The Death Penalty

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

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Another editorial about the death penalty in a recent New York Times and feelings and impressions still left by accounts of the botched execution in Oklahoma prompt me to express my opinion about the continuing shame and disgrace of the death penalty in the United States.

Most of us are familiar with facts about which countries still employ this medieval practice. But we should remind ourselves that over two thirds of the world’s countries have outlawed the death penalty, including all of the “advanced” countries, except ours. And we are the only country in the Americas that still employs capital punishment. In the countries still imposing the death penalty, the majority of executions worldwide in 2013 were conducted in China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and…. the United States of America. Why have our national leaders placed us in this kind of company? And why do so many states in the U.S. still choose to conduct what amounts to state sponsored cold-blooded murder?

The old “eye for an eye” adage from the Old Testament is often quoted by supporters of the death penalty. But read the reference to “an eye for an eye” by Jesus in the New Testament: the passage is about forgiveness and about “turning the other cheek”. And St. Paul has much to say about forgiveness in Romans 12. And of course, the good book says, “Thou shall not kill”. So forget Biblical support for the death penalty.

Another more popular justification for the death penalty is that it is serves as a deterrent to potential murderers. But does the prospect of being executed really ever enter the mind of a drug-crazed criminal shooting a clerk in a 7-11? Is the death penalty ever considered by the drunken jealous husband encountering his wife in bed with another man? I don’t think so. Is the death penalty ever a deterrent in the amoral mind of any criminal about to commit a heinous act when such a mind is incapable of imagining any negative consequence for a crime – even apprehension, much less trial, prison or execution. And statistics validate this point: the states without capital punishment have homicide rates at or below those states that have retained capital punishment.

With the revulsion we all feel for the act of murder, how can we accept and condone the machinery of the state grinding away to commit the same act. The careful preparation of the gurney or the electric chair for an execution, the ushering-in of spectators to view the horrid spectacle, bringing in the shackled prisoner and strapping him to a machine of death, and then the final gasps and spasms of death itself, are exercises in revulsion, horror and the macabre. High profile executions often attract a crowd of pro-death penalty savages, the same kind of human detritus, flotsam and jetsam that attended and applauded public lynchings in our not-too-distant past.

Mistakes alone are a reason to halt capital punishment. According to Amnesty International, since 1973 in the United States, over 140 people have been freed from death rows due to evidence of mistaken conviction. And since the same date over 1200 have been executed. How many of these were really innocent? Execution is final. If innocence is established later, and it has, death cannot be reversed.

Capital punishment has an ugly racist tinge also. Although capital crimes are pretty much distributed evenly among US nationalities, the death penalty is imposed on people of color with strikingly more frequency than on whites. Also, although whites and African Americans have been murdered with equal frequency, killers of white victims are 80 percent more likely to receive the death penalty.

Of the states still retaining capital punishment, Texas is the killing champion. The total number of persons executed in the United States since 1976 is 1382. Of that shameful number, the great state of Texas has executed over one third – 515 people. Do you think that they were all guilty? Did all of these doomed individuals receive adequate legal representation? Were they mostly people of color? Were any of them mentally deficient? While he was governor, George W. Bush presided over 120 executions. And who can forget the bloodthirsty applause from the audience during a 2011 Republican presidential debate when it was noted by the moderator that during his decade as governor, candidate Rick Perry had allowed 234 Texas executions?

There are many dramatic stories involving the death penalty but the sentencing and execution of Karla Faye Tucker, one of Texas’ more notorious, drew protests from around the world. Not only was Karla Faye the first woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War, but waiting on Death Row for 14 years, she was completely rehabilitated and even married her prison minister. The last of her dozens of requests for mercy and clemency was turned down with a mocking smirk by Governor George W. Bush. On the night of the execution it was reported that a rendition of “Amazing Grace” by a gospel singer was shouted down by cries of “Kill the bitch!” from the pro-death penalty crowd gathered at the prison.

Shortly after her execution, Fred Allen, the prison official who had supervised more than 120 Texas executions, resigned his position with this statement: “I was pro capital punishment. After Karla Faye and after all this, until this day, eleven years later, no sir. Nobody has the right to take another life. I don’t care if it’s the law. And it’s so easy to change the law.”

Karla Faye Tucker’s redemption and ultimate execution have been the subjects of books, movies and music. To me one of the most affecting songs is Mary Gauthier’s “Karla Faye”.

