Flight

I know it’s a bit manipulative, but when somebody I meet while traveling asks where I’m from, I like to respond with “The home of aviation.” I enjoy the puzzled look on their faces before most say, “North Carolina?”

Then I tell them, no, not Kittyhawk, North Carolina, but Dayton, Ohio, the home of Orville Wright. Then I go on and tell them how Kittyhawk has great breezes and soft sand and was the perfect place to fly first, but Dayton is the place where The Wright Boys did their research and flight tables, designed working kites and planes, fabricated all for shipping on railroad cars to more sandy shores, and eventually perfected the controls that made flight practical while working locally out at Huffman Prairie, which is, by the way, the largest native grassland left in Ohio.

In any case, I’m proud to call Dayton my home town, too.

My town can now lay claim to the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Park, located on various campuses in the area. We’ve got one of the first agile aircraft Orville and Wilbur flew on display for years now over at Carillon Park. And we’ve got Wright Patterson Air Force Base and its continuing work on flight and space technology.

Perhaps the best venue we have that celebrates flight locally is the National Museum of the United States Air Force. It’s our hope that we land a retired space shuttle when all the flights are done next year. We’re hoping for Atlantis, the orbiter that flew more Air Force projects than any other. We’re keeping our fingers crossed. If you’ve never been or haven’t been for a while, you owe it to yourself to go to the museum. Besides, admission is free, though I bet you can’t make it through the gift shop without buying something.

I like to promote the local pride in flight with my grandkids by going to the museum. I’ve taken Noah to the Air Force Museum, as we still call it, countless times. He knows the place, perhaps, better than I do. I know for a fact he knows more details about aircraft. True, he doesn’t know as much as he thinks he knows at age 9, but he knows quite a bit. I figure as he matures his knowledge and humility will grow in equal measure.

We, in fact, were over at the museum just yesterday, along with my brother-in-law who grew up in Springfield, just down the road from here, but now calls Missoula, Montana home. Chris remembers visiting the museum when he was a kid and likes to stop by whenever he’s in town. As an auto mechanic, he’s got a thing for machines and engines. He knows one hell of a lot about historical aircraft, too.

At one point yesterday, though, while walking through the exhibits trying to figure out where Noah had gotten off to, I was struck with sadness. There was this beautiful Cold War era flying machine -- bristling with armaments. Somehow I had walked past a replica of the 'Fat Man' atomic bomb that devastated Nagasaki, on display in the shadow of Bockscar, the actual aircraft that dropped The Bomb on that Japanese city, without thinking about it too much. By the time I got back to the more recent retired aircraft, though, it got to me.

I know there is evil in the world. I recognize that sometimes wars have to be fought. I accept that people have to die.

But I am also struck with the news we get now and then of an errant cruise missile that misses the bad guys and blows up a school or a wedding party or some other peaceful gathering of people just trying to make their way in a war-torn country. It bothers me, too, that when we count war dead in this day and age, we only count our dead: our soldiers, our contractors, and our civilians. Back in the Vietnam era, we always heard about Vietcong body counts. How many enemy soldiers bought it today? Somehow those numbers made our own losses more palatable.

Now, however, we don’t hear much about the death toll on the other side, whether military or civilian. Maybe we’ll hear about something broadcast on Al Jezeera from time to time, but overall, it is about our losses, not theirs.

There has been so much death from the sky over the last century since Orville and Wilbur perfected control at Huffman Prairie. I’m still proud of those boys and what they did. The machines created and improved since then using their ideas have been wonders, indeed. Still, the death and destruction humanity rains on enemies today from these technical works of art that have taken to the sky is enough to make a person stop and wonder if the cost for humanity has been worth it. Sure makes it easier when war fought in our name doesn’t provide us with the knowledge of who’s hurting and how much.

Today’s elder idea: Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense of theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Independence

The Fourth of July is a national holiday when Americans celebrate personal freedoms. It was on that day in 1776 when Thomas Jefferson released his revised version of the document that spelled out the colonists’ grievances against the Crown of England in no uncertain terms.

