Commentary & Opinion

Where is my America?  The nation of rugged individualists has ceded its position to those who embrace the command economy. Moreover, a failed record doesn’t mean very much when media panjandrums use barrels of print to boost the fortune of their desired candidates.

      Maybe it is the proximity of Thanksgiving that has gotten to me - but here is a really positive take on the year in politics:

The good guys won. And I don't just mean the President got re-elected.

There was more to it - so let's take a closer look at two specific aspects of the political landscape.

First - democracy was elevated.

Yes -- that may sound crazy after all the bile and nasty TV ads that buffeted us this year. At the fringe the ugliness was there, as it will always be unfortunately.

I have often thought back to a conversation I had many years ago with one of my students. She had come from a rural background with a strong, and in many ways admirable, streak of self-reliance. She was dumbfounded when I quoted the saying “There but for the grace of God go I,” often attributed to a sixteenth century evangelical preacher and martyr, John Bradford. How could I, her professor, imagine myself in the position of people who were down and out, people without jobs who needed help?

This commentator has always believed that age was never a guarantor of complaint or bad manners nor was it an established signal for curmudgeonly behavior.  So it’s especially upsetting to find oneself setting a graphic example of what he has criticized.

The nation just celebrated its 37th annual “Great American Smokeout.”  The Great American Smokeout has been offered as an opportunity for smokers to think about quitting and as an opportunity to reflect on society’s gains against the tobacco menace.

And big changes have occurred over the decades.  Nationally, the smoking rate peaked at 42 percent when the U.S. Surgeon General’s report was issued and proved the link between smoking and cancer.  Today the nation’s smoking rate is 19 percent, and here in New York that rate is even lower.