A little girl lost, her world full of pain
He said it feels good, she gave him her vein
The dope made her numb and numb felt like free
Until she came down, down, down to a new misery

A junkie, a whore, living for the next high
She’d lie cheat and steal, she forgot how to cry
Wide awake for two weeks, shooting heroin then speed
When she killed in cold, cold blood all she felt was her need

It’s an eye for an eye, now you’re gonna die
A tooth for a tooth, it’s your moment of truth
There’s no mercy here, your stay is denied
Go on and pray, pray, pray, there’s mercy in the sky

Alone in her cell, no dope in her veins
The killer’d become little girl lost again
She fell to her knees, she prayed she would die
On the cold cement floor, she finally cried

And love came like the wind, love whispered her name
It reached through and held her, lifted her pain
Fifteen years on death row, her faith deeper each day
Her last words were, “I love you all”
Good-bye, Karla Faye

Now it’s an eye for an eye and you’re gonna die
A tooth for a tooth, it’s your moment of truth
There’s no mercy here, your stay is denied
Go on and pray, pray, pray

There have been many great movies over the years that have dealt with capital punishment, several describing the agony of the impending execution of an innocent person, among them, the classic Susan Hayward movie, “I Want to Live”. Documentaries like Werner Herzog’s “Into the Abyss” are also thoughtful examinations of the practice. However, the best movie about capital punishment has to be “Dead Man Walking”, in which the heinous nature of the crime committed by the character played by Sean Penn fades into the background in the account of his agonizing stay on death row and the gruesome scene of his execution.

People have been questioning the death penalty for a long time. Victor Hugo in 1829 wrote “The Last Day of a Condemned Man”, a sensitive and heart-rending first person account of a man condemned to death. The novel never reveals what crime the man committed, or anything about his arrest and trial. It only paints a very depressing picture of what is going through the condemned man’s mind – never again to experience love, to hear leaves rustle on a tree or feel a breeze, or see flowers, birds, the blue sky and sunshine. He will never see his mother, his wife, or his little daughter, Marie, again. He doesn’t know when but knows he will be beheaded by the guillotine in the notorious Place de Greve. One of the most impressive features of the novel is Hugo’s introduction, in which he paints a horrible and grim picture of capital punishment in France (finally outlawed there in 1981) and throughout the world.

I would think that in the year 2014 the United States of America would have joined the rest of the civilized world and moved beyond capital punishment (and mass incarceration, the subject of another upcoming article). While it unfortunately has not, there is, it seems, inexorable progress toward that goal. Presently 18 states have abolished capital punishment and many of the states that still have the death penalty on the books have chosen not use it. And the states where it is no longer allowed have seized the moral high ground and led the fight to abolish it nationwide. But we have a long way to go. All who oppose the death penalty need to support the organizations that are carrying this fight, among them Amnesty International, National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Death Penalty Information Center, Students Against the Death Penalty, and dozens of church organizations. The United States has no business supporting and practicing state-sanctioned murder.

Dear Dad,

14 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by ralphfriedly in Uncategorized

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Charles Ralph Friedly

It’s Father’s Day this weekend and I am thinking about you. My faith is as not as strong as some of your other children so I don’t really know if I will ever see you again. But you do still live in the hearts and minds of those who love you and remember you.

My childhood memories of you include your hero-like qualities to the people and kids at Zarephath. From throwing hay bales to hitting a baseball, your strength was legendary. This strength was also demonstrated when you tossed little children or did your little trick of grasping little hands thrust back between the legs and flipping the child over and back on his or her feet.

You were very popular among the students you taught and the friends you had (my friends used to tell me how lucky I was to have you as a father). I remember also you holding forth while giving haircuts in the barber chair corner of the printery, the buzz of the Oster clippers tempered with the observations and repartee of standers-by and flavored by the pleasant greasy smell of printers ink from the presses.

I also remember your attempts to rid your gardens of groundhogs and crows and all the tricks you tried to triumph over them, from aiming your 16 gauge shotgun at a hole in the early morning until an unlucky groundhog poked his nose up, to dangling dead crows from a string on a stick to frighten the live ones away.

I recall with humor the time you came from Denver by bus for a visit to my home in New Brunswick with a paper bag of clothes, a huge Audobon bird book and half a binocular (a monocular?) strung around your neck (what must your fellow passengers have thought?!)

Some of my pleasantest memories were those I accumulated during adulthood on my summer trips to Denver to visit family. Being awakened by your early morning activity was really quite pleasant: from hearing you bang around with a shovel outside as you tended to flowers to hearing the rattle of the fenders on your bike as you returned from a trip to the college building to fetch milk.

I fondly recall the pleasure of sharing history with you. Even though we differed in our political views, we had wonderful discussions. I always felt close to you at those times when we discussed World War II or the Civil War. Of course, I could not match your knowledge of Winston Churchill so I mostly listened when his name came up. I guess I have made my own son the person in my life with whom I now share interest in history. For that I am so thankful, as you must have been for being able to share your interest with me.

