....And Another Plus for Geno

Recently Geno Auriemma was asked about the possibility that some of his team would, like several of the New England Patriots, not attend a White House reception if they won the national championship again this year.  His comment showed two more skills he possesses that the president lacks: diplomacy and knowledge of history.

First, with the microphone in his face he quickly came up with a just-subtle-enough "you know where I stand" comment:  “The fact that in all the 11 championships I’ve never been asked this question says something about where we are” as a country, “Forget the answer. The fact that I’ve never been asked means there’s something going on that isn’t normal.”  He continued in the same vein: “What are you going to do as a coach? It’s not like I can look it up and go, ‘What did other people do?’ We’re in a world that very few of us could have conceived five years ago.”  No rages, no insults, just an answer any diplomat would be proud of.

Then he made a comment that I doubt would even have been comprehensible to a president who seems to be proud that he has never even learned much about past presidents of the United States, much less world history.  Noting that he won't need to face the question unless UConn actually both wins the championship and receives an invitation, Geno said “I’m not crossing the Rubicon. That’s Caesar. Once your army crosses that river, you are an enemy of the state.”

So now I'd nominate Geno for Secretary of State, or Ambassador to Italy, and I also think Geno's library would be better than the hardly imaginable one for 45.

Who’s Your Doctor? Maybe Wu’s Your Doctor

            Recently I had some medical appointments with specialists new to me.  One was a cardiologist, whose last name was Kannam.  Although we didn’t discuss ethnicity, he seemed to me to be South Asian.  (On Google, I found that Kannam is of Indian, specifically Tamil, origin.) The next visit was to a sleep specialist, Dr. Makhija.  This time we had a broader chat, and I did ask her origins, which turned out to be Indian.  We talked about immigration and she noted the folly of immigration bans, because “We’re your doctors.” Next, I got a referral from my eye doctor to a glaucoma specialist named Rao. Going on line, I found that my Rao, Dr. Veena, was one of over two dozen Massachusetts Dr. Raos.  In fact you could almost confine yourself to Raos and have total medical care, from prenatal to hospice, including cardiac, gastro, ob-gyn, surgery, kidney, psychology, and acupuncture.

            But that’s nothing compared to my wife’ s surname team.  Her dermatologist, Dr. Wu, has a name shared by over 40 doctors and dentists in the area.  They cover 25 specialties and subspecialties, from pediatric dentistry to population medicine.  If Dr. Daniel, an ophthalmologist, needs you to see a specialist in glaucoma, the cornea, or the retina, he can send you to another Wu. Trouble with your kidneys, heart, mind, bones, neural network, skin? – there’s a Wu for you.

            There are also a large number of Muslim doctors, though I haven’t found a practical way to locate them by name.  But various sources estimate there are 15,000 – 20,000 Muslim doctors in the United States, or around 2% of the medical profession, about the same percentage of Muslims as in the general population.  In all about 20% of American doctors are foreign-born, and research shows no difference between their care and that of American born and trained doctors.  But there is a group of doctors who have a worse record – U.S. born doctors who trained elsewhere and then came back to practice here.

            So a medical “America First” campaign just might be bad for your health.  Be sure to read the label.

Why Geno Auriemma Would Make a Better President Than The One We Have

I’ve been a fan of the University of Connecticut Womens basketball team for about twenty years, partly because one of their star players in the 90s was the daughter of my college’s men’s basketball center when I was a student. Over the years, though, I’ve begun focusing as much on their coach, Geno Auriemma, as on the players.  I’ve heard several people say he would be a great leader of any sort of group, and could train others in leadership skills.

            It’s only this year, however, that I’ve realized he actually could be a better leader than the one we’ve got.  Here, in no special order, are some of the reasons why:

1.     “Make America Great Again.”  Geno not only made UConn great, he started from a base near zero.  In the 10 seasons before he arrived, UConn’s record was 92 wins and 163 losses.  It took Geno four seasons plus two games to pass 92 wins.

