Maggie's Farm

I’d be more interested in what New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman tells his daughters about serving in the military than his telling President Obama to accept the Nobel Peace Prize “on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century — the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.”

His young daughters, and President Obama’s, are about the same age as my older son.  My son asks me if he should enlist.  I answer that it will be his choice, there are important personal and citizenship benefits and prices, and the benefits may or may not work out for him and others.  My son will make his own choice, and he will know from his father’s life that he can rely upon me to walk the talk, whether in a promise to him or by my example in how I live.  He will decide if that is the suitable example for his way of living.

It is relevant to our children whether they’ve seen us walk the talk in our lives and with them when by our words we properly honor those who serve and may encourage others to serve.  That neither Thomas Friedman nor President Obama chose to serve in the military, or that I did, is the past.  The now our children see is how our words to others match our words to them.

Another top national columnist recently asked me, “if you'd ever had the thought that we are losing the best people our country has to offer” in our current wars.  I replied:

What I would say is that in my experience in and with the military (I served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam and come in contact with many in my Encinitas area just south of Camp Pendleton), meeting and overcoming the challenges and realistic fears of enlisting, of training, and of serving in a war, all under the risk of severe harm or death, causes one, each one, to exert themself to rise to be the best Marine or soldier they can be.  That creates a mature, focused person with a special appreciation for their citizenship and country and freedoms, as well as for the welfare of others one serves with and the people in the country serving in.

In short, it is their training and service and sacrifice that makes them, all who serve, the best we have to offer, and upon their return the best citizens.  Those who fall are, thus, of course a severe loss.

The possible loss of one’s child is calamitous.  So is the loss of others’.

If Thomas Friedman or President Obama do not believe that how they counsel their own children is more telling than how they counsel others’ children, that tells me all I need to know about whether they walk their talk, really care about others’ children, or are worth taking seriously.

If literally every effort is not made to support those who do serve to survive and accomplish the mission upon which sent, that is the most serious dereliction possible by a parent or columnist.  Words may be enough for the Nobel Peace Prize, or a New York Times column, but not enough for any responsible parent.

P.S.: Ed Morrissey relays who is saying what about what to do in Afghanistan. 

5^th in series on ethnic firsts in US sports

Who better to be the best US athlete of the 20^th Century than a sportsman of melting-pot heritage, child of part Native American, Irish and French parents. In 1950, the Associated Press poll of sports writers named Jim Thorpe as the best American athlete of the first half of the 20^th Century.  For the second half, the AP named him third, behind Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan.

With all respects, neither Ruth nor Jordan won the Olympic gold in pentathlon and decathlon, and starred in football, baseball and basketball. Nor did Ruth, Jordan or any other such supremely gifted athlete suffer worse  abandonment by the sports at which he excelled and the notables who’d lauded him.

Educated in assimilationist Indian Agency schools, Jim Thorpe’s native name was most appropriate: Wa-Tho-Huk or Bright Path.  Unfortunately, the trail's end wasn’t.

“Pop” Warner tried to dissuade Thorpe from injuring himself playing football, because Thorpe was already the track-and-field star of Carlisle Indian Industrial School, but the football players were unable to catch up to him.  Thorpe even excelled at ballroom dancing, winning the 1912 inter-collegiate ballroom dancing championship.  One of the football teams Thorpe almost single-handedly beat was Army’s in 1912.  An opposing player, future President Dwight Eisenhower, in 1961 recalled, “Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed. My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw.”

At the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Thorpe won the gold at the pentathlon and decathlon.  A silver medalist observed, “He was the greatest athlete who ever lived….What he had was natural ability.  There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.  All he had to see is someone doin’ something and he tried it…and he’d do it better.”  Czar Nicholas II presented Thorpe with a special award for the pentathlon, and King Gustav V of Sweden a special award for the decathlon, telling Thorpe, “You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world.  I would consider it an honor to shake your hand.”

Thorpe returned to the US for a ticker-tape parade down Broadway in NYC.  Thorpe said, “I couldn't realize how one fellow could have so many friends."

King Gustav and the International Olympic Committee turned out to be the “Indian-givers.”  Ignoring its own rules for when a challenge to an Olympic medal may be considered, and ignoring that other college athletes did the same but under aliases, the IOC revoked Thorpe’s medals and took back the Gustav trophy for Thorpe having participated in a few baseball games for pocket-money while in college, voiding his amateur status.

Jim Thorpe then played professional football and baseball, drawing huge crowds.  He retired at 41 from pro sports, but continued touring with exhibition teams in football, baseball and basketball.

After his sports career ended, Thorpe found it difficult to find and hold jobs during the Depression.  He worked as a laborer, security guard, bouncer, and even as a movie extra as an Indian chief.

