Summary: Barack Obama’s second inaugural address was neither anodyne nor lukewarm, but instead ringingly set forth an unapologetically progressive agenda. It pushed back against some of the more noxious Ayn Rand aspects of conservative thinking, while acknowledging and insisting upon a place in the Commonwealth for the middle class and the marginalized, and taking the side of Lazarus over Dives. Though some on the Rush Limbaugh right will attack or complain that their feelings were “hurt,” we may, if only momentarily and naïvely, hold out hope for a possible thaw in the partisan froideur that has obtained in Washington City for so many years. It may be possible, even if unlikely, to envisage some of the President’s opponents putting country before party. At all events, we may permissibly celebrate and be thankful for yet another peaceful transition of power in an unbroken string of such transfers dating back 224 years.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Some inaugural addresses are anodyne offerings, long on platitudes but short on substance. Some inaugural addresses try so earnestly to chart a middle course as to become virtually meaningless, neither hot nor cold but only lukewarm.
Barack Obama’s second inaugural was anything but anodyne or lukewarm.
Indeed, not even when Bill Clinton was President have I heard so strongly progressive a speech. It was more than I had dared to expect or hope from President Obama. It was uncompromising, proudly progressive, and not afraid to take on some of the most treasured shibboleths of the President’s inveterate opponents.
As much as it was a real joy to hear the president consciously and purposefully acknowledge the authentic presence of queerfolk as real, first-class citizens of our American Commonwealth, I also couldn’t avoid a certain measure of schadenfreude at the President’s clear dig at vice presidential wannabe Paul Ryan and his slavish devotion to Ayn Rand. The President’s speech was intended for the middle class and the marginalized; it was not a speech for the comfortable, nor did it take the side of Dives over Lazarus
Already, Republican cleavages are beginning to open. Utah Senator Orrin Hatch has characterized the President’s address as “a very good speech.” Other, more obstructionist, Republicans, both in and out of office, have been quick to complain that the President’s remarks were “unduly confrontational.”
Such a Republican view is not surprising. The American right has consistently sought to position itself as aggrieved victims of the changing nature of American society, and to complain about how badly its feelings have been hurt by being called to account or publicly disagreed with.
And indeed, President Obama’s second inaugural address will give Republican irreconcilables much to bellyache about. The president’s forthright pushback against climate change deniers --- and by implication, against the entire science-opposing evangelical-industrial complex, to say nothing of his outreach toward the LGBT community, including having a gay man read the inaugural poem, will surely not resonate well among religious rightists for whom climate change denial and opposition to what they call the “homosexual agenda” (scare quotes fully intended) represent part of a broader litmus test for who is a “pure and dependable” conservative.
Yet we may dare hold out some hope that a new term may make it possible for a new turn of the political page. If a sense of cooperation and goodwill arises from today’s inauguration, and if it can be sustained for more than 24 hours, it may be possible to envisage a climate of positive change beginning to take hold in Washington City.
Of course, we would be naïve to hold out hope for a thaw in the partisan froideur. The President’s opponents are many, for their name is Legion, and we will see whether that Legion is capable of putting the interests of the Commonwealth ahead of the particular predilections of party.
Still, on today of all days, it is permissible to celebrate, and to be thankful foran America in which, across 224 years of quadrennial presidential elections, power has always been transferred peaceably and without appeal to force or violence.
May it ever be so. God bless America.
-XXX-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served two terms as a member of the city Council. He currently serves as Vice Chair of the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee representing the 56th Assembly District. He makes no bones about having supported and voted for President Obama in both 2008 and last fall. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily those of the California Democratic Party. They are not legal advice, and should not be so construed.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Thursday, January 3, 2013
A DELICATE TIME FOR THE DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE
Summary: as Dr. Raul Ruiz goes to Washington as our Congressman, his early days in office will be a delicate time. He will need to be aware of that unreconciled camarilla of angry GOP supporters who wish him ill and will seek to take him down in 2014. He will need to be considerate in his utterance, avoiding both gaffes and analysis paralysis. The quality of his constituent services will, in many ways, be the test of his effectiveness in Congress; good constituent services build up a reservoir of goodwill; Sonny Bono and his widow both understood that constituent services was the key to reelection. It will also be important for Dr. Ruiz’s many supporters to remember that he is a Democrat in a GOP majority House, and not to project upon him unrealistic or unsustainable expectations. Too often, Democrats set up their officeholders for failure by expecting utopia to build in a day. We must avoid that temptation; we must have Rep. Ruiz’s back and wish him Godspeed.
By: Paul S. Marchand
A beginning is a delicate time.
-Frank Herbert, Dune
Today, for the first time in almost a generation, our Pleasant Desert is represented in Congress by a Democrat. Congressman Raul Ruiz took the oath of office earlier today as the new 113th Congress was sworn in. Dr. Ruiz’s coming to Congress represents a welcome upset; heretofore Republican dominance in our Congressional district has seen virtually unassailable. The conventional wisdom in our Pleasant Desert had been that our Republican congresswoman would have her seat as long as she wanted it.
Local political handicappers had expected that Mary Bono Mack would leave office on her terms, and not as a result of blowing the most important job interview in her life, viz. the one between her and the hundreds of thousands of disenchanted constituents in what is now California’s 36th Congressional District. As Dr. Ruiz takes office, a quotation from Frank Herbert’s epic novel Dune comes to mind: “a beginning is a delicate time.”
I was proud to support Dr. Ruiz, I consider him a friend, and I congratulate him -- along with my friend Congressman Mark Takano -- on his swearing-in. Dr. Ruiz won’t have an easy row to hoe; the House of Representatives is still controlled by the GOP (though the infighting and intrigues within the Republican Conference are starting to look like a bad outtake from I Claudius). Still, as a constituent, I do have a few thoughts about the challenges that in this delicate time await our new Congressman from the 36th District.
First, there remains an unreconciled camarilla of supporters of the previous Republican congresswoman for whom the election of a Latino Democrat represents the sum of all their fears and insecurities. We’ve seen enough nasty letters in the pages of our local right-leaning Gannett newspaper bemoaning Dr. Ruiz’s election to know that many of our local Republicans will be watching Rep. Ruiz very carefully, waiting to pounce on and magnify the slightest gaffe or indiscretion. While there will be a certain amount of excitement and enthusiasm as Rep. Ruiz settles into office, it will be important that neither he nor his staff succumb to the temptation to overplay the hand they have been felt or to lose touch with the constituents and activists who made possible the political earthquake that sent him to Washington.
It will also be important for Dr. Ruiz to steer clear of the Scylla of unguarded or indiscreet utterance while avoiding the Charybdis of controversy-shunning analysis paralysis. In that regard, he should --counterintuitively-- take guidance from the experience of his predecessors, Sonny Bono and his widow Mary Whitaker Bono Baxley McGillicuddy.
In a conversation with Dr. Ruiz’s incoming district director, I stressed the importance of quality customer/constituent services. The incoming district director and I were of one accord in agreeing that constituent services will be critical to Dr. Ruiz’s success as our representative in Congress.
Love her or loathe her, Mary Bono Mack’s constituent services set a gold standard for the way in which elected officials’ staffs should interact with District residents. Indeed, though it is embarrassing to acknowledge, Mary’s constituent services were often more efficiently delivered then those of Democratic members of Congress. Having been subject to the third degree and hit up for a campaign contribution as an implicit quid pro quo for constituent services by staffers for at least one Los Angeles-area Democratic member of Congress, I was gratified -- when I approached then-Congressman Sonny Bono’s staff with a constituent issue, to receive prompt, courteous assistance without regard to my political affiliation or views, which were not unknown to the then-Congressman.
