Revised verse for a course reversal

English teachers, rejoice! Sonnets finally are headline news!


Last week, Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, offered his interpretation of a key passage from “The New Colossus,” the 14-line poem by Emma Lazarus carved on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty.


(As an aside, have you ever noticed how many folks in this administration are “acting”?)


To Cuccinelli, the term “teeming masses” refers only to European people, which was his odd way of defending the latest round of restrictions this regime wants to impose on immigrants. Basically, if they can’t stand on their own and can’t survive without the help of any form of public assistance, ever, they can say goodbye to their green cards.


The policy proposal prompted me to seek out Lazarus’ original sonnet and make some updates for a new century and a new sheriff in town. Of course, the amendations (in brackets) will require changing the likeness of the statue. I trust it won’t be hard to guess the new image that should greet visitors to our shores. If anybody’s ego is worthy of a giant statue, it’s his.


***


Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame


[but more like the gaudy casinos emblazoned with the family name],


With conquering limbs astride from land to land



[And Cheeto-orange skin and fly-away hair at hand];


Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates [forget the gates, gimme a Big Beautiful Wall, paid for by diverted military funds ... I mean, by Mexico] shall stand


A mighty woman [let’s make it a man, one with off-the-rack suits and too-long ties]


with a torch [and a flame-thrower, and a big big big machine gun with the NRA logo emblazoned on the side], whose flame


Is the imprisoned [because the poorer you are, the more we like to imprison] lightning, and her [his] name


Mother of Exiles [Father of Outrageous Tweets]. From her [his] beacon-hand


Glows world-wide welcome [or scorn, especially if you’re from one of those ”(expletive)hole” countries]; her [his] mild [yet strong, powerful, healthy and virile] eyes command



The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.


“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she [he] [but really, we’d rather have your light-skinned, wealthy European storied pomp, especially if you are a really hot, blonde immigrant who likes older men — va va voom!]


With silent lips. “Give me your tired [but not too tired for all the jobs that nobody already living here doesn’t want], your poor [but not poor enough to qualify for public assistance, and if you do qualify, you’d better not ask even if your kids are hungry or sick or whatevs, cuz we’ll tell you and them to go back where you came from, even if you came from here],


Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free [and, thanks to environmental-regulation rollbacks, to breathe smog, exhaust and other carcinogens too — but don’t you dare complain because we’ll boot you out faster a lefty, antifa protestor at an election rally, don’tcha know],


The wretched refuse [we prefer only aliens ... I mean, immigrants who win, of course] of your teeming shore.


Send these, the homeless [and vermin, invaders, and rapists — don’t bother], tempest-tost to me [what’s a tempest, anyway, and is “tost” what I have for breakfast along with leftover KFC while setting foreign policy based on Fox and Friends?],


I lift my lamp [and my crowd numbers and my Electoral College numbers, both bigger than anybody else’s — numbers, I have the biggest numbers, I really do] beside the golden door!”



***


Granted, these new words take away most of the poem’s beauty and lyricism, not to mention a guiding principle under which many people first came to this country, but one could argue that 45 has all but eliminated beauty and lyricism from public discourse, anyway. Besides, all that sentimental slop is for losers.


Don’t like the revisions? Well, that’s a problem, because the original words don’t apply to anything going on with immigration policy proposals today.


Better just to tear down the statue and put up a 151-foot STOP sign. In English only, of course, because we only speak American here.


chris.schillig@yahoo.com


@cschillig on Twitter

Looking back to analyze school daze

Did you enjoy your high school years?


A former classmate asked this on Facebook a few weeks ago, and I’ve been thinking about it on and off ever since. This has been challenging because my high school memories are growing fuzzy, like a picture viewed through a frame covered in decades of dust.


What I do remember is that I approached school like a job, which sounds harsher than I intend because I like working. Work gives people purpose. So if school was my job, then I enjoyed going there, showing up every day, being a good employee and doing the assigned tasks. Like many workers, I goofed off sometimes and was written up occasionally, but for the most part, I was probably considered eligible for rehire.


I had friends in high school, took some good and not-so-good classes, made memories of both the smiling and cringing varieties, and experienced the four years without much fanfare. (College felt much the same way.)


American society has fetishized school in general and high school in particular through a series of sitcoms, movies and comic books designed to make those years more significant than they already are. “Happy Days,” “American Graffiti,” “The Blackboard Jungle,” “Archie,” and dozens (hundreds?) more have entrenched high school into pop-culture parlance — the jocks, nerds, mean girls, greasers, goths and preps. Everybody had a role to play and a place to play it, be it the science classroom, study hall, Big Game or Big Dance. The really scary kids acted out their roles in the bathrooms or the alley out back, of course, but they too are part of the popular conception of high school.


Most comedy or drama results from people stepping outside their comfort zones, so a jock interacting with a goth in the hallway or a mean girl partnering with a nerd for the science fair is a source of numerous angsty conversations or witty one-liners, depending on the genre. How much this happens in real life is the subject of some debate, especially if those roles are exaggerated anyway.


