Turning 85

  

I've just turned 85 and thought it might be of interest to new as well as old readers to repeat a post from 2013 containing an interview I did back then for a local newspaper. I had been teaching at the Lifelong Learners program at the Fairfield Senior center. The original title of the post was "It's a Wonderful Life." It is in question and answer form and will be presented in two successive posts.

Q. Let’s start with some background. Where were you born? Where did you go to secondary school? What did you like about going to school? Was there a favorite teacher? Why did you decide to go to Fordham? What was special about your undergraduate work?

A. I was born in 1939 and raised in NYC in the borough of Queens. My parents were second generation Italian Americans and we lived right next door to my paternal grandparents who were both born in Italy.

In 1953 I went to Power Memorial Academy, one of the many Catholic High Schools in NYC. It was an all boys school located in a very tough West Side neighborhood that was subsequently razed to make way for Lincoln Center. The school was run and staffed by Irish Christian Brothers although there were a few laymen on the faculty. A favorite teacher was the Brother who taught the Senior Honors Literature course. I was always an avid reader but he imparted a sense of the importance and value of the study of great literature.

I went to Fordham on a full scholarship provided by the Bulova Watch Company, my father’s employer. This competitive scholarship would have paid tuition and room and board at any college of my choice. Initially, I was going to Syracuse for Engineering but probably decided on Fordham because I was uncertain about a career path, and it was closer to home. Since Fordham’s Bronx campus was only about an hour and a half away by bus and subway, I didn’t see any need, in my naiveté, to live on campus even though the scholarship would have paid for it. There was no one to advise me since I was the first in my family to attend college, and my mother had died when I was 11. Like many other things in my life, it worked out for the best since NYC itself, with its theaters, sports, nightclubs, museums, and libraries, became my campus.

Even though I had been a top student at Power, I was not prepared for the rigors of a Jesuit education at Fordham. In 1957 Fordham was probably the best Catholic institution of higher learning in the country, and the class of ’61 was probably its best ever. Even though I was only an average student I was in a great learning environment. I say average but looking back I realize that the curriculum was broad and comprehensive including four years of Theology and Philosophy, as well as two years of Latin and French as requirements.  I majored in History, a subject which I had loved since grade school. There was nothing special about my work at Fordham. Nevertheless, even though I had only average grades, I aced the graduate record exams and was accepted in the MA program at Columbia. Finally, in my last year at Fordham I met my future wife, Linda Gardella, a nursing student at Cornell University Medical center in Manhattan.

Q. You have a PhD. What was your Master’s in? Did you have to write a Master’s thesis and what was it? Were your orals tough? And your Doctorate? That was in History. What was your thesis? Did you enjoy writing it? Might it have been what led you to teach at the college level?

A. I went to Columbia on a NY State Teaching fellowship. I guess it was then that I really began to think that I wanted to become a college professor. But just as at Fordham I found myself way over my head at Columbia, a world-class institution with an internationally renowned faculty. 

I decided to specialize in 18^th century British politics primarily because I was always interested in the American Revolution, and also because I had taken a wonderful course in British politics in my Senior year at Fordham with a really great professor. My Master’s thesis was on the political career of a British general and politician who was very active in the opposition to the War with America. After completing my Masters at Columbia I went back to Fordham to continue my studies in British politics under the mentorship of my old professor, Dr. Ross Hoffman. 

It took almost 10 years to complete my PhD dissertation on the political career of General Henry Seymour Conway. I loved working on the dissertation but it was really hard work. During that time Linda and I married and began a partnership based on mutual love and respect that has continued to this day. 

I taught in a Catholic High School for a year and then she worked as a public health nurse while I took a year off to complete my course work at Fordham. After a brief stint of government work with the Federal Aviation Agency in NY, I got a call for an interview at the brand new Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. 

Q. You still enjoy teaching, why did you leave it?

I taught History for seven years at SHU from 1965 to 1972.  Linda and I bought a house in Fairfield and began a family. I was teaching as well as doing research on my dissertation and thoroughly enjoyed both.  But the Vietnam era was tumultuous for America. As the war came to an end, enrollment at the University began to decline and in 1972 the University began to retrench. I was one of the faculty up for tenure that year and none of us had our contracts renewed. In the same year that I got my PhD from Fordham, I found myself out of a job with a wife and five small children.

Nevertheless, it again turned out for the best. I got a job in the Financial Services industry and managed with Linda’s support to survive the very difficult early years. Over the years I was able to build up a very successful career as a Financial Advisor before retiring in 2008. 

to be continued...

Trump's Acceptance Speech

 

    

 

 

Our political arena seems to change as rapidly as a summer storm, and even though President Biden has now withdrawn from the race, I still would like to post on Trump's speech at the RNC.