As and to the extent that Rep. Ruiz’s staff continue to live up to a high standard of constituent services, Dr. Ruiz should be able to build up a reservoir of goodwill that will stand him in good stead twenty months hence, when our local GOP uncorks its predictable vials of vitriol against him. When constituents feel they have been well and fairly served, they are more likely to vote for the incumbent who provided such services; good constituent services is the key to reelection.
The second major challenge Rep. Ruiz will face will come from his fellow Democrats, from some of the activists who were proud to identify themselves as his supporters during the campaign, and who may now be expecting immediate and far-reaching change. To these, my fellow fighters in the trenches, I offer an observation born of often bitter experience: you cannot build utopia in a single day. You cannot realistically expect immediate reform, only reform immediately begun.
Moreover, few victories are ever as complete as those who have helped gain them might imagine. We must avoid infighting and carping over the limitations of our victories and acknowledge that as excited as we may be over Dr. Ruiz going to Congress, the GOP is still the majority party in the House of Representatives. We must define victory in a more nuanced and pragmatic way than some activists might like to. As a professional colleague of mine explained to me more than two decades ago, if you’re facing 10 years of prison time and you bargain down to 18 months, that’s a victory.
Activists also need to remember that, from time to time, Rep. Ruiz may find himself taking positions with which they do not necessarily agree, or voting contrary to some cherished position. To such activists, I offer a sobering reality that it is neither reasonable nor sensible to expect one hundred percent agreement one hundred percent of the time, and that to have a conniption because “your” Congressman didn’t support your particular issue only advantages the numerous Republicans waiting in the wings of the 36th District eagerly anticipating the elections of 2014.
We must cut Dr. Ruiz slack in this delicate time, and not impose ideological litmus tests upon him. At all events, we must avoid setting up our new Congressman for failure by projecting unrealistic or unsustainable expectations upon him. We are not the Tea Party; we are adult, patriotic Americans who ought to know better.
A beginning truly is a delicate time. Rep. Ruiz deserves our support, our prayers, and above all our considerate forbearance; he is our Doctor in the House. Above all, we need to have his back and wish him Godspeed.
-XXX-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California. He had the pleasure of supporting Dr. Raul Ruiz’s victorious campaign for Congress, and was honored to have Dr. Ruiz’s endorsement in his recent campaign for city Council in Cathedral City. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily those of the Democratic Party or any other entity with which Mr. Marchand happens to be associated. Self-appointed enforcers or the easily “offended” who may not like what they see or read in this post need to get over themselves. The contents of this post are not legal advice, and should not be taken as such.
By: Paul S. Marchand
A beginning is a delicate time.
-Frank Herbert, Dune
Today, for the first time in almost a generation, our Pleasant Desert is represented in Congress by a Democrat. Congressman Raul Ruiz took the oath of office earlier today as the new 113th Congress was sworn in. Dr. Ruiz’s coming to Congress represents a welcome upset; heretofore Republican dominance in our Congressional district has seen virtually unassailable. The conventional wisdom in our Pleasant Desert had been that our Republican congresswoman would have her seat as long as she wanted it.
Local political handicappers had expected that Mary Bono Mack would leave office on her terms, and not as a result of blowing the most important job interview in her life, viz. the one between her and the hundreds of thousands of disenchanted constituents in what is now California’s 36th Congressional District. As Dr. Ruiz takes office, a quotation from Frank Herbert’s epic novel Dune comes to mind: “a beginning is a delicate time.”
I was proud to support Dr. Ruiz, I consider him a friend, and I congratulate him -- along with my friend Congressman Mark Takano -- on his swearing-in. Dr. Ruiz won’t have an easy row to hoe; the House of Representatives is still controlled by the GOP (though the infighting and intrigues within the Republican Conference are starting to look like a bad outtake from I Claudius). Still, as a constituent, I do have a few thoughts about the challenges that in this delicate time await our new Congressman from the 36th District.
First, there remains an unreconciled camarilla of supporters of the previous Republican congresswoman for whom the election of a Latino Democrat represents the sum of all their fears and insecurities. We’ve seen enough nasty letters in the pages of our local right-leaning Gannett newspaper bemoaning Dr. Ruiz’s election to know that many of our local Republicans will be watching Rep. Ruiz very carefully, waiting to pounce on and magnify the slightest gaffe or indiscretion. While there will be a certain amount of excitement and enthusiasm as Rep. Ruiz settles into office, it will be important that neither he nor his staff succumb to the temptation to overplay the hand they have been felt or to lose touch with the constituents and activists who made possible the political earthquake that sent him to Washington.
It will also be important for Dr. Ruiz to steer clear of the Scylla of unguarded or indiscreet utterance while avoiding the Charybdis of controversy-shunning analysis paralysis. In that regard, he should --counterintuitively-- take guidance from the experience of his predecessors, Sonny Bono and his widow Mary Whitaker Bono Baxley McGillicuddy.
In a conversation with Dr. Ruiz’s incoming district director, I stressed the importance of quality customer/constituent services. The incoming district director and I were of one accord in agreeing that constituent services will be critical to Dr. Ruiz’s success as our representative in Congress.
Love her or loathe her, Mary Bono Mack’s constituent services set a gold standard for the way in which elected officials’ staffs should interact with District residents. Indeed, though it is embarrassing to acknowledge, Mary’s constituent services were often more efficiently delivered then those of Democratic members of Congress. Having been subject to the third degree and hit up for a campaign contribution as an implicit quid pro quo for constituent services by staffers for at least one Los Angeles-area Democratic member of Congress, I was gratified -- when I approached then-Congressman Sonny Bono’s staff with a constituent issue, to receive prompt, courteous assistance without regard to my political affiliation or views, which were not unknown to the then-Congressman.
As and to the extent that Rep. Ruiz’s staff continue to live up to a high standard of constituent services, Dr. Ruiz should be able to build up a reservoir of goodwill that will stand him in good stead twenty months hence, when our local GOP uncorks its predictable vials of vitriol against him. When constituents feel they have been well and fairly served, they are more likely to vote for the incumbent who provided such services; good constituent services is the key to reelection.
The second major challenge Rep. Ruiz will face will come from his fellow Democrats, from some of the activists who were proud to identify themselves as his supporters during the campaign, and who may now be expecting immediate and far-reaching change. To these, my fellow fighters in the trenches, I offer an observation born of often bitter experience: you cannot build utopia in a single day. You cannot realistically expect immediate reform, only reform immediately begun.
Moreover, few victories are ever as complete as those who have helped gain them might imagine. We must avoid infighting and carping over the limitations of our victories and acknowledge that as excited as we may be over Dr. Ruiz going to Congress, the GOP is still the majority party in the House of Representatives. We must define victory in a more nuanced and pragmatic way than some activists might like to. As a professional colleague of mine explained to me more than two decades ago, if you’re facing 10 years of prison time and you bargain down to 18 months, that’s a victory.
Activists also need to remember that, from time to time, Rep. Ruiz may find himself taking positions with which they do not necessarily agree, or voting contrary to some cherished position. To such activists, I offer a sobering reality that it is neither reasonable nor sensible to expect one hundred percent agreement one hundred percent of the time, and that to have a conniption because “your” Congressman didn’t support your particular issue only advantages the numerous Republicans waiting in the wings of the 36th District eagerly anticipating the elections of 2014.
