Birthright

 

If you were born here, you are an American. That’s what the Constitution says, and that’s what a federal judge said in response to our new President’s attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship by executive order.

That judge is right. But if it were up to me, and I had a magic wand, I would add one wrinkle. Even if you were born here, when you turned 21, you would, if capable, have to take the same civics test given to immigrants seeking citizenship, which demands at least a minimal knowledge of how our country works. If you failed, you would have to take a civics course and try again.

Why would I even suggest such a thing? I think it’s because it appears to me that many of us who were born here believe that it makes us better than others who weren’t, especially where race is involved. But we can’t take credit for being born here. We were just lucky, or if you prefer, blessed.

The same, by the way, goes for race. I am Caucasian, but I had nothing to do with that. Before I was born, God did not show me a bunch of color swatches like in a paint store. I did not get to say, “I think I’ll go with beige today.”

My proposal has exclusions. Native Americans would not have to take the civics test. They were here first. Black people who are descendants of slaves would be excused from the requirement as well, because their ancestors were imported here against their will.

It may seem contradictory, but I would not have a problem with someone foreign-born being elected a US President. That individual would have to be a naturalized citizen for at least 25 years and would have to have resided here during that time. This would open the door to talented people with a love of this country who are currently shut out of the Presidential election process. Yes, it could open it up to bad people too, but history shows that the current US birth requirement hasn’t always produced the best results.

OK, calm down folks, these are just ideas I have been playing with in my head. It’s unlikely that anybody is going to change the law in the near future – amending the Constitution is difficult, and it should be. And my ideas would just call for more bureaucrats for administration anyway. But I have a persistent conviction that being American is more than just a question of geography.

A Lesson from the Ants

 

It never fails. Following any disaster, there is an obsession with finding out whose fault it was. The Los Angeles area fires are no exception.

It’s been reported that firefighters on the ground ran out of water and that a reservoir was dry. The fire chief had repeatedly warned that the fire department was underfunded. The mayor was in Africa when she should probably have been back in town for the start of this event.

All these things are true, but I do think we need to consider whether reversing them would have made much of a difference. It’s generally agreed that the area was hit by hurricane force winds over an extended period, making it unsafe for water- and retardant-dropping aircraft to fly, leaving control of the fires and their embers in the hands of ground forces. Even had aircraft been up, the wind might have prevented the water and retardant they released from falling in the right place.

It seems pretty clear to me that while they fought bravely and saved lives, there wasn’t much that ground forces by themselves could have done to prevent this tragedy. Let’s just say that L.A. was ready for an 8-point earthquake, and a 9 came along.

The people who lost their homes are understandably frustrated and angry. But is it only current officeholders and officials who may be responsible? What about all those who preceded them and perhaps failed to consider the exploding population of L.A. and neglected to build the necessary fire-prevention infrastructure? And those who denied or ignored climate change?

The victims of the Pacific Palisades fire include many celebrities and wealthy people. Also included are the not-so-wealthy, those who lived in homes that were valuable only because they had stood for decades. Add to these folks victims of the Eaton fire. Most, in one way or another, are homeless now, just what the L.A. area needs, right?

I look at it like this. Let’s say you accidentally kick over an anthill in your garden. You have destroyed the ants’ home. Do the ants blame each other for lack of preparedness? No! They immediately set out to rebuild the anthill. Or maybe they move to a safer location and build a new one. This said, I am no entomologist, but it seems likely that they rebuild the same type of anthill - they’re ants! As humans, though, we strive to find out what went wrong and try to build back better, as the phrase goes. That’s good.

But fault-finding is a waste of valuable time when disaster is fresh and people are hurting. There will be plenty of opportunity for blame later, when attorneys get involved.

Zoning Out

 

On this day – New Year’s Eve as I speak – we are compelled to think of time – not just its passage, but how it passes and how we measure it. The New Year doesn’t arrive all at once, of course, because of the Earth’s rotation, but starts in the South Pacific and gradually wraps westward until the whole world is in the same year. I often tell my friends in more easterly time zones, “This is a voice from your past,” because the New Year hasn’t arrived in my zone yet. Not exactly original, I know.

There was a period where the correct time was only what the local sundial or village square bell tower clock said it was. I read where the time zones as we know them today weren’t invented until the late 19th century, necessitated by railroad scheduling.

There are occasional quirks. Before the big ball drops at midnight in New York, the New Year has already arrived in Newfoundland, Canada, at 10:30 p.m. ET. That’s right, the Newfies are half an hour off a regular time zone. Or is it the rest of us who are off?

Then there is the contentious issue of Daylight Saving Time, a misnomer because it doesn’t save daylight at all. Essentially, the same amount of light and darkness occurs at a particular latitude in standard time as in DST, so it should probably be called Daylight Shifting Time. The Germans invented it during World War I as an energy saver. Here in the US, we used DST all year for similar reasons during World War II. Since then, Congress hasn’t been able to resist playing around with the start and end of DST.

Our incoming President said he wants a single time system all year, but apparently hasn’t said which one. So, will kids have to go to school in the dark in winter, or will the 4:45 a.m. bird (not a rooster) be waking me at 3:45 in summer? Then there are Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation) and Hawaii, which don’t have to adhere to DST. Kind of a hot mess, in my opinion.

I was always in favor of making DST permanent and letting our natural bodily rhythms ease into sunlight increases and decreases. And I love those long evenings. But it’s not quite that simple, as about 70 other countries observe two time systems and won’t change just because we do.

OK, I’m just giving myself a giant headache here, and as it’s New Year’s Eve, if I’m going to have one, it will be for other reasons. But whatever zone you’re in, Happy New Year, one and all!