Freedom of Speech is Great, But…

By Patrick F. Cannon

I’m an absolutist when it comes to freedom of speech. When President Trump says something stupid, I cringe just like most people, but I would never deny his right to be an idiot.

This past weekend, NFL players, in protest of the president’s calling on team owners to fire players who don’t stand respectfully for the national anthem, exercised their free speech rights by kneeling or locking arms, or both, during the anthem. The basic point was to protest against continuing bias in the way black men are treated by the police in many parts of the country. They had every right to do as they did. Instead of condemning them we should try to understand why they did it.

If urged to explain why this country is so great, many Americans would give “freedom of speech” as an example, without actually fully believing in it. Take Richard Petty, for example.  For those of you who don’t know who he is, he holds the record for number of victories in stock car racing. Now retired, he heads up a team in the sport’s major series. When asked about the controversy, he commented that any member of his team that didn’t stand respectfully for the anthem would be fired. Now, I didn’t take the time to check, but I doubt Mr. Petty has many African-American employees, NASCAR (that’s the governing body of the sport) not being well known for its diversity, either in its drivers or fan base. Mr. Petty no doubt considers himself a proud American, but has he read the Bill of Rights?

On the other side of the political spectrum we have Middlebury College in the Vermont town of the same name. I’ve been there and it’s everyone’s idea of what a quaint New England town should look like. It even has a covered bridge. The college campus itself fits the image perfectly. Is bucolic the right word?

Anyway, on March 2 Charles Murray, a sociologist best known for his book The Bell Curve — which concluded, among other controversial findings, that African-Americans were, as a group, less intelligent than whites — was scheduled to speak on campus. As you can imagine, his views are not widely held, and he has often been accused of promoting eugenics, which – in its most extreme form – advocates the sterilization and even euthanasia of those deemed unfit to procreate. Adolph Hitler was a notable enthusiast, as was the Lone Eagle, Charles Lindbergh. Although largely forgotten now, forced sterilization was practiced widely in this country until very recently. Look it up; you’ll be amazed at how common it was.

A recognized campus organization had invited him. The college’s administration, while generally opposed to his ideas, had no objection, provided a discussion would follow, led by a faculty member who would be permitted to question his research and conclusions. Murray agreed to this. In the event, he was shouted down by many of the 400 students who attended. He and his interlocutor, Professor Allison Stanger, were then taken to a television studio, where the presentation actually then took place. Later, when escorting Murray to his car, Stanger was actually injured by a hostile crowd barring their way.

So, we have two events. In one, African-American athletes – widely supported by their white team mates, by the way – staged a silent protest at what they believe are injustices suffered by their race. In the other, privileged college students (Middlebury is not cheap) shout down a speaker to prevent his views being heard, a phenomenon that has become all too common at our colleges and universities, where one would expect an atmosphere that would encourage the free expression of ideas instead of their suppression.

Attempts to limit free speech are nothing new in this country. But they are always wrong.

Copyright 2017, Patrick F. Cannon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, That’s a Name!

By Patrick F. Cannon

Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Now, that’s a name to reckon with. No mere mortal could have had such a name, nor was Izzy (as the family must have called him) anything like the average plodding drudge of his time. Born in England in 1806, his father Mark was a French engineer who had skipped out of France to escape the fate of the many Frenchmen who had not been considered quite enlightened enough after the Revolution.

Educated in England and France (after things had settled down a bit) he joined his father’s engineering firm, which was then engaged in designing the infrastructure that would create the modern world. Together, they designed a tunnel under the Thames, which was completed in 1843 and was instantly considered a wonder of the world. It is still being used.  He then went on to design the right of way (including bridges, viaducts and tunnels) for the Great Western Railway, which connected London with Bristol.

He also transformed steamship design. In 1837, his “Great Western” was the first to carry passengers across the Atlantic. The “Great Britain” of 1843 was the first iron ship to have screw propellers. Finally, the “Great Eastern” was launched in 1859, the year he died. It was nearly 700 feet long and displaced some 22,000 tons. It had its problems and was not a commercial success, but it did lay the first successful Transatlantic Cable in 1866. It was to be nearly 40 years before another ship as large was built.

His first name came from the Germanic “Isanbert,” which made its way to Anglo-Saxon England. It eventually fell out of use, so one wonders how Brunel’s father came upon it. While we may never know, he might well have chosen the name to set him forever apart from the run of the mill engineer, perhaps thinking that Isambard Kingdom Brunel would be hired before someone named Bertie Brunel. (In case you’re wondering, “Kingdom” was his mother’s maiden name.)

