Email has solved a paradox for me.

As a writer, I’m by nature a solitary soul, except the fact that I also like people and work better with others.  As a poet, I was always productive, but much more so when I was at a workshop or taking courses.

Last summer a group of us who are members of the Wisconsin Fellowship of poets formed an on-line critique group.  There are six of us and the rules are simple.  In rotation we email a poem for comment to the five others and everyone has two weeks to reply.  Busy as we all are, we’ve been remarkable good about sticking to our time line.

For me the result has been enough of a body of work for a second chapbook.  Or, we are also thinking of taking our various poems and doing a book with all six of us.

Critiques have been, professional, helpful and encouraging.

Email = Paradox Solved is a post from: Janet Taliaferro

10 year old Israeli boy, “I wish the Arabs would all just fly away,”;

If the 80s were fantasy, the 90s were complete denial.  All the cards were turned face up in the 90s, but America was playing a different hand.  The words of the 10-year-old Israeli boy who wished the Arabs would all “fly away” is a euphemism for “I wish you would die and go away and leave me alone.”  Sometimes we call it ethnic cleansing, or genocide, or holocaust, or jihad.  These are all a polite ways of saying, “be like me and do as I say or I will kill you.”

Academics insist the conflicts of 90s are not religious wars.  Technically I believe they are right, but in fact, with few exceptions, the conflicts can be parsed precisely by religious identification.  We call them Muslims, Serbs and Croats.  More accurately the media could name them Muslims, Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic.  The Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland use the church as an excuse for power plays even though economic development and a sense of security entice many of the younger generation away from war games.  Extremists on both sides still try to breathe life into the conflict.  Jew and Muslim have spend 40 years elbowing each other in the former land of Palestine.  The Jews insist on keeping a party in power that had a hidden agenda toward the Palestinians not unlike the overtly stated Palestinian goal of pushing the Jews into the sea.  Rabin’s assassination shows the willingness of some to keep peace at bay.  Arafat bumbles into ineffectual senility.  The Middle East is a cauldron of fractured Islam, a civil war, which threatens us all.  In Asia, Buddhists, Muslims and marginally Taoist Chinese imprison, torture and oppress each other.  No wonder the Chinese Communist government is terrified of any spiritual movement such as the Falun Gong.

America is the gold standard for religious tolerance.  This is not a small claim to fame.  We are too close to our own uniqueness in America to see it.  Tom Friedman, in a column in today’s New York Times, pointed out the very ordinariness of his Jewish congregation borrowing facilities from a Presbyterian Church.  As an expert on all the conflicts of the Middle East he goes on to say, “Whenever I encounter the reality of religious tolerance in America, it strikes me almost as a miracle.  I know that religious intolerance is also alive and well in the country, but it is not the norm.”

Our freedoms make life easier for everyone.  It is easy and natural to take much of it for granted.  It is folly not to stay alert.

But in the 90s, most of us shopped for a living.  And, it was great fun.  The only uncomfortable moments came when things happened like my hometown being blown up.  The response was immediate, genuine and intense.  Americans still come together instinctively in times of war or disaster.  But, I question if it is any more lasting than the fake flowers and teddy bears.  We would like them to be forever, but such easy things rarely last long.

I read Fr. Pierre Taillard de Chardin’s Phenomenon of Man when it was first published in the 60s.  His lucid analogies between science and humanity impressed me, but I remember saying to a friend one day that I could buy all Taillard said until the end of his thesis.  I said that when he talked about the Omega Point, all I saw was perfection and I didn’t believe in the perfectibility of mankind.  It was sort of an “every day in every way we get better and better” philosophy and I didn’t think that was true.  I believed our capacity to do evil grew commensurately with our ability to do good.

I have not changed my mind.

In the 90s Most of Us Shopped for a Living is a post from: Janet Taliaferro

Everything comes to an end, my friend Sydney Gruson told me long ago. Now the time has come for this column to end—Anthony Lewis

Lewis, in an interview granted after he wrote his last column quoted above was asked if he had significantly changed his views on anything.   In his answer he said, “…contrary to my expectations, after the Holocaust, the century continued to be riddled with the extraordinary ability of human beings to hate others…I thought the Holocaust was a sufficient warning to human beings all over the world that we wouldn’t do it again.  And we’ve gone right on doing it.  Right on doing it.”

Wouldn’t we love to rid ourselves of a part of our own humanity?  If we could, we would excise the kind of rage I knew at 10 years old before it grew into bombs and terror.

©2001, Janet Taliaferro

Holocaust—Not a Sufficient Warning is a post from: Janet Taliaferro

Grounded by an Income Gap.  For 30 years the gap between the richest Americans and everyone else has been growing so much that the level of inequalities is higher than in any other industrialized nation;…

As we began collectively to improve our general health, along came the 80s, the beginning of the great divide, financial, ideological, regional, in style and in substance.