Dad, I enjoyed your sense of humor. I never met anyone that appreciated Mark Twain the way you did. Reading funny bits from “Sketches Old and New” or gems from “Innocents Abroad” to you was truly precious and I enjoyed joining you in the uproarious laughter that followed. However, the hilarity you generated from making fun of or ridiculing other people is a somewhat less pleasant memory.

I have never known anyone with a more genuine affinity for the soil which you enjoyed and demonstrated your whole life. I can still smell the freshly plowed New Jersey soil which you cultivated so patiently, hopefully and expertly. I can also remember your prescient bent for organic farming, always rejecting chemical fertilizer for tons of cow manure to enrich the soil, with an occasional dash of chicken manure as well. Although I rebelled as a 14 year old at having to “plant lima beans eyes down”, most of my memories of you and farming were pleasant. From your efforts to make rows as straight as possible by training the muffler of the tractor firmly on a distant downfield fence post or tree, to your pride in your newly purchased Farmall Super A, to your pride in your sweet corn and “Jersey Belle” strawberries, to the smells and sounds of picking sweet corn in the early dawn in the fields on the Millstone River flood plain, I remember all very fondly because I was with you and I was helping you. You loved to grow flowers as well, especially dahlias, an obsession that began at Lock Haven with dahlia bulbs planted in the burned out stump in front of the house, and continued to planting dahlias around the Belleview house and buildings.

I remember how proud I was when you let me drive the new ’51 Chevy pickup into the garage at night, how crushed and ashamed I was when I erred and put a dent in the left front fender, and how relieved I was that you kept your anger and disappointment hidden. I also remember your kind effort to complement my saving for and purchase of a dream $1.99 fishing reel from Sears with a surprise fishing rod that I found on my bed one afternoon. And I remember the shame I felt when I foolishly and carelessly allowed that dream-come-true rod and reel to be stolen from me by a schoolmate and never recovered.

Very pleasurable to remember are the times on hot humid summer nights you used to take us on a drive around the township back roads with all of us in the back of the pickup truck. When an underpass was being constructed under the railroad in Manville, we used to drive over and check its progress. When little sister Elaine mistakenly called it the “underpants”, you teased her about it for months afterward.

And speaking of back roads, I felt so special to go with you several times to the Carfagnos’ home on one of those roads to watch the Papst Blue Ribbon Bouts on Wednesday night or Friday night boxing on the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. These were the times I got to see Rocky Marciano, Jersey Joe Walcott, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles and Sugar Ray Robinson, very special indeed.

Also, I enjoyed very much the times I and various other brothers and sisters accompanied you to the “Auction” (actually I think it was Packard’s Farmer’s Market) on Route 206 near Somerville on Wednesday nights or Friday nights. You sold sweet corn and vegetables wholesale to a vendor there and we kids were turned loose to visit the various booths and spend a little money. The books I purchased at the used book booth there still occupy a special place in my bookcase and in my heart.

Dad, I am sorry I was so difficult to raise. I was certainly not the ever obedient and obeisant eldest son you desired. We had numerous disagreements and arguments when I was a teenager during which we both lost our tempers. After being expelled from the church school in Denver as a high school senior, you drove all the way from New Jersey to bring me back (never saying a word to me) and did your best to successfully get me situated again. I am grateful for those efforts, which resulted in my living with Aunt Margaret and Uncle Emil in Ohio, attending Wooster High School, and setting my life on a new course.

You seemed proud of me (but never said you were) when, after being accepted to Rutgers, you took me to the bookstore for my books, my dink (a beanie all freshmen were required to wear) and my tie (also required). But living in our chaotic home and commuting during those first years of college were difficult, as were the financial struggles. After losing my job at Ford because of my previously undetected scoliosis, a job which I expected to be my financial salvation, and after a bitter argument with you, I kissed my little brothers goodbye during the night and drove to Colorado with one of the family vehicles. I suppose you could have reported a theft and pressed charges. I am grateful that you did not.

Dad, although I often condemned you for consigning your family to a life in the Pillar of Fire church, perhaps I never properly appreciated the political tightrope you walked to keep us there. I often blamed you for not having the courage to leave and get us all out into the real world. I recall when I first went to teach for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and made good money teaching and paid only $50 per month for my very nice rental house. I urged you at that time to make the break. But you didn’t, or couldn’t. It is likely you thought that at least in the church the kids would always have food and a roof over their heads. I don’t think it was ever out of a true religious conviction that you kept us there but simply because you knew no other life.

It must have been difficult to accumulate money, any money at all, in those days in the church when we children were all quite young. I look back at the automatic washer we finally bought and the deep freeze, and realize that the money for those appliances came very dearly, from work in the “missionary field” or from raising and selling vegetables.