2.     “So much winning you’ll get tired of winning.”  Under Geno, UConn owns the two longest winning streaks in basketball history, men’s or womens.  His lifetime won-lost record is the best in men’s or womens basketball, and his 30.6 wins per season is also by far the best.  If he continues to coach for 4 more years, he is likely to end his career as the mens or womens coach with the most wins of all time.

3.     “I know the best people.”  Geno consistently recruits one of the best classes in womens basketball.  Trump recruits people who’ve never played in the jobs to which he assigns them, and often ones who don’t like the work their job entails (Education, Energy, EPA, etc.).  To date Geno has never picked a player who didn’t know basketball or didn’t like it.

4.     Clean Professional Record: In 32 seasons, Geno has never had an NCAA sanction placed on his team.  Trump has spent $25 million to settle suits against his university, and has settled suits against him by golf course members condo investor and others. He’s been involved in 169 suits with the federal government alone.

6.     Clean Personal Record: Need I say more?

7.     Team Builder: A remarkable record of choosing talent, nurturing it, getting the best out of each player, and building loyalty.  Numerous sources, and Geno himself, credit his 32-year veteran assistant coach Chris Dailey, for a significant part of the team’s success. Trump as so far fired, been forced to fire, or lost two campaign managers, one NSA director, and one Cabinet nominee, in seven months.

8.     Respecter of Women:  Geno’s players love him, his assistant coaches have consistently been women, and eleven assistants or players have gone on to major coaching jobs.  He has never apparently called any woman pig, dog, slob, bimbo, disgusting animal, etc. etc. etc.

9.     He knows how hold secret meetings when he’s strategizing.  

Oops, I forgot, he’s an immigrant.  So maybe he’d have to settle for a Cabinet Post: 

·      Defense – who’s better at building a strong defense?

·      Labor – no one gets his players to work harder

·      Interior – all-time record for blocked shots in a season

·      Energy – have you seen the way those women play?

·      Education – spent over 20 successful years in public education; teaches his players to    succeed.  (Betsy DeVos 0 years)

Immigrants—they get the job done.

Straws in the Wind – Or This Land is Still Yours and Mine

As the current regime enters its third week, my antennae, like most of yours, have been raised to an unusually high level.  Both in reading, viewing, and everyday life, I’m on the lookout for signs of the times.  So I thought I’d just comment on a few personal experiences that have interested me.

  

1.         On a trip last week to DC on JetBlue I sat next to a young woman, and began chatting.  Lynn told me she was on her way to DC from Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital for a quarterly steering committee meeting at NIH on genetic medicine.  I asked about her education and learned she was born south of Mumbai, and received her BA and MA in India, arrived in the U.S. three years ago (and she was completely unaccented), took another degree at the Unversity Michigan. 

2.         Just before the trip, I stopped at a new bakery café on Martha’s Vineyard.  A tiny lady with a chef’s toque came out and thanked me warmly for coming.  I said it was great to see this empty building open again.  She started to tell me her story.  Fifteen years ago her husband had come up from Brazil and got a job in a local non-chain supermarket.  Eight months later she came north with her three children, ages 10 to 14, to take a job there as a meat cutter, her home profession.  Both worked there until a few years ago, when her husband opened a tiny restaurant attached to a gas station.  When it seemed to be stable, she moved over there to bake desserts and breads.  Gradually the baking took over most of the space, and they began to look for a place to open their own bakery.  They offered to rent the space they’re now in, and after looking at their financials the landlord asked if they’d like to buy it.  They agreed, put down a substantial down payment, renovated, and are now in business.  Oh, and after 15 years they also own their own home, and their three children are grown and working.

 As Lin Manuel Miranda says, “Immigrants – we get the job done.”

  

3.         I’m a member of the Cosmos Club in DC.  Cosmos is certainly no leftist organization – it had to be taken to the Human Rights Commission in 1988 before it would admit women.   But it was founded for and by “men of science,” including John Wesley Powell and admits those who have "done meritorious original work in science, literature, or the arts, or... recognized as distinguished in a learned profession or in public service."  This includes everyone from Mark Twain to Carl Sagan, Louis Brandeis, to John Hope Franklin. So there's a certain respect for non-alternative facts and for the law.

