Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s recent announcement that she was withdrawing from House leadership and the accolades she has deservedly received since her announcement caused me – this is the kind of thing that retirees have time to ponder 😉 – to reflect upon which Americans since World War II I thought had the most impact on our lives who were never president of the United States.  What follows is the list I came up with.  [Note:  this is not a “feel good list.”  You will see that I do not consider the impacts of all of the listed Americans to have been positive.]  One places more value on what one knows, and this list necessarily betrays my relatively greater interest in public policy, policy and commerce.  The explanations tend to be longer for those selections not as familiar to those with shorter memories.  With the exception of the first and last names below, my list is in alphabetical order.

• Martin Luther King, Jr.  Dr. King’s crusade to bring the nation’s racial injustice to Americans’ attention via nonviolent means places him above and apart as not only the most consequential American non-President since World War II, but the most consequential non-President of the Twentieth century.

• Muhammad Ali.  Mr. Ali’s still-unequaled heavyweight boxing ability combined with his articulate social commentary, his grit, and his fearlessness not only in the ring but in adopting Islam and standing up to American administrations’ pursuit of an egregiously misguided war effort made him a worldwide icon who lifted the spirits and aspirations of African Americans and earned the esteem of all but the most racially-biased of his fellow citizens.

• Jeff Bezos.  The amazing variety and convenience of Mr. Bezos’ Amazon has revolutionized the way we shop.  This stunning conceptual, technological and logistical achievement must arguably be balanced against its detrimental impact on local retailers, its diminution of the employment prospects of some of our less-skilled citizens, and its reduction of Americans’ traditional physical shopping interactions.

• Warren Buffett.  Mr. Buffett’s renown as an investor and his endearing homespun manner are well known; I myself follow some of his investing maxims.  That said, I believe that his was the first prominent voice to assert that corporations’ overriding responsibility was to act in the good of the company’s shareholders and that senior management’s compensation should be tied to the corporation’s fortunes.  I would submit that these precepts have led to a general disregard for other corporate constituencies, such as employees, communities, sometimes even customers, and has resulted in excessive corporate focus on cost-cutting, outsourcing and short-term results in lieu of long term and broader societal benefits.

• Hillary Clinton.  Whether or not one finds her particularly likeable, Ms. Clinton’s extraordinary career, her undoubted ability, and her bone toughness have made clear that a woman can be, should be, and will be President of the United States.

• Newt Gingrich.  The Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives in the late 1990s.  An observation about Mr. Gingrich during PBS’ American Experience:  Clinton Part I:  “You’ve heard of von Clausewitz’ definition of war as ‘politics by other means.’  Newt considered politics to be ‘war by other means.’”  Unquestionably bright and knowledgeable, Mr. Gingrich made Washington politics blood sport – the other party wasn’t an adversary, as believed by former President Ronald Reagan and former House Speaker Tip O’Neill, but rather, the enemy – an attitude now common on both sides of the aisle.  The American experiment has been tarnished as a result.

• Barry Goldwater.  The longtime Republican Arizona Senator was the first modern proponent of honorable conservative thought:  that states’ rights had been unconstitutionally usurped by the federal government, that Americans were too handicapped by taxes and regulation, that too much welfare was debilitating rather than enabling, that government is best done at the local level, etc.  Acknowledged by Dr. King not to be a racist, Mr. Goldwater had a strong libertarian streak, at the end of his life criticizing the religious right, supporting gay rights, and defending abortion.  One can agree with his principles or not, but he had principles.  He laid the path for Mr. Reagan.  I cringe whenever I read or hear news media refer to MAGAs as “conservatives”; I once heard it said that Mr. Goldwater – undeniably crusty — declared, when referring to isolationist and arguably racist elements in his era claiming to be “Conservatives”:  “They’re not conservatives.  They’re just assholes.”

• Steve Jobs.  The iPhone.  The icons we use in all of our applications to communicate.  ‘Nuff said.  As you watch many Americans scrolling their phones while ignoring their companions, you can ask yourself whether Mr. Jobs’ contributions were good or bad, but we are where we are.

• Robert Kahn/Vinton Cerf.  Although the concept of the World Wide Web had many contributors dating back to Nikola Tesla in the early 1900s, Messrs. Kahn and Cerf developed the protocols that made the internet a reality for the general public.  I consider the internet primarily a positive force, but it has certainly been abused in ways I’m sure that Messrs. Kahn and Cerf never envisioned.

• George Marshall.  The overall architect of the Marshall Plan, the Truman Administration’s plan to rebuild a Europe destroyed by World War II.  Given his previous role as Army Chief of Staff in the war effort, he was viewed as nonpolitical, and his credibility paved the way for a plan that rebuilt Europe and kept it out of Communist control – setting up a diplomatic and territorial firewall that protects America to this day.

