A CITY SET ON A HILL

A CITY SET ON A HILL!

“You are the light of the world.  A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid”[i] 

Since the days of  Puritan settlement, Matthew’s words metaphorically described the United States’ role in the world.  We, with all our failings, serve as a beacon to those seeking freedom from poverty and totalitarian governments, those seeking opportunity, and  their unalienable  right to self-determination.  Senator McCain’s recent speech, upon accepting the prestigious Liberty Award, spoke truth to power.[ii]  He suggested, eloquently, that those who support spurious nationalism … who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems are as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the heap of history.”  His words seemed, to some, to be directed at the President.  His words were countered in a presidential tweet: “I’m being very nice.  I’m being very, very nice.  But at some point I fight back, and it won’t be pretty.”[iii]  Our glow dims once more.

I strongly disagree with some policies espoused by either major party, but policy is not what I’m talking about here.  The tone of the political conversation is debasing our values, our ethos, and our concept of freedom.  Too much talk today lacks class, divides our people, and promotes extreme nationalism.  Words matter, they convey a style, they define who we are as a nation.  Unity, not division is the job of our leaders: E Pluribus Unum.  Words matter!

Across the political landscape, on a daily basis, we witness civility, elegance, and eloquence diminished by our national leadership.  The pity is that tens of millions of people don’t seem to care.  A best friend tells me he doesn’t care either.  He and others sent a non-establishment person to Washington to restore their version of what the country should be, to eradicate the harm done to it in the last twenty years by outlier administrations of both parties.  We choose to disagree, which friends can do.  An unwritten rule among ex Presidents is that they do not comment on the actions of the sitting President.  This small club respects the majesty of the office.  The lack of civility and the words of disunity by the incumbent rose to a level that prompted two past Presidents to condemn the actions and the rhetoric.  They broke the club’s long standing tradition.

We see a rise in nationalistic thinking and action in the comments of the administration’s wingman.  Simple calls for “draining the swamp” diminish into accusations of party heresy.  The very people who should be fighting to reduce the cancer of bigotry against people of color, various religions, or the LGBT, seem to encourage it.   

America is not a piece of ground; it is a state of mind, an experiment in self-determination, a unifying proposal, an ideal that celebrates diversity people and thought, and is “the last best hope of earth.”[iv]  President Reagan called it a shining city on a hill.[v]  Our history and our destiny are to be a beacon for the world.  The world expects us to lead, to be an example for mistreated people in other nations who live in poverty or under cruel governments.  Our administration’s rhetoric abuses that sacred trust.  It dims our light.

George Washington told us that we should place our identity as Americans above our identities as members of a state, city, or region.  He cautioned us to look beyond any slight differences between religions, manners, habits, and political principles.  He called on us to place independence and liberty above all else, wanting everyone to be united as one.[vi]  Our administration speaks to the opposite goals.  Their words encourage division.     

The more I read Presidential speeches, the more I appreciate the thought that went into them, how they chose just the right words for the time or event, how they sought to unify the nation.  Their words are elegant, soul raising and comforting.  Reagan comforted the nation the night of the Challenger disaster that killed seven brave people.  His words keep the memory alive, even for those not yet born when it happened[vii]: “We will never forget them, or the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’”[viii]  Today we witness a war of tweets about the President’s consoling call to the family of the grieving family of a soldier killed in Niger.  A Congresswoman turns a sacred action into political harangue for a personal fifteen minutes of fame.  And the tweets start again.  Words matter.

Mario Cuomo, Governor of New York, who opposed Reagan’s policies, gave a spellbinder Keynote Speech at the Democratic national convention.  “The President is right.  In many ways, we are a shining city on a hill.  But the hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in the city’s splendor and glory…There’s another city; there’s another part of the shining city; the part where some people can’t pay their mortgages[ix] ….  Even in dissension, there was eloquence.  Not today!   

 President Kennedy reminded us that “civility is not a sign of weakness.”  Though he spoke of relationships between nations, his exhortation that we “let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems that divide us works for individuals and political parties as well.”[x]  Civility is not a hard concept.  We expect it of those we meet on a daily basis; we expect it from those with whom we disagree, those of other beliefs and especially from our civil leaders.  Kennedy said, “The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it.  And the glow from that fire can truly light the world.”  We need to stoke the flames anew with civility, eloquence, and elegance.  Our people deserve at least that much from our leaders if we are to remain a light unto the world!

