigation needed. Case closed.

Forget it and move on to important things.

From the Chicago Tribune:

A quick review of the long and illustrious career of Facts reveals some of the world's most cherished absolutes: Gravity makes things fall down; 2 + 2 = 4; the sky is blue.

But for many, Facts' most memorable moments came in simple day-to-day realities, from a child's certainty of its mother's love to the comforting knowledge that a favorite television show would start promptly at 8 p.m.

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Democrats are talking about a Republican "War on Women" while Republicans complain about Democratic demagogic contrivance, that there is no War on Women. Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus attempted to tell a national audience that the war on women was only as real as a war on caterpillars. His words fit nicely into a growing narrative of a GOP equation of women with etymological larva.

But yesterday, on CNN, Priebus got unexpected support from a top Democrat. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, from here in Missouri, was pressed on whether it is wrong to say that Republicans are engaged in a War on women. He answered:

Yes, that is wrong. And I’ve never said it, not one time. I condemn it. If it’s a Democrat, if it’s my cousin, it’s wrong.

I met Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, about a year ago. Our church was considering a merger with a smaller church whose membership had dwindled. The Representative is a Methodist pastor and he traveled across the state to help us with legal and structural issues.

He rather bobbled things when he presented a name change as a prerequisite for a merger. It would have been a nice gesture. Many of us supported it. But a vocal contingent was adamantly opposed. And they were vocal.

Representative Cleaver offered explanations that were convoluted to the point of comedy. Time dims memory. I believe his analysis had to do with bishopric approval, structural legalities, and financial responsibility. They were all valid points, as far as I could tell, but they were presented in such an incomprehensible way, it was hard to tell what was legally mandated and what was not. Confusion reigned, and congregants became fearful, then angry, and finally ugly.

It was a classic attempt of one who had become so accustomed to a lawmaker's forum, communication with ordinary folk was nearly impossible. I marveled at the ability of any intellect to keep track of the mental complexities he was building, and the inability of that same intellect to put much of anything into simple words. It was vocabulary gone rampant. It was a wild ride in unusual verbal construction.

But there was a central theme quite apart from the legalistic jargon. He warned about a lack of respect for opposing views. He characterized a large and growing national attitude as "I'm right and you're evil." It was only a few weeks later that he used the same phrase on national television, urging a new atmosphere of mutual respect.

You could see the theme applied in his comments yesterday.

In a literal sense, Representative Cleaver is right. Republicans are not shooting women. They are not even shooting at women. The "war" is not even a verbal attack on women. It is rather an attack on any view of women that does not fit neatly into a world many of us knew half a century ago. And it has had to do, in the first instance, with the value of women only in relation to other issues.

This year's popular eruption began with a vaginal probing requirement in Virgina. It was an indirect anti-abortion move. Abortion could not be outlawed, so it was made inconvenient, and maybe a little shameful. Women would have to be subjected to a vaginal probe in order to provide an image of a fetus which they would be required to watch. The hope was that this education would dissuade women from making an impulsive move. If they went ahead anyway, it would at least be an informed decision. And who could be against an informed decision? Comments of individual officials, as such efforts went to other states, made that harder. Close your eyes?

Voters reacted to the treatment of women as whimsical creatures who, unless legislators intervened, would be uneducated and uninformed, at least in so far as making such an important decision. The issue was intended to be abortion rather than insulting women as whimsically impulsive, needing protection from themselves.

When Congressional attacks on Obamacare were presented as a blow for religious freedom, it was not intended to be an attack on women. After President Obama diffused the issue by exempting religious institutions but maintaining that insurers provide contraceptive coverage, Republicans introduced legislation to require women to get permission from employers. A Congressional hearing at which Republicans permitted only men to testify was intended to focus on religious freedom.

Comments from local officials who would deny funding for birth control made it harder for Republicans to maintain a level playing field in the eternal game of politics.

When Mitt Romney promised to end funding for Planned Parenthood, the intent was to appeal to anti-abortion advocates. The fact that such a move would end cancer detection for many women was a side issue, not really considered.

Congressional representatives, particularly those from safe districts, can live in an insulated environment. Representative Cleaver represents such a district. Institutional loyalty, a desire for friendliness, can predispose anyone toward a calm workplace. And lawmakers are sometimes prone to forget that actual rights of real people can be at stake. You can occasionally see it in their language, even to church groups. When, without objection, it is so ordered, objections might be rude.