Most of us know the opening line -- When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them to another -- but we forget that most of the document is a laundry list of grievances against King George. Independence from England was necessary, so felt the Founding Fathers, because the Crown had, for example, imposed taxes on us without our consent. It’s an impressive list.

Another big cause for celebration on July 4 is the US military. We thank the men and women through generations who have put their lives on hold and their bodies in grave physical danger to uphold freedoms for all Americans. One patriotic thing I heard over the weekend was that soldiers protect the flag so those who disagree at home can burn it if they choose. It’s such a dichotomy that it seems absurd: Citizen soldiers risking life and limb abroad to protect freedom of speech back home. Such is just one of the contradictions of this land we call the United States of America.

Let me make this perfectly clear: I respect the military and thank them deeply for their sacrifices. I can’t imagine the pain of getting news that a son or daughter has been killed by a roadside bomb and the fabric of a family irreparably torn forever. I can’t imagine re-starting a life with lost limbs in a wheelchair after being blown apart by an IED. It’s part of the reason I cringe when my own grandsons play with faux military weapons like they are just toys. I truly hate it.

On the other hand, I have a problem this time of year with celebrating the tasks we assign our military to do. I mean, we train these people in the use of lethal weapons to fight an enemy, we are told, who hates our freedoms and wants to kill us. We teach our military to fly aircraft and fire rockets that do not know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. Both bad guys and civilians die. We see this tragic news now and then on CNN, then pretty much forget about it by lunch time. Collateral damage we are told. It happens.

But the folks in other countries where we fight don’t forget. They must look at the impact craters and mourn their dead -- and wonder what kind heartless enemy could do such a thing.

And what about soldiers who are trained to kill and maim an enemy of someone else’s choosing? What do they do with that knowledge -- that mindset -- once they finish their tour? Dive for cover when firecrackers go off in neighborhoods after they come back home? Live with nightmares they can’t even talk to their spouses about?

Yes, there is evil in the world. Yes, the military is necessary. Yes, our forces will be called on to suppress injustices when called upon. And, yes, their sacrifice can be beyond anything any other American might be called upon to make, except perhaps firefighters and police officers.

My July 4th point is this: While our military deserve remembrance on this day, so do the aforementioned firefighters and police officers, as do EMTs, teachers, social workers, judges, assembly line laborers, garbage men, street maintenance crews, construction workers, communications technicians, and so many others. So many have dedicated their lives to making America and the world a better place. In my view, they deserve some accolades, too, for working diligently and non-violently to get it right. For doing what they can to make everybody’s home safer.

There have been good wars when evil needed to be stopped. World War II is a good case in point. But there have been so many other wars waged by US -- the good guys -- only because high rollers in power wanted to further their markets and their ability to attain resources we don’t have enough of. Like oil. Good soldiers, we are told, don’t ask questions. Theirs is to serve and do and die when necessary.

Maybe it’s a bad war. Maybe they are viewed as invaders and occupiers in the countries where they fight and die. Doesn’t make any difference. They must live by the military code. Nobody made them put on the uniform. They signed up as volunteers.

Still, others went to college or learned some technical skill that makes the US, and the world, a better and safer place. These folks opted to take a path that wasn’t consumed with violence to contribute to the greater good. And I think they deserve some accolades on the Fourth of July, too.

Today’s elder idea: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Declaration of Independence

¶ 2

Image: From the Story People collection by artist Brian Andres.

See his work at https://www.artiststowatch.com

For another take on celebrating American military, see “Our American Heroes: Why It’s Wrong to Equate Military Service with Heroism” by William J. Astore from TomDispatch.com. (22 July 2010)

Sense of wonder

Summer’s here, and so is additional grandchild care. This is our eighth summer with grandson Noah spending much of the week in our home. It’s a special time. I try to get him to ‘work’ with me when I can. That way, at least, I get some projects done.