            Anyway, I stay there when I’m in DC: on Dupont Circle, free breakfast and parking, interesting lectures, and rooms below average cost.  So last weekend I was in the bar when I noticed two of the Cocktails of the Month:

            Maid in Mexico (Tequila, Lime, Mint, and Cucumber)

            DC Mule (Moscow Mule)

Protest appears in the most surprising places.

People Hearing Without Listening

               In addition to blogging here, I also write online for mediate.com’s  weekly newsletter on topics relating to conflict resolution.  This week the e-letter published a piece of mine on the election, in which I suggested that cultural conflict theory offered two useful insights into the election: first, that contact between people under appropriate conditions such as common goals and local support often eased conflict between groups, and second, that the development of "superordinate identities," e.g "we may come from different places, but now we’re all students at XY University," also was a potent force.  I suggested that many of those most concerned about terrorism and immigration live in places where they have little contact with “the other,” and that those speaking for unity needed to contend with others emphasizing separateness.  (For the curious, the piece is at http://www.mediate.com/articles/BarbieriR9.cfm.)

               Not terribly controversial, I thought, until, for only the third time ever, I received a response from a gentleman in one Crystal Lake (there are 3: Texas, Arizona, and California).

We have not succeeded in convincing the others of accepting our values. Unlike 19th century migration where many different language speaking ethnic groups came to America, they were just about all Christian white Europeans with essentially the same values.  They melted into"the Pot" rather easily. Many  of today's immigrants are not interested in assimilating. They want to bring their society here and have us accept their ways. Irish, Polish, German, Russian, French, Greek, Italian diversity was not real diverse. Strong nations are historically not diverse. Diversity weakens the central themes of successful societies. You live in a state where anything goes. Not 1 county voted  Republican, the only state in the union that can claim that dubious non-diverse distinction. But you are on the right track, we need to realize that we have much in common than differences and discuss our agreement areas first and that will allow civility to pervade the rest.

Wow, I thought, I’ve never actually heard such arguments directly.  So this is what we’re up against, I thought.  So I decided to reply to at least part of the argument.   (I did neglect to comment that it was the effort to be homogenous that doomed Hitler’s Germany, or that our successes over England in two wars, and Japan in World War II, seemed to run counter to his argument.)  I post it here so it doesn’t, to reconnect to my title, fall into he wells of silence.

“Thanks for your comments. Athough I heartily disagree with them, I prefer response to silence any time.  
            “But I do disagree.  First of all, you speak of "we" and "others."  By that very statement , you recreate the divisiveness that plagues us.  “We,” for you, are allegedly-white Christian Europeans.  That definition ignores the Declaration of Independence, the Freedom of Religion clause in the Bill of Rights, and the plain fact that people like Jefferson, Franklin, and Tom Paine were at best theists.  "We" included Puritans who had no interest whatsoever in freedom of religion, and continued to execute and banish heretics to execute heretic
            You also ignore the facts that "our" values included exterminating Indian populations, breaking treaties with them, and enslaving millions of black Africans.  "We" included thousands of preachers who defended slavery on religious grounds, and later thousands who defended segregation on the same grounds.  It included 13 Confederate states that broke away because, in the words of their vice president,  Alexander Stephens:

"The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

            I note that you exclude Spanish peoples from your list.  I don't know how Spanish Christians are much different from Italian Christians. I also think we should admit that we took a huge part of Mexico through war, so just like the Native Americans and the African Americans, we made them part of us against their will.
            Finally, how do "our values" differ from theirs?  I know many people who are not Christian -- Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Native Americans, and others -- and I have never met anyone whose values differ from mine - Irish and Italian Catholic background -- as much as the those of the Klan, the Posse Comitatus, the Bundys, and other white "Christian" Americans do.  (I also believe that many of the people you mention also maintain "their ways" as vehemently as the later peoples.)
            So I see an entirely different America from you, starting at least as early as 1620. I want to continue living in mine, and I wish you all the best living in yours, as long as you don't try to impose it on others.




 


 

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