The Great American Religion - Sports

I would not be the first person to note the similarity between religion and sports, and there are serious studies about it. However, I believe more specifically that sports is the American religion. This is not to diminish the American affinity for religion as has been documented in opinion polls that show Americans to be more religious than inhabitants of any other country based on the percentage who actually attend religious services of all kinds on a regular basis.

However, I can honestly say that Americans do not always talk about religion. They do always talk about sports. I probably did not feel this as much as I have recently, since going to work in a military environment. Where I work, people either talk about their work or they talk about sports. On the edge, their might be some chatter about family, good places to eat or people's vacations, but the reference to sports is constant and continuous. Americans love their sports. They can get passionate about their teams or favorite players, can recite sports statistics and make predictions about the future outcomes of games and sports tournaments.

So you say, "Well, what would you expect from the high testosterone military?" While that question might contain an element of truth, it is important to note the degree to which the military is representative of the country at large, one which may be somewhat ignored by the intellectual and financial elites in our country. Just turn on your TV set and realize the number of channels and shows dedicated to covering sports, all sports. In some parts of the country, most channels are sports channels. Also, today you cannot walk into most bars without being flooded with big screen TVs with total coverage of whatever game is on at the moment. I walked into a "wing bar" the other day in Texas which had more big screen TVs than I have seen in any military "war room." They showed football, golf and tennis games going on simultaneously. OK, it was a "sports bar," but most bars are becoming sports bars.

Don't get me wrong, although I have never been very interested in sports, I have nothing against them. My problem is with any type of obsession. And the national obsession with sports is what concerns me. It concerns me more because sports occupies our waking hours to such an extent that it crowds out all other discussions and activities. I hardly go to a party at friends' homes where the TV is not on in a family room, sometimes with all the men gathered around and the women off in the living room socializing. I find myself with the women! Politics, world events, serious social issues are not discussed at all. Now take this to a national level and what we have is a national tendency to escape into sports as a way of avoiding discussing important national international issues. Well, maybe these are being discussed on college campuses, on PBS, CNN, on C-Span, on NPR and the BBC. Well, yes. That's where I go for environments where these things are discussed, but how many of us live in these spaces?

So what are the latest scores?

Oprah...Aw, Shucks!

I am sitting here watching the first interview on the new Piers Morgan show with Oprah Winfrey and thinking, "Aw, shucks I should have gotten her first." No I do not have my own TV show, but I did have the responsibility of "recruiting" honorees for our annual award ceremony at the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val Kill, in Hyde Park, New York, where I was the Executive Director for seven years following my career as a US diplomat. Of all the things I did at the Center, including starting what has become a premier leadership program for high school girls, the annual Val-Kill Medal Ceremony was the high point of my work there. It was the most visible and important aspect of our work as it was the one day each year that about 500 people came to Eleanor Roosevelt's Val-Kill home to see deserving award winners acknowledged for the work they did that reflects the humanitarian legacy of Eleanor Roosevelt.

I should say that the legacy of Mrs. Roosevelt is huge and covers her work in promoting the rights of women and African Americans, to human rights in general and support of the United Nations, expanding the role of First Ladies into the social and humanitarian arenas, her role as a social activist and advocate for social reform, her work for refugees and politically persecuted people of all kinds,her efforts for poor people, her role as a journalist and educator. The list of her achievement could go on and on. Although ERVK is a small nonprofit, it carries the enormous responsibility of promoting her legacy, unlike any other organization that carries her name. Its place on the site of her historic home, rooted on the role of the organization in saving Mrs. Roosevelt's home from likely destruction, gives ERVK a status that raises high above the size of its staff or its budget. The annual Val-Kill Medal Ceremony succeeded in honoring such individuals as Mrs. Hillary Clinton, Queen Noor, Lea Rabin, Amb. Richard Holbrooke, Cristopher Reeve, Dorothy Height, Richard Gere, former Brazilian First Lady Ruth Cardoso, Bill and Judith Moyers, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Vartan Gregoian and many others.

We had a remarkable process at ERVK in deciding on people to invite to be our honorees. A Medals Selection Committee pondered for months over potential nominees and suggestions. There were criteria as well for achieving balance and diversity in the annual ceremony which usually honors four individuals: a balance between men and women, ethnic groups, local, national and international honorees, and among backgrounds in history, journalism, social, human right and humanitarian pursuits, philanthropists, civil rights figures.

