THE BABY AND THE BATH WATER

On both sides of the Atlantic critics of our economic woes have been numerous and vocal---with good cause, I agree. The world economy is in bad shape, and the fix ain't easy.

A think tank on the left here in England named Compass is suggesting that part of the answer is to form a "high pay commission" which would oversee salaries and bonuses in the City (the Brit equivalent of Wall Street) to determine if they are excessive and add to the decline of economic stability. At first reading, this idea sounds plausible; after all, the greedy bastards are overpaid, exacerbate the economic problems and should be under supervision. In our current mood it is easy to say, "String 'em up!"

But reconsider this idea. Do you really want another bureaucratic layer of "commissioners" acting as judge and jury of what is excessive pay? Do we want to take the chance of penalizing true entreprenurial spirit and innovative thinking that brings about growth and development of new ideas and new products? If executives create companies, make saleable products which are profitable, they deserve to be rewarded.

It is not fair to make the bankers, insurance companies and investment firms the sole villians for vilification. Let's face it: the cult of greed was sowed starting in the Reagan eighties, fertilized by the laissez faire attitudes of the Clinton years and harvested by the "anything goes" attitude of W. and his buddies. Long-term planning, just plain looking ahead to see where to go in the future, was sacrificed for short-term gains and a "feel-good" boom economy. The ruling economic principle was carpe diem---enjoy it while you've got it, take the money and run!

We don't need a new commission. Capitalism and the free market can still work, so long as we have some moral good sense to go with them, and guiding principles that say products should benefit consumers and users, be sold at reasonable profits and the entrepreneurs/executives should be rewarded for success only. We have enough watch dogs and built-in safeguards, if exercised, to control greed.

So don't throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water. Just return to some of those old-fashioned values and virtues, corny things like hard work, thriftiness, planning and, most of all, ethics...I think if you exercise your memory, you can remember those old values.

THAT BOGEYMAN IS HERE AGAIN!

The Republicans are at it again, raising the spectre of that old nemesis---dare I use the dirty word?---SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!!! Now they are flinging indiscriminate barbs at the National Health Service in U.K., hereafter referred to as the N.H.S. They are using all the tired old arguments I've been hearing since the fifties about the failures of the N.H.S.: the long waiting time to see a doctor, the inferior quality of medical treatments, inavailability of specialists, etc., etc---same old, same old. This strategy of dumping on the N.H.S. is to convince the public that the attempts by President Obama to reform and extend heath care to the 40+ millon who don't have it will lead to a monolithic super-government supervised by a Death Squad which will plummet us to chaos and ruin. Does the fact that America, the leading industrial nation in the world and powerhouse of the G-20 is the ONLY major nation that does not have a national health plan count for anything? Tell that to the 40+ million.

The N.H.S. here in U.K., like the Empire, strikes back. Published in "The Daily Telegraph" were a list of allegations the right wing had claimed about the N.H.S. and the N.H.S. response.

For example, the conservatives claim that people over 59 can't receive heart repairs, stents or bypasses. Fact: a national audit on cardiac surgery demonstrated that 20% of all cardiac patients were 75 or over.

Claim: Women under 25 are not allowed to be screened for cervical cancer. Fact: Women in Scotland, Wales and Northern Island (all part of United Kingdom) get regular screenings; in England, under 25 can be screened if deemed clinically needed.

Claim: Ted Kennedy at 77 would be too old to be treated for his brain tumor in England. Fact:
Health service is provided on the basis of clinical need, regardless of age, according to a Department of Health spokesman.

Claim: 4 in 10 cancer patients under N.H.S. don't have access to an oncologist. Fact: Macmillian Cancer Support states those figures are 15 years old and that the number of cancer specialists has risen by 59.7% since 1997.

You know the old adage that you can skew numbers (and facts) to suit your purposes, and, to my mind, that's what the right wing is doing. The N.H.S. isn't perfect, like most bureaucracies, but if there are critical life decisions to be acted upon, they come through.

The Nobel Physicist Stephen Hawking was in Washington to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our highest civilian honor. He is wheelchair-bound and has suffered for years from Lou Gehrig's disease---but he said in an interview in Washington that he would not be alive without the N.H.S.