Along with these mostly pleasant memories, there are some sad ones too. Dad, I feel to this day the pain of hearing you extol the virtues of other young people. You were always commenting on someone’s uncommon strength, ability or intelligence or size of their hands, never realizing how much your thin oldest son (with smaller hands) craved some recognition too. You had favorites among your students in the classroom and even had favorites among your own children. This caused intense emotional pain for those not included in this favored group, among them me, and likely imposed a heavy emotional burden on those that were. You also enjoyed teasing your kids, I am not sure why. You can see a tearful Elaine, hurt by your teasing or a crying little Charlie in the old color slides and movies. I vividly recall another “teaser” that you enjoyed – extending a pencil to us and flipping it as we reached so we grasped your forefinger instead.

When things got difficult at home – Mom not feeling well, the house chaotic and confused, full of needy children, piles of dirty dishes and buckets of soiled diapers, you were not there to take responsibility, exercise leadership, lend a hand and set things right. You found all sorts of reasons and justifications to be at Zarephath for twelve or sixteen hours a day, taking courses, teaching, working or much of the time I think, just escaping. Much of household management became the responsibility of the older children, a job we secretly resented and from which we tried to escape, each in our own way. And I recall how badly our shabby and leaking house needed attention and instead you helped other people paint and reroof their houses.

This perpetual absence was symptomatic of a general neglect of Mom back in those days which all of us felt. We all missed so much a Mom and Dad together in love and support and both parents giving us love and support in turn. You left the church and your family once to make a point with the church management and worked for Nides Appliances in Denver for about six months. I can remember a buzz among us children in the morning as the word spread that you had returned during the night. You and Mom responded to a cautious tap on the bedroom door and we kids crowded in to welcome you back. The sweetest thing about this event was observing a very happy Mom and Dad in bed together. This is the only time I can remember seeing you this way and feeling the joy it gave me. I am happy that in your retirement years, and prior to the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease, you and Mom apparently drew closer together as a couple, although Mom always seemed the active and demonstrative provider of affection and you just the passive recipient.

Dad, I feel to this day an aching void inside me. I never experienced the joy of you hugging me or kissing me. Nor did I ever experience the joy of you telling me you loved me or that you were proud of me. I suppose much of my need to achieve was driven by this futile desire to obtain your love and approval, which never came. Oh yes, you apparently told others that you were proud of my educational and professional achievements but I would have given the world to hear it from you. But Dad, even though it does not dry my tears or fill that void, I do realize that you simply never learned from your own parents how to show love and approval to your children. I sense in you the same defiance of your father that I had of you and the same false empowerment from your mother that I got from mine and I sense that your father never hugged or kissed you, told you he loved you or was proud of you either. My youngest brother told me of a time when, your eyes filling with tears, you responded to him that you had done the best you could. And I am sure you did.

Dad, your last years were spent in confusion, desperation, madness and darkness from the onset and progress of Alzheimer’s disease. What a tragedy to see your fine mind totally destroyed and your engaging personality crumbled to nothing. How horrible to see a perfectly healthy elderly man, still with a good physique and no gray hair, not recognize his wife or children. I do remember an occasion, before any of us suspected what was happening, when I visited you and Mom in Colorado. You were both watching television as I entered the house and you both rose to greet me, but I could see from your eyes that you were startled and perhaps didn’t recognize me. However, you took cues from Mom and were properly cordial and civil. But I knew something was wrong.

I surely wish I could see you again Dad and talk heart to heart with you. I will never know really how you felt about me. I only know that, like you, I did the best I could, with the emotional, intellectual and physical qualities I inherited from you and Mom. If you ever wished that you could have been a better father, I certainly have wished I could have been a better son.

On Father’s Day I, your oldest son, in this torrent of mixed memories and emotions, remember you with love.

Ralph

Is There a Right Wing Conspiracy?

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by ralphfriedly in Uncategorized

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Right Wing Conspiracy

I am not paranoid, nor do I subscribe to any of the “conspiracy” theories surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy or other momentous events which lend themselves to such explanation, but in the case of the US political right wing, I do often suspect that there must be an evil wizard behind a curtain pulling the handles and throwing the switches. It really does seem at times that someone, somewhere, is orchestrating everything, calling the shots and issuing the marching orders – making sure that Republican legislatures and governors act in concert, making sure that all the right wing talk shows sing in the same key, making sure that right wing pundits write with the same pen, and making sure all Tea Partiers sing from the same hymnal.

