James M. Redwine

News Media

The National Inquirers

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Investigative journalism that uncovers and publicizes official corruption has an American tradition going back to John Peter Zenger who was born in Germany in 1697 and died in New York in 1746. Zenger was a printer who wrote exposé articles about our English cousins’ ham-fisted governance of New York, especially by the Royal Governor William Cosby. Cosby took umbrage at these early efforts to inform Americans about government malfeasance. Cosby had Zenger charged with libel but in 1735 a jury refused to convict Zenger because the jury determined that what Zenger wrote about Cosby was the truth. What Zenger printed about Cosby related directly and only to Cosby’s actions as governor. Cosby’s personal life was not in issue. Such subjects as the state of his laundry or personal habits were not material to Cosby’s official actions. There was no “need to know” any salacious scatology.

The First Amendment is our best protection from bad government but it should not be cited in support of mere muckraking. Gossip is fun, if it is about others, but it is not germane to curing our body politic of corruption or bad decisions. And a bipartisan cooperation on matters of national importance would be most welcome. We have certainly been blessed many times before with such attitudes. For example, Republican President William Howard Taft appointed Republican Henry L. Stimson (1867-1950) as Secretary of war (now Secretary of Defense) in 1911-1913. Then later two Democratic presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, appointed Stimson for the same position (1940-1945). Stimson had the experience and knowledge America needed. His political party affiliation was irrelevant to understanding and meeting the threats to our country from Japan and Germany.

But even though Stimson was not naïve about foreign designs on American assets he famously eschewed delving into personal matters. Stimson’s most famous quote relates to secret Japanese dispatches. Stimson explained trust cannot be established by distrust. He succinctly posited: “Gentlemen do not read one another’s mail.”

As story after story and book after book come out about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and Mike Pence the muckraking inundates the investigative journalism. We do need to know our politicians’ philosophies, positions and past performances. But such information is sometimes obfuscated by “revelations” about their personal lives and peccadilloes.

Yea! Football Is Back!

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“The crisp autumn air. The dry brown grass. Sweaty pads and the exhilaration of combat without weapons. The kind of battle where one can experience the thrill of having been shot at and missed without even being shot at. Football. Ersatz war. Clashes of pride, power and cunning.”

Echoes Of Our Ancestors: The Secret Game, p. vii

James M. Redwine

Baseball may be America’s Pastime but football is America’s Passion. The only thing more endemic to the American psyche than football is politics and I am sick of politics. If, “politics ain’t bean bag”, it ought to be. Any sporting event from ballet to boxing is healthier for our country than political conventions and cable news. Heck, even a good old-fashioned fist fight often results in life-long friendship versus contemporary political campaigns in which social media is used much as small pox was allegedly used against Native Americans by the British colonial soldiers in 1763.

The difference between sporting contests of all types and modern national politics is glaring. When I think back to those times my erstwhile adversaries became my current friends via a skirmish over some forgotten controversy, I long for those days. My friends and I spent no time accusing one another of being a liar or a murderer or even a traitor to our country. We would just drop our baseball gloves or kick our opponent’s marbles out of the way and start the shoving process. Every now and then we would even throw a punch. I will not name those who bloodied my nose or tore off my T shirts but we buried our hypothetical hatchets immediately after each fray. Our politicians and news anchors could learn something.

Another thing we learn from sports versus politics is that the pain of physical injuries almost always goes away whereas the sickness of false comments can grow fatal to our body politic. There is something liberating from a sweaty fight or a sweaty game. But often permanent harm results from accusations of venality and planted stories of misdeeds.

Anyway, I am glad football and other games are coming back and I hope we will soon be able to engage in them and/or enjoy watching them in good health. I leave it up to each community and every individual to decide whether they feel comfortable participating in or watching in person any sporting event. Peg and I certainly want the right and ability to decide such highly personal matters for ourselves and we will afford the same right to others. However, the lessons from sports are easily learned and, unlike high school Algebra, one will always remember them. In fact, as I think of the fist fights and sporting contests I engaged in it now seems to me I never lost and I have gotten a lot faster, stronger and more talented as the years have transpired.

