School starts and a new AG is coming

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL: Last Monday (Aug. 20) was the first day of classes at a neighborhood elementary school. While driving slowly (due to construction) toward an intersection where the school is located I noticed a couple of mothers walking small children with knapsacks on their backs away from the school. Probably toward home. These mothers were smiling at the children talking fast and animatedly about probably their first day in school. In my first days of school, I walked one block straight up the street with other kids from the neighborhood. Parents did not walk us to school in the late thirties or early forties. Doing so today is both an expression of parental love and a safety measure for the little ones. I also smiled and drove on to Costco.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL: South Carolina Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, who golfs with President Trump, tells us that the President will likely replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the mid-terms in November. Trump wants an AG who will weaken or shut down Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller”s investigation. Sen. Graham should make it clear right up front that the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which he is a member and potentially Chairman in the next session, will extract a promise from any AG nominee that he will not interfere, slow down, or put an end to the Mueller investigation, regardless of the cost or time it takes to complete it. The goal is the preservation of Democracy, not playing golf with the President. 

The value of newspapers

 The value of a free (no government control or censorship) press is to individuals as it is to society as a whole. In August I shared a healthy exchange of views with another writer and the readers of the Letters to the Editor of The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC).

This letter started the exchange:

(Published August 3, 2018)

Trade War
  Farmers helped elect Donald Trump to be president, As president, Mr. Trump initiated a trade war that hurt farmers. Now, he is spending $12 billion taken from taxpayers to help the farmers.
  Exactly which drawer in the lunacy bin should this be filed under?

  Francis x. Archibald
  Central Haven Drive
  Mt. Pleasant, SC

Another reader/writer chimed in:

(Published August 7, 2018)

Making Deals

 In response to the article in the Aug. 3 paper titled "Trade war," how about filing it under the luxury bin next to the move by President Barack Obama to send two planeloads of cash to Iran for the release of one Army deserter.
  President Donald Trump, however, was able to get three men released from North Korea without spending a dime. Who was the smart one in these deals?

Perry Jones
Pimmit Place
Ladson

I countered with this:

(Published August 10, 2018)  

  The claim in the Aug. 7 letter to the editor, "Making Deals," that President Obama sent planeloads of cash to Iran for one Army deserter is inaccurate.

  CNN reported at the time (January 2016) that five men were released, including an American journalist in a prisoner swap. The money coincidentally sent to Iran was theirs and had been held by the United States since the Reagan administration.

  It was publicly announced in the United States and only became part of anti-Obama conspiracy theories six months later when Iranians started the rumor. This was covered by fact checker Snopes.com.

Francis X. Archibald

Central Haven Drive

Mount Pleasant

Random Things

After dressing I came out of the bedroom and into the living room and thence to the kitchen where I heard a hard loud noise. I thought the refrigerator was coming apart and then I thought it was the air conditioning.  After checking each of these I was baffled for a few moments until I remembered I had started the dishwasher before I went into the bedroom to put on my clothes, and a couple of pots were being banged around

On the second day of the Paul Manafort trial in Virginia, The Washington Post reported: “President Trump’s former campaign chairman spent more than a million dollars on suits and luxury clothes over a five year period, using foreign bank accounts to pay for cars, renovations, and real estate in what prosecutors say was a tax-dodging scheme.” Manafort is said to have bought a $15,000 Ostrich jacket. I feel embarrassed for being a cheapskate. A couple of weeks ago I would not pay $175.00 for an end of the season seersucker jacket.

Via Amazon Prime, I am watching NYPD Blue the gritty cop show set in the fictional 15th precinct which kept viewers coming back week after week during its twelve-year run (1993 to 2005). Each season had 21 or 22 weekly shows. Surprisingly these shows, unlike many others of the same period, retain a contemporary appeal. Each week’s offering could be taken right out of today’s daily news. I am into year three. These shows were (are) much better than what is on TV today, and won Dennis Franz, four Emmys. 