The ethos of the 80s came and went in two years in Oklahoma.  The great oil boom really began with the energy dislocations of the seventies.  By February of 1986, it had ended with the price of oil hitting bottom and in a terrible financial crisis from which the state has never recovered.

The concentration of that wealth-to-want period there is a microcosm of what the rest of the country went through, some in the 80s, most in the 90s until the turn of the century.  Still, there were certain dislocations in the country then, too.  The rich got richer and the poor sort of jogged in place.  The inequality in the distribution of wealth in America today is greater than it has ever been in my lifetime.  My children saw the effects of this.  The huge bulge of the baby boomers had sopped up most of the jobs by the time my kids left college.  They have done well, but I have observed the enormous amount of work they had to do to achieve even a modicum of success.  Since I never thought hard work hurt anyone, this is only an observation, not a complaint, but it is an example of the fracturing of America.

The divisions are in the statistics.  Uneven wealth distribution, the racial and ethnic tolerance found on both coasts as opposed to the rise of fundamentalism in the midlands and a hardening of voting patterns reflect the fact that culturally we could be characterized as three nations; East Coast and New South, Mid-America and the Southwest and West Coast.  We don’t think alike, we don’t believe in many of the same things and we fool ourselves that we do.

Even here there are significant changes.  I offer the opinion that at least in one respect, Bill Clinton and George Bush, the younger, are more alike than either resembles the elder President Bush, or any of his predecessors.

The differences in the two men are apparent.  Bush is decidedly center-right and more while Clinton was passionately center-left.  They are each an examples of the age-old debate in the United States over the role of government and what should be its limitations or duties.

The similarity in these two men is this: they are not the products of World War II, and they grew up with television.  As an example, both were old enough to appreciate what was going on in Selma, Alabama and Little Rock, Arkansas.  They saw the dogs, the fire hoses and the dead bodies.

They believe in the diversity of America in a way that their predecessors, with the singular exception of Lyndon Johnson, could not imagine even when they mouthed the words.  There is a reality in their belief that shows itself in the simple ways in which they treat others.

But this reality would come with Clinton’s election the 90s, the decade that would finally free us from the Second World War generation.  They were gallant in the 40s, responsible in the 50s, far-seeing in the 60s, sufficient in the 70s and old in the 80s.

The 80s were a time of fantasy.  There we were, basking in the new light of Roger Ailes’ perfect political ads—a beautiful morning in America—for thirty seconds.  I can close my eyes and still see the images as though they were true.  Reagan played at president; the country played at peace.  We pretended we were aloof from the rest of the world, viewing from our mountaintop the dissolution of Communism and the petty squabbles of the rest of the world.  War was packaged for television with minimal casualties.  We could not be bothered with anything as large as Iran-Contra or as seemingly insignificant as the failure of some bank called Penn Square which would echo loudly fifteen years later in the collapse of Enron.  Both of those financial debacles reflected a “the rules don’t apply to me” attitude which would grow in the 90s.

Once more, though, I am reminded of those cycles.  In the 80s the price of oil went from the high $30s to a low of $10.00 in a very short time, rendering many of the loans at Penn Square Bank non-performing.  Likewise, the price of natural gas went from $2.50 a mcf in 2000 to a high of close to $9.00 an mcf in the spring of 2001, only to plunge again to $2.50 at the end of that year.  it’s hard to operate under those circumstances.  This is only a reminder, not an excuse for blatantly poor corporate behavior.

If arrogance overcomes history, in the end, history trumps arrogance every time.

©2001, Janet Taliaferro

The 80s—Beginning of the Great Divide is a post from: Janet Taliaferro

George Harrison, World-Music Catalyst and Great-Souled Man;

Success is important in America. So is fame, or if one cannot manage that, notoriety will do.

George Harrison, who died in December 2001, and his compeers, John, Paul and Ringo, might more readily be associated with the 60s, but Harrison’s obituaries concentrated on his use of his talents in the quieter life he led after the hysterical adulation of the Beatles’ early work together. To me Harrison represents what many of us did in the 70s. We put a life together. It was hard work, not very glamorous, brought few accolades, but a decade of consolidation laid a lot of groundwork for the future and preserved much that had been won in the past.

It was a decade of the Dr. Doolittle pushmipullu. Nixon opened the door to China and nearly brought down his own government. He violated the sovereignty of Cambodia, but ended the Viet Nam war. Ford and Carter were rather ordinary citizen presidents in an office which had become Imperial. We had not had a simple person in office since Harry Truman. We experienced a gasoline shortage and set the stage for both conservation and future exaggerated consumption.

For me personally, it was a time of kicking an addiction. Many countrymen joined me in a quiet revolution. At the time it was gently characterized as the fitness craze or California living. It truth, the habits of tobacco and alcohol consumption, eating patterns and attitudes toward exercise changed drastically in the 70s.