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[i] Matthew 5:14  King James Bible

[ii] National Constitution Center – Liberty Award Presentation – October 16, 2017

[iii] Donald Trump Tweet – CNN News- 10/18/2017

[iv] Message To Congress – Abraham Lincoln – December 1, 1868

[v] Ronald Reagan – Pre-Election Night Address –  November 5, 1984

[vi] Farewell Address – George Washington – November 19, 1796

[vii] Address to the Nation on The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster – January 28, 1986

[viii] John Magee, Jr. – High Flight - 1941

[ix] Mario Cuomo – Democratic National Convention - 1984

[x] John F. Kennedy – Inaugural Address – January 1961

Globalization Requires Competitive Education and Training

Globalization Requires Competitive Education and Training

NAFTA is anathema to many people.[i]  The President wants to pull us out of the agreement.  He also wants to extricate us from several other trade agreements.  Free trade isn’t free but it is a global reality.  It cost some Americans their jobs.  It also creates American jobs.  A promise to renegotiate the agreements with an America-first emphasis helped win the last election.

New England textile companies moved south in the 40s and 50s, eliminating thousands upon thousands of high paying jobs, ruining the economy of northern towns, cities, and families.  The South offered significantly lower wages, electric costs 44% lower and transportation costs one third lower than up North.  In the ‘50s, the minimum wage was 75 cents an hour compared to the union rate of $1.20 in New England.[ii]  The bottom line always moves to lowest costs.  By 2004, most of the southern plants had moved to Mexico, India, or China, which had lower costs.  Americanization morphed into globalization!

The United States has a number of examples of its ability to produce excellent products at reasonable costs.  The car industry is one example.  Honda has twelve manufacturing plants in the US that build 73% of its cars sold here.  Mercedes announced last month that it would invest one billion dollars in new car and battery plants in the US.  Toyota is investing billions in the US.  Its Camry is one of the largest selling cars in the US and it’s made here.  Volvo just announced plans to invest 500 million dollars to expand its US plant.  They are investing here because of the high productivity of the US worker, low wages and start-up costs and because there is a market for their products.  Did you know that the largest exporter of American made cars is BMW,[iii] and the second largest is Mercedes?

The Dreamliner, Boeing’s proud entry into the modern commercial airline industry, is really only assembled in the US.  Its components: wings, fuselage, wingtips, landing gear wells, tail, and stabilizers, come from Japan, Italy, Sweden, or Australia, as well as the US.[iv]

The President wants to punish US companies that move manufacturing to other countries because it diminishes our production capabilities and costs Americans jobs.  He suggested a 30% tariff on Ford cars brought back into the country from Mexico.  That suggests that he too doesn’t have a good grasp of global economics.  We know that automation caused 83% of lost jobs in the past ten years.[v]  The next five to ten years will see upwards of fifteen million US jobs lost to Artificial Intelligence technology, higher than the job loss during the Great Recession.[vi]  Most will be unskilled jobs.  Foxconn, a Taiwan company building a plant in Wisconsin with 13,000 jobs will make the glass faces for IPhones.  A general manager, however, stated that they have a 3-phase strategy for complete factory automation.  In a few years, it wants only a few employees for logistics and quality control.[vii]How long can we ignore the speed with which technology is changing the very nature of work and our culture?

 Globalization changes the dynamics of business.  A company like Ford, with plants in 21+ countries, is a worldwide company that happens to have its headquarters in the US.  BMW, with plants around the world happens to have its headquarters in Germany.  Is Apple a US company?  Is Google?  Is Facebook?  Apple can’t manufacture iPhones in the US because we don’t have trained employees, yet its employees work in 22 other countries.  George Will suggests that we are in an Age of Complacency.[viii]  We fail to see the need for urgency or we ignore it.  We’ve ignored it for too many years.  It’s time to do something. 

W. Edward Deming, the father of quality management, opines, “Without data you’re just another person with an opinion.”[ix]  Well, we have the data.  We know technology is moving faster in two weeks today than it did in a century in past times.  Development is at a level where deep learning technology and big data analysis nearly replicates the human brain.  Assurances of massive job losses because of technology seem real.  If we know this, shouldn’t we do something about it?

For the most part, our schools don’t teach robotics and coding or much about artificial intelligence.  If they do, it’s to a few students in after-school clubs.  Our country needs highly skilled employees to compete, urgently!  An untrained workforce is one of the unintended consequences of focusing curriculums almost exclusively on college prep.  We knew that 70%+/- of our students don’t go to college, yet we eliminated most vocational education in most high schools.

Here is my take.

·         We all need to understand the integrated world.  The U.S. worker competes with billions of people around the globe.  We don’t have a national strategy for developing a modern workforce.  A better-trained workforce is a national problem not a local issue  

·         Parents and Grandparents need to become less technology challenged.  “I don’t like computers and smart phones” isn’t acceptable anymore.  It sets a wrong model for the next generations.  We must insist that schools change to meet the needs of a modern world.  Change is coming too quickly to wait for an evolutionary process

·         State legislatures need to reassess their emphasis on college prep for everyone.  People don’t need a college degree to get a good paying job when trained for the needs of the new economy.   

