Gold Medal Platitudes

Monday, August 25, 2008


Michael Phelps, perhaps the greatest athlete of all time, is fond of saying, “Anyone can do anything they set their mind to.” He has said it more than once. He also credits his imagination for propelling him to victory.

So what are we to assume? His opponents lacked imagination? They were simply weak minded? They didn’t “want” it badly enough?

Apparently, it was not Phelps’ huge hands which allow him to scoop more water than the average person, his size 14 feet that propel him through the water, his six-feet-four inch body, his nearly six feet seven inches wing-span, his long torso and short legs, and his incredible work ethic—it was his mind and imagination that earned him a record eight gold medals in a single Olympics.

Don’t get me wrong. I admire Michael Phelps and think he is a likable, affable young man. But he is a young man. At 23, and on a global stage, he may be too young and too inexperienced to be doling out motivational advice.

Such platitudes by a global champion are possibly unkind, arguably arrogant, and usually not at all helpful. It minimizes the importance of having physical and intellectual abilities, and access to opportunities.

As an English professor at a community college with open admissions, we often get underprepared students in our classrooms. We offer them a range of “developmental” courses—some call them “remedial.” On more than one occasion, there have been students in my classes who were intellectually limited—some call them mentally retarded. One particular student could not do the work, could not keep up with the class, and was unable to participate in a meaningful way. I checked the records and saw she had taken the course before—and failed.

I met with her to discuss her progress and her goals. She said she was tired of working the third maintenance shift at the hospital and thought if she could finish college, she’d get a better job. She expressed determination to succeed.

She said that everyone in her family told her, “You can be successful at anything if you just try hard enough.” When she would fail, they would say, “Just keep trying; you’ll get it!”She could not have tried any harder. She could not have wanted it more. And she could not be successful in college.

Telling her—and others like her—that they are able to accomplish anything if they work hard enough may make the person saying it feel better, but it is not kind. It is cruel. And it is people like me who have to explain the harsh reality after others have showered them with positive platitudes.

A few years back, I was trying to run a qualifying time for the Boston Marathon. At my age, I had to run the 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 26 minutes—about a 7 minute, 50 second-per-mile pace. I trained hard, did speed work, endurance work, hill work, cross training, and watched my diet . . . everything the experts told me to do.

I ran the race of my life: at 3 hour 40 minute race—14 minutes too slow—half-a-minute-a-mile too slow. I did more than set my mind to it; I did more than imagine it. My body, unlike Michael Phelps’, is just not capable of doing what I imagined it could do. However, my body did exactly the best it could do.

We can’t all be Michael Phelps, but we can achieve our individual best—the best our bodies and our minds can do with our unique abilities and available opportunities.That is what Michal Phelps should have said: “We are all capable of accomplishing great things if we set our minds to them, allow our imaginations to flourish, and work very, very hard.”

That is what is possible for all of us. That’s the message America needs to hear.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Boys Just Want to Have Fun

Monday, August 11, 2008

John McCain’s campaign has made a decidedly sharp turn toward the negative. After getting trounced by Obama’s triumphant European trip and McCain’s inability to rise above 45% in the polls, McCain’s people released a series of video ads designed to attack Obama on his strengths. I guess he wasn’t getting enough traction calling Obama a traitor and blaming him personally for gas prices.

You’ve seen them: Brittany, Paris, Moses. It’s the kind of sophomoric humor that is usually produced and created by snickering high school boys in the locker room. When McCain was asked about the nasty tone of these ads, he replied that he and the boys were “just having some fun.”

When McCain was asked why he was focusing on Obama’s image rather than the issues, he said, “Well, I don’t think it’s negative. I think we are drawing the differences between us.” “This is a very respectful campaign,’’ McCain said. “I’ve repeated my admiration and respect for Senator Obama. That clip is of Charlton Heston. It’s a movie. It’s a film, movie. So, I really appreciated the movie and I appreciated Charlton Heston’s magnificent acting skills as I saw it, but it’s a movie.’’

Just a movie, and he’s just having a bit of harmless fun, showing that maverick sense of humor, taking that Straight Talk Express on a side trip to Laughsville. McCain said, “We think, it’s got a lot of humor in it, and we’re having fun and enjoying it. And that is what campaigns are going to be like, that’s what every campaign that I have been involved in. I am going to enjoy it . . .”

It amazes me how short McCain’s memory is. In 2000, (the last, “every campaign that I have been involved in“) the Bush Campaign was just having a bit of fun with McCain.

Back then those fun-loving Bush folks called McCain “The Fag Candidate.” Actually they implied McCain was both gay and cheated on his wife. They suggested he had fathered an illegitimate black child and that his wife was a drug addict. Oh, those guys—such cut ups. How did they get any work done with all the hi-jinx?

Once they regained their composure from all the convulsive laughter over those gems, they spread the word that John McCain was unstable, that he returned from 5 1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam with a screw loose. They asserted that his five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam had driven him insane. (Now, I’m confused. I thought those 5 ½ years made him a hero.) Bush operative, Ted Sampley even called McCain “The Manchurian Candidate.” Sampley went on to accuse McCain of being a “weak-minded coward” and that McCain had escaped death “by collaborating with the enemy.”

According to the New Yorker, that ‘ol prankster, Karl Rove, suggested McCain committed treason as a POW and fathered a child with black prostitute. You’d think that would make McCain hesitant to make the treason claim against Obama—that he’d rather lose a war than lose an election. I guess not. A good gag is a good gag.

