I have the pleasure to share my fraternal experiences with perhaps the most eclectic and crazy group of people I have the pleasure to know. What can I say we are band geeks. We laugh together, “hang” together, tease each other about just about everything, share our jokes, our fears and occasionally our tears together. We are absolutely merciless to each other but we are also the first to support one another. And yes, we fight. We are human it happens. We are family, it happens.  I have said before you have two families: Yes, you have the one you are born into, who you grow up with day-by-day. That family (for better or worse) cannot be helped. But, you also have the family you pick; consisting of those people you have found in your life and decided, “I want them to be a part of my life.” Joining a fraternity is the most explicit way to demonstrate you want someone to be part of your life. It is so much a part that I am confounded when people do not seem to understand that.

I have seen my organization and others run the gamut from one extreme to another. Generally, yes, we all get along but sometimes if even one person does something slightly wrong, or that another disagrees with, I have seen tensions rise. I have seen people come dangerously close to, and sometimes cross, the line between genuine, relevant fraternal complaint to blatant personal attacks. Again, we are family it happens. There is no rule that says families must get along all the time. But, being a Brother is not a temporary assignment. It does not end when the meeting is over, the ceremony concluded. It does not end when we leave each other’s presence for the day any more than being a son/daughter, mother/father, wife/husband ends when one leaves the home for the day.  If you return home after 15 years, you will still call your parents mom and dad. Your parents will still call you son (or daughter as the case may be). If I see you 15years, or 15 minutes, after our last meeting, I will still call you Brother.

That is part of the blessing, and perhaps yes the curse, of being a Brother. It is a choice you make, that you cannot back away from simply because it is inconvenient.  I provide a quote here from one of my favorite authors that I find particularly applicable, “I don’t care whose DNA recombined with whose. When everything goes to Hell, the people who stand by you without flinching – they are your family.”

I will admit, do I approve of every action my Brothers make? Or every word that they say? No, not hardly, but I would prepare to defend them to God Himself if they asked me to. Because we are family, and nothing changes that.

I am a proud member of the Zeta Mu Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi, National Honorary Band Fraternity. AEA.

That post started me thinking. This can be difficult for some of us. Many of us are not as expressive as we should be with the people we do care about. It is unfortunate but some people, and I admit am one of those, tend to think “These people know I care about them, why should I remind them.” It is a reasonable assumption but in 20 years (maybe more, maybe less), you will be wondering, “Why didn’t I say more to them?” Mark Twain once remarked that in twenty years you will regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did – the same is true for what we say. As much as we may regret what we say, steps can be taken to recover from it. We can never recover from what we didn’t say. We never know how much time we will have with the people around us and as Dr. Soran says in Star Trek: Generations, “We leave so many things unfinished in our lives.” Never let your relationships be one of them.

In his book Billions and Billions Carl Sagan writes of a framed postcard he kept on his shaving mirror from a William John Rogers to a Mr. James Day. On the postcard is a color picture of a four-funneled ocean liner captioned, “White Star Liner Titanic.” The postmark on the card is the day before the ship sank with the loss of 1500 lives, including the life of the sender. The short message on the note reads,

“Just a line to show that I am alive & kicking, and going grand. It’s a treat.”

So here from me to you is a line to remind you I am alive and kicking, and things are grand. I hope those who I consider friends will reciprocate. To all of you however, I forward my acquaintances’ find someone you care about, give them a hug, and tell them you care about them. It may be awkward now but in time you will feel better.

“ Barack Obama is a lawyer.
Michelle Obama is a lawyer.
Hillary Clinton is a lawyer.
Bill Clinton is a lawyer. Every Democratic nominee since 1984 went to law school”

The email goes on to claim that the Republican party is made up of people who do ‘Real Work’ – businessmen, exterminators, economists – and that the Democrats “mock and scorn men who create wealth like Bush and Cheney or who heal the sick like Frist or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich.”

As a future history teacher and a registered Democrat, I find that last statement incredibly insulting and ignorant. Lyndon Johnson’s first job was a teacher.

The email then continues to say that the lawyers see these people — good hardworking ‘Mericans — as enemies of America.

In our War on Terror we like to proclaim that we are taking the moral high ground, that we are the victim. However, not one of the tactics used in the war on terror have actually made us more secure from terrorism and in fact some threaten the very civil liberties Republicans – and all Americans claim to cherish.

We have authorized the use of interrogation techniques that ,were they used against us, we would be screaming for international courts to do something about the Geneva convention. We have invaded two Middle Eastern nations with the excuse that we are trying to protect ourselves from terrorism and spread democracy. We have ignored the actual causes of the terrorism and the culture of the area. We are trying to establish a democracy in an area with no cultural history for democracy. If a people has no historical or cultural basis for democracy it will not be successfully transplanted. A “Democratic” regime may last a few years, but it will ultimately regress to its authoritarian routes (witness the Russian Federation).