Baseball and the Shift

This week one of my sons alerted me to a sports agent for Bryce Harper, who is having a dismal year at the plate for the Washington Nationals, saying: Bryce’s poor batting record reflects “discriminatory shifts.” In short, he is discriminated against by opposing defensive players employing an effective strategy. 

This brought back memories of my youth when I was about 14 or 15 and listened to the Red Sox games on the radio. There was no television in 1946, or at least we did not have one.  

Today, July 14, is the 72nd anniversary of the Lou Boudreau “Ted Williams Shift." Boudreau was the shortstop and manager for the Cleveland Indians. In the second game of a doubleheader, he was playing the percentages against Williams, an extreme pull hitter.

Boudreau rolled out an infield player shift that packed all four infielders between first and second base. The announcers and Red Sox fans were astonished at this deployment but it worked in that game. Williams went 1-for-2 with a double and a pair of walks. It is estimated that the shift, later also used by other teams, took 15 points off Ted’s lifetime batting average: .344 BA (8th).

Ted was the proudest hitter in baseball and would not modify his swing to hit to left field. (He did not play golf because a golf swing is different from baseball and he felt it might adversely affect his baseball swing.)

Incidentally, in the first game of the July 14, 1946, doubleheader, Ted hit three home runs and drove in eight runs for a Boston 11 to 10 victory.  Ted was in his first season back after military service in World War II.

Young Mr.Harper could not do much better than take a lesson from Ted Williams. 

A man and his hat

I recently had a “laughable moment.”  I withdrew $200 (ten new, unused $20 bills) from a drive-up ATM and because others were behind me in the line I tossed the cash into my big floppy summer hat laying on the seat beside me and drove away. As I got out of the car in my garage I put the hat on my head and walked to my apartment. 

The hat!

When I took the hat off, the money spilled onto the floor. I picked it up and counted it. It was only $180. I looked around and didn’t find the missing $20. I thought I must have dropped it in my garage and would find it there later. I did a couple of housekeeping chores and then laid out in my recliner to rest. I dozed for about an hour and when I awoke and rubbed my eyes I realized something was on my head. I reached up and found the missing 20 dollar bill stuck to my hairless head. 

The hairless head! 

'The place to be"

Two weeks ago I wrote a Letter to the Editor, The Post & Courier, Charleston, SC, to pay public homage for recent medical care.  On May 15th an abridged version of the letter (below) was published. 

April 26 and 27 I spent two of the worst days of my 86 years at Roper Hospital on Calhoun Street undergoing spinal surgery.

The service I received was caring, compassionate and thoroughly competent, starting with the nurse who prepped me for surgery and the anesthesiologist and the surgeon who came by before the procedure.

In the operating room these doctors led by Dr. James K. Aymond and their outstanding staff went to work on me for about 2 1/2 hours. Afterward I went into recovery, and about an hour later was wheeled by a volunteer to a room where I would spend the next two days. The service was for the most part outstanding, led by the wonderful, caring and patient day nurse Anne Wirth.

Two days after the surgery, I came home in the company of my oldest son, Frank. During the travail all of my five children were on hand. Every parent should be blessed with such caring children.

I learned again that when you need medical services Roper St. Francis is the place to go.

Salute to Matthew - Our Family Airman

I hosted a pizza party on Monday, April 16, 2018, in the common room at my apartment house in Mt.Pleasant for family and a couple of guests to honor my grandson, Airman First Class Matthew Godbold, USAF, son of my daughter Wynn and her husband Rett. Matthew is home in Myrtle Beach on leave from his service on Okinawa. This is his first home leave in about 18 months.

Matthew continues a family tradition of USAF service. I was in the Air Force (1951-1959); his grandmother (my late wife) served from 1951 to 1954 and his uncle James served four years in the 1970s. 

(Somewhere along the line my oldest son Frank, and two of my brothers went astray and were United States Marines.)

As usually happens, everyone was snapping pictures and I was no exception. Here are some snapshots from the happy event (some pictures have been removed from the original post at the request of the participants.)

 Matthew laughs at something his smiling Uncle Frank just said. 