• Nancy Pelosi.  The first woman Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the most powerful woman constitutional officer in our history, she led her caucus successfully during what has been our most poisonously partisan and tumultuous political period since the Civil War.  Ms. Pelosi has endured endless vituperation magnified, in my view, simply because she is a woman.  She’s bright, tough, and cool under pressure.  She held the Congress together during the January 6^th attack.  She considers the Affordable Care Act her greatest achievement as Speaker; I would suggest that the number of bills she got passed during the last Congress with a caucus as factionalized as the Republicans was an equally notable achievement.    

• Eleanor Roosevelt.  I would submit that Mrs. (as she was known) Roosevelt was the leading postwar figure in two movements:  progressivism and women’s rights.  She deployed her prominence in outspoken advocacy of liberal causes and reformist movements considered then (and, for some, perhaps now) “socialist,” for which a direct line exists between her thinking and that of U.S. VT Sen. Bernie Sanders.  In 1948, President Harry Truman appointed her to the United Nations, and she became the first chairperson of the UN Commission on Human Rights.  She supported the founding of a UN Agency on nutrition.  Gallup found her the “most admired living woman” among Americans every year save one between 1948 (when the poll began) to 1961, but she was regularly vilified.  Although Mrs. Roosevelt opposed the Equal Rights Amendment – she didn’t consider it necessary – I am confident that Mses. Clinton and Pelosi would both agree that their rises and careers were enabled by the trailblazing of Mrs. Roosevelt.

• George Wallace.  The true prophet of today’s MAGAism who most potently stimulated the nerve in the American political fabric ultimately exploited by former President Donald Trump is neither AK Gov. and 2008 Republican Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin nor Republican Patrick Buchanan; it is former AL Gov. George Wallace.  Mr. Wallace, who famously “stood in the schoolhouse door” in 1963 to attempt to stop the enrollment of African American students at the University of Alabama, later sublimated – slightly – his racist message and in his 1968, 1972, and 1976 presidential campaigns, instead turned his attacks on the elites and the “pointy-headed bureaucrats in Washington.”  A Democrat (before it was politically acceptable to be a Republican in the South), Mr. Wallace had Mr. Trump’s raw charisma and ability to rouse crowds.  David Halberstam reported in The Unfinished Odyssey of Robert Kennedy, “In late July, 1968 [after the assassination of Mr. Kennedy], Wallace turned to a reporter and said, ‘You reporters are for [anti-Vietnam war candidate and then-U.S. MN Sen. Eugene] McCarthy, aren’t you; and your editors are for [moderate and then U.S. Vice President Hubert] Humphrey; but your pressmen are for me.’ [Italics Mr. Halberstam’s].”  In 1968, Mr. Wallace won five states – Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, — all but Georgia MAGA bastions today.

• Mark Zuckerberg.  Mr. Zuckerberg certainly isn’t the only one responsible for the virulent spread and destructive impact of social media upon our society, but Facebook, given its breadth, is arguably the vehicle through which Americans’ most toxic impulses were most able to metastasize.

• John F. Kennedy.  I know; I appear to be cheating.  However, I don’t add former President John Kennedy to this list due to his presidential accomplishments — which, aside from his ultimately brilliant management of the Cuban Missile Crisis, were middling – but because he first understood and leveraged, for the long term good or ill, the marriage between politics and media.  Where before his time Americans were governed by frequently portly and/or balding men, he himself acknowledged that he could never have won the presidency but for TV.  He looked good.  He spoke well.  He mastered the soundbite before we even had a term for it.  The debate tactics he employed against Richard Nixon in 1960 are still the hallmarks of political debating.  I suspect that every politician of the two following generations affirmatively studied him, and I am confident politicians still do today, although they may not recognize the progenitor of the on-camera techniques they employ.  Since Mr. Kennedy’s election, we have had no bald presidents, no obviously overweight presidents [Mr. Trump has a great tailor  😉 ], and only two – Lyndon Johnson and George H.W. Bush – who wore glasses on-camera.  I would venture that at least Mr. Reagan, former President Barack Obama, and Mr. Trump could not have won the presidency but for the path forged by Mr. Kennedy.  Make of that what you will.

Who did I miss?       

Every Middle America neighborhood has one retired old coot who seems to have nothing better to do but cut his lawn every other day.  I realized the other day:  I’ve become that guy.

For over 40 years, the debate has continued between TLOML and me:  How frequently should we fertilize our lawn — if at all?

