Author Archives: John Flannery

JFK

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JFK sketch by John Flannery

JFK sketch by John Flannery

Jack Kennedy was a force in life and his death broke a promise made that this nation was different in that it celebrated courage, culture and change.

I was a freshman at Fordham Prep in the Bronx in 1960 on the way to a Latin class when I saw the University students going to the gymnasium in great numbers.  I had some time before class, though not much, so I ran to see what it was all about, followed them, one by one, all taller, through the narrow doors of the gym, and pushed with the others into the large area where we had basketball games.

The gym was full of standing students and teachers, and I made out, like in a B-movie, a bright light from the left shining on a man talking to this mostly first generation college audience that was disproportionally Irish.

It was Jack Kennedy, smiling broadly and making his characteristic gestures, pointing with his right finger in the air before him, painting a picture of ideas, his jaw jutting forward, challenging these students, by his word and manner, to make a difference.  His pauses invited clapping and cheering, smiles and laughter.

I left this amazing place, the sounds duller as I returned to class, to make my class late and sat in a reverie the rest of the afternoon thinking about what I’d observed and heard and felt.

This man was what life was about, mixing into the issues of the day, trying, as he said, to make a difference.

He did.

He inspired a nation to go to the moon, to avoid a nuclear confrontation, to make steps toward equality, to introduce beautiful art and music and style to a nation thirsty to meet a higher calling and destiny.

He was cut short on November 22nd years ago but he still inspires us to be more than we’ve become.

Drugging Our Children

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Our government goes to great lengths to criminalize our children for smoking pot, and parents fear like the plague the hint of any drug use by our children.

Yet, our schools and many parents eagerly administer drugs our children don’t need and that can put our children at risk for the rest of their lives.

You may have been told your son or daughter fidgets in class, is not focusing on a lesson, is easily distracted, and doesn’t get along with the other children. Some adults forget how they behaved when they were youngsters.  We may overlook the fact that some children in a crowded class don’t get it, can’t keep up, and that’s why they may appear “distracted.”  We also have those children who “got it” several grade levels earlier; they are bored.  Alice Munro, in a short story, “Amundsen,” described a teacher who anticipated childish excess by this prescription, “Games okay but watch for over excitement …”  She said the challenge of her fictionalized classroom was finding the happy medium, to “keep between stress and boredom.”  We have children in school coming from difficult or broken homes, perhaps with ill siblings or relatives, maybe wrestling with a parents’ divorce. These stress factors affect how these children fail to cope in school and elsewhere.

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Remember Vets – By Doing Something!

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We have had another Veterans’ Day and remembered the sacrifice of the men and women who served this nation.

But we really should be doing a lot more than simply – “remembering them.”

We must do better and demand that our elected and appointed officials “do something.”

My late uncle, Charles Flannery, served in the armed forces led by General Patton when the Allies attacked by way of Sicily the beaches of Italy.  Charles was shot in the chest, lifted off his feet, spun around, knocked unconscious, and taken prisoner.

Years after the war, Charles died in a hospital in the Bronx that, according to my elders, refused to give him more blood, to save him from that earlier war wound.  Ours was one family, as young as I was, that resented the nation’s unfulfilled promise to our Uncle Charles.

Our nation has been long on promises to vets when leaving our shores to serve our nation abroad, and quite uneven, often indifferent, to their needs upon their return home when broken by the war.

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Can You Hear Me Now?

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You may repeat into your cell phone, as you walk around, trying to find a signal, “Can you hear me now?,” but you mean, can a known friend or family member hear you?

Not some government agency.

We thought we’d come a long way from rural party phone lines when uninvited listeners might overhear what was said in violation of a caller’s right of privacy.

But we now have the “all-consuming N.S.A,” as one paper characterized the agency, for which “no morsel [of private information][is] too miniscule,” meaning that our government is tracking the calls of every American and much more information under the elastic aegis of the ironically named Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act.  Absent any restraint by any other governmental branch or agency, the NSA’s rules of engagement are, “Why not?”

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Trick or Treat – another election

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Halloween_Trick_or_TreatWe Irish know in our genetic sinews, no scholarship need be considered, that Halloween, or all Hallows’ Eve, springs from the medieval Gaelic Samhain, marking the end of harvest and the beginning of the darker half of the year.

It is little wonder then that we have most of our elections as the natural light dims and darkness grows.

In one tradition of All Hallows’ Eve, souls wander the earth until this evening for their one last chance to gain vengeance.

This election season we have the feeling our candidates are making the holy day’s danse macabre their inspiring motivator, calculating a revenge comprised of how they may get theirs — at our expense.

The right to vote that we “enjoy” is a forced choice made before the primary or caucus is held, the product of back room paper and power shuffling that pre-selected whom we may consider.