Closer to home and our times was Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Older baseball fans may know who he was, but younger fans may think the “Mountain” should be in quotes, thinking perhaps he was a hard-hitting hillbilly slugger. Actually, he was the Federal Judge appointed Commissioner of Baseball in the wake of the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Born in 1866, he was a Chicago lawyer before being appointed to the bench by Teddy Roosevelt. While a judge, he was best known for fining Standard Oil nearly $30 million for a railroad kickback scheme, and for his harsh sentences for draft dodgers during World War I.

While a little before my time (he died in 1944 when I was too young to hate the Yankees), period photos show a scrawny little man with a mop of white hair. He always appears a bit on the stern side, which was apparently the point in hiring him. As to the name, his father named him Kenesaw Mountain because he (the father that is) was wounded in the Civil War battle of Kennesaw Mountain (two Ns is the correct spelling of the mountain in Georgia). Fortunately, the little tyke was generally called Kenny. One shudders to think what his name might have been had his father been wounded at the Battle of Peach Tree Creek.

Copyright 2017, Patrick F. Cannon

  Monuments, Man! 

By Patrick F. Cannon 

The Chicago area is blessed with many monuments. Some are vast, like the Buckingham Fountain, donated by Kate Buckingham in honor of her brother Clarence. Few people who see its glories have a clue who Clarence was, but they’re glad it’s there.

Many of the monuments include a statue. In my recent wanderings, I’ve come upon statues of Shakespeare, Schiller, King Wenceslaus, Grant, Lincoln and two Native Americans who seem to stand guard at the Congress Parkway entrance to Grant Park. I kind of feel sorry for them. They’re called the Bowman and Spearman, but the sculptor has forgotten to give them the actual weapons. Legend has it that they once had their weapons, but vandals swiped them. Not true. Maybe the sponsors just ran short of dough and the sculptor wasn’t willing to toss them in gratis.

Unless you don’t watch or read the news anymore – and who could blame you? – you’ll know that statues of Confederate generals are being toppled throughout old Dixie. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson have come in for particular attention. Jackson was a brilliant general and something of a religious fanatic. He apparently treated his slaves decently, making sure they learned how to read and write, primarily one supposes so they could read the good book. Also, Lee was probably the greatest commander on either side in the Civil War and widely considered a decent man. When the war ended, he urged his fellow Southerners to accept their defeat and pledge their loyalty to the Union.

Nevertheless, strictly speaking, they were traitors, whose statues ought not to be on public ground. They’re there in the first place because the Federal Government and its courts enabled the states of the old South to turn back the clock and create a new version of slavery called Jim Crow. If the “lost cause” white supremacists and their pals in the Ku Klux Klan want to venerate Lee and Jackson, let them erect statues in their back yards next to the Weber.

In Chicago, we have our own monument madness. First, there’s the ongoing kerfuffle about Balbo Drive and the classical Roman column donated to Chicago by Benito Mussolini to commemorate General Italo Balbo’s seaplane journey from Italy to Chicago. You can look up the bios of these two gents; suffice to say they were notable Fascists and ended up being our enemies during World War II. Nevertheless, some members of the Italian-American community consider it a personal insult that anyone would want to make any changes.

As it happens, our Italian-American friends are also under siege about Columbus Day. Many of our progressive souls, including my friends in Oak Park, have replaced Columbus Day with something called Indigenous Peoples’ Day. It seems Christopher was responsible for every bad thing that subsequently happened to the peoples who were already living in the Americas. Alas, he was a man of his times. There is no reason to believe that the results would have been any different had the first man to demonstrably set foot in the New World been a Dutchman, an Englishman, a Spaniard or a Portugeezer (how would you spell it?).

We can’t, unfortunately, expect historical figures to think and act as we would like. We venerate Abraham Lincoln for freeing the slaves, and believing that African-Americans were entitled to the same rights as all citizens. He never thought, however, that they were equal in other ways. In our enlightened times, he might well be considered a racist. Should we then topple all his statues, and rename Lincoln Park?

In an effort to be helpful to my Italian friends, I do have a suggestion about the Balbo problem. By all means, keep the Roman column; after all, it’s the real thing. Just take up a collection for a new base that could read: “This ancient Roman column commemorates the great achievements of the ancestors of the eminent Italian-Americans who have contributed so much to the greatness of their adopted City of Chicago.”

Oh, and rename Balbo Drive. How about Vito Marzullo Drive?

Copyright 2017, Patrick F. Cannon

 

Leave Me Alone! 