Yesterday on CNN, Emanuel Cleaver had just expressed his opinion about religion in politics. It was unfair to take a shortcut about Mitt Romney, judging him by a religious label, rather than by policies and personality. Mormons should be judged for elective office as individuals, no shortcuts allowed. That strikes me as fair.

Taking a shortcut about the Republican debate concerning women strikes me as similarly unfair. Emanuel Cleaver's healthy impulse to find middle ground where possible is sometimes perverted into an impulse toward false equivalence. Making the judgment that truth is always in the middle encourages extremists to move the middle by making extremes more extreme.

Congressman Cleaver lives and works in an environment that encourages institutional loyalty. He lives up to his obligation to see opponents in a favorable light. He strives for peace in our time.

And, like many of us, he was raised in a world in which women were often viewed as whimsical, impulsive, uninformed, uneducated, and irresponsible. They were thought to be weak, needing protection from their own best judgment. Women were okay as homemakers, reporting to their husbands, obedient in matters of finance, career, and things having to do with sexual responsibility.

The so called "War on Women" is shorthand for something other than combat. It is less a war than a defense of that traditional view. Those who wage it are often unaware they are living in a time warp.

Those on the sidelines are sometimes unwilling to defend a more modern view of women's rights from an attack they do not perceive as real: A defense of the only normality we were raised to see.

From the Guardian:

You're probably not familiar with the name John Carlos. But you almost certainly know his image. It's 1968 at the Mexico City Olympics and the medals are being hung round the necks of Tommie Smith (USA, gold), Peter Norman (Australia, silver) and Carlos (USA, bronze). As the Star-Spangled Banner begins to play, Smith and Carlos, two black Americans wearing black gloves, raise their fists in the black power salute. It is a symbol of resistance and defiance, seared into 20th-century history, that Carlos feels he was put on Earth to perform.

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From the Guardian, London:

This advert for the Guardian's open journalism, screened for the first time on 29 February 2012, imagines how we might cover the story of the Three Little Pigs in print and online. Follow the story from the paper's front page headline, through a social media discussion and finally to an unexpected conclusion

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From the New York Times:

There was a time when subway announcements sounded like this: “Gxxrschhh krrtzzz … Borough Hall … pbbbftttz qmmm … suspended … haargggrm.” It was hard to tell whose voice that was. Or even if it was human.

Now subway announcements sound like this: “There is … an uptown … local … 1 … train … to Van Cortlandt Park-242nd Street.” The voice is instantly recognizable on any numbered line but the No. 7. It is a chipper, crisp, slightly plummy tenor belonging to . . .

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"Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly."

- Foster Freiss, interviewed on MSNBC, February 16, 2012

It has been a thunderous few days. Republicans, having vowed to put aside cultural issues to focus on the economy, focused once more on ... well ... you know.

Foster Freiss, THE major financial backer of Rick Santorum, contributes heavily to other causes as well. He is a six figure level donor to Republican Governor Scott Walker's efforts to avoid a recall effort at the hands of outraged constituents in Wisconsin. But mostly he boosts former Senator Santorum. Mitt Romney is forced to battle for conservative souls by raging against any effort to interfere with employers who merely wish to exercise their religious freedom, standing against the immorality of women employees who may want to use birth control.

You would think the latest effort of Foster Freiss on behalf of Santorum, an appearance on MSNBC to joke about the promiscuity of modern women who use birth control, would produce a tidal reaction that would last for weeks. It still might. But, for now, there are other amazing events that eclipse it.

For one thing, the Honorable Darrell E. Issa (R-CA), Chair of the Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on the entire contraceptive controversy. You can kind of get the tone by the official title of the hearing: Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?

If you wonder toward what opinion the Chairman is disposed, you are just the movie goer to pay top price for the best seats at the premier showing of Rocky 9, just to find out who will win the final round.

Representative Issa had an impressive line of witnesses. Religious leaders and conservative college professors. They all had in common a disdain for the administration compromise that would provide contraceptives to women employees without requiring church related employers to do the providing.

That the witnesses were all men was a fact not lost on Democratic members of the committee. They asked that one lone woman be included. Their prospective counter-witness was a college student prepared to testify about serious health effects among her classmates because of denial of contraceptive coverage. One cancer victim lost an ovary. Contraceptives are a major part of treatment for ovarian cancer.

Issa and other Republican committee members insisted the issue does not concern contraceptives. They narrowed the focus to religious objections by their witnesses to contraceptives for women employees. The woman proposed by Democrats as a witness was turned away. She was not allowed to testify. Several Democrats boycotted the hearing.