The next claim goes something like this, “Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.”

But pharmaceutical companies drive up the price of pharmaceuticals and release them to the public without fully testing them. Are people properly informed about the risks of a new drug?. Have you listened to the end of a pharmaceutical commercial, you know the bit where they detail all of the possible side-effects? They speak fast enough to cram them all into the remaining commercial time slot, and yet not slow enough that anyone can actually understand what they are saying and they are printed too small on the screen for anyone to read them.
Oil companies are not great citizens. Oil has sparked one of the longest running wars in our history (They have worked to maintain their monopoly on our energy and therefore our need for cheap oil has kept us tied to the regimes of the Middle East, some of which fund either directly or indirectly the very terrorists we claim to fight. For all of the cries for “Energy Independence!” precious little has been done.

Due to Globalization, many manufacturing jobs have left the United States. Globalization is not the result of lawyers but of economists and businessmen, the very people the Republican Party claims to exalt. Before you attack others for their actions, examine the actions of your own compatriots.

Bankers and investors created our current economic crisis – and previous crises. Rampant speculation on the stock market caused the crash of 1929 and over-drawing and printing of money led to the nullification of the Gold Standard and the rapid decline of the dollar. Through either intentional misleading or mismanaging or accidental misleading and mismanaging, banks and investors manipulated home buyers into agreeing to mortgages they could not possibly repay which contributed to our current crisis. I’m sorry we think it is appropriate to hold business accountable for their dealings. We’ve tried laissez-faire more often than not it leaves us in a worst position than we were before – that is if ‘We’ is the average American and not the executives and ruling elite that make up the Republican Party.

Kindly enough, the email includes a brief job description of lawyers: “Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits… overturn precedent…” and continues to state that while such practices are fine for study of law, they do not work to govern a nation. I fail to see how trying to successfully represent the American people, and win cases on their behalf and to work for new laws is a bad thing. Clearly the current system isn’t working, and if the system does not work you must pass laws to change things.

The trend towards “polarization” was not started by the lawyers but by the Republicans. Thanks to Gingrich and the mid-1990s we now have a system where neither party is willing to work with the other to accomplish anything.

The email then goes on to attack the omnipresence of lawyers in American society (which I agree has not been very helpful) and references criminal prosecution being used as a continuation of political struggle, citing “the lynching of Scooter Libby.”

When a government employee such as Scooter Libby leaks the identity of a government agent involved in highly classified work, it endangers the agent. If a Democrat had done such a thing the Republican Party would be clamoring with calls for a conviction of Treason but since it was one of their own, well you’ve got to protect the Good ‘Ol Boys.

Their next complaint is about the ACLU interfering in methods of interrogation for suspected terrorists and efforts to obtain information: When a regime uses techniques that banned by a treaty of which the United States is a party than yes, the ACLU should intervene. We have no right to unilaterally act in ways which we would be railing against were they used against us. All things being equal, any party that used water-boarding or other forms of “enhanced interrogation” against us would be accused of war crimes if we were the victors.

Finally, they claim that we cannot expect reform and change from the very organization supported by the lawyers responsible for the current system. My response is this: Nor can we expect change and reform from businessmen and investors and bankers, the very people responsible for our current predicament. The record of the Republican Party is one of doing what’s best for their business man cronies, regardless of its affect on the average American. With the 1980s came deregulation and an economic philosophy that contributed to our current situation. In the 1990s under a Democratic president, we were prosperous and had a miraculously balanced budget. The next Republican president turned a $230 billion surplus into a $1.4 trillion dollar deficit by the end of his presidency.

With a track record like that, I am inclined to give the lawyers – or at least the party that really has the economic interests of the average American at heart – a chance.

Former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Whackjob) gave Thursday Night’s opening remarks. This is a man so unimportant that this blogger can’t remember if he did a project on him during the 2008 Primary Election campaign, and as Jon Stewart mentioned was dressed in period costume as Carl Sagan circa 1979.   Apparently, he is the modern incarnation of the White Supremacist. After hearing his remarks at the Convention I am waiting for him to announce his candidacy for Grand Imperial Dragon.  Much as I admire Carl Sagan and am shocked at how much Tancredo resembles him, he seemed mostly like a grumpy old man yelling at the kids to get off his lawn.  To qoute directly his words were:

     And then, something really odd happened, mostly because I think that we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country. People who could not even spell the word “vote,” or say it in English, put a committed socialist idealogue in the White House, name is Barack Hussein Obama.