We must cut Dr. Ruiz slack in this delicate time, and not impose ideological litmus tests upon him. At all events, we must avoid setting up our new Congressman for failure by projecting unrealistic or unsustainable expectations upon him. We are not the Tea Party; we are adult, patriotic Americans who ought to know better.
A beginning truly is a delicate time. Rep. Ruiz deserves our support, our prayers, and above all our considerate forbearance; he is our Doctor in the House. Above all, we need to have his back and wish him Godspeed.
-XXX-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California. He had the pleasure of supporting Dr. Raul Ruiz’s victorious campaign for Congress, and was honored to have Dr. Ruiz’s endorsement in his recent campaign for city Council in Cathedral City. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily those of the Democratic Party or any other entity with which Mr. Marchand happens to be associated. Self-appointed enforcers or the easily “offended” who may not like what they see or read in this post need to get over themselves. The contents of this post are not legal advice, and should not be taken as such.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
LIVING IN INTERESTING TIMES: HAPPY 2013
Summary: 2013 promises to be “an interesting time.” In future years, historians may well express shocked amazement at the irresponsibility of the United States Congress in leading the nation go over the fiscal cliff, even if only briefly. Even if by the time this post goes up, the House of Representatives may have agreed to the Senate bill to avert the cliff. Of course, we should not expect that the Tea Party in the House would ever consider the national interest over its own hateful ideology. We should also consider whether, in 2013, the GOP continues to shoot itself in the foot by retreating into its own aging, largely white, largely male base, blaming its own shellacking on all those uppity women, people of color, immigrants, and queerfolk who broke so heavily for President Obama. Here in Cathedral City, the political dynamic may be changing as local media begin to take a more careful and critical approach toward the reign of embattled Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa. Already, local media have displayed more willingness to report potentially unfavorable news about her, puncturing her cult of personality and hopefully discarding the traditionally deferential, kid glove approach the media had taken toward her. There are unspoken and unexposed truths in Cathedral City that need to see the light of day.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Let me take a moment to wish family, friends, and neighbors happy new year on this first day of 2013. It promises to be an interesting year, and “interesting” covers a multitude of sins.
There is an old Scots malediction: “May you live in interesting times.” The Chinese, in similar vein, sometimes express the wish that one may be born “in an important time,” or that one’s times may be “the subject of study by historians.”
Certainly, 2013 has already become an interesting time, certain to be an object of future study by historians and political scientists who may well find themselves shaking their heads, expressing shocked amazement that the government of the greatest power on earth could so shirk its responsibilities, and be so caught up in personal, partisan bickering, that it would allow the fiscal well-being of the nation to hang upon desperate last-minute legislative maneuverings as the United States Congress sidesteps, wide-steps, and back steps frantically to try to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. As I write, the Senate has sent back to the House a hastily drafted amendment to H.R. 8, a prior money bill that had emanated from the lower chamber.
At a whopping 157 pages, the Senate’s “gut and amend” on H.R.8 contains enough new legislation to give Tea Partisans and other disturbers of the public peace in the House of Representatives ample opportunity to throw monkey wrenches into the deal. After all, no Tea Partisan has ever put country or patriotism above the opportunity to score cheap, ideologically driven, political shots. Nonetheless, events have been moving quickly in Washington City, and it is possible that by the time this post goes up, embattled House Speaker John Boehner may have been able to cobble together some sort of coalition -- a connubio, as the Italians (past masters at the art of unstable coalition government) might put it.
If Boehner can cobble together his connubio, the Senate’s gut and amend on H.R.8 may have some chance of passing, notwithstanding the stated willingness of the Tea Party to do as much harm to this country as they possibly can. If so, we may be able to un-go over the fiscal cliff, running in reverse the clip from Thelma and Louise that depicts the two women and their car soaring off the cliff at the movie’s end. If not, then to borrow a fatalistic old Russian expression, the best we can do is to make the Sign of the Cross and hope to God that we can escape serious injury when we hit bottom.
If, however, the House does do what it ought to do and pass the Senate bill, but we can at least take some comfort in having started off the new year on the right foot.
Nonetheless, the fiscal cliff will by no means the only issue that will roil the waters in the twelvemonth that lies before us. When I suggested that American voters this November had had a choice between a Democratic blueprint for a more perfect Union and a Republican blueprint for a doomsday machine, I also foresaw that the Republicans and the Tea Party would not take their shellacking with equanimity or anything even resembling grace. I was certainly right. The postelection truculence and anger displayed not only by the GOP, but by its chosen standardbearer, mendacious Mitt Romney, strongly suggest that in 2013 the Republican Party will retreat to the same tone deaf anger that has characterized it since the turn of the 21st century. Buckle up; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
It will certainly be a bumpy ride for immigrants, women, and queerfolk. We would be fools to imagine that the GOP, bent as it seems to be on shooting itself in the same foot it routinely sticks in his own mouth, won’t try to campaign on the tired old issues of God, guns, and gays. To the extent GOP efforts to “reach out” to women (binders of them!), immigrants, queerfolk, and people of color don’t immediately pay off, we should expect the Republican Party to circle its metaphorical wagons ever more tightly around its aging, largely white, largely male base.
As and to the extent that Republicans try to woo those voting blocs that broke so decisively for President Obama, they do so at the acknowledged risk that the targets of their lascivious ogling may not want to rush into the proffered embrace. After all, being cruised does not impose upon the cruisee any obligation to respond favorably to the cruiser. When lascivious ogling leads to rejection, rejection can lead to anger on the part of the one rejected. When, not if, minorities in American society reject the lascivious political ogling of the GOP, the GOP will ineluctably turn its anger on uppity women, people of color, immigrants, and queerfolk. To the extent the GOP succumbs to the temptation to blame women, immigrants, people of color, and queerfolk for its loss last November, it will have only itself to blame if, next year, its political fortunes decline even worse than they did in 2012.
Here in Cathedral City, 2013 also promises to be “interesting.” While embattled Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa may have squeaked into a fifth term as the result of election about whose integrity large numbers of Cathedral city residents entertain grave doubt, there has been a distinct change in the dynamic of media coverage of the incumbent. Until October, 2012, local media had largely been content to give DeRosa the benefit of all doubt, and to give her what amounted to a de facto veto on any media coverage of her that she did not approve of.
Reading media coverage of DeRosa prior to last October was somewhat like reading Renmin Ribao (the People’s Daily)’s sycophantic coverage of Mao Zedong at the height of the Chairman’s cult of personality. When DeRosa hurled an F-Bomb at local restauranteur Mark Carnevale at a candidate forum in the presence of numerous percipient witnesses, the Desert Sun had no choice but to report on the event. Interestingly, DeRosa’s first attempt -- through surrogates -- to deny the event soon foundered on the rock of corroborating evidence. It did not take her long to change her story and claim that she had somehow been “set up” or provoked.
The rebuttal to DeRosa’s self-serving claim of victimhood was swift and simple: leaders do not allow themselves to be baited. If DeRosa allowed herself to be baited into hurling crude personal insults at a constituent, she engaged in conduct seriously unbecoming a leader. Like Charles I of England, who tried to set himself above the law and paid the ultimate forfeit, DeRosa seems not to understand that self-serving tergiversation inevitably erodes credibility. The willingness of the Desert Sun to take a more critical view of DeRosa’s conduct certainly reflected a significant change in their previously deferential, kid glove posture toward an incumbent with remarkably monarchical conceit of herself. We may hope that as 2013 unfolds, we will see our local media take a significantly less deferential stance toward DeRosa, and more critically review her so-called leadership style. There are unspoken truths in Cathedral City, truths that need to be spoken and exposed and to see the light of day.