We are still dying of heart disease and lung cancer, obesity is now thought of as a disease, but many of us have recouped years of better living through a lack of chemicals. The simple energy and freedom from the bondage of addiction to any substance has allowed many of us to achieve minor but satisfying personal goals. As a nation we are collectively better off for our cleaner air and safer roads.

It seems to me that the “er” comparative is instructive. The goal is improvement, not a perfection we cannot attain. And I am reminded once more of those human cycles. How long will the preoccupation with fitness last?

©2001, Janet Taliaferro

The 70s Laid a Lot of Groundwork for the Future is a post from: Janet Taliaferro

Richard Parsons will become the chief of AOL Time Warner;

The story about Richard Parsons is emblematic of the 60s. While most commentary about that decade still swirls around the Viet Nam War and its consequences, the real gift of the 60s was justice. Equality, that hallowed American value, became at least partially manifest in the 60s. Mr. Parsons is able, educated, experienced and seems just the man for the job. Mr. Parsons is an African-American, or rather I think he is an Afro-American. No news story I have read mentions his race.

We hear the phrase “American Values” from every politician these days. The values are often couched more like a list of Puritan ethics, a worthy personal goal, but difficult to live up to. Things like long marriages in a country where half the population is divorced–a mother in the home, when most women have to work just to help pay the bills.

To me these things have nothing to do with American values. American values are clearly and decisively set out in the Constitution of the United States and its attendant Bill of Rights. We either believe in, adhere to and act on these principles or we don’t. We either believe in our freedoms and that they are worth safeguarding at all costs or we don’t. We either believe that all people are created free and equal or we don’t.

While the Supreme Court and its writings may be the most obvious intellectual expression of our beliefs, African-Americans carry the conscience of this nation in their bones. How we treat the human soul not housed in an absolutely similar body and culture is the measure of our commitment to American values.

In thinking about the writing I have done over the past twelve years, I realized one day that in the two novels I have completed, the raisoner, the spokesperson for ethical behavior, was in each case an African American.

To me, that is as fitting as Mr. Parson’s new position.

©2001, Janet Taliaferro

The Real Gift of the 60s was Justice is a post from: Janet Taliaferro

Justice Department Decision to Forgo Tribunal Bypasses Pentagon. Top Pentagon officials said today that they were not consulted by Attorney General John Ashcroft in his decision to go to federal court rather than seek a military tribunal to try Zacarias Massaoui…;

Sometimes fear steps decisively in our path and causes a kind of civil war. Mr. Ashcroft, the Attorney General, perhaps represents a more understandable, reasonable if you will, reaction to fear than Senator Joseph McCarthy ever did. After all, in the 50s all McCarthy had for evidence were papers in a pumpkin patch while Ashcroft has the total destruction of the World Trade Center. But many of the arguments and motivations are the same now as they were in the 50s (and the 20s!) with the Big Red Scare. Those fears are with us in times of relative tranquillity, like the fifties, or the chaos of the present century.

It is not a small question. In order to provide for the public defense, how far do we go in circumscribing Constitutional freedom? In the present case the debate has been pointed, spirited and civil. Even the decision of the Justice Department to forgo a tribunal for the first suspected terrorist in the New York and Washington bombings is a cautious one. The decision makes tacit obeisance to the other side of the argument, while preserving the Department’s ability to hold tribunals if it sees fit and when it decides how those trials should be conducted. The atmosphere of the argument is a world away from McCarthy’s egocentric arena.

It remains to be seen how the Devil will handle the details.

©2001, Janet Taliaferro

Constitution of the United States = American Values is a post from: Janet Taliaferro

One thing about getting older, you live in Yogi Berra’s “déjà vu all over again.”

When people were running around after 9/11 holding their heads and moaning that “nothing will be the same” my reaction was “wrong,” it’s never different. Don’t get me wrong too. It wasn’t that I was untouched. I never see or hear the date I don’t think about the sons of two of my good friends who didn’t make it out of the towers. My first thought is for the two Davids who were slain by the terrible, unseen Goliath.

It’s just that I remember Pearl Harbor vividly, and the dreadful loss of life there, even thought I didn’t know anyone on the Arizona or the Oklahoma. I don’t think the casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan have quite yet equaled those lost that day.

Then there are memories of the Great Depression, which lasted most of my early childhood accompanied by the dust storms that sent the Joads to California. I ache for the young people I see around me who have lost their homes. But what I remember are the men showing up at my mother’s door asking for a sandwich, her friends who took in sewing, my friends at school who only had a change of clothes for each season and Bonnie, whose parents sent her to the city to live our families who could afford to keep her if she cooked and cleaned for them.

