Book Announcement: "Eat Bananas and Follow Your Heart" by Mark J. Ehlers

From his inspirational and thought-provoking blog "Ehlers on Everything" comes a collection of interesting and touching essays on life, politics, baseball and religion by Mark J. Ehlers. Eat Bananas and Follow Your Heart: Essays on Life, Politics, Baseball and Religion is a book for anyone who believes that life is too short to remain uninvolved, time too precious to cease learning, thinking, caring, and laughing. -- Back Cover

I am not generally much of a self-promoter, but I am happy to announce that my book, Eat Bananas and Follow Your Heart (Bookstand Publishing, 2011), has just been published and is available at the following sites:

Bookstand Publishing

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

The book is a collection of many of the essays that I first posted on this blog from August 1, 2009, through December 31, 2010.  My daughter, Jennifer, designed the book cover.  She also took many of the photographs that are placed throughout the book.  I hope that you will consider obtaining a copy and, more importantly, sharing my passion for the diversity of life and for the need to ponder and ask questions.  For only if we allow ourselves to grow and to learn, to love and to laugh, can we truly say in the end, "We have lived."

In Search of a Difficult Peace

There is perhaps no nation that tugs at the heart, draws upon emotion, or is filled with such political and historical nuance as the State of Israel. Founded on a moral imperative just three years after millions of Jews perished in the gas ovens and concentration camps of Hitler’s Germany, the birth of Israel is an inspirational, heroic tale, involving an unprecedented culmination of political, cultural, and religious factors that continue to confound and intrigue the world. When in 1948 the British Mandate of Palestine ceded to official U.N. recognition, Israel became a haven to Jews from all over the world, embraced them as family, provided sanctuary, and built a national community of citizens devoted to a common cause.

Aided by the courageous, last-minute support of President Harry Truman, whose recognition of Israel’s provisional government went against the advice of his foreign policy team, most of whom favored the oil-rich Arab nations, and by American Jewish support, Israel and the United States formed a lasting bond that has remained strong through Israel’s 63-year history. It has not, however, been an easy history. Peaceful coexistence between Israel and its Arab neighbors has proved difficult; many of Israel’s citizens discovered early on that they had merely exchanged the insecurity of pre-War Europe for the insecurity of the Middle East.

Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948. The next day, 23,000 Arab troops from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, lined the borders of the tiny new nation and sought its destruction. From its very founding, Israel has been surrounded by hostile forces intent on its annihilation. Virtually every decade of its existence, Israel has been forced to defend its very survival. It is a nation uniquely and existentially attuned to the constant risk of extinction and what it takes to survive. In 1967, when Nasser’s Egypt and the Arab Legion once again threatened Israel’s destruction, Israel in self-defense launched a pre-emptive strike, conquering the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Sinai, and the Gaza Strip. No longer content to be history’s victims, the Israel Defense Forces now ranks among the most capable military forces in the world.

It was Israel’s success in defending its borders during the Six-Day War that resulted in occupied territories and prompted U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which called on Israel to withdraw to its pre-1967 borders in exchange for the normalization of relations with its Arab neighbors. Despite the PLO’s and other Arab states’ failure to officially acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, the smallest and most basic of concessions, Israel has gradually and willingly made peace whenever true compromise and sincere negotiation was in the offering. In 1979, Israel exchanged the Sinai Peninsula for peace with Egypt. In 1994, it ceded a large swath of land in exchange for official recognition by Jordan. Both agreements resulted in a stable, if narrow, peace among the nations involved. Peace with Syria has proved more difficult, notwithstanding Israel’s repeated offers to give up the Golan Heights in exchange for peace on its northern borders. Israel has had even less luck on its southern border, as its full and complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 has provided no peace in return, as Hamas continues to seek Israel’s complete and total destruction, firing missiles on Israeli villages and towns, and provoking Israeli reprisals.

There are times, it seems, that whatever Israel does, regardless of how many olive branches it offers, rockets continue to rain down on Israeli civilian targets. Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and suicide bombers from the West Bank remain an ever present threat to Israel’s population. Israelis themselves are intensely divided between doves and hawks, between those who would willingly exchange land for peace and those who take a more hard-line approach. But all Israelis are united on the need to defend their country.

I understand that Israel is far from perfect, and there is considerable room for debate on how it should respond to the threats it faces. While Israel must be entitled to defend itself, its actions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are more complicated. There, Israel’s actions, particularly under Netanyahu, have been counterproductive and resulted in unnecessary friction with the United States and Western Europe. The expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem on the eve of planned peace talks and in violation of U.S. policy, has been unhelpful. And the building of a security fence along its eastern border, while providing a justifiable defense to suicide bombers, has encroached upon 7% of West Bank territory in order to include the largest settlements.

Why is peace in this land so elusive? Every U.S. administration for the past half century has made concerted efforts to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians, with little to show for it. The Oslo Accords in 1993, when Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn between the outstretched arms of Bill Clinton, accompanied the promise of peace; the PLO finally recognized Israel’s right to exist and Israel agreed to formation of an independent Palestinian Authority as a starting point for future peace negotiations. But peace has been fleeting. In 2000, in what should have been a turning point in the conflict, then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in concert with President Clinton, offered Arafat a Palestinian state on 100 percent of the Gaza Strip and 95 percent of the West Bank, including sovereignty over half of Jerusalem and the surface area of the Temple Mount. Although it was the first time that Israel had ever offered to give up a portion of Jerusalem, and although the vast majority of Israeli settlements were set to be disbanded, Arafat and the Palestinians responded with a flat “no.” That the Palestinians might ever again receive such a generous offer is almost unimaginable, and yet, somehow, Israel is too often portrayed as the bad guy in this sordid affair.

It is true that history has not been kind to the Palestinians. Displaced upon Israel’s founding, then rejected and scorned by the very Arab nations which claim to be concerned with their welfare and political existence, the Palestinians have been deprived of statehood, suffered affronts to their dignity and experienced second-class status as their successive leaders have persistently rejected compromise and perpetuated their people’s suffering. President Obama understands and, to some extent, empathizes with the Palestinians’ predicament, which is why I believe he recently called for “bold action” and insisted to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and in a speech before AIPAC, that the starting point for peace negotiations must be the pre-1967 borders with “mutually agreed swaps.” Although the American press made much ado about the alleged rift between Obama and Netanyahu, Obama’s statement in fact was merely a continuation of U.S. policy and the public articulation of what has been the basis of virtually all peace talks between the respective parties. 

