Category: Commentary

The small talk around our kitchen table often centers on what today’s college students ought to choose as majors. It’s an especially sensitive topic for me because I have always had a sense that members of my family who were more financially successful than I have been are a bit disapproving of my choice to be a teacher. I’ve heard a number of would’ve, could’ve should’ve comments from well meaning folks who seem to wonder if I squandered my intellectual potential on a career that seems to always be under fire from the general public. I suppose that in their minds the least I might have done would have been to be a college professor rather than a mathematics teacher who never once cleared six figures in my salary. 

I suppose they will never understand me or those who choose to major in music or dance or theater. They can’t imagine a practical use for English or History or Psychology. They lay most of the problems of the economy on young people who foolishly squander tuition on studying seemingly silly things. They insist that college should force students to be practical by choosing science or mathematics or technology or engineering. They see studying business as a far more practical route to take than a study of linguistics. They don’t appear to understand that not everyone enjoys such subjects and some even have the audacity to want to feel good about going to work when they finally use the lessons that they learned at a university. 

I constantly find myself defending the person who chooses to major in anthropology or visual arts. As an educator I know all too well that each of us have different ways of learning, different parts of our brains that are more active, different dreams of how we wish to live our lives. Sometimes the heft of our paychecks is not as important to many of us as doing something that gives us joy, that has meaning on a daily basis. 

Such issues led me to eagerly read a lovely article about an author’s attendance at a thirty year reunion of her class at Harvard. The fifty something alums gathered over a weekend filled with stories of how life had been for them since the times when they eagerly dreamed of futures that may or may not have ultimately transpired. In the pensive moments of conversation the author learned much about who is happy and who is still searching for the joy that they once sought.

In general she found that the most joyful and contented folks were those who chose to be teachers or doctors. Interacting with people and making a real difference in their lives seemed to be quite satisfying. Many of the business people spoke of trying something else before reaching retirement age. They were comfortable financially but had missed the feeling of accomplishment that comes with serving others. Ironically the artists of all kinds admitted to struggling with lower incomes but when all was said and done would not trade the dleight that they felt from performing or creating that was the main source of their satisfaction. 

The author pointed out that what everyone talked about the most was family, relationships, love. They had reached a point of being less judgmental than they had once been and less likely to worry about how they might be viewed in superficial ways. The meaning in life was found in people and those who had opportunities to share their talents with people were the most certain that they had chosen the right pathways in life. 

I often tell young people to do what they love. While that may sound dangerous if that person loves cooking more than anything, why would I not encourage him/her to find a way to use that passion as a life’s work? We always do a better job if we wake up in the morning wanting to go to work. We certainly need to pay rent and eat but I can’t think of anything worse than dreading a job that brings absolutely no joy no matter how much it may pay. 

Hundreds of years ago education was not so much about providing specific skills for a profession or career but about teaching young people to think and to understand how to use words and numbers and ideas. Scholars got a liberal arts degree in which they mastered writing, rhetoric, philosophy, Latin, Greek, literature, mathematics, and such. The focus was on widening the focus for students rather than narrowing down their abilities to a single area. Colleges and universities offer many majors not just to increase their cash flow or to find jobs for professors but because they know that theirs is a place for many kinds of knowledge in the world. How dull would life be without the many avenues of study that we humans have created. How awful it would feel if we all had to do the same kind of jobs.

Those Harvard grads seemed to have figured out that happiness is not always found in titles or bank accounts. Those things are nice to have but when we sit down with old friends and honestly speak of our lives the commonality that we all seem to share is all about what we do for others rather than what we have accumulated for ourselves. We need to remember that whenever a young person earnestly admits that he wants to try something that may sounds foolish to us. Who are we to dash dreams in favor of being practical? That young man or woman who majors in journalism may change the world. 

