“Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.”
           – Darren J. Beattie on X, Oct. 4, 2024 (archived)

Some of my best friends are competent white men. Many of them, in fact. And if the competent white men among my friends were in charge, things would work very well.

I doubt the acting undersecretary of public diplomacy at the State Department questions the meaning of white or men. That leaves the muddier question of competence. It includes character, skills, judgment, willingness to learn, ability to inspire others, and so much more.

The competent white men among my friends avoid groupthink. They know the difference between silencing dissent and seeking common ground. They listen to voices from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, knowing the best decisions follow from seeking out multiple perspectives. They recognize competence and potential wherever they find it, whether in women or people of color or other white men.

If competent white men were in charge, we would soon see competent people of every stripe at every level of leadership in our institutions. That is, if we want things to work.

Image:  Anonymous man. Photo by Bruce Mars  on Unsplash. 

Fewer and fewer Americans are old enough to remember the deep fear of polio, the closed swimming pools, the schoolchildren lined up for the new vaccine. The disease left one of my schoolmates in braces for life. Globally, polio killed or paralyzed about half a million children a year. Today endemic polio occurs only in Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan, with fewer than a hundred cases last year.

One thing I’ve learned through polio work is that viruses don’t respect boundaries. Business travelers and vacationers can bring them back unawares. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) collaborate to contain deadly infections like Ebola before they reach American shores. Their scientists took the lead to eradicate smallpox and nearly stop polio.* CDC can’t do it alone. Protecting Americans requires neutral access to WHO data, laboratory samples, and outbreak alerts from many countries, not just our friends.

Vaccines to protect American seniors from flu are re-formulated for each year’s strains. They would be less targeted if our scientists couldn’t learn what strains are circulating abroad. Setting aside issues of WHO efficiency and funding, U.S. global leadership, or other nations’ health, I know that I am personally safer when CDC and WHO work together.

* Major funding for polio eradication comes from Rotary International, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and foreign aid from many nations. UNICEF coordinates vaccine procurement and community education.

Disaster fiction isn’t for everyone. During a major hurricane, pestilence, or flood, some who are personally affected and unsure of the outcome will read or watch everything they can about it. Others go out of their way to avoid the topic.

The wildfire devastating Los Angeles feels more personal to me than most catastrophes. I’ve hiked in Eaton Canyon, where a major part of the fire began. I’ve stayed at a friend’s house in Altadena, now in ashes. But the friend moved out years ago, no one I know is threatened, and I’m not traumatized as people in the path of the flames might be. That lets me look forward to novels from the library about monumental fires of the past:

• Karen Brooks, The Chocolate Maker’s Wife (2019). Conspiracy and family secrets during the Great Fire of London in 1666.
• Susan Wiggs, The Hostage (2000). The first volume of a romantic trilogy of riches and revenge set in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
• Susan Meissner, The Nature of Fragile Things (2022). Resilience and solidarity for a mail-order bride in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire.

Image: A large fire in the night. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:– I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
                 - United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 8

Every four years on January 20, before the incoming President takes office, he swears or affirms the oath prescribed in the Constitution. The Twentieth Amendment (1933) fixed Jan. 20 to start presidential terms and a slightly earlier date for terms in Congress, to have new Representatives in place to select a President if the election were inconclusive.

Only for the President does the Constitution spell out exact wording for the oath of office, quoted above. George Washington said, in his second inaugural address, that if he ever knowingly violated the oath, “I may (besides incurring Constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony.”

The Constitution requires hundreds of federal and state officials to vow to support the Constitution but leaves the wording open, provided no religious test is required. The oath for members of Congress has grown from a brief “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States” to a more detailed version than the President’s. They vow not only to support the Constitution but to defend it “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” They swear they take this obligation without purpose of evasion. The President’s oath seems simple by comparison, but the obligation he undertakes is no less solemn and binding.

Image: President Washington takes oath of office, April 30, 1789.