When Noah’s here, the schedule changes and our world, pretty much, revolves around him. He’s helped us on a laundry room painting project and some garage clean-up so far, but we’ve had lots of Dairy Queen visits and Grandma’s been throwing wiffle ball batting practice in the driveway. He can really pop the ball these days! He’s also the chief gatherer-of-cucumbers from our little front yard garden. Of course, he eats most of ‘em, too. Such a little man.

This summer, of course, I need to be working on my book project. Not so much with Noah around. I suspected that’s how it would be. Another disturbing postponement of serious, long-term project writing. Still, Noah is a glowing nine year-old who will pass this way but once. Before too long he’ll have a summer job and won’t need grandparents for babysitting anymore. While Grammy and I both need to work on our own stuff, postponing much for Noah is the stuff of memories. We’ll find a way to juggle what we need to do to make room for Noah in our summer lives. We both count ourselves mighty lucky for having him here. Fall and his return to all-day school will come too soon.

So much of what has become special for all three of us happens just because Noah spends days at a time at our homestead. True, he loves playing Age of Empires on his Mac -- my old one with limited computing ability. He likes the RC plane game on my iPod Touch, too, and watches lots of Spongebob Squarepants. He’s a techie kind of guy. We have to limit time spent gazing into screens.

Still, he’s very interested in much more. Not just the aforementioned cukes, but the momma robin who has built a nest just under the soffit on the back of our house. He checks on her daily. Of course, he’s often packing a plastic firearm at the same time, busy keeping us all safe from imaginary invaders.

I remember playing with pretend guns too, but my fondest memory of summers about his age was playing in the backyard dirt with my Tonka trucks. Oh, the lovely dirt roads and little cities that populated my yard and my mind. I don’t remember getting hammered with mosquito bites like Noah does, though. In any case, he isn’t piqued by earth moving in the same way, but he surely loves to put on his backpack and patrol the premises, military fashion. Such physical outdoor play seems to be seared into the boy’s imagination.

The real reason for today’s blog is this: The other day we had to stop by Noah’s house to pick up a school bag he needed for his special summer math program. As I waited in the car and let him enter his house like a big boy and get what he needed, and then lock up the place, I sat back and watched how responsibly he handled things. The front door lock is combination, so he put in his numbers and went on in.

When he was locking up, though, something very interesting happened. All was going as it should, but when he went to close the screen door, he noticed a moth caught between doors. He could have paid no attention, slammed the door and ran back to the car. But he didn’t. Instead, he looked up at the moth, left the screen door open, and waited for the little critter to flutter away. When it cleared, he closed the door, hustled over to the passenger seat, and we were off.

I was so proud of him and I told him so. His growing brain fires in response to so many things that make up his life experiences every day. Computer games. Disney Channel. Times tables. Reading. Cucumbers. Birds. Protecting us all from invaders. Still, he had the presence of mind to take time to respect one little life who had been caught up inadvertently in his actions.

As much as I think of myself and the birds in my backyard as Nature’s people, as Emily Dickinson coined the phrase, Noah has become one, too. It’s enough to make a grandpa proud.

Today’s elder idea: If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder...he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.

Rachel Carson

from The Sense of Wonder

Beauty at solstice

Some thirty years ago when I was about that age, I remember hearing my dad, who was in his early 60s at the time, say something about his own death. I was pretty stunned. I mean, he was healthy and as far as I could tell, still feeling like a ‘young’ man. He still enjoyed to fish and camp. Still got on his knees and installed carpet. Still loved playing Santa at Christmas. Seemed like an unnecessary dwelling on the morbid to me.

Of course, being 30 and feeling one’s oats with a young family, like myself, can leave a guy feeling pretty impervious to the inevitable. Life was mighty sweet back then. No sense in considering the end of it.

