Play to Win

            The Virginian-Pilot reported last Thursday that the Virginia Beach School Board voted 7-3 to end class rankings as well as the tradition of having class valedictorians. The article said the board decision was in reaction to claims by students that the system is unfair. Really. It seems to me that the real reason is that the board does not want under-performing students to feel bad about being singled out for…under-performing. What utter nonsense.

            What exactly is the message these misguided board members are delivering to students? That it’s bad to excel? That it’s OK to fail? That excellence must not be recognized because it might stigmatize mediocrity and inflict irreparable harm to the brittle nature of illiterates?

            This kind of non-judgmental attitude has become pervasive in our society. I have a grandson who was not very good at sports. Not only was he not very good, the basketball and soccer teams he played on were awful. I never saw them win a single game. Yet, he received a “Participation” trophy at the end of the season. For what? For gamely suffering through “the agony of defeat”? He no doubt would have been embraced by the Virginia Beach School Board and assured he wasn’t a loser, that playing was just as important as winning. That winners don’t deserve a reward for winning. That there are no winners and losers, only participants.

            Eliminating class rankings is analogous to participation trophies. It says to students that results don’t count. Well, sorry, folks. There’s a whole world out there that looks for the best and the brightest, a world that rewards high achievers, a world with winners and losers. Not everybody can win. But everybody should play to win. The surest way to lose is to deny that there is such a thing as a winner.

Questions Remain

            It is awfully distressing these days to witness the damage being done to our democratic institutions, particularly by leaders who should be models of probity and good conduct. Political corruption is not new, of course. There have been scandals in Washington long before Watergate caused Richard Nixon’s resignation and Oval Office indiscretions led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment. But widespread conspiracies first to prevent the election of Donald Trump and then to remove him from office have raised scandal to an unprecedented level. Our mainstream media has steadfastly refused to cover this story, but the truth is slowly coming out.

            On-going investigations are likely to reveal how corruption has become pervasive in the FBI and the Department of Justice. For starters, we now have the Inspector General’s criminal referral on Andrew McCabe and are only weeks away from his final report on the FBI’s dereliction of duty in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information and the destruction of related emails.

            In the meantime, it appears that the FBI and the Justice Department are ending their stonewalling in providing Congress with subpoenaed copies of former Director of the FBI James Comey’s leaked memos and the text of falsified FISA court applications to obtain warrants to spy on Donald Trump and his entourage. And we will now see how Attorney General Sessions responds to criminal referrals from Congress that spell out specific violations of the law by Comey, McCabe, Loretta Lynch, Hillary Clinton, and other criminal conspirators.

            Major questions remain. Can we expect to see an end to Robert Mueller’s far-reaching inquest, now that Rudy Giuliani has been brought aboard to convince Mueller to put his cards on the table? When the dust finally settles, will justice have prevailed? Will there be consequences for felonies committed by high-ranking officials? Will the law at last be applied to those who have enjoyed immunity from prosecution because rules don’t apply to them as they do to the rest of us?

            Is there an air freshener strong enough to extinguish the stench emanating from the sewer that Washington has become?

           

Tiger the Man

            The Masters golf tournament is the most visually splendid event in all of sports, and I watch it every year. The winner is draped in a green jacket symbolic of victory, but I really don’t care who that winner is—provided it’s not Tiger Woods.

            I used to be a big fan of Tiger the golfer. His artistry around a golf course was unmatched. I loved watching him play. But then something happened to Tiger the man.

            There were always rumors about how Tiger was aloof, keeping his distance from fellow golfers. He basked in the adoration of his fans, but was never one to pump-fist them, like a Phil Mickelson. He was on top of his world, a perch from which he looked down on the rest of his fawning universe. He was making millions, buying an enormous yacht and building a sprawling mansion. He married a stunning beauty and started a family. What could possibly go wrong?

            Tiger’s personal world came crashing down when his wife had had enough of his adulterous relationships. Humiliated by reports of his multiple sexual indiscretions, she left him and took the kids. But Tiger was still winning on the golf course and still had his legion of fans. His magnificent physical attributes were enough to carry on. Except that his body began to fail him. Separated from his family and unable to compete, he hit the skids.

            Now he’s back. After multiple surgeries, he appears able to compete once again—at what level it remains to be seen. But the adoring fans are back, remembering the magic, forgiving the moral failings, roaring at every birdie, scrambling to get close. But I’m not one of them. I don’t cheer for Tiger anymore.

            Am I judging him unfairly? Perhaps. But I can’t bring myself to forget how he treated his competitors and his fans on the way up, how he tarnished his glory with his selfish behavior, how he betrayed his wife and family. Some say that Tiger is a changed man. Maybe he looked in the mirror after being handcuffed for DUI, didn’t like what he saw, and resolved to change. Maybe he deserves a second chance to remake Tiger the man. I hope he can. I’d like to cheer for him again. But not just yet.

Fatherhood

            I was happy to see that mine was not the only letter to the editor last week [Perquimans Weekly 3/28/18] praising James Rennie for speaking out to his classmates on their individual responsibility for each other.  I would like him to go even further.

            One of the great shortcomings of our society is the failure to adequately impress upon our young people the responsibilities of fatherhood.  “Graduate from school, find a good job, get married, have children—in that order” is more than a good idea; it is arguably the key to success, not just for future parents, but most importantly for their children. Nothing contributes more to perpetuating the cycle of poverty and increasing the probability of juvenile delinquency than births out of wedlock, single parenthood, and the absence of a male role model in the home.

