cost-benefit analysis...

"Rep. Yarmuth willing to 'lose seat' over stance on gun control"
is a headline currently on the internet --
what the Kentucky representative discusses in that news story is basically an example of what the book Profiles in Courage is about.

It's where the person takes a stand on something he really believes is right for our country, and for people, in spite of the fact that it may be super-unpopular with some vocal groups.  By taking the stand, he risks not being re-elected.

John F. Kennedy wrote the book during 1954 and 1955 while recuperating from back surgery and complications.

It was published, 1957.

That book was always around when our generation was growing up.  I didn't read it -- someone told me what the -- theme of it was....

In the introduction to the current paperback edition of the book, Caroline Kenendy wrote, "Because my father studied history, and understood the complexity of courage, he understood its simple power as well.  He believed that telling the stories of those who act on principle regardless of the cost [to themselves] can help inspire future generations to follow their example....

Our family has honored my father's commitment to public service by celebrating that commitment in others.  In 1989, we established the Profile in Courage Award, presented annually to an elected official who stands fast for the ideals upon which this country was founded, often at great personal risk...

For example, President Gerald Ford received the Profile in Courage Award for his pardon of Richard Nixon.  Ford realized that America needed to begin healing from the wounds of Watergate, and that he was the only man who could make that possible.  One month after Ford became president, he pardoned Nixon, knowing that it could cost him the presidency.  He lost to Jimmy Carter by a narrow margin in 1976."

-30-

turn my collar to the cold and damp

"Pills make me think.  This kid was disturbed, but it's become the norm to put any odd kids on powerful psychoactive drugs like Prozac and Ritalin.  Except the warnings on these drugs always say, 'may lead to homicidal or suicidal tendencies.'  I sure hope the coroner analyzes the shooter's blood and publishes the results before Big Pharma shuts him  up."
-- weekend Comment on Internet from Apache Junction, Arizona

==================

on-line headline, today:
"Rep. Yarmuth willing to 'lose seat' over stance on gun control."

...What he's talking about is just like
Profiles in Courage....

=================
comment:  "Limit civilian weapons so that they hold no more than 6 bullets at a time.  Six bullets is plenty for self-defense, range-shooting and hunting.  The small inconvenience of having to re-load at a range is well worth it to decrease the number of these incidents of mentally disturbed men massacring children."

"And the side effects of prescribed medications."

"This is NOT  a gun issue....it is a mental health issue."

"This is a gun issue and also a mental issue."

"Antidepressants are the commonality in nearly all of these incidents yet the media and the authorities will not say anything about the drugs.  Because they are legal, profitable and money buys their silence."

-30-

$10,000 for your thoughts

The Internet bristles with Comments after Fri.'s events in Newtown:

"A good start to fixing these behavior issues would be to always be kind, do not bully people or taunt them through social media.  Thank you"

"Bad things still happen and will never be fully preventable, but we can minimize their impact.  No semi autos or large clips would be a start."

"Join me in a crusade against our politicians --
8-shot-max clips for both rifles and handguns, NOW!...
It's obvious that we can't detect these killers ahead of time.  But we CAN slow them down.  8-round clips!"
--------------- [..."a crusade against our politicians"...I'd tend to want to switch that to "a crusade to lobby our politicians, or convince, or petition....petition them, I think.  Interesting it came out the way it did when he typed it, though -- a crusade against...that's how the people feel, now, like politicians are just one more enemy-group to be crusaded "against"...and -- that's not bad, the politicians can "take it."  Go for it!  Crusade to persuade.]

--------------------------
Reading articles and comments, thought:  "Ban the big clips."  Or -- magazines (?) drums (?) experts may tailor the terminology....
That might be all right with the NRA because it isn't gun control, it's bullet control.
(Then again, do we have to clear everything with the NRA?)

Was thinking:  causes of these mass murders --
easy availability of fast-shooting weapons,
mental health issues not addressed,
examples of violence in our culture -- movies, games, music, etc.
{maybe also media attention causes the next one to think, "I'll get famous" -- this aspect would probably come under the "culture" heading.

super-efficient kill-machines
crazy ("troubled") individuals
culture

People can do something about each of those.