Look at what’s happening all over the country with apparent lock-step order and precision. It’s as if the person or power calling the shots has presented the following playbook and insisted that all follow it without exception:

Reduce voting rights by claiming “voter fraud” and instituting requirements that reduce the franchise for the poor and minorities by requiring a picture ID, reducing poll times, limiting early or weekend voting and making registration more complex.
Reduce or abolish all business regulations by calling them “job killers” and a “drag on the economy” or “driving jobs overseas”, and in doing so, abolish or significantly weaken OSHA, and other agencies and laws whose role it is to protect workers.
Oppose the Affordable Care Act, refuse to accept the Medicaid expansion part of the law (but don’t come up with a better way to insure everyone).
Attack, weaken and ultimately abolish labor unions and workers’ rights through changing labor laws, calling them unfair to business and a hindrance to job growth.
Attack, weaken and ultimately abolish safety net programs like Social Security and Medicare, claiming they are close to insolvent and responsible for the budget deficit.
Reduce taxes on corporations and individuals, claiming that they are too high and inhibit growth and stifle initiative (even when the US is now the lowest-taxed of all developed countries)
Deny climate change despite overwhelming scientific evidence, oppose all efforts to slow it like capping emissions or imposing a carbon tax and instead support the entire fossil fuel industry from coal to fracking.
Attack public schools despite their being an egalitarian cornerstone of democracy and support privatization of education through vouchers and charter schools.
Support corporations and business against the consumer, the environment and government regulation.
Attack any and all gun legislation aimed at registration or background checks or other measures to keep us safer, support all legislative aims of the NRA.
Oppose choice for women, support “pro-life” politicians and laws, put abortion clinics out of business.
Oppose any kind of meaningful immigration reform, especially if such proposed legislation provides a path to full citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Proclaim the “budget deficit” the source of all of our economic problems and reduce it not by cutting a bloated defense budget or agricultural budget or by increasing taxes, but by cutting programs that help people, like food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security.
Protect the “free market” at all costs, despite its obvious failings. Claim that the “free market” will take care of the poor, provide opportunity for all, and repair our crumbling infrastructure.
Oppose absolutely anything proposed or supported by our first black president, President Obama, without any regard for merit, common sense or popular support.

One day or a few hours of Fox News will contain mention of most if not all of the above as will a couple of broadcasts of Rush Limbaugh, a speech or two by Ted Cruz or another incoherent ramble by queen wingnut Sarah Palin.

So who is calling the shots? Is a to-do list or marching orders concocted at the very private and secretive semi-annual Koch brothers confab, this year held in late March at a luxury resort in Palm Springs and attended by dozens of billionaires (complete list of attendees obtained by Mother Jones)? Or are these concocted by think tanks like American Enterprise Institute and disseminated to all Republican congressmen and conservative pundits? Maybe it’s the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), that has operated behind the scenes for so long and has presented laundry lists of pre-written legislation to Republican legislatures and governors across the country.

Perhaps there is no single power behind this list, or wizard behind the curtain, but the uniformity of conservative support for the above makes me wish for similar uniformity of purpose and support from Progressive forces in our country. But unfortunately, I am reminded of the famous Will Rogers quote, “I am not a member of any organized political party – I’m a Democrat”. Despite this unfortunate fact – Democrats and progressives are really all over the place – I am proud to be a Democrat, a Progressive, a Liberal and an Independent – and confidently and deliberately embrace the opposite position on every single item on the list.

Living in Vermont

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by ralphfriedly in Uncategorized

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I love Vermont and the state’s recent courageous approval of a GMO labeling requirement has inspired me to write about it and describe why it is a truly unique state.

I live here for about six months a year. My spouse is a native Vermonter and our little house sits across a dirt road from the house where she and her brother grew up. Mountains rise nearby on both the east and the west. So the rising sun doesn’t strike this house until about 9:00 AM, and the sunset, because of high horizon to the west, is always early.

There are trees everywhere. When my spouse points out where the barn and silo, or the “night pasture” or her grandmother’s house used to be, I get very confused because all I see are trees. When you take a walk around Scallop Drive, about two miles of brisk and scenic walking, first north about a half mile, then west uphill for a mile or so, then a turn to the south and finally east downhill back to home, all you see are trees. Yet this is where the hayfields, pastures and cornfields for the Baldwin dairy farm used to be. If you go into the woods directly east of the house, eventually you encounter the rusty skeleton of a manure spreader, the wood plank construction long since rotted away, trees growing up through it, and the rusted frame barely recognizable as the remains of a farm implement. This is the only evidence I have seen of the farm that used to be here.

The area around the house is typical of what you see everywhere in Vermont – Green Mountains. On a drive to anywhere in any direction, you encounter beautiful countryside, gorgeous endless vistas of wooded hills and mountains, prosperous farms and pastures full of contented cattle, always punctuated with very small to small charming towns and villages, each with their requisite display of colonial houses and the single church steeple that typify the New England town or village. And you almost always see a main street with local family owned businesses.