We live in interesting times. So, as the Russians might say, let us make the Sign of the Cross and step boldly into this Year of Grace 2013. Happy New Year.
-XXX-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California. He served eight years on the city Council. His critique of the poor performance of incumbent mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa is no secret. He also serves on the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily the views of any organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to be, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Let me take a moment to wish family, friends, and neighbors happy new year on this first day of 2013. It promises to be an interesting year, and “interesting” covers a multitude of sins.
There is an old Scots malediction: “May you live in interesting times.” The Chinese, in similar vein, sometimes express the wish that one may be born “in an important time,” or that one’s times may be “the subject of study by historians.”
Certainly, 2013 has already become an interesting time, certain to be an object of future study by historians and political scientists who may well find themselves shaking their heads, expressing shocked amazement that the government of the greatest power on earth could so shirk its responsibilities, and be so caught up in personal, partisan bickering, that it would allow the fiscal well-being of the nation to hang upon desperate last-minute legislative maneuverings as the United States Congress sidesteps, wide-steps, and back steps frantically to try to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. As I write, the Senate has sent back to the House a hastily drafted amendment to H.R. 8, a prior money bill that had emanated from the lower chamber.
At a whopping 157 pages, the Senate’s “gut and amend” on H.R.8 contains enough new legislation to give Tea Partisans and other disturbers of the public peace in the House of Representatives ample opportunity to throw monkey wrenches into the deal. After all, no Tea Partisan has ever put country or patriotism above the opportunity to score cheap, ideologically driven, political shots. Nonetheless, events have been moving quickly in Washington City, and it is possible that by the time this post goes up, embattled House Speaker John Boehner may have been able to cobble together some sort of coalition -- a connubio, as the Italians (past masters at the art of unstable coalition government) might put it.
If Boehner can cobble together his connubio, the Senate’s gut and amend on H.R.8 may have some chance of passing, notwithstanding the stated willingness of the Tea Party to do as much harm to this country as they possibly can. If so, we may be able to un-go over the fiscal cliff, running in reverse the clip from Thelma and Louise that depicts the two women and their car soaring off the cliff at the movie’s end. If not, then to borrow a fatalistic old Russian expression, the best we can do is to make the Sign of the Cross and hope to God that we can escape serious injury when we hit bottom.
If, however, the House does do what it ought to do and pass the Senate bill, but we can at least take some comfort in having started off the new year on the right foot.
Nonetheless, the fiscal cliff will by no means the only issue that will roil the waters in the twelvemonth that lies before us. When I suggested that American voters this November had had a choice between a Democratic blueprint for a more perfect Union and a Republican blueprint for a doomsday machine, I also foresaw that the Republicans and the Tea Party would not take their shellacking with equanimity or anything even resembling grace. I was certainly right. The postelection truculence and anger displayed not only by the GOP, but by its chosen standardbearer, mendacious Mitt Romney, strongly suggest that in 2013 the Republican Party will retreat to the same tone deaf anger that has characterized it since the turn of the 21st century. Buckle up; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
It will certainly be a bumpy ride for immigrants, women, and queerfolk. We would be fools to imagine that the GOP, bent as it seems to be on shooting itself in the same foot it routinely sticks in his own mouth, won’t try to campaign on the tired old issues of God, guns, and gays. To the extent GOP efforts to “reach out” to women (binders of them!), immigrants, queerfolk, and people of color don’t immediately pay off, we should expect the Republican Party to circle its metaphorical wagons ever more tightly around its aging, largely white, largely male base.
As and to the extent that Republicans try to woo those voting blocs that broke so decisively for President Obama, they do so at the acknowledged risk that the targets of their lascivious ogling may not want to rush into the proffered embrace. After all, being cruised does not impose upon the cruisee any obligation to respond favorably to the cruiser. When lascivious ogling leads to rejection, rejection can lead to anger on the part of the one rejected. When, not if, minorities in American society reject the lascivious political ogling of the GOP, the GOP will ineluctably turn its anger on uppity women, people of color, immigrants, and queerfolk. To the extent the GOP succumbs to the temptation to blame women, immigrants, people of color, and queerfolk for its loss last November, it will have only itself to blame if, next year, its political fortunes decline even worse than they did in 2012.
Here in Cathedral City, 2013 also promises to be “interesting.” While embattled Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa may have squeaked into a fifth term as the result of election about whose integrity large numbers of Cathedral city residents entertain grave doubt, there has been a distinct change in the dynamic of media coverage of the incumbent. Until October, 2012, local media had largely been content to give DeRosa the benefit of all doubt, and to give her what amounted to a de facto veto on any media coverage of her that she did not approve of.
Reading media coverage of DeRosa prior to last October was somewhat like reading Renmin Ribao (the People’s Daily)’s sycophantic coverage of Mao Zedong at the height of the Chairman’s cult of personality. When DeRosa hurled an F-Bomb at local restauranteur Mark Carnevale at a candidate forum in the presence of numerous percipient witnesses, the Desert Sun had no choice but to report on the event. Interestingly, DeRosa’s first attempt -- through surrogates -- to deny the event soon foundered on the rock of corroborating evidence. It did not take her long to change her story and claim that she had somehow been “set up” or provoked.
The rebuttal to DeRosa’s self-serving claim of victimhood was swift and simple: leaders do not allow themselves to be baited. If DeRosa allowed herself to be baited into hurling crude personal insults at a constituent, she engaged in conduct seriously unbecoming a leader. Like Charles I of England, who tried to set himself above the law and paid the ultimate forfeit, DeRosa seems not to understand that self-serving tergiversation inevitably erodes credibility. The willingness of the Desert Sun to take a more critical view of DeRosa’s conduct certainly reflected a significant change in their previously deferential, kid glove posture toward an incumbent with remarkably monarchical conceit of herself. We may hope that as 2013 unfolds, we will see our local media take a significantly less deferential stance toward DeRosa, and more critically review her so-called leadership style. There are unspoken truths in Cathedral City, truths that need to be spoken and exposed and to see the light of day.
We live in interesting times. So, as the Russians might say, let us make the Sign of the Cross and step boldly into this Year of Grace 2013. Happy New Year.
-XXX-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California. He served eight years on the city Council. His critique of the poor performance of incumbent mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa is no secret. He also serves on the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily the views of any organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to be, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
O COME LET US ADORE HIM
Summary: As we remember again at Christmas the Incarnation of the infant in the manger, we remember not only the unwed teenager and her older boyfriend in that manger, but also the angelic voices that proclaimed that saving birth. Christmas is a time when we stand challenged to preach liberation and justice, over against a reductionist “makers/takers” narrative. It is for us in these days to proclaim a Gospel that has a preferential option for those who have been bereft of dignity and justice, a Gospel that dares to scatter the proud in their conceit. The Savior is nigh; O come let us adore Him.
By: Paul S. Marchand
What should we think, well into the second decade of the 21st century were we to encounter a teenage girl, obviously pregnant, situationally homeless, traveling with an older boyfriend who is not the father of her unborn child?
In a society all too quick to condemn and slow to consider, a society quick to judge and slow to understand, a society adept at jumping to conclusions and singularly inept at thinking things out, a society in which everything is permitted and nothing is forgiven, it would be easy on hearing such a word-picture to be led toward an angry, self-immiserating discourse on the social ills of contemporary American society.
It would be tempting.
Yet, such a word picture also recapitulates the infancy narrative set forth in Luke’s Gospel, describing the birth of our Savior in that famous manger in Bethlehem more than 2000 years ago.
