Finding Harmony

April 30, 2010

It’s written somewhere that vacations are designed to whisk you away from your daily routine, thus giving you a chance to relax and recharge.

While that is a noble goal, if your job is to chronicle human behavior, sometimes it is impossible to stop working — especially if that human behavior is staring you right in the face.

Such was the situation recently involving a little old lady who runs a jewelry store and a crowd of nearly 1,700 prototypical Tea Party protestors.

These seemingly unrelated stories are indeed linked in an unusual manner.

First, the jewelry store operator. While trying to kill 15 minutes waiting for the Italian restaurant to rustle up a take-out order, one wandered into a nearby store that had no shoppers, all sorts of sparkling, expensive stuff and a proprietor standing behind the counter.

She looked lonely; so to break the monotony she was asked to comment on what kind of selling season it had been.

“Pretty bad,” she began her story. The winter months in Florida had been about as bad as they were up north, but what really bothered her was this: “People seemed to be angry. One woman came in here and wanted to buy some figurines but was unwilling to pay the $200 price.” The owner disclosed to the woman that she had signed an agreement with the manufacturer not to lower the price, at which point the prospective buyer “told me to go to hell!”

In six years, the owner reflected, that had never happened before and she was disheartened by the experience.

Perhaps it was reflective of the mood of the country with an economy that has brought everyone down, and a mood that has spawned the Tea Party Movement — where telling someone to go to hell would be an improvement over some of the more harsh and vitriolic rhetoric that’s been flowing at protest rallies and showing up on protest signs in Michigan and across this nation.

The media focus on these disgruntled Americans reveals, according to The New York Times, that the demonstrators are not the homeless, the jobless, and the clueless. Rather, they have a good education, a good paycheck, they are typically Caucasian, and 52 percent are concerned that with an African American president, too much attention is being paid to the problems of Black America.

Even though no survey was taken to prove it, the 1,700 folks who showed up at a recent Neil Sedaka concert in Florida seemed to fit the profile to a T. It was no stretch of the imagination to say you saw folks just like them at the recent rally in Lansing. Sure, they didn’t wear anti-Obama shirts, nor did they seem angry, but you just knew they were friends of the Tea Bag movement.

As they listened to Neil’s greatest hits, from “Oh! Carol” to “Breakin’ Up is Hard to Do,” there was polite applause, but clearly he was not moving the audience. That is until he sat down at the piano to share one of his most recent compositions, entitled “You.”

It was a beautifully written piece about being in love, with lyrics such as, “You put a smile on my face; You showed me how to live again; I bless the day you came to me from God, and I’m so grateful for your love.”

When he had finished the final chord to this wonderfully crafted ballad, the audience came to life, jumping to their feet in the first of three standing ovations. There were tears in the eyes and a true sense of love seemed to fill the concert hall. And the applause didn’t stop for some time.

The response to such a sensitive and loving ballad gave some hope that somehow, some way, all the anger out there, from the woman in the jewelry store to the would-be Tea Party sympathizers in the auditorium, would morph into a smidgen of hope that America would eventually again look inward to the concept that indeed we are the keepers of our brothers and sisters who are less fortunate and in need of assistance from the state and federal governments.

Many times this governor and this president have repeated, “We are all in this boat together.” But the 24 percent of society that is showing up with tea bags tied to their hats appear to be more concerned about keeping their own boat afloat and could give a hoot about allowing others to jump in.

When Mr. Sedaka reduced the debate to its simplest form, one person loving another, it struck a resounding chord that needs to echo around this land before the division between the haves and the have-nots grows even deeper than it already is.

It’s a heavy thought to be pondering on vacation, but one that should not be ignored.

Tim Skubick is Michigan’s Senior Capitol correspondent and has anchored the weekly public TV series “Off the Record” since 1972. He also covers the Capitol and politics for WLNS-TV6 in Lansing.

Tim Skubick Extra Extra… (A weekly bonus only for Dome readers)

That’s a No No
Anybody remember the Jim Croce tune in which he told everyone what not to do? Namely, “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger…”

You should add, “ and you don’t lobby for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court either.”

But there was Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm on nationwide TV doing just that.

Maybe she didn’t do it as part of a calculated move to influence the president, but it sure felt like it.

Heretofore, the governor has gingerly — and correctly so — tiptoed around the sensitive issue. The reason no one blurts out “I want this appointment” is that it puts the president in an awkward spot. The president wants to feel free about making the choice, and if one of the contenders tries to pressure the boss, it can create the impression that maybe he gave in to that pressure rather than making a decision based on the merits of the nominee’s resume.

Yes, that sounds far-fetched, but it is part of the mix, and this governor acknowledged that as recently as last week when she said it was up to Mr. Obama to comment on the process, not her. “I’m not going to get into that,” she told the Capitol press corps here.

But then on CNN, she told Candy Crowley, in effect, that her lack of time on the bench as a judge was actually a plus.

“I think it’s a very wise move to consider experience that isn’t just from the judiciary,” the non-judge offered, adding: “People who have applied the laws and seen their impact…I think that’s important.”

If that is not tooting her own horn, what the heck is?

You can sift these comments two ways. Maybe she knows she is on the short-short list and was encouraged by the White House to speak out, or maybe she knows she is not going to get it and just made a Hail Mary pass as an 11th-hour attempt to convince the president et al. to change their minds.

We may never know, but it was a curious move by a governor who is usually very good about following the correct political protocol.

She maybe didn’t tug on the president’s cape, but she was certainly holding onto it very hard.