My wife and I stayed up to watch the whole of Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Frankly, it proved to be disappointing. I could only give him a C+: C because it was average, but + for its stirring and emotional beginning when he gave his account of the assassination attempt on the previous Saturday. 

 

Let’s take the high-point first. For the first time we heard him describe what it was like to be a victim of a shooting. It was a riveting account of the incident from his own perspective. It was especially moving when he described his attempt to show the stunned crowd that he was ok. It got even better when he praised the Secret Service agents who rushed to the stage to shield his body with their own. He wisely chose to avoid casting any blame. He was truly magnanimous. He topped it off mentioning the other victims of the attack one of whom lost his life by shielding his own family from the bullets. He pointed out that he had visited the families and that millions of dollars have been raised for them. 

 

In these first 30 minutes he was gracious, kind, and thankful. He showed true humanity. Who can fault someone who had come within an inch of his life for believing it was a miracle or that divine providence was at work. He could have ended the speech right there, and it would have been a rousing success.

 

Nevertheless, he went on and on for an hour more, and still missed a golden opportunity. He had indicated after the shooting that he planned to make major changes in his speech, changes that would reach out to more than his base and call for national unity. After thanking the assembled delegates for their support, he could have said something like the following.

 

“I want to thank you all for your support and enthusiasm, but I would like to pause our celebration for a few minutes to speak to those in our country who can’t stand me or what I stand for. Not only do they dislike me, but they also fear that I will be a dictator and bring an end to democracy in our country. Some have even called me Hitler. To those people I would just say that rather than imagining what a Trump administration would look like, just go back and consider what my first administration was like. 

 

Dictators routinely arrest, imprison, and execute their political opponents. Nothing like that ever occurred during my Administration. Do you remember how my supporters demanded that Hillary Clinton be locked up? During my term in office, she was never investigated, much less indicted. We had more important things to do. Today, I will go even further and promise that during a second Trump administration, there will be no prosecution of the current President or his family. Joe will be able to retire to his Delaware estate, drive his Corvette, and never worry about Federal agents invading his home in the middle of the night.

 

We brought peace and prosperity to this country. There was no bloody war in Ukraine, ISIS terrorists were defeated in Iraq, and there was peace in the Middle East. We even brokered the Abraham Accords where for the first time, Arab states recognized the right of Israel to exist. No one was a greater supporter of Israel than myself, and antisemitism did not rear its ugly head in our country during my Administration. And yet, I’m called Hitler, and my supporters Nazis or Fascists.

 

You may disagree with my policies, but you must admit that we had prosperity as well as peace during my administration. Wages were at all time highs, and there was virtually no cruel inflation to wipe away these gains. We were energy independent, and gas and oil prices were half what they are now.

 

Please, you don’t have to imagine and fear what a Trump administration would look like. You just have to look back and see what we actually accomplished from 2016 to 2020. Despite incessant and unprecedented political opposition, and a pandemic, there was peace and prosperity at home and abroad. If elected, I will dedicate myself to peace at home and abroad, and not to senseless political revenge and retribution."

 

PS. We had company the first three nights of the Convention, and only tuned in on Thursday night for Trump’s speech. To me the highlight of the evening was the appearance of Melania Trump. She reminded me of the advice St. Francis gave to his disciples. “Preach always but use words only when necessary.” She did not say a word but was the epitome of beauty, dignity, and decorum.  

 

Trump Survival

 

No matter what our political persuasion, we should all be extremely grateful that former President Donald Trump narrowly escaped death last Saturday evening. Of course, we should all be happy for him and his family, but we should especially be grateful that only an inch separated our country from unimaginable political chaos. If President Biden and his advisers has been more alert, they would have declared Sunday a National Day of Thanksgiving.

 

I planned to write about other things today but the attempt on former President Trump’s life has made me reflect on his political career and why I have liked him almost from its beginning. I must confess that I am not one of those who have objected to Trump’s rhetoric and wished that he would “tone” it down. I was not originally a supporter but when he demolished a formidable field of Republican opponents back in 2016, I became a fan. Who will ever forget Jeb “low energy” Bush, or “Little” Marco Rubio?  Perhaps it was my New York City origins that made me admire a man who could take the blows and not back down and give as good as he got.

 

I remember a speech Trump gave in Connecticut during his first Presidential campaign. In remarks that seemed to come out of the blue, Trump mentioned that when Hillary Clinton was asked what she thought of him, she replied that she didn’t like his “tone.” He replied, “in the Middle East Islamic radicals are cutting off the heads of people, mainly Christians, drowning others in steel cages, and burying others alive in the desert sand. Yet, she doesn’t like my “tone”. Subsequently, the Trump administration destroyed the ISIS terrorists in Iraq, something that today has largely been forgotten.