E. Corinth, Vermont.jpg

About the weather – it has been said that Vermont has two seasons – winter and July. That’s a bit extreme but it’s to the point. The winters are generally very cold and snowy, spring and fall can be quite cold and the summer here is short. Occasionally, someone’s tomatoes will be killed by an August frost. The day after I arrived in Vermont this spring, April 14, I was greeted by a four inch snowfall. Today, May 31, as I am writing this the temperature is 70 degrees. I think we have had only a half-dozen days this spring that have reached or exceeded this level. Vermont just saw the end to one of its harshest winters in the last decade when all previous records for cold weather in March were broken. There are pleasant days here to be sure, but since they are rare they seem uncommonly and extraordinarily beautiful. At times during the summer the weather can turn uncomfortably hot and humid. The fall, especially October, is probably the best time of the year, with blue skies, crisp mornings and cool nights and colorful leaves. But in October of 2012 it rained for virtually the entire month. The caravans of “leaf peepers”, people from other states visiting Vermont to enjoy the fall color, were stalled in clouds of fog, mist and driving rain. I think there were but three days the entire month that were good for enjoying the beautiful fall color.

Vermont is one of the smallest of the states, actually number 45 in area and 49 in population. It is also one of the whitest states – very few faces of other hues and shades are seen. Its population of African Americans is less than one percent, making it the 49^th state in percentage of black population, right before number 50, Montana. When considering all minorities, it is still among the whitest, with 95 percent of its population of 640,000 falling into that category. Vermont also has a very mature population with the second oldest median age in the country, right behind Maine. This is surprising because one would think that Arizona or Florida with all their retirees would rank quite high, but they in fact are far down on the scale. However, this high median age is an indication of a problem the state is trying to address – that young people are leaving the state.

Taxes are high in Vermont. Our little state is the ninth highest in the country, collecting 10.5 percent of average income for both local and state taxes, an average tax burden per capita of $4351. Property taxes vary according to where you live, as do the benefits received from the state or the local government from that tax. Here is Dorset, a high tax town, the bill for our humble little house on an acre of land is well over $4000. And with our own water supply and septic system, and paying a private company to pick up our refuse, our only benefits seem to be having the dirt road graded periodically and the privilege of using a small library in town. Oh, and also the privilege of listing “Dorset” as our address.

One of the useful nuggets of advice offered by my son who spent three years in Vermont going to law school, was, “Dad, never be in a hurry when you are driving somewhere or you will go crazy”. This was great advice, although I have had difficulty heeding it. Speed limits here are a throwback to the past, usually 40 miles per hour, with some (rare) stretches of roadway 50, and usually 30 or 25 through towns and villages, of which there are many, and even on the rare stretches of Interstate Highway, you are limited to 55 or 60. Since most of the roads are two lanes without a shoulder, if someone is turning left, you stop…and wait…and wait. And if you are lucky enough on a trip to town to not encounter this, you may instead find guys in both lanes with signs saying on one side “Stop” and on the other “Slow” who are paid by the phone company or electric company to guide traffic around some repair work, often being done by one person: three people being paid but only one doing any useful work. Or you might see a policeman, an expensive police vehicle, the same two guys directing traffic and only two men filling potholes.

The largest town (or city if you wish) in Vermont is Burlington, population 42,000. If you want to go to the state’s only Costco and only (recently) Trader Joe’s or Guitar Center, you travel to the Burlington area. So from here in Dorset, a shopping trip to Costco and Trader Joe’s, and maybe the Guitar Center, approximately a 200 mile round trip at an average speed of 40 miles per hour, is pretty much a tedious and frustrating all day affair. And simply getting to a Home Depot from here in Dorset requires a 56 mile round trip north to Rutland or a 60 mile round trip to Bennington. Burlington “International” (my quotes) Airport is a sleepy little terminal that claims international status because of a few weekly flights from neighboring Canada. I don’t think that flights from Paris, Berlin or London land at Burlington International.

Vermonters are remarkably community oriented. Church suppers and fire department pancake breakfasts are alive and well in Vermont. After the severe damage caused by Hurricane Irene in 2011, the state of Vermont did not wait for help from the Federal government. Neither did local communities wait for help from the state. Every able bodied person pitched in to rescue stranded neighbors, to repair washed out roads and clean up flooded buildings. Since a major exit on Interstate 89, near Montpelier, the Vermont state capital, was impassable, an enterprising Vermonter, drove off the interstate between exits and created “Exit 11-1/2”, in order to reach his community isolated by the storm damage.

Vermont is a state that values education. For such a little state, it is amazing to find 24 colleges and universities here, from big University of Vermont in Burlington, to distinguished Middlebury College in the middle of the state to small Bennington College in the southern part. Vermont Law School in the little community of South Royalton, which my son attended, is one of the better law schools in the country. Sixty percent of Vermont high school students attend post secondary schools. One third of Vermonters have at least a bachelor’s degree.