The districts themselves are drawn not rationally but by the force of numbers in the line-drawing state legislature with one clear purpose – to pre-determine each election’s outcome.

Our voting discretion is “informed” by tall yarns, name calling and distracting issues that make the blood boil.

One clamoring voice outshouts another with high cost hard copy and electronic propaganda that muddle or drown out any contrary fact or opinion.

The election “trick” is the threat of how bad it will be if you don’t choose the imperious “me.”

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Dave “I’m-So-Busy” LaRock – Serial Debate No-Show

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Where in the world is Dave LaRock?

Republican Delegate Candidate Dave LaRock is a serial debate no-show in this Fall’s General Election line-up for the House of Delegates in the 33rd District.

Dave’s just so busy doing “something else,” and we’re talking “scheduling conflicts” here, that he can’t show up in person in Loudoun to say why he should be our delegate.

Apparently he believes we, the Loudoun voters, should rely on his caustic witty one-liners in expensive glossy multi-colored oversized postcards that he’s stuffing into our mail boxes.

This man’s Franklin-Covey day-timer must be a blizzard of conflicting activities that would challenge the skills of an Amtrak scheduler.

For the record, before last week, Dave had ducked the Clarke County Debate Forum as well as the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce Debate Forum. Now that’s news! What candidate of either party ever ducks the Chamber’s well-attended high class opportunity to chew on issues that are well-framed and widely covered in the media? Our Dave did. Dave also refuses to answer the Chamber’s written questions on the issues. Thus, we have Dave the politically obscure and obdurate.

Last Wednesday evening, at 7 PM, there was a Debate Forum convened by the Purcellville Gazette at the Carver Center, not that far from Dave’s home.

There was a good size crowd. We all just got so cozy in our folding chairs about 7 PM with free cups of high test java and fresh made cookies and settled back, waiting to hear Dave tell us why he should be our next rep in the Northern Hemisphere’s oldest deliberative body.

While sitting there, I thought of the Monty Python lyrics, “Brave Sir Robin,” and thought we should sing instead of our “Brave Sir Dave” while we were waiting:

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Anarchy?

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Henry David Thoreau said he heartily agreed with that Jeffersonian remark, “that government is best which governs least.”

He said, however, he’d go one better, believing “That government is best which governs not at all.”

Henry was, in truth and fact, a non-violent anarchist.

Some might think our current brand of green tea anarchists from mostly red states draw wisdom from Henry when enthusiastically shutting down the government – invoking the Affordable Care Act (ACA)(or Obamacare) as their pretext for what they’ve wanted to do ever since they’ve dominated the House Republican Caucus in the U.S. Congress and dictated what the Speaker may move to the floor for a vote.

But Henry’s no-government anarchism presumed a precondition, that would be satisfied “when men are prepared for it, [and then] that will be the kind of government which they will have.” Continue reading →

Saving the World

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Nobel prize-winning physicist Jack Steinberger, 92, and John Flannery

How can we expect the United States to save the world when it’s not able to remain open to do its business?

When you have to pay your bills past due and owing, do you get to negotiate and say, well I’ll pay if you, Mr Landlord, change your policies and, oh, reduce my rent?  Not very likely!  You live in the real world rather than the tea-induced fantasy factory that’s stymied the Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, and put our nation at risk.

In this dystopian context, we have to ask what our government is doing that’s really important, is it doing anything to “save the world,” whether it’s anticipating what we do when we’ve exhausted our fossil fuels as an energy source or how we protect against the annihilating force of a targeted nuclear weapon.

I had the opportunity to listen and talk with Nobel prize-winning physicist, Jack Steinberger, 92, about “saving the world,” although his characterization was more modest, like his manner. Continue reading →

Gay – In the Image of God

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Pope Francis

In Genesis, it plainly says that “God created man in his own image.”

In the popular single, “same love,” the Seattle-based rap artist Macklemore warns of “man-made rewiring of a predisposition, [of] playing God …”  See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1TBgcctcco .

Macklemore speaks of gay slurs, born of “the same hate that’s caused wars from religion.”

“When I was at church,” Macklemore intones, “they taught me something else, if you preach hate at the services those words aren’t anointed, that holy water that you soak in has been poisoned.”

Rightly Macklemore concludes, “No law is gonna change us ..and I can’t change even if I tried.” Continue reading →

An Act of War Against Syria – Why And For Whom?

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Since when did a democratically elected official’s oath in the House and Senate become, “I will do what I want in your best interests even if you voters don’t understand how good this is for you?”

We have elected representatives from Virginia and across the nation who are telling us they are going to disregard what we’re telling them – and vote to attack Syria anyhow.

They treat us like children to whom they’re administering castor oil. Continue reading →