Of Motes And Logs

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Last week the National Basketball Association deferred its 2020 playoff games out of respect for the Black Lives Matter movement. The incident that was the catalyst for the Milwaukee Bucks professional team to decide to boycott game five of the playoffs against the Orlando Magic team was the shooting of 20-year-old Jacob Blake, a Black man, on August 23, 2020 during an encounter with the police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Blake informed the arresting officers he possessed a knife but he did not wield it. Blake’s shooting struck many as part of a continuum that began May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota when 46-year-old George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died as a result of an encounter with police. In between Floyd and Blake several other incidents of police/Black person violence have made national news. History records numerous such incidents and a great many more have not been recorded but exist in the psyches of both minority and majority populations. Until cell phone cameras became ubiquitous such incidents tended to get lost in the vagaries of competing memories. Today the incidents are often still in dispute but there may be video and audio evidence to analyze in search of the facts as opposed to mere opinions.

In my experience the truth as believed to be proved by whatever evidence may exist tends to depend to a large extent upon the ability of the observers to set their personal prejudices aside and apply a degree of objectivity to the situation in question. Although such matters as the Blake and Floyd cases are qualitatively light years from sporting events, perhaps an analogy may still be apt when it comes to determining the actual facts as opposed to opinions about the perceived facts or, more likely, the projected ones.

When a sports fan endures the indignity of an umpire’s or referee’s close call against the fan’s team, it is the rare fan who congratulates the official for his/her judgment. What may look like interference to the referee may look more like “no harm, no foul” to the fan. Of course, when it comes to issues of race the emotions are much more complicated and visceral and deadly force or resistance may be involved. If in war the first casualty is truth, when it comes to matters of race and ethnicity truth often depends more on the culture of the observers than observation alone. That is why the wise people who founded this country fashioned a government of laws. Without law the scales of justice tend to dip in favor of whoever has the power to put their thumbs on the scales even when they would swear, and probably believe, they are fair to a fault.

About the best we can hope for, even in ourselves, is that we recognize our judgments on matters as fundamental as human rights are often influenced by our particular frailties and that our frailties come from our particular culture. Then we can bring up the logs that are in our own eyes and try to account for them in determining what the evidence truly proves in any particular case. People whose duty it is to make judgments on the behaviors of other people often learn, sometimes the hard way, that their conclusions about what certain evidence proves have been subconsciously affected by personal factors related more to the person doing the judging than the actual behavior of the ones they judge. This phenomenon has been recognized by trial lawyers and judges since we homo sapiens first began to settle our disputes in court instead of with clubs. That is one of the main reasons attorneys prefer to settle cases by compromise as opposed to seeking the full measure the attorneys believe their clients may be entitled to from a decision by a judge or jury after a trial. Over 95% of all court cases settle without a trial. The attorneys know that it is rare for a court decision to be intentionally biased but it is often subconsciously so. And if this is true with trained judges it is good to keep inherent biases in mind with such organizations as political parties and the media.

There are remedies to unjust treatment that has resulted from unrecognized prejudices. However, such things as money damages are usually insufficient compensation, especially if permanent disability or death to either an offender and/or officer occurs. Prevention is a better treatment. And prevention requires that we look deep within ourselves, hopefully well before, but at least at the time of a racially or culturally charged incident. Such introspection should be demanded of all whose job it is to control the behavior of others; police officers and judges come to mind.

But all of us would do well to recognize our potentional to unfairly discriminate based on factors we rarely acknowledge to ourselves. Of course, one of the best remedies for eliminating prejudicial behavior is an atmosphere where all points of view are allowed to be considered and evaluated. That is why Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) stated that the right of free speech is … “the dread of tyrants”. Perhaps Douglass recognized that tyranny can also come from within each of us and that the atmosphere of our current Cancel Culture that is festering hate on college campuses, in the news media, in politics and even among friends may be the place to start addressing systemic prejudices.

