Ward on Words

My son turned nine yesterday. He is my first-born; his birth nine years ago signified that precise moment when I became, like all parents, equally connected to the past and future. As a parent, I pass on the lessons I've learned through my life experiences to my children, who (one hopes) will use them as guideposts as they move forward to inhabit the future. The end of this dreadful year leaves me feeling melancholy, and it is my role as a parent that worries me most. I know that I will at some point have to answer to my children - I will have to explain how we took astronomical surpluses and made them vanish – poof – like Harry Potter vanishes when he drapes his invisibility cloak over himself. Of course, Harry reappears the moment he takes the cloak off. Our federal surplus, however, has vanished – and our children will be paying down this debt for many years to come. I'll have to explain to my children how a president who coined the phrase "compassionate conse...

In a day that brought us the news that banks who got billions in the bailout aren't keeping track of their money, here's a story about the kind of wealth that springs from generosity. To me, this story in today's NY Times exemplifies the true spirit of Christmas: It's about a successful businessman who never sought credit for helping others during the Great Depression. He instead believed his generosity toward others was simply "the debt we owe one another and ourselves." A wonderful sentiment, then and now.

Christmas is here with a vengeance and with it, the annual denunciations of It’s A Wonderful Life , a movie that wound its way into the cultural slipstream in the early 1980s and has never left it. This year’s popular denunciation can be found here in the NY Times. It’s a great review by Wendell Jamieson, who calls the film a “terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It’s a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away….” When reading this, I thought to myself that Jamieson is spot on – It’s a Wonderful Life truly is a dark and foreboding film, though remarkably uplifting at the end. To me, it’s a tribute to the filmmakers that a film about the relinquishment of dreams can provide such inspiration and hope. Jamieson also thinks that Pottersville, with its strip joints and gambling halls, would not on...

The mother of the father of Bristol Palin's illegitmate baby was arrested today on drug charges. Also today, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich quoted Kipling while notifying Illinois residents that he will fight these needless corruption charges until his dying breath. Christmas – and all the marvelous spirituality that comes with it – is in less than a week. Sometimes it is hard, as Kipling said, "to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs...."

Last week, when the world was abuzz over the expletive-laden discourse Rod Blagojevich had engaged in over a vacant U.S. senate seat, a terrifying news story happened concurrently that was relegated to the sidelines, if noted at all by the news media. I’m talking about the release of the first Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) for Economic Stabilization. You can download the report here . The COP report opens immediately with the acknowledgement that the four members of the panel are not necessarily working in sync. And you don’t have to get far into the report to come to that conclusion: on page two of the report, it’s clear that Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-Dallas) does not approve of this report. In a press release filled with vagueness, Hensarling tries to explain his opposition to the report. He states his goal is “to do whatever I can to ensure that [TARP] works.” And right now, the action he is taking is to vote against the first COP report. I read his brief...

Who knew that getting a seasonal job at Best Buy would be harder than getting into Harvard? According to a story on NPR today, more than one million people applied for 24,000 seasonal jobs this year at Best Buy. That's 40 applicants vying for each job. By contrast, in spring of 2008, Harvard had received approximately 27,000 applicants for almost 2000 spots, which translates into roughly 13 applicants for every student admitted.* You can listen to NPR's story here . And you can read about Harvard's applicant pool here . *Math skills highly questionable, due to lifelong interest in language arts. Apologize in advance if ratio is off in anyway.

I’m a dreamer – yes I am, a died-in-the-wool dreamer who dreams that liberty and justice and the American way mingle together in peaceful co-existence. But lately, as you can imagine, my dreams leave me with the strange, nightmare sensations of anxiety, panic and fear. I wake up these days realizing that what we're witnessing today is a total failure of leadership. We live in a society where we simply cannot trust bankers, mortgage brokers, priests, presidents, vice-presidents, the CIA, Treasury secretaries and governors. At least not the governors of Illinois. Especially not the current governor. Just last month – in fact, it was just the day after the celebratory send-off party in Grant Park for Barack Obama as he said good-bye to his senate seat and hello to the presidency – Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was recorded as saying, “I’ve got this thing and it’s f***ing golden, and uh, uh, I’m just not giving it up for f***in’ nothing. I’m not gonna do it. And, and I ...

At least I thought I voted for change, way back in 2002, when I cast my vote for Rod Blagojevich for governor. George Ryan, the Republican governor who preceded Blagojevich, had left office under a cloud of suspicion (sending millions of dollars in state contracts to friends and family, granting truck driver’s licenses to unqualified drivers in return for cash.) He now sits in jail, waiting patiently for the early release that Illinois Senator Dick Durbin inexplicably seeks for him. During his term as governor, Ryan had met with Fidel Castro and ended the death sentence in Illinois due to concerns that it was not administered fairly, an action led to his nomination for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. Yet he balanced a desire to help others with an insatiable greed. In 2006, he was convicted on multiple charges of corruption and has served less than two years of a six-year prison sentence. In 2002, Blagojevich charged into the governor’s office waving the flag of reform. Yesterday,...

‘Tis the season to bring love and joy into the world – and here’s one of the loveliest stories of the year… It’s a story that begins in October 2008, when the economy is in a state of collapse; the culture is in crisis, and faith in humanity – at least, my faith in humanity – is at an all-time low. It is precisely at this time that my next-door neighbor, Annie Jennings, comes home from high school bearing an orange rose. She presents this flower to her mother, Ellen, with the announcement that she is one of the “Sweet 16,” a member of Libertyville High School’s Homecoming Court. Annie is not quite 18 years old, a high school senior with stick-straight, sandy blond hair, glasses and a big smile. We hire her to feed our cat whenever we head out of town and we leave knowing our cat is in very good hands. So when I learn of her selection as a member of the homecoming court, I am intrigued. This is the girl who watches my cat, after all. Ellen is curious about what it means to...

We packed up the van and headed down to Springfield, Illinois to spend time with family over the Thanksgiving weekend.  My in-laws have a wonderful home that our children simply love to visit.  What makes a home?  The people who live in it, of course.  And certainly, the physical structure of a house is important.  Walls, roof, flooring, when put together in the right way, create a structure that provides shelter from the elements. For me, my home is my anchor.  It is the place where my life is lived, the place where my children are raised.  It is the place we, as a family, learn to love – and live – with each other.  When in Springfield last week, we drove by a home that has lost its mooring. It is called the Maisenbacher house - and it has recently become a homeless home.  By that, I mean the structure has been uprooted and now sits squarely in the middle of Jackson Street in downtown Springfield. Check it out: Through the illus...