By now everyone knows whom everyone else is going to support in our upcoming Presidential election. Four years ago I made it very clear that I had never supported Donald Trump and never intended to do so. Today I am even more firmly entrenched in my feeling that Donald Trump is not worthy of filling the highest job in the land, but I also know many people who believe that he is the only candidate worthy of being our Commander in Chief. While I am realistic about this fact, I am still having difficulty understanding why it is so, and why even people who know and love each other can be so far apart in their political beliefs. 

I do not think that anything I say in my blog will change minds. If the incidents of January 6, 2021 did not cause people to spurn Trump forevermore then I doubt that any fact or revelation will ever do so. Sadly I was an eyewitness to what happened on that day. I know what I heard from the lips of Donald Trump and I know what I saw from those who stormed the Capitol. I did not tune out from the coverage until the last vote was tallied under the leadership of Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi early the next morning in the dark before dawn. 

Nobody will ever convince me that Donald Trump did not maliciously attempt to overturn the results of a fair election. That alone should have barred him from running for office ever again, but here we are with a convicted felon promising vengeance against those brave souls who saw what he was doing on that day and wanted to hold him and his followers accountable. The fact that he continually argues that the people who have been jailed for their violence in that moment should be pardoned tells me that they were only doing his bid, and he knows it. How, I constantly ask myself, can any patriotic American who loves this nation and its ideals even suggest that such a man should be reinstated in his office?

Donald Trump was a failed president in my estimation. He mishandled the pandemic resulting in the needless deaths of thousands of Americans. He dishonored the military over and over again. He was unable to keep cabinet members because he had no honor and no idea what he was doing. He was a bully and a man who to this day stoops to schoolyard antics to demean women, the disabled, people who are overweight, anyone or group that he dislikes. When Mike Pence declares that he will not be able to support the man under whom he served as Vice President it seems to me that no more should have to be said. When high ranking military men tell us that they have no respect for Trump I truly wonder why we should trust him with our nuclear codes or as the spokesperson for our nation on the world stage. Put simply I do not believe that Donald Trump is good for the United States of America.

I was horrified when a sick young man attempted to assassinate Donald Trump. I am against violence in all instances. I do not want harm to come to him, but I would surely like for him and his toxicity to finally go away. I am not certain that our United States can take much more of his selfish and self serving behavior. We need a President whose first thoughts are for all of us, not his own personal issues. His meandering and lying may fool some, but it will never fool me. Nothing becomes true just because someone repeats it over and over again. Fact checking Trump is tedious because his statements are filled with fallacies and untruths, but doing so reveals just how dishonest he is. 

I once compared Trump to one of those door to door salespeople who latch onto a potential customer like a mad dog nipping at someone’s ankles. He blathers on and on hoping that we will grow weary and buy his boasts and lies. I learned a long time ago that the only way to deal with someone like that is to never open the door, but if we do so by mistake then we must have the courage to slam the door once it becomes apparent that he has nothing that we want. We have to be brave enough to call him out.

As I said before my comments here will endear me to those who already think like I do and will irk those who have their own ideas about Donald Trump. I simply wanted to make it clear for posterity that I will be voting for honesty, patriotism, my democracy. Donald Trump represents none of those things. He is a traitor to our constitution and I hope that we the people will not allow him to defile the United States with his hatefulness and divisiveness ever again. I will be voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I put this in writing because I believe with all of my being that doing anything less threatens all that we Americans hold dear. I do this because I believe that in this moment it is now up to us to protect our nation from someone who would tear it down to bolster his own selfish pride. 

I don’t sleep well at night. I worry that we are all in grave danger from Donald Trump. He is a clear and present danger to the very foundations of our democracy. He is already setting the stage for either a win or a loss. He will be trouble whichever way things go. I hope with every fiber of my being that somehow we will finally put him and his outrageous ideas to rest. It can only happen if enough of us take the time to vote him out. Maybe just maybe someone who is on the fence will read this and change his or her mind. It certainly can’t hurt for me to try to get just one more vote against a man who is so wrong for America.  

I suppose that I think about mental health a bit more than most people. Perhaps it is because my mother had bipolar disorder. Before I was even twenty one years old I began a long journey of helping to keep her mental state as stable as possible. It was more than a part time effort that required my vigilance and patience for over forty years.