·         Teacher certification programs need to develop coding skills, technology applications, AI and robotics

·         School Boards need to change their curriculums to include coding as a primary subject in elementary schools, continuing through high school

·         High Schools need to develop a solid four-year robotics curriculum, with at least one year required of all students.  All students need an introductory course in artificial intelligence, its uses and its methodology

·         Community Colleges need to up their game to become centers of technical education, acting as extensions of the local high schools

·         The federal government needs to provide the seed-money to improve school curriculums.  New equipment is expensive

·         Business and industry needs to take the lead to help schools institute programs that will qualify students for good paying jobs.[x]  Think Germany

·         Business and Unions need to develop hi-tech apprenticeship programs to train potential employees.

What do you think?

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[i] North American Free Trade Agreement

[ii] The Atlantic – John F. Kennedy – January 1954

[iii]BMW Manufacturing Remains Largest U.S. Automotive Exporter –BMW Manufacturing News Center -2016

[iv] Modern Airliners.com - 2015

[v]Thanks for Being Late – Thomas Friedman - 2016

[vi]CBINSIGHTS – 10 Million Jobs At High Risk of Disruption – 09 /2017

[vii]Dai Jia-peng – Digitimes 2016

[viii] Age of Complacency – George Will – Washington Post – September 25, 2017

[ix]W. Edward Deming – Out of Crisis - 1982

[x]Watch this short video at www.YouTube.com - BMW Series 3 Assembly – to get a better understanding of modern manufacturing

Let’s Talk Guns, Now!

Should everyone be able to own a gun?  Absolutely!  Except those who shouldn’t! 

I started these comments two months before Las Vegas.  I rewrote them a few times.  Several people read different iterations, pointed out flaws in my argument, or suggested better ways of making a point.  I discussed it with a strong supporter of gun ownership who has good data on which to base his opinion.  I have more questions now than when I started.  Every time there is a mass shooting, one side of the issue calls for banning all guns and the other says it’s not a good time to discuss it.  They’re both wrong.  We shouldn’t ban all guns and there is never a bad time to discuss the issue.

The United States is an armed camp!  We have 300 million guns in the country, 113 guns per 100 people.[i]  The NRA spent $50 million on the 2016 campaign to ensure that politicians understood clearly that they mess with guns at their peril![ii]  To be fair, the NRA also calls for strict enforcement of current gun laws and severe penalties for breaking those laws.  It has enormous influence for an organization of only five million members.  However, it has the money, a lot of it from gun manufacturers.  We can do better. 

Consider these five ideas:  1) we have a Second Amendment, 2) not everyone should be able to buy a gun, 3) some people use guns to kill others, 4) background checks aren’t very effective, 5) illegal guns are everywhere. 

1)The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states:  “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”….  I might argue syntax (or Article 1 of the Constitution[iii]), but SCOTUS ruled that we can’t take away a person’s right to defend their home.  So, let’s not do that!

2) I agree that guns don’t kill people, but some people kill people with guns.  So, let’s limit which people can own guns.  People with mental issues should not own guns, and doctors should be able to report those people to authorities.  Felons should not own guns.  People under twenty-one shouldn’t own handguns.

You need a license to drive a car.  That means you are16 years old, completed 50 hours of training, took a vision test, a written test and a driving test, why not require a license to purchase a gun?  Your car must be registered, why not register guns?  Why not require gun safety classes for gun ownership?

Most European countries require a license to purchase a gun, and the process is simple: show a need (hunting, sport shooting, etc).  Then,  interview with the local police to prove you aren’t a felon, submit a certificates from doctors stating that you are of sound mind, take a gun safety course, and show where you will lock up the gun if there are kids around.  Gun owners tell us these steps are the start of a slippery slope of the government confiscating our weapons.  I disagree.  A recent poll indicates that for those who support unrestricted gun ownership, the issue is a main factor in determining how they vote.  For those who oppose unfettered ownership, it’s hardly a consideration at all.[iv]  Does our DNA include a heightened fear of government takeover?  For some, evidently the fear is real.

Our friends to the north have a very similar frontier history as we do.  They require permits to purchase firearms, ban almost all handguns and military type weapons, and limits ownership of other guns.  In the US, 64% of all homicides are gun related, 31% in Canada, 13% in Australia, and 4.5% in England and Wales.[v]

3) The CDC tells us that there are 93 killings per day from guns, 12,000 homicides per year.  On October 2, 2017, there were 59 just in Las Vegas.  None of the guns used in that mass shooting should be legal.  They are military grade weapons.  Boxes of ammunition covered the floor of the hotel.  Why not limit the amount of ammunition a person may purchase for a registered gun?  Why not limit the number of bullets in a munitions clip?  Why not track the number of guns a person purchases and include it in the background check?  The questions keep coming!