Clean up! - The maid is coming

Clean Up! - The maid is coming

I have heard it in movies and on TV sitcoms and thought why? Yet, this very week I found myself thinking the same line; (not uttering it out loud lest I be guilty of talking to myself, a sign of  dementia,) “I have to clean up, the maid is coming.”

I emptied wastebaskets in the bathroom, bedroom, and den. I put dishes in the dishwasher and organized the napkins on top of the table. Some clean pots and pans on the stove went into a nearby cabinet. I put a three or four day trove of newspapers into a paper bag and later took the bag to the trash dumpster. I took bath and hand towels and a face cloth and put them in the clothes hamper to be washed later. I picked up slippers and shoes and organized them in a closet. I adjusted the window blinds in the open position and straightened up the bed covers. Then satisfied that all was satisfactory I left my apartment, locked the door, posted a note to the maid that the key was in the rental office and went out to face the day.

Why do people always clean up for the maid? Why did I do it? Isn’t this her job?

My first wife and I were married 56 years and we had five children. I had a government job and there was no money for a maid. After her death I re-married and my second wife didn't want a maid “because it is easier to do it myself.” When she died I hired a maid who came every two weeks.

Then I moved and rented an apartment and my cost of living went up. Initially, I cleaned the apartment myself, including vacuuming carpet and washing wood floors. Then I tired of it and hired a maid service. 

So now on the first Friday of each month, I find myself uttering, “I have to clean up the maid is coming.”

The Bixby Letter and Saving Private Ryan

I find it thoroughly enjoyable and highly interesting when separate pleasant events come together by accident, and certainly without planning on my part. I recently had just such an experience. 

I watched a movie on TV and a day later read a review of four new books on the life of John Hay, President Lincoln’s presidential secretary and later ambassador to European courts and Secretary of State.

I viewed “Saving Private Ryan” on one of those TV channels which show movies without commercial interruptions. A pleasurable experience despite having seen the movie years ago in a theatre. 

The early part of the movie is getting the Rangers led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) off Omaha Beach on D-Day. The story moves on to the catastrophic news that a mother in Idaho is about to be notified three of her four sons have been killed in combat. A fourth is somewhere in Normandy. 

General George C.Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army, orders a search for the fourth son and to “get him to hell out of there.” In explaining his order to staffers who brought him the news of the Ryan family, General Marshall quotes from a letter President Lincoln sent to a Mrs. Bixby of Boston who was thought to have lost five sons (it later turned out to be two) during the Civil War. 

The Bixby letter was an expression by the President of how inadequate words and feelings are to console the mother in such an overwhelming loss. It is the type of letter history and our imaginations let us accept Lincoln would have written. 

It now turns out that Lincoln was not the author of the letter; it was written by John Hay, considered to be “the stylish” writer on Lincoln’s staff, with the “pen of a poet.” 

Four new books on the life of this literary scholar, lawyer, presidential ghostwriter, and longtime cabinet member, are reviewed in depth by Christopher Benfey, Mellon Professor in English at Mount Holyoke College, in The New York Review of Books (March 8, 2018).

I am indebted to Professor Benfey and the authors of the reviewed books for this fascinating background which played an important part in the development of the storyline of Stephen Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” and for the pleasant surprise of watching a movie and shortly thereafter learning a bit of the history of what makes the movie work.

THE JOKE IS ON US

Last night I went to see Lewis Black at the Gaillard Center in Charleston. Disappointed all around. The show as billed as “The Joke Is On US tour,” and it turned out it was. 

The warm-up man before Black was in some ways a copycat. He was also on too long and had only one or two good jokes.

He and Black looked like they were the last two men dressed at the Salvation Army that day and just came off the bus from a job site. I consider this disrespectful to the audience who paid anywhere from $50 to a $100 for a seat. (Gaillard’s website listed lower prices but charged more when I bought.)

Most of Black’s material was thoroughly generic. He could have used it in any city in America. There was none of the biting satire and social critic I (and thousands of others, I am sure) have come to expect from him. I have seen several of his televised shows and bought his DVDs. 