By Patrick F. Cannon

There’s something deep within me that resists being told what to do. I know it can be perverse, but I suspect it’s something imbedded in the American psyche. So, when something like the Cook County soda tax comes along, it rankles me more than it would, for example, a Swede.

People like Michael Bloomberg also annoy me no end. He’s a leader of the “I know better” movement, as was Barrack Obama, who I otherwise rather liked (a sense of humor goes a long way with me). Both believe that most people need to be saved from themselves, and they’re just the men who are wise and smart enough to do it. While neither seems inclined to send we recalcitrants to the Guillotine, they are in the mold of Robespierre and his pals, who decided that cake wasn’t good for the peasantry.

I do not advocate for overindulgence, but I do think that life is tough enough without making it even grimmer by trying to make folks feel guilty for the occasional can of soda pop or hunk of red meat. I’m all for educating people about the harmful effects of too much sugar or fat; after that, leave them alone to decide their own fate.

While I’m being annoyed, let me condemn the processed food companies that are increasingly pandering to the science deniers by labeling their products as proudly “Non GMO.”  For those who still don’t know what GMO stands for, it’s “Genetically Modified Organism.” What it really means is that seeds and other plant materials have been developed to resist pests, disease, and drought, and thus require fewer pesticides, herbicides and water.  Good things, right? Not if you ask the goofballs – and this sadly includes the European Union – who think GMOs are a plot by the American seed companies to turn us into mutant freaks (nobody apparently asks themselves why they would want their customers to wander about foaming at the mouth).

The last time I looked, the world’s population is still increasing, while the amount of land under cultivation is decreasing. Were it not for American agricultural science, famine would be more widespread, not largely limited to areas of political turmoil.

Before you think I must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, I did notice some good news recently. Despite the longstanding drama and confrontations between the Chicago teacher’s union, the Board of Education, Mayor Emanuel, and Governor Rauner, the high school graduation rate in Chicago has reached 77 percent. Not too long ago, it was less than 50 percent.

Finally, it looks like the middle class is making a comeback. Recent research reveals that 62 percent of Americans fall into the middle and upper middle classes, with 36 percent described as working or lower class. In 2006, before the recession, the numbers were 60 and 38, and as late as 2015, they were 51 and 48. If you can add, you’ll see that only one or two percent are considered really, really rich, although it’s true that income disparity still exists. Frankly, I put this down to the stupidity and culpability of corporate boards of directors, and our overemphasis on sports. And the latter is not just an American problem – have you seen what European soccer players are paid?

Copyright 2017, Patrick F. Cannon

 

High Crimes and Misdemeanors 

By Patrick F. Cannon

In my recent piece on how we might rid ourselves of President Trump, I see I failed to go into sufficient detail on the criteria for impeachment. As you may know, the Constitution says an office holder – including the President – may be impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” As with much of the language of the Constitution, it was left to future generations to define just what that meant. The Founders, it seems to me, have not been sufficiently excoriated for their laziness.

Many commentators have said that “high crimes” should be defined as what we would now call a felony. Now, “misdemeanor” is a word with which we’re familiar. Jaywalking or walking ones dog without a leash might fit the current definition, but surely we wouldn’t impeach a President for such lapses, as much as we might like to. But since the word is used as a reason for impeachment, I’ve given some thought to what might rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

For many years, I wore a suit and tie to work. I can tell you that it could be an onerous task. Manys the morning I appeared fully dressed, only to be told by my darling wife: “you’re not wearing that tie with that suit, are you?”  Once again, my color sense betrayed me, but there was one sin against fashion that I never committed – my tie never hung below my belt! Have you noticed that President Trump’s tie always hangs below his belt, sometimes even approaching his crotch!  In addition, he almost never appears with his suit coat buttoned. Is it possible he’s grown so paunchy that he can’t button his jacket? Can he not afford to have new suits made that fit? Are these fashion faux pas impeachable offenses? I wonder.

Then there’s his Trump Tower apartment. In a modernish if flashy building, he has chosen to furnish it as if it were in the palace at Versailles, all gold and glitz. Perhaps he sees himself at a latter day Louis the Sixteenth? If so, he should remember what happened to the good king, but then he doesn’t read history, does he? Perhaps all that gold leaf suits his personality, a combination of noveau riche Texas oil man and mafia don.

In Chicago, he chose to emblazon his name on what is an otherwise successful building. I ride the Green Line El into the city occasionally, and when the train makes the curve onto Wabash Avenue, it’s hard to avoid seeing the gigantic “TRUMP” dominating its façade. Its presence encourages one to bury ones nose in a book or peruse the ubiquitous cell phone.