The formula for peace is relatively easy to outline, which only serves to render the elusiveness of peace so frustrating. The only hope for peace in Palestine is a two-state solution that guarantees Israel’s security and officially acknowledges its right to exist among the world of nations, while uplifting and respecting the dignity and peoplehood of the Palestinians. Land for peace -- Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank and the dismantling of settlements, including in East Jerusalem, in exchange for a demilitarized Palestinian state that officially recognizes Israel’s right to exist -- is precisely the formula required for a lasting peace.

It appears that Netanyahu and Obama do not fully trust each other, and that is a shame, really, for it is simply another pothole on the road to peace. Netanyahu is less willing than his predecessors to take a chance on peace, to lead Israel into courageous and bold action, to risk political disfavor among his Likud supporters, even as his party occupies a minority of seats in the Knesset. Unlike Rabin and Barak in the Clinton years, and Olmert in the Bush years, each of whom understood that the security and very existence of Israel demands that Israel take risks for a lasting peace, Netanyahu seems more interested in his political survival at home than his historical legacy as peacemaker. Israel cannot move forward until it fundamentally addresses the cruel reality that it continues to effectively rule over and occupy territory outside of its internationally recognized borders containing more than a million non-citizen residents, including families with children who want and need a country of their own.  To absorb the population of the West Bank into Israel proper would be to compromise the democratic character of Israel, its Jewish nature, or both.

Of course, the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation further complicates matters, for as long as the dignity of the Palestinian people and their hope of independent statehood resides with the leaders of Hamas, peace will remain an empty promise. President Obama is right to call for bold action. He must, however, demand as much from the Palestinians as he does from the Israelis.

U.S. policy is and will remain, rightly so, pro-Israel. Israel is a staunch U.S. alley and strategic partner. It is the most democratic country in the Middle East. It generates more life-saving medical research than all of Europe combined. When natural and man-made tragedies happen around the world, whether in Haiti, Indonesia, Turkey, or anywhere else, Israel is among the first to respond in providing medical and technical aid. Because of Israel, Jews will never again be without sanctuary. But like his predecessors, President Obama must develop the capacity and credibility to push and prod and pressure both sides of the conflict, or he too will make little progress towards peace. Bold action is required if the vision of a peaceful world is ever to be attained. We must remain firmly committed to Israel’s safety and security, while continuing to push for the establishment of a legitimate, independent nation for the Palestinians.

I will always believe that the possibility of peace remains our best hope.  I envision a world in which Palestinians and Israelis exchange currencies and commerce, and tour each other’s countries; where friendships develop and thrive across borders; where the boundaries are open and the fear of rocket fire and terrorism a thing of the past. Is it such an unrealistic dream? Perhaps, but I refuse to give up the possibility that the dream of a democratic Palestine living peacefully, side-by-side with a secure and democratic Israel will one day become reality. Let us hope that President Obama’s call for boldness and courage will not go unheeded, that pride and egos and power struggles will not again prevent meaningful progress in the quest for peace.

Coffee with Hertzberg

Arthur Hertzberg (June 9, 1921 – April 17, 2006) was a rabbi, college professor, international scholar, writer, and political activist. Born in Poland, at the age of five his family immigrated to the United States, where he remained loyal to his traditions while embracing the American spirit. Raised as an Orthodox Jew in Baltimore, Maryland, Hertzberg strayed from his traditional upbringing to become a Conservative rabbi, though his love of Judaism and the Jewish texts remained the center of his life as a scholar, educator, and Jewish communal leader. I recently picked up a copy of his memoir at the Free Library of Philadelphia, A Jew in America: My Life and a People’s Struggle for Identity (Harper San Francisco 2002). Although I never met Rabbi Hertzberg and knew of him only from a distance, his writings inspired me to write the following fictional conversation, one that I imagine may have occurred in some form between Professor Hertzberg and many of the young people he taught and influenced over the course of six decades. Some of the quotes and comments attributed to Hertzberg below were adopted, literally in some instances and loosely in others, from A Jew in America.

The first time Mike Wilkerson encountered Professor Hertzberg outside of class was in the student lounge. He had sought sustenance in his afternoon cup of Joe before heading to the library, adding a touch of cream and heading for the exit, when he spotted the professor seated in a lounge chair and reading a copy of The New York Times. The professor looked in Mike’s direction and greeted him with a friendly nod. Sensing an invitation to conversation, Mike walked on over.

“Hi Professor,” he said. “Anything interesting in the news today?”

“Ah, Mr. Wilkerson,” the Professor replied. “Have a seat.” He glanced at the inside pages of The Times, frowned, and folded the paper in two, placing it next to him on his armrest. “All the usual stuff. War, famine, poverty, inequality.”

“Thanks for brightening up my day, Professor,” Mike said with a grin as he sipped on his coffee. “But I have enough problems on my own.”

“To compete with war and famine? These must be large problems.” The professor smiled. “So what’s on your mind, Mr. Wilkerson?”

“Well,” Mike hesitated, momentarily reflecting on the professor’s war and famine remark, “I’m having trouble making an important decision.” Mike took another sip of coffee and glanced at his shoelaces. “I have a good job offer from a large accounting firm and, well, I know I should be grateful and all, but . . . I’m just not sure. When I entered college four years ago, I was hoping that I could graduate with a decent job. But now, I’m not sure that’s enough. I don’t want to wake up in twenty years wondering if there was more to it than that.”

“You want to know what to do with your life,” the professor stated rhetorically. “How to make the most of the gifts God has bestowed on you?”

“Yes, precisely,” Mike replied hopefully.

“Welcome to America, my friend,” the professor said nonchalantly. “I can still remember the opening lecture in a course I took in American history my sophomore year at Johns Hopkins. The professor was discussing Frederick Jackson Turner and his thesis on the uniqueness of American society.”