Don’t Blame Me

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Andrew Jackson was a notoriously bad speller. His response to the critics of his errors was not an effort to learn to be a better speller but to blame his critics. Jackson proclaimed, “It’s a damned weak mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.”

Things have regressed from Jackson. According to communications expert, Carol Blymire, as reported via Twitter and broadcast by WIBC radio host Tony Katz on July 16, 2019 an attempt by an editor to correct a reporter’s spelling was just plain meanness according to the misspeller. Ms. Blymire related a reporter in her late 20’s had spelled the word hamster as ham(p)ster and her editor amended it. The reporter said she could spell it that way because that was the spelling she had learned. It did not need changing. When the editor insisted on the correct spelling the reporter broke into tears and texted her mother to seek punishment for the editor.

Now, as a writer of hundreds of articles and thousands of court rulings I can sympathize with the reporter. My wife, my sister, my court reporters and the reading public can attest to my unlikely winning of a spelling bee. However, I have managed to accept, sometimes begrudgingly, corrections of my versions of words. So far I have avoided tears and I have not asked my mother for spelling support since I escaped grade school.

However, this is not an article about spelling but about individual responsibility in our current culture of blaming everyone but the actors for the results of their bad behaviors. Take bankruptcy for example. There are sound reasons of public policy for allowing citizens to claw their way out of crippling debt so they can get on with their lives, pay taxes on new income and begin anew. Horrendous medical expenses incurred by patients with illnesses or birth conditions or from accidents can often never be paid even by hardworking families or even those with substantial means. In such cases society does itself a favor by allowing a fresh start. There are, of course, other situations where bankruptcy is not only justified but good public policy. But a simple avoidance of responsibility is not in anyone’s interest. The writing off of student loans after one voluntarily goes to college and accepts the benefits of an eduction is not fair to others and not in America’s best interest. After all, about two thirds of the costs of college degrees are not paid by the graduates anyway but are provided by public funds. Once again it is simply the avoidance of responsibility. As one who benefitted from student loans, which were repaid, and as one who received the G.I. Bill, after serving in the military, I am supportive of student aid but not student failure to earn or pay for the assistance.

When America hears about the latest mass killings and listens to politicians and news media blame everything and everybody for the heinous acts, it may be an indication of how far we have traveled from facing the extremely difficult, long-term incremental solutions to our complicated cultural problems. To cast aspersions and ad hominems against third persons when someone commits an evil act seems to have become our go to response. It is somewhat akin to eliminating winners and losers from everything from little league sports to academic achievement. Affirmative Action is a necessity when it is used to ensure that people with superior qualifications are not discriminated against simply because of their gender, race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or ethnicity. However, it is wrong to elevate one simply on that basis. It is like getting a participation trophy. Competition should be on a fair basis, but discouraging competition is an insult to those who might do better if their shortcomings are corrected. And America might do better with unacceptable behavior if we place responsibility on the actors actually involved.

If Republicans and the conservatives publicly allege that the policies and statements of the Democrats and the liberals are to blame for the mass shootings, and vice versa for the Democrats and the liberals, it is as if everyone is falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater. Solutions to mass shootings will not come from such shifting of responsibility. The hard work of addressing these complicated issues cannot be done by simply complaining to our mommies.

Some News Fit To Print

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Adolf Ochs (1858-1935) pinned the motto of the New York Times newspaper: “All the News Fit to Print” in 1897. It remains on the paper’s front page today. Mottoes sometimes are more hope than substance.

In 1965, as the Viet Nam War was gearing up and 18 year old men could be drafted but could not vote, Barry McGuire (born 1935) sang ♫The Eve of Destruction♫. The lyrics included the following phrases:

“The eastern world, it is expoldin’
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’?
….
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace.”