And then there’s the hair. Now, it may be that none of these offenses to good taste rises to the level of impeachment by themselves, but surely their accumulation constitutes at least the “misdemeanors” that the Constitution demands?  Please do write to your representatives and senators demanding action. I am given to understand that many can now read simple English, as long as it’s not in a health care bill.

Copyright 2017, Patrick F. Cannon

 

 

Still Here!

By Patrick F. Cannon 

I woke up this morning and Donald Trump was still president of the United States. Before this day is over and almost every day for the foreseeable future, he will say, do or tweet something that will make me cringe. It’s getting to be like “Ground Hog Day” for me and for many in our suffering country. Is there any way to end the agony?

Wishing. Despite our best hopes, I’m afraid “wishing won’t make it so.” I can imagine many among us, when blowing out the birthday candles, have wished he would go away. So far, no dice. This is not to say that a concerted, organized wishing campaign might not succeed in the long run. Perhaps it’s worth a try?

Impeachment. Since two presidents have been impeached, there is a little more hope here. Neither, however, was convicted by the Senate. For those of you who are confused by the process, the House of Representatives can vote articles of impeachment, but only a two-thirds vote by the Senate can remove a president from office (a few Federal judges have been convicted and removed from the bench).  Andrew Johnson escaped conviction by one vote in 1868, while only 50 votes of the 67 needed could be mustered to convict Bill Clinton in 1999, no Democratic senator apparently believing that perjury and obstruction of justice were sufficient grounds for removing a member of the inclusive Democratic Party from office. If President Trump was ever impeached, one wonders if he could expect the same loyalty from the Republicans.

Resignation. Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974 when it became clear to him that his impeachment and removal from office had become inevitable. Many now hope that Special Counsel Robert Mueller III will uncover something about Trump and the Russians, or in his business past, that is clearly illegal, thus eventually forcing him to do the same. Mueller’s ability to prevent his team from leaking information about the course of his investigations has frustrated these hopes so far (see Wishing above).

Unfitness. Now we’re getting somewhere! I believe – a belief shared by many in both political parties — that Donald Trump is mentally and emotionally unfit to be president of the United States. While the psychiatric profession is increasingly loathe to declaring anyone actually insane, Trump is at the very least a paranoid narcissist, with serious delusions of grandeur. There is no room here to list the many examples of his strange behavior; suffice it to say that unless under legal oath, he is a chronic liar and will always blame others for his own mistakes and shortcomings.

To remove him from office for unfitness, under the terms of the 25^th Amendment to the Constitution, the vice president and the majority of the cabinet would have to send a letter to the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House testifying to their opinion that the president is unfit to serve. Both houses would then have to agree by a two-thirds vote. While I don’t see this happening in the short term, President Trump is fully capable of doing something so loony that even the far right of the Republican Party will come to their senses.

Mass Suicide (ours). Only if he get reelected in 2020.

So, take your pick, keeping in mind that he may well last out his term of office. If he does, let’s hope the Republican Party doesn’t make the same mistake twice.

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Copyright 2017, Patrick F. Cannon

 

A Penny Here, A Penny There 

By Patrick F. Cannon

On October 16 of last year, I appeared on WTTWs “Chicago Tonight” to plug my book, The Space Within: Inside Great Chicago Buildings. Coincidentally, that was the very day that Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle had proposed her penny an ounce tax on sweetened drinks. Although my book has proven more popular in the long run, I have to admit she was the main guest.

Let me explain briefly how the program works. It airs from 7 to 8 pm, but they want you there by 6:15 so one of the producers can brief you and get you made up (with pancake makeup that’s a pain to get off afterwards). Then you are taken to the “green” room to await the summons to take your place at one of the interview tables. While all these rooms are generically called “green,” in this case it was a conference room overlooking the production stage.

Lacking my usual entourage, I was alone in the room when President Preckwinkle swept in with four staff member in tow. The only man seemed to be her PR guy. Being a politician, Preckwinkle did say hello and asked why I was there. With the niceties out of the way, she and her staff began a kind of rehearsal of what kind of questions she might be asked by host Phil Ponce, much like the ones done before presidential election debates.

While I didn’t make notes, I can tell you that she decided on the tax primarily as a sure fire way to raise some cash, without regard for any health benefits. Indeed, it was one of her staff members who mentioned that she had recently seen a report on the harm that excessive consumption of soft drinks caused. It was clear that everyone in the room considered this heaven sent, as now they had a legitimate cover for the cash grab. I made a glib comment to that effect, which was not considered helpful.