As is common in New England, Vermont provides much in the way of culture. Art museums, including our own Southern Vermont Art Center in nearby Manchester, abound and music concerts are plentiful, especially in the summer. Drama is easy to find in Vermont also, again particularly in the summer season – from our very own Dorset Players here at home, to the nearby Weston Playhouse, to the many offerings at Vermont’s many colleges and universities.

Many native Vermonters speak with a distinctive accent that is very difficult to describe or imitate. At times I even had a great deal of difficulty understanding my spouse’s father, his accent was so pronounced. And I was quite embarrassed when, after meeting a spouse’s cousin’s wife in northern Vermont, I afterward asked quite innocently what country was she from. I had a real problem understanding her as well and didn’t realize that she simply had an extraordinarily severe case of the Vermont accent.

Hunting is really important in Vermont. There are an unusual number of hunting seasons: approximately twenty separate seasons, ranging from “Bow and Arrow Deer”, “Deer Muzzleloader”, “Moose” and “Black Bear” to “Gray Squirrel”, “Ruffled Grouse”, “Woodcock” and “Crow”. Don’t expect to get your car repaired, your house re-roofed or your appendix removed during the big one, the 16 day regular deer hunting season, because it seems that every able bodied Vermont man, plus many women, have deserted their posts and are all out hunting or in their “camps” drinking and telling stories.

The state of Vermont’s economy is remarkable. Although manufacturing companies which employed many Vermonters have packed up and left, the state still has an amazing 3.3 percent unemployment rate, second only to booming North Dakota. Maybe this number is artificially lowered up by the fact that many Vermonters may be looking for employment in other states, thus reducing the number of people ranked among the unemployed. But the economy of this mostly rural state is still amazing. Vermont’s dairy industry, despite many small farms being sold, closed or consolidated with others, continues to be healthy. Its cheeses (Cabot) and ice cream (Ben and Jerry’s) are sold throughout the country.

Cabot Cheese

Another noteworthy characteristic of Vermont is its local character. By this I mean that “local” is valued. Local family ownership of motels, restaurants, retail establishments is alive and well in Vermont. Motel chains and fast food chains are not very welcome here. Where other parts of the country are full of Days Inns, McDonalds, Appleby’s, Taco Bells, and Dunkin Donuts, such establishments are relatively rare here. The “Weathervane Motel”, “Ho Hum Motel”, “Mrs. Murphy’s Donuts,” “Little Rooster Café” and “Garlic John’s” are doing fine in Vermont. It is likely that God had to intervene for Costco and Trader Joe’s to set up shop in Vermont.

Related to this “local” value, it is interesting that many companies choose to include the state in their names because “Vermont” seems to connote high quality, sturdiness and tradition. And it works. What do you think of when you hear the names “Vermont Castings”, “Vermont Teddy Bear Company”, “Vermont Sandwich Company”, “Vermont Flannel” or “Vermont Country Store”? Yes, the name “Vermont….” does seem to mean considerably more than just the name of a state.

This little state is amazing politically. Our Governor, Peter Shumlin, is a man whom you know was elected for his brains and leadership – surely not for his looks. Governor Shumlin has been a fine governor, providing outstanding leadership during the Hurricane Irene crisis and leading the state to its legislative accomplishments in other areas. Its small (just one Representative) congressional delegation is quite liberal. Although Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Peter Welch do the people’s work very well in Congress, the most notable member of the delegation is Senator Bernie Sanders. Serving first as the mayor of Burlington, then elected for three terms to the House of Representatives, and now in his second term in the Senate, Senator Sanders has called himself a socialist and an independent at different times in his political career. He continues to speak up bravely and honestly for the common man and the middle class against the corporations and big money. It is hoped by many that Bernie will run for President. Although his chances for winning would be slim, since he accepts no corporate money and lobbyists have given up on him, the country needs to seriously debate the issues and progressive solutions espoused by Senator Sanders.

The state of Vermont has led the entire country, even progressive California, in several very crucial areas. First, the state is planning to set up the first single payer health care system in the country. Although being fought every inch of the way by health insurance companies and drug companies, it appears the state will succeed. Second, as mentioned earlier, good old Vermont had the courage to pass a law requiring that foods containing genetically modified ingredients say so on the label. Not surprisingly, the state is now being sued by Monsanto, the industrial agriculture giant. Third, Vermonters should be extremely proud of their legislature’s recent mandate for a minimum of 10 hours per week of quality instruction for all three and four year olds in the state. Obviously, little Vermont leads the country in caring for its people.