Over the last couple of weeks, though, I’ve had a recurring thought that has given me pause. I was sitting on the back porch, appropriately enough, looking up into the neighborhood canopy of trees late in the evening. All of our trees were in the gloaming darkness at the time, but one tall crown a few blocks north still glowed brightly in a brilliant sunset. Temperature was pleasant. Birds still chattered, awaiting the quiet darkness would bring. All my senses told me what a beautiful moment it was.

Then I thought: There will come a time when you won’t be able to experience all this. Eyes might fail. Sickness might make just sitting on the porch an effort. Anything could happen. Then I was reminded of mindfulness and how every moment lived is the one to savor. I took another sip of my cold beer. Life was good. Right then. I was thankful.

Still, things change and I will end up giving up physical gifts. No doubt about it. Cindy, Noah, and I spent some time with my mother this week. She’s still motivating very well at age 89. She still fixes her own meals, watches Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune every evening between 7 and 8, always works the newspaper crossword puzzles, and walks the hall of her apartment building multiple times daily. As I’ve told lots of people, If Mom doesn’t live to be 120, she’ll be pissed. I suspect that’s true. Still, on one of her walks up the hall a couple weeks ago, she turned, just like she had so many times -- and fell. Hard on her right side. Hit her face just above her glasses. Thankfully, no bones were broken, but she’ll have some technicolor bruises for a while.

But she could have broken a hip. And from what Cindy and I have seen and read about over the last few years, breaking a hip can be the beginning of the end for a body. Mom was lucky. And feeling pretty dumb these days, to use her words. She doesn’t want to walk much now, though thinks she’ll get back to it in a week or so. She has been very wary of where her feet are and recognizes she can’t see as well as she’d like. Still, being careful wasn’t enough.

And here we are at summer solstice. On December 21, when Cindy Lou and I celebrate our wedding anniversary, we know it’s the longest night of the year, but the truly cool thing is that even though winter is just beginning, days are beginning to get longer. It’s a comforting thought. In the middle of darkness, the sun is on its way back. Summer solstice? Lovely sun, but it begins its journey back south tomorrow. Fall and winter are inevitable. As are our loss of gifts.

I’m a Western culture guy who runs around pretty busy most of the time. The Puritan ethic this country raised me on encourages us all to keep moving, get an education, get a job, raise a family, and contribute something of value to life on the planet. The idea of being still and present is the stuff of vacations on the beach. Zen mindfulness, while appreciated and practiced, most often seems to be on the periphery of my awareness.

So, I suppose we can conclude that life is a dichotomous struggle. Mind wants to go one way, teaching wants to direct us back another. And so it is, with such a ride of variables along the way. I feel damned lucky to be here.

Today’s elder idea: For Mom -

I shall keep singing!

Birds will pass me

On their way to Yellower Climes -

Each - with a Robin’s expectation -

I - with my Redbreast -

And my Rhymes -

Late - when I take my place in summer -

But - I shall bring a fuller tune -

Vespers - are sweeter than matins - Signor -

Morning - only the seed - of noon -

Emily Dickinson

Franklin #270 (1861)

State of my state

Took a drive up to Columbus this afternoon. Pretty simple errand, actually. Dropped off a long-term project I’ve been working on for over four years now. Audubon Adventures, Ohio series, it’s called. Student newspapers with activities focusing on Ohio’s natural habitats: forests, grassland prairies, and wetlands. Really good team putting it together. Glad to get that one done, though. Proud of it, too.

Noah spent his first summer week with us. He’s nine, and ready to take on about anything. Except maybe the dark in the basement and the occasional bumble bee. But he’s a trouper. Tree climber. Skate boarder. Bike mechanic. Age of Empires master. Guitar Hero and real guitar player. Common laborer, from which he earns three bucks an hour. Earned $10.50 this week. Cindy wants to write him a check every two weeks so he can consider what goes into a savings account. We’ll talk to his mommy about that one. A good week.