Public opinion is so far away from conservatives on this issue Sarah Palin can't see mainstream America from her window at Fox News. It is the political equivalent of The Producers, the Mel Brooks musical about efforts to embezzle financial backing by making a Broadway production fail. "Springtime for Hitler" becomes a shocking hit in the fictional account. This new effort at GOP self-immolation does not seem destined for similar success.

It's like some sort of Mack Sennett silent film. A Republican sets his hair on fire. A conservative supporter helpfully hands him a hammer.

Groucho Marx, as a political leader in Duck Soup, yields to a plea for peace. The neighboring country, he is told, wants peace as much as he does. He is thankful. He will extend the hand of peace. He knows it won't be rejected. But suppose it is? How outrageous that will be! His anger at the prospect grows with each second.

I've always been entranced by the escalation of paranoia into indignation. I'm not talking about a clinical condition. Sometimes they really are out to get you. Remember Watergate?

Speculation based on no actual evidence transforms into outrage. It seems a contradiction to me. If a suspicion seems certain, something to be reasonably anticipated, part of the expected course of events, how can it be outrageous? If it is unreasonable, how would it be reasonably anticipated?

I suppose they'll do this. Why, how dare they!!!

When I encounter most anything written by CNN contributor Erick Erickson, I wonder if I will stumble into some new instance. Last year, just after Gabby Gifford was nearly assassinated and several of those around her were killed, a few folks falsely assumed the cheerleaders of violence, advocates of "second amendment remedies", might through their rhetoric have been partially responsible. I recall my own reaction, like most, as somewhat more confined.

Erickson's Groucho-like anger at President Obama was classic. Eric just knew, because it is so like those liberals, that they were advising Obama to put the tragedy to cynical use, and that the lamestream media would be predictably complicit.

We also know Barack Obama’s advisors are urging him to seize the moment and join the left in blaming the right for this violence. Not only is that disgusting, but should he, the media wringing their hands about the tone better call him out on it — but I won’t hold my breath.

Uh huh. He expresses peremptory outrage over the reasonably expected unreasonable actions. "Not only is that disgusting..."

So it was a pleasant surprise to find an actual insight last week. Okay. It wasn't exactly Erickson's insight. It was a spinoff from a Quentin Tarantino movie. Still, the application to a political figure was recognized. The insight is valid. Okay, it wasn't Erickson's insight, he discovered it in a TNR article by Chris Orr.

Still, we have to be impressed that a conservative reads The New Republic and occasionally recognizes, and is even open to, the wisdom that sometimes appears. Recognition of wisdom is a form of wisdom.

A Tarantino character riffs about Superman. Orr's summary is quoted by Erickson along with Orr's insight:

Superman was born Superman. It’s Clark Kent that is the invented alias, the pose, the “costume.” And in the way Superman plays Kent–weak, self-doubting, cowardly–we see his critique of the human race.

It occurred to me that the same is true of Romney’s desperate, if never terribly persuasive, impersonation of a conservative Republican. That persona–angry, simple-minded, xenophobic, jingoistic–is exactly what Romney (who is himself cultured, content, and cosmopolitan) imagines the average GOP voter to be.

That's good. I think my insight, the fact that Romney's most important constituency has an strange and unexpected distaste for him, may dovetail with Erickson's Orr-inspired epiphany.

The questions Erickson misses seem obvious. One is whether Romney's impersonation will work. And to the extent that it does, whether that means conservatives see themselves as he does. And to the extent that they see themselves that way, whether they, in fact are accurately self-defined. Which is to say they are "angry, simple-minded, xenophobic, jingoistic."

Here is the Tarantino clip from Kill Bill: Volume 2, and a good pre-impersonation, I suppose you'd call it, of Eric Erickson via Duck Soup.

Wonderful Instructions from Are You Sure You Need An Apostrophe

From JAKE FOGELNEST:

Whitney Houston’s isolated vocal track on “How Will I Know.”

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We do what we know is wrong, and we enter into a world of hypocrisy. A friend whom I admire once rejected my invitation to go to worship services. "I do not wish to be a part of organized hypocrisy." I answered, and we both laughed. "That's not fair. We're not organized."

We do what we do not know is wrong, and we sometimes are caught, awkwardly realizing in an epiphany that we are wrong, and have been all along.