Q.E.D.

A REAL WAKE-UP CALL

I read a very interesting article in "The Daily Telegraph" this past weekend regarding the phenomenal growth of Muslim immigration in the European Union countries, including the U.K., where, it is predicted, the Muslim population of the E.U. will be 20% by the year 2050---a startling growth from the current 5% in 2008. The current leaders in Muslim population in Europe are: (1) France at 9%, (2) Holland at 5.2%, (3) Sweden at 5%, (4) Austria at 4.8% and (5) Germany at 4.3%. The rest of Europe vary from 3.7% down to 1.7%.

I also saw on the internet a couple of months ago a video regarding the birth rates among the “white” populations as contrasted to Hispanics, Africans, Asian Indians, Chinese and other races which demonstrated that the birth rate among Caucasian nations was falling dramatically or, at the best, stagnant while the other races, excluding the Chinese who have had a strict population control program in effect for some years, are surging upwards.

We know, for example, in the United States the birth rate of Hispanics has shown sizeable increases with the result that California, the most populous state, has reached the point where the “minority” races outnumber the whites.

I am quoting these statistics not as a white racist but as a realist who thinks it is high time that America and Europe begin to make a priority of how best to integrate these growing minorities into our national life. Restrictive immigration policies are too late: Pandora is already out of the box. Historically, America has always relied on the “melting pot” theory where immigrants over many years slowly but surely become part of the mainstream of population. It has not always been easy, and many ethnic groups have suffered through humiliation and prejudice before acceptance; witness, the Jews, the Irish and the Italians, not to mention Afro-Americans who are still undergoing this process.

Now we have a new dilemma in the influx of Muslims in America and, particularly, in Europe. The major problems with certain ethnic groups in the past has been the language barrier with the need of the immigrants to learn the home language in order to become part of the country. Now, with the Muslims, we also face, in addition to the language problem, the religion difference. All countries with immigrants have historically had other world religions introduced into their cultures, but, unfortunately, within the Muslim world, there exists a lunatic fringe of extremists, under the guise of true believers, who declare the West, especially America and Britain, their mortal enemies to be fought and destroyed. I am not taking a broad brush and smearing all Muslims as extremists, for I am confident that the vast majority are people of true faith and good will seeking a peaceful and prosperous living when they emigrate.

What needs to be done by both America and Europe is to face up to this new problem and develop a policy of integrating these new arrivals in our respective countries. Make mandatory courses in learning the home language to accelerate the process of integration into the society. If you can’t speak or understand the language spoken in your country of choice, how can you possibly prosper and find economic opportunity? You are automatically relegated to the lower economic strata, it goes without saying. When you have improved your lot in life and are economically more secure, you are obviously less inclined to radical activities against that country.

You also need to stimulate the aspirations for growth by the integration process where you encourage breaking out of the nationalistic ghettos, those tight little islands set up in most major cities where new immigrants live only with other immigrants of the same or similar backgrounds. In these economic times, that is hard to accomplish, but some kind of economic stimuli packages must be developed for the purpose of encouraging the development of independence and striking out in new directions. For example, here in the U.S.A. in the reformation and rebuilding of out infrastructure, could some of these new workers be used as laborers and trained in new professions and be taught English at night. European countries could develop similar programs, as well.

You also need to practice more selective screening of immigrants to ensure their true desire for a better life. I know there is no foolproof means test to make such a determination, but closer scrutiny is necessary so that constructive and truly eager people, really seeking new lives and opportunities, would be the norm for acceptance as immigrants and not the "free ride" seekers.

Let me end with a quotation from Jerome Vignon, the director for employment and social affairs at the European Commission: “…social integration of migrants should be given as much importance as monitoring the inflow of migrants.” These are the facts, people---I think we better deal with them now or we may be planting the seeds for future discord and turmoil.

MORE FROM ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Oh, Lord, here we go again! The P.C. Patrol strikes again!

A furniture store owner in downtown Eastbourne, East Sussex, England, where my wife and I spend our summers, had a bunch of foreign students come into his store, plop down on his floor sample chairs and even lie down on his beds---all the while eating fast food and consuming soft drinks and spilling the food and drink on the chairs, beds and floor. This is not the first time this has happened, and he was really pissed off, with some cause, I might add. He posted two signs: (1) no food or drink allowed in the store (and (2) foreign students not welcome.