Once decisions had been made, I was in charge of approaching and securing the honorees. That's when the fun began, because one of the things you learn in approaching famous people is that they are not easy to approach. They are surrounded by barriers to access and their contact information is often very difficult come by. More importantly, in seeking to capture the time and attention of very busy and important people, it often required more than just an address or a phone number. How do you marshall some support for your approach to them? All of this require considerable research, from the selection phase to the recruitment stage.

Oprah Winfrey was a natural selection for our committee. She is adored by millions of people around the world for her humanitarianism and empathy for ordinary people and those struggling with life's difficulties. It was interesting that Piers Morgan succeeded in getting Oprah to go on his show by going through her best friend Gail King. Well, I too went through Gail. I am not sure how I discovered who Gail King was, but I did, and I also happened to have met somebody from Hartford, Connecticut who knew her phone number. I called her and got her advice as to how to contact Oprah through her Harpo Entertainment Group in Chicago. This was in the year 2000. I wrote Oprah and waited, had contact with an aide, and did receive a response from her. Unfortunately, she said she could not accept the award that year because she was "over-extended" for the year, though this was just February. This was understandable, although I must admit it was a disappointment. After all, Mrs. Roosevelt had done so much for women and for African Americans. Oprah seemed in some ways to be the ideal beneficiary of her efforts. I do not remember clearly why we did not persist in seeking her for another year. I guess it was because we feared she would have the same reason for refusing us in the future. Perhaps I should have tried to get Gail King to give us more direct support for our request. Piers Morgan apparently did just that and succeeded where I had failed. Of course, ERVK is not CNN.

A Miracle in Haiti

As we stop to acknowledge the first anniversary of the earthquake that ravaged Haiti, I find it interesting that nobody is noticing a major miracle that has occurred. With over 300,000 dead and more than a million people homeless still after so many months, most of the commentary is on how little has been done for the survivors. The presidential palace, symbol of power in Haiti and once the bastion of the Duvalier family, remains a total wreckage and the formerly empty park facing it, the Champs du Mars, is now a tent camp. But there is one thing that has not happened: no boat people. I was the Haiti desk officer in the mid-1970s when the Haitian boat exodus began. We used strict criteria in determining which of these boat people were legitimate refugees. Unfortunately, most were really economic and not political refugees and not in danger of being returned to persecution (known legally as refoulement)at the hands of the state, but yes to hardship and even hunger. However, it was largely a crisis that resulted from the retrograde political system that had existed under the Duvaliers and indeed for much of Haitian history.

I was struck by one commentator who opined that the international community had intervened after the earthquake to shape Haiti in a way that would benefit itself. I had trouble holding back a laugh because the only reason that international community intervenes in Haiti, aside from long standing humanitarian concern for a noble but battered people, is to prevent the outflow of people that would flood the beaches of neighboring countries, especially the United States. In 1994, when the United States intervened to restore President Aristide to power it was to end a politically deteriorating situation that was generating large numbers of so-called refugees. So why now is Haiti not generating thousands of people trying to escape the hardships of life after the biblically monumental disaster? Frankly, I don't have the answer. It could be that they are simply still in shock, too disorganized or not capable of leaving behind other family members. Or perhaps the people still believe that international help is still on the way and are awaiting a major opportunity to rebuild their homes and lives. I would love to know the answer to this question, but do know that the fact that they have not abandoned their homeland for a better life abroad, remains a major miracle.

Just Plain Folks

About a decade ago, I started to hear "folks" used a lot. What ever happened to people? Just ordinary people. Nobody seems to acknowledge that the world is inhabited any more by people. Now the world is made up of "folks." I hear folks all over the place: at the office, among my kids' generation, on TV and the radio. I hear the President of the United States refer to people as folks. A young Hispanic woman used the term twice in the same sentence on the radio. The other day when three experts on violence were discussing the Tuscon tragedy, they all referred to folks, not people. Sarah Palin also talks about folks.

What is it about using folks? Folks comes from a German word, Volks, yes, the same as in Volkswagen. It means people, or the people. It is not a new word. We have studied folklore for over a century, referring to the popular behaviour and ways of the common people in far off parts of the world,in our own hinterland or in the past, like the Middle Ages. These are often quaint and lusty, as in a Bruegel painting.

