Closure

©2017 by John LaTorre

This a little different from my previous posts. You might call it an attempt at poetry, if it is indeed a poem. I submitted it to a writer's forum, and one critic maintained that it wasn't a poem at all, by his lights. He called it, instead, a piece of flash fiction. He may have been right that it wasn't a poem, but he was wrong when he called it fiction, because everything happened just as I told it.

I turned the corner past the cereal section at the Safeway

And there stood my first wife Margie,

Murdered more than twenty years ago, 

While I was thousands of miles away, 

Before either of us were prepared to say good-bye.

But there she was, the same age as when she died,

Straight brown hair flowing down her shoulders nearly to her waist, 

Down to the elbow of a dark blue raincoat 

Like the one she used to wear.

It wasn’t really her, of course, 

Although it could have been a niece

Or even the daughter we might have had

If our lives had streamed a different way.

And then the woman looked my way 

And saw me staring at her. She gave me a fleeting smile

So much like the smile that Margie used to give me

When I needed comforting. 

You know what that smile usually means 

When given by a woman who catches a man staring at her. 

It’s the smile that women smile in self-defense.

The smile that says, "I’m no threat.

Please don’t hurt me."

But I didn’t take it that way. 

To me, it was Margie herself 

Smiling from beyond the grave, 

Telling me that everything’s all right now.

That she’s at peace. 

And I felt a little of that peace, too, just then. 

The moment passed, and she wasn’t Margie anymore.

She was just some random woman buying cereal. 

I turned and went back the way I came.

But, for the first time

I had closure

If that’s what closure is.

A Voter's Bill of Rights

©2017 by John LaTorre

This will probably be my last political post for a while. I doubt if it will have any greater impact than the last ones, but it’s my way of doing something more substantial than just bitching about how things are. Instead, I’m presenting a proposal that, if carried out, will actually change our political system for the better. I’ve given it some thought over the last few months, and I hope it will appeal to those who believe, as I do, that one of the fundamental problems of American democracy is that it has impediments to the influence of voters on their government … impediments that were put in place by people in positions of undue power who want to keep that undue power, at the expense of your votes and mine.

I’ve been thinking that it’s time for a constitutional amendment to protect voter’s rights, and to reform the system toward a true "one citizen, one vote" condition. I call it the "Voter’s Bill of Rights." Here’s what it should do:

1. Eliminate the Electoral College. It’s a relic of the slave system that no longer serves any useful purpose except to enhance the political power of voters in sparsely-populated states, and to nullify the votes that were cast by the minority voters in winner-take-all swing states. Its apologists also maintain that it should act as a safeguard against blatantly unqualified people from becoming president despite having won a majority in the electoral college, a theory that has sadly proved to be false. It should be immediately replaced in favor of a direct vote.

2. Count every vote. Amazingly, huge numbers of votes go uncounted in areas where those votes are not thought to make a difference in the outcome, on the grounds that the expense of counting these votes was not fiscally sound. That’s public information, and it should be made public.

3. Require all votes to be put into hard-copy form, so that recounts can be made efficiently and accurately. Require that these votes not be destroyed, but stored for a sufficient period that they may be made available for recounts in contested elections.

4. Allow ex-cons to vote, once they have fulfilled their sentencing and parole requirements, and have paid their "debt to society." Once they have re-entered society, they should be entitled to vote on candidates and issues that affect them, just as every other citizen has that right. (It might even be argued that those in prison should have the vote, since they are entitled to representation on issues that affect them. But I don’t think that society in general is ready to embrace that concept, so I’ll save that battle for another time.)

5. Make the voting process easier by allowing vote-by-mail, advance voting, fair distribution and hours of polling places, and easier voter registration. Laws that only serve to place impediments to citizen voting, such as harsh voter identification laws, would be deemed unconstitutional and repealed.

6. Require that districts be drawn by non-partisan agencies rather than by partisan political interests, to reflect the actual distribution of voters in their areas rather than enhance the influence of the prevailing political party in that area.

7. Forbid all tactics that are used to purge voter rolls before an election. If such rolls are purged, there must be sufficient time for those whose names were dropped to be notified of their disenfranchisement to permit an appeal of the decision, so that any errors could be rectified by election day.

I know that these proposals are somewhat rough, because I’m not a lawyer, but I think that the intent of the Amendment is clear. I believe that there are plenty of lawyers in government who could make the Amendment more airtight, and I invite their participation.

The big stumbling block to the passage of this Amendment is, of course, that it eliminates everything that works to the favor of the dominant political party. Right now, that party is the Republican Party, which has devoted an immense amount of effort into restricting votes for minorities. But thirty years ago, it was the Democrats who wielded that influence. Thirty years from now, it could again be the Democratic Party who is wielding that influence, and it would be the Republicans who are against it and for voter reform.