 

However, I like Trump mainly because he delivered the goods as President despite unrelenting opposition from Democratic politicians, high ranking government officials, the mainstream media, and even members of his own party. Here are some accomplishments that have also largely been forgotten.

 

The World was largely at peace during his administration. There was no Russian invasion of Ukraine, and there was no war in Gaza. He capped it off with the Abraham Accords, a peace agreement where for the first time some of Israel’s Arab neighbors recognized the legitimacy of the state of Israel.

 

At home his Tax Reform was a model of common sense and simplicity. It bolstered the economy and made the tax code fairer especially for those with incomes below $100,000, the great majority of the population. The standard deduction was raised for all, and tax rates were reduced. A family with less than $28000 per year of income would not pay any Federal Income tax. 

 

Tax deductions like those for mortgage interest and state and local income taxes that mainly benefitted the well to do, were eliminated or capped. Renters, for example, did not benefit from deductions that only helped homeowners, or those who owned more than one home. Moreover, these deductions played a role in driving up the value of homes and pricing lower income people out of the market.

 

Even the lowering of tax rates on corporations was a matter of fairness. Why should American corporations be taxed at higher rates than corporations in other countries? Why were American corporations put at such a disadvantage that they had to build factories and transfer jobs overseas to compete? In addition, higher corporate rates forced these companies to keep their profits overseas to avoid excessive double taxation. 

 

During the Trump administration America was energy independent and was actually exporting energy all over the world. Remember how low gas prices were at the pump. Salaries and real wages for all people were at record highs, and there was virtually no inflation to cruelly wipe away these gains.

 

Even during the pandemic I admired the fact that Trump was always out in front day after day taking the heat despite vicious opposition. In his almost daily press conferences, he made celebrities of government officials like the lady with the scarves, and the now famous or infamous Dr. Fauci. He was ridiculed for suggesting that the virus originated in China, and that hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment, but now we know that he was right. He quickly offered help to blue state governors who only responded with ingratitude. 

 

I admit that he was not a perfect President. He talked about “draining the swamp” but did not realize how tough it would be. He was the Captain of the Ship of State, but the crew was disobedient, and sometimes downright mutinous.

 

 He should have left office more gracefully. He should have realized that he had been outsmarted by the Democrats and accepted the results despite evidence of fraud. I listened to his whole speech on January 6, and there was no call for violence or insurrection. Long suppressed videos now show peaceful citizens being calmly escorted through the Capitol by police. There was no insurrection. The protestors were unarmed. There was only one fatality, a female veteran shot in the back by a D.C. policeman while trying to enter a window. 

 

The Republican National Convention begins tonight. Love him or hate him, we should all breathe a sigh of relief that Donald Trump will be there. 

 

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Declaration of Independence

I concentrated on eighteenth century British politics in my brief academic career more than 50 years ago. In the process I came to realize the importance of British politics for a true understanding of the American Revolution. The American colonists regarded themselves as Englishmen defending their traditional rights as Englishmen. Basically, they believed that government should be as close to the people as possible, and not in some faraway capitol. Below find a brief analysis of the Declaration of Independence.

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Every July 4 we celebrate Independence Day, the anniversary of the promulgation of our famed Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Most of us have heard the famous opening lines of the document, 

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

However, few have ever read the entire Declaration and even fewer have any understanding of the nature of the actual grievances that led the colonists to sever their ties with England and seek independence. Most readers don’t get past the following words.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

King George III of England was one of the nicest, most benevolent rulers that England ever had, but the Declaration portrayed him as a tyrannical despot. However, the real conflict between England and her American colonies was not between Monarchy and Democracy but between the rights of the British people represented as they were by their own Parliament, and the rights of the American colonists represented as they were by their own colonial assemblies. In this conflict no one was a greater supporter of the rights and authority of the British Parliament than the King.

For the most part the Declaration of Independence does not complain about violations of individual human rights but concentrates on what it claims has been a systematic attempt on the part of the government in England to violate the rights and privileges of colonial representative assemblies. 

The founding fathers believed these assemblies that represented the leading citizens and property owners in the various colonies were the sole bulwark against monarchical tyranny on the one hand, and democratic anarchy on the other. They claimed that the King and his colonial governors had repeatedly refused to put into operation laws passed by these assemblies.