If you live in the Chicago area, you now know that the county board president caught holy hell over the tax once it became effective recently. The obvious fallacy of tying it to health benefits is that, like tobacco taxes, it might drive down consumption and become a revenue source of diminishing returns. But Preckwinkle, like her counterparts at all levels of Illinois government, is a proponent of our classic political philosophy: get ours today and to hell with tomorrow.

Actually, I don’t think she went far enough. If sweetened drinks are bad for you, how about sweetened anything? Near me as I write this is a bag of cookies. They are covered with chocolate and bits of salty pretzel. Addictive? You bet. Each contains 45 calories, much of it obviously from sweeteners. To be fair, should we not tax cookies, candy and other sweets? If sugar in drinks is bad for you, is not all sugar bad for you?

To compute such a tax, it would only be necessary to add some kind of sugar value to all packaged foods. We already have onerous labeling laws – why not one more? My guess is that my bag of cookies, which contains 675 total calories, probably has half that total in sweeteners. Not to be too greedy, you could charge a tax of a tenth of a cent for each sugary calorie. My math is a bit shaky, but I think that would yield about 33.75 cents from my bag of cookies.

Being Cook County, the courts would be unlikely to find the new tax unconstitutional. After all, most of the local judges owe their seats to the Democratic Party, as do the Justices of the Illinois Supreme Court, who predictably have struck down every effort at pension or other reforms, including redistricting and term limits.

Oh, and while we’re at it, didn’t I just read something about the dire health effects of red meat?

Copyright 2017, Patrick F. Cannon

It’s a F_ _ _ _ _ _ Shame! 

By Patrick F. Cannon

There was a time when the word fuck was rarely used in print, or in polite society for that matter. While some newspapers and magazines still print it as “f _ _ _ “, the venerable New York Times now permits the actual word in some cases. Years ago, its use was limited to male only areas like the golf course, the army barracks or the corner bar. I can’t remember the first time I heard it used in mixed company, but I remember being shocked the first time I heard an educated women say the word. I can’t imagine anyone being shocked by that today.

I have a history with it myself. I must have used it as a teenager, but it was the army that taught me that it was a word for all occasions. The most common form was “fuckin” as in “fuckin’ army” and “fuckin’ sergeant” and of course “fuckin’ chow!” Its pervasive use reminds me of a story I’ve often told. I had a friend in basic training named Jim. He was from downstate Illinois (for those of you not from Illinois, “downstate” is essentially any place in the state outside of Chicago).

Jim’s father was a blacksmith. Before you get the wrong idea, a blacksmith in his case was really someone who repaired farm machinery, although they (it was a large concern) did shoe the odd horse or pony. Jim was a graduate of Bradley University and intended to carry on the family business when he got out of the army. He was the only one of my basic training buddies who also went to Signal School at Ft. Gordon, Georgia, so we spent nearly four months together.

When we finished school, we flew into Chicago together. My sister Kathleen picked us up and took us to her house for breakfast, where Jim’s parents were going to pick him up later in the morning. It was quite a breakfast; bacon, sausage, eggs and pancakes. At the table were my sister and brother-in-law and my three young nieces. When the pancakes were passed, Jim took a couple, and then innocently asked: “would someone please pass the fuckin’ butter?” Stunned silence. Realizing what he had said, Jim’s face turned bright red. No one said anything, but my sister did pass him the fuckin’ butter.

One more story before I start preaching. When my children were small, we lived for a couple of years in Glenview. One day my then wife and I took them to the Sears at Golf Mill for a reason I have long since forgotten. As I recall, my wife was buying some nuts at the candy counter and the rest of us were loitering nearby. Beth – who was then maybe three – naturally thought we should buy some candy, which was arrayed in dizzying profusion before her admiring eyes. Her mother said something like “no, you’ll get candy at Easter {which was nigh} so you’ll just have to wait” All of a sudden, her little voice began chanting “fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuck, fuuuck…”

As you might imagine, these words coming from the mouth of a cute little girl caused a few raised eyebrows. As it happens, she heard the word from her brother, who picked it up from an older neighbor boy. Although I believe that they later learned the actual meaning of the word, it’s unlikely they did then, but one never knows.

Nowadays, I almost never utter it out loud, but must admit I often mouth it silently, usually when some idiot cuts me off on the road, or when some particularly pompous politician utters one of the more obvious platitudes.

In recent years, the eff word (I’ll call it that from now on) has been joined in popularity by the em effer and cee sucker words. Now, English has some one million other words to choose from, but you would never know it from listening to today’s comedians and watching “premium” cable and online channels. I don’t frequent comedy clubs, but the premium channels give air time to popular stand-up comics, who seem unable to talk without using profanity. I even heard one comedian defend his use of the eff word by saying he thought the word itself was funny. Really?  Lewis Black is one comedian I actually admire, but wonder if it has ever occurred to him that he might be just as funny without effing everything in sight?