That’s why I call it the "Voter’s Bill of Rights." The original Bill of Rights was to guarantee that there are some things beyond the reach of the "tyranny of the majority." Your rights to free speech, freedom of the press, and religious freedom cannot be denied to you, even by a majority vote of the citizens. Shouldn’t a bill of rights include your right to have your vote counted exactly the same as anybody else’s vote, regardless of who is in power?

So the real question is: does a Voting Rights Amendment work for true and accurate evaluation of the will of the people? For the only way democracy can work is if its citizens, of whatever political persuasion, know that their votes count equally, and that they are not cheated of their right to vote.

Let’s put it more baldly. It all comes down to this: Is it more important for the voting process to reflect the true and accurate desires of the American people, or for it to augment the influence of the party in power? If it’s the former, then a Voter’s Bill of Rights is needed, and needed right now. If it’s the latter, then we’re saying that we have no problem with powerful people using their power to stay in power. If that’s the case, we can just kiss democracy goodbye. We’ve just admitted that we don’t deserve it.

Here’s where you come into it. There are two things you can do to get behind this if you support it. The first step is easy, and requires a minimum of effort on your part: share the link to this blog with anybody you care to, in any social medium you please. Get people thinking about it.

Here's the link: http://jayeltee.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-voters-bill-of-rights.html

Second, if you support a Voter’s Bill of Rights, let your Senators, Representatives, state legislators, and Governors know. Ask if they support such an amendment. If they do, tell them to introduce it into Congress, and pave the way for its approval by the states. If they don’t support it, refuse to vote for them or contribute to their campaigns, regardless of their party affiliation, or yours. Tell them that you’ll be voting instead for somebody who truly has the interests of the people at heart.

Who’s with me?

A Present for my Grandniece Olive

©2016 by John LaTorre

This is a picture of a Christmas decoration that has been in my family for almost sixty years. After this Christmas season, I’ll be giving it to my grandniece Olive Flemons, who is three years old, and I’ll be enclosing this letter with it.

Dear Olive,

I’m giving you this Advent candelabra, which has been in our family for a long time. As you can see, it’s not in the best shape, but maybe if I tell you a little bit about it, you’ll eventually come to see it as the beautiful object that it is.

It’s old. It was made before you were born, before your mother was born, even before your grandmother was born. Your great-grandmother – my mother – bought it when our family lived in Germany. She discovered it at an open-air fair called the “Weihnachtsmarkt” which is German for “Christmas Market.” The fair was held every December in downtown Frankfurt, and there would be lots of venders of Christmas ornaments and handcrafted items and food. You could buy big gingerbread hearts with your name written in icing, or gingerbread houses, or little cookies called “Pfeffernussen” made of spiced dough and covered with powdered sugar or frosting. Or, if you were hungrier, you could buy a grilled sausage and a roll with mustard. If you were thirsty, there would be coffee or tea or hot cider or hot apple wine (which was a specialty of that town). The whole area smelled of gingerbread and sausages and wood smoke.  It would probably have been raining, although I remember a light dusting of snow one year. These markets have been held in German cities for hundreds and hundreds of years, and go on to this very day.

How did I end up with the candelabra? It happened this way: I received a box from my mother about thirty years ago, which must have been around the time your mother was born. Inside the box was this candelabra, and a note from my mother. Here’s what the note said:

“Dear John

“Don’t know if you remember but we got this Xmas ornament the first Xmas we were in Germany – at the Xmas booths down next to the Main River. I want you to have this as one of your memories of Germany. It’s very special to me so I want you to have it – Maybe when you’re in your 60s it’ll be a good remembrance. Love, Mom.”

 We moved to Germany in 1957, so the purchase would have been in December of that year. The candelabra has been set up in either my mother’s house or my house every single Christmas since then. I’m in my sixties now, but soon will be in my seventies, so I think the time has come to pass it on.

You will notice, of course, that this ornament has not had an easy life. There are four angels on it, each playing a horn of some sort. But the paint has chipped off their heads, so they are all mostly bald now. And the candelabra has been broken and repaired many, many times, either by my father or me, using whatever glue we had handy. One of the angels has only one wing, the other wing having disappeared long ago. Another angel is missing its left forearm, which must have made it quite difficult for her to play her horn. But since angels are supposed to be supernatural creatures, maybe a missing arm or wing isn’t much of a hindrance to them. And it’s a reminder to me that many people with missing parts turn out to be angels, too, so you shouldn’t be too quick to judge them on their appearance.

This damage is typical of something that has seen so many moves (ten of them, at least) and so many miles of travel. In fact, I estimate that it has traveled about twenty-four thousand miles, crossing the Atlantic Ocean five times, and then down to Florida, and then to California. That’s the same number of miles that it takes to go completely around the world! And that doesn’t include the many times it’s moved across town, or from one town to another within California. Not many angels have traveled so far, or so often.

