Terrible With Raisins In It

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"This wasn't just plain terrible. This was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)

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I was a child during the Vietnam War, and I remember being confused by the disgraceful way many Americans greeted their returning veterans.

I knew the war had not been popular. That was the reason why one president chose not to seek another term and his successor made so many poor choices to avoid his predecessor's fate that it cost him the job, anyway. They were the policymakers. Their policies failed, and they were held accountable.

But, even as a boy, I knew it wasn't fair to blame the soldiers for the war. They weren't responsible for the policy, only for carrying it out.

Nevertheless, they were treated shoddily when they came home. It was an embarrassing sight to witness on TV, the kind of thing that made one hang one's head in shame. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be there.

It was more gratifying to see the way America's veterans were greeted after the Gulf War. It is how the veterans should have been treated after Vietnam. It is how they always should be treated because they risked everything to preserve this country. Some came back broken. Some did not come back at all.

Whether they came back broken in places you can see or places you can't see, they deserve the best we can give them, not the worst — which is what they have been getting in terms of their health care.

It is ironic, really, that an administration that has made health care its signature cause should be faced with the emerging scandal concerning the treatment — or, should I say, the lack thereof? — of veterans at V.A. hospitals, particularly the one in Phoenix although the problem appears to be systemic.

I don't know all the details. I want to know them, even if they make me want to hang my head in shame because this really does touch everyone somehow. We all know people who have served this country. Some of us are related to veterans. Some of us are veterans.

One of the most inspiring moments I've seen in a movie was when Spencer Tracy, as one of the three judges in "Judgment at Nuremberg," spoke about survival.

"A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat," Tracy said. "Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult. Before the people of the world, let it now be noted that here, in our decision, this is what we stand for: Justice, truth and the value of a single human being."

That takes my breath away every time I see it, and I have been thinking about it a lot lately because it sums up — for me, anyway — what our veterans fought for and sacrificed for. They stood for us. This is what we must stand for: Justice, truth and the value of a single human being.

Without truth, there can be no justice, and those human beings have been devalued by a cold, unfeeling and ungrateful system. It has nothing to do with political ideology. The abuses have occurred under presidents from both parties.

With this administration, the incessant drip–drip–drip of scandal is exhausting. Some of it has merit, some does not, but the V.A. scandal is nonpartisan.

I admire what Brent Budowsky has written for TheHill.com.

"[T]he president owes veterans more than another White House staff, spin and stall operation, which he offered on Wednesday with the same cast of characters waiting for yet another report," Budowsky wrote. "Congressional Republicans, who share responsibility for the VA scandal, owe vets more than another attack, deride and exploit operation that plays politics with the health of those who serve."

Barack Obama knew about the abuses when he ran for president the first time and promised to do something about them. In 2007, he spoke — almost a year to the day before he accepted his party's nomination — at the National Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City and pledged, "We enter into a sacred trust with our veterans from the moment they put on that uniform. That trust is simple — America will be there for them just as they have been there for America."

We must confront this problem. We must be faithful to our promise. We cannot ignore it.

I fear, though, that is what will happen. Obama will speak the words people want to hear on Memorial Day, and they will feel better. He will say he is on top of the job — and, to use an expression of which he has been fond, he will kick the can farther down the road. Then, whenever he is asked about the matter, he will say the review is proceeding — and the issue will be squelched until after the election.

And nothing will be done.

I don't like to put things in political contexts, but the sad truth is that everything is viewed in a political context these days — by both the right and the left.

That, as Dorothy Parker might say, isn't merely terrible, it is fancy terrible, terrible with raisins in it — and maybe a dollop of whipped cream.

A Simple Question

I'm like most people who went to college, I suppose. I didn't major in economics.

Neither — I would guess — did most of the people who are unemployed today. That's another group to which I belong, although I would be happy to give up my membership in that particular club.

Since I have no academic training in economics — beyond those basic courses I was required to take — I hope someone can enlighten me.

Let me explain.

Obviously, economies are complex things, and the one that dominates our lives today may be more complex than any in my lifetime. There is no one factor that could be corrected that would turn things around. I assume that, if someone could pinpoint such a factor, a Nobel Prize would be waiting with his or her name on it.

Nevertheless, it is fashionable — and, perhaps, justifiable — to blame George W. Bush and the Republicans for policies that made conditions favorable for companies to outsource jobs to foreign countries where labor was cheaper. That isn't the only reason why millions of Americans have lost their jobs in the last couple of years, but it certainly is one of them.

When Barack Obama became president, he and the Democrats embarked on a radical — there are those who would use the word "extreme" to describe it — course of action to deal with the economy.

Perhaps what I am about to suggest is a case of closing the barn door after the horses already have escaped, but this is a question I simply can't answer on my own. Maybe someone with a greater knowledge of economics can answer it.

Why didn't the Democrats enact legislation that would make it more difficult for companies to outsource jobs to foreign countries?

On the campaign trail — and, then again, recently, when his attention was briefly diverted to the crisis of joblessness in the days after the special election in Massachusetts — Obama proposed tax breaks for companies that hired Americans.

