Farewell, My Republic - A Threnody*

I’ve made no qualms about my love for most things Disney.  I grew up on their animated features and television programming.  Mom painted me a mural on my early childhood bedroom wall that had all the characters coming out of the castle.  I’m fascinated by the theme parks and what makes certain areas successful.  How they operate and grow through the years.  And I’ve grown to appreciate the life of Walt Disney.  His desire to continue to evolve and grow, tackling new and more challenging projects at each step, from animated shorts, to animated features, to live action features, to combining live action and animation, to theme parks, to television, and even to urban planning.

One part of my love is a great appreciation for theme park music, both ride attraction soundtracks and area music.  It’s something I can put on in the background while I work and continue to appreciate.  In particular, I greatly appreciate those Walt-era attractions, both the ones I’ve been able to personally experience and those that have not existed for years.

A particular favorite album collection is the 1964 World’s Fair attractions.  A four disc set, with each disc covering a different attraction and experience at the fair created by Walt and his team.  Ford’s Magic Skyway, GE’s Carousel of Progress, Pepsi’s it’s a small world, and Great Moments for Mr. Lincoln for the Illinois state pavilion.

That last album has been getting a lot of play recently, as the words of Lincoln continue to remain relevant today.  The show begins with a state song and summary of Lincoln’s life, before transitioning into the more familiar part of the show, an animatronic figure of Lincoln rising from a chair and delivering a five minute speech.  

The speech is actually a combination of five famous speeches made by Lincoln through his life, performed by actor Royal Dano.  The collection of speeches is designed to greatly reflect the challenges Lincoln faced in holding the country together in perhaps its most tumultuous time to that point.  To convey the weariness and stress of the President, Dano was required to provide take after take, with the last one ultimately being chosen; the weariness, soreness, and tiredness in his voice being just right.

My favorite section of the attraction comes from the Young Men’s Lyceum Address of January 27, 1838.  In this segment, Lincoln highlights the strength and fragility of the nation, ultimately revealing the only way our country can fall.  A statement that still proves true today.

How then shall we perform it?--At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

In this segment of the speech, Lincoln is highlighting a truth we know today.  Against a foreign invader, a foreign enemy, we will coalesce and unite.  Pearl Harbor and 9/11 both remind us of this fact, pushing us together for the defense of the nation.  I remain convinced, no external threat could take America by force.  

They would first have to achieve Lincoln’s second truism.  To cause us to destroy ourselves from the inside.  Partisan fighting, tribalism, nativism, nationalism.  Isolationism.  America First, damn the consequences.  

When America falls, it’s at our own hands.

In the attraction, Lincoln skips to a later section of the speech, a plea for unification and dedication around the central unifying ideal at the foundation of the country: the rule of law.

Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap--let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;--let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.

Here, Lincoln isn’t speaking of specific letters of the law, not individual minutiae of specific legal provisions and regulations.  Rather, he is referring to the spirit of the law.  The idea of the rule of law and of the laws which underpin the foundation of our nation.  A reverence for the basic ideal of America.

For America has always been unique among countries.  Perhaps most striking in that there is really no true native child of the United States of America; there is no national identity of American.  What I mean by that, is that the nation, as a country again, has always been a collection of immigrants and their children united not by race, religion, ethnicity, or any of the traditional markers of a country, but instead united by a set of ideas.  The borders of our country outlining primarily the bounds of the people held together by those ideas.

Chief among those ideas is the rule of law - the idea that everyone is held accountable under the law.  We have no king that can claim privilege.  No notable exceptions.  We’re not perfect in execution, but as a principle, everyone from child to president is held accountable under the law.

To allow otherwise is to foster tyranny, and we were literally founded as a country to escape tyranny.

We wrote it in the Declaration of Independence and our foundational documents.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”

We recognize these rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, belong to every person (not citizen), every human being on the planet because they are provided to them by God, foundational to their creation. They are not granted by a government and thus subject to being taken away by the whims of that government, but part of our birthright from the Divine.

Because of that, everyone is equal and accountable to the law. Again, sometimes we have forgotten and not acted accordingly. We’ve spent way to much of our history trying to define exactly who was included in “all men,” but the consensus and recognition now and continuing is that it means every human being.

Beyond those foundational human rights outlined in our Declaration, we highlighted other rights of people in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

In the Constitution, we outlined a system of government with extensive checks and balances to make sure that no one branch or no individual could hold themselves above the law. The Legislature writes the laws and brings them into effect. The Executive can put a check on that by vetoing the bill, but that can be overturned by the Legislature if there is sufficient agreement. The Executive then enforces the law as written, but can determine implementation. The Judiciary can check both the law as written and evaluate its Constitutionality, as well as weighing the Executive’s implementation of the law. Did the Executive overstep its authority, etc? All parties keep each other in check and those checks are to be respected. If the court deems something unconstitutional, the Legislative can try to write another law addressing the issues, or the Executive can try alternative enforcement. The checks cannot just be ignored.

Likewise, we wrote into the Bill of Rights limitations on any government branch acting against people’s rights. It is imperative to remember, these rights apply to people within the borders of the United States or its jurisdictions, not just citizens. These are fundamental human rights, and the Bill of Rights outlines limitations on how the government can act in response to them.