I suppose I could clean it up a bit. It still has some splotches of glue on it, and a little dust. But I don’t want to create any more damage than it already has, and even the dust tells a story. It could be German dust, or Virginian dust, or Floridian dust, or Californian dust. Who knows?

There are four arms on the candelabra, each with its own candleholder. The four candles are for the four Sundays of Advent. On the fourth Sunday before Christmas, the first candle would be lit. The next Sunday, another candle would be lit, and so on until the last Sunday before Christmas, when all four candles would be lit.  (Of course, some of the earlier candles would be burned down by then, so they’d be replaced, so that there would always be a proper number of lit candles.) We would always use red candles, although green candles would be appropriate, too. Or maybe both red and green, or white. You can use whatever you want, since it’s your candelabra now.

It’s hard for me to look at the candelabra without thinking of your great-grandmother. Like the angels, she had a few parts missing when she died, as your mother or grandmother can tell you. She was a strong woman, although she kept most of that strength hidden. It would come out mostly when defending her family. For example, I’m left-handed. Back when I was a schoolboy, there were still people who thought that people shouldn’t be left-handed. One of them was a teacher who insisted that I learn to write using my right hand. When my mom heard about that, she came down to the school and told the teacher, in the strongest words, that I could write with whatever hand I pleased. She said that God made me that way, and God surely knew what He was doing. That teacher never made me write or draw right-handed again. I’m sure your mother or grandmother can tell you many more stories about her and about what a fighter she was when she wanted to be.

She was a beautiful woman, as this picture shows. And you can see that she loved her family fiercely. She loved me and my brother and your grandmother, and she absolutely adored your mother.  She would have adored you, too. And that’s why I felt that it was right and proper for you to have this gift from her, and from me. She would have wanted it that way, knowing that a young lady like yourself would keep her memory alive and carry the tradition on into the next century.

So take care of it, dear. It may not look very pretty to you now, but it will become a little more beautiful each year. Trust me on this.  (If you don’t believe me, ask my sister or your mother; they’ll tell you the same thing.) And maybe someday, if you have children of your own, you can tell them stories about your family, and about your great-grandmother, and of all the people and places these little angels have seen.

 Love,

Your great-uncle John

An Open Letter to the Electoral College

©2016 by John LaTorre

Permission to reprint this in any form is hereby granted, provided that the author and source be given due credit.

To be specific, this is an open letter to those members of the Electoral College who are pledged to vote for the Republican candidate. Please hear me out, because I’m going to ask you to do something that few have ever done before, and I need to give you my reasons for it. Please read this with an open mind.

I’m an ordinary citizen, not a politician or journalist, but I have something on my mind that is certainly on your minds, as well, and it’s my hope that my thoughts may help to guide yours.

It’s no secret that this recent election is unprecedented in modern history. And your place in modern history is also unprecedented. As the Electoral College, you’ve always had power that, for the most part, you’ve never seen the need to exercise. But you need to exercise it now, because your actions could influence the future of the country far more than any Electoral College has in the span of American history.

The Founding Fathers, as you know, realized that most elections are straightforward and don’t require anything more than your conveying the votes of your constituents to the Senate, so that they can be counted. And that’s the way it’s been since your College began. But they also realized that there would be circumstances where an election would be so out of the ordinary that some sort of moderating influence would be necessary to ensure the stability of the country.

This is, I believe, such a circumstance. I believe this for three reasons.

First, it seems that the Democratic candidate has won the popular vote by a considerable margin. If this had been any other election, we would have the usual discussion about whether or not the Electoral College should be disbanded in favor of a popular vote. But this has not been any other election. We now know that the voting process appears to have been tampered with in several of the swing states, with no attempt so far to reconcile the results of electronic voting and paper ballots, and that “Gerrymandering” has been taken to extremes in several other areas. All this may be legal, but that doesn’t make it fair or just. And the Electoral College has a unique ability to restore justice and fairness where it is lacking.

Second, the Republican candidate was elected to office on the basis of several sweeping promises, and we now hear that he is breaking those promises even before you cast your votes. This is not the man your constituents thought they were voting for.  This is a man who would say anything to get elected, without any guiding principle except for what directly benefits him or his family. He has already demonstrated a desire to blur the lines of public service and private emolument, to treat a free press as an adversary rather than a critical part of the American political process, and to hold contempt those who would suffer most from a resurgence of violence against those with less power … black people, gay people, handicapped people, women, Muslims, and any number of others. He is filling his cabinet post with billionaires with no experience in the fields they are expected to be conversant with, and whose personal interests run counter to the positions they are expected to fill. And he is already boasting of taking revenge – his word, not mine – on those members of your party who did not support him.