I doubt that the Obama Campaign will nasty-it-up Bush/Rove style. But if they do, we can be sure that McCain will laugh it off. After all, they are “just having some fun.”

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Sticks and Stones . . .

Monday, August 4, 2008


Some people say the word “liberal” like it’s a bad thing—something we should be ashamed of. It’s right up there with pedophile and traitor. They kind of remind me of the children on the playground who think “gay” is an insult. Apparently, we godless tax raisers are responsible for all that is wrong with this country.

The other side—conservatives—has been trying to defame the world “liberal” for quite some time.

The ol’ standby: “Tax and Spend Liberals,” however, may be showing some wear now that they are the “Spend and Spend Conservatives.” You just don’t hear that one anymore. We were once proud to be liberals. A generation ago, John Kennedy, on September 14, 1960, said, “If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

What has happened is that we have allowed the Republican Conservatives to control the language. Limbaugh, Rove, Coulter, Hannity, O’Reilly, even our local mini-demagog , Maryland State Senator Alex Mooney, have spat the word with such disdain that we are now afraid to use it. They are trying to do the same with the name of our party. Obama is not the democratic candidate—he’s the democrat candidate. It’s now the Democrat Convention and the Democrat Party. They like the cacophony and harshness of the word—and how they get to say “Rat” at the end.

It looks like they have won the battle of words. Many of us are afraid to say we are liberal. We deny it and chafe at the accusation. So, we are now calling ourselves “Progressives.” I guess that’s kind of catchy. Let’s see them spit out “Prog-ress.” They will probably emphasize the “Prog” partand even call us “Progs.” They are relentless like that—kind of like gnats.

On the other side, the word conservative is so sacrosanct that, until recently, the party’s nominee, John McCain, was not even allowed to use it. To be conservative is to maintain the status quo, to be careful stewards of resources, to value personal freedom, to demonstrate character and family values. Yeah, right.

Conservatives like to remind us that Winston Churchill once said, "Any man under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart, and any man over 30 who is not a conservative has no brains." What they don’t say—or more than likely don’t understand—is the Churchill was referring to British conservatism—not 21st century American Conservatism. In fact, British “Conservatives” are more liberal than American Liberals!

OK, so we’re all heart and they are all brains. OK, let’s go with that: the Heart Party and the Brain Party.Let’s take a look at how the battle of hearts and brains is playing out with two issues: one local, one national. On the topic of dependence on foreign oil, the conservative solution is to drill for more oil domestically. This is definitely a conservative solution. It maintains the status quo, it is comfortable, easy to understand and about as challenging a concept as a connect-the-dots puzzle in Highlights Magazine. You don’t have to explain THAT one to the party of brains.

However, foreign oil is not the problem—oil is the problem. It is running out; the whole concept is no longer sustainable. Fixing the oil problem by drilling for new sources of oil is like trying to cure alcoholism by going to a different liquor store.

The progressive solution is to look beyond oil. Of course we are still going to USE oil for the near future but we need to stop investing our time, money, and (dare I say it?) brains on an obsolete system. We didn’t make a better buggy whip as an alternative to the automobile. We don’t walk around with cellular telegraph machines. There comes a time when we must face up the end of oil. Even if it is easily understood and comfortable, its time has passed. Even oil man Boone Pickens, (the money behind the Swiftboat Campaign and a big financial supporter of the current president of the brain party) has moved on.

Progressives look forward with bold new solutions to complex problems. Conservatives look backward to the tried and true—even if it’s been tried and no longer true.

On a local issue, here In Frederick, Maryland, we have a problem with where to put all of our trash. Our landfill is full and we are spending something like $12 million a year to take our trash and put it in someone else’s landfill. Our county commissioners are divided. Two from the brain party—Charles Jenkins and Lenny Thompson—want to build an incinerator at a cost of over $300 million.I’m not kidding. They want to solve a 21st century problem with a 1950’s solution. And they are not even embarrassed about it. The third Brain Party commissioner, David Gray, seems to be waiting to be convinced.

Weighing in for the Heart Party is Kai Hagen (and to a somewhat lesser extent, Jan Gardner). He would like to take that $300-plus-million and invest it in a 21st century solution. He wants to build a reclamation center where recyclable materials can be captured and reused instead of burned, thus reducing the amount of non-recyclable waste to a point where the system is sustainable. The revenue gained from the recycled materials would help offset the cost of waste disposal.The Brains have a problem with this; they understand burning. But picking through he trash? Jenkins is an outspoken advocate of the concept that human activity has nothing to do with global climate change. To him, burning is of no consequence.

According to Business Week, “8% of global oil production is siphoned off to make plastic each year. Recycled plastic, however, requires 80% less energy to produce. Recycled aluminum burns up 95% less energy. Recycled iron and steel use 74% less, while paper requires 64% less. . . One ton of recycled aluminum saves an average of $700 in electricity. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that if the recycling rate were to increase by just five points, to 35%, this would save the equivalent of almost 2 billion gallons of gasoline annually.”

The Party of Fear—the Brain Party –falls backward on comfortable, familiar easily understood solutions to new and complex problems. The Party of Hope—the Heart Party—looks forward to face challenges with bold new innovations to build a sustainable future.The challenges of the future cannot be faced with the solutions of the past.

You would think the Brain Party could get their brains around that concept—we certainly got our hearts around it.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com