Mike was not certain where this story was heading, or its relevance, but he was intrigued. Professor Hertzberg had a compelling presence. When he spoke, people listened. He possessed an air of authority.

The professor continued, “Turner pointed out that the early immigrants who came to the New World discovered they had a whole wilderness in front of them. Most had left their previous lives behind. When they arrived on the shores of America, they found they could reinvent themselves, begin life anew. You see, the men and women who came here lived on the frontier of Western civilization. If things went badly in Philadelphia, or New York, or Boston, they could pick up and move west, where the land was untamed and unspoiled. If the circumstances demanded, they could move still farther west, as far as the eye and the imagination could take them.” He gestured with outstretched arms and looked in both directions. “Americans were shaped by the frontier. We are a country of second chances.”

“That’s very interesting,” Mike said, “but. . . .”

“The point of this story is not Turner’s thesis,” the professor stated patiently, sensing Mike’s bewilderment, “but the question it raises.” He stared at Mike as if waiting for him to fill-in the blanks.

“I’m afraid I don’t know the question,” Mike said, somewhat embarrassed at his inability to match the professor’s gift of philosophical discourse.

“Ah, but I think you do,” the professor insisted. Mike looked at the professor and took another sip of his coffee, hoping a jolt of caffeine would inspire his brain. The professor continued, “It is the question that all of us must confront at some point in our lives.”

“I’m sure you're right, professor, but I’m still not sure of the question.”

“Well,” the professor said, “think of it this way. If a man comes to this country to reinvent himself, if he leaves his past and his heritage behind, as millions of American immigrants have done over the course of our history, by what compass does he steer?” He looked at Mike as if expecting an answer.

“By what compass does he steer?” Mike repeated the question to himself. “I guess that depends on a lot of things.”

“Precisely, and it is different for everyone. It all boils down to the values by which he chooses to live his life. How else to keep from turning in the wrong direction?”

“Yes, yes, exactly,” Mike said with some excitement. “But how does one find the answer?”

“I wish I could provide you with an answer, Mr. Wilkerson. However, I am just a lowly professor and rabbi. I can only ask the questions and insist that the questions be asked. If the last half century has taught me anything, however, it is that only a lucky few dare address these questions while they are still young. Most confront the meaningful questions only after the frustrations of life have beaten them down, often when it is too late.”

“But how do I find my compass?”

The professor smiled ever so slightly. “Aristotle taught that we dare not live the unexamined life. But I am afraid, Mr. Wilkerson, that there is no alternative to the difficult journey of questioning and self-questioning. The task of the inquiring mind is to ask all the questions, and to keep asking them.” The professor paused and looked around. “It is much easier to live by the accepted clichés and standards of the day, to not ask questions of ourselves. It is easier still to not upset others by raising questions. To go against the larger culture can be a lonely journey.”

“How so?” Mike asked.

“Take our common patriarch, Abraham. He was the first to break with idolatry, to insist that there is only one God. But when he came to this conviction, he was the only person in the world who believed this. He was alone, a man truly steering by his own compass.”

“OK. I think I understand,” Mike said. "But can I ask," he decided to turn the tables on the professor, “by what compass do you steer?”

“I thought you might ask me that, Mr. Wilkerson. Well, let me explain that, first and foremost, I am a Jew. It is the core of my identity. This hardly makes me unique, of course, but unlike many of my fellow American Jews, I do not consider myself a Jew because I like bagels and lox, or Borscht Belt humor, or because I occasionally speak a little Yiddish. My most serious act as a Jew is that I continue to study the historical literature of the Jewish people: the Torah, the Talmud, and the Tanach.”

“What is the Tanach?” Mike asked.

“The Hebrew Scriptures,” the professor replied, “Or, as some of you Christians like to call it, the Old Testament. But there is nothing old about it to me, you understand. No offense.”

“None taken,” Mike offered.

“It is the literature of my people, and it presents a set of ethical and moral precepts by which I measure my conduct each day, values and standards taught in these books. This is my compass. I have insisted all my life that being a Jew is rooted in the values that you affirm and not in the food you eat or the enemies that you fight. The prime teaching of the Jewish tradition is why I have spoken out on behalf of the poor, why I fought so passionately for the civil rights of blacks and minorities, why I opposed the Vietnam War. It is why I helped found the Peace Now movement and advocated, as a Zionist and lover of Israel, for the creation of a Palestinian state and for the rights of Palestinian refugees under Israeli occupation. My positions have not always been popular, but I am steered by my Jewish compass. It is my moral duty to be on the side of those who struggle for respect and dignity, even at the expense of some longstanding friendships.” The professor paused as if to further collect his thoughts.

“I’m not Jewish,” Mike offered. “I mean, does that matter?” Mike shook around his coffee cup to see if any steam was left.

The professor looked directly at Mike. “Of course not, Mr. Wilkerson. You need not be a Jew to contemplate these things. Perhaps your compass is in the teachings of Jesus or the writings of Paul. Perhaps it is in the inspiration of the great Prophets of the last half century, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama. There are many others.” He took a last sip of his coffee, which was undoubtedly getting cold. “It can be a lonely journey, but it is not an empty one. You must find your compass, Mr. Wilkerson and, like Abraham, lead your life by its guide.”

Mike suspected the professor was right, but he remained uncertain, paralyzed almost, of trusting his instincts and examining his values. Life’s demands and daily pressures too often stood in the way of a contemplative, morally pure life. Was he strong enough to live his life by the principles and values he holds dear? Was he all talk and no action? He would need to confront these questions for a long time to come.

Mike thanked the professor for his time and his thoughts, stood up and said goodbye. His journey had begun.

The Girl from Ohio: A Mother's Day Tribute

A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts. – Washington Irving

Richard Nixon once said that his mother was a “saint.” On this point, at least, he may have told the truth. Even saints give birth to sinners. It is a sentiment shared by many sons, including me, about their mothers. But we are often reluctant to speak of our mothers in such sentimental terms. I am not trying to suggest that my mom is a saint in the ecclesiastical sense. In the movie Michael, John Travolta portrays an angel who protests, “I’m not THAT kind of angel.” My mother might also protest that she is not THAT kind of “saint,” but her life is surely a testament to the goodness of God’s creations.