You know all this. You have seen it, as plain as day. And you know that putting the Presidency in the hands of a man like this cannot be beneficial to the political process to which you and your party have dedicated their lives and careers to.

Third, a fair election depends on an informed electorate. That has not been the case in this election, because the media have failed to provide them with fair, unbiased reporting. Instead, we have a candidate that was given a vast amount of free publicity (over a billion dollars’ worth, by some estimates) simply for saying outrageous things. The media have seldom fact-checked the statements of the candidates, resulting in an environment where the electorate was forced to rely on two separate and inimical streams of public information, purveyed by online sources that filtered out anything that ran counter to their own political agendas, both on the left and right sides of the spectrum. This was most egregious in the Republican candidate’s campaign, where he made claims that were proven to be unsubstantiated or simply contrary to known facts, while the media sat silently by without calling him out on it. How could the voting public be expected to make an intelligent decision under these circumstances?

To make matters worse, I read in the morning newspaper that foreign powers have flooded the social media with posts that were designed to hamper the Democratic candidate and favor the Republican candidate, in an attempt to influence the election. We should all be appalled at this attempt by a foreign government to sway our electoral process.

That’s why the Founding Fathers created the Electoral College. To be sure, part of its purpose was to ensure that those living in states with smaller populations had a disproportionate influence on the outcome of elections. But that’s not the issue I’m addressing here. The other purpose was to act as a sort of safety apparatus, much like the fire hose behind a glass panel that you see in some public buildings, under a sign that says “In Case of Emergency, Break Glass.” It’s put there with the expectation that nobody has to use it, like the powers of the Electoral College to disregard a constituent population’s vote. So far, we haven’t needed to use it. But we can, and we should recognize that there are times when we should, and that this may be one of those times.

Which brings us to the second purpose of the College: to allow people with more experience in the political process, with cooler heads than the general population, and the wisdom gathered from years of watching the political scene and how government really works, to use that wisdom and experience to shape the course that they think best for the country, even though that course may go against the wishes of the electorate. Our Founding Fathers could not have foreseen the type of cyber-attacks and electronic vote tampering that this last election has produced, but they knew how demagogues could sway opinions and carry votes, and how necessary it was to provide an opportunity for cooler heads to prevail.

It won’t be easy for you to defy your party’s wishes. For many of you, it would be political suicide, at least for a while. You were appointed as an Elector on the premise that you wouldn’t go against the popular vote in your area, and you would have to break that promise. The fact that you have the power to do this legally won’t be much help here. You will incur disfavor. Even worse, many of you may receive death threats, from that small contingent of the people who voted for your candidate and who trade in the coin of violence and coercion. (And, as you have seen in the past few weeks, you have seen how emboldened these people have become to spend that coin, to an extent that is unprecedented in modern American history.) I’m sure the Founding Fathers foresaw this, too, and trusted that an Electoral College would have the courage and moral fiber to do the right thing, regardless of the consequences. When they began this country, they pledged their lives, their liberty, and their sacred honor to that cause, regardless of the consequences. And they were confident that future generations would produce people with a similar commitment to honor, and that they could put that responsibility into capable hands … into your hands.

I do not envy you. I wish you didn’t have to make this decision. To be honest, being a hero isn’t easy. Most true heroes didn’t want the job. James Meredith and Ruby Bridges didn’t want to be heroes. They just wanted to go to school. The men and women that rushed to help the victims of September 11, 2001 didn’t want that disaster to happen. They would much rather have lived their usual lives instead of battling fires and breathing air laced with asbestos. When John Kennedy was asked how he became a World War II hero, he famously answered, “It was involuntary. They sank my boat.” But when they were called, they answered, regardless of the consequences. That’s what made them heroes. You have that opportunity to be a hero now.

As you know, if you’ve studied American history, Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial resulted in an acquittal by a single vote. What you may not know is that a number of Republican senators defied their party and voted for acquittal. As a result, none of these senators were elected to office again. Many of them had turned down bribes from the party, in the form of office appointments or diplomatic positions, which had been offered if they switched their votes. So they suffered considerable damage to their careers. But in time, they were recognized and honored as heroes. People came to respect their courage and integrity.  If you likewise defy your party and vote for the common good, I believe that people will in time respect you as well. And your grandchildren will be able to say that their grandparents saved the country from its closest brush yet to political chaos.

So your choice is clear. You can play it safe, do what is expected, retire to your homes and lives as though nothing had happened, and slip into history’s dustbin. Or you can vote your conscience, accept the consequences, and join the Founding Fathers as true patriots. It won’t be an easy decision. But our Founding Fathers counted on you to make the right one. And we are counting on you to make the right one, too.