========================
D. Roth in NY:  "The Bill of Rights was written when single shot muzzle loaders were state of the art.  Those days are gone.  When 20 kindergarteners can be executed in a few minutes, the law must change.

I want our Senators and Representatives in Congress to stop being bribed by the deep pockets of the NRA.  Get off the NRA payroll."

===============
Jen D in NJ:  "Go to open secrets.org and see how little money our politicians have sold their souls for.  Not one of them has received more than $10,000 directly from the NRA in the 2012 election cycle, yet they kowtow and cower before the organization."
------------------- [True, $10,000 in a campaign for Congress is probably about like a dime for most of us working people...next thought / understanding:  the congressman or senator serves NRA interests not because the NRA gives him large amounts of money in campaign contributions, but because

if he doesn't vote NRA's way,

the NRA will spend the Serious $ to
defeat him.

It isn't so much being bought, as it is being bullied.

Not so much "kowtowing" as it is being "cowed."
Negative motivation.

Result is the same...the constituents doubt whether they are being listened to.]

==================
Then on cable news show, Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania says, "The NRA is a paper tiger!  All we need is some congressmen and senators who aren't wusses." 
====

-30-

doing what we can

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."
--  John Lennon

==============
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world.
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world.
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
we'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can
But when you want money
For people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait --
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
All right, all right
Ah

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah...

You say you'll change the constitution
Well you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well you know...
You better free your mind instead
--but if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao,
You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
all right, all right, all right

================
a single by The Beatles,
the flip-side of "Hey Jude"
August 26, 1968
on the Apple label

-30-

ideas - uproar

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts."
--  Daniel Patrick Moynihan

======================
I feel as if, when I read, & look at how
problems were solved, and
positive accomplishments engineered
in America, during past times, then a person can see -- maybe two things, anyway...
1) how things worked -- or didn't,
and
2) that some current challenges we have, have been seen before -- arguments we hear today have been made before -- familiar tactics and strategies, when we read about them, we can say, "Oh-h!  So Senator How-do-ya-do, or Representative Hand-in-trough are not so new, or endemic only to the 21st century -- this kind of (tactic / behavior / silliness / whatever) has been seen before....oh and--here's how they approached it, then....

People can get a deeper, richer perspective by viewing incidents in recent history.  (Or -- should say, all history, it's just that Recent is my favorite....)

[excerpt]---------------------  Daniel Patrick Moynihan led a singularly American life, but it was a life unlike any other in modern America.

As a youth in New York, Pat Moynihan struggled with poverty in a family devastated by the disappearance of his father at the height of the Great Depression.  Young Pat shined shoes, tended bar, worked the piers as a longshoreman, and

stole rides by clinging spread-eagled to the back of the crosstown bus to get to high school in Harlem. 

He briefly attended City College of New York before joining the Navy as a teenager during World War II.  He served as a gunnery officer, traveled the world, returned to complete an undergraduate degree from Tufts....  He wandered almost accidentally into campaign politics in New York City. 

And he then rose to become perhaps the most influential public intellectual of his time.

Moynihan was a pathfinder in John F. Kennedy's New Frontier, a commander in Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty and Great society, and an enabler in many greater and lesser moments of Richard Nixon.  He was a renowned professor at Harvard well before becoming a successful politician.  He was an outspoken envoy and challenger of shibboleths and of anti-Semitism while serving as ambassador to India and the United Nations. 

In four terms in the Senate -- working with (or against) Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton -- he made a decisive impact in the areas of welfare reform, public works, transportation projects, international law, congressional prerogatives in the cold war, and the challenge to the cult of secrecy in Washington.  He achieved these goals while setting a standard of

bipartisanship

sorely missed today.  Determined that a nation's public spaces should reflect the legacy of its ideals, he was instrumental in the effort to revive some of America's greatest urban environments, from the Custom House in Lower Manhattan to Union Station and Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation's capital....
 
As early as 1979, he predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, saying it would crack up from economic stress and ethnic conflict.  Less well known, Moynihan was an early champion of automobile safety in the 1950s and is the one who brought Ralph Nader to Washington, jolting General Motors and causing a national uproar in the 1960s.