During that same time I was a teacher of adolescents and young adults some of whom suffered from a variety of mental health issues as well. I saw depression up close and personally on many occasions and learned how to read the signs that someone was in trouble. I realized that mental disorders can happen to anyone even in the most caring and loving families. I have in many ways mastered a keen ability to know when someone is struggling with even when they are quite adept at masking their symptoms. I have seen the kind of triggers that sometimes take people down a kind of rabbit hole of darkness from which they struggle to emerge. 

Isolation and loneliness are enemies of our good mental health as surely as smoking is bad for our hearts and and lungs. Sadly, many of the tools that make life more interesting and hopeful also have the power of bringing a kind of darkness into some people’s lives. In particular, because of the pandemic people all over the world suddenly found themselves spending more and more time interacting remotely with the world around them. They often sat for days and weeks on end in their rooms, rarely meeting up with people outside of their homes. Social media became an outlet for belonging that all too often ended up only increasing the anxieties that people were feeling. In many ways the situation impacted young people the most as a long swath of their development was spent without the normal interactions and collaborations that are a key aspect of growing up. 

Now we have unprecedented numbers of our young people suffering from all kinds of mental disorders that sometimes sadly lead to self harm or even suicide. Social media while playing a key role in helping them to feel connected to others has also had the negative effect of making them feel even more alone and dispirited. There are far too many young people still tethered to a remote lifestyle that is sucking the life out of them. Often they do not even realize just how dark and lost they have become from making themselves prisoners inside a digital world devoid of human contact. They do not know how to fully return to life outside of the four walls of their homes.

I always knew that my mother was in trouble mentally whenever she drew the blinds and curtains in her home, quit answering the phone, and sat by herself dwelling on obsessive thoughts that made her unable to function or even sleep at night. While she had a real disease that created chemical changes in her brain, the illness was exaggerated by her isolation. Without reduced human contact her mind ran wild and made her sicker and sicker with each passing hour. On those occasions my brothers and I had to forcefully intervene to get her to a doctor for help. We also had to make sure that she regularly got out of the confines of her home to interact with other people. We had to bring the sunshine to her lest she dive so deeply into her depression that there would be no coming back to reality. 

I constantly see signs of people who have not yet been able to fully return to normal after the worldwide pandemic. They spend most of their days alone. With each passing day they have become more and more adverse to venturing out into public spaces. Many such persons are youngsters who attend school but spend most of the rest of their time in their rooms using computers as their recreational outlet. They become lost in a world of games and social media. They are like the aimless guy in the basement who has no goals or prospects. Their minds begin to play tricks on them, to turn on them. 

The Surgeon General of the United States has come forward with a dire warning that the mental health of our youth is endangered by the unchecked, unmonitored and continual use of social media. I suspect that more than anything many of our youth are caught in a web of loneliness, confusion and anger that they do not even understand. Instead of being physically active, interacting with others and seeing reality through an unfiltered and unbiased lens, they are feeling alienated from a normal existence. They witness the divisions and wars and rancor and distrust everyone. The cocktail of cynicism and hopelessness becomes their addictive brew. 

I know many adults who have realized that much of social media is an endless loop of fantasy or anger and in self defense they have taken a break from it and may never return. Perhaps we would all do well to temper our addiction to checking to see if anyone has responded positively to our posts or tweets or comments online. Many are abandoning the chatter of sound and fury for walks outside, opportunities to help others, meaningful work to be done. They are seeking real people that do not drain their emotions. 

If there is anything that we really need to make great again it is the lovely habit of embracing one another with joy and love. We should all be pushing ourselves out of our rooms, out of the darkness and into the sunshine that has always been waiting for us. If we know someone who has been reticent to get fully back into life, we would do well to invite that person to come along with us. If a wounded soul need help doing so, then we should be happy to help them. There is life beyond Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X. Go out and live it.  