The second notice was his big mistake. He has been advised that he may be in violation of human rights and racial equality laws and could be liable for legal action. He probably would have been wiser just to post the first notice and leave it at that, but I'm sure he wa smarting from these inappropriate and expensive (to the store owner) actions of the foreign students.

Then there was an inteview on the local news with several foreign students, all of whom blandly state that they bring food into stores all the time. One even brazenly said, "After all, I have to have some place to eat my lunch."

It is so typical of the time we live in where lack of civility and just plain non-thinking are the rule of the day. Then add to this mixture the cult of Political Correctness to turn a bad situation even sourer with the misapplication of human rights laws.

I did a lot of dumb things as a kid, but eating my lunch in a store and spilling food all over the place was one action I never considered. Am I wrong in thinking the store owner has a few rights, too? I guess my age is showing.

HERE COMES THE P.C. CONTROL!

In this age of Political Correctness I am frequently astonished by new examples of P.C. I thought America was the world leader in P.C., but my time in England in the summer these last few years has convinced me that the U.K. is a serious rival to the U.S.A. in this department.

Then, this Sunday morning on the telly, as our British friends refer to T.V., I saw an astonishing new example of P.C.. A morning talk show had expert guests discussing whether Great Apes should be subject to Human Rights. One professor argued that great apes show evidence of enough intelligence that they should be subject to human rights, while another professorial expert argued that the evidence of such intelligence was specious and that these apes do not possess enough intelligence to be considered eligible for human rights. A whole group of experts played intellectual ping-pong with this subject of rights for apes.

I find all this debate a bit of Alice in Wonderland. We’re talking about apes, for God’s sake. Now before the A.C.L.U. and assorted tree hugger mentalities condemn me as a crass and insensitive lout, I want to assure them that I certainly do not condone mistreatment of these magnificent creatures or the wanton destruction of these animals or the unnecessary capture and sale of them. But human rights? Let’s get real.

Now, if you want to talk about the extension of human rights to the dispossessed and downtrodden of the third world or the victims and refugees of war-torn regions of the world---then you’ve got my attention. Let’s do something about that and stop this ridiculous P.C. Patrol investigating this nonsense of human rights for great apes. Enough, already…

WHERE HAVE ALL THE HEROES GONE...

I was contemplating today writing a blog about the attrition through age of "the greatest generation", as Tom Brokaw so aptly called the generation that fought WW II, when I read my old friend Grumpy's blog (grumpy-olddog.blogspot.com---well worth reading, as I've said before) about the death of another hero of that war and wisely saying that such a hero is what the Staples Center should be packed for---Amen. Grumpy beat me to it, but I still want to put my two cents in.

One of my pleasures in England is reading the obituaries in "The Daily Telegraph" or "The Times"where crafting these tributes to the dead is a real art form. The "New York Times" sometimes can rival the British papers in this department--but not often. Several times a week, you can be certain, a key obituary in the British papers will concern another war hero who has passed on, and by this time such heroes are becoming fewer and fewer. My older brother's death in late June (see my blog of July 9, 2009) was another example of another loss by that great brotherhood of WW II.

We should stop and remember them, as they become rarer and rarer. We owe them an incalcuable debt, for they paid a great price to guarantee us the liberty we possess today. It is so easy for us to be caught up in the daily problems of life, especially in the economic conditions of today, that we forget to consider how much worse conditions would be if we had lost that war and were yoked in the bondage of Fascism. The same respect should be tendered, it goes without saying, to those who fought in Korea or Nam or in today's storm centers of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Every day, even when the world is too much with you, pause and think of those heroes and what they did---for you and me.

MY BROTHER HENRY: A REMEMBRANCE

I have not written a blog recently for reasons that will be apparent. I am writing this now from my wife's and my summer home in England.