The French always get it right, “Le plus change…”

©2010, Janet Taliaferro

Déjà Vu All Over Again is a post from: Janet Taliaferro

Nuclear Experts in Pakistan May have Links to Al Qaeda. The United States is investigating new intelligence reports of contact between Pakistani nuclear weapons scientists and the Taliban or the terrorist network al Qaeda…;

The story about nuclear weapons, Al Qaeda and Pakistan takes me directly back to memories of Hiroshima. There are times I think I have come to terms with the bomb, but I know I will probably live to see its use again. It is ironic that the nuclear genie and the bottle should end up in the land of Ali Baba.

The historical march in governance from tribe to city state to nation and then to global organization has been an attempt on humanity’s part to understand the uses of power. We are far from being very good at it, but I believe we have made progress.

While that is good news, there is still the bad news that lurks within all of us. The drive for power, dominance or whatever you want to call it, springs from a necessary seed called self-preservation but it breeds a sinister plant.

When I was in the fifth grade, in 1944, I was walking home from school one day. It was spring, a beautiful warm day. I was swinging a stick I had picked up from near the sidewalk, chatting with a friend. Behind us were two boys, one, the class clown, a favorite of mine, named Jimmy. I do not remember the name of the other boy. He was new to school.

For some reason this boy chose to shout insults at me, teasing me in a loud and abusive voice. I ignored him for the first four blocks, and then the anger completely overwhelmed me. Without conscious volition, I grabbed the stick like a baseball bat and in one smooth movement turned and hit him with all my strength on the left side of the head. The stick shattered, and in so doing shattered his left eye. It was a glass eye, a relic from some earlier trauma, and I am sure, if he had had sight in that eye, he would have ducked the blow.

The four of us stood there as he picked bloody glass out of his eye socket. I was horrified. We were all silent. Finally Jimmy said he would see the boy home and call me with a report.

I ran the rest of the way home, threw myself on the couch crying and waited for the phone call. Jimmy finally called and said that he had seen the boy safely to his mother. Nothing was said about notifying my parents or any reprisals against me. It seems strange in these days of lawsuits that nothing more happened, but perhaps the boys lied about the circumstances. Whatever it was, that incident was a secret I kept from my parents.

The lesson was profound. I realized for the first time in my life the capacity every person carries for destruction. Murder lies in the hearts of us all.

If the thirties taught me something about cycles and fear, the forties were a lesson in rage. On a national or international scale, we call it war.

© 2001 Janet Taliaferro

Memories of Hiroshima is a post from: Janet Taliaferro

Boomers, Not Looking Ahead. Many baby boomers worry about having to depend on other people to care for them in their old age. Yet most boomers have done little to prepare for that possibility, a recent survey suggests;

This quote about the baby boomers made me think of lessons learned from the 30s. I learned about rhythm. Not just about jazz, blues and the beat of my piano teacher’s metronome, but the rhythms of life engraved my soul. Perhaps it is the ceaseless September to May cycle of the school year that imprints us all in childhood, yet as a writer I can see how strongly these circadian themes are played out. My first two books adhere to a strict twelve-month pattern. The third book is time-based, chronicling the final five months of the Second World War, and this book is divided into decades. Only my second collection of short stories is free of these constraints

Gustav Mueller, under whom I studied philosophy, used to say there was no new truth, only rediscovered truth. The image I have of this is the Escher print of the eternal staircase. But truth returns in different disguises, embellished, trimmed or augmented, accepted quietly or loudly rejected.

So the baby boomers are unprepared for financial hardship? They have never known it. These are the people who did not care to listen to anyone older than thirty when they were in their know-it-all twenties. They never saw for themselves the bread lines and soup kitchens, the men like the one eating a meatloaf sandwich on my mother’s front porch, men who would gladly work if they could find a job. They never felt the frustration of “Will this never end?” Of course it ended, but it took 11 years.

Stories of these times held no “relevance” for the boomers.

Today the financial analysts are fond of repeating that the average length of a depression is 11 months. These figures only take into account the years following the Second World War. Of course they are right, but there is no guarantee the present business cycle will last only that long. There are still some of us who remember what can happen, just as my father told me about his father’s recount of the money panics of the late 19th Century. Arrogance sometimes overrides history.

Even the name “The Great Depression” is evocative. Depression has come to mean to us the gloomy state of the psyche familiar to most of us, incapacitating to many and devastating to a few. Although the former refers to an economic crisis, the latter was equally and universally true during those years. John Steinbeck described the era best. The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row were more than just stories. They were drawn from the fabric of the time.

All the talk of a “new economy” in the past few years amused me. I suspected that the “old economy” would come roaring back in a new suit one day.

Life, like a kaleidoscope, is ever shifting and ever different, but the pieces are the same.

© 2001, Janet M. Taliaferro

Boomers, Not Looking Ahead is a post from: Janet Taliaferro