Women are the people who quietly go about the world doing wonderful things that few people ever notice. They make sure that everyone in the family has clean socks and underwear. They work and work and work at home doing their magic to keep everything running smoothly. They schedule and chauffeur and stay up long after everyone else is asleep doing laundry or preparing lunches for everyone for the next day. Women do these things automatically, rarely asking for credit and often seeming to be invisible. It is only when they get sick or injured or die that we sometimes realize just how much they have been accomplishing on a regular basis. We can’t believe how things fall apart when they are gone. 

It is difficult being a woman. We tend not to make as much money as men for the very same jobs. When children are sick it is often left to the women to take time off from work. Women are usually the ones who remember birthdays and special events. They take care of purchasing gifts and visiting elderly friends and family members. Sometimes we marvel at everything that they do. At other times we almost take their countless efforts for granted. Who really thinks about why that toilet is so clean or how the apples that we enjoy so much found their way into our refrigerator?

Women lovingly and willingly stretch themselves so that they they sometimes neglect their own needs. I remember my Grandma Minnie Bell hiding pain so long that when it finally became unbearable she was diagnosed with stage 4 untreatable cancer. My Grandma Ulrich kept mopping her floors every single day, making dinner for her sons, and cheerfully offering coffee to anyone who came to visit until one day she did not have the strength to get out of bed. A visit to a doctor revealed that she had end stage cancer as well. 

Stories such as these are not so uncommon with women. They hide all kinds of pain and worry and sorrows because they know that they have duties beyond themselves. They push and push themselves until they have no more energy to keep going. Even as they recuperate they make lists of things that must be done. They know the calendar by heart. They can drive the routes to schools and ball fields and swimming pools blindfolded. Their dedication is super human and yet much of what they do seems so small until they are not doing it anymore. 

Women find it difficult to let go and just take care of themselves. They may instinctively know that life should be more than just a to-do list but worry about who will actually accomplish the tasks that need to be done if they give in to every ache and pain that comes their way. It’s easier said than done to take a break to parse their many duties and eliminate the ones that don’t seem to matter as much. 

Perhaps they can let dust settle on the furniture but bathrooms and kitchens need to be clean and healthy. Maybe they can skip folding the clothes after they have been washed but some items wrinkle so easily inside a piled high basket. Not every woman can afford to hire someone to come and do the heavy cleaning and so they do their best to keep the routines moving smoothly lest their worlds collapse into chaos. 

I am haunted by a story that I have often told of a woman who worked three different jobs just to keep a roof over her head and that of her son. He worried constantly about her because she would leave early in the morning and return close to midnight. Sometimes she was so exhausted that she fell asleep in her car, unable to even walk inside. Other times she made it as far as the living room couch where she would lie grabbing a few hours sleep before doing her work all over again. Her legs and ankles were swollen and painful but she had to hide her pain. Hers was an extreme story but not so unlike so many women simply trying to keep the engines of their lives moving forward. 

This is not to say that men do not also have their problems, it is only to point out that we all too often underestimate the extent to which women silently sacrifice themselves for others knowing that they will often go unheard and unseen. They do what they do because they love, not for laurels or anything other than the joy of knowing that they are doing jobs that are much more important than they may seem to be. 

It has been this way since the beginning of time. The mothers and daughters and sisters and friends almost automatically become caretakers. They see those who came before them making soup for the sick, pushing themselves even when they are bone tired. We remember our mothers who came to check on us in the middle of the night. They were the ones we called when we were afraid or when our fevered heads hurt. We cuddled in the warmth of their hugs and shed our tears knowing that they would make everything right. 

When I get down I often need to find a woman with whom to share my feelings, bare my thoughts. I know that most women will understand why it is important to get better to be able to take care of others. They will know how difficult it is to just rest when things must be done. They can show me how to take a break for just long enough to get my super powers working once again. Women are remarkable like that. 

Most of the Founders of our country were highly educated men. One was the son and grandson of men who had been presidents of Princeton University. The Founders based many of their ideas for our country on the works of philosophers who were quite progressive for the times. They were also very much attuned to the latest discoveries in science. The idea of being anti-science was not part of who they were so I suspect that they would be somewhat concerned about the recent tendencies to condemn science by some politicians and their followers in our country. 