Born and bred a country girl, Mom spent the first three years of her life in Parkersburg, West Virginia, then moved with her family to a large, white-pillared estate in Akron, Ohio, the place she called home the remainder of her childhood. But it was neither an ideal setting nor an ideal childhood. Her father was an attorney who made his money in construction and real estate, a conservative and serious man with traditional notions of gender roles and class structures. Although he never showed my mom much love or affection, she continues to hold firm to the notion that he tried his best. You see, my mom always sees the best in everyone and refuses to believe that some people can be simply self-absorbed or cruel.

When my mom was eight years old, she was sent to live in West Virginia with her Aunt Boe, her father’s sister, for part of the summer. She had fun there, but looked forward to returning home to her mother’s embrace. When she arrived home, however, her mother was not there. Annoyed at her questions - “Where’s Mom?” - her father deployed Norm, Mom’s 13 year-old brother, to inform her of the news. “Mom is no longer living with us,” Norm said, “Pop and Mom are getting divorced.” Her father never said one word about it nor concerned himself with the effect of this news on his daughter. Although unusual in those days, Mom remained with her father in the cold, formal house in Akron, only occasionally seeing her mother, until she could be sent away to boarding school. Never really understanding why it happened, Mom remained close to her mother and chose not to assign blame to anyone for this turn of events. Years later, it was my mom who took care of my grandmother when she was old, sick, and lacking financial means; and Mom was by her side the night she died.

For any young child, the news that your family is breaking apart is devastating, as it surely was for my mom. Yet, she always possessed a soulful, powerful sense of God’s presence. Anyone who does not believe in God should speak to my mother. Raised in a religiously indifferent family, her father rarely attended church and did nothing to encourage it. But from the time her parents divorced, Mom awoke every Sunday morning and walked alone to the local Presbyterian Church, where she attended Sunday school classes and worship services. When she returned home, she would find her father and two brothers asleep, or off to the racetrack, or attending to their more secular concerns. Looking back, Mom has said, “I really think God took me in my arms and held me. It is something I always felt.”

When Mom was thirteen, her father sent her away to Hathaway Brown, a select all-girls boarding school in Shaker Heights, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland. Her classmates came from some of the wealthiest and most accomplished families in Ohio. They were fast and sophisticated, far different from Mom, who remained in many ways the innocent country girl from West Virginia. Alone among her peers, she continued to attend church each Sunday – a prominent American Baptist church with an engaging pastor and innovative worship services. Many of her classmates would go on to attend some of the nation’s finest universities – Smith, Wellesley, Radcliffe and Barnard. As a straight-A student, Mom could have attended any of these schools, but my grandfather believed her education was sufficient at Hathaway Brown, which he perceived as a finishing school, a reflection of the times and of women’s role in society in the late 1940’s. Though she rarely contradicted her father’s decisions about her life, Mom had other ideas about college. There were no father-daughter college visits, but at least Grandpa accepted Mom’s ambition to attend college. Although she seriously considered all-girls Smith College in Massachusetts, she opted instead for the less pretentious, coeducational Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, where she would eventually meet my dad and begin a new life.

Mom and Dad exchanged vows on September 1, 1951, and, nearly six decades later, they remain happily married, two people who share a love and devotion rarely seen in today’s fast-paced culture. That she has remained with my Dad for sixty years alone may qualify my mother for sainthood. I tease my father often that he “married up,” but he only laughs a little at this remark, for secretly he realizes just how true is the sentiment, and what a lucky man he has been.

A lesser person might well have despaired the kind of childhood that my mother lived, separated from a loving mother, living with an uncaring father and sent away to boarding school. But through it all my mom maintained a deep and abiding faith. It is, I believe, why she remains to this day secure in the face of life’s challenges and why her life is devoted to serving others: her family and her church, her former students, the PTA, a neighbor grieving over a lost relative, a homeless man on a street corner, anyone needing a helping hand. She is a woman of great empathy and compassion for others, almost to a fault, with little concern for self-recognition. Everyone who has ever met my mom has been swept away by her abundant optimism and sunny disposition. Whatever life throws her way, she can turn darkness into sunshine with an almost surreal energy.

My mother has always been compelled to serve. When I was growing up with my sister and brother in New Jersey, Mom took care of everyone and everything. She tended to our family in a way that is less appreciated in current times, but was profoundly important in developing our family’s character and strength. She was always there for us and, even when she started work, first as a librarian and later as a school teacher, she always managed each night to have dinner on the table, keep the house neat, and clean and fold the laundry. She fed and walked the dog, cleaned the dishes, chauffeured us to basketball practices and orchestra rehearsals, helped with our homework and still had time to prepare her lesson plans for the next day. When I played Little League, it was Mom with catcher’s mitt in hand, crouched down from forty-five feet away, who caught my formidable fastballs. She would never allow me to take something off my pitches to her, to treat her as a “girl,” for she was a solid athlete in her own right. At Hathaway Brown, she often reminded me, she was a star field hockey, basketball, and softball player, one who could keep up with her older brothers.

If that were not enough, Mom also faithfully fulfilled the role as a pastor’s wife and, later, “First Lady” of the New Jersey Lutheran Synod when my dad was its President. She hosted dinner parties on Saturday nights, attended both church services on Sunday mornings when my dad preached, helped with the coffee hour, and then volunteered for church activities during the week. She rarely said no to anyone, constantly overextending herself to serve as a Sunday school teacher and chairperson of the Lutheran women’s group. She coordinated a prayer chain one week, visited shut-ins the next, and made cookies for the Girl Scouts when she was not otherwise packing our lunches or folding our laundry or putting us to bed. Come to think of it, Dad, what the hell did you do?

