Roger O Green

The family that’s grumpy together

Then she had to deal with HS insurance company.

Grumpy Pants

My wife is of generally good spirits, but last month, she mentioned how grumpy she was.

ITEM: Someone hit her car one night. The driver, who turned out to be one of the rotating cadre of students living next door, left a note on the windshield. She talked with him and said he sounded like a responsible young man who was very apologetic for the damage. He was coming home from work after an extra-long shift and was tired.

He scraped the car about 9:30 pm – no we did not hear it – when parking in front of her. He said his own car had a very small scrape but mine had a lot more damage. She had to deal with her insurance company and reported the damage. Then she had to deal with HS insurance company.

The short version is that she had to wait about three weeks get his adjuster to see her car and then arrange for a garage picked by his insurance company to fix it. She got a rental from them, but it had very limited legroom for a tall woman like my wife; she had it for a week. Fortunately, the next five days, she was actually driving a vehicle more suitable for her height.

ITEM: Our next-door neighbor is finally getting the roofing done that they started last fall. My wife made it clear to both the absentee property owner and the contractor where the property line was.

So she was greatly annoyed when a pallet of roofing was placed off right on our lawn. Then the old roofing was dropped from that roof onto our porch (view now on details related to roofing and roof repairs). They never removed the trash they left, when the folks doing the siding showed up. We’re happy about the work being done, but in the interim, it looks a bit seedy.

My grumpy complaints, primarily about the incredibly poor air conditioning at work, seems not so bad. I WAS frustrated to lose my cellphone at a point when the bulk of the news about my sister Leslie’s condition was coming via a mass text chain. Fortunately my sister Marcia either emailed or called with the info.

What will keep America great?

A shrinking population and labor force will cause the economy to contract

In the middle of the night, I woke up, wondering what my country was becoming, and what has has always made America great. In the words of the Hamilton mixtape, it’s Immigrants (We Get The Job Done).

Any cursory view of the history of immigration to the United States will show “huddled masses yearning to be free” yet not always fully welcomed. “Irish need not apply,” and the like.

Yet it was the enslaved, and formerly enslaved people, and poor, dirty, destitute people, traveling thousands of miles, seeking a better life who have made America great, despite the hardship and discrimination.

The current immigration debate, while toxic, isn’t exactly brand-new. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of immigrants have always wanted to bar the door after “their” kind got in. Still, Almost 13% of the U.S. population is foreign-born, for a total of more than 40 million people.

The immigrant entrepreneurs were not usually “merit-based” people but folks fleeing difficult situations. “The belief that anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps in America still resonates today and drives many immigrants to come to the States to try their luck. And while success is rare and never guaranteed, some notable examples have managed to not only get ahead in America, but achieve extraordinary success.”

Native-born Americans are having fewer children, which will eventually shrink our labor force. One has seen in Japan, e.g., that a shrinking population and labor force will cause the economy to contract.

As a business librarian and someone who will be collecting Social Security soon enough, I recognize that more immigrants, of varied skills, are needed to keep the population, labor force, and economy strong and expanding. This will keep America great.

Bloomberg, hardly a bleeding-heart organization, notes that U.S. Farms Can’t Compete Without Foreign Workers.

Meanwhile, because of perceived xenophobic policies in DC – even illegal immigration does not increase violent crime – As Flow of Foreign Students Wanes, U.S. Universities Feel the Sting. And soon enough, the country will feel the loss of the intellectual capital those educated people might have brought.

“Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.”

Let’s keep America great.

Z is for survivor Louis Zamperini

Louie Zamperini’s remarkable story of survival garnered new attention in 2010 with the Laura Hillenbrand book Unbroken, which hit #1 on the New York Times best-seller list.

Stuck for a Z topic, the Daughter said, “How about Louis Zamperini?” Of course. She read parts of Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (2010), a biography of Zamperini by Laura Hillenbrand, for her English class.

Louis, born on January 26, 1917 in Olean, NY to Italian immigrant parents, grew up a troublemaker in Torrance, California. As a child, he was smoking and drinking, stealing and fighting. Trying to impress some high school girls, he joined the school’s track team, and ended up breaking a national high school record, running the mile in only 4 minutes, 21 seconds.

Zamperini competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and even met Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympics. He didn’t medal, though he seemed like a sure bet for the 1940 team, but the games were called off because of World War II.

Louis Zamperini enlisted in the Army Air Corps in September 1941, cheating death several times as a B-24 bombardier. His missions included a famous December 1942 air raid on Wake Island. .