Lewis's comments about his parents' age did get a lot of applause. His father, he said, is 100 this year and his mother 99. They live in an assisted living facility in Maryland. In some of the earlier shows I have seen they have been in the audience and were shown on camera. 

During one rant about not having guns in church, a man in the audience “booed” and Black spent several minutes hectoring this man on guns, the 2nd amendment, and mental stability. I thought this excessive and certainly, no one who has paid his money to sit in the audience needs to be criticized in this manner

A stupid idea from POTUS

Another stupid idea from POTUS - "ENDORSED ARMING SCHOOL TEACHERS." (Announced Wednesday (2/21/2018) night. 

This is the absolute dumbest idea I have ever heard. A teacher is an instructor, a mentor, a friend, a caring, loving person in the lives of hundreds of children every school day of every year, and this idiot (yes, Mr. Trump, I am referring to you) in the White House endorsed arming them with guns so they can stop a shooter before he starts shooting up a classroom, school hall or playground. (Such ideas I believe are evidence of mental instability.) I will wager that more than 98% of teachers will think this a terrible idea, and would no more strap on a gun all day in the classroom than drink hemlock at breakfast. (Many detectives put their weapons in their desk drawer when they are in the station handling paperwork and such.) Why should teachers have to go around strapped all day?

STOP SELLING AUTOMATIC WEAPONS is a better idea. And don't tell me about the 2nd amendment which was designed to provide for an armed militia if one is needed. We have armed police, local, state and federal. We have National Guard troops in every state. We do not need a citizenry mobilizing in the town square to fight.

Trump Parade

Letters to the Editor (Published February 20, 2018)

The Post & Courier

Charleston SC

Dear Editor

We can assume that somewhere in the Pentagon some field grade officers are hard at work on “the parade” President Trump said he wanted.

This is not a good idea for the United States.  We do not need a parade to entertain or convince our citizens, or the world, we are the most powerful nation on earth. 

Consider also, for example, how unlikely we would compare to India’s celebration of Republic Day on January 26. According to one account, Prime Minister Modi and his 10 chief guests, the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations, watched an hourlong parade of a “mishmash of tanks, marching sailors in spats, kilted bagpipers, female motorcycle daredevils, camels, ballistic missiles, dancing school children, and a tableaux representing such abstract concepts as ethical taxpaying.”

Sincerely

/s/ Francis X Archibald

A good day in February

Sunday, February 18, 2018

This was a good day for me. In the morning I put on a suit I have only worn four times since I retired in 1993. The first was for my wife Mary’s funeral in 2010, then my marriage to Joyce in 2013, and since then a friend’s wedding, and the funeral of another friend. In fact, I found a religious service memorial card in the inside pocket from the funeral.

When I went to brunch I felt the suit was too big for me to wear comfortably at dinner in the evening. So I took it off and wore some slacks and a  sport coat to the evening dinner. 

This was the annual dinner for the poker players’ wives at Frankie at Seaside. We had as our guests the wives of deceased poker players, and Franke Manager, Mark Lee and his wife Barbara. We had close to 60 people at the dinner. It was a special affair and the food and service was top of the line. I was the MC and told several humorous stories and one-liners. (Received several favorable comments afterward.) We raffled off bottles of wine and boxes of chocolates and every lady present got something to take home. It was a wonderful night and I thoroughly enjoyed. I also felt better with regard to my clothing.

I have another suit similar to the one I had on this morning which I also bought back in the 1980s when I served in the South Carolina House of Representatives. The suits have not gotten much use since I retired in 1993. I intend to try that on and if it fits like the first one I will donate them to Goodwill or Habitat for Humanity. 

An ice pick in your brain

How would you like to have an ice pick stuck in your brain? 

Would your feelings change if you were a lobster? 

Would it make a difference if you lived in Switzerland?

Of course, if you were a lobster you couldn’t answer those questions. But fear not, Swiss authorities have answered for you and beginning on March 1 a lobster cannot be dropped into a pot of boiling water until it has been knocked unconscious with electric shock or had its brain destroyed with an ice pick or a knife.