Jigsaw puzzle season is here again. Winter holidays are over; balmy days lie too far ahead to lure me outdoors. Between sessions at the puzzle table, I read the next chapter in my current mystery novel. Add bits of writing, exercise, housework, and human contact, and my day is complete. I have no wish to make time for more.

Philosophers debate the meaning of time. I’ll avoid that fray. For me its meaning varies among (1) the time of the natural world: day and night, summer and winter, new moon and full; (2) the time humans invented to coordinate plans and records: clock hours, calendar weeks, the date one year ends and the next begins; and (3) the time we experience: what flies when we’re having fun and drags when we’re bored.

The Industrial Revolution pushed culture from the seasonal rhythms of farming toward the mechanical rhythms of clocks and calendars. Factories could operate year-round. Electricity freed assembly lines and offices from having to close at dusk. The seasons of most American jobs rest less on climate or daylight than on holiday shopping, tax time, or annual meetings.

​Before retirement, I lived largely by clocks and calendars. Now I feel closer to the rhythms of nature. Countless plants and animals take winter to rest and regroup, without apology. Why not humans? The warmer, longer days will cycle back soon enough, with no prodding from us. 

Once or twice in my childhood, my mother baked a cake on January 6 with a hard bean hidden inside. The recipient of the slice with the bean had to bake the next cake. It was her play on the tradition that whoever got the bean was king or queen for the day.

Even before Christmas became a holiday, third-century Christians celebrated the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem to see the baby Jesus. The legend evolved far beyond the short biblical account in Matthew 2:1-12. Consider:

• “We three kings.” Magi were priestly astrologers, not monarchs. Their three types of gifts are the only basis for putting their number at three.
• “Of Orient are.” Matthew says they came from the east. By the 700s they had names, and later, diverse homelands: Balthasar from Arabia or Ethiopia, Melchior from Persia,  and Gaspar from India.
• “Bearing gifts.” In some modern cultures, children receive gifts on January 6 from the kings who brought gold, myrrh, and frankincense to baby Jesus.
• “We traverse afar.” How far could one travel by foot and camel in the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany, when tradition says the kings reached Bethlehem? Of course, it's only an assumption that the star first appeared the night Jesus was born. Matthew doesn’t say.   

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And so forth. None of this is to belittle the rich, non-biblical traditions of Three Kings Day, even the bean in the cake. Folklore takes on life and meaning of its own, regardless of its supposed origin in history or scripture.
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Image: From the opera Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian Carlo Menotti, 1958 performance. I always loved this annual TV special about a surprise visit from the Three Kings.

The Scots auld lang syne (literally “old long since”) means roughly “for old times’ sake” or “times long ago.” In 1788, Scottish poet Robert Burns sent “Auld Lang Syne” to a collector of Scottish folk songs with the note, “The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man.”

Burns added new verses to those in the older Scottish folk song. Versions vary, in Scots and English. Lines we sing each year had appeared in earlier Scottish street songs and verses. Sir Robert Ayton’s “Old Long Syne” was published in 1711. Allan Ramsey in the 1720s began one poem with the words, “Should auld acquaintance be forgot.” Burns’s words were soon paired with a new tune.

Themes of nostalgia, friendship, and drink made “Auld Lang Syne” a staple of the Scottish New Year celebration, Hogmanay. North American dance band leader Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians heard the song during a winter in Britain and added it to their repertoire. From 1929 to 1976, first on radio and then on television, Lombardo’s band made “Auld Lang Syne” a highlight of their annual New Year’s Eve special. Millions sang along each year. Nearly half a century after Lombardy’s death, tomorrow at the stroke of midnight we’ll sing it again. 

Image: Illustration to Robert Burns' poem “Auld Lang Syne” by J.M. Wright and Edward Scriven. 

What does Yule evoke for you? Blazing fireplace log? Hot cider and eggnog? Solstice bonfire? Christmas carolers in the snow?