As Christians, my fellow worshipers and I do have reason for hope: not only for forgiveness, but for redemption. We look to examples from the past. Fearing for his own safety, Simon Peter denied even knowing Jesus. Later on, Saul of Tarsus was widely known and feared for his relentless persecution of Christians. He was on his way to hunt them down when he was struck with ... something.

Simon Peter became the Apostle Peter.
Saul of Tarsus became the Apostle Paul.

More recent examples are not hard to find. "Amazing Grace" was written by John Newton, a slave trader who hunted and took people into captivity, transporting them to a lifetime of slavery. He became an outspoken opponent of slavery.

Those of us who live with the crushing knowledge of lesser wrongs can take some comfort in those who recovered from worse.

Sometimes I wonder if, in their dreams, such icons were still haunted by memories. Was Paul awakened in the night by the vision of Stephen, stoned to death, as a younger Saul held the cloaks of the killers, cheering them on? Was Newton's sleep ever troubled by the faces of those he delivered into a life of servitude?

Forgiven as they were by God, they never had the chance to experience any expression of forgiveness by their victims.

Amid the countless private wrongs committed toward others, those of my generation share a common wrong. We were complicit in the cultural flaws of our upbringing. Accidents of geography or family upbringing gave some of us an unfortunate head start on racism. That mitigates. It does not excuse. Some of us still embrace the sadder teachings of our youth, when experience and history should have given us better.

Almost all of us were part of a more general attitude toward those who had a different sexual orientation. They were not "gays" in those days. They were perverts. We referred to them with casual epithets that we generally don't use today. Yet many of us find our upbringing intruding in unguarded moments. Others continue to embrace a bigotry that traces back to those terrible days, nostalgic for the past. I sometimes recall my reaction as a teenager.

A small article in a 1960s newspaper had reported on the trial of a man arrested in a restroom for soliciting sex from an undercover police agent. The solicitation was the suspect tapping his foot under the wall of an adjoining stall. Police said this was well known by homosexuals as a sexual signal. The judge found the man not guilty. Tapping a foot under a stall did not meet the standard of proof required for a guilty verdict. The man went free.

I remember agreeing with the reasoning and the verdict. How awful that an accusation of something so shameful was based on something so innocent. The poor fellow could have been tapping as some tune ran through his head. Who among us could be the next to be falsely arrested?

It did not occur to me at the time, or for many years thereafter, that the awful crime for which the accused was arrested was not awful and ought not to have been a crime. I did not reject the thought, exactly. It was not even that I did not give it a second thought. I did not give it a first thought. Rejecting homosexuality as perversion seemed at the very core of normalcy.

Many of us like to think we are beyond all that. Growth in mind and spirit sometimes does come with the experience of history. Consciousness is raised. Old bigotries are challenged. Those of us with a faith in redemption are helped by a personal hope.

And yet, there is not much we can say to those who experienced our unthinking rejection in a less enlightened youth. Except, perhaps, to point to the mitigation of growing up in the middle of unexamined bigotry. We should know that mitigation does not excuse.

We can promise to do better. We can try, in little ways and, when opportunities arise, in large ways to stand with our brothers and sisters. We can look to protect today's children from the bigotry that still survives, looming large, threatening young lives.

And we can ask of those we joined in hurting the same as we ask of our Creator: an understanding we did not extend, a forgiveness we do not deserve.

From the San Francisco Police Department:

We don't know exactly when he decided to join the Marines. It's possible he doesn't know. His mother alternately credits and blames me. She believes he began developing the confidence to made big decisions, to begin thinking for himself beyond the smaller choices of childhood, about the time I taught him to drive. Driving was combined with entertaining discussions. He discovered in me an interested listener. And I found opportunities to reinforce his self-confidence.

When he resolved in his mind that he was ready to try for his license, he had a sit down discussion with me. He wanted to get his stepfather's blessing. His twin brother already was licensed. Did I think he was ready as well?

Back when he was twelve, he took a swing at me. It was at his grandparents' house. I trapped him against the refrigerator, loudly lecturing him. Very loudly. Others ran in. I told him that I had already promised to respect any complaints if he had a problem with me. "But I don't respect this!" He looked toward his mom, who calmly grounded him for the rest of his days on earth.

It had been a whirlwind romance. On most workdays, I was living away from my loved one until we could get married and move everyone to St. Louis. I was not back in town for several days after the altercation. That's when I bailed him out and we walked together. He told me he had been planning his attack on me for weeks, waiting for the right moment. His hope had been that I would knock him out, his mother would decide against the marriage, and he and his brother could continue living in the small town among friends, the home they had known for most of their lives. Happily. Ever. After.