The paradox of the Lucan infancy narrative is that instead of inviting our condemnation of the social transgressions of the pregnant teenager and her older boyfriend, it invites us to declare of this young girl: “Blessed art thou and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.”
Across the millennia, Luke’s Gospel has spoken both to the paradox of the power inherent in powerlessness and of the human compunction ---the sense of “awwwww” we ineluctably feel in the presence of the smallest and weakest among us. In every generation, we have been drawn to the manger by the bidding of angelic voices.
O come let us adore Him.
For when the sound and the fury are over, the core of the Christmas story is not so much about gift-giving or solemn liturgies or Christmas trees or proclamations or mawkish and sentimental Christmas cards or even Bill O’Reilly’s delusional claims of some sort of war on Christmas. The Christmas story is about proclaiming liberation, about a preferential option for those who have been bereft of justice and dignity. It is about proclaiming a radical view of human dignity, inclusion, and social justice over against a dispensation that still, after 2000 years, insists upon organizing the world very much without reference to the teachings Infant in Bethlehem sought to impart to the world.
Christmas is about giving the lie and rebuking the reductionist “makers/takers” narrative that reflexively, even belligerently, takes the side of Dives over Lazarus. Christmas rebukes a sinful tendency to celebrate without shame the selfishness of the One Percent over the Ninety-Nine Percent. For into the world comes the Incarnate Word of a liberating God Who, in the words of the Magnificat, “has scattered the proud in their conceit.”
O come let us adore Him.
At Christmas, we stand challenged to proclaim our liberation and our proclamation of a passionate gospel of justice. At Christmas we stand challenged to bear witness to a passionate God, Whose passionate love for us is passionately expressed in the Incarnation of the Infant in the manger. Instead of “putting the ‘Christ’ back in Christmas,” perhaps we should put the Mass back in Christmas, in sharing human companionship, human compunction, and human charity, and by breaking bread together both in our holiday meal and in the context of the Holy Eucharist. These are the gifts that come when we recount the infancy narratives and when we break the bread and share the cup together.
Samuel Johnson once noted that nothing concentrates a man’s mind is so marvelously as the knowledge that he is to be hanged in a fortnight. By the same token, few things concentrate a family’s mind more marvelously than the birth of an infant. It focuses the familial mind on what must be done to safeguard that infant and to create a better future. The infancy narrative at the foundation of our Christmas understanding demands of us the most careful, prayerful consideration of what we must do to build a better future, Urbi et Orbi -- for Cathedral City and the world. Our Christmas gift, this year and every year that follows, is a renewed commitment to the kind of social justice and Savior in the manger came into this world to proclaim.
O come let us adore Him.
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” Isa. 61:1-2.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, Who shall be called the Prince of Peace.
The Savior is nigh. O come let us adore Him.
Merry Christmas.
-xxx-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City. The views contained herein are his own; he’s not speaking ex cathedra on behalf of any entity, denomination, diocese or parish. The views herein are not legal advice, and should not be taken as such.
By: Paul S. Marchand
What should we think, well into the second decade of the 21st century were we to encounter a teenage girl, obviously pregnant, situationally homeless, traveling with an older boyfriend who is not the father of her unborn child?
In a society all too quick to condemn and slow to consider, a society quick to judge and slow to understand, a society adept at jumping to conclusions and singularly inept at thinking things out, a society in which everything is permitted and nothing is forgiven, it would be easy on hearing such a word-picture to be led toward an angry, self-immiserating discourse on the social ills of contemporary American society.
It would be tempting.
Yet, such a word picture also recapitulates the infancy narrative set forth in Luke’s Gospel, describing the birth of our Savior in that famous manger in Bethlehem more than 2000 years ago.
The paradox of the Lucan infancy narrative is that instead of inviting our condemnation of the social transgressions of the pregnant teenager and her older boyfriend, it invites us to declare of this young girl: “Blessed art thou and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.”
Across the millennia, Luke’s Gospel has spoken both to the paradox of the power inherent in powerlessness and of the human compunction ---the sense of “awwwww” we ineluctably feel in the presence of the smallest and weakest among us. In every generation, we have been drawn to the manger by the bidding of angelic voices.
O come let us adore Him.
For when the sound and the fury are over, the core of the Christmas story is not so much about gift-giving or solemn liturgies or Christmas trees or proclamations or mawkish and sentimental Christmas cards or even Bill O’Reilly’s delusional claims of some sort of war on Christmas. The Christmas story is about proclaiming liberation, about a preferential option for those who have been bereft of justice and dignity. It is about proclaiming a radical view of human dignity, inclusion, and social justice over against a dispensation that still, after 2000 years, insists upon organizing the world very much without reference to the teachings Infant in Bethlehem sought to impart to the world.
Christmas is about giving the lie and rebuking the reductionist “makers/takers” narrative that reflexively, even belligerently, takes the side of Dives over Lazarus. Christmas rebukes a sinful tendency to celebrate without shame the selfishness of the One Percent over the Ninety-Nine Percent. For into the world comes the Incarnate Word of a liberating God Who, in the words of the Magnificat, “has scattered the proud in their conceit.”
O come let us adore Him.
At Christmas, we stand challenged to proclaim our liberation and our proclamation of a passionate gospel of justice. At Christmas we stand challenged to bear witness to a passionate God, Whose passionate love for us is passionately expressed in the Incarnation of the Infant in the manger. Instead of “putting the ‘Christ’ back in Christmas,” perhaps we should put the Mass back in Christmas, in sharing human companionship, human compunction, and human charity, and by breaking bread together both in our holiday meal and in the context of the Holy Eucharist. These are the gifts that come when we recount the infancy narratives and when we break the bread and share the cup together.
Samuel Johnson once noted that nothing concentrates a man’s mind is so marvelously as the knowledge that he is to be hanged in a fortnight. By the same token, few things concentrate a family’s mind more marvelously than the birth of an infant. It focuses the familial mind on what must be done to safeguard that infant and to create a better future. The infancy narrative at the foundation of our Christmas understanding demands of us the most careful, prayerful consideration of what we must do to build a better future, Urbi et Orbi -- for Cathedral City and the world. Our Christmas gift, this year and every year that follows, is a renewed commitment to the kind of social justice and Savior in the manger came into this world to proclaim.
O come let us adore Him.
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” Isa. 61:1-2.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, Who shall be called the Prince of Peace.
The Savior is nigh. O come let us adore Him.
Merry Christmas.
-xxx-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City. The views contained herein are his own; he’s not speaking ex cathedra on behalf of any entity, denomination, diocese or parish. The views herein are not legal advice, and should not be taken as such.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
AFTER NEWTOWN: CALLING BS ON THE JACKASS CHORUS
Summary: Another horror comes among us with the latest mass shooting, this one in the peaceful village of Newtown, Connecticut. The bodies of the passion-bearers have not even been buried and already the jackass chorus is braying its damn fool notions that somehow this incident is the fault of secularists “driving God out of the public square,” queerfolk, and uppity, pro-choice women. The damn fools of the jackass chorus may have a First Amendment right to insert their foot into their mouth and chew right down to the bone, but the rest of us, who live in the reality-based community, have an equal First Amendment right to call bullshit.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Oh dear God, not again.
Like a bad folk song with a tiresome refrain that never stops repeating itself, America has once again been shocked by a horrific act of mass gun violence.
When Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Chief U.S. District Judge John Roll were shot, and Judge Roll was killed, last year in Tucson by an apparently unbalanced shooter, I posted in this blog to urge that we all take time for considerate and careful reflection.