“A mother is a person,” quipped Tennerva Jordan, “who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” Self-sacrificing to a fault, there have been times that my mother’s excessive zeal to serve her family and others has caused me to become a touch exasperated. When we visit, even now, I will enter the kitchen in the morning and exclaim, “Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll make my own breakfast.” But I have to elbow her out of the way, as she insists on buttering my English muffin (“I don’t want butter”) or pouring my coffee (“I can do it myself”). If she would only listen to me, I painstakingly protest, I could go about my business and all would be well. But it is to no avail.

I know, I know. What’s a son to do? I feel guilty for insufficiently appreciating Mom’s unwavering efforts. Despite my exasperation, I know that Mom’s insistence on doing these things is an expression that she wants only the best for me and for all of us, that her love is infinite and endless. If she could, she would give us the world. Instead, she has attempted to serve the world. As a schoolteacher in the 1970’s, Mom taught scores of first-graders to read and, as the letters from her students attest, she greatly influenced and molded their young lives. Today, as a grandmother of six and the adopted grandmother of several young families in her neighborhood, she continues spreading to others a bright and shining love that perhaps, in today’s cynical and fast-paced world, only young children can fully appreciate.

“Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds,” wrote Kate Douglas Wiggin. “Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins, comrades and friends – but only one mother in the whole world.” There is a reason why mothers are special, for they bring us into this world, then watch over us as we try to find our way. In the end, for a special few, they remain true to their lifelong purpose, to make their children feel the unique love that only a “Mom” can dispense. And that is what makes a mother a “saint.”

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

The Swiftness of Youth and the Search for a Meaningful Life

When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity that lies before and after it, when I consider the little space I fill and I see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I rest frightened, and astonished, for there is no reason why I should be here rather than there. Why now rather than then? Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been ascribed to me? – Blaise Pascal

This past week, Hannah and I visited several colleges on our way to a family gathering in North Carolina. A high school junior in search of the right fit, Hannah began the week with a blank slate and few preconceived notions of what she is looking for in a college. Together we walked the campuses of some of America’s finest universities, combining urban and rural settings with modern landscapes and historic architecture that collectively formed a collage of physical beauty and academic excellence.

This is the second time around for me, Jennifer having left for Washington three years ago to pursue a double major in religious studies and graphic design at American University. It seems like only yesterday when the most significant decision was where to take Jenny for horseback riding lessons and whether Hannah should play travel soccer in the spring or fall; now, such quaint notions as horse shows and soccer matches on Saturday mornings are a distant memory, the passage of time marching forward ever so steadily. Although she turns 21 in September, I still picture Jenny at five years old helping me wash my car in Kensington, Maryland, holding a soapy sponge in one hand and gesturing with the other as she asked me how trees grow, the origin of grasshoppers, and other questions I could not answer. Only yesterday did I watch Hannah run through the pumpkin patches of a farm in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, in search of the gourd with the right shade of orange, a pumpkin with just the right size and shape. Fifteen years later, Jen discusses with me her course selections and weekend travels to the south islands of New Zealand, where she presently studies abroad, while Hannah begins her journey into the gradual walk of adulthood and independence.

As Hannah and I sat through information sessions and tagged along on student-led tours, anxiety mixed with excitement, worry with hope for the future. The opportunities available to the youth of today are immense -- to study abroad, to experience different cultures, to design one’s curriculum through inter-disciplinary studies; the marriage of technology and academics in pristine settings, filled with the hope and optimism of youth, offers unlimited potential, there for the taking. I want Hannah to be happy and content in life, to find a college that will help her grow as a person and learn the skills needed to succeed in today’s world. But I worry that, at the “wrong” school, the competitive and social pressures of college will overwhelm her and not allow her to make the most of these unique years. As a parent, however, we often worry in vain, for in the words of Hodding Carter, Jr., “There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings.”

When I think back on my college years, I am filled with rich memories and feelings of grace. College was for me a time of social and intellectual growth. It expanded my mind and fed my soul. It is where I became an adult and developed an independent spirit, accumulating life-long friendships along the way. As Hannah and I admired the historic elegance of Georgetown and William & Mary, the beautiful landscapes of Duke and Davidson, the energy of American and the friendliness of Elon, I reflected, as well, on opportunities missed. "Twenty years from now,” Mark Twain once said, “you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.” Thirty years after leaving the rolling hills and tree-Iined campus of Wittenberg University, I find this sentiment ever so true. I wish I had tried out for the college baseball team to extend my playing days by a few more years. I wish I had studied abroad, written for the college newspaper, taken more English and History classes. I wish. . . . Now, I can only hope that Hannah will have the foresight and confidence to take advantage of the many opportunities available to her, to make the most of what promises to be an eventful period in her young life.

I worry today about things I did not comprehend when I was younger. The safety and security of my children, their emotional well being, their ability to achieve financial independence and to find their niche in life; to be inspired to a life of meaning and purpose. “How can one meditate on life without meditating too on its brevity, its precariousness, its fragility?” asked French philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville. Four days together provided Hannah and me time to talk about the things that are important, about what to expect in college and in life, about our hopes for the future. At dinner one evening, my heart warmed when Hannah said, “I don’t need to make a lot of money. I just want to be happy.” Her heart and mind are in the right place. But we live in a competitive world with decreasing job opportunities. Life presses forward swiftly. It is important to find a good mentor and people in your life that will support you and believe in the power of your dreams and potential to achieve them. Finding the right balance between financial security and meaningful, life-affirming work is no easy task.

Love and friendship, art and nature, faith in God, these are the things that allow some of us to achieve true happiness and give meaning to our existence. But there is also the harshness of life, the thousand little humiliations one experiences along the way; inequality and injustice, the unfairness of an illness, the death of a loved one. They are the hidden demons ready to attack at inopportune and unexpected moments. In between the positive and negative times, in between the feelings of elation and the burdens of our pain, is when our lives are lived. In a world so often heartless and unforgiving, in which generations pass by in the blink of an eye, we can only try our best to create a life of meaning. Four years of college does not provide all of the answers, but for some it can help one find the right path in life, or at least figure out in which direction to proceed. The gift of learning, the study of literature and music, poetry and art, history and science, can help us develop the tools to find our purpose in life and our special place on this earth.