The Swiss, like New Zealanders, believe lobsters have feelings like humans. There is no scientific evidence to support this assumption, but like so many other things people speculate. This is why we have movements to save the whales, save the snails and don’t cut puppy dog tails.

It is harmless to let the Swiss and New Zealanders have such thoughts.  After all look at some of the strange ideas and thoughts we have in the United States.  

At this point, for example, you can pick and choose any of the weird things President Trump has said since the election in 2016. The Washington Post has compiled a list anyone may choose from. 

Click here for the complete blog.

Send comments here.

"serve the governed, not the governors."

I saw the movie, The Post, and highly recommend it. This Steven Spielberg film, starring Meryl Streep (Kathryn Graham) and Tom Hanks (Ben Bradlee), is a fascinating tale of the right of the people to know what its government has done. Graham and Bradlee put their careers on the line and faced possible prison time.

In 1971, The New York Times and The Washington Post were publishing the Pentagon Papers, a massive cover-up of government secrets that spanned three decades and four U.S. Presidents. The study, commissioned by the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, conducted by the Department of Defense, covered thirty years of history about how we got involved and what we had done in Vietnam. The study was classified Top Secret. Daniel Ellsberg worked on the study and ultimately leaked it to the newspapers.

The Nixon administration citing national security sought and got injunctions in lower courts against publication. The U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision ruled otherwise. 

Justice Hugo Black, often regarded as a leading defender of First Amendment rights such as the freedom of speech and of the press, refused to accept the doctrine that the freedom of speech could be curtailed on national security grounds. Thus, in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971), he voted to allow newspapers to publish the Pentagon Papers despite the Nixon Administration's contention that publication would have security implications. In his concurring opinion, Black stated,

In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. [...] The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment.

— New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 717 (1971).

Friday, January 5, 2018

Friday, January 5, 2018

I ventured out of doors today for the first time since Tuesday. First, the rain, then the snow and the below freezing temperatures kept me inside my apartment. I have lived in South Carolina since 1959, and cannot recall any other three days where the weather was so inhospitable.

The streets in my apartment complex are still hazardous with snow and ice. The public streets were better, except where tall trees kept the sun from melting the snow and ice on the streets. The major highways, US 17 and I-26, were much more favorable with only a little snow along the edges and against curbing. Most of the roads were still damp with water.

I stopped complaining about the monthly rental cost when I opened my garage and did not have to scrape ice off the windshield or snow off the roof, hood or trunk of my Lexus. Many of my neighbors who park out in the open have done so and some have still to do it.

As I rode on my journey I saw automobiles with snow still packed on the roof and one pick-up truck had a couple of inches of snow covering the entire plastic liner in the back of the truck. I wondered if the driver was taking this somewhere to show someone, or just didn’t have the time to shovel/sweep out his bed truck. Maybe it was too cold to bother. 

On I-26, a car ahead of me shed its roof of accumulated snow unexpectedly and caused several other drivers to slow down. Only on one spot on US 17 did my car slide on ice for a moment while driving home late in the afternoon.

I got where I wanted to go, did my shopping, and got home safely. Then I read in The New York Times that the real feel temperature in a park in New Hampshire tonight is going to be minus 100 degrees.

When my sister moved East from California last year she settled in Rhode Island. When we asked why she did not go to New Hampshire where her daughter lived she said, “Oh, it’s too cold in New Hampshire.” Who knew 50 years in California would make one so intelligent? 

Archburger and The Bridge

I was not consulted. I did not get a memo, a phone call, a comment on my Facebook page or a Tweet. The news came to me this morning as a total surprise while I was on my first cup of coffee and my second slice of cinnamon raisin toast ladled with peanut butter. 

A three-paragraph article inside the business section of the local newspaper reported McDonald’s “says it is using fresh beef in another 🍔, the latest test by the chain to swap out frozen beef as it seeks to improve the image of its food.”

The new burger, being tested in seven stores in Tulsa, OK, is named…drum roll, please, the Archburger.