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts," Moynihan famously said, in one of many comments that entered political lore and that, if applied, would make for a healthier national discourse today.------------[end excerpt]

[Man -- don't we know it!]

------------------------
{Daniel Patrick Moynihan:  A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary.
Ed. Steven R. Weisman.  Introduction.
Copyright, 2010, Public Affairs, member-Perseus
Books Group, New York}

-30-

cool reason

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."


-- Thomas Paine, The Crisis





"Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves."

-- George Gordon Byron





And yet...

"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends."

-- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream



-30-

strange days had found us

Reading about LBJ, George Wallace got onto my mental radar screen.

My first memory of Wallace was in the 1968 election:  since LBJ had decided not to run, there was no incumbent -- three candidates and no incumbent...
Richard Nixon for the Republicans,
Hubert Humphrey (from Minnesota) for the Democrats,
and George Wallace for the -- I don't know.

The only information I had heard about him was, he didn't like black people.
(That's his platform?...)

Next time he visited my "radar screen" I was in the car being driven to piano lesson, and news came from radio that George Wallace, running for president again, in the Democratic primary, had been shot -- in -- Maryland, I think....(yes, Google says Maryland...).  1972.  (Not again!)

That was horrible. 
The assassinations.
JFK
MLK
RFK
and Wallace was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

I think all that violence caused many people to feel disillusioned.

Reading on the internet -- George Wallace's son has written a book about his father and it sounded like part of the thesis was that Gov. Wallace was not really such a racist, but he used the "race-baiting" line and the staunch segregationist position because it "worked" to get him elected.

He became sort of a symbol of the old days and the old ways, by standing in a schoolhouse door to prevent some black students from going to class.  John S. Pancake pointed out, in a review of a TV-movie about Wallace, that standing there in the doorway only kept that school segregated for an extra four hours.

He was expressing, or standing for, the way some people felt.

Then, in the Free Encyclopedia, I come across this:
"Bremer's diary...published after his arrest shows the assassination attempt was motivated by a desire for fame, not by politics...."

That's an interesting parallel, if you think of it this way:

Gov. Wallace used the race-baiting tactic,
not because
he really wanted to hold back black progress,
but in order to
get elected,

While

Bremer's assassination attempt on
1972 presidential candidate Wallace
was not done becasue
he disliked Wallace,
or disagreed with his political positions,
but in order to
get famous.

As The Doors said,
"Strange Days."

-------------  The F.E. also tells us that Shirley Chisholm, a black woman in the U.S. House of Representatives, (at that time the only black woman in the U.S. House...) visited Gov. Wallace in the hospital, after the shooting.

And -- [excerpt, Free Encyclopedia]--------------------- In the late 1970s, Wallace announced that he was a born-again Christian and apologized to black civil rights leaders for his past actions as a segregationist.  He said that while he had once sought power and glory, he realized he needed to seek love and forgiveness.  In 1979, Wallace said of his stand in the schoolhouse door:  "I was wrong.  Those days are over, and they ought to be over." -------------------------- [end excerpt]

Looking at the above paragraph now, I wonder about a conversation I had, (or rather, was clobbered by), in the late 1990s -- there had been a cable TV-movie about Wallace starring Gary Sinise...I saw parts of it, and was impressed.  I mentioned this, in state capital, over lunch with two school superintendents, a man and a woman, and they both, like, almost went wild -- "You like George Wallace?!"  "You're a supporter of George Wallace?!"

(What they used to call a "knee-jerk reaction.")

I tried to say,
"I said the film was well-done;
I did not say that I was awaiting
an opportunity to
vote for
George Wallace,"

but it was no use.  They jumped to a conclusion, and clung tightly to it, like frogs jumping from one lily-pad onto another one. 
I couldn't move them off that lily-pad. 
Reason was rebuffed.

("I was wrong.  Those days are over, and they ought to be over."  Did those school superintendents not hear that Wallace had said that?  AND -- apologized?)

Thought, "Hmmh.  These people
can't listen
can't process information
and
they're in charge of education.
Very good."

Politics drives people crazy.

Politics drives some people crazy.

-30-