For us maybe, but surely not for many on the Gulf coast. What a nightmare. Bad news, then worse news. Horrible images of birds stuck in ooze and brown, diluted oil gunk washing up into sensitive wetlands. Wetlands will die. They will seem to flourish for a time, then die off due to the consequences of no oxygen at their root. Fisherfolk can’t fish. Vacationers are changing plans. Lots of volunteers, but you need a haz-mat suit to participate. Then today the word of excess methane, which along with the dispersant, might be brewing up another toxic nightmare. I should go, I know I should. And maybe I will. But right now I need to stay here and work on my book. The birds will have to wait this time.

How about them Reds? Here we are, late June, and the current cardiac kids are hanging tough. Lots of late game heroics. Most last-at-bat wins of any team in the majors. 12? Something like that. They’re in Seattle this weekend. Last time they were there, Ken Griffey Jr. was playing right field for the Redlegs. Oh, such a reception the whole team got. The tv guys were very impressed with the welcome carpet rolled out for Junior’s current team. I hope they have a good weekend this time around. First place. Ain’t shabby for June 19. But you gotta’ keep winning.

A new book on its way from Amazon: Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds by Lydall Gordon. Looking forward to seeing that one. I was disappointed how Mabel Loomis Todd was dismissed in the New York Botanical Garden show. According to them, all of Emily’s history was with Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Yes, he corresponded with her and came to Amherst for a visit a time or two. And, yes, he co-edited Poems, First Series and Poems: Second Series, but damn it, it was Mabel Todd who got the ball rolling. And it was Mrs. Todd who collected Emily Dickinson correspondence that she, indeed, edited that we know today as Emily Dickinson’s Letters. Know that some of Emily’s letters are as magical as her verse. Both are important contributions to the American literary canon. And Mabel Todd had much to do with it. Giving all the credit to Higginson is re-writing history.

Cindy & I splurged on a new washer and dryer this week. The old ones were still working, but were over 15 years old. The dryer lost its sensor cycle years ago. Now both are HE -- High Efficiency. Had to buy new detergent. Uses lots less water. Supposed to be lots easier on clothes. Less lint. Less drying time, too, since HE washers spin clothes so dry. All the paperwork makes me think we’ll save money on water and electricity. We’ll see.

And what do you think of Pandora radio? I am most impressed. Found it a couple weeks ago, thinking it was unique for use with my iPod. Not so. Works great on the desktop computer. The ‘station’ is currently set on ‘nature sounds radio.’ My other favorite choice is ‘New Age ambient.’ Both fill my office with music that aids my creative process. Call it muzak if you want, but it works for me. Rich instruments, easy cadences, thick harmonies. My, my. Really good stuff. And all for free, if you’d like. I went ahead and paid the $36 annual for the Pandora One desktop browser. Works better for me. No ‘commercials.’ I’m always eager to find new music, but I don’t know where to look. Pandora lets me hear lots of very specific stuff, then I can buy it if I want. Picked up a couple new albums so far. Good investment for a guy who ‘works’ hours at his computer. See http://www.pandora.com/

Weather’s been great, but now a hot, humid session moves in. High tomorrow over 90. Then back into the mid-80s, but still wetter ‘n heck. Air conditioner time, for sure. Not a big fan of this stuff. If we have to have severe weather, I prefer a snowstorm. More meditative. Heat gets me down. Gotta’ keep things watered, that’s for sure.

What I really wanted to write about today was how beautiful things are. I look up into a maple tree and see sun illuminating a branch full of green dancing in an afternoon zephyr. Carolina wren and American robin make soundtrack not much different from the ambient stuff I love in my office. Scent of flowers in the air. Hummingbirds buzzing into the feeder. Can’t get much better. Then I think some day I won’t be able to see and hear such things. Losing gifts, you know? Not trying to be morbid, but realistic. But that’s for another day.

How’s the state of your state?

Today’s elder idea: You want to be a writer? Don’t know how or when? Find a quiet place. Use a humble pen.