Yule gets its name from a pre-Christian Germanic winter observance, called jól in Old Norse and geola or giuli in Old English. Alleged details of jól gatherings to stave off the darkness are mostly speculative. In the cold and dark of northern Europe, one constant of the holiday must have been fire in some form. Another likely constant was feasting on roasted meats, since farmers would not have had enough feed to keep all their animals alive through the winter.

The Venerable Bede, an English monk and chronicler in the early 700s, wrote of a one- or two-month period called guili on the Anglo-Saxon calendar: “The months of Giuli derive their name from the day when the Sun turns back [and begins] to increase.” The later Icelandic Saga of Hákon the Good called jól a three-day celebration that began at mid-winter.

According to the saga, King Hákon of Norway (died 961) tried unsuccessfully to convert his entire nation to Christianity. Knowing the pagans would not willingly abandon their traditional holidays, he changed the date of jól to coincide with Christmas. Thus those who link Yule with the Solstice are historically correct, and so are those who equate it with Christmas or the season.

Whatever you may or may not celebrate this winter, glad Yuletide to all!

     "Give us a protective tariff, and we shall have the greatest nation on earth."
          - Abraham Lincoln, 1847

We learned in high school how the American Revolution reflected the colonists’ resentment of British taxes. I didn’t know until recently that they also resented Britain’s refusal to let the colonies tax imports. No sooner was the Constitution ratified than Congress enacted a tariff. Despite occasional controversy, import duties remained a mainstay of American policy from 1789 until the end of World War II.

Tariff revenues provided funds to run the federal government. With America lagging far behind England in manufactures, tariffs protected a program of rapid industrial catch-up. The War of 1812 showed vulnerability to a naval blockade, making it a matter of national security to reduce dependence on imports.

Second only to slavery, tariffs were the great controversy leading up to the Civil War. Whigs and Republicans enacted high protective tariffs, which benefited Northern industry. Democrats argued for free trade, to promote export of cotton and other raw materials. The pro-tariff forces dominated. Between 1861 and 1933, U.S. import duties on manufactures reached 50 percent, among the highest in the world.

Only after World War II did American economists and policy makers begin to favor reciprocal free trade. The old motives for tariffs had changed. After 1913, when the 16th Amendment allowed federal income taxes, tariffs ceased to be essential for revenue. American industry had caught up and surpassed the rest of the world. Airplanes and other technology made a successful naval blockade less likely.

Do the advantages of import duties still justify the resulting price increases? It's up for debate.

Image: British cartoon shows Americans and others using protectionism to win out over British free trade.

I once thought public health was about free medical services for those who couldn’t afford to pay. As an impoverished student, I was grateful the county clinic gave my baby vaccinations that would otherwise have cost $35 apiece.

Only much later, as I worked closely with public health professionals, did I see that public health is so much more. Even those of us with employer-paid insurance are profoundly affected by community factors beyond individual control. Sanitation doesn’t respect property lines. No vaccine is 100 percent effective. Tracking some threats requires laboratory tools.

​Infectious diseases are the examples I know best. Personal decisions aren’t enough to prevent or control an epidemic. Among recent outbreaks:

• Measles in Samoa, 2019. Samoa was on track to eliminate measles when the success of anti-vaccine activists let the disease return with a vengeance. Within less than four months, thousands of Samoans caught measles and eighty-three of them died.
• Covid in the United States, 2020. The surge of cases in a population with no prior immunity overwhelmed the medical system, leaving hospitals with too little space and staff to provide needed life-saving care.
• Polio in Gaza, 2024. Airstrikes destroyed most water and wastewater infrastructure in war-torn Gaza. Children waded through sewage. The first child paralyzed by polio there in twenty-five years signaled hundreds infected, since most infections are asymptomatic.

There’s legitimate room for debate on where to draw the line between personal freedom and danger to the community. Public health can help keep us all safer than we could be through individual choices alone.

Image: Laboratory scientist holds slide for DNA sequencing. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.