McDonald’s did not ask if they could attach my nickname to fresh meat intended to be sold all over the world. Nevertheless, I hope the Archburger catches on, it would be embarrassing to have one’s name and reputation attached to a fast food flop. 

✍︎

Moving on to the Letters to the Editor of  The Post & Courier (Jan. 3, 2018) was my:

Letter to the Editor

The Post & Courier

Dear Sir:

Over the weekend I drove I-526 from Mt. Pleasant to West Ashley. As I approached North Charleston a blue bar appeared on the horizon and I had one of those ‘what’s this’ moments. 

As I got closer I realized it was the Don Holt bridge painted a magnificent, light blue from one end to the other. I have never seen a prettier bridge.

Kudos to the SC Highway Department and the contractors who, thinking outside the box,  rejected the traditional silver and grey paint used on bridges and chose instead this bright, warm and friendly blue. Magnificent!

Welcome to the NewYear

Fireworks have been fired off for about 15 minutes somewhere near my apartment in midtown Mt. Pleasant, S.C. I suspect from the brilliant flashes in the sky and the noise this is an organized event by the government or some organization. In any event, it is a celebratory prelude to the coming of the New Year.

I wish 2018 is an even better year than 2017; that as a Nation we enjoy peace, prosperity, and mutual respect for one another; that as persons we will live in good health, and enjoy the benefits and pleasures offered by families, friends, jobs, schools, and fresh opportunities. 

Welcome, 2018!

 

Terror Suspects

Published Friday, Nov. 10, 2017

Letters to the Editor

The Post & Courier

Charleston, SC

Dear Editor

Marc A. Thiessen’s column (Nov 6) criticizing President Trump for treating terrorists like former President Obama, is truly off the mark and implies the United States would do better to treat these terrorists as “enemy combatants” and send them to Guantanamo, rather than read them their Miranda rights and try them in civilian courts  He wrote this would assist intelligence agencies in gathering data. 

The organization Human Rights First provides reliable information more likely to make Americans sleep better at night. For example, consider just these four points they make: 

(1) Federal civilian criminal courts have convicted more than 620 individuals on terrorism-related charges since 9/11. Military commissions have convicted only eight, three of which have been overturned completely and one partially.

(2) Federal prisons hold hundreds of individuals convicted of terrorism-related offenses. None have ever escaped.

(3) Prosecuting terror suspects before military commissions makes them look like warriors rather than the criminals that they are. As Judge William Young said when sentencing Shoe Bomber Richard Reid, “You’re no warrior….You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders.”

(4) Miranda is an effective law enforcement tool that provides valuable information. Phil Mudd, former deputy director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center and a senior intelligence adviser to the FBI, wrote that he “sat at hundreds of briefing tables for nine years after Sept. 11, 2001, and I can't remember a time when Miranda impeded a decision on whether to pursue an intelligence interview.” 

Living long is the best revenge

Last Wednesday a young lady kept her hand in my groin for about 30 minutes. Normally under such circumstances, you would expect some pleasure, but there was none to be had.

It was a nurse who pressed on the inside of my right leg to close a puncture made by my cardiologist who did a heart catheterization to evaluate my heart function. During the procedure, a second stent was put in my heart. 

Dr. Matthew O’Steen also went into my heart through my right wrist but the puncture there was closed with minimal effort.

My heart and Dr. O’Steen are not exactly strangers. He put an earlier stent in some years year ago and I have great confidence in his skills and abilities. 

As we age, it is often one thing or another. As a child, we can’t wait to grow up and when we get older we wish we were younger.  Whoever said a man is “never satisfied” was “spot on.” 

I am pleased to admit to being 86. When I was a child I could not imagine being 65. That was a long way off and “old” in a child’s mind. 

It will take a few weeks to adjust to my procedure and follow-ups with the doctor have been scheduled. Nevertheless, I am optimistic. I am a believer in a comment attributed many years ago to Bette Davis, one of Hollywood's greatest and most ferociously independent actresses, who was born in Lowell, MA., where I was raised: “Living long is the best revenge.”