On May 27, 1943, Zamperini and his crew were participating in a search and rescue mission over the Pacific when their plane suddenly lost power to two of its engines, careening into the sea. Zamperini and two others were the only ones of an 11-man crew to initially survive.

One of the trio, Francis McNamara, perished after 33 days at sea. Zamperini and Russell Allen Phillips drifted for another two weeks before being captured by the Japanese Navy near the Marshall Islands.

Zamperini was tortured daily as a POW. Over the next two years, he also suffered from disease, exposure, and starvation. The Japanese tried to use him as a propaganda tool, but once he agreed to read a message telling his parents he was alive, he refused to cooperate any further.

After the war, he used alcohol to fight the nightmares. Zamperini says he was saved from his post-war trauma after witnessing a sermon by the evangelical preacher Billy Graham in 1949.

In 1950, Zamperini returned to Japan for the first time since his liberation to address some Japanese war criminals. He shook hands and embraced many of his old camp guards. He became an inspirational speaker, and he wrote two memoirs, both titled Devil at My Heels (1956 and 2003).

Zamperini’s remarkable story of survival garnered new attention in 2010 with the Hillenbrand book, which hit #1 on the New York Times best-seller list. Louis became a celebrity all over again when he charmingly made the rounds with Angelina Jolie, who was directing the film Unbroken, based on the book, starring Jack O’Connell as Louis, which was released on Christmas Day 2014.

Louis Zamperini died from pneumonia on July 2, 2014.

There’s a movie sequel to Unbroken, Path To Redemption (2017), with Samuel Hunt as Zamperini and Will Graham playing his grandfather, Billy Graham.

For ABC Wednesday

Should we classify Americans based on race?

Since a 1997 OMB mandate, the ability to choose more than one race on Census and other forms has been available.

A recent Institute of History, Archaeology, and Education (IHARE) article has the provocative title What Race is Meghan Markle? What about Sally Hemmings?

The author, Peter Feinman, notes that “developments in naming black people have been… convoluted.” And not just in the United States – Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela all have similar issues.

“Sally Hemmings was 75% white and 25% black. She had a white father and a biracial mother. She had three white grandparents and six white great-grandparents. These numbers are important because Virginia in the 18th century did not adhere to the one-drop rule. Instead it had the 7/8 or 87.5% rule. That means if seven of your eight great-grandparents were white then you were white legally. Sally Hemmings at six great-grandparents fell short of this standard. However, if she and Thomas Jefferson or any Jefferson had a child, then that child legally would be white… at least under the 18th tury standards. Times would change.”

Of course, white Americans have their own racial confusion, especially after the onslaught of DNA testing. See They Considered Themselves White, But DNA Tests Told a More Complex Story (Washington Post, 2/6/18).

In the US, the term “Asian” is historically inaccurate. About the only people from the continent of Asia who AREN’T considered Asian are the folks from Afghanistan and westward, the very lands conquered by Alexander the Great and dubbed Asia.

Peter Feinman suggests the answer to the title question is Yes. “We know we are going to do it so why pretend otherwise. With DNA testing the answers will become even more precise… Given that we are going to classify people based on race other than human, what races should we use?… We need to do a better job classifying people and we need to do it before the 2020 census confuses the issue even more.”

Well, that conversation, I believe, is already evolving. Since a 1997 OMB mandate, the ability to choose more than one race on Census and other forms has been available. On the 2000 census, 2.4% of people selected two or more races. By 2010, it was up to 2.9%. I will be very interested to see what the 2020 data will show, but given the increase in “mixed” marriages, I suspect the number will be well above 4%. What that will mean societally, I don’t know.

In These Challenging Times: Tonko on 4 July

Congressman Paul Tonko will reflect on the meaning of July 4th in the context of our current political and social climate.

Within the framework of Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is Your Fourth of July,” Congressman Paul Tonko, as featured speaker for the 2018 July 4th Oration, will reflect on the meaning of July 4th in the context of our current political and social climate.
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The legacy of the institution of slavery weighs us down as a nation, but, together, we can rise up and shake off the weight by carrying on the enduring legacy of our abolitionist forebears.
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Program – 11am-12noon at The Myers Residence at 194 Livingston Avenue, Albany, NY 12210 – bring your own chair if you can
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Lunch – 1pm-2pm – bring a dessert to share
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Restroom facilities available. Parking is on Livingston Avenue and Third Street.