I lost my older and only surviving brother on June 29, 2009, who died without excessive pain and with admirable dignity in a hospital hospice. Henry, or Hank to most of his friends, had a long and tempestuous life and would have been eighty-eight in August, so he certainly had, as the Brits would say, very good innings. He had been married three times. Both his divorced wives preceded him in death, but his third, to whom he was married for almost thirty-seven years, survives. He died surrounded by loved ones: his caring wife, who demonstrated in his last weeks of swift and painful decline extraordinary dimensions of care and love; his sister; his only surviving daughter; two of his three surviving sons---the third was out of the country---and two step-daughters.

I was not there when he actually died because my wife and I were leaving for our summer home in England the very day he died, but I had spent three days with him the previous week in the hospital starting the day after he was admitted and was, aside from his wife, blessed to see him in his most rational although often painful state. I thank God I had this opportunity. I had originally thought I would run up to see him in his home in Minneapolis after I returned from England in late September, but his decline in health was so precipitous that I decided the only course of action was to go immediately before our trip. We had just arrived on the Monday from our home in Florida to visit our daughter and son who have families in Toledo, and I flew to Minneapolis on the Wednesday. Since I had not seen him for almost two years, it was one of the wisest decisions I ever made.

His decline had begun five years before when he had a severe stroke, but he had recovered from that onslaught and reached about ninety percent recovery, thanks to a strong will, superb medical care including a persistent and gifted therapist and the attentive care of his wife. In the last year his decline gained momentum and picked up speed in the last few months. His wife had put him temporarily in a nursing home for nine days while she visited two children from a previous marriage and a granddaughter whom she had not seen for some time. When she returned, she found him going downhill fast and within two days she had him admitted to the hospital---the same one where he was treated for his stroke. He was there less than a week.

Hank had led a full and tempestuous life. I described in an earlier blog (June 6, 2009) his valorous experience as a Navigator on a B-24 Liberator 4-engine bomber, having flown thirty-six missions and having been shot down on his thirteenth mission on Friday, the thirteenth.

Both his previous wives preceded him in death, while he was survived by his last wife to whom he was happily married for almost thirty-seven years. He went through his first two marriages, fathering two sons by his first wife and four children---two girls and two boys---by his second. Through his last two marriages he was also step-father to three women.

He spent a good portion of his first two marriages as an alcoholic, graduating from heavy drinking (which many servicemen who had been exposed to combat used as "surcease from sorrow") to a full-blown boozer with a life spinning out of control. and going through a dark night of the soul. Then in 1971 he totally changed his life by joining Alcoholics Anonymous. He also married his surviving wife in 1972, a woman who had lived through a previous marriage to an alcoholic and understood the problems and who by profession was a Probation Officer for the state of Minnesota.

A.A. became the centerpiece of his life. He regularly attended meetings, at least twice a week, and became a potent counsellor to those seeking to break the vise of alcoholism. He had an articulate and confrontational style---you could not con him, for he knew all the tricks in the book---in dealing with those seeking his help. One of the more moving experiences of my last visits with him was seeing the number of recovering A.A.s who came to see him and thank him for what a difference he had made in their lives.

He lived life to the lees. He loved jazz and was a drummer. An ardent sportsman, his joy was in hunting and fishing in the Dakotas, Minnesota or Canada. At one time I used to join him and a group of his riotously funny A.A. buddies in fishing for walleyed pike, perch and bass at Lake of the Woods in northern Ontario. He and his wife Anice traveled extensively in Europe and Africa and all over the U.S., particularly to California where her daughters and granddaughter lived. They used to winter in Florida near his oldest son in Fort Myers and near us in Sanibel Island. They were deeply involved in the cultural life of the Twin Cities---from sports to art.

So that is the brother I have lost. We went through good times; we went through bad; and then it was good again. He could infuriate me, he could amuse me, but always he could not be ignored. His children endured some bad patches in their relationships with him, but in the end love prevailed and carried the day.

At his memorial service two days after he died, which I unfortunately had to miss due to my flight to England, one hundred fifty people attended, plus the family. He had asked for a jazz band at the gathering after the service. I bet he was up there, smiling and playing drums.

My brother: warm, opinionated, funny, irritating, quixotic, unpredictable---but always interesting and lively. He’s gone, and I miss him. And I love him. I know I’ll see him in the next few years, and we’ll pick up where we left off. Until then, to use his favorite phrase, I’ll try to keep everything under control.