Politicians are quick to use "folks." It brings them immediate familiarity with the people whom they are addressing. It is, well, folksy. It is not distant or clinical. Folks are just like us. We are folks too, and we want everyone to feel like they are just plain folks. But do we always want this kind of familiarity when hearing from experts or our leaders, or do we want some degree of distance and respect, our respect for them. But we live in an age when such respect, dignity or any pretensions of superiority are simply not tolerable. Why do we call our most exalted leaders Jimmy, Bill or Mitch. Why not use a nickname when the opportunity arises? Well, George or Barack do not seem to fit the pattern, but how could they? There must be some political mileage in trying to demonstrate that you, though an elected member of Congress, are just like ordinary folks. We like our leaders to be like us. We do not like "elites." So even though our leaders enjoy a huge advantage over the rest of us in terms of wealth, power and influence, it is comforting to think that they are just "folks," so no real threat to our own self-esteem.

"Democrat" Party

I am certainly not the first person to analyze and discuss the use of the term "Democrat Party" vs. Democratic Party, but I continue to hear this usage so frequently, most frequently but not exclusively by the leadership of the Republican Party and must say that this usage really grates on my nerves. I am apparently not the only one: a totally non-scientific online pole showed that a plurality of those taking it consider this usage to be like "scraping one's fingernails on a blackboard." One blogger said that the use of the term "Democrat" as an adjective was used by the republicans because it is "not as euphonious" as "Democratic," which is true.

But I think that the annoyance of this usage stems more from the fact that a perfectly proper and historically rooted name of a major political party dating back to Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson has been hijacked by those who wish to denigrate the name by clipping it down to something that is simply not authentic and thereby offensive. One can say, as former President George W. Bush did, that it came simply from his poor grasp of English. Perhaps it is just ignorance and thereby its usage reflects mostly on those who misuse it and not on the original institution. But that does not really scratch the itch of this question. One blog indicated that the Republican Party actually focus grouped the use of this misnomer and found it to be effective in undermining the legitimacy of the Democratic Party. Such word manipulation is certainly an important component of any propaganda campaign that tends to negatively brand one's adversary.

I am also thinking of the way that President Reagan drove liberals underground with the use of the term "the L word" as if it were a dirty or taboo word, like "the F word" or "the N word." Now we are hearing also the use of the term "Obamacare," as if to brand the recently passed health care law, which is now the law of the land approved by the democratically elected US Congress, as the personal product of our President. And what if anything is wrong if the legislation, promised by Mr. Obama in his electoral campaign and considerably watered down to accommodate broader support to be associated with him? Are some people, again namely Republicans, seeking to stir up animosity to anything linked to the President, drawing on widely held prejudices about the Presidents race, alleged Muslim religious allegiance and his, yes, liberal political history and profile. This is not unlike former Mayor Rudy Giulliani's effort to brand Mr. Obama as a "community organizer" as if this in itself was somehow a bad thing the be.

Another word manipulation that is totally unethical is the labeling of the Obama administration as "elitist." How can Republicans and other conservatives who regularly defend the interests of economic elites, the really moneyed and priviledged segments of our society, honestly refer to Mr. Obama and members of his cabinet as "elites" just because they succeeded in attending the best colleges and universities and because they are don't speak like "ordinary folks." Smart people usually don't. This does not make them "elitist," which, by the way is never, ever defined by those who so use it.

What has characterized the response of Democrats, liberals and social democrats promoting public health care has been a certain cowardice in taking on these verbal assaults and a tendency to just try to ignore them. What Democrats should do, in the case of the use of the term "Democrat Party" is to always respond publicly and negatively to this misuse and to point out that it is an attempt to undermine the party's legitimacy. And if they have to start referring to the Republican Party as the "Republic Party," so be it.

Why So?

I like to think of myself as a person who is very sensitive to the nuances of language. Indeed, I love language and have demonstrated that throughout my life. Even in high school, I was the star of my senior English class, so much so that my teacher, Mr. Stephenson, sent an essay I had written for the class in 1963 to a major educational publication which published it. I was pleased to find an abstract of that article on line (http://bul.sagepub.com/content/47/281/99.abstract
). In college, I went on to take English composition and English literature courses. Moreover, I also loved foreign languages, and had studied Spanish, Portuguese and French by the time I graduated from college and later mastered Vietnamese.