Somewhat related to the belief that profanity is fashionable, is the trend of comedians of both sexes to endlessly prattle on about their sex lives, which are usually dysfunctional in some way. The word “discretion” is one of those one million English words, but it may soon be dropped from the Oxford Dictionary for lack of use.

While even the broadcast channels are getting a bit more liberal, it is the dramas on the premium channels where one finds the blossoming of the eff word and its accomplices. A good case in point was the series “Deadwood,” which ran on HBO for a couple of years. I watched some episodes, and the dialog included a veritable blizzard of profanity (spoken, it must be said, by a very good cast); indeed so much that it was sometimes difficult to follow what was actually going on. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the series was set in Deadwood, South Dakota in the 1870s, and included historical figures like Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane and George Hearst, William Randolph  Hearst’s father.

Unbeknownst to posterity, it appears that Tom Edison must have been there trying out one of his newfangled recording devices, else how could the drama’s producer and writers have had any idea how people actually talked in 1870s Deadwood? Or perhaps some Harvard linguist turned up to study the local denizens and his paper was found in a dusty corner of the university’s library? Or just maybe the producer decided that piling on the eff and other words would provide a veneer of “reality” that would provide a guilty pleasure to a gullible audience?

I had once harbored the hope that good taste would ultimately prevail, but the evidence now seems to indicate otherwise. How else can you explain the primacy of vulgarity over wit, and the Kardashians for that matter?

Copyright 2017, Patrick F. Cannon

 

Live and Let Live 

By Patrick F. Cannon

I served in the United States Army from March 1961 to late February 1963. I was drafted, and thank God got out before Vietnam became the festering sore it was to become. After trudging through the Georgia mud in basic training, and sweltering in its heat at Signal School, I was sent to France, where I worked in a communications center; first ate mussels; and learned that you could drink something other than beer.

Perhaps as punishment for my good fortune, I was to spend the last six months of my service in the middle of the Mojave Desert. At every stage of my brief military career, I served with homosexuals. This was before “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the ultimate lifting of any ban on their service. Then and for many years to come, there was an outright ban on gays in the military. Those who did enlist or were drafted were forced to be discrete and stay very much in the closet. The only case of a gay soldier being discharged that I was personally aware of was an outgrowth of the double agent spy scandal in Britain, where two of the famous “Cambridge Five” (Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt) were gay and therefore thought to particularly vulnerable to Soviet blandishments. As it turned out, their gayness was irrelevant to their treason.

(By the way, anti-homosexual laws in Britain were only repealed in 1967. I recently saw the film “The Imitation Game” for the second time. If you saw it, you will know that Alan Turing, the mathematician largely responsible for breaking German secret codes during World War II, was later convicted for “lewd acts” and was forced to undergo chemical castration to avoid prison. He subsequently committed suicide. He was only in his 40s and we’ll never know what other contributions he might have made.)

In my case, a top secret clearance was required for my army specialty. To get it, we were required to undergo a lie-detector test. One of my fellow students, a young lady, failed the “gay” questions and was subsequently discharged. She was a nice and intelligent girl and would almost certainly have done a good job, but such were the times.

Now, President Trump, he of the “leap before you look” cast of mind, has threatened to ban transgender people from serving in the military. It is thought he did this because a congresswoman had offered an amendment that would have banned the services from providing so-called gender reassignment surgery because of the expense. Note that the amendment would not have banned them from serving, only that the cost of surgery would not be born by the government. I have seen varying estimates of the possible cost, all somewhere in the low billions, a mere pittance for our profligate politicians.

In looking into this, I found that the surgery is covered by insurance in some states, but not others. Not everyone is aware of this, but insurance companies are largely regulated by the states. If they so decide, they can require health insurers to cover gender reassignment surgery, just as they can require them to cover the cost of abortions or other medical  procedures that some might oppose on religious or other grounds. What they can’t do, as we’re discovering under the Affordable Care Act, is require them to provide coverage at all.

There is a difference, however, between gender reassignment and other surgeries. For example, as a surgical procedure, abortion is designed to terminate a pregnancy, so the intention and result match. At another level, if your heart is failing, you might undergo a heart transplant. Bad heart is replaced with a good heart, just as a bum kidney or liver might also be replaced. In other words, surgery is meant to affect a cure. But what does gender reassignment surgery cure?