Paul Simon (the musician)

Emily's garden

As you probably know, I’m a real Emily Dickinson fan.

I’m not exactly sure when it all began, but my guess is it started with Mr. Hemmert, a favorite high school teacher of mine I had for both sophomore and senior years. It was during time in his classroom that I realized I connected with literature and the humanities a whole lot more than what I thought I was supposed to, math. During that last year at Carroll High School, when we were all attempting best guess career decisions, I applied to colleges as an engineering major. But even by the time graduation rolled around, I had a bad feeling about that choice. When I got to college and filled out first year paperwork, I told Wright State I wanted to be an English teacher. They didn’t seem to mind. And so it was.

I remember, too, a day when Mr. Hemmert stood before us and read an original poem of his. I was rapt. I want to say it was a piece on the death of a kid in Vietnam who we all knew, a class leader who had graduated only a year prior. Maybe. What I do remember was realizing that poetry wasn’t just an academic exercise for educating those of us in the student seats. This man who I respected as much as my own father, expressed himself in the magical cadence and rhythms of verse. I could do that, I remember thinking.

I remember, too, an aphorism Mr. Hemmert had posted in his room. He, or somebody he commissioned, had carefully calligraphied a number of ideas to, perhaps, ignite some spark within his charges. I remember none all these years later, save one. It was from Emily. It was a paraphrase of the following, a note Ms. Dickinson wrote to a mentor of hers, Thomas Wentworth Higginson:

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?

Well, as you probably also know, I made teaching a career. While spending some time promoting history among the unwashed, my first love was literature. Years later, in graduate school, I rediscovered Emily under the tutelage of Jim Hughes, a Wright State professor/poet I’d had the good fortune to study with in undergrad. This part of the story gets really interesting and did, indeed, lead to a deepening of my appreciation for Emily. It was during this time that I began writing poetry in earnest, and on one mystical trip to Maine, found Emily connected to so much I could not believe it. When I told Jim Hughes, he wasn’t surprised at all. But that whole story would take a book to retell. Trust me, I’m still working on it.

So it was with great interest that I heard about an exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden this spring called Emily Dickinson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers. My first knowledge of it was from a former student living in The Big Apple who somehow found my email address. Within a few days I found a couple of other references to the Emily show in the New York Times online. It took me another day or two to figure out that I should actually go to the Bronx to witness the exhibition for myself. Just got back last night.

You know that book I mentioned a paragraph ago? Well, its main focus is on Mabel Loomis Todd, a Washingtonian/New Englander who bought most of a Maine island in Muscongus Bay over one hundred years ago and with her family, used it as rustic summer camp for many years. After she died, her only daughter turned the place over to the National Audubon Society, and in 1936, opened the Audubon Nature Camp on the 300+ acre island. By the time I got there in 1981, it was called the Audubon Ecology Workshop.

I felt a tingle up my spine and the spirit moving back then when I looked at Mrs. Todd’s picture hanging on the Fish House wall and recognized her as -- get this -- the original editor of the Emily Dickinson poetry. On the way to Maine I took it upon myself to stop by Emily’s house in Amherst, Massachusetts, and by the time I got to Maine a day later, found they both were connected. Small world, indeed.

I learned not long ago that when Emily died, her neighbors did not know her as a poet. A few short pieces had reached publication during her lifetime, but the work of getting the Dickinson poetry in front of a larger audience fell to Mabel Todd and the aforementioned Thomas Higginson.

What her neighbors did know about sequestered Emily, was that she was a darned good gardener. She had a special thing for roses. And that is, in part, what I want to present in my book. The other big piece of the book is to portray Mabel Todd as a sister nature lover. Emily had her flowers and poetry. Mabel had her all important editing and summers on beautiful Hog Island.

Much has been written about Emily and Mrs. Todd. Nobody has connected them as Nature’s people. Sounds like a fine non-fiction book idea to me.