One school of thought on this hotly-discussed subject holds that in order to have a suitable – indeed, a lush, vibrant – lawn, one should fertilize four times a year, at the spring and summer Holidays:  Easter, Memorial Day, July 4, and Labor Day.  (We’ll ignore those fanatics who hold that another fertilization in late autumn is just what the little blades need to flourish.)  The other school of thought — while conceding that one does not want one’s lawn to be an embarrassment; one does not want the neighbors muttering that you’re endangering their property values — holds that except in rare instances, fertilization is The Devil; that all that happens when one fertilizes is that the grass will grow, simply increasing the number of times that one must mow.  This approach posits that relatively fewer summer fertilizations, while perhaps not yielding the lushest green carpet, will nonetheless be sufficient to avoid embarrassment.

Yet another debate:  Is it safe to mow when if it’s too hot?  This is not an expression of concern for the safety of the mower, but rather:  Won’t mowing when it’s too hot shock the grass?  There is, of course, the contrary philosophy:  This is mowing day.  Grass has survived for millennia.  It’ll survive mowing by a septuagenarian wielding a lawnmower that is, in dog years, even older than he is.

I have felt for decades that if I could spray paint our entire lot with a long-lasting grass-green paint (with pebbles, of course, for texture), such would be mighty tempting.  Given the little likelihood that I will be able to implement such a strategy, and since I’ve largely lost the fertilization debate, I am holding out for new scientific pronouncements.  In light of the way that many in our area embraced No Mow May, I am now hoping that some melittologist will declare that mature weeds, like long grass, fosters bee survival.  Perhaps then TLOML will embrace a new, “Leave the Weeds to the Bees” movement 😉 .

Have a great weekend.  Given the challenges we face domestically and internationally, there is no better time to celebrate and cherish our Independence Day.

A sad moment in our household:  the passing of Political Commentator and longtime PBS NewsHour Contributor Mark Shields, at age 85.  Between 2001, when New York Times Columnist David Brooks joined the NewsHour, and 2020, when Mr. Shields left the NewsHour due to failing health, we never failed to see their Friday night exchanges, being sure to record them when we couldn’t watch live.  Although my substantive sentiments were frequently closer to the more-conservative Mr. Brooks’ than to those of the more-liberal Mr. Shields, one could not help but be enchanted by Mr. Shields’ warm and open personality.  While Mr. Shields’ natural passing is without the anguish, outrage, and terror that have accompanied other incidents recently addressed in these pages, may he rest in peace following a life of contribution and good fellowship.  Although TLOML and I obviously never knew him personally, we nonetheless somehow feel that we’ve lost a wise and beloved friend. 

A link to an Associated Press piece on Mr. Shields’ passing is set forth below; I expect that it is more readily accessible to all that follow these pages than similar tributes by the Washington Post and the New York Times.      

https://apnews.com/article/david-gergen-brooks-mark-shields-maryland-elections-8ab1a49920e7f935c276f5fb1a505125

Attached is a link to a Washington Post article reporting that Brazilian authorities have announced that a fisherman has confessed to ambushing and killing British journalist Dom Phillips and his colleague, Indigenous Expert Bruno Pereira, in a remote region of the Amazon.

Given the many days that passed following the disappearance of Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira, the outcome of the authorities’ search and investigation was not unexpected … but is nonetheless gut-wrenching.

The report indicates that Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira were armed when they began their trip.  Their weapons were insufficient protection against an ambush.

The report further indicates:

“President Jair Bolsonaro, a vocal advocate for development who has defended illegal miners and deforesters, has cast blame on Phillips for his disappearance. In a statement Wednesday, he said the journalist was ‘disliked in the region.’

‘He did a lot of stories against gold mining and on environmental issues,’ Bolsonaro said. ‘In that region, a region extremely isolated, not a lot of people liked him. He should have redoubled his focus on taking care of himself. But he decided to make this excursion.’” [Emphasis Added].

One can only infer from Mr. Bolsonaro’s dismissive attitude that he and the elements of Brazilian government he controls intend to do little to protect the Amazon environment, the indigenous people who live there, or those that report upon the activities of those ravaging it.   

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/15/brazil-dom-phillips-bruno-pereira-remains/

For those able to access it, there is a link below to a Washington Post article indicating that authorities searching for British Journalist Dom Phillips and his associate, Bruno Pereira, have found two bodies tied to a tree in the Amazon rainforest.  The report indicates that a Brazilian diplomat in London has informed a member of Mr. Phillips’ family that it is likely that the discovered remains are those of Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira, although such as not yet been confirmed.  Effects belonging to the two men have been recovered.  Our prayers go out for these two brave men who believed in protecting the Amazon and the uncontacted indigenous peoples who inhabit this extremely remote region.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/13/dom-phillips-bruno-pereira-bodies-found/

Below you will find a link to an article in The Guardian describing the recent disappearance of Guardian Contributor Dom Phillips.  Mr. Phillips has spent over a decade reporting upon the indigenous tribes and environmental issues of the Amazon.  This report has particular significance for us.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jun/06/dom-phillips-british-journalist-missing-brazil-amazon