Looking Ahead

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis Yesterday, upon opening the latest T&V, my heart jumped with joy, figuratively. Egad, behold, we now have The Soapbox, a column of differing opinions, a battlefield for ideas, actively encouraged (space permitting). Twenty years ago when I started writing this column as a community service, there were hardly any opinions contradicting me. Over the years, about four controversies arose, one over my profiling gypsies and the others I no longer remember. From time to time I had some doubts about whether my straight-on opinions were so uniformly accepted, or whether I was meeting reader indifference. The latter idea was promptly dismissed here, because of the street corner encounters with readers who recognized me and said kind things, the worst being that I overload my pieces with facts, making them hard to read. I also come from the era of 1968, of flower children, public awakening, and the Chicago convention. Teaching then was still mostly compensated by psychic rewards: I left a five year adjunct teaching run at NY University in 1970s when family priorities intruded. It was also then that the Blackboard Jungle era cooled, and teaching became better paid, attracting career people, and the street culture in schools became more noted. Ah well, that's another story/or myself, I have also cooled, not likely to jump into controversies with joy, as I would have two decades ago, and will not be much of a participant. As for the Soapbox, I am looking forward to debats with the tone well up, the participants not letting their righteous indignation overwhelm the facts. But I should not quibble, free expression rewards the reader with an opportunity to evaluate, and it is a good sport, as long as it the expressions are reasoned, and not limited to "I like" or "I dislike," as the pseudonymous comments in the simplistic social networks and blog comments encourage. One should stand with one's name and address behind what he/she says, we live in a free society where people express opinions without fear and are listened to when they reason, just like the men and women in Norman Rockwell's painting of Town Hall meeting, Four Freedoms. Thus, I appreciate Dr. Robert Bennett's comments in the April 19th T&V issue, because they are reasoned, allowing the reader to see specific evidence, for instance in denying climate change (I feel that scientific studies overwhelmingly support it), and requiring natural born citizenship for Presidents (I comment that all early US presidents were natural born citizens of the British Empire, and that Chester Arthur had a non-US citizen father.) If the authot feels that Roe v. Wade made an unwarranted extension of the establishment clause, and that this justifies the United Citizens extension and the expected Obamahealth extensions, I respectfully disagree - but appreciate his emotional argument. That’s all my comment on our intramural discourse; however, the discourse on national level is more worrisome. The NYTimes/CBS latest poll seems to advance Mitt Romney's chances for presidency to a 46-46 percent or even level with Obama, probably as a result of recent events. For one, Hillary Rosen's ill-advised comment about Mrs. Romney not working a day in her life was gleefully noted and objected to by the candidate's wife as an unwarranted critique of stay-at-home mothers, giving her husband's candidacy a counterweight to the anti-women’s charge levied at him. Then the GSA Secret Service scandal. Couple that to the heavy Taliban's attacks in Afghanistan, which boosted Romney’s criticism of the President’s troop withdrawal date announcement, as inciting the Taliban to wait us out, then attack. This may be a legitimate criticism, but the President’s action was by popular request. Romney, by the way, also occasionally voices his agreement with the withdrawal date fulfillment, and has trouble with matching his contradictory statements, not uncommon with him. That may be trouble for him, but what is bad for the country is that all the Republican candidates have sworn, on Grover Norquist’s commandments of “no new taxes,” to denounce all proposals and new laws embraced by President Obama, on principle, a position that will and does hurt the voters of US, not just by affecting our lives but also by destabilizing the US in the eyes of the world. Some of us may say that this may be even tantamount to treason. On a lighter topic, traveling in NYC, the other day, a taxi trip to the WestBeth complex in West Greenwich Village cost only $10, plus tip. I congratulated the driver, who pointed to his Smart phone and its GPS as the tool. On the late evening trip back, driving through traffic on the narrow picturesque streets and passing bicycles without lights and the drivers in dark clothes, not one but two (incredible stupidity!), we talked about the recent tightening of avenues, such as the Second and First in our T&V area, with access and parking lanes, as well as around Eight and neighboring avenues. The driver, with a Caribbean intonation, a part-time cabbie (his second job, he now has a daughter to see through college) with slight irony discussed what Mayor Bloomberg could add to his street reforms, if he should opt for another term, since implementing the closed streets around Times Squire, Madison Square and Union Square, with restaurant deliveries coming through sporadically and tourists going hungry (only joking, Mr. Mayor!). We spoke of European cities with downtowns closed to vehicle traffic, and benefits of fresh air. People really care about that, climate change deniers should remember it.