Rights of free speech and association
The right to a free press
The right to be secure in your personal, house, papers, and effects from unreasonable search and seizure
The right to due process

These last two are especially important, as we recognized that it is not enough for us to achieve a “right” outcome in any legal proceeding. We demand that things be done in the right manner.

These are what make America - not color, not race, not ethnicity, not status or any other defining characteristic. Our recognition of these rights as human rights and our protection of them are what define us.

And when we begin to systematically dismantle them, we are no longer America.

When we refuse to allow protest on college campuses because of the topic being protested and prosecute private universities because of their curriculum and policies which disagree with the administration’s thoughts.
When we strip access of the Associated Press to the White House press pool and install a cherry-picked group of “media” personnel
When the administration threatens suit against news organizations that have provided unfavorable coverage
When we allow ICE to invade churches and schools to “pursue” non-citizens, placing children in handcuffs to remove them from the country
When we deport individuals not to their country of origin, but to a gulag in El Salvador
When we deport individuals without any pretext of a hearing or judicial process
When we detain individuals including citizens because of the color of their skin matching the undocumented profile
When we turn away tourists at the door because their plans didn’t match government expectations
When we go through individuals phones to determine their eligibility to re-enter the country based on their social media posts regarding the current administration

When we make toddlers represent themselves in deportation hearings

Especially when the administration ignores the rulings of the Judiciary which have determined executive actions to violate these fundamental rights and proceeds anyway.

The deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be chilling to every single person in America. When any person, citizen or not, under the jurisdiction of the United States is sent to a foreign gulag admittedly by mistake and the government spends weeks minimizing its error, ignoring lower court orders to return him (especially given his protected status from his 2019 immigration hearing), ignores the part of a unanimous Supreme Court decision that direct the administration facilitate his return, and then digs in its heels, determined to leave him there, the entire populace of the country should be outraged. We should demand the administration correct its mistake and do things properly.

For that’s the point - it doesn’t matter if ultimately under the current administration, Garcia would be in line to be deported anyway. We demand something better of our government. Our foundational documents demand something better of our government. We demand that the government do things in the correct order, in the correct manner.

It’s the same in any criminal prosecution. It doesn’t matter whether the accused truly did the crime or not, if law enforcement and the prosecution do not handle the case in the appropriate manner. If law enforcement obtain the evidence illegally, it’s inadmissible. If the prosecution tampers with the jury pool, their verdict is null.

This stems from a fundamental principle that we would rather a guilty man go free than an innocent man be imprisoned. We feared the abuse of the Executive power that much. We feared that without proper restraint on the Executive, without risking guilty men going free because of improper methods in prosecution, that there would be far too many innocent men imprisoned, because its easy for the Executive to do.

It is what happens under tyranny. The Executive is able to penalize and imprison anyone they wish.

It’s what Washington feared in his farewell address. It’s what Lincoln immediately addressed after noting the country would only perish at its own hands.

I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice. This disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth, and an insult to our intelligence, to deny.

The dismantling of due process, the determination that a subset of the populace does not deserve due process, is beyond a Constitutional Crisis.  We’ve long crossed that threshold. 

It’s an attack on the fundamental character of the nation.

And we know the administration recognizes this.  They’ve admitted they are dismantling due process.  Trump has stated that if he were to actually follow the requirements of due process for all those they intent to deport, it would take 200 years.  

They don’t care and they are doing it anyway.

What remains is to see how long they continue to ignore court orders to do so.  As of now, it seems our checks and balances are failing.  The administration has decided to play chicken with the courts arrogant in its position.  So far, we’ve had no punitive action from the court - no contempt finding, no removal of licensure, etc.  It remains unseen whether they have the will to do so, or the power.  

This used to not be a political issue.  The idea that character mattered; that how things are done matter as much as the outcome used to be a Conservative rally point.

What changed?

In 1787, when Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention, a lady famously asked Franklin, “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic, or a monarchy?”  Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

And keep it we have, for nearly 240 years.  It’s been tried and tested, but keep it we have.

I don’t know how much longer we can continue. It really feels like our government is no longer trying to keep the republic, but actively dismantling it.

We have witnessed in just 93 days, a constant undermining of the rule of law and of fundamental rights of people by the current administration.  And by many it has been met with thunderous applause.  The urge for authoritarianism has proved too seductive, too appealing, such that we are sliding back into authoritarianism and there appears to be no stop to this progression - only forward momentum.

For the rest of us, we mourn.

To quote Lincoln again, “the bottom is out of the barrel.”

Oh the country will remain, but can we keep the ideal any longer?

Our questions now are whether it is possible to win back, what is the cost to restore it, and are we willing to pay that steep of a cost.

Is there anyone left willing to fight?

*Threnody is a fun word and was almost not the choice for today.  It refers to a work of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person.  I almost chose requiem, but that refers to music and there is no music here.  Since threnody covers a greater variety of media, it seems more appropriate.

Let Freedom Ring!