I was amazed. I told him it was one of the bravest things I had ever heard. For all he knew, I might have seriously hurt him.

A couple of years later, I tracked down their biological father. He had been seeing them every once in a while, but had been dodging me out of a sense of courtesy. He didn't want to create any problems. But I was not hitting it off with the twins. I felt they needed a good relationship with a father-figure. I told him he was the best candidate.

He and I began planning the best way to increase his role in their lives. He told me he had been brutal, meeting every small infraction with unreasonable parental force. So we reached an agreement. I would be the bad guy, handling discipline, reporting back to him and getting his advice. He would focus on being the good guy, and would report any problems to me.

It began to work. There were no discipline issues. None. The twins looked forward to trips with their dad. He bought them guitars and lessons began. He was looking into purchasing several acres with a large pond. Perhaps he could teach them how to fish. He and I met in background sessions. But after a while, a subtle change began. We began to look forward to meeting with each other quite apart from parental and custodial concerns. We were becoming genuine friends.

When the call came, it was like a stab wound. I told the twins that their dad was dead, killed in a coal mining accident in Kentucky. Their mom held them as they wept. He was gone, and I became a hopelessly imperfect substitute.

The driving lessons were a breakthrough. The little side trips of life became opportunities. I became "too tired" for trips to market, choir practice, and church services. Would one of them do me a favor and drive me? And, of course, I included little pep talks, combined with hearing them out on pretty much any topic.

Sometime after that, he made a choice. He trained himself for the Marines, exercising, running, lifting. He studied everything he could find. When they tested him he was ready. Basic training in California was followed by combat training, then technical training nearer to home. When he was on leave, he and I made it a point to talk. He explained military language and procedure. He wrote to a cousin that he had found a natural second home. We have not seen the letter, but his cousin wept at the beauty of the words.

When his training took him too far away for visits, I tried to write every day. He needed to know we cared. He needed to maintain a sense of home. I carry with me a letter he wrote back during that prolonged absence. "Thanks for everything you've taught me," reads one part. Another says, "You're a great man." If I could, I would have it bronzed. My wife told me I was the only one she knew who could strut while sitting down.

When his training brought him closer to home, I made the trip to pick him up whenever he was able to get a few days. We would meet, then walk to a sort of exit interview with a staff sergeant. As he stood at ease, answering questions, I thought I caught him glancing at me. Was he checking to see if I was impressed? I made a mental note to let him know I was very proud of him. When he shipped off to Hawaii, we were relieved. He was a little disappointed.

It's been a hell of a week. We have had word that he would receive additional training, then deploy to a combat arena. I comforted his mother. "My baby," she said. The next morning I found myself near tears during a morning prayer, talking with the Creator about what-if's. A few days later things changed. He was displaced by a Lance Corporal who must have volunteered. The deployment was postponed. For a short time, a long time? We don't know.

It does seem inevitable. We prayed at our church for a friend of mine who spent time in Afghanistan. He is back safely now. Other members have friends and family deployed.

Our family voted for President Obama, not because he was the peace candidate. He wasn't. He thought the Iraq incursion was a bad idea.

I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.

- In Chicago, October 2, 2002

We wanted candidate Obama to become President Obama because we felt that he was a tough, smart, caring person who would not put military lives in peril over ideological wishful thinking. Now that our son is one of those lives, we still believe, firmly believe, that to be true.

And we pray we are right.

His mother and I talk about statistics, the safety of large numbers and proportionately small casualty rates. I tell her what I know, what I repeat to myself and to my God in private moments.

Our Marine is capable, he has grown this past year. He is intelligent. He knows what he is doing. His sense of duty carries him. He is surrounded by those who care. They watch each other in ways large and small. When I arrived months back at the military base to pick him up a final time, he was waiting with a large group on a parade ground. Other young Marines were polite, friendly. But they would not allow me to help with his belongings. "We have it handled, sir." The honor was theirs. He is still among protective friends.

We have been watching Florida Republican returns almost without seeing, listening without hearing. It is hard to believe that, somewhere in the world, someone is voting. Someone is watching, anxious about the outcome of that vote. Someone is anxious about something not involving loved ones.

We hear that a tour of duty can seem an eternity. But it does not last forever. He will be safely back with us, and our home will be his again. And we will care about our little part of the universe once more.