As Hannah and I looked upon the diverse and beautiful array of young faces on each campus, faces full of dreams and energy and hope for the future, it became apparent that each of us possesses unique and very individualized gifts. If my daughters can allow themselves to develop and explore their talents, some of which they may not yet be aware, they will be headed in the right direction, hopefully to a life filled with harmony and optimism, knowing that life has a purpose and that they have found theirs. “There may be trouble ahead,” said Irving Berlin, “But while there’s moonlight and music and love and romance, let’s face the music and dance.”

The Decline of American Justice and the Lessons of Nuremberg

That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power ever has paid to Reason. . . . The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization. . . . [It] asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude.

– Robert H. Jackson, Chief Prosecutor, Nuremberg Trials

In 1945, with the victory over Nazi Germany complete and the leading architects of the war in captivity, the Allies were powerfully tempted to impose vengeful retribution. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. urged that all captured Nazi leaders be executed immediately. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill initially advocated a policy of summary execution, suggesting that Acts of Attainder would circumvent legal obstacles.

In the end, justice and the rule of law triumphed. Following a series of negotiations between the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, an international court was established in which to hold public trials of European war criminals charged with crimes against humanity. The first such trial commenced on November 20, 1945, before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, as the world witnessed the 20th century’s most resolute attempt to achieve justice without vengeance. Those charged – 24 high-ranking German officials and dignitaries (two died before trial; one was tried in absentia) – were granted a presumption of innocence, legal counsel to assist in their defense, judicial objectivity, and procedural fairness. Over the course of ten months, the prosecution systematically presented evidence of German war crimes with full public disclosure of the European Holocaust. Eleven more trials were held over the next four years and, from 1945 – 1949, over a hundred defendants were charged and tried at Nuremberg.

The Nuremberg trials demonstrated with certainty that only when the rule of law is paramount can justice legitimately be achieved. “We will not ask you to convict these men on the testimony of their foes,” declared Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, who served as Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg, in his opening statement. "The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated." The evidence of the defendants’ guilt in the first Nuremberg trial included 485 tons of diplomatic papers secreted in the Harz mountains, Hermann Goring’s art loot, Alfred Rosenberg’s hidden files, and Luftwaffe records that had been stashed in a salt mine. A German soldier’s home movie showed soldiers clubbing and kicking naked Jews. In one scene, naked women are forced into a ditch, then made to lie down as German soldiers, some smiling for the camera, shoot them. An American film documented the liberation of the concentration camps at Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, and Buchenwald; courtroom observers watched in horror the frightful images of skeletal survivors, stacks of cadavers, and bulldozers shoveling victims into mass graves.

The international panel of judges at Nuremberg established that there were certain crimes for which an accused could not defend on the basis of obedience to superiors; that there were some crimes so atrocious and so counter to the laws of humanity that individuals must be held personally responsible, even if their country had approved or required those actions. Eleven of the most despicable Nazis, including Hermann Goering, second in command to Hitler and the highest figure in the Nazi hierarchy to issue a written memo detailing “the complete solution to the Jewish question”; Wilhelm Frick, author of the Nuremberg Race Laws; Hans Frank, Governor-General of occupied Poland, nicknamed “the Jew Butcher of Cracow”; Ernst Kaltenbrunner, highest surviving SS leader; and Alfred Rosenberg, Minister of the Eastern Occupied Territories and racial theory ideologist, were adjudicated guilty and sentenced to death. Eight others were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Nuremberg has stood the test of time in part because the trial was not always smooth sailing for the prosecution – fair and contested trials rarely are – and though successful, the outcome was not pre-determined. The defendants were charged with a criminal conspiracy lasting 26 years (1919 – 1945), but the judges effectively limited their verdicts to hard evidence and held only 19 of 22 defendants guilty, and only for actual wartime crimes beginning September 1, 1939. The court’s rulings essentially eliminated close to one-third of the prosecution’s evidence. Three defendants were acquitted (each of whom were subsequently charged by German prosecutors with committing German war crimes). The overly expansive conspiracy and the prosecution’s heartfelt attempt at imposing a broad application of collective guilt were rejected. But the public nature of the trial and the permanent record it established has been open to examination ever since. The Nuremberg trials created a definitive and irrefutable record of the Holocaust and the atrocities committed during the reign of the Third Reich.

The triumph of Nuremberg stands in sharp contrast to the decision this week of Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama, both of whom capitulated to congressional pressure and caved to the notion that there exist two classes of American law. In reversing its decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) in a U.S. District Court subject to the procedural protections afforded all criminal trials, the Obama administration has surrendered to fear mongering and to those who lack faith in American justice. All of the unpersuasive claims have prevailed – that open trials are too dangerous, too expensive, and too uncertain; that they will radicalize the enemy; that too many secrets will be spilled. By deciding to prosecute KSM in a military tribunal that lacks transparency and the basic evidentiary and procedural protections of the U.S. federal court system, the administration has backtracked on a principled and courageous stand that sought to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law.

The history of Guantanamo Bay and its secret military commissions attests a lack of confidence in the American system of justice. The presumption of innocence, the right to counsel, the right to confront adverse evidence – bedrock principles of evidentiary and procedural fairness upon which our constitutional republic was founded – have been compromised for the sake of a guaranteed outcome, guilt at all costs. The paramount concern at Gitmo, and in preventing KSM and others from being tried in civilian courts (for crimes that occur on U.S. soil against U.S. citizens), is to ensure that the alleged terrorists are indefinitely detained regardless of the nature and quality of evidence that may or may not exist in each individual case. It violates everything our democratic heritage stands for, an ironic rebuke of the very ideals that were attacked on 9/11.

We seem to be demanding a system of justice more akin to Alice in Wonderland:

“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first – verdict afterwards."

“Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “The idea of having the sentence first!”

“Hold your tongue!” said the Queen, turning purple.

“I won’t!” said Alice.

“Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.