This year, as we remember and celebrate America, let us strive to hold it up to its highest standards.  Of liberty and justice for all.  That all are created equal.  That no one is above the law, regardless of the position they hold.  That separate is inherently unequal.  

That we are stronger together.  Out of many one.

Happy Independence Day!  May we celebrate wisely and well.

"This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”"

Martin Luther King, I Have A Dream, August 28, 1963

The Miserable State of Education in America

With Avalyn graduating from pre-school and facing Kindergarten and public school and other options, I look to what's happening in our public school system and am dismayed.  As a parent and as a spouse of an educator.  As a citizen of this state and this country.

The Texas Senate voted Monday, May 6, 2019, to pass HB-3, a House-sponsored school finance bill bringing massive changes to the STAAR test, the already ridiculous standardized test that is used to measure individual student, teacher, and school success.  Four more writing tests have been added, raising the number of tests that Texas students need to pass in order to progress through and graduate Texas schools to 21, which includes five end-of-course tests for high school students.  This number had been at 15 in 2012, dropped to a merciful 5 in 2013 after a wave of protests, and is now back at an all time high.  The new assessments added focus in grades 3-8 and add, by a vote of 18-13, a new assessment in kindergarten (?!? - expletives deleted).  All passed at the beginning of Teacher Appreciation Week.  Go on Texas, show us how you really feel about teachers.

This of course comes after even more controversies arise surrounding the STAAR test itself.  This years fifth grade STAAR test included the f-word in illustrations on 15,697 versions of a practice test.  Studies have shown the STAAR reading tests are questioning kids at two grade levels higher than what the test should be.  And who can forget the poet who could not answer the STAAR test questions written about her own poem.

And with all of this testing that has become a part of student's lives, Texas only ranks 40th in education.  Overall it receives a C-.  This breaks down into a C for Chance for Success, a C- in K-12 achievement, and a D in School Finance.  And this isn't new.  We've been low in the states rankings for a long time.  In 2010, we were 30th.

Sadly, it's not like the United States does much better in worldwide rankings.

Let's set aside how we are failing teachers.  Let's set aside having a Secretary of Education actually trying to undermine the public school system.  Let's set aside the misguided hope in charter schools.

Let's just look at numbers.

According to the World Top 20 Project, a project of the New Jersey Minority Educational Development non-profit, the United States in the first quarter of 2019 rates 14th in the World's Best Education Systems.  This is out of 201 world national education systems.  Last year, for all of 2018, we did not even make the top 20.  This list is determined based on categories that include:

• Early Childhood Enrollment Rates for 3 to 4 year old
• Primary Completion for 6 to 11 year old
• Lower Secondary Completion for 11 to 14 year old
• High School Graduation Rates for 14 to 18 year old
• College Graduation Rates for 18 to 25 year old
• Primary Test Scores for 6 to 11 year old
• Lower Secondary Test Scores for 11 to 14 year old
• School Safety Levels for 3 to 25 year old
• Out of School Children Ages for 3 to 14 year old
• Adult Illiteracy Levels for 15 year old and up
• National Student to Teacher Ratio, and
• Free Access to Schools from Early Childhood to Secondary

We didn't even crack the top in any of these categories.

And yet our solution is more standardized testing across the board, a method that we know DOES NOT WORK.  The Washington Post went as far as to list 34 reasons why they don't work in 2017.  Among other things, commercially produced machine-scored standardized tests:

• Are unavoidably biased by social-class, ethnic, regional, and other cultural differences
• Unfairly advantage those who can afford test prep
• Radically limit teacher ability to adapt to learner differences
• Provide minimal to no useful feedback to classroom teachers
• Are keyed to the deeply flawed, knowledge-fragmenting "core" curriculum adopted in 1893
• Have led to the neglect of play, music, art, and other non-verbal ways of learning
• Hid problems created by margin-of-error computations in scoring
• Penalize test-takers who think in nonstandard ways (as the young frequently do)
• Give control of the curriculum to test manufacturers (Hello Pearson)
• Encourage use of threats, bribes, and other extrinsic motivators to raise scores
• Assume that what the young will need to know in the future is already known
• Emphasize minimum achievement to the neglect of maximum performance
• Produce scores which can be - and sometimes are - manipulated for political purposes
• Create unreasonable pressures to cheat (looking at you Georgia scandal)
• Use arbitrary, subjectively-set pass-fail cut scores
• Reduce teacher creativity and the appeal of teaching as a profession
• Lessen concern for and use of continuous evaluation
• Have no "success in life" predictive power
• Unfairly channel instructional resources to learners at or near the pass-fail cut score
• Are open to scoring errors with life-changing consequences
• Are at odds with deep-seated American values about individuality and worth
• Create unnecessary stress and negative attitudes toward schooling
• Perpetuate the artificial compartmentalization of knowledge by field
• Channel increasing amounts of tax money away from classrooms and into corporate coffers (again, Hello Pearson)
• Waste the vast, creative potential of human variability
• Block instructional innovations that can't be evaluated by machine
• Unduly reward mere ability to retrieve secondhand information from memory
• Subtract from available instructional time
• Lend themselves to "gaming" - strategies to improve the success rate of guessing
• Make time - a parameter largely unrelated to ability - a factor in scoring
• Create test fatigue, aversion, and eventual refusal to take tests seriously
• Hide poor quality test items behind secrecy walls
• Undermine a fundamental democratic principle that those closest to the work are best positioned to evaluate its quality
• According to the National Academy of Sciences report to Congress, don't increase student achievement.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg, focused more on the school related impact.  That does not even get into the effect it's having on the kids.  At the grossest level, it's amazing that test officials have to have instructions prepared for what to do when a student vomits on the test.  As if it would be expected.