What do we think? What do we know? What can we prove?
After the horrors of Newtown, Connecticut, and the experiences in Aurora, in Clackamas County, and Virginia Tech, we should have learned by now that the aftermath of events such as these is no time for loudmouths among us to prove conclusively that horses’ asses outnumber horses.
Indeed, without even waiting for the passion-bearers whose lives were cut off so young to be buried, the jackasses are braying. Former Arkansas Governor and sometime presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee was the first out of the box with his outlandish claim that the shooting had occurred because we had somehow “escorted God out of the public square.” Huckabee would have done better had he remained silent. The society that insists upon imposing a sectarian vision of God in the public square will sooner or later use that public square as a venue for the horrors of the auto-da-fé.
But Mike Huckabee wasn’t the only jackass offering damn fool notions about what caused the Newtown shootings. The latest claim from the Ridiculous Right is that abortion and gay rights were responsible for the shooting; it's all the fault of queerfolk and uppity, pro-choice women. Bloody fools like James Dobson Of Focus on the Family and heretics like Phred “God hates Fags” Phelps felt it incumbent to weigh in on this issue with foolish, judgmental, hateful, and theologically unsustainable opinions and conclusions.
It all seems to be about God, Guns, and Gays.
Apparently, at least in the Dobson/Phelps view, God put guns in the hands of the shooter to illustrate His displeasure with America’s growing tolerance of gays.
You don’t have to be queer to find such views ridiculous and indefensible. Sadly, our social dialogue has reached the point where moral midgets like Huckabee, Dobson, and their fellow travelers on the Ridiculous Right --- the same people who brought us so-called legitimate rape and rape children being part of God's plan --- rejoice in the happening of dreadful events because they look forward to being able to wag their hypocritical fingers. As an acquaintance of mine put, “whatever some whack job shoots up a theater or a mall or school, some other right wing whack job comes out of the woodwork and starts casting blame.”
No doubt, once the State of Connecticut concludes its investigation, we will have a better sense of the whys and wherefores that led another unbalanced young man to matricide and mass murder. In the meantime, we should withhold judgment before forming conclusions and opinions. Sadly, the jackass chorus hasn’t bothered to wait to take that considerate and careful break from jumping to conclusions.
What we can know is that after a dismal season of mass shootings, the President was right when he said these tragedies need to end. We must have a serious, non-hysterical conversation about the extent to which our embrace of guns has created a social psychopathology. We cannot have that discussion as long as the jackasses are braying and the NRA -- which should be investigated as a racketeering organization -- continues to try to raise money off of tragedies such as this.
Already, rumors are circulating that the NRA plans a fund-raising appeal grounded on baseless assertions that “the government is coming to take gun-owners’ firearms away.” Doubtless, the NRA’s propaganda will soon have black helicopters from the UN descending in our backyards to disgorge foreigners come to seize our weapons and take away our freedoms. And so the jackass chorus continues.
What happened in Connecticut last week was bad enough without the usual suspects opening their mouths, inserting feet therein, and then chewing down to the bone. America is a great nation, and damn fools peddling damn fool notions have a First Amendment right to do so. But the rest of us -- the vast, non-jackass majority -- also have an equal First Amendment right to call bullshit when we hear it.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served eight years on the city Council. He has no patience for, and is quite willing to call out, bullshit when he sees it, and makes no apologies to prudes and bluenoses who might take pernickety exception to his use of a term that frankly could use a little more deployment in our conversation. The views contained herein are his own, and not anybody else’s, and nobody has any right to try to veto his expression under claim of some kind of offense. They are not intended, and should not be construed, as legal advice.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Oh dear God, not again.
Like a bad folk song with a tiresome refrain that never stops repeating itself, America has once again been shocked by a horrific act of mass gun violence.
When Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Chief U.S. District Judge John Roll were shot, and Judge Roll was killed, last year in Tucson by an apparently unbalanced shooter, I posted in this blog to urge that we all take time for considerate and careful reflection.
What do we think? What do we know? What can we prove?
After the horrors of Newtown, Connecticut, and the experiences in Aurora, in Clackamas County, and Virginia Tech, we should have learned by now that the aftermath of events such as these is no time for loudmouths among us to prove conclusively that horses’ asses outnumber horses.
Indeed, without even waiting for the passion-bearers whose lives were cut off so young to be buried, the jackasses are braying. Former Arkansas Governor and sometime presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee was the first out of the box with his outlandish claim that the shooting had occurred because we had somehow “escorted God out of the public square.” Huckabee would have done better had he remained silent. The society that insists upon imposing a sectarian vision of God in the public square will sooner or later use that public square as a venue for the horrors of the auto-da-fé.
But Mike Huckabee wasn’t the only jackass offering damn fool notions about what caused the Newtown shootings. The latest claim from the Ridiculous Right is that abortion and gay rights were responsible for the shooting; it's all the fault of queerfolk and uppity, pro-choice women. Bloody fools like James Dobson Of Focus on the Family and heretics like Phred “God hates Fags” Phelps felt it incumbent to weigh in on this issue with foolish, judgmental, hateful, and theologically unsustainable opinions and conclusions.
It all seems to be about God, Guns, and Gays.
Apparently, at least in the Dobson/Phelps view, God put guns in the hands of the shooter to illustrate His displeasure with America’s growing tolerance of gays.
You don’t have to be queer to find such views ridiculous and indefensible. Sadly, our social dialogue has reached the point where moral midgets like Huckabee, Dobson, and their fellow travelers on the Ridiculous Right --- the same people who brought us so-called legitimate rape and rape children being part of God's plan --- rejoice in the happening of dreadful events because they look forward to being able to wag their hypocritical fingers. As an acquaintance of mine put, “whatever some whack job shoots up a theater or a mall or school, some other right wing whack job comes out of the woodwork and starts casting blame.”
No doubt, once the State of Connecticut concludes its investigation, we will have a better sense of the whys and wherefores that led another unbalanced young man to matricide and mass murder. In the meantime, we should withhold judgment before forming conclusions and opinions. Sadly, the jackass chorus hasn’t bothered to wait to take that considerate and careful break from jumping to conclusions.
What we can know is that after a dismal season of mass shootings, the President was right when he said these tragedies need to end. We must have a serious, non-hysterical conversation about the extent to which our embrace of guns has created a social psychopathology. We cannot have that discussion as long as the jackasses are braying and the NRA -- which should be investigated as a racketeering organization -- continues to try to raise money off of tragedies such as this.
Already, rumors are circulating that the NRA plans a fund-raising appeal grounded on baseless assertions that “the government is coming to take gun-owners’ firearms away.” Doubtless, the NRA’s propaganda will soon have black helicopters from the UN descending in our backyards to disgorge foreigners come to seize our weapons and take away our freedoms. And so the jackass chorus continues.
What happened in Connecticut last week was bad enough without the usual suspects opening their mouths, inserting feet therein, and then chewing down to the bone. America is a great nation, and damn fools peddling damn fool notions have a First Amendment right to do so. But the rest of us -- the vast, non-jackass majority -- also have an equal First Amendment right to call bullshit when we hear it.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served eight years on the city Council. He has no patience for, and is quite willing to call out, bullshit when he sees it, and makes no apologies to prudes and bluenoses who might take pernickety exception to his use of a term that frankly could use a little more deployment in our conversation. The views contained herein are his own, and not anybody else’s, and nobody has any right to try to veto his expression under claim of some kind of offense. They are not intended, and should not be construed, as legal advice.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Passing out of living memory: Thoughts on Pearl Harbor Day, 2012
Summary: 71 years on, the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor is rapidly passing out of living memory as roughly 1000 members the “Greatest Generation” pass into eternity every day and as the cohort of living Pearl Harbor survivors shrinks the vanishing point. As that cohort shrinks, we lose contact with living memory of those events that wrenched America out of neutrality and into the Second World War. Today, should we see or encounter a Pearl Harbor survivor or survivors in our pleasant Desert, we should take a moment to reflect and remember that day of infamy on which more than 2000 Americans laid what Abraham Lincoln once called “so costly a sacrifice on the altar of freedom.”
