Predictions Come True

I warned you the day before the election last week we were on the cusp of the inauguration of the 2016 presidential campaign. If you took my warning to heart you would not be too depressed by the insipid chatter from pundits already handicapping the race four years hence. They’ve conducted polls—Hillary and Mike Huckabee are frontrunners of their respective parties. 

Personally, I like Stephen Colbert’s idea. Let’s not spend time on 2016. Tuesday night Colbert zeroed in on the 2072 election, a contest he said would be between Robo-Cheney and a swarm of sentient nano hornets. He did not predict the winner.

Hornets. Seems Tuesday was a big hornets day for me. Earlier, in Bible class (Exodus 23:28), hornets were part of God’s arsenal in support of the Israelites’ conquest of the land of Canaan (“And I will send the hornet before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee”). 

Last week’s post on the election also contained a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the United States bifurcate itself into Blue and Red State countries. Seems I wasn’t the only one thinking along those lines. The Huffington Post reported residents of 42 states have submitted petitions to secede from the Union. Here’s the list: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The list included Blue and Red States. Maybe we are making progress toward thinking alike.

While we’re on the subject of the election, I wonder if you noticed an article in the business section of The NY Times the other day. It dealt with patent law and the problems American companies have protecting their unique products. Here’s how The Times described the article: “Sears, which sold many Bionic Wrenches last holiday season, is selling a similar product (the Max Axess) this year — only now it is made in China instead of America.”  

You can read the full article by linking here (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/business/popular-wrench-fights-a-chinese-rival.html), but the real meat of the story came near the end. Here are two telling paragraphs:

“The company that makes the Max Axess wrench and other tools for Craftsman, the Apex Tool Group, is being acquired by Bain Capital, the company founded by Mitt Romney, in a $1.6 billion deal.

“Throughout the presidential campaign, Bain was criticized on the grounds that it encouraged outsourcing by companies it buys at the expense of American workers. Apex makes many of its tools overseas. A company spokesman referred all questions to Sears.”

Romney hasn’t run Bain Capital since 1999, but his management philosophy of outsourcing American jobs is enshrined in that company. 

And remember my cautionary advice last week about buying cars from the flooded areas. Well, there's been a slew of warnings from attorneys general and consumer protection officials about cars with engines flooded not just by Hurricane Sandy but also by storms and floods in other parts of the country (dealerships across state lines have been known to swap swamped autos). So be wary out there. 

A Thoughtful Gathering

Passover begins Monday night with the first Seder, a time when Jews the world over gather to boast about their participation in one of at least three events: the shortest reading of the Haggadah on record; the longest reading of the Haggadah; or attendance at the largest Seder they’ve ever been to.

The annual communion of the clan (more than any other holiday, secular or religious, Passover brings Jews back to the tribal table), the Seder once was a highly structured ritual. Today, however, it has become more personalized for many households, with their own texts and innovative practices, yet all retain the core story of the struggle for human rights and freedom.

It is not a moment of tranquility. There are more than enough arguments to last a full year until the next ingathering of the extended family. Some may be profound tensions between parents and siblings, friends and relatives. But most are grounded in whimsy, with more than a dash of love and a sprinkle of nostalgia.

There is, for instance, the debate on who made the best gefilte fish. Or whether soft or hard matzo balls are better. Or whether the horseradish was strong enough to make your eyes burn and nose run or barely worthy of its role to make us remember the cruel life of a slave.

Or whether it is better to have the children steal the Afikomen or have them find it after it has been hidden (sorry, it’s too much to explain to non-Jews the concept of an Afikomen—Google it if you’re interested, which I hope you are).

How much to pay to redeem the Afikomen is a precedent-setting action. The first night’s payout sets the scale for the second night’s Seder. And do you compensate just the child who possesses the Afikomen, or do you extend the largess to the whole brood, with a little extra for the main claimant?

If no young children are present, there’s the taunting demand that the youngest adult read The Four Questions, usually resolved when a kind soul suggests everyone will sing along to relieve the embarrassment.

An old-fashioned Seder, complete from start to finish with the meal separating the two halves of the Haggadah, can take upwards of four hours. Newer versions can clock in at the same length, or longer. It all depends on how many tangential discussions are encouraged in the first half, how many songs are sung in the second.

Through it all, if you’re truly honest with yourself, there are more guests sitting around the table than just those before your eyes. The spirit of your parents, aunts and uncles who have passed away. Siblings and cousins, nieces and nephews, friends, perhaps even your own children, who live in communities too distant to bridge. Though we’re ostensibly gathered to celebrate the emergence of the Israelites from slavery and their birth as a free people, the Seder’s deeper purpose cements individual families, building generation to generation rituals of shared storytelling and memory.

Baby Doc and the Bible

After 25 years in exile, “Baby Doc” Jean-Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti to expected jeers and some unexpected cheers. Look no further than the Bible to explain why a ruthless dictator might be more acceptable to some than the current tenuous conditions on the Caribbean island.

“Haiti has never had the perfect leader,” said Bernadette Brudet. “Many of them were corrupt. Many of them have blood on their hands. But with Duvalier, we were safe, and our stomachs were full.”

Compare those comments from an ordinary citizen of Haiti in a NY Times story (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/world/americas/19haiti.html?_r=1&hp) to Exodus 16, verse 3, when food is scarce in the Sinai desert: “The Israelites said to them (Moses and Aaron), ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate our fill of bread.’”

Just weeks earlier, days after witnessing the Ten Plagues wrought upon the Egyptians and their escape from bondage, the Israelites questioned the wisdom of their predicament. Camped by the Sea of Reeds, with Pharaoh’s army approaching, the former slaves complained to Moses, “What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’?” (Exodus 14:11-12). As seen from the prior quote, even the subsequent parting of the sea and the drowning of Pharaoh’s army could not alter their mental attachment to a life of servitude and obedience.

Whether you believe the Bible is divinely written or inspired, there’s no disputing it is magnificent literature with unequalled narratives of human drama, frailty, emotions and conflict.

Let’s face it. When confronted with challenges of the moment, it’s human nature to pine for a past perceived to be more benevolent, more passive, more orderly. It’s human nature to long for the “good old days.” Many Russians fondly recall life under communism. Iraqis reminisce about the “tranquility” and economic vibrancy of the Saddam years.

In America, there’s always a fringe who wish for the nostalgic days of the past. Which time do they want to go back to? The 1930s and the Depression? The 1940s and World War II? The 1950s with the Cold War and thoughts of nuclear destruction? The 1960s with battles over desegregation, Vietnam and awakening social and sexual revolutions?

Haitians truly have little to make today’s existence feel like a blessing. Perhaps, in some small way, it can be understood why some would look to Baby Doc for a return to “normalcy.” A quarter of a century has passed without him, yet their country is no better. Even before last year’s earthquake, Haiti was the poorest of nations.

It’s harder to understand why anyone would want to return to the past in the United States. We have a social network system that tries to provide for the needy; a health care system that tries to comfort and heal the fallen; an infrastructure that, though in need of repair, still is the envy of most of the world; a system of government that permits dissent without fear and accommodates orderly transitions of power; an education system, also in need of repair, but still first class for those who desire to use it to full advantage; more food and consumer goods than most of the rest of the world, combined.

The reverse time-travelers would like to go back to an era of less government regulation and involvement in everyday life. But even in the Bible, freedom from slavery came with acceptance of a code of laws that restricted behavior and imposed communal obligations, including wealth (land) redistribution every 50 years.

Baby Doc. Pharaoh. Saddam. Stalin. Tyrants come and go. Human nature stays the same.