Or we could look at the spike in middle school suicides, doubling between 2007 and 2014.  This spike has been tied to increased pressure to achieve academically, more economic uncertainty, increased fear of terrorism, and social media.  A big part of the increased pressure to achieve academically is linked to the increase adoption of Common Core standards and new, more rigorous high stakes tests over the same time period.

Experts would point to the same kind of rigorous testing in countries like South Korea and point to an important lesson we would learn regarding student resistance to the high-stakes testing environment.  Instead of seeking to emulate this system, perhaps we should be wary of its potential effects like the fact that 1 in 4 youth in South Korea has contemplated suicide.

The sad thing is, we know what works.  Play.  Particularly in early childhood education.  Perhaps Mr. Rogers knew best after all.  "Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning.  But for children play is serious learning.  Play is really the work of childhood."  Children need to be moving, to be running, to solve problems on the playground, to build, to create to laugh, to experience.  And play can be guided or it can be free form, both have benefits and place in education and development.  Look at Finland.  Number 1 in the 2019 first quarter and Number 2 for 2018 overall.  Children don't start school until age 6 in preschool and then age 7 in kindergarten.  There a sizeable chunk of those student's day is devoting to play.  Not the measly 20 minutes most American schools might give.

And research supports this type of learning.  A research summary entitled "The Power of Play" concluded, "In the short and long term, play benefits cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development...When play is fun and child-directed, children are motivated to engage in opportunities to learn."

So why don't we do this?

One primary reason - it doesn't make anyone money. In particular, it won't make Pearson Education any money.

As of 2012, Pearson had nearly 40% of the testing market, triple their nearest competitor.  That's everything from the STAAR test to the SAT prep and beyond.  A hypothetical student could take Pearson tests from Kindergarten through at least 8th grade, a test they studied for using Pearson curriculum and textbooks to prepare for, taught to them by teachers certified by their own Pearson test. If at some point they are tested for a learning disability, that's also a Pearson test, and even if they dropped out, to avoid those tests, and wanted to take the GED, that's also now a Pearson test.

Pearson has enjoyed spectacular success and profits, despite their track record being littered with complaints regarding technical glitches, slow grading, and errors in their exams.  Even worse, they are notorious for using horrible practices for hiring graders for their exams and for the quotas used in scores awarded particularly in the writing exams.  Let's not even talk about their use of confidentiality agreements which prevent teachers from discussing errors in the exams.

Pearson has spent $160,000 in lobbying so far this year.  That's down due to the monopoly they now enjoy.  At their peak, they spent $1.08 million in 2011.  Even to the point of hiring a former House Public Education Chairman, Rob Eiseler, in 2013.  Maybe the problem's here?  Or is it just me?

Perhaps it's time that our legislators should care think more what is effective for the students, than what is beneficial for Pearson.

Novel, I know.

We Have a Long Way to Go

As if we needed proof.

We've recently seen both open and explicit reminders and subtle and quiet reminders of how far we have to come regarding addressing racism, racial discrimination, and bias.  

First, much attention has been drawn to Spike Lee's Oscar acceptance speech, with some, including our President, referring to it as racist.

Be nice if Spike Lee could read his notes, or better yet not have to use notes at all, when doing his racist hit on your President, who has done more for African Americans (Criminal Justice Reform, Lowest Unemployment numbers in History, Tax Cuts,etc.) than almost any other Pres!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2019

Here's the text of Spike's acceptance speech (included below).  I'm having trouble finding the racism in there.

"The word today is “irony.” The date, the 24th. The month, February, which also happens to be the shortest month of the year, which also happens to be Black History month. The year, 2019. The year, 1619. History. Her story. 1619. 2019. 400 years.

Four hundred years. Our ancestors were stolen from Mother Africa and bought to Jamestown, Virginia, enslaved. Our ancestors worked the land from can’t see in the morning to can’t see at night. My grandmother, Zimmie Shelton Retha, who lived to be 100 years young, who was a Spelman College graduate even though her mother was a slave. My grandmother who saved 50 years of Social Security checks to put her first grandchild — she called me “Spikie-poo” — she put me through Morehouse College and NYU grad film. NYU!

Before the world tonight, I give praise to our ancestors who have built this country into what it is today along with the genocide of its native people. We all connect with our ancestors. We will have love and wisdom regained, we will regain our humanity. It will be a powerful moment. The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let’s all mobilize. Let’s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let’s do the right thing! You know I had to get that in there."

What I see is a reminder of our uncomfortable history and a call to action.  It's not racist to disagree with the President.  It's not racist to say that Trump is on the wrong side of history. There are people of all races who think that.