Apparently we should have a civics literacy test in this country to ensure people are smart enough to vote. I have a better idea, let’s force all voters to pay a tax to vote! Since they’re going to the “polls” I guess we could call it a “poll tax?” It could also help us cut down on illegal immigration because if someone isn’t registered to pay the tax they are probably here illegally. Or better yet, we could enact some sort of law where you can only vote if a past generation voted… now we don’t want to make it too easy, maybe we can arrange it so you can only vote if you’re grandfather voted? Yes! That’s it! And we could call it, Oh I don’t know.. maybe some sort of “Grandfather Clause?”

Well I have news for you, this has all been tried before. Perhaps you’ve heard of the term “Jim Crow?” No I am not refering to the name of you’re neighbor when you were growing up. “Jim Crow” is the term for a series of post-Emancipation, post 14th/15th Amendmant laws from the Deep South.  The 15th Amendment made it illegal to deny the right to vote “on condition of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” lucky for them tho, the legislators of the Deep South found ways around that with the above laws.

 If we are not careful we will find ourselves regressing to the very state we’ve been struggling to escape for the past 145 years. What happened to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearing to breathe free…”? We are a nation made of immigrants, there are only a comparative handful of true Native Americans and 99% of us are not them. We would not be “Americans” if not for the strong immigrant tradition.

It should also be noted that the very immigrants they are campaigning against are required to take an American civics test be fore becoming legal citizens. Our own citizens face no such requirements. If my High School is any indication (and it is a fairly average High School), a  basic government course isn’t even required for those born in the USA. You want to ensure an educated electorate? Do something useful with No Child Left Behind and bring back a required Government and Civics course.

The Tea Party movement, and the racist hacks who swell it’s ranks are an embarrasment to the country. I close with one of my favorite lines from the Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles, “You’ve got to remember that these are people of the land, the common clay of the new West. You know… Morons.”

Today alumni and students of Salisbury High School gathered to mourn the loss of one of their own.  There were students from all across the social spectrum. Some of us were friends ourselves, some of us were acquaintances and some of us had almost nothing in common. Except the loss of Marcus. Our common bond for the night was: we came to say goodbye.

That’s the type of person Marcus was. Every time I saw him he was ready with a smile or friendly comment. I have never heard him truly angry at anyone nor had he ever spoken an unkind word if he could avoid it. He had friends all across the school, a fact which truly registered tonight.  I once heard somewhere a bit of dialogued that claimed “What we leave behind is not as important as how we’ve lived,” while this may be the case Marcus should be satisfied in both categories. What he left behind is a result of how he lived. He was kind to all, accepting to all, and remarkably (for a Salisbury student) drama free. He leaves behind a diverse group of lives he touched.

It is unfortunate that he could not be with us, but I trust he was looking down from wherever he was and I hope he saw the immense crowd and knows of the lives he touched either directly or indirectly. For all the years I knew him he and his family raised Seeing Eye Puppies so his caring nature branched even further then perhaps anyone realized.

So now I say goodbye to one of the kindest, gentlest people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. I hope wherever you are you can read this and know the affect you had on people.  As I was leaving my house to head to the viewing, behind it was a beautiful, vibrant, double rainbow looking like it started on your house and ended at Burkolders, you must have done something right. That is all the sign I need to know you ended up in the right place. Goodbye my friend.

We’ll see you on the other side.

The National Healthcare System debate is stirring up feelings on both sides of the political spectrum, and the crazies are out in force. Foremost among them now is former GOP Vice President Candidate/Former GOP Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin. Yesterday, this was the statement she broadcasted on her Facebook (original source can be found Here:

“As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course.

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

I read this and felt my brain cells dying. I don’t recall anyone (on either side of the Aisle) mentioning a “death panel” to make decisions about who can live and who can die, who can receive coverage and who can’t. I know the GOP seems to be running out of logical arguments and is having something similar to an SAT Buzzword comment, but they seem to be confusing some of their terms. One of their favorite buzzwords is “Socialism”, they seem to be confusing “socialism” with “Nazism.” The two are not similar.

Sarah Palin resigned her position and requested, (in a move reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore.”) that the press “stop making things up” and to remove her family from the public eye; then in a move reminiscent of Tricky Dick’s return to politics, she decides it’s ok for her to make things up and drag her family, in the shape of her Down Syndrome baby, right back into the spotlight.

Palin was once heralded as the Shining Beacon of Hope for the Republican Party. I sincerely hope the GOP is reconsidering. Right now the basic GOP strategy is very similar to the old High School English/AP Essay Fall Back strategy, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, confound them with bullshit.” While that strategy works well in essay’s so long as you’re writing well defended bull, but some of the recent stuff from the GOP can’t even claim to be that.

If the current Republican strategy continues the fear-mongering and nonsense spouting of the last 8 years, not only are they insulting the American electorate, they are an embarrassment to the American political system.