When the stimulus package was being worked out, that proposal was dropped because the amount of the proposed tax break ($3,000) wasn't thought to be a sufficient incentive. When Obama revived the proposal earlier this year, he raised the amount (to $5,000), but it still isn't considered sufficient.

If the incentive is not adequate to achieve the desired effect, what possible good is the policy?

Which brings me back to my original question ...

Maybe I've missed something, but why hasn't a disincentive been discussed?

I've heard it said that the jobs that were shipped overseas are never coming back. Well, maybe some of them would if the government insisted that it would penalize companies for maintaining overseas workers on their payrolls when Americans could be doing those jobs — and I'm not talking about a slap on the wrist, either. I'm talking about fines that would be high enough to get employers' attention — and could be used to help offset the costs of getting the economy back on track.

Well, that's a rough idea. Perhaps there are legal issues that would have to be addressed. Certainly, a grace period would be necessary for existing companies to make the transition from foreign to domestic employees. Exceptions would need to be made for some jobs and some industries.

But doesn't it make sense to do whatever can be done — beyond the politician's best friend, lip service — to help unemployed Americans? Maybe filling jobs with Americans instead of Indians or Chinese would raise production costs, which would, in turn, raise the costs of goods and services.

But it seems to me that, if the choice is between paying more for a cell phone or a video game and leveling the playing field for unemployed Americans, the choice is obvious.

Flesh–and–blood Americans are more important than inanimate objects.

Aren't they?

Starry Night

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"For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you."


Don McLean
"Vincent"

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Today, I want to ask for my readers' indulgence while I deal, as writers do, with some persistent thoughts in my head.

For some reason, lately I've been thinking about Vincent Van Gogh, although this isn't the anniversary of either his birth or his tragic suicide at the age of 37.

Maybe it's the bleakness of the times. I'm not immune to that, and I've had my share of troubles in recent years.

Perhaps it's the influence of my mother. She's been dead for more than 13 years now, but she is never far from my thoughts. And recently I built a memorial website for her. So, after spending a great deal of time scanning her pictures and working on the text for the site, many thoughts, some of them apparently long repressed, have been swirling in my mind.

One such thought has been of folk rock songwriter Don McLean's song, "Vincent," which was written in the early 1970s and appeared on the album "American Pie."

The title song from that album, with its familiar line, "Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry," was a huge hit, and many people have written about its meaning. It was inspired by the plane crash almost 50 years ago that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and "The Big Bopper" — an event that McLean dubbed "the day the music died."

That plane crash came during a formative time for McLean. He had just turned 13 a few months earlier, and Holly died when he was only 22 and his popularity was blossoming. I wasn't born until later that year, but to the people of that time, it was a brutal event from which no positive lessons could be taken — although perhaps the crash provided some valuable information about flying in poor weather conditions for people in the aviation industry. Investigators blamed the weather, along with possible pilot error, for the crash.

For his part, McLean has left analyses of the song to others. "[L]ong ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence," he once said.

But I've never associated the "American Pie" album with either the plane crash or the album's title song. Whenever I think of that album, I think of my mother, who bought it primarily because of "Vincent." At first, she didn't know the actual name of the song. She thought the name was its opening line, "Starry, starry night," which is taken from the name of one of Van Gogh's paintings (you can see it above).

One need only listen to that song once to realize the depth of McLean's admiration for the often deeply disturbed Van Gogh, who achieved recognition as an artist only after his suicide in 1890. Over and over, the lines in the song refer to Van Gogh's paintings, especially his self-portraits, whether they were acknowledged as such or not.

Frequently in the song, McLean talks about how Van Gogh was misunderstood during his life.

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"Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen,
They did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now."

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Yet, by the end of the song, McLean's expression of hope that Van Gogh would ultimately be accepted for the genius that he was yields to the tragic acceptance that must have gripped the anguished artist in the end.

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"Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
They're not listening still
Perhaps they never will."

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Van Gogh's wasn't the only creative mind that struggled with the demons that tormented it. I've written in another blog of the death of Edgar Allan Poe, which remains as mysterious as the classic tales he wrote. Some have suggested that, like Van Gogh, he took his own life.

Whether Poe, like Van Gogh, committed suicide probably never will be known. But if he did, then, clearly, both men found it impossible to persevere through the pain and hardship they faced.

And perhaps that's a cautionary tale for us in our times. In the current recession, which, more and more, is being seen as the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, millions who do not possess the creative talents of Poe and Van Gogh are struggling against conditions that are not of their making, that are beyond their comprehension, and there is no telling how many are losing hope with each passing day.

Many of these people feel that they are slipping through the cracks of society. The decent, humane thing for our government to do is to focus on ways to help, by extending unemployment benefits or making it easier to get financial assistance so families can stay in their homes or whatever it takes.

I know this may add to the national debt, and there are some lawmakers who will resist. But if the government can come up with the funds to bail out big industries and corporations that can still afford to fly their top lobbyists to Washington in private luxury jets, surely it can find the funds to help the least of these.