All of that aside, I am very sensitive to changes in language as well as the meaning of words. A great deal of my work today involves trying to get American military officers think more clearly about the meaning of the words they use in describing the conflicts in which the US is engaged. In addition, one aspect of my alertness to language comes from the fact that I spent a good part of my life leaving and returning to the US and discovering that American English usage was constantly changing, but it was more of a shock not having been immersed in the society and only gradually becoming used to these changes. It was a bit of an awakening to return to the US and discover that the word "awesome" had come to be the most popular way of describing something good. I love youth culture and its freshness,once considered myself part of the youth culture of the 1960s and have written admirably about the current youth of the Millennial generation (see my blog post on this). However, I do not always find the way youth uses language very "comfortable." I still do not like it when I hear a lot of people under 30 consistently raising the tone of their voices at the end of sentences when they are making a statement and not asking a question and believe that this usage actually means something about the degree of confidence they have in their own statements. This habit it appears began with young women in the 90s and later was adopted by their male cohorts.

The new language usage that I have discovered just in the past month or two has been the tendency of people to answer a question with the word "so." What do you think is the justification for the war in Afghanistan? So,.... I do not think this has always been the case. I just can't recall it being consistently used. But I find it used everywhere all of a sudden, including when I hear Europeans being asked questions in English by the media. So it seems to have flown quickly among the culture of English speakers. Now why are people answering a question with the word "so?" It seems to me that these are people who are normally being asked a question due to their expertise on a subject. Because of that, they want to set the stage for making expert statements. The word "so" sets the stage for this, as in "So.... (now listen to what I am going to say because it is hard to understand but definitely authoritative)."

Now, I find this rather annoying. Maybe I just don't like people messing with the language. I guess I am a language conservative. Although I have studied linguistics at the graduate level, I am still not comfortable with the idea that anything goes in language. Of course, saying "so" does not violate any rules, but I just do not like the superior attitude that if reflects in the speaker. However, to be honest, most people are using "so" just because they have heard it over and over and are simply using a new form because everyone else is. So "so" is probably here to stay, especially as it may fill a need in our society for people to express their expert knowledge in a world increasingly marked by specialization. Oh, yes, I also do not like the phrase "good to go," which seems to have crept its way into our language from military culture as has the term "skill sets." I only heard these phrases when I came to work with the military in 2003, but quickly found it being used everywhere by everyone. I got hired, I discoverd, because I had the right "skill sets." Lucky me!

Saving Dan Rostenkowski

Former Congressman and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski has just died. A lot of attention was suddenly paid to a Washinton powerbroker who wound up humiliated, disgraced and imprisoned due to the hubris of politics and the DNA of Chigago politics.

My own thoughts drew to the time back in 1987 when Rostenkowski and his committee visited Rio de Janeiro when I was a US consul there. One thing you get to do in the US Foreign Service is receive CODELs, Congressional delegations, and to meet some of the great names in American politics. Of course to most diplomats CODELs are mostly a big pain, as every little detail of a visit of anything from a single Congressman to a group of 20 plus spouses can become tedious and challenging. I always welcomed them, because since Latin America is often ignored by American policy makers, a CODEL could be used to raise the US government's profile and to introduce certain issues on the official agenda. Or course, for most Congressman, the CODEL is the offical version of the boondogle. Some take them as serious work; most see them as a chance to travel abroad at the expense of the American taxpayer.

I have no idea if Rosty's visit focused on any major issues of US-Brazilian relations; I just don't remember. What I do remember was the boad ride. Any VIP visit to Rio had to include a ride on a boat around Guanabara Bay and past the famed Sugerloaf and a view of the vast beaches that ringed the Bay and that made it a major port and tourist attraction with the contrast of a big city and nature running up against the sea.

For Rostenkowski's delegation, a small boat was not in the cards. Rather, we at the consulate went after the biggest private yacht in town, the 105 foot yacht owned by the late Globo media magnate Roberto Marinho. We took a late afternoon cruise. Very nice oeres deurvs and plenty of alcohol was served by host Marinho, already about 90 but spry and his glamorous somewhat younger wife Lily. We were up on the upper deck of the yacht without any railings, standing in a tight circle, Rosty, me and a few other Congressmen and guests. Rosty had had more than a couple of drinks and was a little wobbly, when the yacht rolled a bit and I saw him tilting over towards the edge of the deck and suddenly reached out, grabbed his lapel and pulled him back towards me. It was only an instant and one that was soon forgotten, but I will never forget the time that I saved Dan Rostenkowski.