4) As is so often the case, we have the cart before the horse.  When you go to the gun store to buy a gun, you submit to a background check, which might take all of a half hour.   They blocked two million people from buying guns, but didn’t identify people with mental problems.  Eighty-nine percent of gun owners and non-gun owners alike agree that people with mental illnesses should not be able to purchase a gun according to a PEW study.[vi] Every time we have a mass shooting at a school or other public place, people ask why we allow a person with mental problems to own guns.  I ask the same question.  If the NRA took a strong position in favor of preventing people with mental issues from owning guns, it would be a win-win for them and the country. 

5) The PEW study noted that most gun owners are in rural areas and identify as outdoor people.  They aren’t the problem.  Handguns on the streets are the problem.  The law says you must be 21 years old to own a handgun.  We know that 86% of juveniles in jail had owned a gun[vii] and that five out of six guns used by felons are purchased illegally.  Most handguns are imported from countries that don’t let their own citizens own them; most go to criminals; street gangs.  The evening news is like listening in on the 911 call-center.  The NRA would do the country a great service if it supported laws that give hunters license to own guns and laws to get handguns off the streets. 

Here is my take:

·         Require licensing before gun purchases

·         Restrict access to guns by people with mental issues

·         Change the laws so that families can get treatment and, if required, hospitalization for those who have mental problems and allow doctors to report people who shouldn’t own guns.  Change the HIPPA laws.

·         Take handguns out of the hands of felons, young people, and aliens  

·         Ban all military type weapons.  There is no reasonable reason to own them.  You don’t use them to hunt.

·         Set limits on the purchase of ammunition

·         Stop the import of anything but sport guns – no military weapons or handguns

·         Require licensing before gun purchases

·         Require all gun purchases and trades, even within families, to go through a licensed dealer

·         Require mandatory long jail sentences for any crime committed with a gun

For Americans, gun ownership is part of our history and our culture.  Gun owners need to be convinced that simple steps to limit gun ownership are not a slippery slope to a total ban.  Until we do that, criminal gun owners will control our city streets and our nation’s ethos.  Daily killings and mass killings cannot become the norm for our society. 

What do you think?

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[i] Congressional Research Service - 2017

[ii] The NRA Placed Big Bets on the 2016 Election, and Won Almost All of Them – Mike Spies and Ashley Balcerzak – Open Secrets – 11/09/2016

[iii] Article One, U.S. Constitution – ‘To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia,”  1789

[iv] Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll – September 8, 2017

s[v] BBC News April 2017

[vi] PEW Research – June 2017

[vii] U.S. Department of Justice - Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention - 2000

Seasons

I love Christmas, especially in late December!  I drove by a house the other day and noticed the owner up on a ladder, hanging Christmas lights.  I drove by today, and he was putting lighted trees and reindeer in the front yard.  It’s the first day of October for heaven’s sake.

I like seasons.  When I grew up school started the day after Labor Day.  Thanksgiving was the final weekend of deer season.  The fire department strung the Christmas lights across the three main streets in town the week before Thanksgiving.  On Thanksgiving night, the streets were full of people admiring how well the town looked.  Snow on the ground made it look like Currier and Ives.  The day after Thanksgiving, the shop windows debuted their Christmas windows.  This year some stores displayed decorations in September.  Don’t you like things the way they are supposed to be?

Longer and longer shopping seasons crept up on us unawares.  Stores opened at mid-night on Thanksgiving evening, then a couple of years later, at nine o’clock.  It only took a few years before Thanksgiving dinner had to be in the early afternoon so that people could line up for the six o’clock store opening.  Little time for giving thanks!  Now, of course, stores want to open early on Christmas day so that people can exchange their gifts for what they wanted in the first place, and at prices marked down even further than a day earlier.  Easter is in the same quagmire, with displays in the stores even before Lent starts.  Halloween starts in August as far as the stores are concerned, when really it’s not until October 31^st.  I would think now is the time to hang Halloween decorations, not Christmas lights.

I’ve tried hard to follow the seasons.  Maybe it hides my natural propensity for procrastination.  Anyway, the lights went on the house after Thanksgiving.  The tree went up the first week of December at the earliest and didn’t come down until Epiphany Sunday.  Easter followed Advent on the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21, the vernal equinox.  Most people don’t know that, so I didn’t have to rush with the decorations.  I like the predictability.

Holidays became all about selling.  The competition between stores and the internet is fierce and the seasons, especially Christmas, make or break the bottom line for many companies.  This explains the extended shopping seasons throughout the year.  I know all this, but I still wish the guy down the street would wait until December to hang the lights.