Today’s elder idea: I was reared in a garden, you know.

In a letter from Emily Dickinson to a cousin. (1859)

The Back Porch @ 1

It was one year ago this Memorial Day weekend that I started the business of writing weekly here on The Back Porch. It’s been meaningful for me, keeping my mind thinking about engaging topics to formulate and share with you, dear reader. Thanks for stopping by and giving me a listen.

One year ago the topic was ‘Memorial Day thoughts from an anti-war guy.’ Indeed, I still have a Peace sticker proudly displayed on the back window of my car. In fact, I have a replacement or two in my sock drawer awaiting cars I will buy years hence. Peace should be the international mantra for the world in which we live, in my view. Let’s talk things over and figure out a way where most, if not all in the world, can have their needs met. Sounds like a basic human right, if you ask me.

Still, there are bad guys and evil in the world, too. They would rather see their enemies suffer and die, depriving them of their right to life and family. Hitler fits into that category. I know Germany wanted to become more of an international player in commerce and governance following their punishment after World War I, but rounding up the inferior, working them in labor camps, then exterminating them by the millions was just plain evil. Thanks to my parents’ Greatest Generation for putting a stop to it.

As much as I hate to admit it, sometimes war is necessary. Thanks to all those men and women who put their lives on hold and their bodies in grave danger to make the world a safer place. We are in your debt.

*****

Earlier this month spring elections were held across the country. In Kentucky, Rand Paul won the GOP primary. Within 24 hours of his victory, the proverbial shit hit the fan following his day-after interviews with NPR and Rachel Maddow.

As a libertarian, Paul believes in a small, non-meddling national government. He believes in the power of business owners to do what they want. Obama was acting badly for criticizing BP in the wake of the Gulf oil spill. Accidents happen, after all. And the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Good idea in many ways. Though Paul abhors racial injustice, he draws the line at government forcing businesses into compliance. The market will sort out the riff-raff. He is a pro-lifer, too. Libertarians hold that women should not have the option to end a life by terminating a pregnancy. Roe v Wade should be struck down.

Soon after, some pundit observed that following Reconstruction in 1877 and the removal of US troops from the South, businesses and local governments enacted what would be known as Jim Crow laws to keep white folks in power and new freemen in their respective places. It did, indeed, take that 1964 Congressional action -- one hundred years after the Civil War ended -- to assure all Americans the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Seemed the riff-raff ruled.

Since Rand Paul’s libertarian positions were clarified, other political analysts have put forth how steadfast orthodox positions don’t work all that well in the reality of governing. As much as political mechanization feels like an ethical sell-out at times, deal making gets important things done. So while Paul’s ‘consistent libertarian philosophy’ might make many feel that purity in small government is possible, it ain’t necessarily so.

AlterNet (alternet.org) offers the following reader response to Rand Paul this Memorial Day. Darklady writes:

Rand Paul believes that the government should allow all private business owners to deny food, lodging, clothing, employment, etc. to members of whatever groups they don’t like.

He claims that this is because it’s not fair for the government to force private businesses to do things they don’t want to do.

Meanwhile — Rand Paul also believes that the government has a *responsibility* to force private citizens to feed, house, care for and potentially be placed at great personal risk by a fertilized egg, zygote, embryo, etc.

What if the woman could declare herself to be a private business? Could she then abort based on the fact that she doesn’t want to provide services?

I must admit, I’m not into squabbling. Like Rodney King, I’d just like to ask, ‘Can’t we all just get along?’

Maybe in a perfect world. But that’s not the one we’re blessed with. In the meantime, we give and take, trying to live with our personal values and respecting the differences of others. All global citizens deserve good health, the ability to acquire what they need, and a place where they can think and do what they damn well please -- as long as it doesn’t negatively impact their neighbor.

I’ve always been a fan of tolerance. Seems like a peaceful practice in a beautiful but dangerous world.

Today’s elder idea: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

Ralph Waldo Emerson