So there is my own personal description of the Green Mountain State, where I live for six months each year. Even considering the negatives, Vermont is still a great place to live during the late spring, the summer and the early fall. It is served well by its people, graced by its beautiful scenery and strongly led by its responsive and sensible politicians. I am happy to be here.

What Is a Billion?

09 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by ralphfriedly in Uncategorized

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At a time when not only are governments talking about taxes and expenditures in the billions of dollars, but multi-billion dollar corporations are also spending billions to acquire others (Pfizer’s recent offer of 119 billion dollars to purchase AstraZeneca), huge companies are sitting on billions of dollars in cash (Apple now has more than 159 billion dollars in cash on hand), and the number of billionaires in the US is now over 500, it might be useful to reflect on this number, which is really beyond the ability of many of us, certainly me, to comprehend. While you can get some astonishing facts about how much a billion is from Wikipedia and other sources, I offer here a few of my own modest examples.

First, for proportion, let’s take a brief glance at a million. A million is ten one hundred thousands, a big number but still fairly easy to comprehend. It’s a number that can come in handy during your retirement, because a million dollars invested at six percent annual interest will yield $60,000 per year, not too bad a retirement income and you haven’t touched your principal. Also, if you wished instead to invest in real estate, your million dollars would buy five $200,000 homes. Renting these homes for $1000 per month would get you $5000 per month or again, $60,000 per year. And you would own the homes.

But a billion dollars is an entirely different matter. First, you need to simply consider that a billion is a thousand millions. OK, what’s so hard about that you might ask. But multiply my above descriptions of a million by a thousand and you are really in the stratosphere. Investing the billion at six percent per year would yield $60,000,000, a staggering retirement income. If you extend the homes example in this way, investing a billion dollars in $200,000 homes, you will have 5000 homes, a small city, and your retirement income from them, calculated the same way would be $60 million per year or $5 million a month, really quite a difference, and again a pretty good income. And you would own the city.

But let’s look at a billion in some other ways to really get some understanding of how huge this number is. A Morgan silver dollar is .13 inches thick, making approximately nine in an inch high pile and 108 in a pile a foot high and 570,240 silver dollars in a stack a mile high. Got that? Well a billion silver dollars forms a column over 1750 miles high if my math is correct (feel welcome to check it). If I am right in my math, this is again well beyond human comprehension. And a stack of a billion one dollar bills at .004 inches thick would be over 63 miles high.

Some other facts about a billion dollars: if a billionaire spent one thousand dollars a day, it would take him (or her) over 2700 years to exhaust the billion. Well if it lasts that long, why not spend $10,000 per day, then it would last 270 years, or much more reasonable, spend $100,000 per day for 27 years. This too is beyond comprehension. How could anyone spend money at this rate?

And what about Sheldon Adelson, the repulsive billionaire who sought to buy the election for Republicans during the 2012 election? Do you think he’s going to go broke anytime soon spending a reported 150 million dollars on such causes? Well, with his estimated fortune of 21 billion dollars, he could do this again for 140 more election cycles, not counting the additional billions in future earnings from his sleazy casino empire. Thank God he’s old.

Some other illustrations:

A billion minutes ago (1902 years), in 112 AD the Roman Empire ruled by the Emperor Trajan was doing quite well and Christianity was becoming a major religion.
My son’s beginning salary as a New Mexico public defender attorney is $54,000 per year. If he received and saved every penny of his salary and never spent a dime, it would take him 18,500 years to save a billion dollars.
If on the other hand my son earned a billion dollars this year, his daily pay (five workdays per week for 52 weeks for 260 workdays per year) would be almost 4 million dollars a day, or even more amazing, for an eight hour day, $480,000 per hour.

These then are a few illustrations of the size of this astonishing number. Governments tax billions and spend billions. The Pentagon budget is over 500 billion dollars. Companies are worth billions and buy and sell other companies for billions. So we toss around this term only rarely considering how big it is.

Really I don’t think anyone should earn this much or own this much. It’s obscene to have this kind of money. Yet as noted earlier we have over 500 billionaires in our country. When it’s virtually impossible to spend this kind of money, why would anyone want it? Maybe it’s simply the ultimate badge of extraordinary achievement. In an age when money so easily buys political power, perhaps having a billion dollars or so is a pretty heady experience because of the power it buys. What are the Koch brothers going to do with their billions other than make more billions or buy more politicians?

I am reminded of the great populist demagogue, Huey Long, governor of Louisiana and later Senator from that state who addressed exorbitant concentration of money in few hands in his “Share the Wealth” proposal in the 1930’s. The “Kingfish” had it right. This obscene concentration of wealth, the billions of dollars owned and controlled by so few individuals while millions are in need, should not be allowed in a democratic society.