It is ironic that a President who has trouble identifying actual racists believes Spike Lee to be one.  And also ironic that a President known for having issues with a teleprompter calls out Spike for reading from his notes.

I mean, I get it.  Spike's style is in your face. It's real.  It's visceral.  But that's his point.  BlacKkKlansman, his opus presented last year, opens with bookends of films within the film.  It opens with a long tracking shot from Gone With the Wind revealing the Confederate wounded, showing our twisted vision of a grand noble Dixie.  A Technicolor dream of the Old South.  In the middle, it slips in clips of The Birth of a Nation, a problematic  silent epic that on one hand cemented films legacy, but also was blatant propaganda for the Klu Klux Klan.  It ends with the reality of the live footage of the Charlottesville marches.  All gut punches that remind us of what we've been through and where we are.  How much this truly racist strain is among us.

But his speech Sunday night?  That's a good speech and a relatively restrained Spike.  I shudder how people calling him racist would react to his movies.

Plus, props to him for trying to walkout when Green Book was announced for Best Picture.  I'd have thrown my hands up too.

As a further reminder of how far we still have to go in more insidious ways, New York City, as of February 18, 2019, just passed an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on hair or hairstyle.  Specifically, the guidelines mention the right to maintain "natural hair, treated or untreated hairstyles such as locs, cornrows, twists, braids, Bantu knots, fades, Afros, and or the right to keep hair in an uncut or untrimmed state."  Workplace bans on any of these specific types of hairstyles would disproportionately affect minorities, specifically African Americans.  And they are surprisingly common.

As the article states, the guidelines are based on an argument that hairstyle is inherent to one's race and can be closely associated with racial, ethnic, or cultural identity, therefor deserving protection under the city's human rights laws.  This is currently something that is protected only at a local level.  There is no legal precedent in federal court for the protection of hair.  Last spring, the Supreme Court refused to hear arguments on Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Catastrophe Management Solutions (2013, Alabama), in which a black woman, Chastity Jones, had her job offer at an insurance company rescinded after she refused to cut off her dreadlocks.  The lower courts had ruled that the company's actions did not constitute racial discrimination.

This is tied to the idea of "good hair" - visibly loosely curled, wavy, and/or straight hair as opposed to tightly coiled hair.  The idea that somehow one style of hair is better than the other.  That natural hair is not desired.

I mean think about it.  It's 2019 and we have to forcibly remind people that others should be allowed to wear their hair as it naturally comes out of their heads!

We've made great strides, no question.  But we've got a long way to go.  And we really need to stamp out some fires that are coming back that we thought we put out long ago.

Quickly.

Top Ten Things I'm Thankful For #4 - A country with the greatest of all ideals

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

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We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

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Americanism is a question of principle, of idealism, of character.  It is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent.

Theodore Roosevelt

It seems fitting on this most American of holidays, to express my gratitude for the country that I call home.  Now this is not going to be a post on American exceptionalism.  I do have dreams of living in other countries and from my travels I could be at home in quite a few.  I am and will always be grateful to have been born in this great country.  For the grand experiment in which I am a part.

More than anything else, America is a country founded on the greatest ideals and principles of self-governance that have existed on this planet.  That the power lies with the people and government is to be of, for, and by those people.  That every person (regardless of how we have ill-applied this truth) is born with innate human rights.  Rights to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of their happiness.  That government exists to protect these rights.  And that we have taken provision to secure these rights through codification in our laws and in the provisions of a organizational document for our government that exists solely to protect these rights of the people, the Bill of Rights.

Through this, our revolution truly changed the world, and creating a beacon for those around the world yearning to be free.  We were always a nation of immigrants, a melting pot of different people groups, backgrounds, creeds, faiths, races, and tongues.  And from the beginning, the colonies represented various factions united around one central, specific idea - that there is a better way.  It's why we are the United States of America and not simply America; we have a built in recognition that we are an assembly of different pockets of people, united by our ideals and belief in the country we call home.  It's why our country continues to grow more and more diverse, as people from every corner of the globe buy into the dream and experiment that is America.  It's why we have a statue dedicated to Liberty, calling them home.

Our attitude towards immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal.  We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as the talent and energy allow.  Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances.

Robert Kennedy

We have always been great because of these ideals.  There is an apocryphal quote mis-attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville stating "America is great because she is good.  If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."  While the attribution may not be correct, the sentiment still remains true.  When we model and proclaim the ideals that we cling to, we are the greatest country on Earth.

We seem to be struggling with our ideals of late.  Closing ourselves off from the rest of the world instead of engaging it.  Fighting amongst ourselves instead of against the ills of this world.  Seeing groups long thought vanquished gaining ground again.  Attacking some of our most fundamental freedoms.

The good news is that there is hope.

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

Bill Clinton

Tomorrow will be better as long as America keeps alive the ideals of freedom and a better life.

Walt Disney

Lord, I thank you for this country that you have ordained under the guiding principles of liberty and justice for all.  I pray we remember those blessings and strive to uphold those ideals once again.

