Summer Camp Memories

The neighbor's 12 year old son, Mathew (who shovels our driveway when we are away during the winter)  has been shipped off to two week camp in NH.  Seeing the FB photo of Matt on his bunk, reminded me of the old Alan Sherman classic,  "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah"  The Youtube recording is linked below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea2EuozaJ7s

If it doesn't make you chuckle, you


A) ...Probably have the sound on mute
B) ...Are currently at camp and it's raining
C) ...Lacking a sense of humor
D) ...A grumpy classical music buff who does not like song parody


As a kid growing-up on the suburban streets of Watertown in the 50's, most of us did not get to go to summer camp.  We were not poor, but there were four of us and our parents did not think that middle class kids  needed to go to "away" camp, when the town offered a day program where kids could learn to weave gimp and play baseball and learn crafts.  I'm sure my parents did not intend for us to learn some of the things we actually did learn from the park instructors, how to play poker for money and how to smoke cigarettes.  I often thought that Jimbo got us all smoking so he could bum Lucky Strikes from us.    My older brother claims to have had a brief affair with one of the female park instructors who was at least 5 years older than he at the time.

Our kids were able to experience Summer Camp.  My older daughter was allergic to horses; she  wrote every day for us to come and get her when we finally did drive up to fetch her, she had met a friend, changed her mind and stuck it out.  I am proud of her for that, but I do not think she opted for camp again.  When I asked her recently what she recall from her camp days, she couldn't recall any details.  PTSD, I guess.
  My younger daughter went to a place she called Camp Rottonwood in NH.  I forget the real name.  We would get a letter that started out "They are making us write home.  Please send more stamps."  She hated camp too, but kept going back on successive summers, mainly because her best friend was going too..  One of my nieces suffered a terrible injury to her leg when her horse banged into a fence.  That cut short her camping career.

Still, I think I would have liked it if I had been able to go to camp as a kid.  I missed-out on the canoeing, diving, hiking, horseback riding, ghost stories around the campfire and adventures, nocturnal pantie-raids on the girls' camp, that sort of thing...Perhaps, I am romanticizing the Summer Camp experience?

The View From the Fence

 Americans are basically divided into two groups. The first group sees the world changing for the better. We call these people Progressives. They tend to be naive and hopeful. They view the ever-changing cultural norms with equanimity. They see possibilities, they regard 'having fun' as a worthwhile goal. Fundamentally, they believe that things will work-out if we just try to get-along and treat each other decently. They feel superior to the other group because they are driven by compassion to share the wealth (especially the wealth of the rich fat cats) with less-fortunate souls. They regard human laziness and stupidity as an unfortunate result of a bad dice roll. By contrast, if one is lucky enough to be born good looking , healthy and smart enough to take advantage of opportunity, you must always keep in mind that you were not entitled to it; you were given a break and you must pay it forward.

The second group - the ones we call Conservatives - are a grumpy bunch of stick-in-the-muds. They spend their workdays trying to get ahead. Then they stay awake at night afraid of slippery slopes and camels' noses in tents. Conservatives always see the negative aspect of anything that smacks of change. They love traditions and old authoritative books and parchments. They think everything worth knowing was already known by the Founding Fathers; new fads and ideas are regarded with suspicion and skepticism. They don't see the point in having fun, because foreigners hate us and our way of life -- thus we need to stay on guard constantly.  Fun is for the weak minded Progressive sheep.  The central issue for Conservatives is the role of government.  They are convinced that all Progressives want a "Nanny State" where the Feds control every aspect of citizens' lives.   They see most taxation as stealing money from hard working people and giving it to ignorant slackers. They feel they are entitled to what they have, and hard cheese if you were born into the servant class, but that's the way it goes. Conservatives think they are superior to the other group because they are driven by their heads instead of their hearts.


Normally, I think of myself as a fence-sitter between the two groups, usually falling on the side of the progressives due to a tendency to feel empathy and to acknowledge the relativity of moral truths. Conservatives are driven by their heads, thus they see human existence as a zero-sum equation where someone has to lose for you to win. For them everything is black or white, right or wrong. They regard fence-sitting-seers-of-grey with contempt.

Throughout the 8 years of the Bush-Cheney administration we were treated to the monotone nattering drumbeat from ultra progressive partisans, ranting negatively about everything that "W" said or did. It was tiring but often laughable for the extremes that the Libs would go to find fault with the President.

Since he  was elected,  the cons have been  filling the blogosphere and airwaves with silly criticisms of everything Barack Obama has done since his inauguration. Examples abound:
He is blamed for the ineffectiveness of the economic stimulus package (which was started during Bush's term), he is blamed for not bringing the troops home, for supporting a surge in Afghanistan, and the record unemployment is clearly his fault.  The recent attack on the Benghazi embassy is another example where the opposition is bound and determined to embarrass Hillary Clinton and President Obama for snafus that they say were covered-up to help Obama get re-elected.

Many on the right wing have drifted to the fringes and embrace all sorts of conspiracy theories about the extreme path that the Obama administration is following to turn the US into a socialist state.  They say he wants illegal immigrants in the country so he can have more voters.  If you point out the non-citizens cannot vote, the anti-Obamite will just laugh at you and refer you to thousands of  cases of alleged voter fraud, which they say is only committed by Democrats.  ( In my personal experience I know of only one case where someone used a loophole to vote twice.  He is a Republican.)

The main thing for which Obama should be criticized is this abomination of legislation called health care reform (AKA: Obamacare). As a candidate, Obama promised transparency, but has been silent while his pals in congress concocted this monstrosity of a reform bill behind closed doors. Candidate Obama pledged not to sign any legislation with earmarks, ("...we can no longer accept an earmarks process in which many of the projects being funded fail to address the real needs of our country.") Yet, nothing has changed. Deals were made in exchange for votes. Obama has has failed in his promise to us on these most important issues.

Happy 4th of July?

Today, the lead story in the newspaper is the ousting of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's duly elected President,  by the military generals.  In English we might call this a "Coup D'Etat", but the generals call it "the will of the people".  They say the people want a "do-over" of last year's election.

Personally speaking, I am conflicted.  I'm glad to see that the citizens of Egypt reject the Islamist government dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.  But I am leery of military takeovers of a government that everyone agrees was elected in a fair contest.  As we have seen in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere in the Middle East,  the enemies of our enemies are not always our friends. 

This creates a big conundrum for the Obama administration.  (Many people in this country would also like to see a do-over of the last election.)  The USA is again seen to be supporting the wrong group.  Oops.

And, we give the wrong guys in Egypt one point five billion dollars in aid annually, while kids in the USA have rumbling bellies because their head start programs have been slashed.  

Anyhow, I have concluded that this Independence thing is a bit overplayed, when we recognize that even here in the land of the free and home of the brave, elections are decided by mostly uninformed voters who watch too much TV. The winners in elections are less interested in  the needs of their constituents but rather represent the fat cats who funded their election campaigns. 

Probably not what the signers of the Declaration had in mind.