Gender dysphoria, which is the name given to the condition of people who believe they were assigned the wrong sex at birth, is nothing new. While the numbers are always open to dispute, many researchers believe that 0.3 percent of the population might have this condition. If accurate, it’s likely that a similar number of Romans and Egyptians and Assyrians had it as well. The difference is, there was little they could do about it other than cross-dressing and trying to live as the other sex.

Now, with a referral from their physician, they can undergo hormone and other therapies to change their appearance, followed in some cases by gender reassignment surgery. For a man who believes he is a woman (three times as many men as women undergo the surgery), this involves castration and removal of the penis, followed by the creation of something that looks like a labia and vagina. Women who believe they should have been male have their uterus and ovaries removed and clitoral and other tissues used to create something like a penis. They also often have breast tissue removed.

In contrast to all other surgeries, the result is only an illusion of a cure, as it’s currently impossible to actually change ones sex. It would seem, then, that there is a legitimate question about whether such surgery should be paid for by those of us who pay health care premiums, or through the taxes we pay to the various levels of government. Until some clarity and uniformity comes to this legitimate issue, I suspect that those with gender dysphoria will seek to join organizations or live in states that will pay for their surgery, which can cost up to $50,000. What they should not have to seek are the civil rights they are guaranteed by the Constitution, which the president might try reading when he’s not drafting misleading statements for his children.

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Copyright 2017, Patrick F. Cannon

The Age of Discovery, Part Two

By Patrick F. Cannon

(Those of you who read Part One of my unique history of discovery were no doubt disappointed that Part Two was somewhat delayed by other matters. Now, I also find I must apologize for the somewhat longer length of this conclusion. I can only blame the Portuguese, who took their own sweet time!)

The record of discovery becomes clearer in the 15^th Century, when the remarkable Prince Henry the Navigator appears on the stage. He was the son of King John of Good Memory of Portugal. His father got this name because he never forgot who owed him money, thus making Portugal one of the most prosperous countries in Europe.

If you get your atlas out, you’ll see that Portugal is a long, skinny country. Its coast faces both west and south. Being at the very edge of Europe, its people were forced to look either out to sea or towards Spain. Since mountains obscured the view to a country they didn’t much like anyway, the average citizen preferred the ocean view.

Since his father took care of the money, Prince Henry was at leisure to dream of what lay beyond his narrow domain. To make things easier, he built a castle right at the bottom corner of his country so he could, on alternate nights, dream west then south.

Everyone, of course, knew that Africa existed to the south, but didn’t have a clue how far south it might extend. It did seem a better bet for exploration, since one could hug the coast rather than sailing off into the unknown (except for the Vikings, but they had lost the wanderlust by then). Somewhat complicating Henry’s ambition was the indisputable fact that the further south you sailed, the hotter it got.

The timid felt that if you got too far south, the water would start to boil. While this might permit mariners to catch already-cooked fish, it could also melt their ships caulking, putting the crew “in the soup” as it were.

They also thought, with some logic, that you might turn black. Because the natives were sometimes spotted gawking from the shore, the Portuguese knew that the peoples who lived in what came to be called the “dark” continent were black or at least dark brown. The Portuguese had long done a lively trade in wine with the English, who were very fair skinned. Since they knew that the Sun rarely if ever shone there, and that they were darker than the English because it often did in Portugal, it just seemed sensible to assume that the further south they went, the darker they would become. Would their friends and relatives even recognize them when they returned?

But as he stood on his lofty battlements, it occurred to Henry that these were risks worth taking, particularly since he could afford to send someone else. As it happened, two young worthies named John Concalves and Tristan Vaz came looking for work.

Being careful not to mention the boiling water and black skin theories, Henry convinced them that riches awaited them along the African coast. So off they went, only to be blown west by a storm, ending up in what is now known as Madeira. Deciding to leave well enough alone, they returned. Henry, it must be said, was a trifle disappointed, but decided to make a virtue out of necessity. He sent them back to colonize, thinking to make the island a way station for future explorations.

They took various seeds along, including grapes. Had they not, the now famous phrase “Have some Madeira, my deara” would not have entered the lexicon.

Henry might well have been known as the “Persistent” as well as the “Navigator” (had not the rules been so strict about such things) for he didn’t give up his dream of exploring the African coast.

Each year, his minions set forth, slowly advancing along the African coast. When they reached the farthest west point of the continent, they discovered that the currents met there and created the turbulence that the ignorant had thought was boiling water. This could easily be avoided. Nor did they turn black, although some of them got nasty sunburns.

When they landed along the coast, they found many of the natives trusting and welcoming. As so often happens in history, they turned this trust to their advantage. Luring the natives on board their ships with the promise of an afternoon’s sail, they promptly put them in chains and brought them back to Portugal as slaves. Needless to say, they didn’t turn white.