Post-Election Results and Analysis

The mid-terms are finally over and they have gone as most analysts would have predicted.  The Democrats have taken control of the house, winning around 30 seats.  The Republicans keep control of the Senate, maintaining a very slim majority.  Governorships slightly favor Republicans and Texas leadership remains fairly Republican.

Despite this fairly routine outcome, the night still brought many surprises and causes for celebration.

We saw tremendous voter turnout for a mid-term election, with some estimates as high as 114 million voters.

We were reminded that America is purple.

And we saw that Texas is already purple, and moving more in that direction.  Beto may have lost, but we see our state moving more into battleground state territory.  Cruz lost by a much narrower percentage than he should have in "red" Texas.  Partly because of the hype surrounding Beto, but also partly because Cruz is an extremely unlikable candidate.  Texans flipped two house seats Democratic and one in Tarrant County, the most staunchly conservative county in Texas.  Texans flipped two state senate seats Democratic and nine state house seats democratic.  The majority of the State Board of Education is now Democratic.   And with the shifting demographics of the state, this is something that is going to continue to trend towards change.   That's incredible!

We have another year of the woman, with over 100 women taking seats in the House of Representatives.  This shatters previous records of female representation, though it still represents a long way to go.

We have seen several first in this election.   First Native American women to win seats in Congress.  Youngest woman ever elected to Congress.  First Muslim women to win seats in Congress.  First Somali-American to serve in Congress.  First African-American woman to represent Massachusetts and Connecticut. First female senator for Tennessee. First Latina women to represent Texas.  First openly gay male governor.  First female governors of South Dakota and Maine.

All around we have seen a number of diverse candidates elected to office.

And miracle of all miracles, beer and wine sales passed in Jasper County.

We've also seen some rather unpleasant things in this election cycle.

It would seem the definition of irony is an image going around today.  The image reads "If your party won, don't gloat.  If your party lost, don't despair.  This has been hard on all of us.  Treat others the way you want to be treated.  We all need it."

While I may agree with the sentiment, it's a little hard to take from those who only post it after "their party" suffers a loss.  For I remember their eight years of complaining under one president, followed by minimizing complaints under the next.  These victories will be celebrated in the moment, for in many instances, they represent tremendous change and truly remarkable victories.  From there we can move on to the harder step of working together once the high has worn off.

We've seen that many people need a refresher in civics and especially in their "-isms," so they can have a greater understanding in how republicanism is supposed to work and can understand how Democratic Socialism and Socialism are not the same thing.  Or perhaps they could understand how many "socialist" programs they actually support and approve of.

We've also seen that there are many people that still do not grasp the political reality of our times.  Democrats did not win because illegals voted or because of voter fraud.  Instances of voter fraud in actuality are exceedingly rare.  Republicans did not win because of voter suppression or gerrymandering.  Though we know that this has occurred.  Either side won because roughly half of the country supports them.  Put another way, it is generally safe to assume that whatever you believe, roughly half the country disagrees with you.  That's just how divided we are.

Given that, for election purposes, we have to start with the presumption that roughly 40% of America will vote Democrat NO MATTER WHAT and roughly 40% will vote Republican NO MATTER WHAT. So, roughly 80% of voters are already decided, leaving 20% as the deciding factor.  I honestly believe it's probably closer to 45%, 45%, and 10%, respectively.

You can see this in the number of elections won with one candidate with a low 50-something percent and the other with a high 40-something percent, just like all of the other recent previous elections.  Look at Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke.  50.89% Cruz, 48.32% O'Rourke.  The tiniest of margins.

That should be a sobering thought.  It should serve as a sobering reminder of why we have to work together.  And that perhaps, one party does not have all the answers.  Instead we are using it to demonize half the country for daring to have a different opinion on how we can improve.  For daring to disagree.

Perhaps we can proceed from there.  Perhaps we can begin to treat each other as fellow citizens and work together to compromise and move forward.  I don't know.  It doesn't seem likely, but stranger things have happened.

We saw that proof last night.

American Prodigal

"Jesus uses the younger and elder brothers to portray the two basic ways people try to find happiness and fulfillment: the way of moral conformity and the way of self-discovery.  Each acts as a lens coloring how you see all of life, or as a paradigm shaping your understanding of everything.  Each is a way of finding personal significance and worth, of addressing the ills of the world, and of determining right from wrong.
...
     Our Western society is so deeply divided between these two approaches that hardly anyone can conceive of any other way to live.  If you criticize or distance yourself from one, everyone assumes you have chosen to follow the other, because each of these approaches tends to divide the whole world into two basic groups.  The moral conformists say: 'The immoral people - the people who "do their own thing" - are the problem with the world, and moral people are the solution.'  The advocates of self-discovery say: 'The bigoted people - the people who say, "We have the Truth" - are the problem with the world, and progressive people are the solution.'  Each side says: 'Our way is the way the world will be put to rights, and if you are not with us, you are against us.'"

Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God, Chapter 3

Reading The Prodigal God for Journey Group has been a very eye-opening and educational experience.  In many ways, it has helped me see the divide between elder brothers and younger brothers that goes to the heart of society, not limited by religious influence.  As Keller indicates, the difference in the elder and younger brother is the root separation in the way that they try to find happiness and fulfillment.

