Passings and Legacy

Moonstone Beach, Cambria CA

    It happened this week, the passing of two men who made big differences. In the way of things, there is a confluence in my life. 

 I knew them and I was inspired by them. I still am.

Photo by Charles Bennett, Associated Press

      Birch Bayh was the quintessential Indiana public servant and one of the most historic and arguably effective members in the history of the US Senate. He passed at 91 and leaves a legacy that has led some to refer to him as a "modern founding father."

     Bayh was the author of two constitutional amendments and creator of Title IX. He also authored what could have been a third constitutional amendment, the ERA. These are accomplishment of historic proportion, shaping the constitution, the spine of this democratic republic.

    The 25th Amendment deals with Presidential disability and succession. The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18. Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity that is federally funded. It was nation changing. 

    Bayh was an architect of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 1965 Voting Rights Act and the Juvenile Justice Act that required separation of juveniles from adults in prison. He was co-author of the Bayh-Dole Act that allowed small businesses and universities to own inventions that were developed using federal funds. It helped lead to the technological explosion that has fueled our modern life and led to new business horizons in communications, and technology.

    Bayh led the Senate opposition to Supreme Court nominees Clement Haynsworth and George Carswell. He was a contender in the 1976 Democratic Presidential nomination. Birch Bayh was a three term Senator and father of Evan Bayh, Governor of Indiana and a two term senator.

    I covered and got to know both men. They were different personalities. Evan ran one of his father's election campaigns. Birch Bayh may have been one of the best "retail," one-on-one politicians ever. Before social media, candidates spent more time talking to individual voters in person. Birch would light up a room and if possible spend time with everyone, sitting with them, putting his arm around them, leaning in listening, shaking hands and having true conversations. It was a marvel to see. 

    He was a veteran, a Purdue graduate where he was President of the Class, played baseball and was a champion boxer. He was elected to state government in his 20's and had a stellar career and impact before being one of the youngest men elected to the Senate.

     After the Civil Rights act was passed, he and his friend Senator Edward Kennedy were on a flight between Washington and Massachusetts when their light plane went down. Bayh extricated his wife Marvella and then freed a trapped Edward Kennedy, who suffered a broken back. Others on board were killed.

      It was a privilege to know and a joy to joke around and talk with this plain spoken, down home leader. When I think of America being "great," I think of Birch Bayh and his indelible influence on this nation. He is one of the giants in the human rights movement.

    Friend, colleague and inspiration, Bob Foster, on the right in the photo above, lost his long hard fight with Leukemia this week.

   Frequent readers will recall Bob's contributions to this blog

beginning in August of 2011 as he chronicled his harrowing wait and experience with a bone marrow transplant.

   In the picture above, Bob and I were a morning team on the radio, seen here doing a remote broadcast.  Bob had a wonderful career in radio and his great love was live sporting events. For a number of years he was a premier play by play man in Hydroplane racing and other sports.  

    Bob had a good run in the advertising world, but after complications of his disease was sidelined for a while, only to come back to his first love, radio sports.

     He was on the air and running a sports talk station in Iowa at the time of his passing. In the last couple of years he had battled pneumonia and this week that is what took his life. It is the same disease that claimed Birch Bayh.

    In September of 2014 Bob was having a triumphant moment and sent this post.

Photo Courtesy of Iowa State/Bob Foster

Never did I imagine that I would again be testing the wireless broadcast system on the sidelines at Jack Trice Stadium before a Big 12 game.  Resuming duties as a game site producer on a Big 12 Football radio broadcast seemed no longer possible.  Saturday afternoon was very emotional.  I wept several times and knelt in sprayer of thanksgiving before the game began.  Now, I am better prepared mentally and emotionally to approach with intensity the game broadcast at Texas on 10/18.  It is all because of Jesus I am alive.

Bob Foster.

      Bob was a man with a strong faith and as you may recall from his earlier posts, even when near death and an uncertain future, he said he was blessed to be able to lift the spirits of others who were facing challenges.

    His wife Diane told me when he took his last breath he had a smile of relief. His timing was always perfect.

     Life always moves forward. New generations go to meet their future. There are, however, those who precede them who make their path a little easier.

      Birch Bayh and Bob Foster leave wonderful and positive legacies. They loved and cared about others. 

      See you down the trail.

MONUMENTAL IDEAS and TRUST

Simon Bolivar The Liberator, Felix Weldon Sculpture in Washington D.C

   A conversation about monuments, history and racial sensitivity is important. So, lets start with this guy. There are probably more statues and monuments to Simon Bolivar, a Venezuelan, than anyone else in history. Yea, really!