That an accused cannot be tried in an American court of law because there exists the possibility that, if given a fair trial, he or she might be acquitted, or convicted of a lesser charge – a possibility heightened in the case of the remaining Gitmo detainees, because some evidence against them is inherently unreliable and likely inadmissible, obtained as it was through torture and coercion – is anathema to American jurisprudence and our founding principles. There are presently 172 detainees remaining at Gitmo. What specifically have they done? What is the evidence against them? Your guess is as good as mine. It goes against everything this country stands for. If KSM is guilty of what we accuse him of, then we should not cower from granting him a public and fair trial, before a judge and a jury, and prove his culpability to a sufficient degree of certainty. While there may be cases in which a military-style tribunal is appropriate, for criminal acts of terrorism committed on U.S. shores, we must be true to our constitutional values or forever risk their permanent dilution.

Politics and the judiciary are a bad combination. By cutting off funding for the transfer of Gitmo detainees to federal prisons on the U.S. mainland, Congress has tied the administration’s hand (Republicans and Democrats are equally at fault here), leaving it with little room to maneuver. To sweep the most fundamental principles of justice under the rug simply because we have labeled the detainees terrorists, without requiring reliable proof and a fair and open proceeding, is an embarrassment to American notions of justice and decency.

The fact remains that an open and transparent system of justice is the best guarantor of a fair trial. At Gitmo, most of the detainees have been held without charge for several years, many denied the right to counsel and the right to know the nature of the evidence and charges against them. This is America? Absent a transparent judicial process, one is left to wonder whether there exists hard evidence against many of the remaining detainees.

As we learned from Nuremberg, the most effective means to undermine the extremists is to expose their crimes for the entire world to see, in a neutral and public setting. The Nuremberg trials were a classic case. Nothing more effectively educated the world to the evils of genocide than the trials of Goering, et al., at Nuremberg in 1945-1949, and of Adolph Eichmann, the bureaucrat who engineered the Holocaust, in Jerusalem in 1961. As The New York Times editorialized earlier this week, “How fitting it would have been to put the [9/11] plot’s architect on trial a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, to force him to submit to the justice of a dozen chosen New Yorkers, to demonstrate to the world that we will not allow fear of terrorism to alter our rule of law.” That the federal courts have successfully convicted hundreds of terrorists since 9/11, and that federal prisons safely hold over 350 convicted terrorists, apparently means little to the pandering politicians. But the President’s decision to backtrack on what had been a principled stand represents a missed opportunity to showcase American justice and prove to the world that we are not afraid of our Constitution; that even when victimized on our own shores, we remain willing and able to provide justice for all.

Remembering the Triangle Fire and the (Mixed) Legacy of the American Labor Movement

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. – Abraham Lincoln

This past Friday marked the 100th anniversary of the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City, when 146 workers died in a blaze that was, until September 11, 2001, the deadliest workplace tragedy in the city’s history. Most of the victims were young Jewish and Italian women, many with no choice but to jump to almost certain death or remain trapped in a deadly inferno that was rapidly consuming the ninth floor of the building. It was later discovered that the factory’s managers had padlocked exits to all but one stairwell to prevent workers from leaving with leftover scraps of cloth. To compound matters, the door to the open stairwell swung inward, making it nearly impossible to open amidst the onrush of workers attempting to flee the quickly spreading fire. The factory building contained no automatic sprinklers and the one open stairwell was swiftly consumed by flames. A rickety fire escape, built to accommodate only a few people at a time, collapsed as panicked workers piled on. With no way out for the remaining workers, their only hope was to be rescued by the fire company, but the firefighter’s ladders only reached to the sixth floor, thirty feet below the igniting flames. Nearly fifty trapped seamstresses, mostly young teenage women, one as young as fourteen, leaped to their deaths, bodies accumulating on the sidewalk below, as a stunned and horrified crowd looked on from Washington Square.

When the cramped and unsafe working conditions endured by the garment workers were later exposed, a public outcry ensued and a credible workers’ rights movement was launched. In direct response to the Triangle fire, the New York State Legislature passed laws requiring automatic sprinklers in high-rise buildings, mandatory fire drills at large companies, and fire doors that swung out. Later reforms included a 54-hour workweek for women and child workers. The tragedy spurred the growth of American labor unions and influenced the passage of national laws outlawing child labor, further limiting the work week, and imposing minimum standards of workplace safety and more humane work environments.

A great irony of the Triangle fire is that, two years before the fire, the factory owners, themselves immigrants who became wealthy by employing new immigrants at low wages and long hours, successfully resisted a 13-week strike aimed at achieving union representation and safer working conditions. The fire and resulting deaths of 146 workers achieved what the strike could not.

One of the onlookers of the Triangle fire in 1911 was a young social worker named Frances Perkins. She and a friend were having tea in Greenwich Village when they heard the fire trucks and anguished screams of “don’t jump” from down the street. Perkins rushed outside and ran toward the commotion, where she witnessed flames and black smoke coming from the top floors of the Triangle factory. Young girls and women, some alone, some clutching hands, stood on window ledges with terrified looks in their eyes, as no good options existed. Perkins watched helplessly as many of the young girls and a few young men jumped to their deaths.

Twenty-two years later, Perkins became the first female cabinet member in U.S. history when she was appointed Secretary of Labor by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. During her twelve-year tenure, the Triangle fire’s victims embedded in her memory, Perkins worked to guarantee the rights of workers to organize, form unions, and collectively bargain. With the firm backing of President Roosevelt, she helped win passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which called for the “elimination of labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standards of living necessary for health, efficiency, and well being of workers.” Perkins was instrumental as well in securing implementation of the Social Security Act, unemployment insurance, and the minimum wage.

Before the Triangle fire, and for virtually all of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century, the balance of power in this country steadily favored wealthy industrialists and the owners of capital. The government’s willingness to interfere with the operations of American businesses and impose humane working conditions was greatly influenced by the principle of laissez faire, which instructed that government take a hand's off approach to commerce and business. The growing political power of the corporate class, tied to vast concentrations of wealth of a small number of conglomerates, contrasted sharply with the pitiful working conditions of most American laborers, who toiled in coal mines and garment factories, plantations and steel mills. Businesses and corporations predictably resisted virtually every effort at reform, arguing that mandatory workplace health and safety protections, and laws allowing workers to organize, would result in economic calamity.