The elder brother sticks to moral conformity - by doing all the right things, by following the rules, and meeting expectations, he finds his sense of worth.  He is the "good son," taking pride in this title, in his accomplishments and the delayed gratification that they may bring. His worth is nominal - he is defined by his status, by his perception, by his reputation.  In many ways, he is defined by the things he does not do.  He is further defined by his relationships - he is defined by his family, by society, by his associates, and their expectations.  He is what he is expected to be.

The younger brothers is following the path of self-discovery.  He is the one who needs to go explore, to "find himself," and to do it now.  His worth is experiential - to see, taste, touch, do.  He is defined by the things that he does.  He is further defined only by the terms he sets.  He is his own man.

And we definitely see both types of brothers in the modern church.  In our couples devotional, Life Under God, The Kingdom Agenda by Tony Evans, we just wrapped up two days that were on isolationist churches and conformist churches.

Isolationist churches are elder brothers to the nth degree.  In an odd pairing of terms, they are so focused with moral conformity to the strictest of God's standards, that they are determined not to be affected by the wicked world.  Put another way, they are so concerned about not being of the world, that they refuse to be in the world.  They lean heavy on the side of truth with very little love (from the previous post here).  They remain cloistered off in their building of meeting, exploring the scripture, but preaching only to the saints.  The salt for the earth that refuses to leave its shaker; the light of the world that hides under a bushel.

Conformist churches are younger brothers gone rampant.  They are so open to self-discovery, they dilute God's word and commands to the lowest common denominator.  They are so in the world, they often start looking exactly like it.  They lean heavy on the side of love with very little truth (or at least avoiding the harsher truths).  So concerned about feelings, they can endanger the eternal for temporal comfort.

I believe this paradigm can also be used to explain the great political divide in our country, for Republicans/Conservatives have come down squarely on the side of moral conformity and Democrats/Liberals have come down squarely on the side of self-discovery.

Since even before the advent of the Moral Majority and Religious Right, Conservatives have pitched their tent with the elder brother.  "The moral conformists say: 'The immoral people - the people who "do their own thing" - are the problem with the world, and moral people are the solution.'"  I have seen these exact posts on Facebook and other social media from the Conservative view point, the ones seeking to rid the world of all the people that they deem as "immoral" (read: Democrats/liberals) so that morality can reign and cleanup our society.  They generally believe in absolute black and white on most issues, and expect the rest of society to believe as they do.  If you do not, you are wrong.  You have to stand and salute the flag at all times.  Authority and in particular police authority cannot be questioned or held to account.  Respect trumps all.  So long as you say the right things and check the right boxes you are good. Individual freedom is de-prioritized for an adherence to social norms and expectations.  You do good because that is what is expected, you go to church because that is what is expected, etc.  And so long as those expectations are met, everything works fine.

Liberals pitch their tent with the younger brother, with self-discovery and self-expression.  The ultimate in personal freedom.  "The advocates of self-discovery say: 'The bigoted people - the people who say, "We have the Truth" - are the problem with the world, and progressive people are the solution.'"  And again, I have seen these images on social media as well.  Nominally, this is what the support of Trump has been linked to - to the push back against being called a bigot for disagreement with the advocates of self-discovery.  Liberals generally see intolerance and social injustice as the worst things in the world.  They believe everyone should be able to engage in their own self-discovery and self-expression so long as it does not interfere with anyone else.  And because each person must find their own path to self-enlightenment, there are multiple truths that can be embraced.  Expectation and social norms are things to be fought against, as it is up to each person to find their own way.  And for everyone else to get out of their way.

And, as expected, whether between individual brothers or people, among churches, or politically, the two groups clash with the fiercest of disagreements.  "Each side says: 'Our way is the way the world will be put to rights, and if you are not with us, you are against us.'"

The most amazing thing about the parable of the prodigal son is that Jesus says two things about both brothers: 1) they are both equal and 2) they are both wrong.  In the parable, Jesus presents each brother as a sinner in need of forgiveness.  Both needing their father's forgiveness, both receiving their father's forgiveness, and both being offered a seat at the feast.  This is the ultimate shock of the story, particularly to those hearing it when first presented.  The Pharisees and Sadducees would have expected the younger brother to be seen as a sinner, they would not have expected the elder brother to be seen as one also.  After all, they were the older brother.  Beyond the shock of the younger brother being forgiven, the elder brother being seen as unrepentant sinner would defy all thought.  And yet, Jesus presents his sin as more serious, because he cannot see past his sin to receive his father's blessing, consequently making him estranged.  The parable ends with the younger brother repentant and restored, but the elder brother unrepentant and separated from his father.

