Seventy Years Ago: "I'll Be Home For Christmas"

My father left home in February, 1942. He had just returned to Tallahassee from the Carolina Maneuvers on December 5, 1941, two days before Pearl Harbor. By March he had been transferred to Mobile, Alabama to prepare for overseas movement. We didn't see him for over three years.

He missed three Christmases with his family. He was gone "for the duration" as we said it in those days. No one ever finished the phrase: duration of what?

A lot of fathers, brothers, sons, and even daughters missed a lot of Christmases in those years. We were all in it together.

"I'll be home for Christmas," one popular song put it. After dragging the story line out, the song closed "If only in my dreams."

Today we have soldiers who keep going back into combat. In 1942, it may have been a long time at the front, but usually only once. Today, the tours are shorter, but repeated.

We have had soldiers and marines in Afghanistan for twelve Christmases. Three times as long as World War II.

Don't forget our troops. It's time to bring them home.

Christmas Gift!

In former times, across much of America, the expected greeting on Christmas morning was "Christmas Gift!" This was true especially in the South, but also in parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere. The Dictionary of American Regional English provides details.

I never heard it used myself, but learned about it in the mid-40's from a book a great aunt gave me: Miss Minerva And William Green Hill. The book was written around 1900 by a Memphis schoolteacher, and described a child's life in Southeast Missouri.

The effect of greeting someone with "Christmas Gift!" was not unlike "Trick or Treat!" That is, the person greeted had to give a gift to the person who first uttered the phrase as a greeting. My father, born in 1915, remembered the custom from the 1920's. It had fallen into disuse by the time I lived in Mississippi in the 1940's, replaced by "Merry Christmas" as a greeting.

But the game of catching the other person first and thereby getting a present, had disappeared.

Christmas Gift!

Good Guys And Bad Guys

I'm always a little uneasy when I hear young soldiers talking about "good guys" and "bad guys." How, I wonder, do they tell the difference, especially in someone else's civil war. Our guys weren't very good at it in Viet Nam, though I remember the time an airborne spotter called off a gunfire mission. He could tell the villagers weren't acting like bad guys.

All of us who grew up watching cowboy movies could easily tell the good guys from the bad guys. Good guys wore white hats and light-colored clothing. They were straight talkers.

Bad guys not only wore black hats, they sneered and bullied people.

Back in the 1950's, John Steinbeck wrote an essay about good guys and bad guys. He described the conventions of the cowboy movie in great detail. It was his young son who decoded the art form for him.

During the Army-McCarthy hearings, he asked his son if he had watched the hearings on television. He had. Could the son tell who was the bad guy? Yes. McCarthy was the bad guy. He wasn't clean-shaven and he sneered at people and bullied them.

Watching Congressional Republicans on TV, I think they didn't get Steinbeck's memo. Most of them seem clean-shaven enough, but they haven't dropped the sneering and bullying.

Fiscal Cliff Hanger

I say, again: we have a persistent economic crisis, but right now that crisis is jobs, not deficit. The deficit is a consequence, not a cause of job loss.

The looming 'fiscal cliff" is itself a consequence of a disastrous agreement last year to persuade Republicans not to throw the country into renewed, deep recession by refusing to raise the debt limit - essentially refusing to pay our bills.

No one disputes that, in the long run, we must reduce deficits. Reduce them back to the levels of the last two years of the Clinton administration.

But first we have to put people back to work. But Republican obstructionists don't want the economy to succeed. They will continue to obstruct economic progress.

At the state level, further obstruction will proceed apace in every state whose government is dominated by Republicans. We are about to enter that category here in North Carolina.

I don't make this stuff up, but I do read a lot of what is said by the best economists.

One of the economists I follow is Jared Bernstein. He's a very clear writer and thinker. Today he examines the question of what the last year has taught us about economic beliefs that have not served us well. Here's his summary.

Valentina Lisitsa - Concert Star

Marvelous concert this evening at Oriental's Old Theater. World class pianist Valentina Lisitsa played Rachmaninov, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Shubert, Liszt. Absolutely virtuoso playing. Marvelous acoustics in the old movie theater. Attendees treated to Champagne afterward and a DVD viewing of Valentina's recording session with the London Symphony Orchestra.

 A cause to celebrate.

An Economist's Take On Guns

It's hard these days to have a rational conversation about guns. We mostly seem to share views with those who share our views. I have posted a couple of things on my facebook page, and mostly don't hear anything from my gun nut enthusiast friends.

But here are some thoughts by an economist: http://newmonetarism.blogspot.com/2012/12/guns.html

I'm not sure what I think about his ideas, but guns are certainly a good example of economic externalities. A Pigouvian tax? Interesting idea. Maybe liability insurance as a practical way to implement the idea. It works (mostly) with cars.

Former Chief Justice Warren Burger: Second Amendment

Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice of the United States (1969-86) had this to say in an article in Parade Magazine, January 14, 1990, page 4:

"The Constitution of the United States, in its Second Amendment, guarantees a "right of the people to keep and bear arms." However, the meaning of this clause cannot be understood except by looking to the purpose, the setting and the objectives of the draftsmen. The first 10 amendments -- the Bill of Rights -- were not drafted at Philadelphia in 1787; that document came two years later than the Constitution. Most of the states already had bills of rights, but the Constitution might not have been ratified in 1788 if the states had not had assurances that a national Bill of Rights would soon be added.

"People of that day were apprehensive about the new "monster" national government presented to them, and this helps explain the language and purpose of the Second Amendment. A few lines after the First Amendment's guarantees -- against "establishment of religion," "free exercise" of religion, free speech and free press -- came a guarantee that grew out of the deep-seated fear of a "national" or "standing" army. The same First Congress that approved the right to keep and bear arms also limited the national army to 840 men; Congress in the Second Amendment then provided:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

"In the 1789 debate in Congress on James Madison's proposed Bill of Rights, Elbridge Gerry argued that a state militia was necessary:

"to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty ... Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia in order to raise an army upon their ruins."

Plainly the goal of the Second Amendment was to prevent the establishment of a large standing army. That endeavor failed more than a century ago. We now maintain the second largest standing military force in the world. Only China's is larger.

A Way Ahead For Europe - But Europe Won't Like It

Yesterday I posted a speech by professor Galbraith. He was speaking in Berlin.

The Eurozone problem is a German problem. Not a Greek problem or a Spanish problem or an Italian problem.

Professor Galbraith understands this and explains a lot about debt, especially international debt.

Here's a very illuminating interview.