By: Paul S. Marchand
Today’s online Desert Sun contained an article by Denise Goolsby headlined “Pearl Harbor survivors in valley dwindling.” Reading it, I was reminded yet again of how the so-called Greatest Generation has been passing into eternity at the rate of more than 1000 a day. Soon, World War II and the attack against Pearl Harbor 71 years ago will have passed from living memory; it will be only a period piece. There is always something melancholy about a cusp period, about time when some great and terrible event passes out of living memory and into the realm of the historian.
As a late-Boomer child, born in the early 60s, I belong to one of the last age cohorts to grow up in communities in which World War II veterans were an active, substantial, and integral part of life. In my neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills were numerous residents --- some of them still in their vigorous late 40s or early 50s --- for whom World War II service was a first-hand, personal experience. Because Los Angeles was, and still is, the quintessential entertainment industry “company town,” drawing workers and talent from a worldwide pool, some of those World War II veterans in my neighborhood actually had seen service with the Wehrmacht or with the Armed Forces of Italy and Japan. But most of them were part of America’s own “Greatest Generation.”
Yet as the cohort of World War II veterans in general and Pearl Harbor survivors in particular grows ever smaller, now becomes an increasingly opportune time to reflect on the conflict and the cause, and the service and the sacrifice of those then-young men on that Sunday morning in Hawai’i when war came thundering down upon them.
Few, if any, of the young men on duty at Pearl Harbor on that dreadful day expected an attack. Sunday, December 7, 1941 started like any other peacetime day in what was one of the most desirable duty posts in the United States Navy. Yet, for Americans, notwithstanding the existence of a war that had been underway in Europe for more than two years, the idea that the United States would find herself essentially dragooned into the war as a belligerent seemed far-fetched to much of the American public. Nonetheless, Pearl Harbor was Where It All Began.
Not surprisingly, for Boomers and our successors -- for whom World War II was the stuff of vicarious hearsay -- talking to actual veterans of the Pearl Harbor attack always carried a kind of particular fascination. Few things carry the kind of immediacy and power that a first-hand recounting of the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor carries. Oh, to be sure, those of us with some degree of book learning about the history of the Pacific War may entertain a broader perspective, and may be able to discourse learnedly on the more Olympian aspects of high-level policy and strategy, but none of us will ever be able to summon from first-hand memory the sights, the sounds, the smells, the pressure wave from the explosion of the magazines in Turret II aboard the battleship Arizona (BB-39), or the badly damaged USS Nevada (BB-36) attempting to sortie, struggling to gain maneuvering room at sea, making her agonizing way down the channel in Pearl Harbor before grounding herself at Hospital Point.
Such eyewitness, percipient testimony to such history making events is something we cleave to ever more tightly as the number of witnesses to those events diminishes every year. And so, if when out and about in our pleasant Desert, one should come across a vehicle driven by an elderly man and carrying a “Pearl Harbor Survivor” license plate, take a moment to remember, before all living memory of Pearl Harbor passes away. For if memory is the custodian of all our horrors, memory is also the strongbox in which we preserve our inspirations, and also the treasure chest in which we cherish our precious recollections of service and costly sacrifice laid on the altar of freedom.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he spent two terms on the city Council. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, his late father, then eight years of age, was munching pizza and drinking illegal beer in Patsy’s Bar in the Bronx. His mom, then a toddler in El Paso, Texas, remembers the sun-rivaling flash of light, visible in El Paso, from the first atomic test, code-named Trinity, outside Alamogordo New Mexico in July, 1945.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Today’s online Desert Sun contained an article by Denise Goolsby headlined “Pearl Harbor survivors in valley dwindling.” Reading it, I was reminded yet again of how the so-called Greatest Generation has been passing into eternity at the rate of more than 1000 a day. Soon, World War II and the attack against Pearl Harbor 71 years ago will have passed from living memory; it will be only a period piece. There is always something melancholy about a cusp period, about time when some great and terrible event passes out of living memory and into the realm of the historian.
As a late-Boomer child, born in the early 60s, I belong to one of the last age cohorts to grow up in communities in which World War II veterans were an active, substantial, and integral part of life. In my neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills were numerous residents --- some of them still in their vigorous late 40s or early 50s --- for whom World War II service was a first-hand, personal experience. Because Los Angeles was, and still is, the quintessential entertainment industry “company town,” drawing workers and talent from a worldwide pool, some of those World War II veterans in my neighborhood actually had seen service with the Wehrmacht or with the Armed Forces of Italy and Japan. But most of them were part of America’s own “Greatest Generation.”
Yet as the cohort of World War II veterans in general and Pearl Harbor survivors in particular grows ever smaller, now becomes an increasingly opportune time to reflect on the conflict and the cause, and the service and the sacrifice of those then-young men on that Sunday morning in Hawai’i when war came thundering down upon them.
Few, if any, of the young men on duty at Pearl Harbor on that dreadful day expected an attack. Sunday, December 7, 1941 started like any other peacetime day in what was one of the most desirable duty posts in the United States Navy. Yet, for Americans, notwithstanding the existence of a war that had been underway in Europe for more than two years, the idea that the United States would find herself essentially dragooned into the war as a belligerent seemed far-fetched to much of the American public. Nonetheless, Pearl Harbor was Where It All Began.
Not surprisingly, for Boomers and our successors -- for whom World War II was the stuff of vicarious hearsay -- talking to actual veterans of the Pearl Harbor attack always carried a kind of particular fascination. Few things carry the kind of immediacy and power that a first-hand recounting of the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor carries. Oh, to be sure, those of us with some degree of book learning about the history of the Pacific War may entertain a broader perspective, and may be able to discourse learnedly on the more Olympian aspects of high-level policy and strategy, but none of us will ever be able to summon from first-hand memory the sights, the sounds, the smells, the pressure wave from the explosion of the magazines in Turret II aboard the battleship Arizona (BB-39), or the badly damaged USS Nevada (BB-36) attempting to sortie, struggling to gain maneuvering room at sea, making her agonizing way down the channel in Pearl Harbor before grounding herself at Hospital Point.
Such eyewitness, percipient testimony to such history making events is something we cleave to ever more tightly as the number of witnesses to those events diminishes every year. And so, if when out and about in our pleasant Desert, one should come across a vehicle driven by an elderly man and carrying a “Pearl Harbor Survivor” license plate, take a moment to remember, before all living memory of Pearl Harbor passes away. For if memory is the custodian of all our horrors, memory is also the strongbox in which we preserve our inspirations, and also the treasure chest in which we cherish our precious recollections of service and costly sacrifice laid on the altar of freedom.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he spent two terms on the city Council. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, his late father, then eight years of age, was munching pizza and drinking illegal beer in Patsy’s Bar in the Bronx. His mom, then a toddler in El Paso, Texas, remembers the sun-rivaling flash of light, visible in El Paso, from the first atomic test, code-named Trinity, outside Alamogordo New Mexico in July, 1945.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
ROBERT MARCHAND, 1933-2012, AN APPRECIATION.