“Such complaints, of course, are with us still,” writes Harold Meyerson of The Washington Post. “We hear them from mine operators after fatal explosions, from bankers after they’ve crashed the economy, from energy moguls after their rig explodes or their plant starts leaking radiation. . . . A century after Triangle, greed encased with libertarianism remains a fixture of – and danger to – American life.” Often ignored by the anti-regulation crowd is the fact that workplace protections were necessary precisely because of unfettered corporate greed and neglect and, despite such laws, the American economy experienced its greatest prosperity in the decades following corporate and labor reforms.

A. Phillip Randolph said, “A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess." The rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively, to strike if necessary, helped shift the balance of power from the owners of capital to the laborers that made capital possible. "If capitalism is fair,” said Franklin Lloyd Wright, “then unionism must be. If men and women have a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men and women to capitalize their labor."

Although the rise of the American labor union helped, at least in some cases, to even the playing field between the large corporations and the workers on whose labor they profited, times have changed. Today, the word “union” is typically invoked in complaints about teachers resisting school reform or the excessive pension costs that are burdening state and local governments. “I pay for three police departments,” is a common complaint of township and borough mayors, “one active and two retired.” The growing power of certain labor unions in the 1950’s and 1960’s led to corruption and greed within labor’s own ranks. Many unions in the industrial northeast and Midwest demanded ever increasing wage and benefits packages, sometimes making near extortionate demands on their employers and ignoring the impact of ever increasing international competition. These unions often missed the big picture and eventually priced themselves out of a job, as manufacturers closed shop in the United States and took advantage of cheap labor overseas.

The protections afforded workers by occupational and safety laws, restrictions on child labor and excessive hours, and protections against discrimination and harassment, coupled with the wage increases unions won through the 1960’s, rendered the need for unions in some industries less compelling. Some powerful unions lost sight of their mission and seemed insufficiently grateful to a country that had enacted many progressive workplace protections. Government regulation of business and the enforcement of workplace rights is today a generally accepted part of the American economy, yet certain unions failed to acknowledge that the U.S. workforce was in a far different place at the end of the century than it had been when the Triangle fire shocked America’s conscious.

In the garment industry, for example, workers who were supposed to benefit from the wage and benefits packages negotiated by their unions found themselves with less work as jobs moved first to the south, where unions are less welcome, and eventually to India, China, and places with sweatshop-like conditions in factories that employ masses of people at low wages. Retail stores like Macy’s and Bloomingdales continually demanded steeper discounts and the ability to return goods they could not sell. Manufacturers in turn scrambled to reduce costs in piece work and outsourcing, as more and more U.S. jobs were lost. In 1975, 90% of all clothing sold in the United States was made in America. Today, the U.S. garment industry supplies only 5% of America’s clothing needs.

Increasing concentrations of wealth in the hands of a very few, along with international trade and globalization, have complicated and hampered the ability of the American workforce to maintain its standard of living. I have always been a strong proponent of free international trade, but when U.S. workers lose their jobs so that investment bankers can make millions of dollars on the backs of exploited laborers working in Triangle-like conditions in Thailand and other impoverished countries, I begin to lose my enthusiasm for tariff-free trade. We must open our eyes and insist upon more equal treatment of workers worldwide and, if necessary, impose tariffs and trade restrictions on countries and industries that fail to protect its workers in a manner required by modern decency and U.S. law.

I am fully aware of the labor movement’s failures. I recognize that certain unions became corrupt and undemocratic, some almost criminal and thug-like as extortionate contract demands wreaked havoc on businesses that were already struggling to compete in an increasingly global economy. In the fall of 1975, during a bitter and prolonged strike at The Washington Post Company, members of the pressmen’s union jumped the night foreman and pinned him to the floor with a screw driver at his throat, then severely beat him as other striking workers vandalized the pressroom, sliced the cushions of the press cylinders, ripped out electrical wiring, cut air hoses and sabotaged almost every piece of equipment before setting the presses on fire. Although twelve union members were eventually convicted of crimes of violence and The Post essentially broke the worst elements of the union, the damage was done.

A friend of mine, who owns a small trucking company in Ohio, once told me that his non-union drivers were threatened with violence by members of the Teamsters and, in retaliation for failing to unionize, found their tires slashed and, in a few instances, had pipe bombs set off in acts of intimidation. Such acts quickly dispel any romantic notions one may have of labor unions.

Nevertheless, it is easy to forget that a significant portion of U.S. prosperity from the end of World War II to the 1970’s was in part the result of union contracts and union advocacy. A strong labor movement contributed to a broad middle class with spending power and economic security that resulted in low unemployment and high wages. As Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal noted recently, for 48 straight months, between 1966 and 1970, the United States enjoyed an unemployment rate at or below four percent. Although unions were not wholly responsible for this prosperity, they helped maintain a fairer distribution of income and were, in the words of E.J. Dionne, Jr., “important co-authors of a social contract that made our country fairer, richer and more productive.”

Union excesses and short-sightedness notwithstanding, there would never have been a need for unions in the first place had businesses and corporations treated their workers more humanely and decently in the days before they were required to do so. In 1911, more than 100 workers died on the job each day. The Triangle fire was but a symptom of a much larger problem. Even today, despite all of the worker protections and all of the complaining of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups about the burdens of government regulation, industrial workplaces remain dangerous places. In 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4,340 workers died in workplace injuries. In 2010, 29 miners died in one day at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, a non-union shop. The tragedies at the Triangle factory in 1911 and Upper Big Branch mine in 2010 spurred legislative investigations and calls to action. But in both cases, had workers had a stronger voice, a union, and the ability to insist on better and safer working conditions, both tragedies likely would have been prevented. In both cases, efforts by workers to organize, and their calls for safer work environments, were bitterly resisted by their employers.

So, while I have my problems with certain aspects of the American labor movement, as some unions are often their own worst enemy, I understand their importance and value to American economic life. In the words of Clarence Darrow, "With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men [and women] that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in men [and women] than any other association." I am not yet ready to give up on the American labor movement, and we must never forget what happened a century ago at the Triangle factory in New York.