About twenty years later in 1983 Anne Murray (born June 20, 1945) sang the song ♫A Little Good News Today♫ that included:

“I rolled out this morning
Kids had the morning news show on
…
Some senator was squawkin’ ‘bout the bad economy
It’s gonna get worse you see, we need a change in policy
…
Just once how I’d like to see the headline say
‘Not much to print today, can’t find nothing bad to say’
…
We sure could use a little good news today.”

So, Gentle Reader, I submit the following retreat from the edge of doom and a little good news for your April First consideration.

It was announced today that Sean Hannity has been hired to replace Wolf Blitzer at CNN and Joe Scarborough will be joining FOX News.

At his debut on CNN Sean Hannity reported that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had met with Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi at Camp David where they decided to apply the national defense budget to universal health care and free college tuition for all.

The budgets for the CIA and FBI will be redirected to environmental concerns and repair of the nation’s infrastructure. McConnell was assured by Chuck Schumer there would be unanimous support for these proposals in the Senate. And in the House, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy heaped praise on both Pelosi and Clinton as he pledged his ardent support for both.

At a conference of media anchors held just outside the gates of Camp David it was announced by Washington Post’s editor Martin Baron that the national print and electronic media were impressed with the honesty, integrity and goodwill of the Executive and Legislative branches. Baron even mentioned the anticipated wisdom of the Supreme Court that is expected to refuse to grant any delays in the implementation of the stated goals of fair and equal treatment for all Americans.

Well, Gentle Reader, that’s about all the Good News I can report. It appears the country is just brimming with good works and goodwill.

Thinking Slow

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Two weeks before actor Jussie Smollett reported to Chicago police he had been assaulted by two white men Smollett sent himself a letter with similar sentiments. Smollett who claims to be “Bluish”, that is, the offspring of a Jewish father and a Black mother, and who also says he is homosexual created the letter. The letter was released by Smollett in hopes of causing sympathy for him so he could demand a raise in his salary on the television series Empire.

Not only did Smollett create a letter that would not pass muster as a prop in a grade school play the letter brought no response from the people in charge of Smollett’s salary. As to creating sympathy for his meager pay, that too might ring hollow with the rest of us in the real world. Smollett is paid $65,000 for each episode of Empire; the show has eighteen episodes per season and it is in its fifth season. Let us see about that sympathy thing: $65m x 18 = $1,170,000 per year and a total of $5,850,000 for five years. How are your sympathy pangs, Gentle Reader?

Of course, as an actor playing the role of a minority Rhythm and Blues singer on a television show I had never heard of until Smollett faked his attack, I am not aware of any great general benefit Smollett’s acting has conferred on society. On the other hand, these issues of false claims and payroll negotiations are not what this column is about. If Smollett had given just a little more thought to his scheme, he probably would not have paid his two “attackers” by check, a copy of which the Chicago police recovered in less than a week. However, Smollett did claim the attack occurred in downtown Chicago at 2:00 a.m. so his story started out sounding believable.

Anyway, this column is not about Smollett’s infantile plan to boost his career. It is about the initial hue and cry in the national media and political figures in response to Smollett’s phony plot. We just don’t learn, do we? The rule is get the facts then speak out, not rush to a judgment we wish to believe based on our own prejudices. We, and I do mean most of us, would benefit from understanding what the psychologist Daniel Kahneman calls “Thinking Fast”.

Thinking fast is making decisions based on our intuition and emotions instead of “Thinking Slow”, which is gleaning the facts first and applying a critical analysis to those facts. We all want to believe things. Unfortunately, “Wanting don’t make it so”. Now, in much of what we decide it does not matter what we think. If we want to believe in Santa Claus, where’s the harm? However, when the national news media or our national leaders decide things based on hope or hate instead of objective investigation and analysis, real harm may result.

So, Jussie Smollett, your silly attempt to get attention is of little consequence and thankfully you made the Chicago Police Department’s job easy. Once again, thanks for paying by check. But what has caused true harm to our national debate about several forms of prejudice has been the rush to stand upon your shockingly juvenile strategy as a pedestal to spew real prejudice.