While Henry was pleased with this new source of income, what he really wanted to find out was whether, if he finally got around Africa, he could go east and find the Indies.

He knew that the Indies existed and were a source of the spices that Europe craved. Had not Marco Polo traveled over land as far as China?  Had not others retraced his steps and set up the famous Spice Roads that permitted him to have his favorite breakfast, cinnamon toast?  But had not the crafty Turks closed the roads to Europeans, creating a monopoly for themselves?

In 1488, Bartholomew Dias actually reached the tip of Africa, which he called the Cape of Storms; later changed to the Cape of Good Hope by later tourism authorities. He wanted to press forward, but his crew had had enough and convinced him to turn back. The fits and starts method of exploration continued until 1498, when Vasco de Gama (bloody leg in English) finally got to India. The place he landed was later called Goa, since he left a few men behind to create a settlement, saying: “We goa back, you stay.”

Now that we have established a route to India, we can return to Christopher Columbus, who thought he had a better way. Looking at Ptolemy’s map as he often did, he decided it was foolish to go all the way around Africa, when it would be much faster to simply sail west and arrive at the same place.

Being a proud Italian, he tried selling the idea to the local princes first, but most were short of money as they were continually fighting among themselves and having their portraits painted. He then went to France, but soon discovered that the French felt they had already found heaven and couldn’t imagine why anyone would wish to go anywhere else. Columbus pressed on to Spain, where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were just about to toss the last Moors out of their country. With the booty they had taken from their retreating enemies, they were flush with cash and looking for new worlds to conquer. Timing is everything and Columbus rang the castle bell just when the monarchs were in a good mood.

They provided cash for three ships and crews, with the understanding that any lands discovered would be theirs, along with most of the gold, jewels and spices. Columbus figured that his share would be more than enough to greatly improve his standard of living, so he was content.

He set sail on August 3, 1492, full of confidence. “If we just keep going west,” he told his crews, “we’re bound to bump into something, most likely Japan.” “OK,” they responded prudently, “just as long as we get paid.”

We have to remember that in those days people who got on ships generally expected them to arrive somewhere other than their port of departure. Nowadays, of course, we’re perfectly content to sail around aimlessly for a week or two and arrive back where we started, just so long as we’re fed five times a day.

As the weeks went by with no sight of land, the crews became understandably concerned, particularly since the late night buffet consisted mainly of hard biscuits and even harder salt pork, washed down with water that was, to put it nicely, a bit cloudy.

When they expressed their misgivings to Columbus, he invariably replied: “Sail on.” This soon became tiresome, and mutinous mutterings became the order of the day. In the event, Columbus was saved, when on October 11 land was sighted. It was an island Columbus called San Salvador. He planted the flag of Spain on the beach, watched warily by a group of naked natives, who wondered why anyone would wear heavy clothes in such a climate.

Columbus himself was somewhat confused at the nakedness of his greeters, having assumed that the Japanese wore clothes just like everyone he had met heretofore. Perhaps Marco Polo had failed to mention it? He asked the natives if he could look around for gold. They didn’t seem to mind, although one must assume that their Spanish was minimal.

No gold was found, so Columbus began wandering around the area. He planted so many flags that the crew was soon busy making new ones. Before he ran out of fabric, he has discovered what is now Cuba (which he thought was China) and Hispaniola. The natives there actually had a few bits of gold, and told Columbus (using sign language?) that the gold was found up in the hills, where it has largely been found ever since.

But fate intervened (as it almost always does) and the Santa Maria was wrecked before they reached the gold. Columbus decided they would need a lot more people and shovels if they were to get at the gold, so he decided to return to Spain, leaving behind 39 men to hold the fort (which they first had to build).

When he returned with many more ships, some empty to hold the expected gold, he discovered that the natives had wised up and killed his men. Setting a precedent that held true for hundreds of years, he enslaved the natives and set them to work digging for gold. They didn’t find much, but did discover that the Europeans returned with a variety of diseases, both venereal and funereal.

The hapless Columbus never gave up; traveling back and forth from Spain to what he continued to think was the Indies. He finally died in 1506, still claiming that he had found the Indies. By then, sadly, he was commonly known as Crazy Chris. Although he never set foot in what is now called the United States, in recognition of his dogged determination, that country established October 11 as Columbus Day. While many are happy to celebrate it as a welcome day off, others believe Columbus should be condemned at a gold-happy native killer. So far, the day off has prevailed.

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Copyright 2017, Patrick F. Cannon