            There is no question that an increasingly secular society that rejects moral standards is very much at fault. It idolizes money and power; it mocks religion and the values of a cultured society; it celebrates an entertainment industry that preys on youthful fascination for violence and titillates pubescent curiosity about sex with pornography; it champions the aberrant above the traditional and denies the rights of the unborn. In short, it destroys the innocence of our children.

            It is an almost impossible task for untrained minds to discern the truth in a media and academic environment that too often bends the truth to promote a progressive society that our founders would not recognize. Yet, there are young voices, like James Rennie’s, that are heard in the wilderness. They need to be encouraged to speak out about responsibility and accountability—about young men and their need to acknowledge and embrace their future roles as responsible fathers.

Keep talking, James

            Bravo to High School Class President James Rennie for showing true leadership in addressing his fellow students on the subject of school killings [ref. Perquimans Weekly 3/21/18]. He makes a point that few others have raised. While guns have been used in school massacres, guns by themselves are not the problem. The solution lies elsewhere. And part of the solution is with students who must bear some of the responsibility. They themselves need to change in the way they interact with potential killers who are isolated or show signs of hostility. That’s a wise insight from a young man who wants to do something about the problem.

            Blaming the Second Amendment or the NRA misses the real target. Responsible gun owners are not the ones who do the killing; it’s the bad guys and the psychopaths who can always find a way to get their hands on a gun. And if they choose not to use a gun, they can build bombs, as we’ve seen just recently in Texas. Or use cars, or poison, or fire.

            We can debate arming teachers, restricting gun ownership, improving background checks, or re-examining mental illness policy. But these approaches only deal with the periphery of the problem whose true causes lie in the decline of moral values as seen in the breakup of families and the absence of fathers in the home, the increase in out-of-wedlock births, the crushing dependence on welfare, religious faith replaced by greed and self-indulgence, the insatiable demand for drugs, and the corrupting influence of our entertainment industry.

            All these causes need to be addressed. But James Rennie is right. The solution starts with each one of us and the part we all play in society, beginning with how we take heed of those around us, whether in the classroom, the office, or the home. Keep talking, James. You’re off to a good start.

           

March Madness

            It’s March Madness. We associate the term at this time of year with the NCAA basketball tournament, but we could just as easily use it to describe the tone of mainstream media’s reporting on White House personnel matters. Turbulence, shake-up, wholesale overhaul, chaos. Words like these appear to be mandatory in every media report. Trump-hating commentators and talking heads are practically giddy over the President’s seeming inability to retain the people he appointed to key positions. Gone are Tillerson, Hicks, Porter, McEntee, and Cohn, and these are just the ones out the door in recent weeks. According to the Washington Post, Shulkin, Sessions, Carson, McMaster, DeVos, Pruitt, and Zinke are already forming a line by the exit. Even Chief of Staff John Kelly is rumored to be on the list of targets likely to hear Trump’s “You’re fired!”

            Of course, there will be replacements; there is never a dearth of candidates willing to submit to a Donald Trump loyalty test for a chance to work 18-hour days in his administration. Look for familiar names like John Bolton, Pete Hegseth, and Keith Kellogg to get an engraved invitation to sit in the boiling cauldron. If filling their posts requires Senate confirmation, the invitees may want to reconsider after witnessing Mike Pompeo’s and Gina Haspel’s upcoming torture on the rack of the Democrat Inquisition before assuming their jobs as Secretary of State and head of the CIA.

            President Trump is defiant, of course. “I think you want to see change,” he says. “I want also to see different ideas.” That is not likely to reassure a staff described by the Post as gripped by fear and uncertainty. “Everybody fears the perp walk,” says a senior White House official.

            It’s not only the White House that is afflicted by March Madness. Many FBI and DOJ operatives like Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, and Bruce Ohr deserve to be fired, even prosecuted. And when coupled with the rash of resignations under the Capitol Dome for illegal and immoral behavior, we have a picture of Washington that resembles a Jackson Pollock painting.

            Will the last one out the door please turn off the lights.

To Honor or Not to Honor

            Perquimans County will celebrate its 350^th anniversary on April 27-28 with Riverbash, a festival that promises to be the biggest and best party we’ve ever had in Hertford. Anyone familiar with the history of Perquimans County knows there is much to celebrate.

            Many of the older residents of the area can remember a period when Hertford was a lot livelier than it is now. I’m referring to the war years when sailors from Harvey Point would come to town to enjoy free time away from the base. I can imagine many of them at a Saturday night dance or holding hands with a local girl at the movie house behind Erie Haste’s hardware store.

            Harvey Point wasn’t the only military installation in the area. A much larger one was the Elizabeth City Coast Guard base where American pilots joined others from Great Britain and the Soviet Union to train for Project Zebra, a secret mission to bomb German submarines. A year ago, the Elizabeth City town council voted unanimously to honor these airmen with a statue of an American, a Brit, and a Russian standing together as a symbol of the cooperation between war allies. The bronze memorial costing a million dollars would be paid for by Russia. Not a bad idea, it seemed at the time. But now, in a 5-3 decision, the council has nixed the project.

            One councilman doesn’t want it because none of the figures are black or female. A second doesn’t want a statue that would block the view of the water. A third said it would remind him of Stalin and might be a Trojan horse with equipment to hack computers. Forgotten is the primary reason for the statue: honoring our veterans and our allies in a war against evil. Myopia, it would seem, is a common affliction among local officials from Charlottesville to Elizabeth City.

            As for me, I’m looking forward to Riverbash and the celebration of Perquimans County’s long history. As we party with food, song, and dance, I hope we will not forget to salute the men and women who have served and continue to serve our country both in war and peace. That’s a part of our history we should always remember. And honor.