One unintended consequence of all this media attention is to super-size many teens’ expectations for high school, making those eight semesters the Mount Everest of existence before they’ve even had a chance to experience them. To have a great high school career is to have a great life, and if every moment isn’t absolutely saturated in fun and zaniness ... well, there must be something wrong with you.


Ironically, or maybe inevitably, the other side of that high school mountain is populated by people who reached the peak of life in their teen years and who believe, in the words of the immortal prophet John Mellencamp, that “oh, yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.” These are the folks drawn to the past like a hypnotized mark to the swinging watch, seduced by the halcyon days of lettermen jackets and pompoms, where such objects have an almost totemic appeal.


They are attracted by the alleged simplicity of high school, before marriage, mortgage and the other challenges of adult life. They are the bar sitters, the wistful what-if-ers, and the targets of many a weight-loss, hair-growth and sports-car ad campaign.



My own high school memories are complicated, too, by the fact that I’ve spent 20 years of my adult life as a teacher, watching my students navigate the sometimes treacherous, sometimes wonderful, route to adulthood.


In this context, the question “Did you enjoy your high school years?” becomes much more vital, especially with the school year about to begin.


I want my students to enjoy their high school years, not because the time is the be-all, end-all of their existence (it’s not), but because people do better at something that they like, with people they like being around.


Enjoyment doesn’t have to mean unbridled joy at every turn. It does mean that students are engaged in something that they find value in, either because it relates to their life today or to an activity or job they want to pursue tomorrow.


Sometimes — maybe even often — this engagement is hard work. It requires putting off activities that bring instant gratification (an evening of Fortnite) for something that will pay dividends later (an evening of calculus).


In this regard, all of us — relatives, friends, neighbors — can help the young people in our lives to engage with school. We can ask them about their day, classes and the future, and then really listen when they answer. We can help them find the resources they need — academic, social, mental-health, financial — to persevere. We can limit their exposure to negative influences and give them opportunities to grow in positive ways.


And we can remind them, no matter how great or how dismal their school experiences, that these years are just one part of what will be a long and fruitful life.



That way, 20 or 30 years later, maybe they will be able to see past the media-induced stereotypes if they are ever asked, “Did you enjoy your high school years?”


chris.schillig@yahoo.com


@cschillig on Twitter

'New normal' results in same tragic headlines

I hate the new normal.


At restaurants, bars, movie theaters or beloved local festival events, I hate scanning for exits and wondering who might be carrying a weapon and nursing a grudge, and if this might be the day or night when the American culture of mass shootings personally affects me or those I love.


I hate the ping of news alerts on my phone — three dead at a garlic festival in California on July 28; the one-two punch of 22 fatalities in El Paso on Saturday, followed by nine more in Dayton on Sunday.


I hate that “thoughts and prayers” has become a sick punchline for inertia.


I hate that someone, somewhere, even as these words are being typed, is mouthing the tired argument that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, and making a smarmy comment about the damage somebody could inflict with a sledgehammer, a steak knife or a chair leg.


I hate that the incidents that get the most attention are the ones with multiple fatalities, that so many one-offs — a guy with a gun blowing away his spouse or ex-girlfriend, a neighbor shooting a neighbor over loud music or barking dogs — hardly raise an eyebrow, just business as usual here in the Wild West of 2019.


Mostly, I hate knowing that gun violence, singletons and multiple homicides alike, will happen again and again and again until something is done.


What that something is can take two broad directions.


Direction number one is more guns. If more people were armed, goes this argument, and if more people did so under concealed-carry and open-carry laws, so wannabe-shooter psychos, craven to their very cores, would apparently stay at home.



A major flaw with this premise is that America, home to an estimated 327.2-million people, already has 390-million civilian firearms. The oft-repeated “good guy with a gun theory” doesn’t seem to hold water, unless the argument is that we don’t know how many psychos were deterred by the hypothetical presence of weekend warriors sporting weapons at craft shows and malls.


It seems more likely that the proliferation of guns in this country is part of the problem, not part of the solution. In other countries where guns are not as prevalent, incidents of gun violence, while not unheard of, are far less common. In the lexicon of Occam’s razor, this isn’t even a close shave.


How, then, to curtail access to guns without limiting the rights of law-abiding Americans to own them? (As an aside, a 2012 New Yorker article by Jeffrey Toobin explains how our modern understanding of the Second Amendment owes more to “an elaborate and brilliantly executed political operation” by the NRA and others in the 1980s then to centuries of prior legal precedent. But I digress.)


For one thing, we have to agree that the Second Amendment does not give citizens the right to own assault weapons, high-capacity magazines or accessories that increase their killing power.