Summary: my father’s passing yesterday evening leaves me contemplating the lessons to be learned from a life lived in full. He was a creature of responsibility, yet possessed of an irreverence for shibboleth, fiercely opposed to political meddling in the arts. He was a fierce defender of civilization, of the art of living inclusively in community. These are just some of the lessons I take from a life lived fully. I shall miss him terribly.
By: Paul S. Marchand
My dad died yesterday evening.
He was the best of fathers and the best of friends.
Of course, we draw lessons from every life lived and completed in its fullness. Though it is normal for children to bury their parents, it is equally normal for the critical parental teaching function to survive. The lessons we take from our parents are those we pass on to future generations. Across time and place we live and learn from our predecessors.
Perhaps the greatest lesson I take from the life lived in full that was my father’s was that of John Donne: "no man is an island." My father was a creature of responsibility who appreciated that we are all interdependent beings, that all of our actions ramify outward, and that in a world of intertwined lives, everything we do has an effect upon others. He taught me to be thoughtful of the way in which my actions would unfold their potential upon others. The very idea of bullying was hateful to him; the Golden Rule was his steady vade mecum for conduct.
But my dad’s ethic of responsible behavior toward self and others never prevented him from taking joy from the world around him. He had a healthy irreverence for shibboleth; his sense of humor regarded nothing as being out of bounds. Bluenoses and the easily offended, with their shibboleths and "buttons," had no place in his worldview.
Moreover, to a man possessed of an irreverence for shibboleth, rules themselves were shibboleths. Foolish rules, unreasonable rules, picayune rules, rules in place "for no other reason than that they had been on the statute book since the time of Henry IV," all of these he held up to critical analysis. To the overused cliché "it is what it is," he always came back with one simple question: "why?"
My dad’s willingness to ask the often stupefying question "why?" served him in good stead when, the better part of half a century ago, he found himself in the brand-new field of administering public support for the fine arts. Serving first with the California and later with the Maryland Arts Commissions, he was never afraid to stand up to politicians looking to turn the arts into a tame, compliant, and obedient wing of government. For him, though public support for the arts is an integral part of civilized society, there could be no such thing as an "official culture," nor was the idea of politicians as curators of what we should see, touch, or hear at all congenial to him. If the idea of politician as curator was uncongenial, the idea of politician as would-be censor roused in him a fighting spirit of opposition to the whole notion of political meddling in the arts, and he brought his steadfast convictions to his lengthy service as member, and later chair, of the Cathedral City Public Arts Commission.
For my father was an unapologetic progressive, unembarrassed to be numbered among liberals and so-called counterculture McGoverniks. At a time when Coachella Valley Democrats were, at best, a threatened --- even endangered --- species, when it was less potentially socially problematic to be gay than to be a Democrat in our Valley, my father was unafraid to be an out, loud, and proud Democrat. In the end, he was vouchsafed enough time to see the 36th Congressional District, the Coachella Valley, and Riverside County go true Democratic blue.
Yet blue was hardly the only color in my dad’s spectrum; it included the whole rainbow, reflecting his commitment to a society made up of every sort and condition of human being, irrespective of the way we live, the way we love, the way we look, the way we work, or the way we worship. For a decade and a half, my father served on the board of the Palm Springs-Desert Communities chapter of PFLAG. Having been "an actor, another goddamn actor," before moving into the administrative side of public arts, my dad was well accustomed to socializing and working professionally with LGBT colleagues in the entertainment industry, a history that served me in good stead when I came out to him half a lifetime ago. Indeed, I used to tease him that he was one of half a dozen straight men in the world who were into show tunes.
For these and so many other life lessons my dad imparted to me in the two score years and eight we had together, I am and always will be profoundly grateful.
He was the best of fathers and the best of friends.
I shall miss him terribly.
Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon him. May his dwelling this day be with the saints in the Paradise of God.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served two terms on the city Council. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily those of the Riverside County Democratic Party or of any other entity with which he may be associated. They are not intended, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
By: Paul S. Marchand
My dad died yesterday evening.
He was the best of fathers and the best of friends.
Of course, we draw lessons from every life lived and completed in its fullness. Though it is normal for children to bury their parents, it is equally normal for the critical parental teaching function to survive. The lessons we take from our parents are those we pass on to future generations. Across time and place we live and learn from our predecessors.
Perhaps the greatest lesson I take from the life lived in full that was my father’s was that of John Donne: "no man is an island." My father was a creature of responsibility who appreciated that we are all interdependent beings, that all of our actions ramify outward, and that in a world of intertwined lives, everything we do has an effect upon others. He taught me to be thoughtful of the way in which my actions would unfold their potential upon others. The very idea of bullying was hateful to him; the Golden Rule was his steady vade mecum for conduct.
But my dad’s ethic of responsible behavior toward self and others never prevented him from taking joy from the world around him. He had a healthy irreverence for shibboleth; his sense of humor regarded nothing as being out of bounds. Bluenoses and the easily offended, with their shibboleths and "buttons," had no place in his worldview.
Moreover, to a man possessed of an irreverence for shibboleth, rules themselves were shibboleths. Foolish rules, unreasonable rules, picayune rules, rules in place "for no other reason than that they had been on the statute book since the time of Henry IV," all of these he held up to critical analysis. To the overused cliché "it is what it is," he always came back with one simple question: "why?"
My dad’s willingness to ask the often stupefying question "why?" served him in good stead when, the better part of half a century ago, he found himself in the brand-new field of administering public support for the fine arts. Serving first with the California and later with the Maryland Arts Commissions, he was never afraid to stand up to politicians looking to turn the arts into a tame, compliant, and obedient wing of government. For him, though public support for the arts is an integral part of civilized society, there could be no such thing as an "official culture," nor was the idea of politicians as curators of what we should see, touch, or hear at all congenial to him. If the idea of politician as curator was uncongenial, the idea of politician as would-be censor roused in him a fighting spirit of opposition to the whole notion of political meddling in the arts, and he brought his steadfast convictions to his lengthy service as member, and later chair, of the Cathedral City Public Arts Commission.
For my father was an unapologetic progressive, unembarrassed to be numbered among liberals and so-called counterculture McGoverniks. At a time when Coachella Valley Democrats were, at best, a threatened --- even endangered --- species, when it was less potentially socially problematic to be gay than to be a Democrat in our Valley, my father was unafraid to be an out, loud, and proud Democrat. In the end, he was vouchsafed enough time to see the 36th Congressional District, the Coachella Valley, and Riverside County go true Democratic blue.
Yet blue was hardly the only color in my dad’s spectrum; it included the whole rainbow, reflecting his commitment to a society made up of every sort and condition of human being, irrespective of the way we live, the way we love, the way we look, the way we work, or the way we worship. For a decade and a half, my father served on the board of the Palm Springs-Desert Communities chapter of PFLAG. Having been "an actor, another goddamn actor," before moving into the administrative side of public arts, my dad was well accustomed to socializing and working professionally with LGBT colleagues in the entertainment industry, a history that served me in good stead when I came out to him half a lifetime ago. Indeed, I used to tease him that he was one of half a dozen straight men in the world who were into show tunes.
For these and so many other life lessons my dad imparted to me in the two score years and eight we had together, I am and always will be profoundly grateful.
He was the best of fathers and the best of friends.
I shall miss him terribly.
Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon him. May his dwelling this day be with the saints in the Paradise of God.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served two terms on the city Council. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily those of the Riverside County Democratic Party or of any other entity with which he may be associated. They are not intended, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
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