By 1950, when diagnosed with cancer, Thorpe was broke.  On March 28, 1953, Jim Thorpe -- living in a trailer park -- died from his third heart attack.

Only after his death was the racism and unfairness publicly recognized with which Jim Thorpe was treated.  Sports Illustrated’s 2004 retrospective, “Jim Thorpe cruelly treated by authorities", for example, concluded:

Racial prejudice was undoubtedly a factor. Snobbery was another. Brundage [president of the US Olympic Committee, who rebuffed restoring Thorpe’s medals] rigidly adhered to an amateur ethic designed to keep workers in their place which was long out of date by the time of his death in 1975.

Revenge may have been a third. Brundage finished sixth in the pentathlon and 15th in the decathlon behind Thorpe at the 1912 Games.

 

 

A teammate of Thorpe’s on the New York Giants recounted Thorpe, in tears, visiting his room, telling him about the taking away of his Olympic medals.  “It broke his heart and he never really recovered.”

Hollywood made a movie about him, starring Burt Lancaster, and paid him nothing for being a consultant.  A town in Pennsylvania he’d never been in renamed itself after him, to gain tourism dollars.  His statue is in the football hall of fame.  His Olympic medals were stolen from a museum.  In my opinion, the only true honor to Jim Thorpe is the large park in central Flagstaff, Arizona where my kids played every day while we were touring and generations of other kids play for the joy of sports that too many adults forget is what they’re about.

From Wikipedia, Native Wiki, Sports Illustrated

Ann Althouse, a prominent law professor, teenager in the ‘60’s, dismisses Andy Williams as too “square” even back in the ‘60’s to be taken seriously now, when he says President Obama is “following Marxist theory.”

I tested Williams’ squareness on my sons, now 4 and 9, this morning by showing them a YouTube of Andy Williams singing the theme song from Exodus, “This Land Is Mine.”  Both loved it.  But, are they biased because we’re Jewish?  No.  Both’s favorite TV show when younger, after the usual run of kiddie shows, was reruns on PBS of Lawrence Welk’s show.  They both loved the melodious and understandable lyrics along with the lively and friendly performances.

So, are my sons square?  Or, does Ann Althouse’s comment reflect a deprived upbringing, lacking personal connection  to the emotions and tastes of an earlier generation?  I choose the latter but what is important about this minor brouhaha is what it reflects about us.

Ann Althouse is known for her scholarship on federalism and the Constitution, so she is concerned with past debates and their effect on and application to current events.  In this, she may be cognizant of philosopher George Santayana’s famous comment about “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” but may have missed his other comment, “the equality of unequals is inequality” while arguing for equality of opportunity.

Most people are not scholars of the myriad origins, forms and history of Marxism or Socialism.  These terms are usually short-hand for categorizing redistribution of results among unequals, from those who earned the results to those who haven’t.  That’s a sticky argument, as others argue unless those who haven’t are provided means to opportunities then they are less likely to obtain results commensurate with their skills and efforts.

The problem lies in discerning the boundaries, and aside from legislative and court determinations each individual must choose.  I say “must” because the extent to which government decides the boundaries is inescapable upon each individual.

Most liberals tend to come down on a more expansive view of redistribution.  Hence the epithet of “Marxist” or “Socialist” from some of those more conservative.

Many investigators who have studied President Obama’s past associations, to the limited extent they have been discovered, document his closest formative influences and choices to be among those quite radical and even avowedly “socialist” or “Marxist.”  The major media has essentially ignored this pattern, or restrained coverage when they no longer could.

Does this matter?

To me, not as much as some of the investigators among my friends. I tend to be something of a behaviorist, believing that what one sees now is most important, and recognize all's ability to change.  Others whom are friends are less concerned with the observable and the now. As one I respect says, “My hope is that he will get real very soon on lots of fronts as he experiences the push back and the immovable objects….Personally, I will give it more time to see how his presidency develops.”

Fair enough.  And, while recognizing the observable and the now, incomplete when one considers the actual actions of President Obama that irremediably affect our and other nations’ inhabitants futures.

That's the sub-title of today's front-page article in the San Diego Union-Tribune by Steve Liewer "A Matter of Honor."

If you haven't yet read our exclusive reporting on the broader problem of the Defense Department not even having a list of valor honors, or seeming to care, then see our post below: "Hollywood cares more for its' vets honors than the Defense Department."  Two of the key congressmen involved are from my neck of the woods, so my piece is also picked up by the San Diego Jewish World: "Are service medals so unimportant that Pentagon can't be bothered to remember the awardees?: U.S. Rep Bob Filner supports new legislation; Susan Davis's subcommittee should hold hearing."