    Bolivar rides or stands tall in Washington, New York, San Francisco, Ottawa, Berlin, London, Cairo, Tehran, plus every major city in central and south America.

    Bolivar was a kind of aristocratic Che Guevara. He liberated 5 nations, none of them the United States. He freed Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Panama by organizing guerrilla campaigns and leading armies. Impressive stuff. 

     Now we get closer to home. Bolivar died in 1830. The US Congress approved the statue in 1945 and it was installed in 1959. That is a large historical disconnect, compared to the Robert E. Lee statues and those of other confederate leaders that stand in many places in the American south.

     Those confederate memorials are offensive to millions of Americans and with just cause. They are however a part of history and even historic in their own right. While we may scratch our head and wonder why old Simon shows up all over the world, we probably would be opposed to suddenly tossing him over everywhere. While revisionist history of any sort is wrong, so too is a lack of perspective.

    So here's the monumental idea. Put those confederate military leaders in context. It is important that all generations know  the "honored" were part of a horrible and deplorable war effort.

    The future needs to know they stood for the enslavement of human beings, dissolution of the Union, a white supremacist view and that they lost. That kind of information should be added to the statues, prominently. But we can also add context.  

     For every confederate war leader there will be a larger statue or monument to others, such as African American leaders like Fredrick Douglass (who donald trump hears is "doing a good job") Sojourner Truth or Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, Union Generals US. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, George Gordon Meade, George Henry Thomas, Phillip Sheridan and leaders, etc. As painful as it might be, there should also be monumental representation of the slave trade markets and conditions on plantations. 

     It is a matter of perspective. When you start knocking down statues the Taliban or ISIS comes to mind. Keep the old statues in place, but add interpretation and then put them in context with new statues and monuments so the full story and truth is told. 

    This "battle of monuments" would put a lot of artists to work, would spur a learning of history, would add relevance to old statues, create vivid interpretation of lessons best not lost in history and put the confederacy in a proper context.  It would also offer increased tourism to those communities who work to set the record straight by virtue of monumental truth.

guarding truth

      Truth and trust are bound in life. You can't have one without the other. That leads us to a consideration as to how to free ourselves of the man who is a cancer in our history.

        The premise is simple. We must, the world must, everyone must be able to trust the President. Recent history shows us painfully we cannot trust president trump. It's a prescription for disaster when allies, enemies, constituents, military chiefs, national security forces, when no one can trust the president.
        There is no need to wait for the Mueller investigation into the Russian connection; was there collusion or not, was trump enterprises involved in Russian money laundering, has his family enterprise violated conflicts of interest laws or the emoluments clause, is he compromised by loans from Russian banks, did he obstruct justice?  It is important to get these answers, but there is a path to removal in advance of that and it deals with trust.
       In this case the inability to trust trump qualifies as making him unit to serve and that leads us to section 4 of the 25th Amendment.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. 

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

     The president own words are proof enough of his habitual lies, his fantasy phone calls included. There is 6 months of presidential dishonesty that makes the case. trump would fight it, however there is a growing mood to get rid of him.

       This newspaper ad greeted readers this morning. Doyle McManus's recent report in the LA Times underscores how official Washington is dealing with trumps lack of fitness.

        McManus details how Secretary of State Tillerson, Defense Secretary Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford have worked overtime to back the US and North Korea from the brink of war. The situation was made grave by trump's tweets, lippy retorts, ignoring of staff and the behavior of a spoiled little rich boy brat. Pause on that for a moment--had Tillerson, Mattis and Dunford not joined forces we could be in the midst of war because a liar with no character and no sense of history or diplomacy. 

        He is unfit because he cannot be trusted. No psychologist or prosecutorial data is necessary. trump's own utterances make the case. 

        The question remains will congressional Republican leadership and members of the cabinet show character and begin the process to toss the lunatic out of office and thereby move to protect the US.

caesar's secret

    Referring here to the salad.

    Over the years I've gained a reputation-deserved or not-as being good at making caesar salad. Above is recent set up of most of the ingredients. But there is something that needs closer examination.

      This is a technique I learned from legendary chef Dieter Puska.  You hand mash the anchovies and the minced garlic by fork in the salad bowl.  Over the years I've learned that mincing the cloves earlier and letting them soak in olive oil makes them more pliable and enriches the oil, which gets worked into the dressing. I have also started reserving the oil of the anchovies as well.  Everything starts with these two foundations. 

      See you down the trail.