Beyond presenting both brothers as equals, Jesus also presents them both as having the wrong worldview.  As having a wrong view of their sin.  Declaring that both moral conformity and self-discovery are the wrong method by which to live.  For both views present an improper view of sin in the brothers lives.  The self-discovery view says that "if it feels good, it cannot be bad."   The view that so long as my action does not hurt anyone else, and it brings me pleasure, it is permissible.  We know this to be false.  There is a higher standard.  The moral conformity view says that so long as I do this list of things and avoid doing this list of things, I'm ok.  It's a works theology, which would have made sense to the Jewish listeners of the day and still resonates with a large group of people today.  The idea that "good people go to Heaven."  As The Prodigal God states, though, this view enables people to falsely believe that they don't need Jesus as a savior.  To allow people to believe that they do not have anything they need saving from.  "I'm not a bad person."  Not recognizing that the list of dos and don'ts is impossible to follow and is designed to reveal that truth to us.  To point us to our inability and insufficiency.  To point us to our need for a savior.

Jesus instead presents a third way.  A third path for fulfillment and happiness.  The only Way.  Where we accept our need for a savior, and follow Him, imitating His life and following His directives.  It's not a compromise or a blending of the two previous paths.  It's something different entirely.  And it is through this way, and this way alone that the world is changed.  That the two camps are bridged.  That sees healing.

And that remains true whether the divide is between people, between churches, or between parties.  Whether individually, religiously, or politically.

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me."

John 14:6

What path are you following now?  Where do you find fulfillment and happiness?  Do you know there is a better way?

If you are a younger brother, is it time to turn away from the path of self-discovery and destruction that you are on?

If you are an older brother, is it time to recognize your inability and to cast off the weight of expectation, to take up a lighter yoke?

And to us all as citizens, can we put aside this entrenched partisan bickering and find a better path forward?

Let's stop being older brothers and younger brothers.  Let's just be brothers, and treat each other accordingly.

Capra and Mr. Smith

I'm been in dire need of a little positivity for a while now regarding our nation.  So, I've turned, of course, to one of the best representations of the best we have to offer.

Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Perhaps the greatest film on the ability of one man to affect change.  Yes, some people view Capra as too sentimental, but I'm not one of them and this film is truly his best.  Representing the ideals this country was founded upon and should be held to.

Capra was born in Sicily and immigrated to the United States at the age of five.  He remembered the ship's arrival in New York Harbor, where he saw " a statue of a great lady, taller than a church steeple, holding a torch above the land we were about to enter."  He remembers his father exclaiming "Ciccio, look!  Look at that! That's the greatest light since the star of Bethlehem!  That's the light of freedom!  Remember that.  Freedom."

From humble beginnings in Los Angeles' East side, Capra worked up into film with Hal Roach and the Our Gang shorts, into success at Columbia with The Younger Generation, It Happened One Night, and You Can't Take It With You.

While he is probably best known for It's A Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington probably best represents the Capra myth, expressing his patriotism more than any other and presenting the individual working within democratic systems to overcome rampant political corruption.

It was an uphill battle to get the film made.  While researching the film, Capra was able to stand close to President Franklin Roosevelt during a press conference after recent acts of war by Germany in Europe.  Capra would fear that it was the most untimely time to make a satire about Washington.  Likewise, when the filiming was completed, Columbia sent preview copies to Washington.  Joseph Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom begged Columbia not to release it in Europe, so as not to paint the picture that the United States was full of graft, corruption, and lawlessnes.

Capra's vision remained clear.  "The more uncertain the people of the world, the more their hard-won freedoms are scattered and lost in the winds of chance, the more they need a ringing statement of America's democratic ideals.  The soul of our film would be anchored in Lincoln.  Our Jefferson Smith would be a young Abe Lincoln, tailored to the rail-splitter's simplicity, compassion, ideals, humor, and unswerving moral courage under pressure."

They found their Abe Lincoln in Jimmy Stewart, who truly honed his everyman image in this film.  This was his second film with Capra after You Can't Take It With You, as well as his second screen partnership with Jean Arthur.  But while You Can't Take It With You brought Stewart widespread attention, it was Mr. Smith Goes to Washington that brought him critical acclaim, earning Stewart his first of five Academy Award nominations.  Before Stewart died, he stated he wanted to be remembered "[A]s someone who believed in hard work and love of country, love of family, and love of community."  Mr. Smith to the end.

In a way, Joseph Kennedy's fears were proven true, with a lukewarm reception in Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain, and Stalin's Russia, who all banned the film.  It represented the American value and spirit too well.  When a ban on American films was imposed in German occupied France in 1942, some theaters chose to show Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as the last movie before the ban went into effect.  One theater owner in Paris reportedly screened the film nonstop for 30 days after the ban was announced.

Truly a standout film in a year of great film.  1939 remains one of the best years in film.  The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, Babes in Arms, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Ninotchka.  And Mr. Smith is one of the best of that year.

I need this film every once and a while.  I think we all do.

"Just get up off the ground, that's all I ask.  Get up there with that lady that's up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty.  Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something.  And you won't just see scenery; you'll see the whole parade of what Man's carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting.  Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so's he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, color, or creed.  That's what you'd see.  There's no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties.  And, uh, if that's what the grownups have done with this world that was given to them, then we'd better get those boys' camps started fast and see what the kids can do.  And it's not too late, because this country is bigger than the Taylors, or you, or me, or anything else.  Great principles don't get lost once they come to light.  They're right here; you just have to see them again!"