When I visited Philadelphia I was enchanted by the museum dedicated to its most exciting citizen, Benjamin Franklin. The truth of the matter is that Franklin was often considered to be one of the greatest scientists of his time. He did way more than make observations about lightening. He studied all sorts of ideas and theories and concluded many of his own along the way. He was an incredibly inventive man renowned worldwide with a title of Doctor Franklin.

Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello is filled with his books and artifacts from nature. He studied the physical world around him and invited the greatest minds of the day to his home. He was a thinker and a man who was willing to experiment and learn. I can’t imagine him being anything but excited about the discoveries of science that have made life in the modern world so much better for us all. I firmly believe that he would be more than inclined to believe the scientists at NASA who have visual proof from space of the effects of climate change. 

There are people who seem to be wary of any idea that we humans might have something to do with the more violent weather patterns that we are presently experiencing. They believe that we will be just fine if we simply carry on the way we always have and wait until nature adapts to us. They think it foolish to attempt to have an impact on the climate with different forms of energy and new ways of living together on this planet. Some are even audacious enough to boast that they will not even be here if and when the worst consequences happen so why should have nothing about which to worry.

Science was not my favorite subject. It tended to be heavy with facts and definitions back when I was in school, but much of that has recently changed. Students are more likely to complete hands on activities to demonstrate how things work in science labs. They are given opportunities to be creative in using the laws of physics to build things. They discuss and use the scientific method rather than simply being able to name its steps. I would think that with the new emphasis on really understanding rather than memorizing we would surely have a much better informed population. In many ways it seems as though that is true, but most of those folks are to be found in the younger generations. It is mostly among the older folk that the doubting Thomases reside.

Somehow we have politicized science as though what is true and what is false is a matter of opinion rather than provable facts. Now we even will have rulings about pollution and the safety of food and drugs coming from judges untrained in science rather than experts in various fields. Somehow I don’t trust the judgement of a lawyer as much as the informed sources of scientific knowledge who have done such jobs heretofore. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson did not turn to lawyers to learn about the physical world around them. I would rather have a person from NASA giving advice about navigational systems on rockets than a district judge. 

Somehow I fail to see how determining the truth about any scientific concept should be akin to one of our freedoms. If a doctor tells me that he does not want me in his office without a mask I am inclined to believe that his reasons are legitimate. I can’t say the same about an ordinary person who simply feels uncomfortable covering his mouth. It is frightening to me that political candidates are making sweeping pronouncements that would end vaccine or mask mandates even in hospitals and schools Perhaps these people have never read about the deaths from the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, that was exponential because the medical community did not yet have the knowledge they needed to know how to treat the virus or to keep people from catching it. 

I don’t have the expertise nor the chutzpah to ignore the advice and warnings of learned men and women. I can do a great deal of reading but in the end I go with the scientists because I know how rigid their methodologies are designed to be. My gut tells me that we are destroying our planet with our arrogance and the evidence proves that it is so. As I sit in unusually hotter and hotter temperatures each year I sense that something is amiss. When scientists explain why that is happening and what we must do stop the decline I plan to listen. So far they have not let me down. 

I am constantly learning from my grandchildren as they discover more and more about the marvels of science. They have been educated in some of the finest universities in the country and I believe what they are telling me. I have doctors in my family who are dedicated to their patients. I follow their advice. 

Many scientists from around the world have traditionally been attracted to working in our country because of the freedoms for their work. I would hate to think that the current anti-science trends will drive many of them away. When we have members of a political party threatening to hang scientists or attack their families because they do not like what those scientists are doing we run the risk of experiencing a brain drain much as happened in 1930s Germany. We don’t want that to happen. Instead, like Franklin and Jefferson, we should be open to the discoveries that are designed to help us live in a better world. They both understood that there is progress through science. We would do well to adopt that kind of thinking as well.