•He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

•He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operations till his assent should be obtained…

•He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature…

•He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

In some cases the English government has even gone so far as to dissolve some of these representative assemblies and leave particular colonies without any form of self-government. The legal system, military defense, and tax collection have been taken out of the hands of the colonial representatives. Here are some examples:

•He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

•He has made the judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

•He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

•He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

• He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

In the end the Declaration claimed that it came down to a contest between their own local representative assemblies and a faraway legislature that did not represent them. Because they had come to deny the authority of the British Parliament, they never used the word Parliament in the document. 

There are elements in the Declaration that might seem offensive to modern ears. Jefferson and others in America opposed the efforts of a reforming British government to permit religious toleration of the large Catholic population in newly conquered Canada. For them Catholicism went hand in hand with despotism. The Declaration also complained about attempts on the part of the British government to prevent colonization of Indian territory. Indeed, it claimed that England was encouraging the native tribes.

Nevertheless, the leaders assembled in Congress insisted on their rights as Englishmen to govern themselves. They wanted government to be as close to home as possible. They would make their own laws, vote their own taxes when necessary, and be responsible for their own legal and military systems. They did not want to be governed by a faraway government that had little concern for their interests or welfare.

It was true that the founders were men of property and status. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Franklin were not common men. Democracy would come later. For the present they wanted to protect their right to self-government. The British government had declared itself “invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.” To resist, they were prepared to risk all that they held dear.

•“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” 

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Debate Report Card

 

My wife and I watched the Presidential debate last Thursday night, and it was obvious that President Biden lost. I rate his performance as a “D” because he at least completed the grueling ordeal. My impression was confirmed by watching the spinmeisters discuss the debate afterwards. Even the most die-hard Democrats admitted as much. It didn’t take words. Their faces told the story.

 

 It was not that you could point to a blunder or two. President Biden looked and sounded weak and infirm. One Democratic commentator noted that there is only three years difference in their ages, but Trump looked and acted thirty years younger.

 

Joe Louis, one of boxings greatest champions, once said of an opponent that “he can run, but he can’t hide.” Well, President Biden may be running but he couldn’t hide during the debate. We finally saw the real Joe, or what was left of him at age 81. Finally, he stood alone without even Jill at his side, and we saw him without teleprompter or prepared remarks although he had spent a week preparing. It was sad, even sadder when you consider that he is the President of the United States.  

 

President Biden’s deportment during the debate would make you think that we have not really had a President for the past three and a half years. I would go even further and say that he appears like a figurehead or puppet, and that during his term I suspect that the country has been run by a secret cabinet of non-elected Democratic bureaucrats and advisors working behind the scenes. 

 

For three years Jill and the others in his inner circle must have observed that he was suffering from old age, and that he was no longer fit for the job. Along with a cooperative media, they have perpetrated a colossal fraud on us. They have hidden the real Joe from us but in the debate we could see and hear the truth with our own eyes and ears. 

 

It is hard to believe that the professional politicians who run the Democratic party could have come up with the idea of this early debate. Sure, CNN would give Biden the home court advantage, and the moderators were friendly referees. Nevertheless, debate innovations like shutting off the mikes to prevent interruptions just worked to Trump’s advantage. It toned him down and allowed Biden to disgrace himself.

 

Speaking of Trump, I gave him only a C+ for the debate. He came off as strong and vigorous, and was good on inflation and immigration, but he missed too many opportunities to score. He belabored many points and often repeated himself, and when the moderators tossed him softballs like childcare, he could have hit them out of the park but let them pass. In a night with few memorable lines, he just threw away his best line. When he said something like, “I shouldn’t be here, I should be enjoying a good retirement at some resort, that I was not going to run again until I saw what a bad job Biden was doing,” that statement belonged in his final two-minute summation. 

 

Speaking of grades, I would give an “A” to the two CNN moderators for the way they conducted themselves, and the debate. I thought their questions were fair and balanced, and especially liked the way they reminded the candidates that they had time remaining on the clock to expand on their remarks. I believe that the format should be a model for future debates.

 

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PS. By coincidence, I have been reading the letters of Junius, an eighteenth century critic of the British government on the eve of the American Revolution. In one passage he discussed the Duke of Bedford, an aging aristocrat and minister whose policies contributed to the American war and the eventual loss of the American colonies.

 

“ Let us consider you then, as arrived at the summit of worldly greatness; let us suppose that all your plans of avarice and ambition are accomplished, and your most sanguine wishes gratified… can age itself forget that you are now in the last act of life? Can gray hairs make folly venerable? And is there no period to be reserved for meditation and retirement? For shame, … let it not be recorded of you, that the latest moments of your life were dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, the same busy agitations, in which your youth and manhood were exhausted. Consider that, although you cannot disgrace your former life, you are violating the character of age, and exposing the impotent imbecility, after you have lost the vigor, of the passions.”