Here is where gun aficionados love to bog down the argument with technical specs on what is or is not an assault weapon. To save a lot of emails, let me concede that any gun owner knows more details than I do. In plain English, any gun or attachment to a gun that allows it to kill a lot of people in a ridiculously short time is something civilians don’t need — not for personal protection, not for sport.


Secondly, we need to close loopholes in background checks so that they apply to all gun sales and transfers, and require that checks be completed before new owners take possession of weapons. Yes, this will slow down the process of buying and selling, in much the same way that new security procedures slowed down air travel after 9/11 — a worthwhile inconvenience because it made us safer.


The government also needs to expand the categories of people who cannot buy or own firearms to include individuals who are guilty of hate-crime misdemeanors and dating partners convicted of domestic violence. This will help curtail those tragedies that don’t always make front-page news.



The most common-sense changes can be found in the Brady Plan’s Comprehensive Approach to Preventing Gun Violence. At eight pages, it is short and eminently readable. It is also freely available online.


Will this be the series of tragedies that prompts a real discussion — from our coffee shops to Congress — about much-needed reform? And will we hold our elected lawmakers responsible for standing up to the NRA?


I hate to think it’s not, and I hate to think we won’t.


chris.schillig@yahoo.com


@cschillig on Twitter

Mueller testimony is political Rorschach test

“They have information — I think I’d take it.”


With these words, President Donald Trump confirmed in June what opponents have suspected for years, that he is morally bankrupt and incapable of putting loyalty to country above loyalty to self (or, perhaps more accurately, loyalty to self-interest, as a friend puts it).


Trump was speaking to ABC News when he was asked how he would handle a foreign government approaching him with dirt on a political opponent and whether he would contact the FBI.


He said he would contact authorities in such a situation only if he “thought there was something wrong,” not realizing or perhaps not caring that an overture from a foreign power falls squarely into this category.


The June exchange was never far from my thoughts as I listened to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress last week.


Mueller, who has been roundly criticized by both parties for appearing unfamiliar with the details of the report to which he’d signed his name, nonetheless laid out a sweeping case of foreign interference in the American election process.


He haltingly, yet authoritatively, dispelled a prevalent belief among Republicans that the report fully exonerated Trump. He objected to the characterization of his investigation as a witch hunt, noting Trump could be charged once he leaves office. He condemned Trump’s approval of WikiLeaks.


Yet it wasn’t long before Trump, who said earlier in the week that he wouldn’t watch the testimony, proved that statement, too, was a lie. He tweeted and crowed throughout the day, appearing at one point to misunderstand an important clarification that Mueller made regarding the ability to indict a sitting president, saying that Mueller had instead walked back an earlier statement about indictment after leaving office.


Of course, the whole Mueller affair did little to sway anybody’s opinions. Those who supported Trump before the testimony still did, and those who did not, still didn’t. One commentator called it a political Rorschach test, probably the most accurate summation of the day’s testimony.



Of course, it’s not really over for Trump, investigatively. In a piece in the New York Times, Caroline Frederickson, president of the American Constitution Society, spelled out the legal and ethical concerns still facing him. These include ongoing cases against many people named in the report, the president’s past and present business deals with Russia, and how much he and his campaign may have coordinated with WikiLeaks’ release of hacked Democratic emails.


Mueller, for his part, called Trump’s praise of WikiLeaks “beyond problematic.”


In many ways, Mueller’s report and his testimony could be seen as an indictment of unfettered capitalism, where the cutthroat, competitive nature of the business world lends itself to strange bedfellows and situational ethics.


In such an environment, one takes any advantage over an opponent, including insider information from disreputable sources.


Not surprising, then, that some in the Trump election team, well-versed in pages from corporate America’s book of dirty tricks, might resort to the same tactics in politics, perhaps without even knowing that such shenanigans, when undertaken with a foreign country intent on disrupting an election, might be more than unethical. They may be treasonous.


Proving this, however, has been challenging. The smoking gun, if one exists, is well-hidden. And the public seems to have grown weary of the search.


Less challenging is the issue of obstruction. Mueller laid out a damning case for that, including his opinion that the president’s written answers to investigators indicated Trump “generally” was not being truthful.



But there, too, Democrats have to proceed with caution. To impeach the president for attempting to cover up incidents that can’t be proven to have happened in the first place is a tough sell, and they must realize they would never garner the two-thirds Senate majority necessary to remove him. Pursuing the other concerns that Frederickson noted could lead to a stronger case, but it must never take precedence over genuine governance.


Focusing on the 2020 election is likely the better course of action, but still fraught with peril, especially if Trump continues to control the narrative via tweet and bumper-sticker-ready rhetoric.


Yet the president’s own words could also come back to haunt him. If the Dems make election security a key issue — and they should — then Trump’s June statements are as effective a condemnation as any impeachment hearings.


As a bonus, Dems don’t have to prove anything: He already indicated in that interview just how bereft of ethics he truly is. As Maya Angelou said, “When somebody shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”


Many Americans, especially Republicans, haven’t done that with Trump. How about now?